Walter Balcanquhall (1586? – 1645) was a Scottish clergyman who became a staunch royalist and supporter of the church policy of Charles I of England. He was chosen by James I as a delegate from the Church of Scotland to the Synod of Dort.
He then entered at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he passed B.D., and was admitted a Fellow on 8 September 1611. He was appointed one of James I's chaplains, and in 1617 he received the Mastership of the Savoy, London. In 1618 James sent him to the Synod of Dort and the university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.D. His letters from Dort, which were addressed to Sir Dudley Carleton, are preserved in John Hales's Golden Remains.
In 1638 he revisited Scotland, as chaplain to the Marquis of Hamilton, the royal commissioner. Balcanquhall was very badly received. He was author of an apologetical narrative of the court proceedings under the title of His Majestie's Large Declaration concerning the Late Tumults in Scotland (1639). On 29 July 1641 he and others of kin with him were denounced by the Scottish parliament as 'incendiaries', and he was harshly treated. He retreated to Oxford and shared the waning fortunes of Charles I.
From November 1651 to February 1652, a case was heard at the Committee for Compounding. Isaac Gilpin alleged that valuable plate and vestments from Durham Cathedral had been hidden from the state. The Committee was asked to interrogate Lady Elizabeth Hammond, Walter Balcanquhall's widow: she had allegedly sent the valuables to the late Anthony Maxton, one of the former prebends of the cathedral, who had buried them in his garden. [3]
