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 20th 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 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 comparison 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 'confutation' 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, 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 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 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 Majestie all guid, assureing my selff and the Bretherine that thais Articles quhairoff a copy cam in my handis could not be from your Majestie, they wer so strange; and quhom sould I think, speik, or wryt guid of, if not of your Majestie, 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 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 intellect 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, evidently realised that he was getting the worst of the encounter—'smelling how the matter went, he seemit 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 Archbisschoppes, sayis, "Quhat? Me thinkis he makes him the Antichryst!" And, suddentlie, again with ane oath, "Be God! It is the divelis name in the Revelatioune! He hes maid the divel of him, welbelovit 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, 29th 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.
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 '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 2nd 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.