VY^I. 7" * ^lATTV "9 f A ^ # 
 
 BY . WIliLIARi 
 
 FAMOUS 
 

 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 ANDREW 
 MELVILLE
 
 FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES 
 
 The following Volumes are now ready : 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. 
 
 ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. 
 
 HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK. 
 
 JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES. 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN. 
 
 THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE. 
 
 RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS. 
 
 SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON. 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE. 
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK. 
 
 TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. 
 
 FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND. 
 
 THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS. 
 
 NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD. 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY. 
 
 KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louis A. BARB& 
 
 ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART. 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE. 
 
 MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN. 
 
 DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD. 
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR. By OLIPHANT SMEATON. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor MURISON. 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By MARGARET MOYES 
 
 BLACK. 
 
 THOMAS REID. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER. 
 POLLOK AND AYTOUN. By ROSALINE MASSON. 
 ADAM SMITH. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. 
 ANDREW MELVILLE. By WILLIAM MORISON.
 
 ANDREW 
 MELVILLE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM 
 MORISON 
 
 FAMOUS 
 
 SCOTS: 
 
 SERIES 
 
 PUBLISHED BY W 
 OLIPHANT ANDERSON 
 VFERRIER-EDINBVRGH 
 AND LONDON '^ <Z*
 
 The designs and ornaments of this 
 volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, 
 and the printing from the press of 
 Messrs. T. and A. Constable, Edinburgh.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 LET it be understood that the quotations in 
 Scots, where the author is not mentioned, 
 are from the Autobiography and Diary of 
 James Melville. 
 
 March 1899. 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 BIRTH EDUCATION YEARS ABROAD .... 15 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SERVICES TO SCOTTISH EDUCATION PRINCIPALSHIP OF 
 
 GLASGOW AND ST. ANDREWS ..... 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ' DINGING DOWN ' OF THE BISHOPS MELVILLE 
 AND MORTON 31 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE 'BlGGING UP' OF THE BISHOPS UNDER LENNOX 
 
 AND ARRAN MELVILLE'S FLIGHT TO ENGLAND , 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE KING'S SURRENDER TO THE CHURCH ... 56
 
 8 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE POPISH LORDS MELVILLE AND THE KING AT 
 FALKLAND PALACE , .71 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE KING'S GREEK GIFT TO THE CHURCH . . 93 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 MELVILLE AT HAMPTON COURT . , . . .116 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE KING'S ASSEMBLIES 134 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE TOWER : SEDAN 140
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 WHILE Andrew Melville has other claims on the lasting 
 honour of his countrymen than the part he took in 
 securing for Scotland the ecclesiastical system which 
 has been the most powerful factor in her history, it may 
 be held as certain that where this service which filled 
 his life is disesteemed, his biography, if read at all, will 
 be read with only a languid interest. It will be our 
 first endeavour, therefore, to show that such a prejudice 
 in regard to our subject is mistaken and misleading. 
 
 Melville, and all from first to last who joined in the 
 Scottish resistance to Episcopacy, were persuaded that 
 the controversy in which they were engaged was one 
 not academic merely but vital, and that, as it was 
 settled one way or the other, so would the people be 
 left in a position in which they would be able to 
 develop their religious life with freedom and effect, or 
 in one which would incalculably cripple it. That is a 
 contention which history has amply vindicated. 
 
 The best justification of the struggle carried on 
 
 9
 
 io FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 during the period from Melville to the Revolution 
 (1574-1688) to preserve the Presbyterian system in the 
 Church is to be found in the benefits which that system 
 has conferred upon the country. It has penetrated the 
 whole Christian people with a sense of their individual 
 responsibility in connection with the principles and 
 government of the Church ; it has saved the Church 
 from being dwarfed into a mere clerical corporation ; 
 it has laid for it a broad and strong basis by winning 
 to it the attachment of its common members, and by 
 exercising their intelligence, sympathy, and interest in 
 regard to all its institutions and enterprises. It may 
 be truly said of the Scottish people that their highest 
 patriotism has been elicited and exercised over the 
 religious problems of the nation ; that they have shown 
 more sensitiveness concerning their religious rights, 
 liberties, and duties than concerning any other interest 
 of their life; and that they have been more readily 
 and deeply touched when the honour and efficiency 
 of their Church was at stake than by any other 
 cause whatever. How should an ecclesiastical system 
 better vindicate its claim? Nothing so ennobles a 
 people as the care of matters of high concern such 
 a care as Presbyterianism has laid on the Scottish 
 people. 
 
 But it was not only the conviction of the excellence 
 of their own economy that led the Presbyterians to 
 maintain it at all hazards it was also their fear of 
 many tendencies in the rival system. They dreaded 
 that the imposition of Episcopacy would ultimately
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE n 
 
 undo the work of the Reformation, and bring the nation 
 once more under the yoke of Rome. Here, too, history 
 has justified them. Had it not been for the conjunc- 
 tion of the forces of the Scottish Presbyterians and the 
 English Puritans during the reign of Charles the First, 
 the designs of that monarch against the Protestantism of 
 both kingdoms could not probably have been checked. 
 The least that can be said with truth on this matter 
 is, that the Protestantism of the country was gravely 
 imperilled in his reign and in the reigns of his two 
 immediate successors, and that the resolute attitude of 
 Scotland counted more than any other one influence in 
 preserving it. 
 
 Nor was it only the preservation of the freedom of the 
 Church that was involved in the struggle. The cause 
 of civil freedom was also at stake. ' True religion,' 
 says a classic of the Scottish Church, ' and national 
 liberty are like Hippocrates' twins they weep or laugh, 
 they live or die together. There is a great sibness 
 between the Church and the Commonwealth. They 
 depend one upon the other, and either is advanced by 
 the prosperity and success of the other.' Where a 
 people make a stand for spiritual liberty, they always 
 by necessity advance civil freedom. Prelacy was 
 bound up with the absolutism of the throne in the 
 State as well as in the Church ; Presbytery with the 
 cause of free government and the sovereignty of the 
 popular will, as declared in their laws by the chosen 
 representatives of the nation. 
 
 But that is not the whole case for the Presbyterians.
 
 12 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 The opposing system was discredited in their mind by 
 the policy by which it was promoted. It was a policy 
 i of coercion, of bribery, of dissimulation and artifice, 
 of resort to every kind of influence that is intolerable 
 to a free and high-spirited people. It was a policy 
 that harassed the most faithful and honourable men in 
 the Church, and preferred the most unscrupulous and 
 obsequious to places of power. There was not one 
 of those concerned in it, from the king downwards, 
 who came out of the business with undamaged char- 
 acter. How could the Scottish Church but resist a 
 system which it was sought to thrust upon it by such 
 methods as these ? If Melville's claims on our inter- 
 est rested on no other ground than the services he 
 rendered to the Church and to the nation in maintain- 
 ing Presbyterianism in the land, that alone would make 
 them good. 
 
 But Melville was not only the greatest ecclesiastical 
 controversialist of his day ; his name is pre-eminent in 
 another sphere. He was the most learned Scot of his 
 time ; and our Universities never had a teacher within 
 their walls who did so much to spread their reputation. 
 His fame as a scholar not only checked the habit 
 among the elite of Scottish students of resorting to the 
 Continental Universities ; it drew many foreign students 
 to Glasgow and St. Andrews. His academic distinction 
 has been overshadowed by his fame as the leader of 
 the Church in one of the most momentous struggles in 
 her history, but it was equally great in its own sphere. 
 A Scottish historian John Hill Burton has sought,
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 13 
 
 with a singular perversity, to belittle Melville as a 
 scholar, and speaks of M'Crie as having endeavoured 
 to make out his title to distinction in this respect from 
 the natural ambition to claim such an honour for one 
 of his own ecclesiastical forebears. The chapter which 
 follows will show the value of such a judgment. 
 
 There is still another and a higher ground for our 
 interest in Melville, namely, his massive personality. 
 It is not so much in the polemic or in the scholar we 
 are interested, as in the man. The appreciation of 
 his character by his countrymen has suffered from 
 his proximity to Knox. Had he not stood so close 
 on the field of history to the greatest of Scots, his 
 stature would have been more impressive. In historic 
 picturesqueness his life will not compare with that of 
 Knox, although it had incidents, such as his appear- 
 ances before the King and Council at Falkland and 
 Hampton Court, which are unsurpassed by any in 
 Scottish history for moral grandeur. There were not 
 the same tragic elements mixed up with Melville's 
 career. His life fell on duller times and among 
 feebler contemporaries. He had not such a foil to his 
 ' figure as Knox had in Mary ; there was not among his 
 opponents such a protagonist as Knox encountered in 
 Mary's strong personality. And yet it may be justly 
 claimed for Melville that in the highest quality of man- 
 hood, in moral nerve, he was not a whit behind his 
 great predecessor. He never once wavered in his 
 course nor abated his testimony to his principles in 
 the most perilous situation ; in the long struggle with
 
 i 4 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 the King and the Court he played the man, uttered 
 fearlessly on every occasion the last syllable of his 
 4 * convictions, made no accommodation or concession to 
 
 '" 
 
 ,^ 
 
 arbitrary authority, and kept an untamed and hopeful 
 ^V* ""^'spirit on to the very end. The work a man may do 
 
 ntf***^^!^ jvt"{ 
 
 belongs to his own generation ; the spirit in which he 
 does it, his faith, his fortitude, to all generations. 
 " Melville conferred many signal and enduring benefits 
 ^on his country: the one which transcended all others 
 was the inspiration he left to her in his own rare 
 i hrar 

 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BIRTH EDUCATION YEARS ABROAD 
 
 1 Fashioned to much honour from his cradle.' 
 
 Henry VIII, 
 
 MELVILLE'S birthplace was Baldovy, an estate in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Montrose, of which his 
 father was laird. He was born on ist August 1545 
 a year memorable as that of Knox's emergence to 
 public life the youngest of nine sons, most of whom 
 came to fill honourable positions in the Church and 
 commonwealth. 
 
 Montrose and the district around it early showed 
 sympathy with the Reformed Faith. George Wishart 
 was a native of Angus, and his influence was nowhere 
 greater than there. The family seat of John Erskine 
 Dun House was in the same vicinity, and he too 
 by his warm espousal of Protestantism strengthened 
 its hold on the district. The Baldovy family itself 
 had been identified with the Reformed movement from 
 the beginning. Melville's eldest brother, Richard, 
 who became minister of Maryton, was travelling tutor 
 to Erskine, and the two studied together at Witten- 
 berg under Melanchthon. The Melvilles were in- 
 
 15
 
 1 6 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 timate with Wishart; and Baldovy and Dun House 
 were the resorts of other leading spirits among the 
 Reformers. In 1556 Knox was Erskine's guest when 
 he was preaching in the district, and his personal 
 influence intensified the attachment of the Melvilles 
 to the cause to which they were already committed. 
 
 Melville was only two years old when his father was 
 killed fighting among the Angus men on the field of 
 Pinkie, a battle which made many orphans ; and in 
 his twelfth year he lost his mother, when he was taken 
 by his eldest brother to Maryton Manse, and as 
 tenderly cared for by the minister and his wife as 
 though he had been a child of their own. One of the 
 sons of the manse was James Melville, between whom 
 and his 'Uncle Andro' the most endeared affection 
 sprang up. The two lived in each other's lives and 
 
 shared each other's work, alike as teachers in the two 
 principal Universities, and as leaders in the Council 
 of the Church. Corque unum in duplici corpore et una 
 anima so the elder, after the younger's death, de- 
 scribed their relationship. 
 
 Melville's scholarly bent showed itself early. 'He 
 ;^ was a sicklie, tender boy, and tuk pleasure in nathing 
 iiM^ ' . sa meikle as his buik.' He began his education in 
 the Grammar School of Montrose, which had great 
 repute, and on leaving it he attended for two years 
 the school in the same town, founded by Erskine of 
 Dun, for the teaching of Greek. It was in the latter 
 school that he learned the rudiments of Greek, in 
 ji^i'Jj^-.} which he had afterwards few equals anywhere, and 
 
 lZ3y$ 
 
 . 
 

 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 17 
 
 none in Scotland. In 1559 Melville entered the ,^ 
 University of St. Andrews and joined St. Mary's 
 College. Aristotle's Works were the only text-books 
 used ; and Melville was the only one in the University, 
 whether student or professor, who could read them in 
 the original. He was a favourite of the Provost of his \^^^ 
 College, John Douglas, who invited him often to his 
 house and encouraged him in his studies, and dis- 
 cerned in him the promise of distinction as a scholar. 
 ' He wad tak the boy betwix his legges at the fire in 
 winter, and blessing him say "My sillie fatherless 
 and motherless chyld, it 's ill to wit what God may mak 
 of thee yet ! " ' Melville finished his curriculum at St. 
 Andrews in 1564, and left with the reputation of being 
 ' the best philosopher, poet, and Grecian of any young 
 maister in the land.' 
 
 It was common at that time for Scottish students on 
 leaving their own Universities to seek, at the Con- 
 tinental seats of learning, a more abundant education 
 than their own country could afford. We shall see 
 that when Melville came to be at the head in succes- 
 sion of our two principal Universities, he considerably 
 modified this custom. He conformed to it, however, in 
 his own case, and the same year in which he closed 
 his course at St. Andrews left Scotland to prosecute 
 his studies abroad. The next decade was his Wander- 
 jahre. He went first of all to Paris, whose University 
 was the most renowned in Europe. There was a truce 
 at the time between the Catholics and the Reformers 
 in France ; a large measure of toleration was allowed 
 

 
 1 8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 by the Government, and the principal Professors were 
 Protestants. In Paris, Melville sat at the feet of some 
 of the most distinguished scholars of the day : he read 
 diligently in Greek literature ; acquired a knowledge of 
 Hebrew: and at the same time studied Philosophy 
 
 yjr-J *Wr<W 
 
 under Petrus Ramus, the great opponent of Aris- 
 totelianism, becoming a follower of this daring 
 innovator, whose system he afterwards introduced in 
 the Scottish Universities. 
 
 From Paris Melville went to Poitiers, where he 
 studied jurisprudence and was also employed as tutor 
 in the college of St. Marceon. In the ' Diary ' of his 
 nephew, who was a great literary impressionist, and 
 whose pages preserve for us the very 'form and 
 pressure' of the scenes he describes, many incidents 
 are related of his Continental life which disclose 
 his character as a youth. During the third year of 
 Melville's residence in Poitiers the academic quiet 
 of the town was broken by the clash of arms. Civil 
 war had broken out afresh in France, and Poitiers, 
 which was a Catholic town, held by the Duke of Guise, 
 was invested by a Protestant army under Coligny. 
 Melville, as a foreigner and a Protestant, found himself 
 in a situation where he needed to use the greatest 
 caution to escape the danger to which he was exposed. 
 When the siege began the colleges were closed, and he 
 was received into the family of a prominent citizen as 
 tutor to his boy. There was a small party of the 
 soldiery quartered in the house, and one day their 
 corporal, who had observed Melville at his devotions,
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 19 
 
 challenged him as a Huguenot, and threatened to deal 
 with him by martial law as one who might betray the 
 town. With a courage and an adroitness which were 
 native to him, he at once turned round on his assailant 
 and repudiated his imputations; and seizing on some 
 armour that was lying by, donned it, and going to the 
 stables took the best horse by the head, as if to join 
 there and then the ranks of the army of defence, when 
 the corporal, fairly nonplussed by the apparent vehe- 
 mence of his loyalty, begged his forgiveness. He had 
 no more trouble of this kind, but he never felt secure 
 of his liberty, and it was a comfort to him to know 
 that he had a good horse standing in the stable by 
 which, if it should come to the worst, he could make 
 his escape to Coligny's camp. During the siege his 
 pupil, a bright boy, to whom he had become deeply 
 attached, was killed by a cannon-ball which penetrated 
 the wall of his room and struck him on the thigh. 
 Melville was in the house at the time, and on entering 
 the room the dying boy embraced him and passed away 
 with the words of the Apostle on his lips StSao-KaAc, 
 rov Spopov p.ov TCTfXfKa. ' Master, I have finished my 
 course.' 'That bern gaed never out of his hart.' 
 
 On the siege being raised, Melville left Poitiers for 
 Geneva, footing it all the way in the company of a few 
 fellow-students. If he was sickly as a child, he 
 
 fbtfto* 
 
 gathered vigour in his 'teens and grew up a manly f3*y~- 
 
 youth. He was of short stature and great agility, high- ^j' y^ 
 spirited, brave, the cheeriest of companions, full of 
 
 resource in emergencies, and with an artful humour *~f*A* 
 
 , ^^-fM^JA^ 
 
 &bY^ ' Jtfc %*< , l*t Hxt 
 
 . 
 u< *-* 
 
 r~.*i
 
 20 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 by which he made his escape from many a difficult 
 situation incident to Continental travel at the time. 
 On the journeys from town to town on the way to 
 Geneva he held out better than any of his comrades, 
 
 Jflfc, WHl'V*. . ,. , TT , 
 
 stepping along with no impedimenta but his Hebrew 
 Bible which he had slung at his side the same Bible 
 which he afterwards 'clanked' down on the board 
 before the King and Council in Edinburgh, the 
 freshest of the company when the day's journey was 
 ended, so that he 'wad out and sight' the towns and 
 villages whithersoever they came while the others lay 
 down 'lyk tired tykes.' On reaching Geneva he and 
 one of his fellow-travellers, who was a Frenchman, 
 presented themselves at the gates together, when they 
 were challenged by the guard. ' The ports of Genev 
 wer tentilie keipit, because of the troubles of France 
 and multitud of strangers that cam. Being thairfor 
 inquyrit what they war, the Franche man his 
 companion answerit, "We ar puir scollars." But Mr. 
 Andro, perceaving that they haid na will of puir folks, 
 being alreadie owerlaid thairwith, said, "No, no, we 
 ar nocht puir! [though he admitted afterwards that 
 they had 'but a crown to the fore' between them]. 
 We haiff alsmikle as will pey for all we tak, sa lang as 
 we tarie. We haiff letters from his acquentance to 
 Monsieur di Beza; let us deliver those, we crave na 
 fordar.'" 
 
 In Geneva Melville received a warm welcome from 
 
 Beza, who reigned there in place of Calvin, and through 
 - r. . 
 
 his influence he at once obtained an appointment to
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 21 
 
 the chair of Humanity in the College. During his 
 residence in that city, which lasted for five years, he had 
 the opportunity of mingling with many of the first 
 scholars of the age, and of the leaders of the Reformed 
 movement in Europe. After the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew in 1572, Geneva was filled with Protes- 
 tant refugees from every Continental country. Never 
 probably before or since has there been found 
 within one city such an assemblage of masters of 
 intellect and learning, or such a cloud of distinguished 
 witnesses for truth and liberty. In Geneva, Melville, 
 like Knox, received much of his invigoration for the 
 work that awaited him on his return to his native 
 land. 
 
 His residence there was made still more agreeable 
 by the hospitality of a relative, Henry Scrymgeour, 
 brother of his foster-mother. Scrymgeour had left 
 Scotland in early life to study law on the Continent, 
 and after acting as tutor and secretary to several noble 
 families in France and Italy, he had come to Geneva, 
 and been appointed to the chair of Civil Law in the 
 College. He had ' atteined to grait ritches, conquesit 
 a prettie room within a lig to Geneva, and biggit 
 thairon a trim house called " The Vilet." ' In ' the vilet,' 
 where Scrymgeour and his wife and daughter com- 
 posed the household, Melville was always a welcome 
 guest. 
 
 During Melville's ten years' absence on the Continent 
 he had little correspondence with his friends at home, 
 and towards the end, as they had heard nothing of him
 
 22 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 since he had left Poitiers, they began to fear that he 
 had perished like so many others in the civil wars in 
 France. A countryman, however, who had come to 
 Geneva to see Henry Scrymgeour in order to invite 
 him in the name of well-known friends of learning in 
 Scotland to become a teacher in one of the Universities, 
 brought back news of Melville's welfare and reputation, 
 when his relations immediately wrote and urged him 
 to return to his own country, and bestow his services as 
 4*,^ I a scholar in raising the low-fallen repute of Scottish 
 
 education. With great regret, and bearing with him a 
 letter of commendation from Beza, in which this distin- 
 guished friend used these words ' the graittest token 
 of affection the Kirk of Genev could schaw to Scotland 
 is that they had suffered thamselves to be spuiled of 
 Mr. Andro Melville, wherby the Kirk of Scotland 
 might be inritched ' he left the city where, like Knox 
 before him, he spent his happiest days. He arrived in 
 Edinburgh in the beginning of July 1574.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SERVICES TO SCOTTISH EDUCATION PRINCIPALSHIP OF 
 GLASGOW AND ST. ANDREWS 
 
 1 He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; 
 
 . . . Ever witness for him 
 Those twins of learning that he raised in you. 1 
 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 IT was in the interests of education, and for the purpose 
 of reviving Scottish learning, that Melville had been 
 induced to come back to his native land, and it will be 
 convenient to devote a chapter to this subject before 
 we consider the graver, more crucial interests in which 
 he was destined to take a decisive part. He had not 
 been many days in the country when Regent Morton 
 offered him an appointment as Court Chaplain, with 
 the ulterior view of attaching him to his patron's ecclesi- 
 astical policy. Whether having this suspicion or no, 
 Melville declined the post. He had returned to Scot- - -^^ 
 land for educational work, and he determined to wait 
 
 Uu. 
 
 for an opening in one of the Universities. Meanwhile 
 he wished a little repose with the friends from whom 
 he had been so long separated; and he went to 
 Baldovy, where he was received with much affection. 
 It was at this time that the attachment between him 
 and his nephew was formed and consecrated by a 
 
 23 

 
 24 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 kind of sacramental act on the part of the father of 
 the latter ' I was resigned ower be my father hailelie 
 into him to veak l upon him as his sone and servant, 
 and, as my father said to him, to be a pladge of his love. 
 And surlie his service was easie, nocht to me onlie, bot 
 even to the fremdest man that ever served him.' 
 
 So great was Melville's scholarly reputation by this 
 time that, at the General Assembly held a month after 
 his return, the Universities of Glasgow and St. Andrews 
 put in competing claims for his services as Principal. 
 He decided in favour of Glasgow, on account of its 
 greater need; and at the end of October he left 
 Baldovy, accompanied by his nephew, to enter on his 
 academic office. On the way two days were spent in 
 Stirling, where the King, then a boy of nine, was re- 
 siding; and the Melvilles saw him and were much 
 struck with his precocity in learning : ' He was the 
 sweitest sight in Europe that day for strange and ex- 
 traordinar gifts of ingyne, judgment, memorie, and 
 langage. I hard him discours, walking upe and doun 
 in the auld Lady Marr's hand, of knawlage and ignor- 
 ance, to my grait marvell and estonishment.' James 
 never lost his fancy for discoursing at large and 
 learnedly to the 'marvell and estonishment' of his 
 hearers. But it was to visit the King's illustrious 
 preceptor, George Buchanan, that Melville came by 
 Stirling. The two were kindred spirits; they were 
 like in their love of learning, in their scholarly ac- 
 complishments, in their passion for teaching, in their 
 1 Wait.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 25 
 
 political and religious sympathies, in the ardour and 
 vigour with which they maintained their convictions, 
 in their valorous action for the defence of civil and 
 religious freedom. At this time Buchanan was be- 
 ginning the work which filled his closing years his 
 History of Scotland. Seven years afterwards the 
 Melvilles paid him another visit, in Edinburgh, the 
 account of which by the younger is one of the loci 
 classici of Scottish history. It contains, like the same 
 writer's description of the last appearance of Knox in 
 the pulpit, one of the most living pieces of portraiture 
 
 in our literature : ' When we cam to his chalmer, we 
 
 *-* 
 fand him sitting in his chaire, teatching his young man 
 
 that servit him in his chalmer a, b, ab ; e, b, eb, etc. 
 Efter salutation, Mr. Andro sayes, " I sie, sir, yie are 
 nocht ydle." "Better this," quoth he, "nor stelling 
 
 sheipe, or sitting ydle, quhilk is als ill ! " ' Buchanan 
 
 \s~\ jt 
 put the proof of his Epistolary Dedication to the King 
 
 I * ^^ \r ' 
 
 ' into the hands of Melville, who read it and suggested 
 some amendments. ' I may do no mair,' said the worn- 
 out veteran, 'for thinking on another mater.' When 
 Melville asked what he meant, he replied, 'To die.' 
 Leaving him for a little, the Melvilles accompanied his 
 nephew, Thomas Buchanan, on a visit to his printer, 
 whom they found setting up the passage of the History 
 relating the 'burial of Davie.' 1 Its boldness alarmed 
 them, and they asked the printer to stop the passage 
 meanwhile. Returning to the house, they found him 
 in bed, and, asking how he did, he replied, ' Even 
 1 Rizzio. 

 
 26 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 going the way of well-fare.' His nephew then men- 
 tioned their fear that the passage referred to would so 
 offend the King that the work would be suppressed. 
 ' Tell me, man,' Buchanan answered, ' giff I have tauld 
 the treuthe?' 'Yes,' replied his nephew; 'sir, I think 
 sa.' ' I will byd his fead 1 and all his kin's, then !' 
 
 Melville needed a stout heart for the task that lay 
 before him in Glasgow. The University, which had 
 never been prosperous, being always starved in its 
 revenues and undermanned, had declined so far that its 
 gates had to be closed for lack of students ; so that when 
 he entered on the Principalship he actually constituted 
 the whole Senatus in his own person. He began by 
 training a number of young men as regents, the course 
 of study embracing classics, mathematics, and mental 
 and moral philosophy, in each of which he carried his 
 class as far as the highest standards of any University in 
 Europe ; and in addition to these labours he taught all 
 the theological classes. When the regents were qualified 
 he specialised their subjects a great reform on the old 
 system, under which the students passed through the 
 entire curriculum under the same teacher. 
 
 Melville's teaching was not confined to his class- 
 hours nor to his professor's desk; he sat with the 
 students at the college table, and in his table-talk gave 
 them some of his best instruction. The fame of the 
 University rose so rapidly under his regime that the 
 class-rooms were soon crowded: 'I dare say there 
 was na place in Europe comparable to Glasgow for 
 i Feud.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 27 
 
 guid letters during these yeirs, for a plentiful! and guid 
 chepe mercat for all kynd of langages, artes an sciences.' 
 
 In 1580 Melville was translated to the Principalship 
 of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. Mainly through 
 his own exertions a new constitution for the University 
 had just been framed and sanctioned by Parliament, in 
 accordance with which that College was to be hence- 
 forth set apart for theological education. The reforms 
 made at this time in St. Andrews went on the same 
 lines as those effected in Glasgow. 
 
 Before Melville's time the study of Greek never went 
 beyond the rudiments : Hebrew and other Oriental 
 languages were not taught at all; and in philosophy 
 Aristotle held exclusive possession of the ground. His 
 reforms applied particularly to these branches of learn- 
 ing : Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac were taught according 
 to the best methods of the age ; and the Platonic Philo- 
 sophy was introduced. M'Crie, who always speaks with 
 authority on such a subject, describes the reformed 
 curriculum as the most liberal and enlightened plan of 
 study in any University, whether at home or abroad. 
 
 Melville continued in the Principalship of St. Mary's , fa 
 
 for upwards of a quarter of a century from the close 
 
 I />$'- 
 of 1580 to 1606, when he was summoned by the King 
 
 to London, never to return to his native land. 
 
 In St. Andrews and Glasgow he had not only teach- 
 ing duties, he presided over the government of the 
 University as well ; and the same resolute respect for 
 law, which set him so stoutly against the King's 
 tyranny in the realm, made him a determined upholder
 
 28 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 of order in the University. He was at once a fearless 
 subject and a born ruler of men. When he entered 
 on his office in St. Andrews, some of the professors, 
 chafed by the reforms which he introduced, became 
 insubordinate, but soon succumbed to his authority; 
 and more than once in Glasgow he quelled riots 
 among the students at the risk of his life. On one 
 occasion, when his friends urged him to condone an 
 offence of a student of noble family from fear of 
 ; revenge, he answered, ' Giff they wald haiff forgiffness 
 let them crave it humblie and they sail haiff it; but 
 or that preparative pass, that we dar nocht correct our 
 scholars for fear of bangstars and clanned gentlemen, 
 they sail haiff all the blud of my body first.' 
 
