[Footnote 22: Reigned.]
The King bent before the tempest of Melville"s indignation, and the storm ended in calm: the deputation was dismissed with the promise that the Popish lords would "get no grace at his hands till they satisfied the Kirk."
The ministers had learned what value to attach to the royal word, so that they cannot have been greatly surprised when soon afterwards James showed his intention not only to indemnify the excommunicated lords, but to restore them to favour at Court. At this time Huntly"s Countess received a special mark of the King"s favour in being invited to the baptismal ceremony of his daughter Elizabeth, and at the same time another Popish lady was put in custody of the Princess at the Court.
The ultimate issue of this matter, which was soon involved in another and greater controversy between the Crown and the Church, was that the Popish lords, after a formal submission to the Courts of the Church, were absolved from their excommunication and restored to their former positions. No one believed that there was any sincerity in the transaction either on the part of Huntly and his friends, or of the King and Council, or of the majority of the a.s.sembly: the whole business was concocted and pushed through by the Crown for its own ends, with as much of the semblance of concession to the Church as possible, and as little of the reality. The action of the Court throughout the whole case was such as to breed the greatest suspicion of the King"s honesty in professing zeal for the defence of the country from the dangers threatened by Popish intrigues at home and abroad. Even Burton, whom no one will suspect of partiality to the Church, and whose animus against the ministers often overcomes his historic judgment, in writing of what he calls the "edifying ceremony" of the absolution of the lords, says: "It must be conceded to their enemies that it was a solemn farce; and whatever there might be in words or the surface of things, there would be, when these Earls were restored, a power in the North ready to co-operate with any Spanish invader."
CHAPTER VIII
THE KING"S GREEK GIFT TO THE CHURCH
"The words of his mouth were smoother than b.u.t.ter, but war was in his heart."
_The Psalms._
In 1596, at one of the many conferences which he held with the Commissioners of the Church on the business with which our last chapter was concerned, the King disclosed a new policy. For the double purpose of diverting public attention from the Popish lords, and of starting a new process for the overthrow of Presbytery, he cast off all disguise and threw down the gauntlet to the ministers. He told the Commissioners that the question of the redding of the marches between the two jurisdictions must be reopened, and that there could be no peace between him and the Church until it satisfied him on these four points:--that ministers should make no reference in the pulpit to affairs of government; that the Courts of the Church should take no cognisance of offences against the law of the land; that the General a.s.sembly should only meet by the King"s special command; and that the Acts of the a.s.sembly should, no more than the statutes of the realm, be held valid till they received his sanction and ratification.
Had these demands been granted, the liberties of the Church would have been placed under the King"s feet, the ministers would have worn a Court muzzle, and the a.s.sembly would have sat only to register the King"s decrees. With the pulpits silenced in regard to affairs of government and offences against the law, the country would have been deprived of the only organ of public opinion that checked the arbitrary power of the Crown and the prevailing laxity in the administration of justice. Had it not been for words of "venturesome edge" spoken from the pulpits on necessary occasions, we cannot estimate how the liberties of Scotland would have suffered. We are told by some dispa.s.sionate and carefully balanced readers of Scottish History that the Presbyterian Reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cared no more for liberty than did their opponents, and that the controversy was between Presbyterian tyranny on the one hand and Episcopal tyranny on the other; and, of course, it is to be allowed that _individual_ liberty was neither claimed nor admitted by any party in that age, as it is by all parties in ours. But the Presbyterian Church was _the nation_ in a sense which held true of no other organisation civil or ecclesiastical--certainly not of the aristocratic Parliament,--and its courts and pulpits were the voice of the nation--the only articulate voice it had; so that in pleading for the rights and liberties of the Church, in demanding for it free speech and effective influence in the nation"s affairs, Melville and the Presbyterians were, from first to last, fighting for the rights and liberties of the people against the personal and injurious ambitions of the King and his courtiers. There can be no really historical understanding of the course of events in Scotland through the whole Reforming period except in the light of this truth--that the interests of Presbytery were dear to the best men in the country, from generation to generation, because they were the interests both of national righteousness and of national freedom. That the Church should be free to reform the nation, meant, practically, and in the only way possible, that the nation should be free to reform itself. Knox, Melville, and the Covenanters were the n.o.bler sons of Wallace and Bruce, and fought out their battles. And this contest with James was a crucial ill.u.s.tration of the principles involved in the whole long struggle.
