Chapter 13

THE KING'S ASSEMBLIES

'Gold? . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ha, you gods! . . . Why, this Will lug your priests and servants from your sides.'

_Timon of Athens._

Before we go on to the closing chapter of Melville's personal history, we must glance at the course of events in Scotland from the time he and his brethren were called to London, up to the Glasgow Assembly in 1610, when the Church made a total surrender to the King, and 'Jericho was buildit up againe in Scotland.'

The Invincibles of the Church having been put out of the way by imprisonment or banishment, the King felt that he might safely call an Assembly to execute his wishes, and to ratify in the Church's name the restoration of Episcopacy as it had been decreed by the Parliament. So in the beginning of December 1606, the Assembly was summoned to meet in Linlithgow. Letters were sent by the King to every presbytery; and they not only intimated the meeting, but named the representatives to be sent. In the event of the presbyteries refusing to return the King's nominees, these were instructed to appear without any presbyterial mandate. The business was stated to be the suppression of Popery and the healing of the jars of the Church. In this programme the former item was the gilt on the pill of the latter. James Balfour--who was in London at the time--exposed the real character of the Assembly's business when he was told of it by Bishop Law of Orkney, who had come to Court to report the proceedings to the King: '"_In nomine Domini incipit omne malum!_ This is pretendit bot the dint will lycht on the Kirk ..."--"They sall call me a false knave," replied the Bishop, "and never to be believit again, if the Papists be not sa handleit as they wer never in Scotland."--"That may weill be,"' was Balfour's rejoinder.

When the House came to the matter which was the real occasion for the Assembly being held, the question was put, What was the cause of the jars of the Kirk? And the answer given was, The want of a free Assembly. King's men as they were, the members had not yet been tamed to entire servility; as was further shown by their agreeing to petition James on behalf of the banished ministers, and by their appointing another Assembly to be held in Edinburgh in the following year. The King's Commissioner--the Earl of Dunbar--was surely in a compliant mood when he allowed the House such liberty! But at this point the trump card he had been concealing in his sleeve was thrown on the table. He proposed in the King's name that until the business for which the Assembly had been called was settled, _Constant_ Moderators should be appointed for the presbyteries. As it was said at the time, these Constant Moderators were to be thrust like little thieves into the windows to open the door to the great thieves--the bishops. Strong objection was made to this fatal innovation on Presbytery, and it was agreed to, only after cautions, proposed by the House, had been accepted by the Commissioner.

That even such a tame Assembly was indisposed to yield up the liberties of the Church at the demand of the King was shown by the passing of resolutions intended to clip the wings of the bishops. These resolutions declared, with the concurrence of the bishops themselves, that they were subject to the discipline of the Church and amenable to their own presbyteries.

The King was mightily displeased with his friends in the Assembly because they had not 'proceedit frielyer'; he was enraged at the bishops for submitting themselves to the courts of the Church. The Moderator, Nicolson, Bishop of Dunkeld, at one time James Melville's bosom friend and a standard-bearer of the Kirk, took the King's displeasure so much to heart that he fell ill, and when it was proposed to send for a doctor, replied, 'Send for King James; it is the digesting of his Bishoprick that has wracked my stomack.'

The presbyteries rose up in arms against the Constant Moderators, as did all the synods except Angus; and many scenes of violence took place at the meetings, of these courts through the attempt made by the King's Commissioner to force the adoption of the Acts of the Linlithgow Assembly. The King had still some hard work to do before he could accomplish his purposes. His next step was to propose a conference of ministers, chosen from both sides of the House, to confer on the questions at issue; and meanwhile all public discussion on these questions was to be suspended. The ministers accepted the proposal--another of these fatal concessions by which they were only drawn further into the King's net. Confer and discuss as they might, the King remained the final arbiter, and only one conclusion would be accepted by him. By the suspension of hostilities between the two parties in the Church, those who were opposed to the King gained nothing, and he gained much. While the ministers were silent and inactive, the bishops were as aggressive as ever; they openly avowed their intention of conforming the Church to Episcopacy; and they brought down from London the King's Commissioner and several dignitaries of the English Church to assist them in the task.

At the next meeting of Parliament, July 1609, the only measure now needed, so far as Parliament was concerned, to restore a full-blown Episcopacy, was passed without opposition. There was no minister present; while Episcopal dignitaries were again brought from London to grace the proceedings and witness the surrender that was to be made to their own ecclesiastical polity. At that Parliament 'thai rayd royallie and Prelat lyk.' The measures that were passed restored the judicial power of the bishops, their seats in the Court of Session, and their lands and revenues. Authority was given to them to fix stipends and to raise or lower them as they were minded, and so the ministers were made to a large extent their dependants. One of the measures, the setting up of a High Court of Commission, raised the bishops to a higher degree of authority than they had ever possessed before. It was virtually a bishop's court, and it was invested with extraordinary power; those who sat in it could call before them any person in the kingdom who had incurred their displeasure, and judge and punish him without law and without appeal.

The Acts of this Parliament were the King's penultimate stroke against Presbytery. They armed the bishops with such power, that the King felt he might at length summon an Assembly which would make submission to Episcopacy. An Assembly was accordingly held in Glasgow in June 1610; and there the King's resolutions were carried with only two dissentient voices. The House was again filled with the King's nominees; and bribes were distributed among the members to the tune of 40,000 merks. The bribes were paid in 'Angel' pieces, and so the Assembly came to be known as the Angelical Assembly. It was money that did the King's 'turn'; 'and sa at are stollen dint[28] in are day was overthrown are worke seventie yeiris in building, and above twenty-four yeiris spacious and most profitabill standing.'

[Footnote 28: Stolen opportunity.]