 In St. Andrews he was for some time Rector of the 
 University as well as Principal of St. Mary's, and in his 
 exercise of civil authority in that capacity he did more 
 for public order than all the magistrates of the burgh. 
 At one time the inhabitants were greatly plagued by a 
 bad neighbour, the Laird of Dairsie, who had once 
 been Provost, and who resented his ejection from that 
 office. On more than one occasion associates of his, 
 Balfour of Burley and others, had entered the city 
 during the night and committed gross outrages. One 
 day the report reached St. Andrews that Dairsie and his 
 friends were approaching in force to make an assault 
 on the citizens. The magistrates were panic-stricken ; 
 but on the report reaching the Rector's ears, he im- 
 mediately summoned the whole University together 
 and organised a party of resistance, placed himself at
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 29 
 
 its head, bearing in his hand a white spear (one of the 
 insignia of his office), and by his prompt action made 
 the invaders glad to decamp. 
 
 During Melville's rectorship quarrels sometimes 
 occurred between town and gown, and in these he 
 always showed himself jealous in regard to the rights 
 of the University. He had once a serious rupture 
 with the magistrates, on account of their unjust ad- 
 ministration and their rejection of eminent ministers 
 whom he had commended for charges in the city. 
 Preaching in his own pulpit in the College of St. 
 Mary's, he spoke with such vehemence of their mis- 
 doings that he raised the town against him. Forthwith 
 placards were affixed to the College gates threatening 
 the Rector with dire revenge. Nothing daunted, 
 Melville continued to fulminate against the authorities 
 'with ane heroicall spreit, the mair they stirit and 
 bostit the mair he strak with that twa-eagit sword, sa 
 that a day he movit the Provest, with sear rubbing of 
 the ga of his conscience, to ryse out of his seatt in the 
 middes of the sermont, and with some muttering of 
 words to goe to the dure, out-throw the middes of the 
 peiple.' Melville, instead of giving way to the irate 
 magistrate, had him brought before the Presbytery, 
 when he expressed his regret for disturbing the 
 public worship, and craved forgiveness ; and so peace 
 was restored. 
 
 The academic labours of Melville caused a great 
 
 <vW<. W'M}<^ 
 
 revival in Scottish education. Not only did Scotland 
 after this time keep her own students, but foreign
 
 30 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 students began to attend her Universities. A few years 
 after Melville went to St. Andrews, names of students 
 from all parts of the Continent began to appear on the 
 matriculation registers, chiefly of St. Andrews, but of 
 the other Universities as well. He gave an impetus to 
 learning not only within academic circles, but through- 
 out the country, as was shown in the great increase in 
 the production of books in all branches of literature 
 and science. The period enriched the nation with no 
 names of literary genius, but the general intellectual 
 activity of the country made a great advance. Melville 
 
 fjjj VW^/N^V**^ 
 
 himself left no permanent contribution to literature 
 his hands were too full of public cares for that ; and his 
 entire literary remains consist of sacred poems and 
 fugitive pieces of verse in Latin. But he was very 
 ready with his pen, and served as a kind of unofficial 
 poet-laureate. It is a curious fact that on every occa- 
 sion in the King's reign that called for celebration, 
 even at those times when Melville was on the worst 
 terms with James, an appropriate ode was forthcoming. 
 He was a clever satirist, and it was a lampoon which 
 
 If*- J~tW>1 I 
 
 ' he wrote on a sermon in the Royal Chapel at Hampton 
 Court that was made the pretext for depriving him of 
 his liberty. 
 
 Such were Melville's services to education and learn- 
 ing. Through all the stormy controversies into which 
 he was plunged he never forsook his first love, but 
 continued his work in our Universities up to the close 
 of his career in Scotland.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE 'DINGING DOWN' OF THE BISHOPS 
 MELVILLE AND MORTON 
 
 1 Who never looks on man 
 
 Fearful and wan, 
 But firmly trusts in God." 
 
 HENRY VAUGHAN. 
 
 WE must go back to the year of Melville's return 
 home, 1574, in order that we may review the supreme 
 labours of his life. It was a time of confusion : Knox 
 was dead, and the Church needed a leader to shape 
 its discipline and policy in order to conserve the fruits 
 of the Reformer's work. Two years before Melville's 
 
 rf 
 
 return, viz. in 1572, the electroplate Episcopacy the 
 Tulchan l Bishops had been imposed on the Church 
 by the Regent Morton. Up to this time the consti- 
 tution of the Church had been purely Presbyterian. 
 There was no office superior to that of the minister 
 of a congregation. The Superintendents were only 
 ministers, or elders appointed provisionally by the 
 General Assembly, to whom such presbyterial func- 
 tions were delegated as the exigencies of the Church 
 
 1 A Tulchan was a calf s skin stuffed with straw placed near the 
 cow to induce her to give milk. 
 
 81
 
 L^ ! 
 
 32 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 required. They had no pretensions to the rank or 
 functions of the Anglican bishops ; they had no 
 peculiar ordination, and no authority save such as they 
 held at the pleasure of the Assembly. 
 
 Side by side, however, with the Presbyterian ministry 
 there still existed the old Roman Hierarchy, who had 
 been allowed to retain their titles, the greater part 01 
 their revenues, and their seats in Parliament. The 
 prelates had no place within the Church, their status 
 being only civil and legal ; and when any of them 
 joined the Church they entered it on the same footing 
 as the common ministry. 
 
 This was far from being a satisfactory or safe state 
 of things. It had elements, indeed, which obviously 
 threatened the integrity of the Presbyterian order ; and 
 it is little wonder that the Church was impatient of its 
 continuance and eager to end it, to clear the Roman 
 Hierarchy off the ground, and secure for its own 
 economy a chance of developing itself without the 
 entanglements that were inevitable to the existing 
 compromise. 
 
 The financial arrangements that had been made at 
 the first for carrying on the Church s work were unjust 
 and inadequate. A portion of the third part of the 
 benefices was all that had been assigned for the 
 support of the ministry, and even this had not been 
 fully or regularly paid, so that in many parishes the 
 ministers' stipends had to be provided by their own 
 people. In these circumstances the Church very 
 naturally wished the ecclesiastical revenues of the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 
 
 33 
 
 country to be transferred to her own use, and she 
 made the claim accordingly. But for this claim no 
 party in the State would have resisted the sweeping 
 away of the Hierarchy. The nobles, however, had set 
 greedy eyes on the Church's patrimony, and so they 
 became the determined opponents of this step. They 
 could well have spared the bishops, but they could not 
 forego the benefices, and to secure this plunder to the 
 nobles was the main object of the Tulchan device. By 
 this notable plan the benefices were taken from the 
 old Hierarchy and bestowed on the nobles, who then 
 conferred the titles without the functions on any of the 
 clergy who could be bribed into compliance. 
 
 Morton, who was the chief supporter of the scheme, 
 was notoriously avaricious ' wounderfully giffen to 
 gather gear.' He hoped to enrich himself by it, and 
 succeeded in doing so; but he had other motives. 
 He wished and this was always the main Govern- 
 mental reason for the preference of Episcopacy to 
 keep the clergy under his control ; and he sought also 
 to please Elizabeth, on whom he was dependent for 
 the stability of his own position, by bringing the 
 Scottish Church into some degree of conformity with 
 the Anglican. 
 
 The Assembly, while accepting the compromise 
 had done what it could to safeguard its own constitu- 
 tion by putting it on record that it had assented to the 
 continuance of the bishops only in their civil capacity, 
 and in order to give a legal claim on the benefices to 
 those who held them, and that it allowed the bishops 
 
 C
 
 34 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 no superiority within the Church over the ordinary 
 ministers, or, at any rate, over the superintendents. 
 
 There is no doubt that it was only the hope, on the 
 part of the Church, that she would secure a portion at 
 < 2 1 least of her patrimony by it that reconciled her to this 
 scheme. The ministers had little heart in the business, 
 and the best of them did not conceal their dislike of 
 the arrangement and their fear of the evils to which 
 it would lead. It is easier to blame the Church for 
 what she did than to say what she ought to have 
 done. It would have been a more heroic, and prob- 
 ably a safer course, to refuse the compromise and at 
 once to bring on the struggle with the Government 
 which she had to face in the end. If Melville had 
 been on the ground at the time, there is little doubt 
 that one man at least would have had both the 
 wisdom to recommend that course and the courage to 
 pursue it. 
 
 The Tulchan system had only been in operation for 
 
 two years when he came back from the Continent ; but 
 
 that was long enough to realise the Church's fears and 
 
 to make her restive. The ministers who accepted the 
 
 bishoprics became troublers of the Church, took 
 
 Advantage of their titular superiority over their 
 
 ~i Wi. i brethren to push for a position of greater authority, 
 
 and were more and more evidently the pliant tools of 
 
 the Court. The Church, moreover, gained nothing in 
 
 the way of a better provision for the ministry the 
 
 nobles seized the benefices and kept them. 
 
 On encountering the growing dissatisfaction of the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 35 
 
 ministers with his project, the Regent threatened the 
 freedom of the Assembly, and put forward a claim on i 
 behalf of the Crown to supreme authority within the fy**~ 
 Church. There lay the crux of the situation, the great 
 central issue in the controversy that was being thrust 
 upon the Scottish people, that was to rend the nation 
 for many a day, and that is not yet finally settled Was 
 the Church to be free to shape her own course and do 
 her work in her own fashion, or was she to be subject 
 to the civil government? Was the Church to be 
 essentially the Church of Christ in Scotland, or was 
 she to be the religious department, so to speak, of the 
 Civil Service ? 
 
 The first Assembly in which Melville sat met in 
 Edinburgh in March 1575. Parliament had just 
 appointed a committee to frame a more satisfactory 
 polity for the Church, and the Assembly nominated 
 some of its members as assessors to confer with it and 
 report the proposals that might be made. At the 
 same time it appointed a committee of its own, 
 composed of its most competent and trusted men, to 
 draft a constitution for its approval. This committee 
 was reappointed from year to year; the result of its j,^, 
 labours being the ' Second Book of Discipline,' which 
 was laid before the Assembly and adopted by it at 
 its meeting in the Magdalene Chapel, Edinburgh, in 
 April 1578. 
 
 It was in the next Assembly, held in August of the 
 same year, that the first blow was struck at the Tulchan 
 Episcopate. This was done by a resolution brought
 
 36 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 forward by John Durie, one of the ministers of 
 Edinburgh ; but there is little doubt that it originated 
 with Melville, who, although he had been home 
 scarcely a year, had taken his place as the leader of 
 his brethren, and by his teaching and personal influence 
 had ' wakened up their spreits ' to oppose the designs 
 of the Court against the constitution of the Church. 
 Durie's resolution raised the question of the scriptural- 
 ness and lawfulness of the office of a bishop. In 
 supporting it Melville made a powerful speech, in 
 which he urged the abolition of the bishoprics and 
 the restoration of the original Presbyterian order of 
 the Church as the only satisfactory settlement of her 
 affairs. The House resolved there and then to appoint 
 an advisory committee to consider and report on the 
 question, which committee reported against the office. 
 No further step was taken at this time, the bishops 
 being left as they were. At the next Assembly, 
 however, held in April 1576, the committee's finding 
 was adopted, and so far applied that all bishops who 
 held their office 'at large' were required to allocate 
 themselves to particular congregations. 
 
 The Assembly's decision was practically unanimous; 
 its members were at one in wishing an end to the 
 Tulchan scheme, and the people were of the same 
 mind as the ministers. Against the ministers and 
 people stood the Regent, the nobility, and all the 
 clergy whose interests were threatened. Morton would 
 fain have arrested the Assembly's action, but dared 
 not ; he could not afford at the time to drive the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 37 
 
 ministers into opposition, a powerful party of the 
 nobles being hostile to his regency, and the com- 
 bination would have shattered his government. His 
 policy, therefore, was to manage the ministers for the 
 accomplishment of his ends, and to attach as many of 
 them as possible, and especially as many of the leaders 
 
 as possible, to the Court. From the moment when 
 
 .. *t*<a 
 
 he first met Melville he had the sagacity to perceive that 
 this was the strongest man he would have to deal with : ' 
 he accordingly did his utmost to secure Melville's 
 support for the Government scheme. He offered him, 
 as we have said, a Court Chaplaincy, and he would 
 have made him Archbishop of St. Andrews on the 
 death of Douglas. When he found him incorruptible 
 by his favours, he tried to intimidate him. Calling him 
 one day into his presence, he broke out in violent 
 denunciation of those ministers who were disturbing 
 the peace of the realm by their c owersie ' 1 dreams and 
 setting up of the Genevan discipline ; and on Melville 
 turning the attack against himself and his government ,4 #^ 
 Morton flew into a rage 'Ther will never be quyetnes /-&.4* 
 in this countrey till halff a dissone of yow be hangit 
 or banished the countrey!' 'Tushe! sir,' retorted 
 Melville, 'threaten your courtiers in that fashion. It 
 is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the 
 ground. The earth is the Lord's: my fatherland is 
 wherever well-doing is. I haiff bein ready to giff 
 my lyflf whar it was nocht halff sa weill wared, at the 
 pleasour of my God. I leived out of your countrey 
 
 i Over the sea.
 
 3 8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ten yeirs as weill as in it. Yet God be glorified, 
 it will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll His 
 treuthe!' Sometimes, as here, words show a valour 
 as great as doughtiest deeds of battle : they give the 
 man who has uttered them a place for ever in the book 
 of honour j they pass into the storehouse of our most 
 cherished legends ; and as often as crises occur in our 
 history which make a severe demand upon our virtue, 
 they are recalled to stir the moral pulse of the nation 
 and brace it to its duty. No man in Scottish history 
 has left his country a richer legacy of this kind than 
 Melville. 
 
 Having failed with Melville, Morton found a ready 
 tool to his hand in another minister of the Church, 
 Patrick Adamson of Paisley. He was a man of some 
 learning and eloquence and of great personal ambition, 
 bent on climbing to a high place in the Church, and 
 unscrupulous in his choice of means. At first he was 
 a pronounced opponent of the new Church scheme, 
 and often denounced it from the pulpit. His clever 
 satire on the Tulchan bishops has never been forgotten 
 'Ju*. ' There are three sorts of bishops : my Lord Bishop 
 ( he is in the Roman Church ; my Lord's Bishop (the 
 Tulchan), who while my Lord gets the benefice, serves 
 for nothing but to make his title good ; and the Lord's 
 Bishop, who is the true minister of the Gospel.' 
 
 For some time Adamson cultivated an intimacy 
 with Melville, who, however, never trusted him. Mel- 
 ville, ever shrewd in discerning character 'he had 
 a wounderfull sagacitie in smelling out of men's
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 39 
 
 naturalls and dispositions' early saw that Adamson 
 would prove a better servant of the Court than of 
 the Church. 
 
 When the Assembly met in the autumn of 1576 it 
 was reported that Adamson had been presented by 
 Morton to the See of St. Andrews, and the question 
 was put to him in open court whether he meant to 
 accept it, when he declared he was in the hands of his 
 brethren, and would act in the matter as they desired. 
 The Assembly vetoed the appointment. Adamson, 
 however, in violation alike of the Assembly's Act and 
 of his own promise, entered on the See. The contempt 
 his conduct awakened was universal, and was freely ex- 
 pressed even within the Regent's Court. One of the 
 officers of the household, who had frequently heard 
 Adamson come over the phrase, 'The prophet would 
 mean this,' in his expositions of Scripture, remarked, 
 on hearing that he had assumed the bishopric, Tor 
 als aft as it was repeated by Mr. Patrick, "the prophet 
 would mean this," I understood never what the profit 
 means until now.' But to Adamson, who 'had his 
 reward,' the titular primacy of Scotland was of more 
 consequence than the respect of his countrymen : he 
 retained his place in defiance of the Church, and was 
 for many a day a troubler of its peace. 
 
 At the Assembly held in April 1578 a second blow ***// 
 was struck at the bishops : it was enacted that they 
 should cease to be styled by lordly names, and that no : 
 more bishops should be elected. Two years later, at 
 the Dundee Assembly of 1580, the Church took the
 
 40 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 final step against the Tulchan system by abolishing 
 t fy.u^- the Episcopate and requiring all bishops to demit 
 ' their office and give in their submission to the pro- 
 vincial synods. The resolutions of the Assembly were 
 Ktfc yt* . * 
 , v w*W carried without a single dissenting voice, and within a 
 
 ^ year the bishops with only five exceptions had sur- 
 rendered their sees. 
 
 During the six years Melville had been the leader 
 of the Assembly great results had been reached The 
 Church had gradually withdrawn from the Tulchan 
 compromise, and had at the same time elaborated a 
 constitution for itself on the basis of pure Presbytery. 
 Mention has already been made of the adoption of 
 this constitution the Second Book of Discipline in 
 1578. It is not necessary to describe it, as it is 
 seen in its living embodiment in all the Presbyterian 
 "^ iAu-MW churches of Scotland to-day ; though there is one 
 important part of it which was never carried out, 
 namely, the allocation of the patrimony of the Church 
 V to the purposes of religion, education, the maintenance 
 of the poor, and the undertaking of public works for 
 the common good. It enunciates the principle of the 
 two jurisdictions ' the two swords ' which has played 
 so important a part in Scottish history, and it protects 
 the rights of the people in the election of their 
 ministers. One significant difference between the 
 Second Book of Discipline and the First may be 
 ;- ^ mentioned the abolition of the office of Superinten- 
 dent. This office had been used as a handle by those 
 who wished to introduce an order in the Church above
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 41 
 
 the ministry ; it thus lent itself as an inlet to Episcopacy, 
 and so it was resolved to put an end to it. 
 
 The unanimity of the Assembly in the adoption of 
 the 'Discipline,' and in all the steps towards the de- 
 position of the bishops, was remarkable. The House 
 never once divided. In all its counsels and labours 
 Melville had the principal share, and it was mainly by 
 his learning, by his energy, by his mastery in debate, 
 by his unyielding attitude to the Court, that they issued 
 as they did in the re-establishment of the Church on 
 its original Presbyterian and popular basis. 
 
 James Melville has left us some charming pictures 
 of the Assemblies of that period and of the private 
 intercourse of its members. ' It was a maist pleasand 
 and comfortable thing to be present at these Assemblies, 
 thair was sic frequencie * and reverence ; with halines 
 in zeall at the doctrine quhilk soundit mightelie, and 
 the Sessiones at everie meiting, whar, efter ernest 
 prayer, maters war gravlie and cleirlie proponit; over- 
 tures maid be the wysest; douttes reasonit and dis- 
 cussit be the lernedest and maist quik; and, finalie, 
 all withe a voice concluding upon maters resolved and 
 cleirit, and referring things intricat and uncleired to 
 farder advysment.' 
 
 In the inmost circle of Melville's friends were such 
 men as Arbuthnot, Principal of Aberdeen, and Smeton, 
 his own successor as Principal of Glasgow both, like 
 himself, eminent in learning ; David Ferguson, minister 
 of Dunfermline, the patriarch of the Assembly, and one 
 
 1 Large attendance.
 
 42 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 of the six original members of the Reformed Church ; 
 and the four ministers of Edinburgh all notable men 
 John Durie, James Lawson, James Balfour, and 
 Walter Balcanquhal. At Assembly times he and his 
 nephew met these brethren daily, for the most part, at 
 John Durie's table. The group contained the very 
 flower and chivalry of the Church. At their meals 
 they discussed the incidents of the day's sittings, and 
 their conversation was enlivened with many a plea- 
 santry it was always Melville's ' form ' at table to 
 'interlase' discourse on serious subjects with 'merry 
 interludes.' When the company rose from table they 
 held lengthened devotional exercises : in the reading of 
 Scripture each in his turn made his observations on the 
 passage ; and we can well believe the estimate of some of 
 those who were present, that had everything been taken 
 down they could not have wished a fuller and better 
 commentary than fell at these times from this company 
 of ripe and ready interpreters of the Word. When the 
 exercises were over, the brethren entered into delibera- 
 tion on the causes to be brought before the Assembly, 
 and came to an understanding as to the course they 
 would pursue in dealing with them. Those who would 
 come to the secret of the noble part so often played 
 by the ministers of the Scottish Church in crucial 
 periods of its history, will fail to find it where they 
 leave out of account the inward correspondence which 
 these men, by such fellowship, sought to maintain with 
 one another and with the Master of Assemblies.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE 'BIGGING UP' OF THE BISHOPS UNDER LENNOX 
 AND ARRAN MELVILLE'S FLIGHT TO ENGLAND 
 
 ' To deal with proud men is but pain, 
 For either must ye fight or flee, 
 Or else no answer make again, 
 But play the beast and let them be.' 
 
 The Raid of the Reidswyre. 
 
 IN March 1578, James, then in his twelfth year, 
 
 " 
 assumed the government. In Morton he had had an 
 
 adviser who was not friendly to the Church, but those 
 who displaced Morton and brought him before long to 
 the scaffold were its determined and avowed enemies. 
 During the few years with which we have to deal in 
 this chapter, the Government was directed by two men 
 whose character and policy were detested by the nation, 
 and who filled up their short tenure of power with as 
 many exasperating acts of despotism as it was possible 
 to crowd into it. The more prominent of the two, 
 Esme Stewart, a kinsman of the King, cousin of his 
 father Darnley, was a foreigner and had been trained 
 in the French Court. He had a brief and inglorious 
 career in Scotland. He had no sooner joined the 
 King's Council than he became the master of its 
 policy, being the first of the grafts persona who in 
 
 43
 
 44 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 succession established themselves in the Court of James 
 and brought him under their control. There is little 
 wonder that the boy-king, who had passed through the 
 stern hands of George Buchanan and had spent his 
 time for the most part with men of our austere Scottish 
 character, should have felt the seductiveness of the gay 
 foreigner 'with his French fasons and toyes.' Esme 
 Stewart had not been long in the country before James 
 began to decorate him with honours and enrich him 
 with gifts of lands and money. He was created Duke 
 of Lennox and made Lord High Chancellor, in which 
 latter capacity he had the custody of the King's person 
 / a pawn which in this reign was often decisive in the 
 contest for political supremacy. He soon filled the 
 Court with men of his own stamp. One of these, only 
 second to himself in influence with the King, was 
 another Stewart James, the infamous son of Lord 
 Ochiltree. Like his patron, James Stewart soon received 
 high promotion, being made Earl of Arran. 
 
 Lennox had come to Scotland as an emissary of the 
 French Government and as an agent of the Guises, in 
 order to induce James to break off his alliance with 
 England in favour of the old alliance with France, and 
 to restore the Roman Church in the country ; but the 
 ministers having become informed of his designs, raised 
 such a storm against him that he was driven to make 
 a public renunciation of Popery, and obliged to pro- 
 secute his mission by more cautious and circuitous 
 methods than he intended to use. Lennox's evil 
 influence on James in ecclesiastical affairs soon became
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 45 
 
 apparent. On the See of Glasgow becoming vacant, 
 the benefice was appropriated by himself and the title \ ki ^^ 
 bestowed on Robert Montgomery, minister of Stirling. 
 The Church at once rose up in arms against this flagrant 
 violation of its authority, put Montgomery on his trial 
 for contumacy, found him guilty, and sentenced him 
 to deposition and excommunication. It was at the 
 instance of Melville, who, in this as in many another 
 crisis in the Church's history in his time, was called to 
 the Moderator's chair, that the Assembly took action 
 against Montgomery, and this was done in defiance 
 of a royal inhibition. The inferior courts to which 
 the judicial process at different stages was remitted 
 showed the same determined spirit, so deep and wide- 
 spread was the indignation that was roused against 
 Lennox by his attempt to thrust bishops anew upon 
 the Church, and against the minister of the Church 
 who had so basely lent himself to it. When the case 
 came before the Presbytery of Glasgow, Montgomery 
 himself appeared, accompanied by the provost and 
 bailies and an escort of soldiers, and produced an 
 interdict under the King's hand against its proceeding. 
 The Presbytery paid no heed to the intruders, and was 
 going on with the business, when the Moderator was 
 ejected from the chair, assaulted, and taken off to 
 prison. Still the Presbytery proceeded till it finished 
 the case and carried out the injunction of the 
 Assembly. Among the crowd gathered at the Presby- 
 tery house was a band of students from the University, 
 who in making a demonstration of their sympathy with
 
 46 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 the ministers were charged by the soldiery, and some 
 blood was shed. The ministers of the East vied with 
 those of the West in supporting the action of the 
 Assembly. John Durie, the most powerful and 
 popular among them, distinguished himself by the 
 boldness with which he spoke against Lennox as the 
 disturber of the peace of the Church. The sentence 
 of excommunication, which had been transmitted to 
 the Edinburgh Presbytery, was pronounced by John 
 Davidson, minister of Liberton, and read in most of 
 the pulpits in Edinburgh and Glasgow on the following 
 Sabbath. A meeting of the Privy Council was im- 
 mediately called, in which proceedings were taken 
 against the ministers of Edinburgh, and John Durie 
 was banished from the city. 
 
 A special meeting of Assembly was called to deal 
 with this serious state of affairs, Melville being still in 
 the chair. In his opening sermon he made a vehement 
 attack on the Court for its renewed attempt to over- 
 throw the Church's order and restore Episcopacy, and 
 spoke of the King's claim to spiritual authority as a 
 ^ 'bludie gullie' thrust into the Commonwealth a 
 description which the later history of Scotland has 
 sufficiently verified. The House, at one with the 
 Moderator, drew up a statement of the Church's recent 
 grievances, and appointed Melville and some other 
 members to present it to the King at Perth, where he 
 
 was residing at the time. To Perth accordingly they 
 went. This was a daring step in the circumstances, 
 
 1 *i **" ' I* 
 
 1 $r when there was such exasperation in the Court, and 

 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 47 
 
 when its councils were led by two such men as Lennox 
 and Arran. 'News was sparpelet athort 1 the cuntry 
 that the ministers war all to be thair massacred.' 
 Melville was warned by a friendly courtier, his name- 
 sake Sir James Melville of Halhill, of the risk he 
 ran in carrying out the Assembly's commission. C I 
 thank God,' he answered, 'I am nocht fleyed nor 
 feible-spirited in the cause and message of Christ. 
 Come what God please to send, our commission sal 
 be dischargit.' When he and the other members of 
 the deputation appeared before the King in Council 
 and read their remonstrance, Arran interfered, when 
 there occurred another of those historic scenes 
 associated with Melville's name, in which he displayed 
 such splendid courage in the resistance of tyranny. 
 An arrogant assailant, like steel striking against flint, 
 always elicited a flash of his noblest manhood. ' Arran 
 began to threttin with thrawin 2 brow and bosting 
 langage. "What," says he, "wha dar subscryve thir 
 treasanable Articles?" "We dar, and will subscryve ' 
 them," ' answered Melville, taking, as he spoke, the pen 
 from the clerk and putting his name to the document ; 
 and then, beckoning to his fellow-deputies, he bade 
 them follow his example, which they all did. The 
 boldness of the deed cowed even Lennox and Arran. 
 They saw that day that ' the Kirk had a bak,' and were 
 glad to dismiss the deputies without further debate. 
 
 The firmness with which the two Court favourites 
 were handl ed by the ministers inspirited the nobles to 
 1 Spread athwart. 2 Frowning.
 
 48 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 execute a plot that had been laid to get the King out 
 of their hands and end their intolerable supremacy. 
 As soon as the King's person had been secured by the 
 Raid of Ruthven, Lennox was banished from the 
 realm, and Arran enjoined to confine himself to his 
 own estate. 
 
