Chapter 8

THE 'BIGGING UP' OF THE BISHOPS UNDER LENNOX AND ARRAN--MELVILLE'S FLIGHT TO ENGLAND

'To deal with proud men is but pain, For either must ye fight or flee, Or else no answer make again, But play the beast and let them be.'

_The Raid of the Reidswyre._

In March 1578, James, then in his twelfth year, assumed the government. In Morton he had had an adviser who was not friendly to the Church, but those who displaced Morton and brought him before long to the scaffold were its determined and avowed enemies. During the few years with which we have to deal in this chapter, the Government was directed by two men whose character and policy were detested by the nation, and who filled up their short tenure of power with as many exasperating acts of despotism as it was possible to crowd into it. The more prominent of the two, Esme Stewart, a kinsman of the King, cousin of his father Darnley, was a foreigner and had been trained in the French Court. He had a brief and inglorious career in Scotland. He had no sooner joined the King's Council than he became the master of its policy, being the first of the _gratæ personæ_ who in succession established themselves in the Court of James and brought him under their control. There is little wonder that the boy-king, who had passed through the stern hands of George Buchanan and had spent his time for the most part with men of our austere Scottish character, should have felt the seductiveness of the gay foreigner 'with his French fasons and toyes.' Esme Stewart had not been long in the country before James began to decorate him with honours and enrich him with gifts of lands and money. He was created Duke of Lennox and made Lord High Chancellor, in which latter capacity he had the custody of the King's person--a pawn which in this reign was often decisive in the contest for political supremacy. He soon filled the Court with men of his own stamp. One of these, only second to himself in influence with the King, was another Stewart--James, the infamous son of Lord Ochiltree. Like his patron, James Stewart soon received high promotion, being made Earl of Arran.

Lennox had come to Scotland as an emissary of the French Government and as an agent of the Guises, in order to induce James to break off his alliance with England in favour of the old alliance with France, and to restore the Roman Church in the country; but the ministers having become informed of his designs, raised such a storm against him that he was driven to make a public renunciation of Popery, and obliged to prosecute his mission by more cautious and circuitous methods than he intended to use. Lennox's evil influence on James in ecclesiastical affairs soon became apparent. On the See of Glasgow becoming vacant, the benefice was appropriated by himself and the title bestowed on Robert Montgomery, minister of Stirling. The Church at once rose up in arms against this flagrant violation of its authority, put Montgomery on his trial for contumacy, found him guilty, and sentenced him to deposition and excommunication. It was at the instance of Melville, who, in this as in many another crisis in the Church's history in his time, was called to the Moderator's chair, that the Assembly took action against Montgomery, and this was done in defiance of a royal inhibition. The inferior courts to which the judicial process at different stages was remitted showed the same determined spirit, so deep and widespread was the indignation that was roused against Lennox by his attempt to thrust bishops anew upon the Church, and against the minister of the Church who had so basely lent himself to it. When the case came before the Presbytery of Glasgow, Montgomery himself appeared, accompanied by the provost and bailies and an escort of soldiers, and produced an interdict under the King's hand against its proceeding. The Presbytery paid no heed to the intruders, and was going on with the business, when the Moderator was ejected from the chair, assaulted, and taken off to prison. Still the Presbytery proceeded till it finished the case and carried out the injunction of the Assembly. Among the crowd gathered at the Presbytery house was a band of students from the University, who in making a demonstration of their sympathy with the ministers were charged by the soldiery, and some blood was shed. The ministers of the East vied with those of the West in supporting the action of the Assembly. John Durie, the most powerful and popular among them, distinguished himself by the boldness with which he spoke against Lennox as the disturber of the peace of the Church. The sentence of excommunication, which had been transmitted to the Edinburgh Presbytery, was pronounced by John Davidson, minister of Liberton, and read in most of the pulpits in Edinburgh and Glasgow on the following Sabbath. A meeting of the Privy Council was immediately called, in which proceedings were taken against the ministers of Edinburgh, and John Durie was banished from the city.

