BARCALAY, WILLIAM. - Scottish jurist and theologian, born in Aberdeen around 1543 and died in Angers on July 3, 1608. After having been at the Scottish court in his youth, he devoted himself to studies in his mature years, first in Aberdeen and then in Bourges, where he was a pupil of Cuiacius and Donellus. In 1578 he obtained the chair of law at Pont-à-Mousson and was appointed by the Duke of Lorraine as a State Councillor. In 1603, upon the accession of James I, he returned to England, but, refusing to abjure, was forced to return to France, where in Angers he was entrusted with the law chair.
His learning and firmness of character earned him a well-deserved wide renown in his time. A Catholic, but with strongly Gallican leanings, he became a champion and defender of royal power against invasive democratic theories and against the supreme papal authority, about whose power he held views and against which he launched accusations that were absolutely unjust, even though he considered himself a faithful Catholic. Robert Bellarmine and Lessius admirably refuted him, respectively in the *Tractatus de potestate Summi Pontificis in rebus temporalibus adversus Guil. Barcalaim* (Rome 1610) and in the *Defensio potestatis Summi Pontificis adversus librum regis Magnae Britanniae, Guil. Barclay Scoti et M. Georgii Blacuelli* (Saragossa 1611).
His works include: *De regno et regali potestate adversus Buchananum, Brutum et Boncherium et reliquos monarchomachos* II. 6 (Paris 1600, 1612); *In titulos pandectarum de rebus creditis et de jurejurando commentarii* (ibid. 1605); *De potestate papae, an et quatenus in principes saeculares ius et imperium habeat* (London 1609; Pont-à-Mousson 1609; placed on the Index on April 26, 1613).