 For a while the Church had rest and breathed freely 
 after the strain that had been put upon it. A few 
 days after the Raid of Ruthven a great outburst of 
 popular feeling in favour of Presbyterianism took place 
 in Edinburgh, the occasion being the return of John 
 Durie from banishment. Ther was a grait concurs of 
 the haill town, wha met him at the Nather Bow ; and, 
 going upe the streit, with bear heads and loud voices, 
 sang to the praise of God, and testifeing of grait joy 
 and consolation, the i24th Psalm, "Now Israel may 
 say," etc., till heavin and erthe resoundit. This noyes, 
 when the Due [of Lennox] being in the town, hard, 
 and ludgit in the Hie-gat, luiked out and saw, he rave 
 his berde for anger, and hasted him af the town.' 
 
 The peace of the Church was short-lived. In 
 midsummer of 1583 the King made his escape from 
 the Ruthven lords and betook himself to the Castle 
 of St. Andrews. The old gang at once returned to 
 Court. Lennox had died in exile; but Arran was 
 reinstalled at the Council-board, and immediately 
 renewed the old measures against the ministers, 
 whose part in causing his recent fall made him more 
 than ever determined to crush them. He began with 
 Melville, who was summoned before the Council it
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 49 
 
 was in February 1584 on a trumped-up charge of 
 using treasonable language in the course of one of his 
 sermons. Melville declined the jurisdiction of the 
 Council on the ground that he was not accused of a 
 civil offence, but of doctrine uttered in the pulpit. 
 His declinature was taken so hotly by the King and 
 Arran that all who were present felt he was as good 
 as a dead man; but 'Mr. Andro, never jarging 1 nor 
 daschit 2 a whit, with magnanimus courage, mightie 
 force of sprit and fouthe 3 of evidence of reason and 
 langage, plainly tauld the King and Council that they 
 presumed ower bauldlie ... to tak upon them to ^ 
 
 ' 
 
 judge the doctrine and controll the ambassadors and 
 
 messengers of a King and Counsall graiter nor they, 
 and far above tham ! " And that," sayes he, " ye 
 may see weakness, owersight, and rashness in tak- 
 ing upon you that quhilk yie nather aught nor can 
 do" (lowsing a litle Hebrew Byble fra his belt and 
 clanking it down on the burd before King and 
 Chancelar), "thair is," says he, "my instructiones 
 and warrand."' A number of witnesses, well-known 
 enemies of Melville, who had been brought from St. 
 Andrews to support the accusation, gave their evidence, 
 but to no purpose. Instead of being discharged, 
 however, he was condemned for the boldness of his 
 defence which was construed as a new offence, and 
 sentenced to imprisonment in the Castle of Edinburgh 
 during his Majesty's pleasure. 
 
 Rulers who could so outrage justice as to deprive a 
 1 Swerving. 2 Abashed. 8 Abundance. 
 
 D
 
 50 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 subject of his liberty on such a ground were not to 
 be trusted with his life. So all Melville's friends and 
 Melville himself thought. They were persuaded that 
 Arran, at least, was bent on silencing the man who 
 was his most formidable opponent. His friends, 
 quoting the proverb, 'lowes and leiving,' 1 urged him 
 to flight, and he himself resolved on it, having not only 
 his personal safety but also the interests of the Church 
 and the commonweal to consider and safeguard. 
 During the few days he was still left free, he appeared 
 as usual among his friends, and in the best of spirits. 
 
 ^ 
 
 At dinner in James Lawson's manse, where many of 
 his friends gathered to meet him, he seemed the only 
 light-hearted man in the company. ' He ate and 
 drank and crakked als merrelie and frie-myndit as at 
 anie tyme and mair,' drinking to his gaoler and fellow- 
 prisoners, and bidding his brethren make ready to 
 follow. While seated at table, the macer of the 
 Council appeared with a warrant charging him to 
 enter the Castle of Blackness within twenty-four hours. 
 When the macer had withdrawn, Melville left the 
 manse, and, confiding his intention to only a few 
 friends, made his escape from the city, accompanied 
 by his brother Roger, and within the twenty-four hours 
 was safely over the Border and lodged in Berwick. 
 
 Melville's exile at this juncture, when he was so 
 much needed at home to meet the tyranny of the 
 Court, was a severe blow to his brethren in the 
 ministry and to all the friends of the Church. They 
 were entering a heavy battle when they were deprived 
 
 1 Loose and living.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 51 
 
 of their trusted captain. More than James Melville 
 could have said at that time that they felt a 'cauld 
 heavie lumpe ' lying on their hearts. The ministers of 
 Edinburgh showed their characteristic spirit in this crisis, 
 and raised such a storm against the King and Council 
 on account of their treatment of Melville that the Court 
 had to defend itself by an apologetic proclamation. 
 
 Within a few months after Melville's flight measures 
 were passed through Parliament which upset all that 
 the Church had done during the previous decade to 
 extricate itself from the confusion of the Tulchan 
 Episcopacy. They were devised by Arran and by 
 Archbishop Adamson, who persistently used his 
 influence at Court for the subversion of Presbytery. 
 These measures ' The Black Acts ' declared the "* , 
 supremacy of the King in all matters ecclesiastical 
 and civil and made all rejection of his authority a 
 treasonable act : they deprived the Church of the 
 rights of free assembly, free speech, and independent 
 legislation; and they empowered the bishops to re- 
 establish their order in every part of the kingdom. 
 A clause was added requiring all ministers to sign an 
 act of submission to the bishops on penalty of losing 
 their offices and their livings. 
 
 On these Acts being proclaimed at the Cross of 
 Edinburgh, the ministers of the city James Lawson, 
 Walter Balcanquhal, and Robert Pont appeared and 
 made protest against them, when Arran was so 
 incensed by their conduct that he at once ordered 
 their arrest, and swore he would make Lawson's head 
 'leap from its halse though it was as big as a hay-
 
 S FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 stack.' More than they were in jeopardy of their 
 lives; every man in the country who had been a 
 pronounced friend of liberty had cause to fear. 
 Lawson, Balcanquhal, and Pont fled, with many 
 others. A warrant had been procured by Archbishop 
 Adamson for the apprehension of James Melville, 
 when he made his escape by open boat to Berwick. 
 
 The course of events showed that the ministers had 
 reason for their flight. Some of the most zealous of 
 those left in the country were thrown into prison for 
 refusing to conform to the Acts, or for remember- 
 ing their banished brethren in public prayer. One 
 minister was tried and sentenced to death on a charge 
 that a letter from one of these brethren had been 
 found in possession of his wife; and though the 
 sentence was not executed, the scaffold was put up, 
 and kept up for some time, before his prison window. 
 Nor were the ministers the only sufferers. Glasgow 
 University, which Melville's teaching and influence 
 had leavened with the principles of liberty, was made 
 to feel the heavy hand of the Government: its 
 professors were imprisoned, its rector was banished, 
 and its gates were closed. 
 
 Popular indignation began to break forth in many 
 quarters. In St. Andrews the students went in a body 
 to the Archbishop's palace and warned him that he 
 was courting the fate of Hamilton and Beaton ; while 
 visiting Edinburgh, Adamson had to be protected by 
 the police; Montgomery was mobbed at Ayr; and 
 wherever the bishops appeared there were hostile 
 demonstrations on the part of the people.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 53 
 
 The Court, however, defied public opinion, and went 
 on with its coercive policy, rigidly enforcing submis- 
 sion to the authority of the bishops. At first the great 
 majority of the ministers refused; but on a clause 
 being added to the deed of submission, to the effect 
 that it required them only to conform 'according to 
 the Word of God,' most of them gave way. The 
 clause was suggested by Adamson, and it reflects his 
 character. It was one of those shrewd devices for 
 causing division among the ministers, and providing 
 a middle way for men distracted by the desire to be 
 faithful to their consciences on the one hand, and the 
 wish to escape persecution on the other, which were 
 often resorted to by the Court throughout the entire 
 course of the struggle against prelacy. Some of the 
 stalwarts of the Church fell into the trap which 
 Adamson had set for them in this shallow compromise, 
 and their example led many others to yield. One of 
 the banished brethren, in a letter written at the time, 
 states that all the ministers in the Lothians and the 
 Merse, with only ten exceptions, had subscribed ; that 
 John Erskine of Dun had not only subscribed, but 
 was making himself a pest to the ministers in the 
 North by importuning them to follow his example; 
 that John Craig, so long Knox's colleague, had given 
 in and was speaking hotly against those who held out ; 
 that even the redoubtable John Durie had 'cracked 
 his curple ' l at last ; and that the pulpits of Edinburgh 
 were silent, except a very few ' who sigh and sob under 
 the Cross.' 
 
 1 Crupper.
 
 54 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Events took such a course that the ministers who 
 subscribed might, after all, have held out with a whole 
 skin. They capitulated to their enemies on the very 
 eve of their enemies' fall ; for the exasperation of the 
 nation under such insolent tyranny as Arran's could 
 no longer be held in. Davison, the English 
 Ambassador, writing to the Court at this time, says : 
 1 It is incredible how universally the man is hated by 
 all men of all degrees, and what a jealousy is sunken 
 into the heads of some of the wisest here of his 
 ambitious and immoderate thoughts. . . . His usurp 
 power and disposition of all things, both in Courts, 
 Parliaments, and Sessions, at the appetite of himself 
 and his good lady, with many other things do bewray 
 matter enough to suspect the fruits of ambition and 
 inordinate thirst for rule ' ; and he adds, ' I find infinite 
 appearances that the young King's course . . . doth 
 carry him headlong to his own danger and hazard of 
 his estate. He hath, since the change at St. Andrews, 
 continually followed forth implacable hatred and 
 pursuit against all such as in defence of his life and 
 crown have hazarded their own lives, living, fortunes 
 in all that they have, and now throws himself into the 
 arms of those that have heretofore preferred his 
 mother's satisfaction to his own surety, and do yet aim 
 at that mark, with the apparent danger of religion 
 which hath already received a greater wound by the 
 late confusions and alterations than can be easily 
 repaired.' Other satellites of the Court helped to make 
 the country restive. Adamson especially provoked 
 the people by many petty acts of tyranny, such as the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 55 
 
 ejection from the manses of the wives of the banished 
 ministers on account of a spirited defence of their 
 husbands, which they had published in reply to 
 charges made against them by the Archbishop. 
 
 At the same time the country was visited by two 
 great calamities which were interpreted as divine 
 judgments on the misdeeds of the Government. 
 The harvest was destroyed by heavy rains, and there 
 was an outbreak of the plague of such virulence as to 
 spread terror in all the larger cities. Edinburgh was 
 so desolated, that when James Melville and others of 
 the banished ministers passed through the streets on 
 their return home, they found them empty, 'About 
 alleavin hours he cam rydding in at the watergett of 
 the Abbay, upe throw the Canow-gett, and red in at 
 the Nether Bow, throw the graitt street of Edinbruche 
 to the Wast Port, in all the quhilk way we saw nocht 
 three persons, so that I miskend Edinbruche, and 
 almost forgot that ever I had seen sic a toun.' The 
 people felt that ' the Lord's hand wald nocht stay unto 
 the tyme the Ministers of God and Noble-men war 
 brought hame again.' The banished lords, emboldened 
 by the dissatisfaction of the people and the support 
 of the English Government, and joining with several 
 Border chiefs who had old scores of their own against 
 Arran, invaded the country, marched to Stirling, where 
 the King and Court had retired on hearing of their 
 approach, and took possession of the town. Arran 
 fled, and James was glad to come to terms with the 
 lords.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE KING'S SURRENDER TO THE CHURCH 
 
 ' The love of kings is like the blowing of winds 
 
 . . . or the sea which makes 
 Men hoist their sails in a flattering calm, 
 And to cut their masts in a rough storm.' 
 
 JOHNSON. 
 
 THIS coup tfbtat left Melville and the other exiled 
 brethren free to return to Scotland, as they did in 
 November 1585. During his stay of nearly two years 
 in England Melville had not been idle. He carried 
 on a correspondence with Protestant ministers in 
 France and Switzerland for the purpose of correcting 
 misrepresentations which Archbishop Adamson had 
 been industriously circulating among them in regard 
 to the conduct of the ministers in Scotland. In all 
 its struggles, from the Reformation to the time of 
 Renwick, the Scottish Church sought to keep the 
 churches of the Continent informed of its affairs and 
 to secure their sympathy. When in London Melville 
 diligently used his influence with leading English 
 statesmen in favour of the cause which he represented. 
 He also took advantage of his proximity to Oxford 
 and Cambridge to visit those Universities, where he 
 was received with the greatest courtesy and respect. 
 
 66
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 57 
 
 The other ministers who had fled to England had 
 likewise been fully occupied; they had preached in 
 Berwick, in Newcastle, in London, and wherever they 
 found an open door. James Melville had, for a while, 
 most of the banished Ruthven lords in his congrega- 
 tion at Newcastle, and he had sought to invigorate 
 them as the supporters of the liberties of the Church 
 in the event of their returning home to take part 
 again in political life; but, as it proved, with little 
 effect. 
 
 The Church soon found that it had gained little by 
 the change of Government. If Arran and his set ftjGtZ%, 
 were its bitter enemies, the new Councillors, the 
 Ruthven lords, were, at the best, indifferent friends. 
 Though they owed their restored power largely to the 
 courageous resistance of the ministers to the Arran 
 administration, and though they had pledged them- 
 selves during their exile to use their influence, when 
 opportunity should come, to undo the evils of that 
 administration as they had affected the Church, they 
 were content to secure their own interest and left the 
 
 .-' 9 #*ffc* 
 
 Church to look after itself. 
 
 Parliament having been summoned to meet in 
 Linlithgow in December 1585, for the purpose of 
 reponing the nobles in their estates and giving its 
 sanction to their administration, the ministers resolved 
 to hold a meeting of Assembly beforehand in Dun- /^. ^ b*J^ 
 fermline to prepare a representation of the Church's / 
 interests for the Parliament. When the members of *~* 
 Assembly reached that city they found that the Provost
 
 58 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 had closed the gates against them, by order, it was 
 said, of the Court. The meeting was held, but 
 adjourned, after resolving that it should be resumed 
 at Linlithgow. James Melville, fresh from his journey 
 from England, arrived in Linlithgow on the eve of 
 the Assembly, and found his brethren much dispirited. 
 They had almost come to a rupture among themselves, 
 high words having passed between those of them who 
 had subscribed the deed of submission to the bishops 
 and those who had refused. This dispute had caused 
 much trouble to Andrew Melville. In a letter of 
 James Melville written at the time to a friend, he says : 
 'Mr. Andro hath been a traicked 1 man since he cam 
 hame, ryding up and doun all the countrie to see if 
 he might move the brethren to repent and joyne 
 together.' The Assembly had little hope of Parliament 
 doing anything towards the repeal of the Black Acts. 
 If the nobles now in power would not press the King 
 to redress the Church's grievances, it was certain that 
 he would do nothing in that direction of his own 
 accord. James was not in a mood to oblige the 
 Church. He could not conceal his revengeful feelings 
 towards the ministers who had fled with the Ruthven 
 lords, and especially towards Melville. The Assembly, 
 however, did its duty. It sent a deputation to the 
 nobles to urge them to put the Church's claims before 
 the King. The nobles refused, and the deputation 
 went to the King himself. Melville was its spokesman, 
 and many sharp and hot words passed between him 
 1 Overtoiled.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 59 
 
 and James. At length the King ordered the Assembly 
 to lay before him a statement of its objections to the 
 Black Acts. This was done, and within twenty-four 
 hours James issued a reply from his own pen, in which y 
 he showed a conciliatory spirit, and made explanations 
 to take the edge off the harshness with which the Acts 
 had been framed, but made no alteration in their 
 substance. 
 
 If Parliament did not know when to take occasion 
 by the hand to win concessions from the King in the 
 interests of liberty, he knew how to use his opportunity 
 for strengthening his own prerogatives. He brought 
 forward a measure which the Parliament passed, con- 
 stituting it a capital offence to criticise the King's 
 conduct or government, and making it unlawful for his 
 subjects to enter into any association for political ends 
 without the consent of the throne. 
 
 At this time a fresh casus belli between the Church 
 and the Crown arose through the Church's severe but 
 well-merited handling of Archbishop Adamsori. No 
 man in the kingdom was more responsible for the 
 recent troubles than Adamson, except Arran, whom he 
 encouraged and supported in all his arbitrary measures. 
 The minister of the Church who first opened fire on the 
 Archbishop was James Melville. He had consulted /M*" 
 beforehand with his uncle ; but those who think he was 
 too amiable to have any fight in him, or that on this 
 or any other occasion he was only doing his uncle's 
 bidding, do not know the man. His courage was as 
 great as his uncle's, if he had a milder manner and a
 
 60 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 calmer temper; and his action on this occasion was 
 the irrepressible outburst of his honest indignation 
 at Adamson's treachery in the affairs of the Church 
 ever since his elevation to the See of St. Andrews. 
 
 In March 1586 the Synod of Fife met at St. 
 Andrews, and James Melville as the retiring Moderator 
 had to preach the opening sermon. It was a full 
 meeting. The Archbishop with a 'grait pontificalite 
 and big countenance' was seated by the preacher's 
 side. The subject of discourse was the evil that had 
 been done to the Church from the time of its planting 
 by the ambitious spirit and corrupt lives of men hold- 
 ing its highest offices. On reaching his application, the 
 preacher, turning to the Archbishop and directing his 
 speech to him personally, recalled his long course of 
 disloyalty to the Church and his persistent efforts to 
 overthrow its discipline, as well as all the injuries he 
 had done to religion by his avarice and ambition : he 
 spoke of him as a dangerous member who needed to 
 be courageously cut off in order to save the body ; and 
 then, addressing himself to the Assembly, exhorted it 
 to ' play the chirurgeon ! ' This bold and unexpected 
 attack unmanned the Archbishop 'he was sa dashit 
 and strucken with terror and trembling that he could 
 skarse sitt, to let be stand on his feet.' It was manifest 
 that the Moderator had the whole House at his back, 
 and it at once entered on a process against Adamson. 
 At first he declined its jurisdiction, boasting that it was 
 rather his place to judge the Assembly. At length, 
 however, he condescended to defend himself; and the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 61 
 
 process ended in his excommunication. A day or two 
 after he retaliated by excommunicating, on his own 
 authority, within his own church, Andrew Melville and 
 other brethren. He also despatched to the King an 
 appeal against the Synod's sentence, defying the 
 sentence at the same time by appearing in his own 
 pulpit on the following Sabbath. On the same Sabbath 
 Melville was preaching in his own college chapel to a 
 crowded congregation ; and a neighbouring laird, with a 
 number of his friends, having come to the city on that 
 Sabbath to hear Melville, there was an unusual stir 
 which drew most of the townsfolk to the chapel. When 
 the last bell was ringing, and Adamson was about to 
 enter the pulpit, a canard reached him to the effect that 
 a body of local gentry and the citizens gathered within 
 the college gates had formed a conspiracy to seize him 
 and hang him on the spot. Calling to his servants to 
 guard him, he ran out of the church and sought refuge 
 in the steeple, and it took the magistrates all their skill 
 to persuade him to leave his hiding-place and accept 
 their convoy to the palace ' he was halff against his > 
 will ruggit l out, and halff borne and careit away ' amid 
 the derision of the onlookers. 
 
 Adamson had appealed to the Assembly which was 
 to meet in May. The King, being indignant at the 
 treatment the Archbishop had received, was resolved 
 to get the sentence annulled, and he set himself to 
 tune the Assembly to his mind. He called a meeting 
 by royal proclamation, and gave it out that he would 
 
 i Pulled.
 
 62 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 attend it himself. The temper of the Assembly was 
 such that the resolutions that were to effect the King's 
 object had to be cautiously framed, and were carried 
 by a bare majority of votes. The Court, without 
 judging the Synod's proceedings and sentence, and 
 only after Adamson had made an apology for his 
 pretentions to authority in the Church, and had given 
 a promise to drop them for the future, resolved to 
 restore him. The case had been no sooner disposed 
 of than Melville was summoned before the King and 
 commanded to go into ward north of the Tay, that the 
 Archbishop might have a better chance of recovering 
 his lost prestige a restriction which, however, was 
 soon removed on a strong representation being made 
 to the King of the loss which the University was 
 suffering by the banishment of Melville. 
 
 From this time the Archbishop fell into disgrace, 
 both for his shameful public career and for the offences 
 of his private life, especially his extravagance and con- 
 sequent debts. Two years later he was deposed by the 
 Assembly, when the King cast him off, and gave the 
 temporalities of his see to one of the Court favourites. 
 After that Adamson never lifted his head. When he 
 had fallen into poverty and sickness he made a pitiful 
 appeal to Melville, which was most generously met. 
 His old opponent visited him, and for months provided 
 for him out of his own purse ; and it was through the 
 good offices of both the Melvilles that he was able 
 to make his peace with the Church before he died. 
 Perhaps it is this last act of humbleness, when he had
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 63 
 
 lost all repute with the world, that gives him his best 
 claim on our respect. 
 
 For some months previous to the Assembly in which 
 Adamson's case was disposed of, the King had been 
 exerting himself so to manage the members amenable 
 to his influence, that he should not only secure his 
 object in this particular business, but at the same time 
 prevail with the Assembly to take a step backward in 
 its general polity. He dared not propose much more 
 than titular precedence for the bishops a concession 
 only wrung from the Assembly; and for a quid pro quo 
 he had to give his consent to a measure for carrying 
 out the provisions of the Second Book of Discipline 
 by organising presbyteries and synods throughout the 
 country. This was of course another compromise, but 
 the Church's concessions were reduced to a minimum. 
 James could only secure a footing for the bishops, and 
 bide his time for restoring their supremacy. 
 
 In the Parliament of 1587, when Melville was present 
 as a commissioner from the Assembly, a measure was 
 passed, which, though it originated with the Court and 
 was not so intended, dealt a serious blow to the 
 hopes of the promoters of Episcopacy. The King had 
 just attained his twenty-first year, and there was a law 
 in the statute-book providing that all heirs of estates 
 which had been forfeited through any cause should, 
 on reaching their majority, have the opportunity of 
 reclaiming them. Advantage was taken of this law 
 to revoke grants of Crown lands made during the 
 King's minority; and all the Church lands were
 
 64 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 annexed to the Crown. This measure stripped the 
 bishops of their benefices and abolished their legal 
 status, and so cancelled the chief ground on which the 
 Court had contended for the maintenance of their 
 order. By this measure the King, in his need or 
 greed, or both, played for once into the hands of the 
 Church. 
 
 In the following year, 1588, the prodigious attempt 
 of Philip to invade England and overthrow the Protes- 
 tant power in the two kingdoms very greatly strength- 
 ened the Presbyterian cause in Scotland, and made 
 Episcopacy more than ever repugnant to the people, as 
 having in it so much of the leaven of the Old Church. 
 Whatever roused the Protestant spirit of the country 
 gave Presbytery a firmer hold as the Church system 
 most antagonistic to Popery, and also to arbitrary 
 government which seeks in Popery its natural ally. At 
 every crisis such as that which now arose, it made a 
 fresh appeal to the deepest feelings of the nation. 
 
 At the time when the Armada was approaching our 
 shores the country had no confidence in the patriotism 
 of the King. There were sinister suspicions of his 
 attitude to Romanism, caused by the favours shown 
 at Court to nobles of that faith ; by his retention of 
 many of its adherents in his service, and his reluctance 
 to take action against the Romish priests, the Jesuits, 
 and the rest of the army of Papal emissaries who were 
 sowing treason throughout the land. All through his 
 life James was characterised by a singular unseason- 
 ableness in his activity. 'There is a time,' says the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 65 
 
 preacher, 'to every purpose under the heaven,' but 
 with James there was always an incongruity between 
 the time and the purpose. The year before, he had 
 scandalised the Court by dancing and giggling at a 
 levee held immediately after his mother's death; and 
 now, when he should have been arming the country 
 against the Spanish invasion, he was engaged in writing 
 an academic treatise against the Pope. Perhaps his 
 conduct was due to a deeper fault in his character 
 his ingrained duplicity. As, after his accession 
 to the English throne, he sought to thwart the 
 anti-Papal policy of his own Government when Spain 
 was threatening the Protestant power in Germany, so 
 now he may have been dissembling his real sympathies 
 in writing against the Papacy. At all events, he never 
 showed by any act of his reign that he dreaded the 
 Papal power as much as he dreaded that of the Scot- 
 tish Presbyterians or the English Puritans. 
 
 The Armada brought Melville once more to the 
 front. It was his voice that roused the nation to a 
 sense of its danger, and his energy that organised the 
 nation to meet it. He summoned the Assembly, being 
 Moderator at the time: the Assembly stirred up the 
 nobles and the burgesses, and the whole nation joined 
 to offer resistance to the invasion. 
 
 From this time the favourable tide for the fortunes 
 of Presbytery which had set in previous to the 
 Armada flowed with a rush, which within a few years 
 carried it to undisputed ascendency in the land. The 
 people's attachment to it was too strong for James, and 
 
 E
 
 66 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 even within his own Council it had come to be recog- 
 nised that acquiescence in it was inevitable. Maitland, 
 Lethington's brother, the Chancellor of the kingdom, 
 who was the strongest man in the Council, and for long 
 a supporter of the King's policy in ecclesiastical affairs, 
 was now won over, by the logic of events, to its support. 
 He had the sense to perceive that the kingdom could 
 never prosper till the Church was satisfied, and that the 
 Church could never be satisfied with any other than its 
 own freely chosen economy. He also saw that if the 
 King was to maintain friendship with the English 
 Government, he must sever himself from those forces 
 in the country that were opposed to the Church, as 
 they were all under the suspicion of working in the 
 interests of the power which had made so determined 
 an attempt at the overthrow of the neighbouring king- 
 dom. ' He helde the King upon twa groundes sure, 
 
 r nather to cast out with the Kirk nor with England.' 
 Prelacy, he knew, was but the King's choice for the 
 nation: Presbytery was the nation's choice for itself. 
 Maitland's influence was great with the King, and 
 from this time it was used steadily in favour of a 
 new departure in his Church policy. 
 
 At the same time there arose, in the person of Robert 
 Bruce, minister of Edinburgh, one who rendered 
 
 < powerful service to the Presbyterian cause, and who, 
 in the whole history of the struggle, was singular in this 
 respect, that while possessing the entire confidence of 
 his brethren he also carried great weight in the Council 
 of the King. Of good family, second son of the Laird
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 67 
 
 of Airth, he had studied for the Bar and then 
 abandoned it for the Church. For many years of his 
 life he had been conscious of striving against the work 
 of grace in his heart, and against the conviction that 
 he ought to devote himself to the ministry, and had 
 thereby suffered sore trouble of conscience. At last a 
 crisis came, which he describes as 'a court of justice 
 holden on his soul,' which ' chased ' him to his grace. 
 Immediately thereafter he sought the counsel of 
 Melville, to whom he had been greatly attracted, 
 who encouraged him to enter the ministry, and under 
 whom he was trained for it. Bruce commanded respect 
 from all classes and on all hands ; ' the godlie for his 
 puissant and maist moving doctrine lovit him; the 
 wardlings for his parentage and place reverenced him ; 
 and the enemies for bath stude in awe of him.' Bruce 
 was a special friend of Chancellor Maitland, through 
 whom he was received with favour at the Court ; and 
 he brought Maitland and Melville together and made 
 them friends. 
 