A special meeting of Assembly was called to deal with this serious state of affairs, Melville being still in the chair. In his opening sermon he made a vehement attack on the Court for its renewed attempt to overthrow the Church's order and restore Episcopacy, and spoke of the King's claim to spiritual authority as a 'bludie gullie' thrust into the Commonwealth--a description which the later history of Scotland has sufficiently verified. The House, at one with the Moderator, drew up a statement of the Church's recent grievances, and appointed Melville and some other members to present it to the King at Perth, where he was residing at the time. To Perth accordingly they went. This was a daring step in the circumstances, when there was such exasperation in the Court, and when its councils were led by two such men as Lennox and Arran. 'News was sparpelet athort[7] the cuntry that the ministers war all to be thair massacred.' Melville was warned by a friendly courtier, his namesake Sir James Melville of Halhill, of the risk he ran in carrying out the Assembly's commission. 'I thank God,' he answered, 'I am nocht fleyed nor feible-spirited in the cause and message of Christ. Come what God please to send, our commission sal be dischargit.' When he and the other members of the deputation appeared before the King in Council and read their remonstrance, Arran interfered, when there occurred another of those historic scenes associated with Melville's name, in which he displayed such splendid courage in the resistance of tyranny. An arrogant assailant, like steel striking against flint, always elicited a flash of his noblest manhood. 'Arran began to threttin with thrawin[8] brow and bosting langage. "What," says he, "wha dar subscryve thir treasanable Articles?" "We dar, and will subscryve them,"' answered Melville, taking, as he spoke, the pen from the clerk and putting his name to the document; and then, beckoning to his fellow-deputies, he bade them follow his example, which they all did. The boldness of the deed cowed even Lennox and Arran. They saw that day that 'the Kirk had a bak,' and were glad to dismiss the deputies without further debate.

[Footnote 7: Spread athwart.]

[Footnote 8: Frowning.]

The firmness with which the two Court favourites were handled by the ministers inspirited the nobles to execute a plot that had been laid to get the King out of their hands and end their intolerable supremacy. As soon as the King's person had been secured by the Raid of Ruthven, Lennox was banished from the realm, and Arran enjoined to confine himself to his own estate.

For a while the Church had rest and breathed freely after the strain that had been put upon it. A few days after the Raid of Ruthven a great outburst of popular feeling in favour of Presbyterianism took place in Edinburgh, the occasion being the return of John Durie from banishment. 'Ther was a grait concurs of the haill town, wha met him at the Nather Bow; and, going upe the streit, with bear heads and loud voices, sang to the praise of God, and testifeing of grait joy and consolation, the 124th Psalm, "Now Israel may say," etc., till heavin and erthe resoundit. This noyes, when the Duc [of Lennox] being in the town, hard, and ludgit in the Hie-gat, luiked out and saw, he rave his berde for anger, and hasted him af the town.'

The peace of the Church was short-lived. In midsummer of 1583 the King made his escape from the Ruthven lords and betook himself to the Castle of St. Andrews. The old gang at once returned to Court. Lennox had died in exile; but Arran was reinstalled at the Council-board, and immediately renewed the old measures against the ministers, whose part in causing his recent fall made him more than ever determined to crush them. He began with Melville, who was summoned before the Council--it was in February 1584--on a trumped-up charge of using treasonable language in the course of one of his sermons. Melville declined the jurisdiction of the Council on the ground that he was not accused of a civil offence, but of doctrine uttered in the pulpit. His declinature was taken so hotly by the King and Arran that all who were present felt he was as good as a dead man; but 'Mr. Andro, never jarging[9] nor daschit[10] a whit, with magnanimus courage, mightie force of sprit and fouthe[11] of evidence of reason and langage, plainly tauld the King and Council that they presumed ower bauldlie ... to tak upon them to judge the doctrine and controll the ambassadors and messengers of a King and Counsall graiter nor they, and far above tham! "And that," sayes he, "ye may see weakness, owersight, and rashness in taking upon you that quhilk yie nather aught nor can do" (lowsing a litle Hebrew Byble fra his belt and clanking it down on the burd before King and Chancelar), "thair is," says he, "my instructiones and warrand."' A number of witnesses, well-known enemies of Melville, who had been brought from St. Andrews to support the accusation, gave their evidence, but to no purpose. Instead of being discharged, however, he was condemned for the boldness of his defence--which was construed as a new offence,--and sentenced to imprisonment in the Castle of Edinburgh during his Majesty's pleasure.

