'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 adolescentiæ. Only the gravel now and then seasons my mirth with some little pain, which 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 pamphlet 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,[29] 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 nation alter; the battlegrounds of freedom and progress shift; but this spiritual intrepidity and scorn of consequence ever remains the chief and most indispensable 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. 'Sic fortis Etruria crevit.'
FOOTNOTES:
[29] When it concerned his private interest.
INDEX
Aberdeen, the Assembly at, [112].
Act of 1592, [70].
Adamson, Patrick, Archbishop of St. Andrews, [38], [51]-53, [59], [61].
Andrewes, Bishop of Chichester, [118].
Armada, the Spanish, [64], [65].
Assembly times in Melville's day, [41].
Balcanquhal, Walter, minister in Edinburgh, [42].
Balfour of Burley, [38], [82]-84.
---- James, minister in Edinburgh, [117], [135].
Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, [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 Edinburgh, [66], [67], [69], [111].
Buchanan, George, [24], [25], [44].
Burton, John Hill, [12], [92].
Casaubon, Isaac, [143].
Covenant, renewal of, [85].
Craig, John, minister in Edinburgh, [53], [144].
Davidson, John, minister of Liberton and Prestonpans, [46], [104], [105].
Davison, the English Ambassador, [54].
Dunbar, Earl of, King's Commissioner for Scotland, [124], [135].
Durie, John, minister in Edinburgh, [36], [46], [48], [53].
---- Robert, minister of Anstruther, [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].
Gowrie Conspiracy, [110].
Hall, Bishop of Norwich, [143].
Intimates of Melville, [41].
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, [61].
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 Linlithgow, [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 Scotland, [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 Montgomery, [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 Assembly, [105].
at the Holyrood Conference, [106]-108.
at the Montrose Assembly, [109].
Melville attends the Parliament,
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 service, [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].
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 Newcastle, [132].
his death, [149].
his character, [149].
his Autobiography and Diary quoted, [24], [25], [37], [41], [47], [48], [49], [55], [60], [79], [80], [83], [90], [107], [109], [120], [122], [129] et passim.
Morton, Regent, [31], [33], [36], [37], [38], [43].
Nicolson, Bishop of Dunkeld, [136].
Paris, University of, [18].
Perth, the Five Articles of, [151].
Poitiers, [18].
Pont, Robert, minister in Edinburgh, [51], [144].
Presbyterian Church the only voice of the nation, [94].
Presbyterianism, what Scotland owes to, [10].
Puritans of London and the Scottish ministers, [116], [125], [132].
Raid of Ruthven, [48].
Raleigh, Sir Walter, [143].
Reformation, Assembly scheme of, [86].
'Riot of December 17th' [1596, in Edinburgh], [97].
Ruthven lords, [55], [57].
Salisbury, Earl of, Premier of England, [121], [128], [131].
Scott, William, minister of Cupar, [122], [132].
Seaton, the Chancellor of Scotland, [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], [50], [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].