 His marriage, which took place in 1589, was used 
 by James as an occasion for a public demonstration of 
 his reconciliation to the Church. Before leaving for 
 Denmark to fetch his bride, he made Bruce an extra- 
 ordinary member of his Council, professing at the 
 same time such confidence in him as he might have 
 given to a viceroy, which indeed Bruce virtually be- 
 came. During the King's absence the nation enjoyed 
 a tranquillity unknown before in his reign, chiefly due 
 to the influence of Bruce and his brethren. James
 
 68 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Melville had good ground for what he said at the 
 Assembly in August 1590: 'We, and the graittest and 
 best number of our flockes, halff bein, ar, and mon be 
 his [the King's] best subjects, his strynthe, his honour. 
 A guid minister (I speak it nocht arrogantlie, but 
 according to the treuthe!) may do him mair guid 
 service in a houre nor manie of his sacrilegious 
 courteours in a yeir.' At the Queen's coronation the 
 ministers took the chief part in the ceremony. It was 
 Bruce who anointed her, and, with David Lindsay, 
 minister of Leith, placed the crown on her head. 
 Melville was chosen by the King to prepare and recite 
 the Stephaniskion, as the coronation ode was called, 
 and the King was so pleased with it that he gave him 
 effusive thanks. On the following Sabbath James was 
 present in St. Giles', and in the presence of the con- 
 gregation acknowledged the services rendered by Bruce 
 and the ministers to the country and the crown during 
 his absence, and promised to turn a new leaf in the 
 government of the kingdom. He was also present at 
 the next General Assembly, when he broke forth in such 
 fervent laudation of the Church that he might have 
 made the oldest and staunchest adherents of Presbytery 
 reproach themselves for the coldness of their own 
 attachment to it : ' He fell furth in praising God, that 
 he was borne in suche a tyme as the tyme of the light of 
 the Gospell, to suche a place as to be king in suche a 
 Kirk, the sincerest Kirk in the world. " The Kirk of 
 Geneva," said he, "keepeth Pasche and Yule; what 
 have they for them ? they have no institutioun. As for
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 69 
 
 our nighbour Kirk in England, it is an evill said 
 masse in English, wanting nothing but the liftings. 1 I 
 charge you, my good people, ministers, doctors, elders, 
 nobles, gentlemen, and barons, to stand to your puritie, 
 and to exhort the people to doe the same; and I 
 forsuith, so long as I bruike my life and crowne, sail 
 mainteane the same against all deidlie," etc. The 
 Assemblie so rejoiced, that there was nothing but loud 
 praising of God, and praying for the King for a quarter 
 of an houre.' 2 
 
 The entente cordiale between the King and the 
 ministers was not of long duration. His promises of 
 amended government were soon forgotten; the law- 
 lessness of the nobles continued unchecked; agents 
 of Rome were again busy in the country in collusion 
 with the Popish nobles, and nothing was done to 
 counteract them. In these circumstances the ministers 
 could not keep silence, and none of them spoke more 
 strongly against the laxity of the Government than 
 Robert Bruce, the man the King had so recently and 
 so specially honoured, who reproached James with 
 the fact that during his absence in Denmark more 
 reverence was paid to his shadow than had been 
 shown since his return to his person. The outrages 
 perpetrated by the King's illegitimate cousin, the mad- 
 cap Bothwell, were largely laid to James's door, as the 
 doings of a spoiled favourite of the Court : and the 
 unpunished murder of the popular Earl of Moray, the 
 'Bonnie Earl,' by Huntly one of the worst crimes even 
 
 1 Raising of the Host. 2 Calderwood's History, v. 109.
 
 70 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 of that lawless time, and of complicity in which the 
 King himself was suspected aggravated the discontent 
 of the nation. 
 
 It was at such a time of disorder and irritation in 
 the country that the measure was passed by Parliament 
 the Act of 1592 by which all previous legislation in 
 favour of Episcopacy was swept off the statute-book and 
 the Church re-established on the basis of the Second 
 Book of Discipline. Had this Act been passed two 
 years earlier, it might have been ascribed to the good- 
 will of the King ; but in the circumstances in which it 
 was brought forward, it was regarded as a piece of policy, 
 adopted on the recommendation of the Chancellor for 
 the purpose of recovering for the King the popularity 
 he had lost during that interval, by the causes we have 
 mentioned.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE POPISH LORDS MELVILLE AND THE KING AT 
 FALKLAND PALACE 
 
 1 The king he movit his bonnet to him, 
 He ween'd he was a king as weel as he." 
 
 Johnie Armstrong. 
 
 THE end of the Church's troubles in Scotland was 
 still far off. No sooner had the constitution of 1592, y 
 which promised to secure her peace and liberty, been 
 set down in the statute-book, than the forces of 
 reaction, headed by the Crown, began to work for the 
 undoing of it; and the Church was to pass through 
 a century of almost continuous struggle and of many 
 and bitter disappointments a century which had 
 great part in the making of Scotland before that 
 constitution was finally ratified. 
 
 The slackness of James towards the Popish agents, 
 who had resumed their intrigues in the country, has 
 been referred to. Those best informed in public 
 affairs both in England and Scotland shared the 
 indignation and alarm in the matter which were 
 expressed by the ministers. One day, in the very 
 year after the Armada, as James was in the Tolbooth 
 with the Lords of Session, a packet was put into his
 
 72 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 hands from the English Queen containing intercepted 
 treasonable letters from the Popish lords in Scotland 
 to the King of Spain and the Duke of Parma, and 
 accompanied by the following letter in Elizabeth's own 
 hand, in which she rates him for his fatuous lenity 
 towards subjects who had joined hands with the 
 enemies of his kingdom : 
 
 'MY DEERE BROTHER, I have ere now assured you, that 
 als long as I found you constant in amitie towards me, I 
 would be your faithfull watche, to shunne all mishappes 
 or dangers that, by assured intelligence, I might compasse 
 to give you. And according to my good devotioun and 
 afifectioun, it hath pleased God to make me, of late, so 
 fortunat as to have intercepted a messinger (whom I 
 keepe safe for you), that carried letters of high treasoun to 
 your persone and kingdome ; and can doe no lesse, than 
 with most gladenesse, send you the discovered treasoun, 
 suche as you may see, as in a glasse, the true portrature 
 of my late wairning letters ; which, if then it had pleased 
 you follow, als weill as read, you might have taiken their 
 persons, receaved their treasoun, and shunned their 
 further strenthening, which hath growne daylie by your 
 too great neglecting and suffering of so manie practises 
 which, at the beginning, might easilie have been pre- 
 vented. 
 
 'Permitt me, I pray you, my deere brother, to use 
 als muche plainnesse as I beare you sinceritie, your 
 supposing to deale moderatlie and indifferentlie to both 
 factions, and not to take nor punishe, at the first, so 
 notorious offenders, as suche as durst send to a forrane 
 king for forces to land in your land under what pretence 
 soever, without your special directioun, the same never 
 punished ; but rather, holde foote deere and neere, with 
 a parentage of neare allya. Good Lord ! me thinke 
 I doe but dreame : no king a weeke would beare this !
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 73 
 
 Their forces assembled, and held neere your persoun, 
 held plotts to take your persoun neere the seaside ; and 
 that all this wrapped up with giving them offices, that 
 they mighte the better accomplishe their treasoun ! These 
 be not the formes of governments that my yeeres have 
 experimented : I would yours had noucht, for I sweare 
 unto you myne sould never in like sort. 
 
 ' I exhort you be not subject to such weaknesse, as to 
 suffer such lewdnesse so long to roote, as all your strenth 
 sail not plucke up (which God forbid !), which to shunne, 
 after you have perused this great packet that I sent you, 
 take speedie order lest you linger too long ; and take 
 counsell of few, but of wise and trustie. For if they 
 suspect your knowledge they will shunne your apprehen- 
 sioun. Therefore of a suddantie they must be clapped 
 up in safer custodie than some others have been, which 
 hath bred their laughter. You see my follie when I am 
 entered to matter that toucheth you so neere. I know 
 not how to ende but with my prayers to God to guide you 
 for your best. My agent with you sail tell you the rest. 
 
 'Your most aproved loving sister and consignesse, 
 
 ELIZABETH R.' 1 
 
 An incident which occurred at the close of 1592, 
 and which is known in our history as 'The Spanish 
 Blanks,' brought to an acute crisis the suspicion and 
 discontent of the country, and especially of the 
 ministers. A Papist of the name of Kerr was about 
 to embark on his ship, which was lying off Fairlie 
 Roads on the Ayrshire coast, when he was arrested by 
 a posse of Glasgow students and local gentry, with 
 Knox the minister of Paisley at their head. In 
 conversation with some of the people, Kerr had led 
 them to suspect that he was bound for Spain as the 
 
 1 Calderwood's History, v. 9.
 
 74 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 agent of some plot, and information to this effect was 
 immediately communicated to the authorities in the 
 neighbourhood, and among others to Knox. Only a 
 month before, at the instance of Melville, the ministers 
 had formed a vigilance committee to gather reports 
 from every parish in the country of any sinister 
 movements on the part of the Papists, and to lay these 
 before the Council, that steps might be taken at once 
 to defeat them. Kerr's apprehension was a proof of 
 the efficiency of this organisation. A search having 
 been made, there were found in his possession, along 
 with many treasonable letters, several sheets of paper 
 containing no writing. They were addressed to the 
 King of Spain, however, and bore the signatures and 
 seals of the three chief Popish lords Huntly, Angus, 
 and Errol. Attached to these documents was a 
 commission to a Jesuit named Crichton, to fill up the 
 blanks, and in such a way so it transpired afterwards 
 as to invite Philip to invade the country, and to 
 pledge to him the support of these nobles. Kerr and 
 an accomplice, Graham of Fintry, were brought before 
 the Council and confessed the plot; and a few days 
 after the arrest of Kerr, before the report of it had 
 spread through the country, the Earl of Angus, having 
 occasion to come to Edinburgh, was seized by the 
 magistrates and confined in the Castle. 
 
 The King was absent from the city at the time 
 attending the marriage festivities of the Earl of Mar, 
 and an urgent request was sent to him by the ministers 
 of Edinburgh and his own Council to return and take
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 75 
 
 steps to bring the conspirators to justice. James, 
 instead of thanking the ministers and councillors for 
 their diligence in the matter, blamed them for their 
 super-serviceableness, and so gave the impression that 
 he was in sympathy with the plot. Kerr himself, in a 
 letter to the King, went the length of saying that he 
 and his friends had no doubt that they would have 
 his countenance in their enterprise ; and Calderwood 
 says : ' It appeareth the chief conspirators have had 
 his [the King's] expresse or tacite consent, or at least 
 have perceaved him inclyned that way, whereupon 
 they have presumed.' Events confirmed the suspicion, 
 if it wanted confirmation, of James's secret leanings 
 to the party that had been guilty of treason. Only 
 one of them Graham, the most insignificant of their 
 number paid the penalty of his crime; Kerr and 
 the Earl of Angus escaped from prison with the 
 connivance of the authorities ; Huntly, who had been 
 summoned to stand trial before the Privy Council, 
 retired to his own territory and defied the Government, 
 and it was only when he could no longer resist the 
 popular will that the King took action against him. 
 At the head of a considerable force, James set out to 
 seize him; but when the army reached Aberdeen it 
 was found that the Earl had retired further north to 
 the Caithness moors. The subsequent treatment of 
 the rebel lords showed that the King had no heart in 
 their prosecution indeed, in an unguarded moment, 
 while conversing with one of the few nobles who 
 were reckoned friends of the Protestant cause, Lord
 
 76 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Hamilton, he let out this fact. Had it not been for 
 the pressure of the ministers, nothing would have been 
 done. James trifled with the business : he scolded 
 and coaxed the ministers in turn; he threatened 
 them, and then gave way and promised to bring the 
 offenders to trial, but still made no move ; he allowed 
 the conspirators to appear in public and to have 
 interviews with himself in which he made it apparent 
 that they had little to fear at his hands ; he tampered 
 with his own law officers in the traitors' interest ; and 
 through his influence with Parliament they were 
 virtually absolved and their forfeitures cancelled. But 
 the ministers were stronger and far more really re- 
 presentative of the nation than the Parliament a fact 
 which markedly characterises this long crucial period 
 of Scottish history, and which must always be borne 
 in mind for a right understanding of events. 
 
 The two Melvilles took the lead in the Church's 
 action. At the Synod of Fife, September 1593, 
 excommunication was pronounced on the Popish 
 lords ; and steps were taken to hold an early meeting 
 in Edinburgh of commissioners from the counties to 
 adopt such measures as would secure the ends of 
 justice. At this convention, delegates were appointed 
 to meet with the King and represent to him the 
 necessity of taking vigorous action against the lords. 
 The interview took place at Jedburgh, where the King 
 had gone to repress some Border tumult. 'We war 
 bot bauchlie l lukit upon,' says James Melville, who was 
 
 1 Sorrily.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 77 
 
 one of the delegates. 'Our Assembly of Fife was 
 bitterly inveyit against, namlie my uncle Mr. Andro 
 and Mr. David Black.' Before the interview closed, 
 the King became more gracious, and he dismissed the 
 delegates with fair promises; but his real answer 
 was the subsequent passing through Parliament of an 
 Act of Oblivion in favour of the lords, which he urged 
 on the unkingly ground that, if severe measures were 
 taken against them, they would go ' to armes and get 
 forean assistance quhilk might wrack King, Country, 
 and Relligion.' 
 
 Parliament had given way to the King : but the 
 ministers kept their ground. The Assembly of May 
 1594 ratified the deed of the Synod of Fife in excom- 
 municating the Popish lords, and appointed another 
 commission to meet with the King and urge him in 
 the matter, James Melville being again one of the 
 delegates and their spokesman. The manner in which 
 the King received them was very different from that 
 in which he had received the deputation at Jedburgh, 
 and surprised them by its friendliness. He expressed 
 his regret at the misunderstandings that had arisen 
 between himself and the Church, heard the statements 
 of the delegates with apparent favour, and promised 
 to summon Parliament for the earliest convenient day 
 to take measures for the punishment of the excom- 
 municated lords. At the close of the conference 
 the King detained James Melville for a private 
 interview, and sent through him a friendly message 
 to his uncle, acknowledging both to be most faithful
 
 78 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 and trusty subjects. From this time, for the space of 
 two years, James Melville by the King's command 
 went a great deal about the Court. 'Courting' did 
 not go with his heart, but he was reconciled to it by 
 the hope that he might be of service in bringing the 
 King into better relations with the Church. The 
 King's motive in inviting him to Court may be 
 inferred from an incident which occurred one day 
 when he had been conferring with the King on Church 
 affairs. As Melville left the room the King was 
 overheard saying to a courtier, 'I have streaked his 
 mouth with cream.' James little knew the man, than 
 whom there was not among his subjects one less likely 
 to be seduced from his convictions by a king's flattery 
 or favours. When the King found after a two years' 
 trial that he was untamable, James Melville's 'Court- 
 ing ' days ceased. 
 
 The King's change of policy in the business con- 
 cerned and his adoption of a more conciliatory attitude 
 to the ministers are not difficult to explain. He had 
 come to realise that they were too strong for him: 
 they had the country with them, while towards him- 
 self there was a universal feeling of suspicion and 
 discontent. Moreover, the ministers had a strong 
 ally in Queen Elizabeth, who continued to make angry 
 remonstrances with James on his treatment of the rebel 
 lords. In one stinging letter she said ' she could only 
 pray for him, and leave him to himself. She did not 
 know whether sorrow or shame had the upper hand, 
 when she had learned that he had let those escape
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 79 
 
 against whom he had such evident proof. Lord ! what 
 wonder grew in her that he should correct them with 
 benefits and simply banished them to those they loved. 
 She more than smiled to read their childish, foolish, 
 witless excuses, turning their treasons' bills to artificers' 
 reckonings, one billet lacking only, item, so much for 
 the cord they best merited.' l 
 
 James dared not longer defy the feeling of the 
 country, and accordingly Parliament was summoned 
 in June 1594 and the trial of the Popish lords pro- 
 ceeded with, the King professing the greatest zeal in 
 it, and declaring that, as he had found ' plaister and 
 medicine' unavailing in dealing with the traitors, he 
 would now 'use fire as the last remedie.' It fell to 
 Parliament to choose those who composed the court in 
 trials for treason the Lords of the Articles they were 
 called, and some of those who were chosen on this 
 occasion were notoriously tainted with treason them- 
 selves. Melville, who was present in the Parliament 
 as a commissioner of the Church, attended the opening 
 of the court, and, addressing the King and the judges, 
 admonished them to deal with the cause as the laws of 
 the realm and the safety of the country required. ' It 
 is true,' he said, 'manie thinke it a mater of great 
 weight to overthrow the estate of three so great men. 
 I grant it is so : yitt it is a greater mater to overthrow 
 and expell out of this countrie three farre greater; to 
 witt, true religioun, the quietnesse of the commoun 
 weale, and the King's prosperous estat.' He then 
 
 1 Cunningham's History, i. 424.
 
 8o FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 challenged the composition of the court: ' "There come 
 some heere to reasoun who have no interest, but ought 
 to be excluded by all law," meaning of the Pryour of 
 Pluscardie, brother to the Lord Setoun, who was after 
 made chanceller. Some answered, that he was a man 
 of honorable place, President of the Sessioun. Mr. 
 Andrew answered, more honorable were debarred 
 from place among the Lords of the Articles. The 
 King confessed it was true, and promised it sould be 
 amended. " Nixt," said Mr. Andrew, " there are some 
 on the Articles justlie suspected partiall, and almost als 
 guiltie as the persons that are to be tryed." The Abbot 
 of Inchaffrey and Mr. Edward Bruce sitting together 
 laughed. The King asked at Mr. Andrew who it was 
 that was suspected ? Mr. Andrew said, " One laughing 
 there." Mr. Edward asked if he meant of him. Mr. 
 Andrew answered, " If yee confesse your self guiltie, I 
 will not purge you : but I meant of Inchaffrey there, 
 beside you." The King sayeth to Mr. Edward, " That 
 is Judas' questioun, ' Is it I, Maister ? ' " whereat 
 was muche laughter.' 
 
 The forfeiture of the lords was agreed to, all but 
 unanimously. But it was easier to pronounce this 
 sentence than to execute it. Huntly, the chief traitor, 
 defied the Government from his stronghold in the 
 North, where he was all-powerful. The Crown had no 
 standing army, and depended in military undertakings 
 on the great feudal lords, one of the greatest of whom, 
 Argyle, the potentate of the West Highlands, was ready 
 to take the field against his rival, Huntly, in the North.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 81 
 
 He invaded the Gordon district with a strong force, 
 but was beaten by Huntly at Glenlivet. The Crown 
 then raised an army of its own, by proclamation, and 
 the King marched north with the force, accompanied 
 on his own command by the two Melvilles, that their 
 presence might be a pledge to the country of his sin- 
 cerity and zeal in the business. On the army reaching 
 Aberdeen, it was found that Huntly and his friends had 
 again fled to Caithness, and it was resolved to go on to 
 the district of the rebels and demolish their strongholds. 
 The weather was so severe, however, that the army 
 could not move out of Aberdeen for a whole month ; 
 and by that time all the money the King had in hand 
 for the expense of the war was exhausted, and it became 
 necessary to raise more. The means he took to do 
 this showed his estimate of the ministers' hold on the 
 country. He sent James Melville south to enlist their 
 services in procuring the money, and with him a letter 
 in his own hand to the ministers of Edinburgh, whom he 
 addressed as his ' trusty friends,' in which he made a 
 fervent appeal to them to rouse the burgesses to do 
 their duty in the matter, and declared that, rather than 
 that there should be any miscarriage of justice, he 
 would ' give crown, life, and all else God had put into 
 his hands.' 
 
 The King's message had been no sooner despatched 
 than a difference of opinion arose among his advisers 
 as to the course to be pursued with the rebels. A 
 majority was in favour of taking no further action, 
 while Melville vehemently urged that the army should 
 
 F
 
 8a FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 advance into Huntly's territory and overthrow his chiet 
 stronghold, the castle of Strathbogie. The King 
 could better afford to differ from the Council than from 
 Melville, whose advice he adopted and at once put into 
 execution ; and when the rebels heard of the destruction 
 of Strathbogie, they believed that at last the King was 
 serious in the business, and Huntly and his friends 
 fled from the country in despair. 
 
 This expedition took place in the fall of 1594. 
 Before another year was over the King's attitude 
 towards the Church was again hostile, or rather, his 
 latent hostility began to be again evident and active. 
 The removal from the Court of the Chancellor about 
 this time, through an illness of which he soon died, 
 so far accounts for the King's relapse in his relations 
 with the ministers, as for some time Maitland's 
 influence had been used in encouraging him to 
 cultivate their friendship. 
 
 In 1595, the King incurred one of those periodic ex- 
 plosions of Melville's indignation, which were provoked 
 by his own incurable distrust of the ministers, and his 
 persistent effort to deprive them of liberty of speech in 
 the pulpit. Mr. David Black of St. Andrews, one of 
 the most zealous and honoured ministers of the Church, 
 had made an enemy of Balfour of Burley, who has 
 already been referred to in connection with outrages 
 on citizens of St. Andrews. In revenge, Balfour raised 
 calumnious charges against Black of disloyal utterances 
 in the pulpit, and got them conveyed, through acquaint- 
 ances among the courtiers, to the King's ears ; Melville,
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 83 
 
 as his friend, and as having been the means of bringing 
 him to the city, being also reported to the King as 
 involved in his offences. The two were summoned to 
 appear before the King and Council at Falkland to 
 answer the accusations that had been made against 
 them. While Black and his accusers were being 
 heard, Melville, who had not been called, and who was 
 determined that he would see justice done to his 
 friend, knocking at the door, burst into the Council 
 Chamber, 'and efter humble reverence done to the 
 King, he braks out with grait libertie of speitche, 
 letting the King planlie to knaw, that quhilk dyvers 
 tymes befor, with small lyking, he haid tooned in his ear, 
 "Thait thair was twa Kings in Scotland, twa King- 
 domes, and twa Jurisdictiones : Thir was Chryst 
 Jesus, etc. : And gif the King of Scotland, civill King 
 James the Saxt, haid anie judicator or cause thair, 
 presentlie, it sould nocht be to judge the fathfull 
 messanger of Jesus Chryst, the King, etc., bot (turning 
 him to the Lard of Burley, standing there) this trator, 
 wha hes committed divers poinets of hie treasone 
 against his Majestie's civill lawes, to his grait dishonour 
 and offence of his guid subjects, namlie, taking of his 
 peacable subjects on the night out of thair housses, 
 ravishing of weimen, and receating within his hous of 
 the King's rebels and forfault enemies ! " 
 
 'With this, Burley falles down on his knees to the 
 King, and craves justice. "Justice!" sayes Mr. 
 Andro, "wald to God yow haid it! Yow wald nocht 
 be heir to bring a judgment from Chryst upon the
 
 84 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 King, and thus falslie and unjustlie to vex and accuse 
 the fathfull servants of God ! " The King began, with 
 sum countenances and speitches, to command silence 
 and dashe him ; hot he, insurging with graitter bauld- 
 nes and force of langage, buir out the mater sa, that 
 the King was fean to tak it upe betwix tham with 
 gentill termes and mirrie talk; saying, "They war 
 bathe litle men, and thair hart was at thair mouthe ! " ' 
 Melville's boldness stopped the proceedings, and there 
 and then the trial took end. 
 
 We have now reached a period, 1596, just midway 
 between the Reformation and the Covenant, when the 
 Crown resumed its openly hostile policy towards the 
 Church, laying upon her once more the heavy hand of 
 oppression. From this date it pursued its object the 
 introduction of Episcopacy more energetically than 
 before. For the first decade of the renewed struggle it 
 was strenuously opposed by the leaders of the Assembly; 
 but thereafter, when the leaders had been silenced 
 or banished, there was a free course for tyranny, and 
 during the next fifty years the fortunes of the Church 
 suffered an eclipse. To see the emergence we have to 
 look ahead to 1632-1638, the period of the Covenant 
 and the Glasgow Assembly, when there came that 
 revival of the spirit of the Church which prepared her 
 for her ultimate conflict and hard -won victory in 
 1688. 
 
 The cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, had already 
 appeared on the horizon in the changed attitude of the 
 King, which we have just noted ; but there was no one
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 85 
 
 able to foresee the storm it portended, which was to 
 rage so long and so cruelly before the sky cleared 
 again. 
 
 James Melville speaks of 1596 as to be 'markitt for 
 a special perriodic and fatall yeir to the Kirk of Scot- 
 land,' and he enters on his narrative of it 'with a 
 sorrowful heart and drouping eyes,' so 'doolful' was 
 the decay it ushered in. The declension is not to be 
 wondered at; for where has a Church been found in 
 which such prolonged oppression as the Scottish Church 
 had been subjected to, did not weary the patience and 
 damp the zeal of all but the most resolved members 
 of its Communion ? Had we been present at one of 
 the diets of the Assembly, held in March of this 
 'fatall' year, we should have witnessed a scene which 
 might have been taken as an augury of good to the 
 Church, rather than of evil. It was a day set apart 
 for humiliation and the renewal of the Covenant, and 
 no day had been seen like it, since the Reformation, 
 in the spiritual fervour which was evoked. The ex- 
 hortations of the preacher drew forth such sighs and 
 sobs and weeping, that the House was turned into 
 a Bochim; and when those present were asked to 
 signify their entrance into a new covenant with God, 
 the congregation rose en masse and held up their 
 hands. Similar scenes took place in the Synods and 
 Presbyteries to which the movement extended. ' I 
 am certaine,' says James Melville, ' by the experience 
 found in my selff and maney others present in these 
 meittinges, that the Assemblies of the saintes in Scotland
 
 86 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 wes nevir more beautiful and gloriouse by the manifold 
 and mightie graces of the presence of the Holy Spirit.' 
 
 This devotional diet of the Assembly was held as 
 the prelude to a work of reformation in religion and 
 morals on which the Church had set its heart, and 
 which, beginning with the ministry, was to be sought 
 also in the Parliament, in the Court, in the seats of 
 justice, in every household, in all ranks and classes, 
 from the King to the meanest of his subjects, to those 
 who were in the highways and hedges, to the ' pypers, 
 fidlers, songsters, sorners, peasants, and beggars.' It 
 was an exhaustive programme ; and the ministers 
 gave undeniable proofs of their sincerity by setting 
 themselves to put their own house in order, and 
 drawing up ordinances for sifting their own ranks 
 and 'rypping' out their own ways. The scheme, as 
 it applied to others, was too much of the nature of 
 a magisterial inquisition for sin to do credit to its pro- 
 moters' wisdom, if the ends they sought did honour to 
 their hearts. No doubt, the condition of the country 
 was such as to distress every good citizen and to make 
 any remedy welcome. There was clamant need for 
 reform in every department of the State. The adminis- 
 tration of justice was, by its corruption and its ineffec- 
 tiveness in the punishment of crime, a disgrace to the 
 country. These were matters of public scandal, calling 
 clearly for public agitation and reform ; but in matters 
 of private and domestic life the ministers should have 
 been content with exhortation and example as their 
 means of reformation. A moral police proved then as
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 87 
 
 intolerable and ineffectual as it must always be. Our 
 concern is to vindicate, not the absolute wisdom of 
 Melville and the other ministers of that day, but their 
 thoroughgoing and disinterested zeal for the purity 
 and godliness of their nation, of which this scheme of 
 reform is a signal proof. 
 
 The movement of the Assembly was soon checked 
 by fresh troubles in the State. It was well known that 
 Philip had never ceased to chafe at the humiliation 
 inflicted on him by the disastrous end of the Armada, 
 and that he was burning for revenge. In January of 
 this year James had issued a Proclamation in which 
 he declared that the ambition of the King of Spain to 
 make conquest of the Crown and Kingdom of England 
 was manifest to all who had the least 'spunk of under- 
 standing ' ; that to have such a neighbour settled on the 
 borders of Scotland would be attended with the eminent 
 hazard of civil and spiritual thraldom ; and that it was 
 therefore necessary to unite all their force and concur 
 with England in the defence of their ancient liberties 
 and in preserving the isle from the tyranny of strangers. 
 At the Assembly last held the King had been present, 
 and had urged that contributions should be made from 
 the whole realm for this purpose, when Melville rose 
 and told him, with his usual plainness of speech, that if 
 the estates of the Popish lords were applied, as they 
 should be, to the defence of the country, no contribu- 
 tions would be needed from the people. 
 
