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 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 Michaelmas 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 invective. '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 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 '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 Discipline. Melville denounced him as having proved himself 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 unpunished '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 countenancing 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 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, enjoining 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 entertainment to the ministers: he was, in truth, afraid that 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 Episcopacy. 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 characteristically 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 seck.' 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 performed, 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 summoned him for any unfriendly purpose, and at once, 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,[26] and the meitt put thairon, he uttirit to us ane excellent meditatioun, quhilk he had walking in the gallerie, on the second Psalme, joyneing thairwith 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 sall 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 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, stoping that healthsome breath of Godis mouth, and maintaining of the Papistis' corruptiounes and superstitiounes."—"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 quhairever 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 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 acknowledge 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 Northampton, then the Lord Treasurer; all of whom he rated in such a manner, sparing none of the vices, 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 with me."'[27] The King was more disconcerted by this parting shot of Melville's than by anything that had happened at the interview.