On the very day the Commissioners were conferring with the King, it came out that Mr. David Black, minister of St. Andrews, had been summoned before the Council on a charge rising out of sermons he had preached.
Black was accused, in the first instance, of having used language disrespectful to Queen Elizabeth. Bowes, the English Amba.s.sador, had been wrought upon by one of the courtiers to make a complaint against Black on this score; and although the latter had made an explanation with which the Amba.s.sador professed himself satisfied, the charge was persisted in. Black was further accused of having, on various occasions, made offensive references to the King and the Queen, and to others of high position in the land. The charges were based on sermons spread over two or three years, a circ.u.mstance which of itself suggests that the prosecution had been got up for ulterior government purposes; that it was a "forged cavillation," as Bruce called it in his pulpit in Edinburgh.
Black denied all the charges, and declared that they had been concocted by well-known private enemies. When the Council resolved to go on with the prosecution, Black, on the advice of the Commissioners of the Church, declined its jurisdiction. The Council went on with the trial--Black taking no part in it,--found the charges proven, and sentenced him to go into ward beyond the North Water (the North Esk).
The same week, the Commissioners of a.s.sembly who had come to Edinburgh to watch the trial were ordered to quit the capital, along with many of their leading supporters among the citizens, within twenty-four hours; and a Proclamation was issued containing a vehement attack on the ministers, and reviving one of the provisions of the Black Acts, which prohibited all preachers from censuring the conduct of the Government or any of "the loveabill(!)" Acts of Parliament, required all magistrates to take measures against any who should be found so doing, and made it a crime to hear such speeches without reporting them to the authorities.
This Proclamation left the country in no doubt as to the character of the King"s policy towards the Church; for never had even James a.s.serted his claims to absolute authority, alike in civil and ecclesiastical affairs, more arrogantly. It declared that the royal power was above all the estates, spiritual as well as temporal; and that the King was judge of speeches of whatever quality, uttered in the pulpit.
The citizens of Edinburgh were naturally thrown into violent commotion by these events; and when their minds were in this inflammable condition, an incident occurred which brought the public excitement to its height, and which the Government turned to its own account in prosecuting its quarrel with the Church with still greater vigour. This incident is known as "the Riot of 17th December" (1596). On that day a number of the ministers and of the n.o.bles who were in sympathy with them, were a.s.sembled for consultation in one of the chapels of St.
Giles", known as the "Little Church," when they were startled by some one near the door raising the shout, "Fy! save yourselves," or, as another version gives it, "The Papists are in arms to take the town and cut all your throats." The a.s.sembly at once broke up, and all made for the street. The alarm spread through the city, and soon brought the people in crowds to the High Street, many of them armed; and it is said that some of them surrounded the Tolbooth, where the King was sitting at the time with the Council, crying to "bring out Haman," and shouting, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." On hearing of the tumult, the Provost and the ministers of the city made for the scene, and through their exertions peace was restored within an hour, and without any one being hurt.
The man who raised the panic in the "Little Church" never came to be known; but it was believed that he was one of the "Cubiculars" (as they were called), or gentlemen of the King"s bedchamber, who were annoyed at the Octavians, on account of the retrenchments made in the King"s household expenditure; and that this _ruse_ had been devised for the purpose of fomenting the differences between the Octavians and the ministers.
The action taken by the Court in connection with the riot would have been ridiculous had its consequences for the Church not been so serious.
Next day the King removed the Court to Linlithgow, and a Proclamation was made at the Cross of Edinburgh announcing that, owing to the "treasonable" arming of the citizens, the Courts of Law would also be removed from the city, and ordering the four ministers and several prominent citizens of Edinburgh into ward in the Castle, and citing them before the Council on a general charge. The ministers fled, as Melville and others had done in like circ.u.mstances twelve years before.