[Footnote 9: Swerving.]

[Footnote 10: Abashed.]

[Footnote 11: Abundance.]

Rulers who could so outrage justice as to deprive a subject of his liberty on such a ground were not to be trusted with his life. So all Melville's friends and Melville himself thought. They were persuaded that Arran, at least, was bent on silencing the man who was his most formidable opponent. His friends, quoting the proverb, 'lowes and leiving,'[12] urged him to flight, and he himself resolved on it, having not only his personal safety but also the interests of the Church and the commonweal to consider and safeguard. During the few days he was still left free, he appeared as usual among his friends, and in the best of spirits. At dinner in James Lawson's manse, where many of his friends gathered to meet him, he seemed the only light-hearted man in the company. 'He ate and drank and crakked als merrelie and frie-myndit as at anie tyme and mair,' drinking to his gaoler and fellow-prisoners, and bidding his brethren make ready to follow. While seated at table, the macer of the Council appeared with a warrant charging him to enter the Castle of Blackness within twenty-four hours. When the macer had withdrawn, Melville left the manse, and, confiding his intention to only a few friends, made his escape from the city, accompanied by his brother Roger, and within the twenty-four hours was safely over the Border and lodged in Berwick.

[Footnote 12: Loose and living.]

Melville's exile at this juncture, when he was so much needed at home to meet the tyranny of the Court, was a severe blow to his brethren in the ministry and to all the friends of the Church. They were entering a heavy battle when they were deprived of their trusted captain. More than James Melville could have said at that time that they felt a 'cauld heavie lumpe' lying on their hearts. The ministers of Edinburgh showed their characteristic spirit in this crisis, and raised such a storm against the King and Council on account of their treatment of Melville that the Court had to defend itself by an apologetic proclamation.

Within a few months after Melville's flight measures were passed through Parliament which upset all that the Church had done during the previous decade to extricate itself from the confusion of the Tulchan Episcopacy. They were devised by Arran and by Archbishop Adamson, who persistently used his influence at Court for the subversion of Presbytery. These measures--'The Black Acts'--declared the supremacy of the King in all matters--ecclesiastical and civil--and made all rejection of his authority a treasonable act: they deprived the Church of the rights of free assembly, free speech, and independent legislation; and they empowered the bishops to reestablish their order in every part of the kingdom. A clause was added requiring all ministers to sign an act of submission to the bishops on penalty of losing their offices and their livings.

On these Acts being proclaimed at the Cross of Edinburgh, the ministers of the city--James Lawson, Walter Balcanquhal, and Robert Pont--appeared and made protest against them, when Arran was so incensed by their conduct that he at once ordered their arrest, and swore he would make Lawson's head 'leap from its halse though it was as big as a haystack.' More than they were in jeopardy of their lives; every man in the country who had been a pronounced friend of liberty had cause to fear. Lawson, Balcanquhal, and Pont fled, with many others. A warrant had been procured by Archbishop Adamson for the apprehension of James Melville, when he made his escape by open boat to Berwick.

The course of events showed that the ministers had reason for their flight. Some of the most zealous of those left in the country were thrown into prison for refusing to conform to the Acts, or for remembering their banished brethren in public prayer. One minister was tried and sentenced to death on a charge that a letter from one of these brethren had been found in possession of his wife; and though the sentence was not executed, the scaffold was put up, and kept up for some time, before his prison window. Nor were the ministers the only sufferers. Glasgow University, which Melville's teaching and influence had leavened with the principles of liberty, was made to feel the heavy hand of the Government: its professors were imprisoned, its rector was banished, and its gates were closed.

