John Ballentyne, in part payment of the secund buke of Titius Livius, 8l.;' ‘1533, Nouember 30°. To Maister John Ballentyne be the kinges precept for his laubores done in translating of Livie, 20l.’ This was the first version of a Roman classic executed in Britain. The ‘Livy’ was first published in 1822 by Maitland, Lord Dundrennan, uniform with his excellent reproduction of the ‘Boece,’ from the manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
Bellenden has been supposed to have entered the service of Archibald, earl of Angus, because one of both his names was the earl's secretary in 1528; but according to Hume (History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, p. 258) this was Sir John Bellenden, afterwards a distinguished lawyer and judge. The royal treasurer's accounts show that Bellenden received at various times considerable amounts. He was appointed archdeacon of Moray during the vacancy of the see, and about the same time canon of Ross. He also received the forfeited property of two clergymen convicted of treason. But in the succeeding reign, being an adherent to Roman catholicism, he opposed the reformation and fled beyond seas. Some accounts state that he died at Rome in 1550, but Lord Dundrennan alleges that he was certainly still alive in 1587.
[Bellenden's Works; Irving's Scottish Poets; Sibbald's Chronicle; Carmichael's Collection of Scottish Poems; Bannatyne MS. has poems by Bellenden, recently given in the Huntorian Society reproduction of the entire MS.]
BELLENDEN, Sir JOHN, of Auchnoul, or Auchinoul (d. 1577), Scottish lawyer, was the elder son of Thomas Bellenden of Auchinoul, who, in January 1541, was one of the two Scottish commissioners for the negotiation of an extradition treaty for the reciprocal surrender of fugitives between England and Scotland; had the office of justice clerk in 1540; and held it until his death in 1546. Sir John succeeded his father in his office 25 June 1547 ; appears as an ordinary lord for the first time, 4 July following (Brunton and Haig's Historical Account), and occurs for the first time in the ‘Books of Sederunt,’ 13 Nov. 1554, with the title of Auchinoul (Lord Hailes, Catalogue of the Lords of Session). He was employed by Mary of Lorraine, queen regent, as a mediator between her and the lords of the congregation; but he soon joined the reformers. Under the queen regent he was likewise employed as one of the two Scottish commissioners appointed to meet two others on the part of England with a view ‘to cement the two nations in a firm and lasting bond of peace’(Keith's History, p. 69). Soon after the arrival of Mary Queen of Scots at Edinburgh, 19 Aug. 1561, he was sworn a member of the privy council, which was constituted on 6 Sept. following; and in December of the same year was appointed one of the commissioners for the adjustment or ‘modification’ of the stipends of the reformed clergy. Two years afterwards he was one of the two Scottish commissioners who concluded with four representatives of England a ‘border treaty,’ or ‘convention of peace for the borders of both nations,’ which was executed at Carlisle on 11 Sept. and at Dumfries on 23 Sept. 1563. He was implicated in the assassination of Rizzio, and fled from Edinburgh on 18 March 1566 on the arrival of Mary and Darnley with an army, but was shortly afterwards restored to favour. He was deputed in 1567 to carry the queen's command for the proclamation of the banns of marriage between her and Bothwell to Mr. John Craig, at that time the colleague of John Knox in the parish church of Edinburgh, and had ‘long reasoning’ with the kirk, with the result that he substantially removed their objection to the royal mandate (Keith, History, pp. 586 and 587). He joined, however, the confederation of nobles against Mary and Bothwell, and was continued in his office by them when they imprisoned the queen and took the government into their own hands. He was also a member of the privy council of the regent Murray, by whom he was confirmed in the possession of the lands of Woodhouselee, which had been obtained from Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh on condition of his procuring for Hamilton pardon for some crime of his commission—a transaction which indirectly led to the assassination of Murray. In his capacity of ‘clerk of justiciarie’ he was one of the ‘nobilitie, spiritualitie, and commissionaris of Burrowis,’ who ‘conveint for coronation’ of James VI at Stirling, 29 July 1567, after the ceremonious performance of which the justice-clerk, in the name of the estates of the kingdom, ‘and also Johne Knox, minister, and Robert Campbell of Kinzeancleuch, askit actis, instrumentis, and documentis’ (Keith, pp. 435, 439). In February 1572-3 Bellenden was employed in framing the pacification of Perth, by which all the queen's party, with one or two exceptions, submitted themselves ‘to the king's obedience,’ and by one of the conditions of which Lord Boyd, the commendator of Newbattle, and the justice-clerk, were to be sole judges in any actions for the restitution of goods to persons on the south side of the Forth who had been deprived of the same ‘be vertew of thir trublis’ (Historie of King James the Sext,