In January 1597 the King returned to the capital, and the Estates were called together to confirm the Acts pa.s.sed by the Council for punishing all whom it chose to hold in blame for the riot of the previous month.
In accordance with these Acts, all ministers were to be required, on pain of losing their stipends, to subscribe a bond acknowledging the King to be the only judge of those charged with using treasonable language in the pulpit; authorising magistrates to apprehend any preachers who might be found so doing, and declaring the King to have the power of discharging ministers at his pleasure. Vindictive Acts against the city of Edinburgh were also confirmed. Henceforth no General a.s.sembly was to be held within its walls; the seat of the Presbytery was to be transferred to Musselburgh or Dalkeith; the manses of the city ministers were to be forfeit to the Crown; these ministers were not to be readmitted to their pulpits, nor any others chosen in their places without his Majesty"s consent; and no magistrates, any more than ministers, were to be appointed without the royal approval.
At the same meeting of the Estates, arrangements were made for the restoration of the Popish lords. The contrast between the King"s leniency towards them, and his rigorous and vindictive measures towards the ministers, plainly advertised the disposition of the King to both.
Well might Robert Bruce ask in one of his sermons--"What sall the religius of both countries think of this? Is this the moyen to advance the Prince"s grandeur and to turne the hearts of the people towards his Hienesse?" Spirited protests were made by the Commissioners of the Church; they did not mince their language--"We deteast that Act ...
making the King head of the Kirk ... as High Treason and sacriledge against Christ the onlie King and Head of the Kirk." The magistrates did not show the same mettle, but made submission on all the points required.
Emboldened by the effect of these measures, the King lost no time in pressing forward his designs against the Church. His next step was to issue a state paper containing a long series of questions which should reopen discussion on the established policy, and convening a meeting of the representatives of the Church and of the Estates for the purpose of debating and deciding on these questions. The ministers at once began preparations for the struggle; and it was Melville"s Synod--always the Church"s pilot in the storm--that once more took the lead. It appointed Commissioners to urge the King to abandon the proposed Convention, and to refer the business to a regular meeting of a.s.sembly. Should the King refuse this request, the Commissioners were not to acknowledge the Convention as a lawful meeting of the a.s.sembly, nor to admit its claim to enter on the Const.i.tution of the Church. In any private discussion they were strenuously to oppose any movement on the part of the King to disturb the existing order.
The Convention met in Perth on the last day of February 1597. In antic.i.p.ation, the King, knowing well the determined opposition he would encounter at the hands of those ministers who regularly attended the a.s.sembly and took part in its business, had despatched one of his courtiers, Sir Patrick Murray, to do the part of "Whip" among the ministers north of the Tay, and so to pack the a.s.sembly with members who rarely attended it, who were unaccustomed to its business, and who were more likely to be facile for the King"s purposes than their brethren in the south. Murray--"the Apostle of the North," as he was sarcastically called--brought the Highland ministers down in droves, poisoned their minds with jealousy of the southern ministers, and flattered them with the a.s.surance of the King"s esteem.
After a debate, lasting for three days, the majority agreed to hold the Convention as a meeting of the a.s.sembly. Thereafter the King"s questions were entered upon, and so far discussed, when the business was adjourned to another meeting to be held in Dundee. In agreeing to recognise the Convention as an a.s.sembly, and to open up the subject of its own const.i.tution, the Church came down from its only safe position, and virtually delivered itself into the King"s hands, thereby inflicting a wound on its own liberties, from which it took a whole century to recover. That surrender was the letting in of waters, and henceforth the a.s.semblies were the organ of the Crown rather than of the Church--"Whar Chryst gydit befor, the Court began then to govern all; whar pretching befor prevalit, then polecie tuk the place; and, finalie, whar devotioun and halie behaviour honoured the Minister, then began pranking at the chare, and prattling in the ear of the Prince, to mak the Minister to think him selff a man of estimatioun!... The end of the a.s.semblies of auld was, whow Chryst"s Kingdome might stand in halines and friedome: now, it is whow Kirk and Relligioun may be framed to the polytic esteat of a frie Monarchie, and to advance and promot the grandour of man, and supream absolut authoritie in all causes, and over all persones, alsweill Ecclesiasticall as Civill."
