In 1596 a delegation sought a private audience with King James VI. Despite their polite warning of the dangers of allowing avowed Romanist subversives back into Scotland, the king interrupted them, accusing the delegates of sedition. At this point Andrew Melville took the king by the arm and used a more blunt approach: ‘Sir, as at various times before, I say now again, I must tell you, you are God’s silly vassal,’ he said, ‘There are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is Christ Jesus the King of the church, whose subject King James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member […] We will yield to you your place, and give you all due obedience; but again I say, you are not the head of the church: you cannot give us that eternal life which even in this world we seek for, and you cannot deprive us of it.’ You would have thought that Melville would have been executed for sedition himself, but it was this kind of firmness that paved the way for the kind of freedoms we would later enjoy. It is true that later he fell foul of the king, being locked up in the Tower of London between 1607 and 1611, on account of his outspoken views, but he was exiled to the University of Sedan in France, where he died in 1622.
Andrew Melville is usually remembered for his ‘God’s silly vassal’ quote, but there was much more to this dogged and determined personality. It was Melville who took the Scottish universities by the scruff of the neck, shook them free of Romanism and Aristotelian methodology, reformed and refined them, and set them on a path which would elevate them to being among the top places of learning in Europe.
As the Moderator for the Church of Scotland Assembly in 1578, he had a direct influence on the Second Book of Discipline, which was discussed in Edinburgh’s Magdalene Chapel. Melville played a crucial part in shaping the fledgling Protestant church into a fully Presbyterian model. He was a leading opponent of the Episcopalian form of church government, believing, like many reformers, that the papal-style bishops were the chief cause of Scotland’s religious troubles. In the Second Book of Discipline bishops were stripped of their lordly titles, and were referred to only by their personal names, and as ‘brethren’. Points 5-6 of this document, which echoed Melville’s earlier rebuke to King James VI, would become a stumbling block to those who believed in the Divine Right of Kings. The Divine Right of Christ is clearly expressed here:
‘5. For this ecclesiastical power flows immediately from God, and the Mediator Jesus Christ, and is spiritual, not having a temporal head on earth, but only Christ, the only spiritual King and Governor of his kirk. 6. It is a title falsely usurped by Antichrist to call himself head of the kirk, and ought not to be attributed to angel nor man, of what estate that ever he is, saving to Christ, the only Head and Monarch of the kirk.’
Not surprisingly, the king and Scottish Parliament did not ratify this document, for already the tug-of-war between the Presbyterian democratic model, and the Episcopalian and autocratic rule of kings, was in process. Nevertheless, Melville, and those with him, were shaping the future, but it would come at a great price.
‘… contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 1:3, NKJV).
Image: Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Notice that Andrew Melville is pulling the sleeve of a bishop, and not King James VI in this sketch.