 We can imagine the shock of alarm with which in 
 these circumstances the nation heard that the Earl of
 
 88 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Huntly and his associates had returned to Scotland, 
 and the rising exasperation as it became evident that 
 the King was disposed to let them settle down peaceably. 
 Who could fathom the mind or trust the intentions of 
 a King who roused the nation to resist Philip, while 
 he at the same time harboured the faction that was 
 prepared, when Philip appeared, to give him welcome ? 
 
 A change had recently taken place in the personnel 
 of the Government that did not tend to allay the appre- 
 hensions which the return of the rebel lords awakened 
 in the country. A Commission of eight had been 
 appointed to manage the King's private property and 
 the Crown estates; but though nominally only a 
 Finance Committee, 'the Octavians,' as they were 
 called, soon got the reins of government into their 
 hands; and of this new Cabinet, 'one-half . . . war 
 suspecte Papists, and the rest little better.' 
 
 In August 1596 the Estates were summoned to 
 meet in Falkland and consult what was to be done 
 with the Popish lords. From the manner in which 
 the meeting was called, it was evident that the King 
 and his ministers had resolved to condone the crimes 
 of Huntly and his allies, and to restore them to their 
 honours and estates. The summons was confined to 
 those members who were friendly to the lords, and 
 to such of the ministers of the Church as might 
 be expected to yield to the wishes of the Court. 
 Melville, however, appeared with a commission from 
 the Church which gave him authority to watch over 
 its interests on all occasions on which they might be
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 89 
 
 in danger. When the King, before the sitting had 
 begun, demanded the reason of his presence, and 
 bade him go home, Melville answered that he must 
 first discharge the commission intrusted to him by 
 God and the Church. The session having opened, 
 the King ordered that the members should take 
 their seats as their names were called from the list. 
 Melville, without his name being called, was among 
 the first to enter, when the King's challenge gave 
 him the opportunity he sought of delivering his soul : 
 1 Sir, I have a calling to com heir be Chryst Jesus the 
 King, and his Kirk, wha hes speciall entres in this 
 tourn, 1 and against quhilks directlie this Conventioun 
 is mett ; charging yow and your Esteattes in his nam, 
 and of his Kirk, that yie favour nocht his enemies whom 
 he hattes, nor go nocht about to call hame and mak 
 citiciners, these that has traterouslie sought to betrey 
 thair citie and native countrey to the crewall Spain- 
 yard, with the overthrow of Chryst's Kingdome, fra the 
 quhilk they have bein thairfor maist justlie cutt of as 
 rotten members; certifeing, if they sould do in the 
 contrair, they sould feill the dint of the wrathe of that 
 King and his Esteattes ! ' On the King interrupting 
 him and commanding him to go out, Melville obeyed, 
 thanking God that 'they haid knawin his mynd and 
 gottin his message dischargit.' 
 
 The business at this meeting of the Estates was all 
 'chewed meit.' The Resolutions were prepared by 
 the King for a House packed with his nominees, and 
 
 1 Interest in this business.
 
 90 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 it was agreed to license the return of the lords and to 
 receive their submission. 
 
 In September the Commission of Assembly met at 
 Cupar and appointed a deputation, consisting of the 
 two Melvilles and other two ministers, to lay before 
 the King their complaint regarding the decision of the 
 Parliament, and to crave him to prevent it being carried 
 into effect. The interview between Andrew Melville, 
 the spokesman of the deputation, and King James 
 at Falkland Palace is an event of which the memory 
 will live in Scotland as long as it is a nation, and which 
 ranks in moral dignity and dramatic interest with the 
 greatest scenes in history. When did a subject ever 
 use a manlier freedom with his Sovereign? When 
 did mere titular kingship more plainly shrink into 
 insignificance in presence of the moral majesty vested 
 in the spirit of a true man ? No writer can afford to 
 describe the scene in other words than those of James 
 Melville : 
 
 ' Mr. Andro Melvill, Patrik Galloway, James Nicolsone, 
 and I, cam to Falkland, whar we fand the King verie 
 quyet. The rest leyed upon me to be speaker, alleaging 
 I could propone the mater substantiuslie, and in a myld 
 and smothe maner, quhilk the King lyked best of. And, 
 entering in the Cabinet with the King alan, I schew his 
 Majestic, That the Commissionars of the Generall Assem- 
 blie, with certean uther breithring ordeanit to watche 
 for the weill of the Kirk in sa dangerous a tym, haid 
 convenit at Cowper. At the quhilk word the King 
 interrupts me and crabbotlie quarrels our meitting, 
 alleaging it was without warrand and seditius, making 
 our selves and the countrey to conceave feir whar was na 
 cause. To the quhilk, I beginning to reply, in my maner,
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 91 
 
 Mr. Andro doucht nocht abyd it, hot brak af upon the 
 King in sa zealus, powerful!, and unresistable a maner, 
 that whowbeit the King used his authoritie in maist 
 crabbit and colerik maner, yit Mr. Andro bure him down, 
 and outtered the Commission as from the mightie God, 
 calling the King bot " God's sillie vassall" ; and, taking 
 him be the sleive, sayes this in effect, throw mikle hat 
 reasoning and manie interruptiones : " Sir, we will 
 humblie reverence your Majestic alwayes, namlie in 
 publick, but sen we have this occasioun to be with your 
 Majestie in privat, and the treuthe is yie ar brought in 
 extream danger bathe of your lyffand croun, and with yow 
 the countrey and Kirk of Chryst is lyk to wrak, for nocht 
 telling yow the treuthe, and giffen of yow a fathfull 
 counsall, we mon discharge our dewtie thairin, or els be 
 trators bathe to Chryst and yow ! And, thairfor, sir, as 
 divers tymes befor, sa now again, I mon tell yow, thair 
 is twa Kings and twa kingdomes in Scotland. Thair is 
 Chryst Jesus the King, and his kingdome the Kirk, whase j 
 subject King James the Saxt is, and of whase kingdome . 
 nocht a king nor a lord, nor a heid, bot a member ! 
 . . . And, Sir, when yie war in your swadling-cloutes, 
 Chryst Jesus rang 1 friely in this land in spyt of all his 
 enemies." ' 
 
 The King bent before the tempest of Melville's 
 indignation, and the storm ended in calm : the depu- 
 tation was dismissed with the promise that the Popish 
 lords would 'get no grace at his hands till they satisfied 
 the Kirk.' 
 
 The ministers had learned what value to attach to 
 the royal word, so that they cannot have been greatly 
 surprised when soon afterwards James showed his 
 intention not only to indemnify the excommunicated 
 lords, but to restore them to favour at Court. At 
 1 Reigned.
 
 92 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 this time Huntly's Countess received a special mark 
 of the King's favour in being invited to the baptismal 
 ceremony of his daughter Elizabeth, and at the same 
 time another Popish lady was put in custody of the 
 Princess at the Court. 
 
 The ultimate issue of this matter, which was soon 
 involved in another and greater controversy between 
 the Crown and the Church, was that the Popish lords, 
 after a formal submission to the Courts of the Church, 
 were absolved from their excommunication and re- 
 stored to their former positions. No one believed 
 that there was any sincerity in the transaction either 
 on the part of Huntly and his friends, or of the King 
 and Council, or of the majority of the Assembly : 
 the whole business was concocted and pushed through 
 by the Crown for its own ends, with as much of the 
 semblance of concession to the Church as possible, 
 and as little of the reality. The action of the Court 
 throughout the whole case was such as to breed the 
 greatest suspicion of the King's honesty in professing 
 zeal for the defence of the country from the dangers 
 threatened by Popish intrigues at home and abroad. 
 Even Burton, whom no one will suspect of partiality 
 to the Church, and whose animus against the ministers 
 often overcomes his historic judgment, in writing of what 
 he calls the ' edifying ceremony ' of the absolution of the 
 lords, says : 'It must be conceded to their enemies that 
 it was a solemn farce ; and whatever there might be in 
 words or the surface of things, there would be, when 
 these Earls were restored, a power in the North ready 
 to co-operate with any Spanish invader.'
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE KING'S GREEK GIFT TO THE CHURCH 
 
 1 The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, 
 but war was in his heart. 1 
 
 The Psalms. 
 
 IN 1596, at one of the many conferences which he 
 held with the Commissioners of the Church on the 
 business with which our last chapter was concerned, 
 the King disclosed a new policy. For the double 
 purpose of diverting public attention from the Popish 
 lords, and of starting a new process for the overthrow 
 of Presbytery, he cast off all disguise and threw down 
 the gauntlet to the ministers. He told the Commis- 
 sioners that the question of the redding of the marches 
 between the two jurisdictions must be reopened, and 
 that there could be no peace between him and the 
 Church until it satisfied him on these four points : 
 that ministers should make no reference in the pulpit 
 to affairs of government ; that the Courts of the Church 
 should take no cognisance of offences against the law 
 of the land ; that the General Assembly should only 
 meet by the King's special command; and that the 
 Acts of the Assembly should, no more than the 
 
 93
 
 94 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 statutes of the realm, be held valid till they received 
 his sanction and ratification. 
 
 Had these demands been granted, the liberties of 
 the Church would have been placed under the King's 
 feet, the ministers would have worn a Court muzzle, 
 and the Assembly would have sat only to register the 
 King's decrees. With the pulpits silenced in regard 
 to affairs of government and offences against the law, 
 the country would have been deprived of the only 
 organ of public opinion that checked the arbitrary 
 power of the Crown and the prevailing laxity in the 
 administration of justice. Had it not been for words 
 of 'venturesome edge' spoken from the pulpits on 
 necessary occasions, we cannot estimate how the 
 liberties of Scotland would have suffered. We are 
 told by some dispassionate and carefully balanced 
 readers of Scottish History that the Presbyterian 
 Reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 cared no more for liberty than did their opponents, 
 and that the controversy was between Presbyterian 
 tyranny on the one hand and Episcopal tyranny on 
 the other; and, of course, it is to be allowed that 
 individual liberty was neither claimed nor admitted 
 by any party in that age, as it is by all parties in ours. 
 But the Presbyterian Church was the nation in a sense 
 which held true of no other organisation civil or 
 ecclesiastical certainly not of the aristocratic Parlia- 
 ment, and its courts and pulpits were the voice of 
 the nation the only articulate voice it had; so 
 that in pleading for the rights and liberties of the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 95 
 
 Church, in demanding for it free speech and effective 
 influence in the nation's affairs, Melville and the 
 Presbyterians were, from first to last, fighting for the 
 rights and liberties of the people against the personal 
 and injurious ambitions of the King and his courtiers. 
 There can be no really historical understanding of the 
 course of events in Scotland through the whole 
 Reforming period except in the light of this truth 
 that the interests of Presbytery were dear to the best 
 men in the country, from generation to generation, 
 because they were the interests both of national 
 righteousness and of national freedom. That the 
 Church should be free to reform the nation, meant, 
 practically, and in the only way possible, that the 
 nation should be free to reform itself. Knox, Melville, 
 and the Covenanters were the nobler sons of Wallace 
 and Bruce, and fought out their battles. And this 
 contest with James was a crucial illustration of the 
 principles involved in the whole long struggle. 
 
 On the very day the Commissioners were conferring 
 with the King, it came out that Mr. David Black, 
 minister of St. Andrews, had been summoned before 
 the Council on a charge rising out of sermons he had 
 preached. Black was accused, in the first instance, of 
 having used language disrespectful to Queen Elizabeth. 
 Bowes, the English Ambassador, had been wrought 
 upon by one of the courtiers to make a complaint 
 against Black on this score ; and although the latter 
 had made an explanation with which the Ambassador 
 professed himself satisfied, the charge was persisted in.
 
 96 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Black was further accused of having, on various 
 occasions, made offensive references to the King and 
 the Queen, and to others of high position in the land. 
 The charges were based on sermons spread over two 
 or three years, a circumstance which of itself suggests 
 that the prosecution had been got up for ulterior 
 government purposes ; that it was a 'forged cavillation,' 
 as Bruce called it in his pulpit in Edinburgh. 
 
 Black denied all the charges, and declared that they 
 had been concocted by well-known private enemies. 
 When the Council resolved to go on with the prose- 
 cution, Black, on the advice of the Commissioners 
 of the Church, declined its jurisdiction. The Council 
 went on with the trial Black taking no part in it, 
 found the charges proven, and sentenced him to go 
 into ward beyond the North Water (the North Esk). 
 The same week, the Commissioners of Assembly who 
 had come to Edinburgh to watch the trial were 
 ordered to quit the capital, along with many of their 
 leading supporters among the citizens, within twenty- 
 four hours ; and a Proclamation was issued containing 
 a vehement attack on the ministers, and reviving one 
 of the provisions of the Black Acts, which prohibited all 
 preachers from censuring the conduct of the Govern- 
 ment or any of ' the loveabill (!) ' Acts of Parliament, 
 required all magistrates to take measures against any 
 who should be found so doing, and made it a crime 
 to hear such speeches without reporting them to the 
 authorities. This Proclamation left the country in no 
 doubt as to the character of the King's policy towards
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 97 
 
 the Church; for never had even James asserted his 
 claims to absolute authority, alike in civil and ecclesias- 
 tical affairs, more arrogantly. It declared that the royal 
 power was above all the estates, spiritual as well as 
 temporal ; and that the King was judge of speeches of 
 whatever quality, uttered in the pulpit. 
 
 The citizens of Edinburgh were naturally thrown 
 into violent commotion by these events ; and when 
 their minds were in this inflammable condition, an 
 incident occurred which brought the public excitement 
 to its height, and which the Government turned to its 
 own account in prosecuting its quarrel with the Church 
 with still greater vigour. This incident is known as 
 'the Riot of i?th December' (1596). On that day a 
 number of the ministers and of the nobles who were in 
 sympathy with them, were assembled for consultation in 
 one of the chapels of St. Giles', known as the ' Little 
 Church,' when they were startled by some one near 
 the door raising the shout, 'Fy! save yourselves,' or, 
 as another version gives it, ' The Papists are in arms 
 to take the town and cut all your throats.' The 
 Assembly at once broke up, and all made for the street. 
 The alarm spread through the city, and soon brought 
 the people in crowds to the High Street, many of them 
 armed; and it is said that some of them surrounded 
 the Tolbooth, where the King was sitting at the time 
 with the Council, crying to 'bring out Haman,' and 
 shouting, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.' 
 On hearing of the tumult, the Provost and the ministers 
 of the city made for the scene, and through their 
 
 G
 
 98 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 exertions peace was restored within an hour, and 
 without any one being hurt. 
 
 The man who raised the panic in the ' Little Church ' 
 never came to be known; but it was believed that 
 he was one of the ' Cubiculars ' (as they were called), 
 or gentlemen of the King's bedchamber, who were 
 annoyed at the Octavians, on account of the retrench- 
 ments made in the King's household expenditure; 
 and that this ruse had been devised for the purpose 
 of fomenting the differences between the Octavians 
 and the ministers. 
 
 The action taken by the Court in connection with 
 the riot would have been ridiculous had its con- 
 sequences for the Church not been so serious. Next 
 day the King removed the Court to Linlithgow, and a 
 Proclamation was made at the Cross of Edinburgh 
 announcing that, owing to the ' treasonable ' arming of 
 the citizens, the Courts of Law would also be removed 
 from the city, and ordering the four ministers and 
 several prominent citizens of Edinburgh into ward in 
 the Castle, and citing them before the Council on a 
 general charge. The ministers fled, as Melville and 
 others had done in like circumstances twelve years 
 before. 
 
 In January 1597 the King returned to the capital, 
 and the Estates were called together to confirm the 
 Acts passed by the Council for punishing all whom it 
 chose to hold in blame for the riot of the previous 
 month. In accordance with these Acts, all ministers 
 were to be required, on pain of losing their stipends, to
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 99 
 
 subscribe a bond acknowledging the King to be the 
 only judge of those charged with using treasonable 
 language in the pulpit ; authorising magistrates to 
 apprehend any preachers who might be found so 
 doing, and declaring the King to have the power of 
 discharging ministers at his pleasure. Vindictive Acts 
 against the city of Edinburgh were also confirmed. 
 Henceforth no General Assembly was to be held 
 within its walls ; the seat of the Presbytery was to be 
 transferred to Musselburgh or Dalkeith ; the manses of 
 the city ministers were to be forfeit to the Crown ; these 
 ministers were not to be readmitted to their pulpits, 
 nor any others chosen in their places without his 
 Majesty's consent ; and no magistrates, any more than 
 ministers, were to be appointed without the royal 
 approval. 
 
 At the same meeting of the Estates, arrangements 
 were made for the restoration of the Popish lords. 
 The contrast between the King's leniency towards them, 
 and his rigorous and vindictive measures towards the 
 ministers, plainly advertised the disposition of the King 
 to both. Well might Robert Bruce ask in one of his 
 sermons ' What sail the religius of both countries 
 think of this? Is this the moyen to advance the 
 Prince's grandeur and to turne the hearts of the 
 people towards his Hienesse?' Spirited protests 
 were made by the Commissioners of the Church; 
 they did not mince their language ' We deteast that 
 Act . . . making the King head of the Kirk ... as 
 High Treason and sacriledge against Christ the onlie
 
 ioo FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 King and Head of the Kirk.' The magistrates did 
 not show the same mettle, but made submission on 
 all the points required. 
 
 Emboldened by the effect of these measures, the 
 King lost no time in pressing forward his designs 
 against the Church. His next step was to issue a 
 state paper containing a long series of questions which 
 should reopen discussion on the established policy, and 
 convening a meeting of the representatives of the 
 Church and of the Estates for the purpose of debating 
 and deciding on these questions. The ministers at 
 once began preparations for the struggle; and it was 
 Melville's Synod always the Church's pilot in the 
 storm that once more took the lead. It appointed 
 Commissioners to urge the King to abandon the pro- 
 posed Convention, and to refer the business to a 
 regular meeting of Assembly. Should the King 
 refuse this request, the Commissioners were not to ac- 
 knowledge the Convention as a lawful meeting of 
 the Assembly, nor to admit its claim to enter on the 
 Constitution of the Church. In any private discussion 
 they were strenuously to oppose any movement on the 
 part of the King to disturb the existing order. 
 
 The Convention met in Perth on the last day of 
 February 1597. In anticipation, the King, knowing 
 well the determined opposition he would encounter 
 at the hands of those ministers who regularly attended 
 the Assembly and took part in its business, had de- 
 spatched one of his courtiers, Sir Patrick Murray, to do 
 the part of ' Whip ' among the ministers north of the Tay,
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 101 
 
 and so to pack the Assembly with members who rarely 
 attended it, who were unaccustomed to its business, and 
 who were more likely to be facile for the King's pur- 
 poses than their brethren in the south. Murray ' the 
 Apostle of the North,' as he was sarcastically called 
 brought the Highland ministers down in droves, 
 poisoned their minds with jealousy of the southern 
 ministers, and flattered them with the assurance of the 
 King's esteem. 
 
 After a debate, lasting for three days, the majority 
 agreed to hold the Convention as a meeting of the 
 Assembly. Thereafter the King's questions were 
 entered upon, and so far discussed, when the business 
 was adjourned to another meeting to be held in 
 Dundee. In agreeing to recognise the Convention 
 as an Assembly, and to open up the subject of its own 
 constitution, the Church came down from its only safe 
 position, and virtually delivered itself into the King's 
 hands, thereby inflicting a wound on its own liberties, 
 from which it took a whole century to recover. That 
 surrender was the letting in of waters, and henceforth 
 the Assemblies were the organ of the Crown rather 
 than of the Church 'Whar Chryst gydit befor, the 
 Court began then to govern all ; whar pretching befor 
 prevalit, then polecie tuk the place ; and, finalie, whar 
 devotioun and halie behaviour honoured the Minister, 
 then began pranking at the chare, and prattling in the 
 ear of the Prince, to mak the Minister to think him 
 selff a man of estimatioun ! . . . The end of the 
 Assemblies of auld was, whow Chryst's Kingdome
 
 io2 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 might stand in halines and friedome : now, it is 
 whow Kirk and Relligioun may be framed to the 
 polytic esteat of a frie Monarchic, and to advance 
 and promot the grandeur of man, and supream 
 absolut authoritie in all causes, and over all persones, 
 alsweill Ecclesiasticall as Civill.' 
 
 The Dundee Assembly met in May; again the 
 northern ministers were present in force ; and again 
 every means the Court could contrive was used to win 
 over the members, and especially those of mark among 
 them. Melville came to attend the Assembly ; and one 
 evening before it met, Sir Patrick Murray sent for the 
 younger Melville, and urged him to advise his uncle to 
 go home, as, if he did not, the King would order him to 
 be removed. On receiving the answer that it would be 
 useless to give Melville such advice, since the threat of 
 death would not turn him from his duty, Sir Patrick re- 
 joined, ' Surely I fear he suffer the dint of the King's 
 wrath.' James Melville told his uncle of the interview 
 with the King's ' Whip.' What his uncle's answer was, 
 'I need not wraite,' he says. On the morning of the 
 Assembly the Melvilles were summoned by the King. 
 The interview went on smoothly till they entered on 
 the business for which the Assembly was called, when 
 'Mr. Andro brak out with his wounted humor of 
 fredome and zeall and ther they heeled on, till all 
 the hous, and clos bathe, hard mikle of a large houre.' 
 Melville was much too stormy a courtier for the King's 
 purposes. 
 
 At the Dundee Assembly, the transactions at the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 103 
 
 Perth Convention were confirmed; and thereafter a 
 new proposal was made by the King and carried, which 
 was fraught with evil for the Church. This was the 
 appointment of an extraordinary standing Commission 
 to confer with the King on the Church's affairs a 
 Commission which came to be a kind of King's Council 
 set up in the Assembly. Calderwood speaks of it as 
 the King's ' led horse,' and James Melville calls it ' the 
 very neidle to draw in the Episcopall threid.' 
 
 Armed with his new provisions, the King immediately 
 began to use them with energy. Edinburgh and St. 
 Andrews were the strongholds of the Church, where 
 the Invincibles in its ministry were chiefly found. The 
 ministers of the former had already been disposed of, 
 and the King's next move was directed against those 
 of the latter above all, against Melville, the chief In- 
 vincible. The two leading ministers of St. Andrews, 
 Black and Wallace, were discharged; George Gled- 
 stanes, who afterwards became a Bishop, being ap- 
 pointed in Black's place ; and Melville was deprived of 
 the Rectorship of the University. At the same time, 
 a law was enacted depriving professors of their seats 
 in Church Courts, the object being, of course, to 
 exclude Melville, whose influence in the Courts was 
 so commanding. 
 
 At the end of this year another step was taken 
 towards the re-erection of Episcopacy. The Commis- 
 sioners of Assembly, who were now mere creatures of 
 the King, appeared before Parliament, petitioning it to 
 give the Church the right of representation, so as to
 
 104 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 restore it to its former position as the Third Estate of 
 the realm ; proposing also, that for this end the prelatic 
 order should be revived, and the Bishops chosen as 
 the Church's representatives. The jurisdiction of the 
 prelates within the Church was to be left over for 
 future consideration, in accordance with James's policy, 
 which was not to filch so much of the Church's liberty 
 at any one time as might frustrate his hope of taking 
 it all away in the end. The petition of the Commis- 
 sioners was granted by the Parliament. 
 
 In February of the following year, 1598, the Synod 
 of Fife met, Sir Patrick Murray being present as the 
 King's Commissioner ; and the Court at once entered 
 on the question of the hour, Should the Church agree 
 to send representatives to Parliament ? James Melville, 
 who was the first to rise and address the House, pro- 
 tested against their falling to work to 'big up' bishops, 
 whom all their days they had been 'dinging doun.' 
 Andrew Melville followed, and supported his nephew's 
 counsel in his own vehement manner. David Ferguson, 
 the oldest minister of the Church, who had been at 
 its planting in 1560, rose and warned the House of 
 the fatal gift that was offered by the King. John 
 Davidson, another venerable and influential member 
 of the Synod, made a powerful speech, concluding with 
 the same warning : ' Busk, busk, busk him as bonnilie 
 " as ye can, and fetche him in als fearlie as yie will, we 
 sie him weill aneuche, we sie the horns of his mytre.' 
 When the Synod met, the majority were inclined to 
 favour the proposal ; but these speeches, greatly to the
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 105 
 
 chagrin of the Royal Commissioner, turned the feeling 
 of the House. 
 
 The same business occupied the next Assembly, 
 which met in Dundee in March. Melville having 
 come to the Assembly in defiance of the recent Act 
 depriving him of his seat, the King challenged his 
 commission in the Court. Melville replied with great 
 spirit ; and before he was discharged, delivered his views 
 on the King's policy. John Davidson boldly defended 
 his leader's right to sit in the Assembly, and, turning to 
 the King, told him that he had his seat there as a Chris- 
 tian man, and not as President of the Court. Next day 
 Davidson complained again of the treatment Melville 
 had received, openly ascribing it to the King's fear of 
 his opposition. ' I will not hear a word on that head,' 
 James burst forth. 'Then,' said Davidson, 'we must 
 crave help of Him that will hear us.' Not only was 
 Melville excluded from the Assembly, but its business 
 was not allowed to proceed till he left the town, lest 
 he should stiffen the brethren who resorted to him 
 for advice against the King's proposals. The royal 
 measures were, after all, only carried by ten votes ; and 
 even that majority would not have been secured had 
 the King not declared, with his usual disingenuousness, 
 that he had no intention of restoring the bishops as 
 a spiritual order, but only as representatives of the 
 Church in Parliament. 
 
 It was decided that the number of representatives 
 should correspond with that of the old prelates, and 
 that they should be chosen conjointly by the
 
 io6 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 King and the Assembly. When, however, the 
 House proceeded to details, so much difference of 
 opinion arose, that the King thought it prudent to 
 adjourn. The questions were referred to the inferior 
 Courts for their consideration, and thereafter each Synod 
 was to appoint three commissioners to confer on the 
 subject before the King along with all the theological 
 professors. 
 
 This conference was held, and was packed with the 
 King's men. In many cases the delegates were not 
 the choice of those they represented. The trick by 
 which this was effected was in keeping with the rest of 
 the King's conduct in the business. In many of the 
 presbyteries the Invincibles were placed upon the leets 
 from which the commissioners were to be elected ; 
 they thus lost their votes, and those who remained to 
 make the choice chose the delegates desired by the 
 King. 
 
 Melville attended the conference, and opposed the 
 King at every point. On the question of the duration 
 of the office of the representatives, there was a very 
 lively piece of repartee between the two. Melville had 
 been contending that the King's proposal to appoint 
 the representatives for life would establish lordship over 
 the brethren, 'tyme strynthning opinioun and custome 
 confirming conceat,' when the King broke in upon his 
 speech with the remark that 'there was na thing sa 
 guid bot might be bathe ill suspected and abbusit, and 
 sa we suld be content with na thing.' Melville retorted 
 that they ' doubted of the guidness, and had ower just
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 107 
 
 cause to suspect the evill of it.' The King's next 
 thrust was : ' There was na fault bot we [the ministers] 
 war all trew aneuche to the craft,' which Melville turned 
 with the remark, 'But God make us all trew aneuche 
 to Christ say we.' 'The ministers,' said the King, 
 ' sould ly in contempt and povertie [if their status was 
 not raised as he proposed]. f lt was their Maister's 
 case before them,' rejoined Melville ; f it may serve them 
 weill aneuche to be as he was, and better povertie with 
 sinceritie nor promotioun with corruptioun.' ' Uthers 
 would be promovit to that room in Parliament,' said 
 the King [his Majesty could not want his three estates], 
 c wha wald opres and wrak his Kirk.' Melville 
 answered : ' Let Chryst the King and advenger of the 
 wrangs done to his Kirk and them deal togidder as he 
 hes done before ; let see wha gettes the warst.' Once 
 more the King argued : ' Men wald be that way [by a 
 temporary appointment] disgraced, now sett upe and 
 now sett by and cast down and sa discouragit from 
 doing guid,' when Melville concluded : ' He that thinks 
 it disgrace to be employed in what God's Kirk thinks 
 guid, hes lytle grace in him ; for grace is given to the 
 lowlie.' 
 