The Dundee a.s.sembly met in May; again the northern ministers were present in force; and again every means the Court could contrive was used to win over the members, and especially those of mark among them.
Melville came to attend the a.s.sembly; and one evening before it met, Sir Patrick Murray sent for the younger Melville, and urged him to advise his uncle to go home, as, if he did not, the King would order him to be removed. On receiving the answer that it would be useless to give Melville such advice, since the threat of death would not turn him from his duty, Sir Patrick rejoined, "Surely I fear he suffer the dint of the King"s wrath." James Melville told his uncle of the interview with the King"s "Whip." What his uncle"s answer was, "I need not wraite," he says. On the morning of the a.s.sembly the Melvilles were summoned by the King. The interview went on smoothly till they entered on the business for which the a.s.sembly was called, when "Mr. Andro brak out with his wounted humor of fredome and zeall and ther they heeled on, till all the hous, and clos bathe, hard mikle of a large houre." Melville was much too stormy a courtier for the King"s purposes.
At the Dundee a.s.sembly, the transactions at the Perth Convention were confirmed; and thereafter a new proposal was made by the King and carried, which was fraught with evil for the Church. This was the appointment of an extraordinary standing Commission to confer with the King on the Church"s affairs--a Commission which came to be a kind of King"s Council set up in the a.s.sembly. Calderwood speaks of it as the King"s "led horse," and James Melville calls it "the very neidle to draw in the Episcopall threid."
Armed with his new provisions, the King immediately began to use them with energy. Edinburgh and St. Andrews were the strongholds of the Church, where the Invincibles in its ministry were chiefly found. The ministers of the former had already been disposed of, and the King"s next move was directed against those of the latter--above all, against Melville, the chief Invincible. The two leading ministers of St.
Andrews, Black and Wallace, were discharged; George Gledstanes, who afterwards became a Bishop, being appointed in Black"s place; and Melville was deprived of the Rectorship of the University. At the same time, a law was enacted depriving professors of their seats in Church Courts, the object being, of course, to exclude Melville, whose influence in the Courts was so commanding.
At the end of this year another step was taken towards the re-erection of Episcopacy. The Commissioners of a.s.sembly, who were now mere creatures of the King, appeared before Parliament, pet.i.tioning it to give the Church the right of representation, so as to restore it to its former position as the Third Estate of the realm; proposing also, that for this end the prelatic order should be revived, and the Bishops chosen as the Church"s representatives. The jurisdiction of the prelates within the Church was to be left over for future consideration, in accordance with James"s policy, which was not to filch so much of the Church"s liberty at any one time as might frustrate his hope of taking it all away in the end. The pet.i.tion of the Commissioners was granted by the Parliament.
In February of the following year, 1598, the Synod of Fife met, Sir Patrick Murray being present as the King"s Commissioner; and the Court at once entered on the question of the hour, Should the Church agree to send representatives to Parliament? James Melville, who was the first to rise and address the House, protested against their falling to work to "big up" bishops, whom all their days they had been "dinging doun."
Andrew Melville followed, and supported his nephew"s counsel in his own vehement manner. David Ferguson, the oldest minister of the Church, who had been at its planting in 1560, rose and warned the House of the fatal gift that was offered by the King. John Davidson, another venerable and influential member of the Synod, made a powerful speech, concluding with the same warning: "Busk, busk, busk him as bonnilie as ye can, and fetche him in als fearlie as yie will, we sie him weill aneuche, we sie the horns of his mytre." When the Synod met, the majority were inclined to favour the proposal; but these speeches, greatly to the chagrin of the Royal Commissioner, turned the feeling of the House.
