d about
the same time Christian Scheves, and in 1539 was granted the estate of
Halhill in Fife, after which he is generally named. Before 1540 he was
sworn of James V's. privy council, and was known as one of the party in
favour of the English alliance and of an ecclesiastical reformation. He is
also described as treasurer to James (_Letters and Papers_, 1543, i. 64),
but the regent Arran appointed him secretary in the new government of the
infant Queen Mary (January 1543). He promoted the act permitting the
reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and was one of the
commissioners appointed to arrange a marriage treaty between the little
queen and the future Edward VI. In London he was not considered so
complaisant as some of the other commissioners, and was not made privy to
all the engagements taken by his colleagues (_ib._ i. 834). But Beton
"loved him worst of all," and, when Arran went over to the priestly party,
Balnaves was, in November 1543, deprived of his offices and imprisoned in
Blackness Castle.

Thence he was released by the arrival of Hertford's fleet in the following
May, and from this time he became a paid agent of the English cause in
Scotland. He took no part in the murder of Beton, but was one of the most
active defenders of the castle of St Andrews. He received L100 from Henry
VIII. in December 1546, was granted an annuity of L125 by Protector
Somerset in 1547 and was made English paymaster of the forces in St
Andrews. When that castle surrendered to the French in July Balnaves was
taken prisoner to Rouen. Somerset made vain efforts to procure his release
and continued his pension. He made himself useful by giving information to
the English government, and even Mary Tudor sent him L50 as reward in June
1554. Balnaves also busied himself in writing what Knox calls "a
comfortable treatise of justification," which was found in MS. with a
preface by Knox, among the reformer's papers, and was published at
Edinburgh in 1584 under the title _The Confession of Faith_.

In 1557 Balnaves was permitted to return to Scotland and regain his
property; probably it was thought that Mary Tudor's burnings would have
cooled the ardour of his English affections, and that in the war
threatening between two Catholic countries, Balnaves would serve his own.
The accession of Queen Elizabeth changed the situation, and Mary of Guise
had reasons for accusing him of "practices out of England" (_Salisbury
MSS._ i. 155).