Melville did not expect any other result, although he had been told that the King seemed favourably disposed 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 Gledstanes, 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 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 tenderness are the letters which passed between the two. He was also much moved by the tokens of remembrance 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: 'I received the Spanish and British 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 repartee, 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.
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 banishment. 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 invitation to Sedan, it was more and more borne in upon his mind that it was the call of Providence and the fulfilment 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 19th 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.