The same business occupied the next a.s.sembly, which met in Dundee in March. Melville having come to the a.s.sembly in defiance of the recent Act depriving him of his seat, the King challenged his commission in the Court. Melville replied with great spirit; and before he was discharged, delivered his views on the King"s policy. John Davidson boldly defended his leader"s right to sit in the a.s.sembly, and, turning to the King, told him that he had his seat there as a Christian man, and not as President of the Court. Next day Davidson complained again of the treatment Melville had received, openly ascribing it to the King"s fear of his opposition. "I will not hear a word on that head," James burst forth.--"Then," said Davidson, "we must crave help of Him that will hear us." Not only was Melville excluded from the a.s.sembly, but its business was not allowed to proceed till he left the town, lest he should stiffen the brethren who resorted to him for advice against the King"s proposals. The royal measures were, after all, only carried by ten votes; and even that majority would not have been secured had the King not declared, with his usual disingenuousness, that he had no intention of restoring the bishops as a spiritual order, but only as representatives of the Church in Parliament.
It was decided that the number of representatives should correspond with that of the old prelates, and that they should be chosen conjointly by the King and the a.s.sembly. When, however, the House proceeded to details, so much difference of opinion arose, that the King thought it prudent to adjourn. The questions were referred to the inferior Courts for their consideration, and thereafter each Synod was to appoint three commissioners to confer on the subject before the King along with all the theological professors.
This conference was held, and was packed with the King"s men. In many cases the delegates were not the choice of those they represented. The trick by which this was effected was in keeping with the rest of the King"s conduct in the business. In many of the presbyteries the Invincibles were placed upon the leets from which the commissioners were to be elected; they thus lost their votes, and those who remained to make the choice chose the delegates desired by the King.
Melville attended the conference, and opposed the King at every point.
On the question of the duration of the office of the representatives, there was a very lively piece of repartee between the two. Melville had been contending that the King"s proposal to appoint the representatives for life would establish lordship over the brethren, "tyme strynthning opinioun and custome confirming conceat," when the King broke in upon his speech with the remark that "there was na thing sa guid bot might be bathe ill suspected and abbusit, and sa we suld be content with na thing." Melville retorted that they "doubted of the guidness, and had ower just cause to suspect the evill of it." The King"s next thrust was: "There was na fault bot we [the ministers] war all trew aneuche to the craft," which Melville turned with the remark, "But G.o.d make us all trew aneuche to Christ say we."--"The ministers," said the King, "sould ly in contempt and povertie [if their status was not raised as he proposed].--"It was their Maister"s case before them," rejoined Melville; "it may serve them weill aneuche to be as he was, and better povertie with sinceritie nor promotioun with corruptioun."--"Uthers would be promovit to that room in Parliament," said the King [his Majesty could not want his three estates], "wha wald opres and wrak his Kirk."--Melville answered: "Let Chryst the King and advenger of the wrangs done to his Kirk and them deal togidder as he hes done before; let see wha gettes the warst."--Once more the King argued: "Men wald be that way [by a temporary appointment] disgraced, now sett upe and now sett by and cast down and sa discouragit from doing guid," when Melville concluded: "He that thinks it disgrace to be employed in what G.o.d"s Kirk thinks guid, hes lytle grace in him; for grace is given to the lowlie."
Another point was the name to be given to the representatives. Arguing against the King"s proposal to style them bishops, Melville used great freedom of speech: "The nam [Greek: episkopos] being a Scripture nam, might be giffen tham, provyding, that because ther was sum thing mair put to the mater of a Bischope"s office then the Word of G.o.d could permit, it sould have a lytle eik[23] put to the nam quhilk the Word of G.o.d joyned to it, and sa it war best to baptize tham with the nam that Peter i. cap. iv. giffes to sic lyk officers, calling tham [Greek: allotrioepiskopous], war nocht they wald think scham to be merschallit with sic as Peter speakes of ther, viz., murderers, theiffs, and malefactors?" Melville was much pleased with his own wit: "Verilie that gossop [this was Andro] at the baptisme (gif sa that I dar play with that word) was no a little vokie[24] for getting of the bern"s name," We hardly understand Melville unless we take into account the spirit almost of glee with which he fought "the good fight"; he was "always a fighter," not purely from stress of circ.u.mstances, but because he had it in him; he was never quarrelsome, and he needed a high issue to rouse him--but that given, he sniffed the battle from far, and dearly loved to be in the thick of it.
