On 26 Jan. 1727 Balguy was collated by Hoadley to a prebend in Salisbury, and through the friendship of Bishop Talbot obtained from the chapter of Durham (12 Aug. 1729) the vicarage of Northallerton in Yorkshire, worth 270l. a year. He had many friends in all parties, including Bishops Benson, Butler, and Secker, and Lord Barrington. His tracts, which are terse and well written, are all applications of the principles of which Clarke is the chief exponent. He became an invalid, and saw little society except at Harrogate, which he frequented, and where he died, 21 Sept. 1748, leaving an only child, Thomas [see Balguy, Thomas] living.
[Life by son in Biog. Britannica ; Nichols's Anecdotes, iii. 139, 220, ix. 787.]
BALGUY, THOMAS (1716–1785), divine, son of John Balguy [q. v.], was born at Cox-Close 27 Sept. 1716, educated at the Ripon Free School, and admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge, about 1732 ; was B.A. 1737, M.A. 1741, S.T.P. 1758. He was elected to a Platt fellowship at St. John's in March 1741, which he held till 1748. In 1744 he became assistant tutor to his friend Dr. Powell, tutor, afterwards master of St. John's College, and gave lectures on moral philosophy and the evidences 'for sixteen years.' In 1743 he was deputy public orator, and in 1758 tutor to the Duke of Northumberland. He states in his father's Life' that he owed all his preferments to 'the favour and friendship of Bishop Hoadley,' who had given his father a prebend of Salisbury. His father, as prebendary, presented him (1748) to the rectory of North Stoke, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, which he vacated in 1771 on becoming vicar of Alton in Hampshire. Through Hoadley's influence he obtained a prebend of Winchester in 1758, and became archdeacon of Salisbury in 1759, and afterwards archdeacon of Winchester. Thomas was, however, less of a latitudiuarian than his father, and opposed the agitation for a relaxation of the articles. In 1769 he published a sermon upon the consecration of Bishop Shipley (Nichols, Anecdotes, ix. 534), which was answered by Priestley in 'Observations upon Church Authority.' In 1772 he published an archidiaconal charge, in which he defended subscription to articles of religion; and in 1775 a sermon at the consecration of Bishops Hurd and Moore, which was answered in remarks 'by one of the prebendary clergy.' In 1775 he edited the sermons of his friend Dr. Powell, with a 'life' of the author; and in 1782 'Divine Benevolence asserted,' part of an unfinished treatise on natural religion. In 1785 he republished his father's essay on Redemption, and a collection of sermons and charges. Balguy was one of the admiring disciples of Warburton, and his name frequently appears in Warburton's correspondence with Hurd. On Warburton's death in 1781 he declined the appointment to the vacant bishopric of Gloucester on the ground of failing health and approaching blindness, and died 19 Jan. 1795 at his prebendal house at Winchester. A monument to him is in the south aisle of the cathedral. His discourses, edited by Rev. James Drake (a relation to whom his manuscripts were bequeathed), were republished at Cambridge in 1820.
[Chambers's Dictionary; Warburton's Letters to Hurd; Nichols's Anecdotes, iii. 220, viii. 167 and elsewhere; Nichols's Illustrations, iii. 516; Preface to Discourses by Drake.]
BALIOL, ALEXANDER de (fl. 1246?–1309?), lord of Cavers and chamberlain of Scotland, is one of the members of the Baliol family about whose pedigree great confusion exists. He was certainly not Alexander, son of Hugh Baliol of Barnard Castle, an elder brother of John Baliol the king, for this Alexander died in 1279 without issue, leaving a widow, Eleonora de Genovra (Rymer's Fœdera i. 10, 779). It is probable, but not certain, that he was the same person as Alexander de Baliol, the son of Henry de Baliol, chamberlain of Scotland, who died in 1246, and Lora or Lauretta de Valoines, the coheiress along with her sister Christian, wife of Peter de Maule of Panmure, of the fiefs of the Valoines family in England. If so he can be traced in the records of Hertfordshire between 6th and 32nd Edward I in connection with the manor of Benington in that county, which he inherited through his mother Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, vol. ii.). This identification would account for his appointment to the office of chamberlain of Scotland, which had been held by his father, his great-grandfather, William de Berkeley, Lord of Reidcastle, and one of his maternal ancestors, Peter de Valoines. But there are two difficulties attending it. Alexander de Baliol the chamberlain is never mentioned as possessing Reidcastle in Forfarshire, the estate of Henry de Baliol, and it is difficult to account for his constant association with the estate of Cavers in Teviotdale, and not with any English fiefs. Possibly the latter circumstance is due to the references being in the Scottish records. It appears that in 32 Edward I (1304) Bennington was sold by Alexander de Baliol to John de Binsted, and the conjecture seems admissible