 Another point was the name to be given to the 
 representatives. Arguing against the King's proposal 
 to style them bishops, Melville used great freedom of 
 speech : ' The nam ITTIO-KOTTOS being a Scripture nam, 
 might be giffen tham, provyding, that because ther was 
 sum thing mair put to the mater of a Bischope's office 
 then the Word of God could permit, it sould have a
 
 io8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 lytle eik 1 put to the nam quhilk the Word of God 
 joyned to it, and sa it war best to baptize tham 
 with the nam that Peter i. cap. iv. giffes to sic 
 lyk officers, calling tham dAAoT/nocTrio-KOTrovs, war 
 nocht they wald think scham to be merschallit with 
 sic as Peter speakes of ther, viz., murderers, theiffs, 
 and malefactors ? ' Melville was much pleased with his 
 own wit : ' Verilie that gossop [this was Andro] at the 
 baptisme (gif sa that I dar play with that word) was no 
 a little vokie 2 for getting of the bern's name.' We 
 hardly understand Melville unless we take into account 
 the spirit almost of glee with which he fought 'the 
 good fight ' ; he was { always a fighter,' not purely from 
 stress of circumstances, but because he had it in him ; 
 he was never quarrelsome, and he needed a high issue 
 to rouse him but that given, he sniffed the battle 
 from far, and dearly loved to be in the thick of it. 
 
 The questions were then left to be disposed of by 
 the General Assembly, the King warning the members 
 of the conference before it broke up that, whatever 
 the Assembly might do, he would have his Third Estate 
 restored. 
 
 By this time the country had learned, by the pub- 
 lication of the King's two books The True Law of 
 Free Monarchy and the Basilicon Doron that James's 
 practice in the government of the nation and in 
 his policy towards the Church was in accordance with 
 his theory of kingship. By a ' Free Monarchy ' he 
 meant, not a monarchy in which the people are free, 
 
 1 Addition. 2 Vain.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 109 
 
 but in which the King is free from all control of the 
 people. He claimed that the King was above the law ; 
 and that 'as it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute 
 what God can do, so it is presumption and a high con- 
 tempt in a subject to dispute what a King can do, or to 
 say that a King cannot do this or that.' 
 
 In the Basilicon Doron he unveiled his real feelings 
 and designs with regard to Presbytery, which, at the 
 very time he was writing, he was professing to respect 
 declaring that the ruling of the Kirk was no small 
 part of the King's office ; that parity among the minis- 
 ters could not agree with a monarchy ; that Puritans 
 were pests in the Kirk and commonwealth of Scotland, 
 and that bishops must be set up. 
 
 The General Assembly met in Montrose in March 
 1600; and Melville, who had come to the town to attend 
 it, was commanded by the King to keep to his room. 
 Summoned to his Majesty's presence, he was asked why 
 he was giving trouble in attending the Assembly after 
 the Act depriving him of his seat ; when he replied : 
 ' He had a calling in his Kirk of God and of Jesus 
 Christ, the King of Kings, quhilk he behovit to dis- 
 chairge at all occasiounes, being orderlie callit thereto, 
 as he wes at this time ; and that for feir of a grytter 
 punischment then could any earthly king inflict.' The 
 King in anger uttered a threat, when Melville, putting 
 his hand to his head, said : ' Sir, it is this that ye would 
 haiff. Ye sail haiff it : Tak it ! Tak it ! or ye bereave 
 us of the liberties of Jesus Christ and His kingdome.' 
 
 Excluded from the Assembly, Melville remained in
 
 no FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Montrose during the sittings, to assist his brethren with 
 his counsel. The King was present at every sitting, 
 and was busy from early morning till late at night 
 canvassing the members of the House ; and though 
 there were many who stood honestly by their prin- 
 ciples, his authority and diplomacy carried the day. 
 The House was so far from being favourable to the 
 King's scheme, that it would have thrown it out, but for 
 his arbitrary closure of the debate ; it did throw out the 
 proposal of life representatives ; and it safeguarded the 
 other clauses of the measure with so many caveats, that 
 had they been observed, it could not have served for 
 the restoration of the bishops. These caveats, however, 
 were not observed ; then, as many a time before and 
 since in Scotland, the Church got the worst of the 
 bargain in seeking a compromise with the civil power, 
 and found too late that she had sold her birthright. 
 In less than a month after the Assembly rose, three of 
 the ministers had been appointed to bishoprics, and 
 these ministers took their seats in the next Parliament. 
 We have seen that James, whenever he felt that the 
 tide of hostile opinion in the country was becoming too 
 strong for him, sought to turn it by some popular act. 
 The General Assembly held in Burntisland in May 
 1 60 1 witnessed one of those periodic fits of apparent 
 yielding, on the King's part, to the will of the nation. 
 He was in peculiar disfavour at the time, owing to the 
 mysterious tragedy which took place at Gowrie House 
 in August 1600. There was a widespread, deep- 
 rooted suspicion that the Earl of that name, who was a
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE in 
 
 favourite of the people, and the head of a Protestant 
 house, had been the victim rather than the author of 
 the conspiracy ; and the public irritation was increased 
 by the new quarrel which James forced on Bruce and 
 the other ministers of Edinburgh for refusing to repeat, 
 in the thanksgiving service appointed to be held for his 
 preservation, his own version of the story. At the 
 Burntisland Assembly the King appeared and made 
 humble confession of the shortcomings of his Govern- 
 ment, especially in respect of his indulgence of the 
 Papists, and gave lavish promises of amendment. 
 
 Two years afterwards, before leaving Scotland to 
 ascend the English throne, these promises were 
 renewed ; but, as usual with James, they were only the 
 prelude of greater oppression. His threat to the Puritan 
 ministers at Hampton Court conference that he would 
 ' harry them out of the country ' left their brethren of 
 the Scottish Church in no doubt as to the course he 
 would pursue towards themselves, now that he had 
 attained to a position of so much greater authority. 
 
 The Assembly was the palladium of the Church's 
 liberty ; and the policy which the King had begun before 
 leaving Scotland, of usurping the government of the 
 Church by gaining the control of the Assembly, was 
 vigorously prosecuted after his accession to the throne 
 of England. The meetings were prorogued again and 
 again by royal authority, but always under protest from 
 the most independent of the ministers. For their zeal 
 in promoting a petition to him on the subject, the King 
 ordered the two Melvilles to be imprisoned ; but the
 
 ii2 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Scottish Council dared not lay hands on them in view 
 of the unpopularity of the Government. In the year 
 1605 the quarrel between the King and the ministers 
 over the right of free Assembly came to a head. A 
 meeting appointed to be held in Aberdeen had been 
 prorogued by the King's authority for a second time, 
 and prorogued sine die. The ministers felt that if they 
 acquiesced in so grave a violation of the law of the 
 Church, her liberty would be irrecoverably lost ; several 
 of the Presbyteries accordingly resolved to send repre- 
 sentatives to Aberdeen to hold the Assembly in defiance 
 of the King's prohibition. This was done, and the 
 House had no sooner been constituted than a King's 
 messenger appeared and commanded the members to 
 disperse; whereupon the Moderator dissolved the 
 Assembly and fixed a day for its next meeting. The 
 law-officers of the Crown were immediately instructed to 
 prosecute the ministers who had attended, and fourteen 
 of them were tried and sentenced to imprisonment 
 two of them, Forbes the Moderator and John Welch, 
 Knox's son-in-law, being sent to Blackness. Six of them 
 having declined the jurisdiction of the Council, were 
 tried for high treason by a packed jury, and found 
 guilty by a majority. So great was the indignation felt 
 throughout the country at the prosecution and the man- 
 ner in which it had been conducted, that the Council 
 had to inform the King that the Court could not go 
 on with the trial of the others. Eight of the condemned 
 ministers were banished to the Highlands and Islands ; 
 and the six who had been found guilty of treason were
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 113 
 
 sent to Blackness and then banished to France. In 
 all the proceedings against those who had made such 
 a manly stand in defence of the Church's liberties, 
 Melville identified himself with his brethren, did all / 
 that was in his power to procure their acquittal, and 
 after their sentence visited them in prison. 
 
 The King now took another step in his campaign 
 against Presbytery. He ordered all the synods of the 
 Church to meet, in order to have articles submitted to 
 them which provided that the bishops should have full 
 jurisdiction over the ministers, under his Majesty, and 
 that the King should be acknowledged supreme ruler of 
 the Church under Christ. These articles were rejected 
 by Melville's synod, and referred to the Assembly by 
 the others. A meeting of Parliament was summoned to 
 pass the articles into law, and to this Parliament Mel- 
 ville was sent by his presbytery to watch over the 
 interests of the Church. It having been ascertained 
 that it was the King's intention to propose that the 
 statute of the year 1587, annexing the temporalities of 
 the prelates to the Crown, should be repealed, and that 
 the bishops should be restored to their ancient pre- 
 rogatives and dignities, the ministers lodged a protest / 
 beforehand, with Melville's name at the head of the 
 signatories ; and when the measure came to be adopted 
 by Parliament, and Melville rose up to renew his pro- 
 test, he was commanded to leave the House, ' quhilk 
 nevertheless he did not, till he had maid all that saw 
 and heard him understand his purpose.' Melville 
 seldom failed in any circumstances to make those who 
 H
 
 ii4 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 saw and heard him understand his purpose, and when 
 that was done his end was served. 
 
 Among the writings issued at this time against the 
 King's measure, there was one in which it was said of 
 bishops in general, that ' for one preaching made to the 
 people [they] ryde fourtie posts to court ; and for a 
 thought or word bestowed for the weal of anie soule 
 care an hundreth for their apparrill, their train . . . 
 and goucked gloriosity.' 1 The part taken by the bishops 
 at the opening of this Parliament showed that the new 
 Scottish prelates were likely to verify this indictment 
 against their order. ' The first day of the Ryding in 
 Parliament betwix the Erles and the Lords raid the 
 Bischopes, all in silk and velvet fuit-mantelles, by 
 paires, tuo and tuo, and Saint Androis, the great 
 Metropolitanne, alone by him selff, and ane of the 
 Ministeres of no small quantitie, named Arthur Futhey, 
 with his capp at his knie, walkit at his stirrope alongst 
 the streit. But the second day, for not haiffing 
 their awen place as the Papist Bisschoppis of auld had, 
 unto quhois place and dignitie they wer now restorit 
 fully in judgment, quhilk wes befoir the Erles, nixt eftir 
 the Marquesses, thai would not ryde at all, but went to 
 the House of Parliament quyetlie on fuit. This maid 
 the Nobillmen to take up thair presumeing honour, 
 and detest thame, as soon as they had maid thame and 
 sett thame up, perceiving that thair upelyfting wes thair 
 awin douncasting.' 
 
 The Parliament had restored Episcopacy, but the 
 
 1 Foolish pomp.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 115 
 
 Assembly had not yet wholly succumbed. To secure 
 this end, and so to give to what was entirely his own 
 despotic act the appearance of a change desired by the 
 Church itself, was the King's next aim. And this opens 
 up one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history 
 of James's relations with the Scottish Church.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MELVILLE AT HAMPTON COURT 
 
 ' But who, if he be called upon to face 
 Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 
 Great issues, good or bad, for human kind, 
 Is happy as a lover. ' 
 
 The Happy Warrior. 
 
 A MONTH before the meeting of the Perth Parliament, 
 viz. in May 1606, Melville and his nephew, together 
 with other six ministers, received a letter from the 
 King, commanding them to go to London to confer 
 with him on the affairs of the Church. The letter was 
 very vaguely worded ; but it was apparent that James's 
 purpose was either to secure their capitulation to 
 Episcopacy, or to deprive them of all further oppor- 
 tunity of resisting it. The ministers were much per- 
 plexed as to whether they should go or stay, but at 
 last they decided to face all risks and obey the King's 
 summons. 
 
 On reaching London at the end of August (1606), 
 they got a warm welcome from many ministers in the 
 city who were friendly to their cause. They were 
 offered hospitality by their Graces of Canterbury and 
 York, but they declined a meeting with these prelates till 
 
 116
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 117 
 
 they had seen the King. They soon learned that the 
 King's object in bringing them to London was that 
 they might be set to the public discussion of the 
 affairs of the Church. This the ministers, for many 
 good reasons, were resolved not to do : they could be 
 no parties to any proceedings which brought into 
 question the Church's discipline, and they had no 
 warrant for taking part in such proceedings. With 
 whom were they to hold debate? The English 
 prelates could find within their own Church those 
 who would take them up in regard to the merits of 
 their ecclesiastical system : and the two Scottish arch- 
 bishops who had come to London to be present 
 at the conference between the King and the eight 
 brethren, could not open their moulhs against Presby- -t 
 tery, as the ministers had brought with them docu- 
 ments, in which these prelates had bound themselves 
 to maintain the established constitution of the Presby- 
 terian Church. 
 
 The ministers were nearly a month in London 
 before they met the King, who had been making a , 
 tour in England. The first interview between them 
 took place at Hampton Court on 2oth September. 
 The King was in good humour, and very familiar ; he 
 bantered James Balfour on the length to which his 
 beard had grown since they last met in Edinburgh, 
 and was gracious all round. 
 
 Next day was the Sabbath, when they were all 
 enjoined by the King to attend a service in the Royal 
 Chapel, to be conducted by Dr. Barlow, Bishop of
 
 n8 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 Rochester. They had been brought to London to be 
 schooled into conformity ; and as part of the process, 
 the English bishops had been commanded to prepare 
 a series of sermons for their benefit. These were 
 such a travesty on the texts of Scripture they were 
 supposed to expound, that if they had been addressed 
 to the ministers' own congregations in Scotland, the 
 humblest of their hearers would have resented them. 
 Whatever these bishops could do, they certainly could 
 not preach. They belonged to that section of the 
 clergy who disparage the preacher's function in com- 
 parison with the priest's, and who in their own practice 
 do a great deal to bring the former into something like 
 contempt. If the sermons preached before the eight 
 brethren did not convince or edify them, they at least 
 amused them, and gave them practice in the Christian 
 virtue of patience. Dr. Barlow's was not the worst, 
 though his hearers regarded it as an admirable ' confuta- 
 tion ' of the text. The preacher, among the four, who 
 reached the climax of absurdity was Dr. Andrewes, 
 Bishop of Chichester. He was one of the extreme 
 High Churchmen of his time : no man urged the 
 doctrine of passive obedience to a more abject degree, 
 or did more to support with the sanction of religion 
 the most extravagant pretensions of the Crown. It 
 was Andrewes who at the Hampton Court Conference 
 declared that James was inspired by God the same 
 man who made it his nightly prayer, as he tells us 
 himself, that he might be preserved from adulating the 
 King ! Of all the sermons preached to, or rather at t 
 
 <wUkr****v
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 119 
 
 the eight brethren, his, as we have said, was the most 
 preposterous, consisting as it did of a deduction of the 
 King's right to call Assemblies of the Church, from 
 the passage in Numbers which describes the blowing 
 of the trumpets by the sons of Aaron to summon the 1 
 congregation to the tabernacle ! Well might a Scottish 
 lord, who heard Andrewes preach before the Court on 
 the occasion of James's visit to Scotland in 1617, say of 
 him as he did, when asked his opinion by the King, 
 that he played with his text rather than preached upon 
 it. The last of the series of the discourses was the 
 most candid, and pointed most directly to the object at 
 which they were all aiming ; for the preacher reached 
 the close of the attack upon the Presbyterians by 
 turning round to the King and exclaiming, ' Downe, 
 downe with them all ! ' 
 
 On Monday, 22nd September, the ministers were 
 brought to confer with the King in presence of the 
 Scottish Council. Two points for discussion came up : 
 First, the proceedings of the Aberdeen Assembly ; and, 
 second, the proposed holding of an Assembly in which 
 order and peace might be restored to the Church. 
 James Melville spoke for the brethren with great 
 courtesy, and at the same time with great decision. 
 He declined, in name of all, to discuss these questions 
 till they had had an opportunity for consultation 
 among themselves. Other matters were brought 
 forward by the King, but not formally discussed. One 
 of these was a letter that had been addressed by James 
 Melville, from his sick-bed, to the Synod of Fife, in 
 
 *
 
 120 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 regard to the articles in which the King claimed 
 supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs. ' " I hard, Mr. 
 James Melvill," said the King, " that ye wreitt a Lettre 
 to the Synod of Fyff at Cowper, quhairin was meikle 
 of Chryst, but lytle guid of the King. Be God I trow 
 ye wes reavand or mad (for he spak so) ye speek 
 utherwayis now. Now, wes that a charitabill judgment 
 of me?" "Sir," says Mr. James, with a low courtessie, 
 " I wes baith seik and sair in bodie quhan I wreit that 
 Lettre, bot sober and sound in mind. I wreit of your 
 Majestic all guid, assureing my selff and the Bretherine 
 that thais Articles quhairoff a copy cam in my 
 handis could not be from your Majestic, they wer 
 so strange; and quhom sould I think, speik, or wryt 
 guid of, if not of your Majestic, quho is the man 
 under Chryst quhom I wisch most guid and honour 
 unto." ' 
 
 At the consultation held among the brethren in 
 regard to the points raised, they decided that when the 
 conference was resumed they would give their answer 
 through one of their number ; and that, as to the first 
 question before them, they would decline, for reasons 
 which we need not rehearse, to give any judgment on 
 the Aberdeen Assembly. Meanwhile, however, the 
 King had resolved that each of the ministers should 
 answer the questions for himself, in the hope that their 
 answers would prove conflicting, and so give him an 
 advantage. 
 
 At the second conference there were present the 
 members of the English Council, the most eminent of
 
 121 
 
 the prelates, and the most illustrious of the nobles. 
 On the King's right hand sat the Primate, with many of 
 England's proudest earls and all the great ministers 
 of state; on his left the young Prince Henry, with 
 the Scottish nobles and councillors; behind the arras 
 several other nobles and bishops were gathered. In 
 the midst of the assemblage stood the eight Scottish 
 ministers, unabashed by the glitter of rank and royalty 
 plain men decorated with no honours, but in in- 
 tellect and dignity of character the peers of the best in 
 that company ; and to the crowd of courtiers gathered 
 that day in the Council Hall of England they taught a 
 lesson in one of the duties owing to a sovereign which 
 few courtiers have practised the duty of telling him 
 the truth. 
 
 The subject of conference was, as we have said, the 
 conduct of the ministers who had held the Assembly in 
 Aberdeen. The first to be asked their opinion by the 
 King were the Scottish bishops and councillors, who 
 answered promptly and unanimously that 'they had 
 ever damnit that Assembly.' Turning from them to 
 the eight brethren, and addressing their chief the man 
 above all others whom James sought to entrap : ' " Now, 
 Siris," sayis the King, "quhat say ye, and first Mr. 
 Andro Melvill?" Quho, with meikle low courtessie, 
 talkit all his mynd in his awin maner, roundly, soundly, 
 fully, freely, and fervently, almaist the space of ane 
 hour, not omitting any poynt he could remember.' 
 James Balfour was the next called on, and the King, 
 by the time he was done with Melville and him, evi-
 
 122 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 dently realised that he was getting the worst of the 
 encounter 'smelling how the matter went, he seetnit 
 weary.' Balfour was followed by James Melville, who 
 at the close of his examination had the courage to 
 hand to the King a supplication addressed to him 
 by the condemned ministers, which James received 
 with an angry smile. Next came Scott, whose 
 speech was 'ane prettie piece of logicall and legal 
 reasouneing, quhilk delighted and moved the judicious 
 audiens.' The rest followed ' all most reverently on kneis, 
 but thairwith most friely, statly, and plainely, to the 
 admiration of the English auditorie, quho wer not 
 accustomit to heir the King so talkit to and reassounit 
 with.' When all had been examined, Melville craved 
 < to be heard again, and had the last word : he ' spake 
 out in his awin maner, and friely and plainely affirmit 
 the innocence of thais guid, faithfull, and honest 
 Britherin, in all thair proceidingis at Abirdein ; and 
 thairfoir he recomptit the wrongis done unto thame 
 at Linlithgow, as ane that wes present as an eye and 
 ear witness; and taking him in direct termes to the 
 Advocat, Mr. Thomas Hammiltoune, he invyit scharpely 
 againes him, telling him planely and pathetically, of 
 his favouring and spaireing the Papistis, and craftie, 
 cruell, and malicious dealing againes the Ministeres of 
 Jesus Chryst; so that he could have done no moir 
 againes the saints of God then he had at Linlithgow ! 
 At the quhilk words the King luiking to the Arch- 
 bisschoppes, sayis, " Quhat ? Me thinkis he makes 
 him the Antichryst ! " And, suddentlie, again with ane
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 123 
 
 oath, " Be God ! It is the divelis name in the Re- 
 velatioune ! He hes maid the divel of him, wel- 
 belovit Bretherine, brother Johne ! " And so, cuttitly -, 
 ryseing, and turneing his back, he sayes, " God be with 
 yow, Siris ! " ' As the King was moving out of the 
 Presence Chamber he turned round and asked what 
 remedy the Eight proposed for the jars of the Church, 
 when they all as with one voice replied, 'A free 
 Assembly ! ' 
 
 While on their way from Hampton Court to their 
 lodgings in Kingston, the Eight were recalled and 
 charged not to return to Scotland, or to come near 
 the King or Court until they were sent for. After 
 this they enjoyed a short holiday 'we had three 
 dayis to refresche us and relax our myndis dureing 
 the quhilk we wer visiting the fieldis about, namely, 
 Nonsuche and Richmont.' 
 
 Monday, 2Qth September, being Michaelmas Day, 
 an elaborate service was held in the King's Chapel, the 
 two Melvilles being present by the King's command. 
 The younger suspected, rightly as it proved, that the 
 King's object was to try their patience and provoke 
 his uncle to an outburst of indignation which might 
 bring him into trouble. The service was so high that 
 a German visitor at the English Court declared it was 
 not a whit behind the solemnity of the Mass but for 
 the absence of the adoration of the Host. The snare 
 set for Melville on this occasion succeeded, for it was a 
 satirical verse on this service that was afterwards made 
 the pretext for sending him to prison.
 
 124 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 After the service, the Eight were summoned before 
 the Scottish Council, convened in the house of the 
 Earl of Dunbar. They were called in, one by one, 
 and once more questioned as to their approval of the 
 Aberdeen Assembly. James Melville, who was the first 
 called, made a patriotic speech, protesting warmly 
 against the trial of Scotsmen on English soil and 
 by English law ; the others followed him in the same 
 strain. His uncle was the last to be called, and he 
 1 gaiff thame enought of it, alse plainely and scharplie 
 as he wes accustomit, namely, telling thame flattly, that 
 they knew not quhat they did ; and wer degenerat from 
 the antiant nobilitie of Scotland, quho wer wont to give 
 thair landis and lyffes for the fridom of the Kingdome 
 and Gospel, and they wer bewraying and ovirturneing 
 the same ! Till it became laite, and eftir sune-sett, 
 that they were faine to dimitt us to the nixt calling 
 for.' 
 
 On the znd of October, the Eight were called again 
 before the Scottish Council, and questions put to them 
 bearing still on the same subject, to which they gave 
 the same answers. The King, in fact, was only marking 
 time to detain Melville and his colleagues in London 
 till he had ' effecuate matteres at home ' according to 
 his mind. 
 
 For a month the ministers were not asked to appear 
 again in Court ; the session of Parliament had begun, 
 and the King was engaged with the business of the 
 Legislature. During this time they all lived together, 
 and their lodging was the resort of many of their
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 125 
 
 Puritan brethren in the city and neighbourhood. They 
 had much ' guid exercise ' in the Word and in prayer. 
 But the King and the Bishops having set spies on them 
 who reported the way in which they were spending 
 their time, they were all commanded to go into ward 
 each with a separate bishop. Andrew Melville's 
 gaoler-in-lawn was to be the Bishop of Winchester, and 
 his nephew's the Bishop of Durham ; but the two 
 made such a spirited protest to the King, that his 
 command was not meanwhile enforced. 
 
 On the last day of November it was a Sabbath 
 Melville, with his nephew and Wallace, was summoned 
 to Whitehall to answer for certain Latin verses which 
 had come into the King's hand. These were the 
 lampoon which Melville had made on the Michael- 
 mas service in the Royal Chapel, and he at once 
 acknowledged the authorship. Interrupted in his 
 apology by the Primate, Bancroft, who presided in the 
 absence of the King, and who denounced his offence 
 as treason, he turned upon him the torrent of his in- 
 vective. ' My lords,' exclaimed he, ' Andrew Melville 
 was never a traitor. But, my lords, there was one 
 Richard Bancroft (let him be sought for) who, during 
 the life of the late Queen, wrote a treatise against his 
 Majesty's title to the Crown of England; and here* 
 (pulling the corpus delicti from his pocket) 'is the 
 book which was answered by my brother, John 
 Davidson.' While Bancroft was stunned and silenced 
 by the impetuosity of the attack, Melville went on to 
 charge him with the chief responsibility for the Romish
 
 126 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ritual that had been introduced into the English Church, 
 and for the silencing of the Puritan ministers ; and then 
 ; taking him by the white sleeves of his rochet, he shook 
 : them c in his maner frielie and roundlie, and called them 
 Romish rags and the mark of the Beast.' The Primate 
 was the reputed author of a book attacking Presbytery, 
 and entitled The English Scottizing for Genevan Disci- 
 pline. Melville denounced him as having proved him- 
 self in that work ( the Capital Enemy of all the Reformed 
 Churches of Europe, whom he would oppose to the 
 effusion of the last drop of blood in his body, and 
 whom it was a constant grief to him to see at the head 
 of the King's Council in England.' He next turned 
 his invective on another prelate present Barlow who 
 in writing on the Hampton Court Conference had 
 spoken of the King as in the Kirk of Scotland, but not 
 of it : he marvelled that the Bishop had been left un- 
 punished 'for making the King of no religion.' He 
 was just beginning to put the rapier of his satire into 
 the four sermons preached in the Royal Chapel against 
 Presbytery, when he was interrupted by a Scottish 
 nobleman present. ' Remember,' said he, ' where you 
 are and to whom you are speaking.' ' I remember it 
 very well, my lord,' retorted Melville, 'and am only 
 sorry that your lordship, by sitting here and coun- 
 tenancing such proceedings against me, should furnish 
 a precedent which may yet be used against yourself or 
 your posterity.' 
 
 An hour after the close of this memorable scene, 
 the Eight were recalled, and Melville was admonished
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 127 
 
 by the Lord Chancellor and ordered to go into ward, 
 at his Majesty's pleasure, with the Dean of St. Paul's; 
 the others were 'commandit to the custodie of their 
 ain wyse and discreit cariage.' A warrant was at the 
 same time issued by the Council to the Dean, en- 
 joining him to give no one access to his prisoner, and 
 to do his utmost to convert him to Episcopacy. To 
 the Dean's house, accordingly, Melville went, and he 
 remained there till the following March. 
 