Popular indignation began to break forth in many quarters. In St. Andrews the students went in a body to the Archbishop's palace and warned him that he was courting the fate of Hamilton and Beaton; while visiting Edinburgh, Adamson had to be protected by the police; Montgomery was mobbed at Ayr; and wherever the bishops appeared there were hostile demonstrations on the part of the people.

The Court, however, defied public opinion, and went on with its coercive policy, rigidly enforcing submission to the authority of the bishops. At first the great majority of the ministers refused; but on a clause being added to the deed of submission, to the effect that it required them only to conform 'according to the Word of God,' most of them gave way. The clause was suggested by Adamson, and it reflects his character. It was one of those shrewd devices for causing division among the ministers, and providing a middle way for men distracted by the desire to be faithful to their consciences on the one hand, and the wish to escape persecution on the other, which were often resorted to by the Court throughout the entire course of the struggle against prelacy. Some of the stalwarts of the Church fell into the trap which Adamson had set for them in this shallow compromise, and their example led many others to yield. One of the banished brethren, in a letter written at the time, states that all the ministers in the Lothians and the Merse, with only ten exceptions, had subscribed; that John Erskine of Dun had not only subscribed, but was making himself a pest to the ministers in the North by importuning them to follow his example; that John Craig, so long Knox's colleague, had given in and was speaking hotly against those who held out; that even the redoubtable John Durie had 'cracked his curple'[13] at last; and that the pulpits of Edinburgh were silent, except a very few 'who sigh and sob under the Cross.'

[Footnote 13: Crupper.]

Events took such a course that the ministers who subscribed might, after all, have held out with a whole skin. They capitulated to their enemies on the very eve of their enemies' fall; for the exasperation of the nation under such insolent tyranny as Arran's could no longer be held in. Davison, the English Ambassador, writing to the Court at this time, says: 'It is incredible how universally the man is hated by all men of all degrees, and what a jealousy is sunken into the heads of some of the wisest here of his ambitious and immoderate thoughts.... His usurp power and disposition of all things, both in Courts, Parliaments, and Sessions, at the appetite of himself and his good lady, with many other things do bewray matter enough to suspect the fruits of ambition and inordinate thirst for rule'; and he adds, 'I find infinite appearances that the young King's course ... doth carry him headlong to his own danger and hazard of his estate. He hath, since the change at St. Andrews, continually followed forth implacable hatred and pursuit against all such as in defence of his life and crown have hazarded their own lives, living, fortunes in all that they have, and now throws himself into the arms of those that have heretofore preferred his mother's satisfaction to his own surety, and do yet aim at that mark, with the apparent danger of religion which hath already received a greater wound by the late confusions and alterations than can be easily repaired.' Other satellites of the Court helped to make the country restive. Adamson especially provoked the people by many petty acts of tyranny, such as the ejection from the manses of the wives of the banished ministers on account of a spirited defence of their husbands, which they had published in reply to charges made against them by the Archbishop.

At the same time the country was visited by two great calamities which were interpreted as divine judgments on the misdeeds of the Government. The harvest was destroyed by heavy rains, and there was an outbreak of the plague of such virulence as to spread terror in all the larger cities. Edinburgh was so desolated, that when James Melville and others of the banished ministers passed through the streets on their return home, they found them empty,--'About alleavin hours he cam rydding in at the watergett of the Abbay, upe throw the Canow-gett, and red in at the Nether Bow, throw the graitt street of Edinbruche to the Wast Port, in all the quhilk way we saw nocht three persons, so that I miskend Edinbruche, and almost forgot that ever I had seen sic a toun.' The people felt that 'the Lord's hand wald nocht stay unto the tyme the Ministers of God and Noble-men war brought hame again.' The banished lords, emboldened by the dissatisfaction of the people and the support of the English Government, and joining with several Border chiefs who had old scores of their own against Arran, invaded the country, marched to Stirling, where the King and Court had retired on hearing of their approach, and took possession of the town. Arran fled, and James was glad to come to terms with the lords.