Your best and maist faithfull subjects”: Andrew and James Melville as james vi and i's “loyal opposition

Renaissance and Reformation

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 2020, Pages 17-30

  King, Stephen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA   (Canada)

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EID: 84922910957     PISSN: 0034429X     EISSN: 22937374     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.33137/RR.V36I3.8633     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. What is traditionally known as the Hampton Court Conference — and what for reasons of convenience I call the “First Hampton Court Conference” — took place from 14–16 January 1604. For a contemporary description of the event, see William Barlow, The Summe and Substance of the Conference, which it pleased his Excellent Maiestie to haue with the Lords, Bishops and other of his Clergie at Hampton Court (1604; rpt. Gainesville, Fla.: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1965). A number of contemporary sources describe the Melvilles' dealings with James both before and during the “Second Hampton Court Conference”: James Melville, The Autobiography and Diary of Mr James Melvill, ed. Robert Pitcairn (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1842); John Spottiswoode, The History of the Church of Scotland (Menston: Scolar Press, 1972); and David Calderwood, The True History of the Church of Scotland (Menston: Scolar Press, 1971). More recent accounts of this conference are few. See Thomas McCrie, The Life of Andrew Melville: Containing Illustrations of the Ecclesiastical and Literary History of Scotland, during the Latter Part of the Sixteenth and Beginning of the Seventeenth Century, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1824). See also pp. 169–70 of Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake, “The Ecclesiastical Policy of King James I,” Journal of British Studies 24 (1985): 169–207.
2. See Mark Fortier, “Equity and Ideas: Coke, Ellesmere, and James I,” Renaissance Quarterly 51 (1998): 1255–81; Sandra Bell, “Writing the Monarch: King James VI and Lepanto,” in Other Voices, Other Views: Expanding the Canon in English Renaissance Studies, ed. Helen Ostovich et al. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999), pp. 193–208; and William Brown Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
3. Indeed, John and Julia Keay make a common but telling mistake on p. 692 of the Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland (London: HarperCollins, 1994). They erroneously list Melville as a participant in the 1604 Hampton Court Conference, out of which came the resolution to translate the Bible. Actually, Melville and his nephew were not present at the 1604 Hampton Court Conference, but instead attended the “Second Hampton Court Confer-ence,” which took place in September 1606.
4. Fincham and Lake, p. 169.
5. Ibid., pp. 170–71 and 206.
6. Fincham and Lake, pp. 171–76.
7. The most notable of these figures was Alexander Campbell, Bishop of Brechin, who had visited Melville in Geneva and determined that his reforming zeal could be put to best use in his native land. This is recorded in Melville, p. 42.
8. The most notable of these figures was Alexander Campbell, Bishop of Brechin, who had visited Melville in Geneva and determined that his reforming zeal could be put to best use in his native land. This is recorded in Melville, pp. 42–43.
9. Gordon Donaldson, “The Scottish Church 1567–1625,” in The Reign of James VI and I, ed. Alan G. R. Smith (London: Macmillan, 1973), p. 44.
10. Melville, pp. 53–55.
11. Robert Pitcairn, “Prefatory Notice,” in Melville, p. xiii.
12. Peter Hume Brown, George Buchanan: Humanist and Reformer (Edinburgh: D. Douglas, 1890), p. 254.
13. Peter Hume Brown, George Buchanan: Humanist and Reformer (Edinburgh: D. Douglas, 1890), pp. 254–55.
14. James VI and I, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, inKing James VI and I: Political Writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 64.
15. Fincham and Lake, p. 206.
16. For information on James's childhood education and reading, two sources are especially helpful: George F. Warner, ed., “The Library of James VI, 1573–1583: From a Manuscript in the Hand of Peter Young, his Tutor,” in Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, 8 vols. (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1893), 1: ix-lxxv, and “The Library of Queen Mary and of King James VI,” in Miscellany of the Maitland Club Consisting of Original Papers and Other Documents Illustrative of the History and Literature of Scotland, 4 vols. (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1834–47), 1: 2–23.
17. Melville, p. 48.
18. McCrie, 1: 15.
19. I am citing the detailed account given by Melville, pp. 368–69.
20. I am citing the detailed account given by Melville, pp. 369–70.
21. I am citing the detailed account given by Melville, p. 371.
22. James VI and I, A Speach, as it Was Delivered in the Vpper Hovse of the Parliament to the Lords Spiritvall and Temporall, and to the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses There Assem-bled, on Mvnday the XIX. Day of March 1603,inKing James VI and I: Political Writings, p. 140.
23. Melville, pp. 634–36.
24. Melville, pp. 658–59.
25. James employed a similar tactic at St. Andrews in 1587, when, after a day of disputations, he shared a banquet with the two Melvilles and the visiting scholar and poet Guillaume de Salluste, Seigneur du Bartas (Melville, pp. 256–57).
26. James had affirmed before leaving Scotland for England that the next General Assembly of the Kirk would take place as scheduled in July 1604. He decided to prorogue the Assembly to July 1605, however, and eventually postponed it indefinitely. His failure to hold the Assembly contravened the 1592 “Golden Acts,” which had guaranteed yearly meetings of the primary churchmen in Scotland, and a group of ministers — the Melvilles included — disregarded James's postponement and held the meeting at Aberdeen in July 1605.
27. Melville, pp. 658–59.
28. Ibid., p. 661; see also Spottiswoode, p. 498.
29. McCrie, 2: 147–48.
30. Calderwood, p. 548.
31. By 1606, Andrew Melville was well known for his satirical attacks on the Church of England. In 1604, he had composed the Anti-Tami-Cami-Categoria, Latin verses that criticised the ceremony of the Anglican Church. This text was widely circulated in manuscript form, but was not published until 1620. It is reproduced in F. E. Hutchinson, ed., The Works of George Herbert (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941), pp. 609–14. Melville's 1606 Hampton Court libel, which takes a similar position to the Anti-Tami-Cami-Cate-goria, reads as follows: On Kinglie Chappell aultar standis Blind candelstickis, and closit buikis, Dry silver basines, tuo of each: Quhairfor, saith he, quho luikis, The mynd and worschippe of the Lord Does England so keipe closse? Blind in hir sycht, and buried in Hir filthines and drosse: And quhill with Roman ritis schoe does Hir kingly altar dress, Religiously a purple quhoore To tame sche does professe! (Melville, pp. 682–83)
32. Melville, p. 679.
33. Spottiswoode, p. 500.
34. Melville, p. 681.
35. Melville, pp. 691–94.
36. Melville, pp. 706–8.
37. Melville, pp. 709–10.
38. Pitcairn, p. xv.
39. McCrie, 2: 188–89.
40. McCrie, 2: 263.
41. Pitcairn, p. xxxvii.
42. McCrie, 2: 273.
43. Kenneth Fincham, Introduction, in The Early Stuart Church, 1603–1642, ed. Kenneth Fincham (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 12.