[Footnote 23: Addition.]
[Footnote 24: Vain.]
The questions were then left to be disposed of by the General a.s.sembly, the King warning the members of the conference before it broke up that, whatever the a.s.sembly might do, he would have his Third Estate restored.
By this time the country had learned, by the publication of the King"s two books--_The True Law of Free Monarchy_ and the _Basilicon Doron_--that James"s practice in the government of the nation and in his policy towards the Church was in accordance with his theory of kingship.
By a "Free Monarchy" he meant, not a monarchy in which the people are free, but in which the King is free from all control of the people. He claimed that the King was above the law; and that "as it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what G.o.d can do, so it is presumption and a high contempt in a subject to dispute what a King can do, or to say that a King cannot do this or that."
In the _Basilicon Doron_ he unveiled his real feelings and designs with regard to Presbytery, which, at the very time he was writing, he was professing to respect--declaring that the ruling of the Kirk was no small part of the King"s office; that parity among the ministers could not agree with a monarchy; that Puritans were pests in the Kirk and commonwealth of Scotland, and that bishops must be set up.
The General a.s.sembly met in Montrose in March 1600; and Melville, who had come to the town to attend it, was commanded by the King to keep to his room. Summoned to his Majesty"s presence, he was asked why he was giving trouble in attending the a.s.sembly after the Act depriving him of his seat; when he replied: "He had a calling in his Kirk of G.o.d and of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, quhilk he behovit to dischairge at all occasiounes, being orderlie callit thereto, as he wes at this time; and that for feir of a grytter punischment then could any earthly king inflict." The King in anger uttered a threat, when Melville, putting his hand to his head, said: "Sir, it is this that ye would haiff. Ye sall haiff it: Tak it! Tak it! or ye bereave us of the liberties of Jesus Christ and His kingdome."
Excluded from the a.s.sembly, Melville remained in Montrose during the sittings, to a.s.sist his brethren with his counsel. The King was present at every sitting, and was busy from early morning till late at night canva.s.sing the members of the House; and though there were many who stood honestly by their principles, his authority and diplomacy carried the day. The House was so far from being favourable to the King"s scheme, that it would have thrown it out, but for his arbitrary closure of the debate; it did throw out the proposal of life representatives; and it safeguarded the other clauses of the measure with so many _caveats_, that had they been observed, it could not have served for the restoration of the bishops. These _caveats_, however, were not observed; then, as many a time before and since in Scotland, the Church got the worst of the bargain in seeking a compromise with the civil power, and found too late that she had sold her birthright. In less than a month after the a.s.sembly rose, three of the ministers had been appointed to bishoprics, and these ministers took their seats in the next Parliament.
We have seen that James, whenever he felt that the tide of hostile opinion in the country was becoming too strong for him, sought to turn it by some popular act. The General a.s.sembly held in Burntisland in May 1601 witnessed one of those periodic fits of apparent yielding, on the King"s part, to the will of the nation. He was in peculiar disfavour at the time, owing to the mysterious tragedy which took place at Gowrie House in August 1600. There was a widespread, deep-rooted suspicion that the Earl of that name, who was a favourite of the people, and the head of a Protestant house, had been the victim rather than the author of the conspiracy; and the public irritation was increased by the new quarrel which James forced on Bruce and the other ministers of Edinburgh for refusing to repeat, in the thanksgiving service appointed to be held for his preservation, his own version of the story. At the Burntisland a.s.sembly the King appeared and made humble confession of the shortcomings of his Government, especially in respect of his indulgence of the Papists, and gave lavish promises of amendment.
Two years afterwards, before leaving Scotland to ascend the English throne, these promises were renewed; but, as usual with James, they were only the prelude of greater oppression. His threat to the Puritan ministers at Hampton Court conference--that he would "harry them out of the country"--left their brethren of the Scottish Church in no doubt as to the course he would pursue towards themselves, now that he had attained to a position of so much greater authority.
