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ANDREW MELVILLE
BY
WILLIAM MORISON
FAMOUS
SCOTS:
SERIES
PUBLISHED BY
OLIPHANT ANDERSON
FERRIER EDINBVRGH
AND LONDON
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.
Transcriber's notes: Minor typos have been corrected. Footnotes have
been placed at the end of the paragraph to which they refer. Greek has
been changed to Latin letters and placed in brackets.
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
PAGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY 9
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 'BIGGING UP' OF THE BISHOPS UNDER LENNOX
AND ARRAN--MELVILLE'S FLIGHT TO ENGLAND 43
CHAPTER VI
THE KING'S SURRENDER TO THE CHURCH 56
CHAPTER VII
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 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 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
conjunction 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. The opposing
system was discredited in their mind by the policy by which it was
promoted. It was a policy 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 character. 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 interest rested on no other ground
than the services he rendered to the Church and to the nation in
maintaining 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 _élite_ 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,
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 appearances 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 manhood, 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 the King and the
Court he played the man, uttered fearlessly on every occasion the last
syllable of his convictions, made no accommodation or concession to
arbitrary authority, and kept an untamed and hopeful spirit on to the
very end. The work a man may do 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 nobility of character.