e of the
same mind as the ministers. Against the ministers and people stood the
Regent, the nobility, and all the clergy whose interests were
threatened. Morton would fain have arrested the Assembly's action, but
dared not; he could not afford at the time to drive the ministers into
opposition, a powerful party of the nobles being hostile to his regency,
and the combination would have shattered his government. His policy,
therefore, was to manage the ministers for the accomplishment of his
ends, and to attach as many of them as possible, and especially as many
of the leaders as possible, to the Court. From the moment when he first
met Melville he had the sagacity to perceive that this was the strongest
man he would have to deal with: he accordingly did his utmost to secure
Melville's support for the Government scheme. He offered him, as we have
said, a Court Chaplaincy, and he would have made him Archbishop of St.
Andrews on the death of Douglas. When he found him incorruptible by his
favours, he tried to intimidate him. Calling him one day into his
presence, he broke out in violent denunciation of those ministers who
were disturbing the peace of the realm by their 'owersie'[5] dreams and
setting up of the Genevan discipline; and on Melville turning the attack
against himself and his government Morton flew into a rage--'Ther will
never be quyetnes in this countrey till halff a dissone of yow be hangit
or banished the countrey!' 'Tushe! sir,' retorted Melville, 'threaten
your courtiers in that fashion. It is the same to me whether I rot in
the air or in the ground. The earth is the Lord's: my fatherland is
wherever well-doing is. I haiff bein ready to giff my lyff whar it was
nocht halff sa weill wared, at the pleasour of my God. I leived out of
your countrey ten yeirs as weill as in it. Yet God be glorified, it
will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll His treuthe!' Sometimes,
as here, words show a valour as great as doughtiest deeds of battle:
they give the man who has uttered them a place for ever in the book of
honour; they pass into the storehouse of our most cherished legends; and
as often as crises occur in our history which make a severe demand upon
our virtue, they are recalled to stir the moral pulse of the nation and
brace it to its duty. No man in Scottish history has left his country a
richer legacy of this kind than Melville.

[Footnote 5: Over the sea.]

Having failed with Melville, Morton found a rea