Walter Balcanqual
c. 1586–1645
Scottish-born Dean of Durham; British delegate to the Synod of Dort.
Biography
Scottish-born and of Pembroke Cambridge, Balcanqual was one of the British delegates Charles I's father sent to the Synod of Dort in 1618-19 (the others being George Carleton, Joseph Hall, John Davenant, and Thomas Goad) — a context that taught him the Continental Reformed setting that the Westminster divines later inherited. Made Dean of Rochester (1624) and then Dean of Durham (1639). His Large Declaration concerning the Late Tumults in Scotland (1639), drafted for Charles I, was the king's official polemic against the Scottish Covenanters and made Balcanqual a hated figure in his native country. Named to the Westminster Assembly but he refused to sit out of episcopal and royalist loyalty. He died in flight at Chirk Castle in 1645, having fled both the parliamentary and the Covenanting forces.
Principal works
- Large Declaration concerning the Late Tumults in Scotland (1639)
Named in the ordinance
The 1643 ordinance that summoned the Assembly named some 121 divines. A number — chiefly episcopalians and royalists who heeded the King's proclamation forbidding the Assembly — never took their seats or sat only briefly; a few were later expelled. They are listed here for completeness as part of the originally-summoned roster.