ame 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 God could
permit, it sould have a lytle eik[23] put to the nam quhilk the Word of
God 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 circumstances, 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 Assembly,
the King warning the members of the conference before it broke up that,
whatever the Assembly 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 God 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 mi