 In that month the King renewed his order to the 
 other ministers to take up their lodgings, each in a 
 bishop's house. James Melville again sent a protest to 
 the clerk of the Council ; he also saw both the Bishop 
 of Durham and the Primate on the business ; and his 
 accounts of the interviews are very piquant. In his 
 visit to the Primate he was accompanied by Scott. 
 Bancroft received them with great deference, and 
 sought to impress them with the King's courtesy in 
 desiring that they should be entertained by the highest 
 of the clergy. James Melville answered, with much 
 dignity, that compulsory courtesy was agreeable to no 
 man ; that the Scottish ministers were more acustomed 
 to bestowing hospitality than receiving it; and that 
 with such contrary opinions as they held on matters of 
 Church and State, the bishops would not be pleasant 
 hosts, and as little would the ministers be pleasant 
 guests. Bancroft was frank enough to admit, that it 
 was more to meet the wishes of the King than to please 
 themselves that he and the other prelates offered enter- 
 tainment to the ministers : he was, in truth, afraid that
 
 128 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 the latter, with their scrupulous notions, would prove 
 dull guests and be offended at the games of cards and 
 other diversions with which the lords of the Anglican 
 Church were in the habit of passing their social hours. 
 The conversation then turned to the pet project of the 
 King the conforming of the Scottish Church to Epis- 
 copacy. James Melville, speaking in his own mild 
 way, was listened to with patience by the Primate ; but 
 when Scott began to enter into the subject in a char- 
 acteristically Scottish fashion, with great seriousness 
 and elaboration, Bancroft's patience failed him; and 
 interrupting his discourse, smiling and laying his hand 
 on his shoulder, the Primate said, ' Tush, man ! Tak 
 heir a coupe of guid seek.' And therewith filling the 
 cup, he made them both drink, and after a little mild 
 conviviality the two ministers left the Palace. 
 
 At the end of March the chief prisoner received an 
 order from the Council to transfer himself to the 
 custody of the Bishop of Winchester. He left the 
 Dean's, but forgot to go to the Bishop's, and for two 
 months his evasion of the Council's instruction was 
 winked at, and he lodged with the other brethren. The 
 last act in this prolonged drama was now to be per- 
 formed, and the King's part in it was characteristically 
 base. Early in the morning of Sabbath, 26th April, 
 one of the Earl of Salisbury's servants came to Melville 
 at his lodging in Bow with an urgent message to him 
 to meet the Earl at Whitehall early on the same day. 
 Melville had no suspicion that the Premier had sum- 
 moned him for any unfriendly purpose, and at once,
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 129 
 
 borrowing his landlord's horse, posted off to Court. He 
 took a moment to look in on his nephew, who suspected 
 that he was to be called again before the Council, and 
 who, as soon as his uncle left, followed on foot to the 
 Palace with other two of the ministers. The Premier 
 did not keep his appointment ; and Melville, tired of 
 waiting, came to the inn at Westminster, where he 
 knew that his nephew and other two brethren were 
 to dine, and joined them in their meal : ' And quhill 
 our buird coverit, 1 and the meitt put thairon, he uttirit 
 to us ane excellent meditatioun, quhilk he had walking 
 in the gallerie, on the second Psalme, joyneing thair- 
 with prayer; quhairby we wer all muche movit; 
 accounting the same in place of our Sabbath foirnoone's 
 exercise, endit, and, sitting doun to dinner, he rehersit 
 his St. Georgis Verses, with vehement invectioun 
 againes the corruptiounes and superstitiounes of 
 England. Thairfoir, his cousine, Mr. James, sayes to 
 him, " Remember Ovidis verses 
 
 ' Si saperem, doctas odissem jure sorores 
 Numina cultori perniciosa suo ! ' " 
 
 His answer was in the verses following : 
 
 " Sed nunc (tanta meo comes est insania morbo) 
 Saxa (malum !) refero rursus ad icta pedem." 
 
 "Weill," sayis his cousine, "eit your dinner, and be 
 of good courage, for I sail warrand yow ye sal be befoir 
 the Council for your Verses." " Weill," sayis he, " my 
 heart is full and burdened, and I will be glaid to haif 
 
 1 While our table was being spread. 
 
 I
 
 130 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 ane occasioun to disburdein it, and speik all my mynd 
 plainely to thame for the dishonouring of Chryst, and 
 wraik of sua many soulis for their doeings; be the 
 beiring doun the sinceritie and fridom of the Gospel, 
 sloping that healthsome breath of Godis mouth, and 
 maintaining of the Papistis' corruptiounes and super- 
 stitiounes." "I warrand you," sayis Mr. James, "they 
 know you will speik your mynd friely ; and thairfoir, hes 
 concludit to make that a meines to keip yow from going 
 home to Scotland." He answered, "Iff God hes ony 
 thing to doe with me in Scotland more, He will bring 
 me home to Scotland again iff He haiff any service for 
 < me : giff not, let me glorifie Him, quhidder or quhair- 
 ever I be ; and as I haif said often to yow, cousine, I 
 think God hes sume pairt to play with us on this 
 theatre ! " We had not half dyneit quhen one comes 
 to him from Lord Salisberie ; to quhom he said, "Sir, 
 I waitted longe upon my Lordis dinner till I waxed 
 verie hungrie, and could not stay longer. I pray my 
 Lord to suffir me to tak a lytle of my awin dinner ! " 
 That messenger wes not weill gone quhill againe 
 comes another ; soone eftir that, Mr. Alexander Hay, 
 the Scottish Secretar, telling him that the Counsel was 
 long sett attending him. At the heiring quhairoff, 
 with great motioun, raysing, he prayit ; and, leiving us 
 at diner (for we wer expressely chairgit that we come 
 not within the Police), went with Mr. Alexander Hay, 
 with great commotioun of mynd.' Within an hour of 
 Melville's leaving them, a messenger whom they had 
 sent to ascertain the result of the Council meeting
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 131 
 
 returned with tears in his eyes to announce that their 
 Chief had been conveyed to the Tower. 
 
 The proceedings at the Council we learn from the 
 French Ambassador at the English Court. The King 
 did not appear in the Council Chamber, but was in 
 close attendance at the keyhole of the next apartment. 
 'The Earl of Salisbury took up the subject, and began 
 to reprove him for his obstinacy in refusing to acknow- 
 ledge the Primacy, and for the verses which he had 
 made in derision of the Royal Chapel. Melville was so 
 severe in his reply both in what related to the King 
 and to the Earl personally, that his lordship was 
 completely put to silence. To his assistance came the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, then the Earl of North- 
 ampton, then the Lord Treasurer; all of whom he 
 rated in such a manner, sparing none of the vices, y 
 public or private, with which they are respectively 
 taxed (and none of them are angels), that they would 
 have been glad that he had been in Scotland. In the 
 end, not being able to induce him to swear to the 
 Primacy, and not knowing any other way to revenge 
 themselves on him, they agreed to send him prisoner 
 to the Tower. When the sentence was pronounced, 
 he exclaimed: "To this comes the boasted pride of 
 England ! A month ago you put to death a priest, and 
 to-morrow you will do the same to a minister." Then 
 addressing the Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Mar, 
 who were in the Council, he said, " I am a Scotchman, 
 my lords, a true Scotchman ; and if you are such, take 
 heed that they do not end with you as they have begun
 
 132 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 with me." ' l The King was more disconcerted by this 
 parting shot of Melville's than by anything that had 
 happened at the interview. 
 
 On 6th May, Melville's colleagues learned the fate 
 the King had decreed for them. James Melville was 
 commanded to leave London and go into ward at 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne ; the other six were to return to 
 Scotland to be confined in districts named in the 
 King's warrant, and they were excluded from any share 
 in the business of the Church courts. 
 
 When the others took their journey northwards, 
 James Melville and William Scott remained in London 
 for a fortnight to make arrangements, if possible, to 
 mitigate the imprisonment of their Chief. James Mel- 
 ville, through the indulgence of one of the warders, saw 
 his uncle at the window of his prison for a short time 
 each day during this interval, and permission was 
 obtained for Melville's servant to wait upon him in the 
 Tower ; but no other favour was granted. James Mel- 
 ville used every means to gain permission to stay in 
 London and attend to his uncle's comfort, but in vain ; 
 and with a sore heart he had to make up his mind to 
 leave him. On the day he and Scott were setting out 
 for the north, two or three of their acquaintances in 
 London visited them ; and one of these, a Mr. Corsbie, 
 * a guid brother, apothecarie of calling,' brought with 
 him ' a great bag of monie alse meikle as he could weill 
 carie in his oxter.' The money had been raised by 
 friends in the city who had been touched by the noble 
 bearing of the ministers before the King and Council, 
 
 l Ambassades de M. de la Boderie, quoted by M'Crie, p. 271.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 133 
 
 to defray the expenses of their journey as well as the 
 outlay incurred during their residence in London, which 
 the King, with unspeakable meanness, had failed to 
 discharge. This gift the two brethren courteously and 
 gratefully declined. Since James's accession to 
 the English Throne there had been a great outcry 
 against the Scots on account of the beggarly 
 rabble who crossed the Tweed and came to Court to 
 importune the King for 'auld debts' due to them by 
 his Majesty ; and Melville and his colleague were re- 
 solved that they would furnish the English people with 
 another and a truer version of the character of their 
 countrymen by leaving London poorer than when they 
 came to it. Besides, there were many among the Puri- 
 tan clergy in the English Church who had been cast 
 out of their livings, and had more need of the money : 
 instead of taking the help offered, the two brethren 
 would rather endeavour to raise money in their own 
 country, poor as it was, to relieve the necessities of 
 these ministers. Their friends gave warm expression 
 to their sense of the honourable motives which led 
 Melville and Scott to decline the gift; and accompany- 
 ing them to the Tower steps, where the boat was lying 
 that was to convey them to their ship, they bade them 
 affectionate farewell. As the two were rowed down the 
 Thames, they cast many a wistful look back to the 
 prison where they were leaving their beloved friend and 
 Chief at the mercy of a graceless tyrant. And so ended 
 one of the most picturesque and honourable passages 
 in the history of the Scottish Church.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE KING'S ASSEMBLIES 
 
 'Gold? 
 
 Ha, you gods ! Why, this 
 
 Will lug your priests and servants from your sides.' 
 
 Timon of Atiiens. 
 
 BEFORE we go on to the closing chapter of Melville's 
 personal history, we must glance at the course of 
 events in Scotland from the time he and his brethren 
 were called to London, up to the Glasgow Assembly 
 in 1 6 10, when the Church made a total surrender 
 to the King, and 'Jericho was buildit up againe in 
 Scotland.' 
 
 The Invincibles of the Church having been put out 
 of the way by imprisonment or banishment, the King 
 felt that he might safely call an Assembly to execute 
 his wishes, and to ratify in the Church's name the 
 restoration of Episcopacy as it had been decreed by 
 the Parliament. So in the beginning of December 
 1606, the Assembly was summoned to meet in Lin- 
 lithgow. Letters were sent by the King to every 
 presbytery ; and they not only intimated the meeting, 
 
 134
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 135 
 
 but named the representatives to be sent. In the event 
 of the presbyteries refusing to return the King's nomi- 
 nees, these were instructed to appear without any 
 presbyterial mandate. The business was stated to be 
 the suppression of Popery and the healing of the jars 
 of the Church. In this programme the former item 
 was the gilt on the pill of the latter. James Balfour 
 who was in London at the time exposed the real 
 character of the Assembly's business when he was told 
 of it by Bishop Law of Orkney, who had come to 
 Court to report the proceedings to the King: '"/ 
 nomine Domini incipit omne malum ! This is pretendit 
 bot the dint will lycht on the Kirk. . ." " They sail call 
 me a false knave," replied the Bishop, " and never to be 
 believit again, if the Papists be not sa handleit as they 
 wer never in Scotland." "That may weill be,"' was 
 Balfour's rejoinder. 
 
 When the House came to the matter which was the 
 real occasion for the Assembly being held, the question 
 was put, What was the cause of the jars of the Kirk ? 
 And the answer given was, The want of a free Assembly. 
 King's men as they were, the members had not yet 
 been tamed to entire servility ; as was further shown 
 by their agreeing to petition James on behalf of the 
 banished ministers, and by their appointing another 
 Assembly to be held in Edinburgh in the following 
 year. The King's Commissioner the Earl of Dunbar 
 was surely in a compliant mood when he allowed the 
 House such liberty ! But at this point the trump card 
 he had been concealing in his sleeve was thrown on
 
 136 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 the table. He proposed in the King's name that until 
 the business for which the Assembly had been called 
 was settled, Constant Moderators should be appointed 
 for the presbyteries. As it was said at the time, these 
 Constant Moderators were to be thrust like little thieves 
 1 into the windows to open the door to the great thieves 
 the bishops. Strong objection was made to this 
 fatal innovation on Presbytery, and it was agreed to, 
 only after cautions, proposed by the House, had been 
 accepted by the Commissioner. 
 
 That even such a tame Assembly was indisposed to 
 yield up the liberties of the Church at the demand of 
 the King was shown by the passing of resolutions 
 intended to clip the wings of the bishops. These 
 resolutions declared, with the concurrence of the 
 bishops themselves, that they were subject to the 
 discipline of the Church and amenable to their own 
 presbyteries. 
 
 The King was mightily displeased with his friends in 
 the Assembly because they had not 'proceedit frielyer'; 
 he was enraged at the bishops for submitting themselves 
 to the courts of the Church. The Moderator, Nicol- 
 son, Bishop of Dunkeld, at one time James Melville's 
 bosom friend and a standard-bearer of the Kirk, took 
 the King's displeasure so much to heart that he fell ill, 
 and when it was proposed to send for a doctor, replied, 
 ! ' Send for King James ; it is the digesting of his 
 Bishoprick that has wracked my stomack.' 
 
 The presbyteries rose up in arms against the Con- 
 stant Moderators, as did all the synods except Angus ;
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 137 
 
 and many scenes of violence took place at the meetings 
 of these courts through the attempt made by the King's 
 Commissioner to force the adoption of the Acts of the 
 Linlithgow Assembly. The King had still some hard 
 work to do before he could accomplish his pur- 
 poses. His next step was to propose a conference 
 of ministers, chosen from both sides of the House, to 
 confer on the questions at issue; and meanwhile all 
 public discussion on these questions was to be sus- 
 pended. The ministers accepted the proposal 
 another of these fatal concessions by which they 
 were only drawn further into the King's net. Confer 
 and discuss as they might, the King remained the 
 final arbiter, and only one conclusion would be 
 accepted by him. By the suspension of hostilities 
 between the two parties in the Church, those who 
 were opposed to the King gained nothing, and he 
 gained much. While the ministers were silent and 
 inactive, the bishops were as aggressive as ever; 
 they openly avowed their intention of conforming 
 the Church to Episcopacy; and they brought down 
 from London the King's Commissioner and several 
 dignitaries of the English Church to assist them in 
 the task. 
 
 At the next meeting of Parliament, July 1609, the 
 only measure now needed, so far as Parliament was 
 concerned, to restore a full-blown Episcopacy, was 
 passed without opposition. There was no minister 
 present; while Episcopal dignitaries were again brought 
 from London to grace the proceedings and witness the
 
 138 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 surrender that was to be made to their own ecclesias- 
 tical polity. At that Parliament 'thai rayd royallie 
 and Prelat lyk.' The measures that were passed 
 restored the judicial power of the bishops, their seats 
 in the Court of Session, and their lands and revenues. 
 Authority was given to them to fix stipends and to 
 raise or lower them as they were minded, and so 
 the ministers were made to a large extent their 
 dependants. One of the measures, the setting up 
 of a High Court of Commission, raised the bishops 
 to a higher degree of authority than they had ever 
 possessed before. It was virtually a bishop's court, 
 and it was invested with extraordinary power ; those 
 who sat in it could call before them any person in 
 the kingdom who had incurred their displeasure, 
 and judge and punish him without law and without 
 appeal. 
 
 The Acts of this Parliament were the King's pen- 
 ultimate stroke against Presbytery. They armed the 
 bishops with such power, that the King felt he might 
 at length summon an Assembly which would make 
 submission to Episcopacy. An Assembly was accord- 
 ingly held in Glasgow in June 1610; and there the 
 'King's resolutions were carried with only two dis- 
 i sentient voices. The House was again filled with 
 the King's nominees; and bribes were distributed 
 among the members to the tune of 40,000 merks. 
 The bribes were paid in 'Angel' pieces, and so 
 the Assembly came to be known as the Angelical 
 Assembly. It was money that did the King's ' turn ' ;
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 139 
 
 'and sa at ane stollen dint 1 in ane day was over- 
 thrown ane worke seventie yeiris in building, and 
 above twenty-four yeiris spacious and most profitabill 
 
 standing.' 
 
 1 Stolen opportunity.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE TOWER: SEDAN 
 
 1 Here spirits that have run their race, and fought, 
 And won the fight, and have not fear'd the frowns 
 Nor lov'd the smiles of greatness, but have wrought 
 Their Master's will, meet to receive their Crowns. ' 
 
 HENRY VAUGHAN. 
 
 FOR the first year, Melville's imprisonment was of 
 rigorous severity. The King seemed incapable of any 
 spark of chivalry towards one of the very brightest 
 spirits of his people. James, perhaps least of all the 
 Stuarts, illustrated the principle of noblesse oblige. 
 Melville's attendant was taken from him; no visitors 
 were admitted ; neither was the use of writing materials 
 allowed. After twelve months, however, some relaxa- 
 tion was gained, through the good offices of Sir James 
 Sempill of Beltrees, the Balladist, who was a warm 
 friend of Melville, and sympathised with him in his 
 struggle to maintain Presbyterianism, although he 
 himself had been brought up at Court his mother 
 having been maid-in-honour to Queen Mary and 
 educated along with the King under George Buchanan. 
 He was transferred to a comfortable room in the 
 
 140
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 141 
 
 Tower : he was now permitted to see friends, and also 
 to write. It was in literary labour he occupied his 
 time. He wrote at least one controversial pamphlet, 
 a reply to a Defence of Episcopacy written by a 
 dignitary of the English Church, and circulated 
 gratis in Scotland among the ministers; he also 
 translated many of the Psalms. It was in poetical 
 composition, however, that he found his chief recrea- 
 tion and solace. When he quitted the apartment 
 in which he was first confined, the walls were found 
 covered with verses written by him in finely formed , 
 characters with the tongue of his shoe-buckle. Every 
 letter he sent to James Melville contained a number 
 of verses 'warm from the anvil.' His nephew, in one 
 of his letters enclosing a remittance of money, had 
 remarked : ' I shall send you money, and you shall 
 send me songs. I have good hope that you will run 
 short of verses for my use before I run short of gold 
 for yours,' to which he replied: 'So you have the 
 confidence to say that the fountain of the Muses from > 
 which I draw will be exhausted sooner than the vein 
 of that gold mine, whence you extract the treasures 
 with which you supply me so liberally. Hold, prithee ! 
 take care what you say, especially to poets like me, 
 who when I do sing, sing at the invitation of the 
 Muses and under their inspiration.' One of his com- 
 positions did not owe its origin to 'the imperative 
 breath of song ' ; it was an ode to the King, written 
 on the advice of friends, in the hope that such an 
 appeal to his better nature might lead James to grant
 
 142 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 him his liberty. The ode failed of its purpose; and 
 Melville might have applied to the King with curious 
 fitness the words addressed by the Border outlaw in 
 the ballad to the King's grandfather, James v. : 
 
 4 To seik het water beneith cauld ice, 
 Surelie it is a greit follie. 
 I have asked grace at a graceless face, 
 But there is nane for my men and me. 
 
 But had I kenn'd ere I cam frae hame 
 How thou unkind wadst been to me, 
 I wad have keepit the Border side 
 In spite of all thy force and thee.' 
 
 Melville did not expect any other result, although he 
 had been told that the King seemed favourably dis- 
 posed towards him. He knew his man : ' Fronti nulla 
 fides' was, he said, a proverb often in his mind at 
 that time. Soon after writing this ode to the King, 
 he, for the same purpose, submitted an apology to the 
 Privy Council for any offence he had given by the 
 epigram which had cost him his liberty ; but it also 
 failed. In this matter Archbishop Spotswood played 
 a double part, advising Melville to send the apology, 
 while he and his brother-prelate, Archbishop Gled- 
 stanes, were doing all they could to prevent the King 
 restoring Melville and the other exiled ministers to 
 liberty. Melville was no more disappointed with 
 Spotswood's conduct than he had been with the King's: 
 ' Sed non ego credulus illis.' 
 All his trials and long vexations did not dim his
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 143 
 
 hopefulness ; of no man might it be said more truly 
 that he 
 
 ' Never doubted clouds would break.' 
 
 ' Away with fear I will cherish the hope of everything 
 that is cheering and joyous. ... I betake myself to my 
 sacred anchor "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God"' 
 so he wrote from the Tower. 
 
 For some time a son of James Melville who bore 
 his uncle's name, and another nephew, lodged with 
 Melville in the Tower ; and he had many distinguished 
 visitors, such as Isaac Casaubon and Bishop Hall of 
 Norwich, who were proud to be numbered among his 
 friends. Another illustrious victim of the King's 
 treachery, one of the many of England's noblest sons 
 who stepped from the Tower into immortality, Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, was a fellow-prisoner of Melville. 
 Did they ever meet? We would give much to know 
 that they did ; it would be pleasant to think of so rare 
 a conjunction of spirits. Melville found his greatest 
 solace, however, in his nephew's devotion. There was 
 no ministry of love which James Melville failed to 
 render to his uncle ; and very touching in their tender- 
 ness are the letters which passed between the two. 
 He was also much moved by the tokens of remem- 
 brance he received from old friends comrades in 
 the battles of the Church and from their children. 
 Acknowledging a gift of money which had been partly 
 contributed by a family of a deceased brother in the 
 ministry, he says : c I received the Spanish and British
 
 144 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 angels, equalling in number the Apostles, the Graces, 
 and the Elements, with a supernumerary one of the 
 Seraphic order. ... I do not rejoice so much in 
 them (although these commutable pieces of money 
 are at present very useful to me) as I do at the 
 renewing of the memory of my deceased friends, and 
 the prospect of our friendship being perpetuated in 
 their posterity, who have given such a favourable 
 presage of future virtue and genuine piety; for what 
 else could have induced them to take such an interest 
 in my affairs at this time ? Wherefore I congratulate 
 them, and I rejoice that this favourable opportunity 
 of transmitting friendship inviolate from father to son 
 and grandson has been afforded.' 
 
 The only matter on which there was ever a hint of 
 misunderstanding between Melville and his nephew 
 was the latter's second marriage, to which the uncle 
 was at first much opposed. Their correspondence on 
 this subject contains some passages of lively repar- 
 tee, in which the elder undoubtedly came off second 
 best. 'The chaste father' so the younger writes 
 ' who reposed in the embraces of Minerva was not to 
 measure others by himself; he was not ashamed to 
 own he was in love ; ay, and had he not the highest 
 precedents for the step he was taking there were 
 Knox, and Craig, and Pont, and who not else of the 
 venerable fathers of the Church ! ' ' My sweet Melissa ' 
 soon won uncle Andro's affection, and many a gift of 
 garments, embroidered by her skilful hands, found its 
 way to the lonely prisoner in the Tower.
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 145 
 
 At the close of 1610, the English Ambassador at the 
 French Court brought a request from the Duke de 
 Bouillon, a leading French Protestant, to the King 
 that he would give Melville his release, in order that 
 he might go to Sedan to fill the collegiate Chair of 
 Divinity in the University. After some negotiations, in 
 which James showed his old grudging spirit towards 
 his prisoner, the request was granted. But it was not 
 easy for Melville to tear himself away from his native 
 land. Writing to his nephew, he says : 
 
 ' I am in a state of suspense as to the course which I 
 ought to take. There is no room for me in Britain on 
 account of pseudo-Episcopacy no hope of my being 
 allowed to revisit my native country. Our bishops return 
 home after being anointed with the waters of the Thames. 
 Alas, liberty is fled ! religion is banished ! I have nothing 
 new to write to you, except my hesitation about my banish- 
 ment. I reflect upon the active life which I spent in my 
 native country during the space of thirty-six years, the idle 
 life which I have been condemned to spend in prison, the 
 reward which I have received from men for my labours, the 
 inconveniences of old age, and other things of a similar 
 kind, taken in connection with the disgraceful bondage of 
 the Church and the base perfidy of men. But in vain : I am 
 still irresolute. Shall I desert my station ? Shall I fly from 
 my native country, from my native Church, from my very 
 self? Or, shall I deliver myself up, like a bound quadruped, 
 to the will and pleasure of men ? No : sooner than do this, 
 I am resolved, by the grace of God, to endure the greatest 
 extremity. Until my fate is fixed, I cannot be free from 
 anxiety.' 
 
 As Melville, however, continued to weigh the invita- 
 tion to Sedan, it was more and more borne in upon his 
 
 K
 
 146 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 mind that it was the call of Providence and the fulfil- 
 ment of a presage of which he had often spoken, that 
 he was destined to confess Christ on a larger theatre ; 
 so he decided to accept it, and left for France on igih 
 April 1611. 
 
 There were six Protestant universities in France, and 
 many of their Chairs were held by Scotsmen who had 
 been Melville's students in St. Andrews. In Sedan, 
 an Aberdonian was Principal, and another fellow- 
 countryman filled the Chair of Philosophy. In this 
 retired frontier town of France, the scene in our own 
 ! day of the crowning disaster to her army which gave 
 the finishing stroke to the Napoleonic dynasty, Melville 
 spent the remainder of his days ; and from it he passed 
 away to the land that was ' nativest ' to him. 
 
 Some months after settling in Sedan, he received 
 a letter from his nephew with all the home news, 
 which was very gloomy. The bishops were now in 
 their glory. ' If they get the Kingdom of Heaven,' so 
 the Chancellor Seaton said of them, 'they must be 
 happy men, for they already reign on earth.' The 
 pulpits were silent : poor nephew James himself was 
 still in exile, sick, with his heart pierced with 
 many wounds, and longing that he had the wings of 
 a dove that he might fly away and be at rest. To 
 this letter Melville replied in a strain of exuberant 
 cheerfulness : 
 
 ' Your letter, my dear James, gave me as much pleasure 
 as it is possible for one to receive in these gloomy and 
 evil days. We must not forget the apostolical injunction,
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 147 
 
 " Rejoice always : rejoice in hope." Non si male nunc, et 
 olim erit. Providence is often pleased to grant prosperity 
 and long impunity to those whom it intends to punish for 
 their crimes, in order that they may feel more severely from 
 the reverse. . . . It is easy for a wicked man to throw a 
 commonwealth into disorder : God only can restore it. 
 Empires which have been procured by fraud cannot be 
 stable or permanent. Pride and cruelty will meet with a 
 severe, though it may be a late retribution ; and, according 
 to the Hebrew proverb, " When the tale of bricks is doubled, 
 Moses comes." The result of past events is oracular of 
 the future : " In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." 
 Why, then, exert our ingenuity and labour in adding to our 
 vexation ? Away with fearful apprehensions ! ' 
 
 Turning his thoughts to his old friends and neighbours, 
 the exile makes playful inquiries for their welfare : 
 
 ' What is the profound Dreamer (so I was accustomed to 
 call him when we travelled together in 1584) what is our 
 Corydon of Haddington about? I know he cannot be 
 idle ; has he not brought forth or perfected anything yet, 
 after so many decades of years ? Tempus Atla veniet tua 
 quo spoliabitur arbos. Let me know if our old friend 
 Wallace has at last become the father of books and bairns ? 
 Menalcas of Cupar on the Eden is, I hear, constant ; and I 
 hope he will prove vigilant in discharging all the duties of 
 a pastor, and not mutable in his friendships, as too many 
 discover themselves to be in these cloudy days. Salute 
 him in my name ; as also Damcetas of Elie, and our friend 
 Dykes, with such others as you know to " hold the begin- 
 ning of their confidence and the rejoicing of their hope 
 firm to the end." . . . We old men daily grow children 
 again, and are ever and anon turning our eyes and thoughts 
 back on our cradles. We praise the past days because we 
 can take little pleasure in the present. Suffer me then to 
 dote ; for I am now become pleased with old age, although 
 I have lived so long as to see some things which I could
 
 148 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 wish never to have seen. I try daily to learn something 
 new, and thus to prevent my old age from becoming listless 
 and inert. I am always doing, or at least attempting to do, 
 something in those studies to which I devoted myself in 
 the younger part of my life. Accept this long epistle from 
 a talkative old man. Loqui senibus res est gratissima, says 
 your favourite Palingenius, the very mention of whose 
 name gives me new life ; for the regeneration forms almost 
 the sole topic of my meditations, and in this do I exercise 
 myself that I may have my conversation in heaven.' 
 