The a.s.sembly was the _palladium_ of the Church"s liberty; and the policy which the King had begun before leaving Scotland, of usurping the government of the Church by gaining the control of the a.s.sembly, was vigorously prosecuted after his accession to the throne of England. The meetings were prorogued again and again by royal authority, but always under protest from the most independent of the ministers. For their zeal in promoting a pet.i.tion to him on the subject, the King ordered the two Melvilles to be imprisoned; but the Scottish Council dared not lay hands on them in view of the unpopularity of the Government. In the year 1605 the quarrel between the King and the ministers over the right of free a.s.sembly came to a head. A meeting appointed to be held in Aberdeen had been prorogued by the King"s authority for a second time, and prorogued _sine die_. The ministers felt that if they acquiesced in so grave a violation of the law of the Church, her liberty would be irrecoverably lost; several of the Presbyteries accordingly resolved to send representatives to Aberdeen to hold the a.s.sembly in defiance of the King"s prohibition. This was done, and the House had no sooner been const.i.tuted than a King"s messenger appeared and commanded the members to disperse; whereupon the Moderator dissolved the a.s.sembly and fixed a day for its next meeting. The law-officers of the Crown were immediately instructed to prosecute the ministers who had attended, and fourteen of them were tried and sentenced to imprisonment--two of them, Forbes the Moderator and John Welch, Knox"s son-in-law, being sent to Blackness.
Six of them having declined the jurisdiction of the Council, were tried for high treason by a packed jury, and found guilty by a majority. So great was the indignation felt throughout the country at the prosecution and the manner in which it had been conducted, that the Council had to inform the King that the Court could not go on with the trial of the others. Eight of the condemned ministers were banished to the Highlands and Islands; and the six who had been found guilty of treason were sent to Blackness and then banished to France. In all the proceedings against those who had made such a manly stand in defence of the Church"s liberties, Melville identified himself with his brethren, did all that was in his power to procure their acquittal, and after their sentence visited them in prison.
The King now took another step in his campaign against Presbytery. He ordered all the synods of the Church to meet, in order to have articles submitted to them which provided that the bishops should have full jurisdiction over the ministers, under his Majesty, and that the King should be acknowledged supreme ruler of the Church under Christ. These articles were rejected by Melville"s synod, and referred to the a.s.sembly by the others. A meeting of Parliament was summoned to pa.s.s the articles into law, and to this Parliament Melville was sent by his presbytery to watch over the interests of the Church. It having been ascertained that it was the King"s intention to propose that the statute of the year 1587, annexing the temporalities of the prelates to the Crown, should be repealed, and that the bishops should be restored to their ancient prerogatives and dignities, the ministers lodged a protest beforehand, with Melville"s name at the head of the signatories; and when the measure came to be adopted by Parliament, and Melville rose up to renew his protest, he was commanded to leave the House, "quhilk nevertheless he did not, till he had maid all that saw and heard him understand his purpose." Melville seldom failed in any circ.u.mstances to make those who saw and heard him understand his purpose, and when that was done his end was served.
Among the writings issued at this time against the King"s measure, there was one in which it was said of bishops in general, that "for one preaching made to the people [they] ryde fourtie posts to court; and for a thought or word bestowed for the weal of anie soule care an hundreth for their apparrill, their train ... and goucked gloriosity."[25] The part taken by the bishops at the opening of this Parliament showed that the new Scottish prelates were likely to verify this indictment against their order. "The first day of the Ryding in Parliament betwix the Erles and the Lords raid the Bischopes, all in silk and velvet fuit-mantelles, by paires, tuo and tuo, and Saint Androis, the great Metropolitanne, alone by him selff, and are of the Ministeres of no small quant.i.tie, named Arthur Futhey, with his capp at his knie, walkit at his stirrope alongst the streit. But the second day, for not haiffing their awen place as the Papist Bisschoppis of auld had, unto quhois place and dignitie they wer now restorit fully in judgment, quhilk wes befoir the Erles, nixt eftir the Marquesses, thai would not ryde at all, but went to the House of Parliament quyetlie on fuit. This maid the n.o.billmen to take up thair presumeing honour, and detest thame, as soon as they had maid thame and sett thame up, perceiving that thair upelyfting wes thair awin douncasting."