 How keenly Melville felt the cruelty of the Government 
 in driving himself and his nephew into exile appears in 
 another part of the same letter : 
 
 ' What crime have you committed ? What has the 
 monarch now to dread? Does not the primate sit in 
 triumph traxitque sub astro, fur or eml What is there, 
 then, to hinder you, and me also (now approaching my 
 seventieth year, and consequently emeritus), from breath- 
 ing our native air, and, as a reward of our toils, being 
 received into the Prytaneum, to spend the remainder of 
 our lives, without seeking to share the honours and affluence 
 which we do not envy the pretended bishops ? We have 
 not been a dishonour to the kingdom, and we are allied to 
 the royal family. [Melville claimed a consanguinity for his 
 family with the Stuarts through their common extraction 
 from John of Gaunt.] But let envy do its worst ; no prison, 
 no exile, shall prevent us from confidently expecting the 
 kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 In the following year Melville was greatly cheered 
 by hearing that all the exiled ministers had refused 
 an offer which the Crown had made to allow them to 
 return to their country on condition of their making 
 a submission to Episcopacy ; and he wrote expressing
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 149 
 
 his admiration of their heroism, and assuring them of 
 his continual remembrance : ' I keep all my friends in 
 my eye ; I carry them in my bosom ; I commend 
 them to the God of mercy in my daily prayers. . . . 
 I do not sink under adversity; I reserve myself for 
 better days.' 
 
 In April 1614 there fell on Melville the heaviest 
 blow his affection ever received the tidings of his 
 nephew's death. James Melville died well-nigh broken- 
 hearted; he had not been allowed to return to his 
 own country and resume his charge of his poor 
 seafaring folk, nor to join in France the exile who was 
 so endeared to him. On his deathbed, and within a 
 few hours of the end, when one who was beside him 
 asked if he had no desire to recover, he replied, ' No, 
 not for twenty worlds.' His friends asked him to give 
 them some sign that he was at peace, when he 
 repeated the dying words of the martyr Stephen, and 
 so passed away to that country of his own which all 
 his life he had been seeking. 
 
 There is no one in the long line of great Scottish 
 Churchmen whose memory deserves more honour than 
 James Melville, or inspires so much affection, so 
 gracious was his spirit, so pure his character, so 
 disinterested his aims. With the solitary exception 
 which we need not name, there was no one in his own 
 day who rendered better or more varied service to the 
 Church and to the country. For many years he was 
 his uncle's right-hand man as a teacher in our two chief 
 Universities ; the Church never had a pastor who had
 
 150 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 more of the true pastor's heart, nor a leader of more 
 wisdom in counsel, more persuasiveness in conference, 
 more decision in action; it never had a more vivid 
 historian, nor one whose writings are so great a treasure 
 of our Scottish literature. When James Melville came 
 to his grave, how different the world would be to his 
 great kinsman, who could so truly have said, 'Very 
 pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me 
 was wonderful, passing the love of women.' His 
 uncle's grief found its only solace in the thought 
 that he was 'now out of all doubt and fashrie, enjoying 
 the fruits of his suffering here.' 
 
 Melville himself never lost his hopefulness and 
 happy ardour. In 1612 he wrote to Robert Durie, 
 one of the banished brethren : 
 
 ' Am I not threescore and eight years old ; unto the 
 which age none of my fourteen brethren came ? And yet, 
 I thank God, I eat, I drink, I sleep, as well as I did these 
 thirty years bygone, and better than when I was younger 
 in ipso flore adolescentice. Only the gravel now and then 
 seasons my mirth with some little pain, \vhich I have felt 
 only since the beginning of March the last year, a month 
 before my deliverance from prison. I feel, thank God, no 
 abatement of the alacrity and ardour of my mind for the 
 propagation of the truth. Neither use I spectacles now 
 more than ever, yea, I use none at all, nor ever did, and 
 see now to read Hebrew without points, and in the 
 smallest characters. Why may I not live to see a 
 changement to the better, when the Prince shall be 
 informed truly by honest men, or God open His eyes and 
 move His heart to see the pride of stately prelates ? ' 
 
 The last production from Melville's pen was a pam-
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE 151 
 
 phlet against the Anglican ceremonies imposed by the 
 King on the Church in The Five Articles of Perth in 
 1618. We know little of the last years of his life. His 
 health apparently gave way in 1620, and he died in 
 Sedan in 1622, having reached his seventy-seventh year. 
 The only fault Melville's enemies could find with 
 his personal character was his impetuous and explosive 
 temper. In regard to this, he was his own best 
 apologist when he said, ' If my anger is from below, 
 trample upon it ; but if from above, let it rise ! ' If he 
 was 'zealously affected,' it was always 'in a good thing.' 
 No one could ever charge him with personal or narrow 
 ambitions. It was always, as he once wrote, his own 
 desire 'to be concealed in the crowd even when the 
 field of honour appeared to ripen' before him; and 
 his nephew says of him : ' Whowbeit he was verie hat 
 in all questiones, yet when it twitched his particular, 1 
 no man could crab him, contrare to the common 
 custome.' No one of braver spirit or truer mould 
 has been among us, and we need to allow but little for 
 the colouring of affection to accept James Melville's 
 judgment : ' Scottland never receavit a graitter benefit 
 at the hands of God than this man.' He is one of 
 those great personalities of our history who have left 
 us an example of the moral daring which is the 
 greatest property of the human soul, and the spring 
 of its noblest achievements. The struggle for the 
 advancement of human wellbeing is carried on in ever- 
 changing lines ; the problems of the Church and the 
 1 When it concerned his private interest
 
 1 52 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 nation alter; the battlegrounds of freedom and progress 
 shift ; but this spiritual intrepidity and scorn of conse- 
 quence ever remains the chief and most indispens- 
 able factor in the highest service of mankind. It 
 is to men like Melville, who have a higher patriotism 
 than that which is bounded by any earthly territory, 
 whose country is the realm of Truth, whose loyalty 
 transcends submission to any human sovereign, that 
 every people owes its noblest heritage. Such are 
 the men who have been the makers of Scotland. 'Sit 
 for -t is Etruria crevit?
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABERDEEN, the Assembly at, 112. 
 
 Act of 1592, 70. 
 
 Adamson, Patrick, Archbishop of 
 
 St, Andrews, 38, 51-53, 59. 6l - 
 Andrewes, Bishop of Chichester, 
 
 118. 
 
 Armada, the Spanish, 64, 65. 
 Assembly times in Melville's day, 
 
 41. 
 
 BALCANQUHAL, WALTER, minis- 
 ter in Edinburgh, 42. 
 
 Balfour of Burley, 28, 82-84. 
 
 James, minister in Edin- 
 burgh, 117, 135. 
 
 Bancroft, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, 125, 127, 128, 131. 
 
 Barlow, Bishop of Rochester, 117, 
 126. 
 
 Basilicon Doron, 108. 
 
 Beza, 21, 22. 
 
 Black Acts, 51. 
 
 Black, David, minister in St. 
 Andrews, 77, 82, 95, 103. 
 
 ' Bonnie Earl ' of Moray, 69. 
 
 Bouillon, Duke de, 145. 
 
 Bruce, Robert, minister in Edin- 
 burgh, 66, 67, 69, in. 
 
 Buchanan, George, 24, 25, 44. 
 
 Burton, John Hill, 12, 92. 
 
 CASAUBON, ISAAC, 143. 
 Covenant, renewal of, 85. 
 Craig, John, minister in Edin 
 burgh, 53, 144. 
 
 DAVIDSON, OHN, minister of 
 Liberton and Prestonpans, 46, 
 104, 105. 
 
 Davison, the EnglishAmbassador, 
 
 54- 
 
 Dunbar, Earl of, King's Commis- 
 sioner for Scotland, 124, 135. 
 
 Durie, John, minister in Edin- 
 burgh, 36, 46, 48, 53. 
 
 Robert, minister of An- 
 
 struther, 150. 
 
 EDINBURGH, the plague in, 55. 
 
 Vindictive Acts against the 
 
 city of, 99. 
 
 Episcopacy, Scotland's dread of, 
 
 10. 
 Erskine, John, of Dun, 15, 16, 53 
 
 FALKLAND, 83, 89, 90. 
 Fife, Synod of, 60, 76, 100. 
 Foreign students at the Scottish 
 Universities, 12, 30. 
 
 GENEVA, 21. 
 
 Glasgow, Assembly of, 84, 138. 
 
 University of, 24, 26. 
 
 Gledstanes, Archbishop of St. 
 
 Andrews, 103, 142. 
 Cowrie Conspiracy, no. 
 
 HALL, Bishop of Norwich, 143. 
 INTIMATES of Melville, 41. 
 
 153
 
 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 JAMES vi., precocity of, as a child, 
 24. 
 
 assumes the government, 43. 
 
 his Court favourites, 43. 
 
 his seizure by the Ruthven 
 
 lords, 48. 
 
 his escape, 48. 
 
 described by Davison, the 
 
 English Ambassador, 54. 
 
 his surrender to the Ruthven 
 
 lords, 55. 
 in re Archbishop Adamson, 
 
 fix. 
 
 his Popish sympathies, 64, 
 
 75- 
 
 unseasonableness in the 
 
 activity of, 65. 
 
 his marriage, 67. 
 
 his laudation of the Scottish 
 
 Church, 68. 
 rated by Elizabeth, 72, 78. 
 
 his attempt to bribe James 
 
 Melville, 78. 
 
 his expedition against Huntly, 
 
 81. 
 removes his Court to Linlith- 
 
 gow, 98. 
 
 and Melville at Hampton 
 
 Court (chap, ix.), 116-133. 
 
 his petty vindictiveness, 140, 
 
 141, 144. 
 
 KNOX, JOHN, 13, 144. 
 
 LAWSON, JAMES, minister in 
 Edinburgh, 42, 50, 51, 52. 
 
 MAITLAND, Chancellor of Scot- 
 land, 66, 67, 70. 
 Melville, birth of, 15. 
 
 educated at Montrose, 16. 
 
 student of St. Andrews, 17. 
 
 goes abroad, 17. 
 
 at Paris, 17. 
 
 Melville at Poitiers, 18. 
 
 at Geneva, 21. 
 
 returns to Scotland, 22. 
 
 declines Morton's patronage, 
 
 23- 
 is offered the Principalships 
 
 of Glasgow and St. Andrews, 
 
 24. 
 
 Principal of Glasgow, 26. 
 
 Principal of St. Andrews, 27. 
 
 attracts students from the 
 
 Continent, 30. 
 
 his first Assembly, 35. 
 
 encounter of, with Morton, 
 
 37- 
 his intimates, 41. 
 
 in re Archbishop Mont- 
 gomery, 45, 46. 
 
 encounter of, with Arran, 
 
 47- 
 before the King and Council, 
 
 48, 49. 
 
 his flight to England, 50. 
 
 returns to Scotland, 56. 
 
 in re Archbishop Adamson, 
 
 61. 
 his kindness to Adamson, 
 
 62. 
 
 and the Armada, 65. 
 
 in re Popish lords, 76. 
 
 admonishes the King and 
 
 the Lords of the Articles, 79. 
 with the expedition against 
 
 Huntly, 81. 
 at Falkland Palace, 83, 89, 
 
 90. 
 
 at the Dundee Assembly, 
 
 102. 
 
 at the Second Dundee As- 
 sembly, 105. 
 
 at the Holyrood Conference, 
 
 106-108. 
 at the Montrose Assembly, 
 
 109.
 
 INDEX 
 
 '55 
 
 Melville attends the Parliament, 
 
 "3- 
 summoned to London by the 
 
 King, 116. 
 before the King and Council 
 
 of England, 121. 
 
 attends Michaelmas Day 
 
 service in Royal Chapel, 123. 
 
 his satiric verses on the ser- 
 vice, 123. 
 
 before the Scottish Council 
 
 in London, 124. 
 
 at Whitehall, 125. 
 
 his attack on Archbishop 
 
 Bancroft, 125. 
 
 is ordered into ward, 127. 
 
 his Henker-mahl, 129. 
 
 again before the English 
 
 Council, 131. 
 
 is sent to the Tower, 131. 
 
 his occupations in prison, 
 
 141. 
 
 his visitors, 143. 
 
 . his release, 145. 
 
 leaves for France, 146. 
 
 settles in Sedan as Professor 
 
 in the University, 146. 
 his letters from Sedan, 146- 
 
 148, 150. 
 
 receives tidings of James 
 
 Melville's death, 149. 
 
 the last production of his 
 
 pen, 150. 
 
 his death, 151. 
 
 his character, 151. 
 
 James, affection of, for 
 
 his uncle, 16, 24, 51, 132, 141, 
 
 143- 
 a great literary impressionist, 
 
 18. 
 has a warrant issued for his 
 
 apprehension, 52. 
 
 escapes by open boat to 
 
 Berwick, 52. 
 
 Melville, James, his labours at 
 Berwick, 57. 
 
 his attack on Archbishop 
 
 Adamson, 59. 
 
 has a private interview with 
 
 the King, 77. 
 
 as a courtier, 78. 
 
 with the expedition against 
 
 Huntly, 81. 
 
 at Hampton Court (chap. 
 
 ix.), 116-133. 
 
 is ordered into ward at New- 
 castle, 132. 
 
 his death, 149. 
 
 his character, 149. 
 
 his Autobiography and Diary 
 
 quoted, 24, 25, 37, 41, 47, 48, 
 49. 55. 60, 79, 80, 83, go, 107, 
 109, 120, 122, 129 et passim. 
 
 Morton, Regent, 31, 33, 36, 37, 
 3 8 . 43- 
 
 NICOLSON, Bishop of Dunkeld, 
 136. 
 
 PARIS, University of, 18. 
 
 Perth, the Five Articles of, 151. 
 
 Poitiers, 18. 
 
 Pont, Robert, minister in Edin- 
 burgh, 51, 144. 
 
 Presbyterian Church the only voice 
 of the nation, 94. 
 
 Presbyterianism, what Scotland 
 owes to, 10. 
 
 Puritans of London and the Scot- 
 tish ministers, 116, 125, 132. 
 
 RAID of Ruthven, 48. 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 143. 
 Reformation, Assembly scheme of, 
 
 86. 
 ' Riot of December i7th ' [1596, in 
 
 Edinburgh], 97. 
 Ruthven lords, 55, 57.
 
 '56 
 
 FAMOUS SCOTS 
 
 SALISBURY, Earl of, Premier of 
 
 England, 121, 128, 131. 
 Scott, William, minister of Cupar, 
 
 122, 132. 
 
 Sea ton, the Chancellor of Scot- 
 land, 146. 
 
 Second Book of Discipline, 35, 
 40. 
 
 Sedan, 145. 
 
 Sempill, Sir James, of Beltrees, 
 140. 
 
 Spanish Blanks, 73. 
 
 Spotswood, Archbishop, 117, 142. 
 
 St. Andrews, University of, 17, 
 27. 
 
 Stewart, Esme, Duke of Lennox, 
 
 43. 48. 
 
 Stewart, James, Earl of Arran, 
 
 44. 47, 48, S, 54, 55- 
 Strathbogie Castle, ' dinging 
 
 doun ' of, 82. 
 
 True Law of Free Monarchy, 
 
 108. 
 Tulchan Scheme (chap, iv.), 31- 
 
 42. 
 
 WALLACE, ROBERT, minister of 
 
 Tranent, 125. 
 Wishart, George, 15.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE 
 "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES. 
 
 Of THOMAS CARLYLE, by H. C. MACPHERSON, 
 
 The Literary World says : 
 
 " One of the very best little books on Carlyle yet written, far out-weighing in 
 value some more pretentious works with which we are familiar." 
 
 Of ALLAN RAMSAY, by OLIPHANT SMEATON, 
 
 The Scotsman says : 
 
 " It is not a patchwork picture, but one in which the writer, taking genuine 
 interest in his subject, and bestowing conscientious pains on his task, has his 
 materials well in hand, and has used them to produce a portrait that is both life- 
 like and well balanced." 
 
 Of HUGH MILLER, by W. KEITH LEASK, 
 
 The Expository Times says : 
 
 " It is a right good book and a right true biography. . . . There is a very fine 
 sense of Hugh Miller's greatness as a man and a Scotsman ; there is also a fine 
 choice of language in making it ours." 
 
 Of JOHN KNOX, by A. TAYLOR INNES, 
 
 Mr Hay Fleming in the Bookman says : 
 
 "A masterly delineation of those stirring times in Scotland, and of that famous 
 Scot who helped so much to shape them." 
 
 Of ROBERT BURNS, by GABRIEL SETOUN, 
 
 The New Age says : 
 
 " It is the best thing on Burns we have yet had, almost as good as Carlyle's 
 Essay and the pamphlet published by Dr Nichol of Glasgow." 
 
 Of THE BALLAD I STS, by JOHN GEDDIE, 
 
 The Spectator says : 
 
 " The author has certainly made a contribution of remarkable value to the 
 literary history of Scotland. We do not know of a book in which the subject has 
 been treated with deeper sympathy or out of a fuller knowledge." 
 
 Of RICHARD CAMERON, by Professor HERKLESS, 
 
 The Dundee Courier says : 
 
 " In selecting Professor Herkless to prepare this addition to the ' Famous Scots 
 Series ' of books, the publishers have made an excellent choice. The vigorous, 
 manly style adopted is exactly suited to the subject, and_ Richard Cameron is 
 presented to the reader in a manner as interesting as it is impressive. . . . 
 Professor Herkless has done remarkably well, and the portrait he has so cleverly 
 delineated of one of Scotland's most cherished heroes is one that will never fade." 
 
 Of SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, by EVE BLANTYRE 
 
 SIMPSON, 
 
 The Daily Chronicle says : 
 
 "It is indeed long since we have read such a charmingly-written biography as 
 this little Life of the most typical and ' Famous Scot' that his countrymen have 
 been proud of since the time of Sir Walter. . . . There is not a dull, irrelevant, 
 or superfluous page in all Miss Simpson's booklet, and she has performed the 
 biographer's chief duty that of selection with consummate skill and judgment."
 
 PRESS OPINIONS ON "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES continued 
 
 Of THOMAS CHALMERS, by W. GARDEN BLAIKIE, 
 
 The Spectator says : 
 
 " The most notable feature of Professor Blaikie's book and none could be more 
 commendable is its perfect balance and proportion. In other words, justice is 
 done equally to the private and to the public life of Chalmers, if possible greater 
 justice than has been done by Mrs Oliphant." 
 
 Of JAMES BOSWELL, by W. KEITH LEASK, 
 
 The Morning Leader says : 
 
 " Mr W. K. Leask has approached the biographer of Johnson in the only possible 
 way by which a really interesting book could have been arrived at by way of the 
 open mind. . . . The defence of Boswell in the concluding chapter of his delightful 
 study is one of the finest and most convincing passages that have recently appeared 
 in the field of British biography." 
 
 Of TOBIAS SMOLLETT, by OLIPHANT SMEATON, 
 
 The Weekly Scotsman says : 
 
 "The book is written in a crisp and lively style. . . . The picture of the great 
 novelist is complete and lifelike. Not only does Mr Smeaton give a scholarly 
 sketch and estimate of Smollett's literary career, he constantly keeps the reader in 
 conscious touch and sympathy with his personality, and produces a portrait of the 
 man as a man which is not likely to be readily forgotten." 
 
 Of FLETCHER OF SALTOUN, by W. G. T. OMOND, 
 
 The Leeds Mercttry says : 
 
 " Unmistakably the most interesting and complete story of the life of Fletcher of 
 Saltoun that has yet appeared. Mr Omond has had many facilities placed at his 
 disposal, and of these he has made excellent use." 
 
 Of THE BLACKWOOD GROUP, by Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS, 
 
 The Weekly Citizen says : 
 
 " It need not be said that to everyone interested in the literature of the first half 
 of the century, and especially to every Scotsman so interested, ' The Blackwood 
 Group ' is a phrase abounding in promise. And really Sir George Douglas fulfils 
 the promise he tacitly makes in his title. He is intimately acquainted not only 
 with the books of the different members of the ' group,' but also with their environ- 
 ment, social and otherwise. Besides, he writes with sympathy as well as know- 
 ledge." 
 
 Of NORMAN MACLEOD, by JOHN WELLWOOD, 
 
 The Star says : 
 
 "A worthy ad_dition to the ' Famous Scots Series' is that of Norman Macleod, 
 the renowned minister of the Barony in Glasgow, and a man as typical of every- 
 thing generous and broadminded in the State Church in Scotland as Thomas 
 Guthrie was in the Free Churches. The biography is the work of John Wellwood, 
 who has approached it with proper appreciation of the robustness of the subject." 
 
 Of SIR WALTER SCOTT, by GEORGE SAINTSBURY, 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette says : 
 
 " Mr Saintsbury's miniature is a gem of its kind. ... Mr Saintsbury's critique 
 of the Waverley Novels will, I venture to think ; despite all that has been written 
 upon them, discover fresh beauties for their admirers." 
 
 Of KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE, by Louis A. BARBE. 
 
 The Scotsman says : 
 
 "Mr Barbels sketch sticks close to the facts of his life, and these are sought out 
 from the best sources and are arranged with much judgment, and on the whole 
 with an impartial mind."
 
 PRESS OPINIONS ON " FAMOUS SCOTS " SERIES continued 
 
 Of ROBERT FERGUSSON, by Dr A. B. GROSART, 
 
 The Westminster Gazette says : 
 
 "One of the most interesting of the Famous Scots Series is devoted to 'Robert 
 Fergusson' the poet, to whom 'the greater Robert,' as he freely acknowledged, 
 was under so many obligations. Dr Grosart is perhaps the best living authority 
 on all that relates to the bard of ' The Farmer s Ingle,' and he gives many new 
 facts and corrects a number of erroneous statements that have hitherto obtained 
 currency respecting him. We have read it with genuine pleasure." 
 
 Of JAMES THOMSON, by WILLIAM BAYNE, 
 
 The Daily News says : 
 
 "A just appreciation of Thomson as poet and dramatist, and an interesting 
 record of the conditions under which he rose to fame, as also of his friendships 
 with the great ones of the eighteenth century." 
 
 Of MUNGO PARK, by T. BANKS MACLACHLAN, 
 
 The Leeds Mercury says : 
 
 " We owe to Mr Maclachlan not only a charming life-story, if at times a pathetic 
 one, but a vivid chapter in the romance of Africa. Geography has no more 
 wonderful tale than that dealing with the unravelling of the mystery of the 
 Niger." 
 
 The Speaker says : 
 
 " Mr Maclachlan recounts with incisive vigour the story of Mungo Park's heroic 
 wanderings and the services which he rendered to geographical research." 
 
 Of DAVID HUME, by HENRY CALDERWOOD, 
 
 The Speaker says : 
 
 " The little book is a virile recruit of the ' Famous Scots Series.' " 
 " This monograph is both picturesque and critical." 
 
 The New Age says : 
 
 " To the many students of philosophy in Scotland a special interest will attach 
 to Professor Calderwood's sketch of David Hume from' the fact that it is the last 
 piece of work done by its lamented author ; and very pleasing it is to note the 
 fairness and charity of the judgment passed by the most evangelical of philosophers 
 upon the man who used to be denounced as the prophet of infidelity." 
 
 Of WILLIAM D UNBAR, by OLIPHANT SMEATON, 
 
 The Speaker says : 
 
 " Mr Smea_ton looks narrowly into the characteristics of Dunbar's genius, and 
 does well to insist on the almost Shakespearian range of his gifts. He contends 
 that in elegy, as well as in satire and allegory, Dunbar's place in English litera- 
 ture is amongst the great masters of the craft of letters." 
 
 The Glasgow Herald says : 
 
 " This is a bright and picturesquely written monograph, presenting in readable 
 form the results of the critical research undertaken by Lamg, Schipper, and the 
 other scholars who during the present century have done so much for the elucida- 
 tion of the greatest of our early Scottish poets." 
 
 Of SIR WILLIAM WALLACE, by Professor MURISON, 
 
 The Speaker says : 
 
 _"Mr_Murison is to be congratulated on this little book. After much hard and 
 discriminative labour he has pieced together by far the best, one might say the 
 only rational and coherent, account of Wallace that exists." 
 Mr William Wallace in the Academy says : 
 "Professor Murison has acquitted himself of his task like a patriot." 
 "Capital reading." 
 
 The Daily News says : 
 
 " A scholarly and impartial little volume, one of the best yet published in the 
 ' Famous Scots Series.' '
 
 PRESS OPINIONS ON "FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES continued 
 
 The Pall Matt Gazette says : 
 
 " Another of this admirable collection of biographical studies has appeared. 
 It is a well written narrative of the few authenticated facts known about the 
 popular hero of Scotland, Sir William Wallace, its production having been pre- 
 ceded by a diligent study of such documents as have been rendered procurable 
 by text clubs and historical societies in the north. So far the book would be 
 acceptable to all. It, however, contains something else. History is dumb about 
 many of the years of the hero's life ; but legend and romance have found utter- 
 ance in minstrelsy, and witji Blind Harry's epic to draw upon, what more could 
 perfervid Scots wish for? Professor Murison has incorporated such a quantity 
 of the minstrel's incredibjj tales in his book that it is scarcely likely to prove 
 delectable fare for any bat his compatriots. It is a bright little book which will 
 be much relished north of the Tweed and also among those Scottish exiles who 
 are supposed to be pining away their lives south of it." 
 
 The New Age says : 
 
 " Anyhow, here at least, we have his life-story a most difficult tale to tell 
 recorded with a painstaking research and in a spirit of appreciative candour which 
 leave almost nothing to be desired." 
 
 Of ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, by MARGARET MOVES 
 BLACK, 
 
 The Banff shire Journal says : 
 
 " The portrait drawn as it is by a loving hand, is absolutely photographic in its 
 likeness, and the literary criticisms with which the book is pleasantly studded are 
 alike careful and judicious, and with most of them the ordinary reader will cordially 
 agree." 
 
 The Bookman says : 
 "This little book is sure to get a welcome." 
 
 The Speaker says : 
 
 " Sense and sensibility are in these pages, as well as knowledge and delicate 
 discrimination." 
 
 The Outlook says : 
 
 " Certainly one of the most charming biographies we have ever come across. 
 The writer has style, sympathy, distinction, and understanding. We were loth to 
 put the book aside. Its one fault is that it is too short." 
 
 The Daily Free Press says : 
 
 " One of the most charming sketches it is scarcely a biography of a literary 
 man that could be found has just been published as the latest number of the 
 ' Famous Scots Series ' ' R. Louis Stevenson,' by Miss Black. The excellence of 
 the little book lies in its artless charm, in its loose and easy style, in its author's 
 evident love and delight in her subject." 
 
 Of THOMAS REID, by Professor CAMPBELL FRASER, 
 
 The North British Daily Mail says : 
 
 "A model of sympathetic appreciation and of succinct and lucid exposition." 
 The Scotsman says : 
 
 " Professor Campbell Fraser's volume on Thomas Reid is one of the most able 
 and valuable of an able and valuable series. He supplies what must be allowed to 
 be a distinct want in our literature, in the shape of a brief, popular, and accessible 
 biography of the founder of the so-called Scottish School of Philosophy, written 
 with notable perspicuity and sympathy by one who has made a special study of 
 the problems that engaged the mind of Reid." 
 The Glasgow Herald says : 
 
 " We do not know any volume of the ' Famous Scots Series' that deserves or is 
 likely to receive a heartier welcome from the educated public than this life and 
 estimate of Reid by Professor Campbell Fraser. The writer is no amateur but a 
 past-master in the subject of the Scottish philosophy, and it has evidently been a 
 real pleasure to him to expiscate quite a number of new facts regarding the pro- 
 fessional and private life of its best representative."
 
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