e of Edinburgh during his Majesty's pleasure.

[Footnote 9: Swerving.]

[Footnote 10: Abashed.]

[Footnote 11: Abundance.]

Rulers who could so outrage justice as to deprive a subject of his
liberty on such a ground were not to be trusted with his life. So all
Melville's friends and Melville himself thought. They were persuaded
that Arran, at least, was bent on silencing the man who was his most
formidable opponent. His friends, quoting the proverb, 'lowes and
leiving,'[12] urged him to flight, and he himself resolved on it, having
not only his personal safety but also the interests of the Church and
the commonweal to consider and safeguard. During the few days he was
still left free, he appeared as usual among his friends, and in the best
of spirits. At dinner in James Lawson's manse, where many of his friends
gathered to meet him, he seemed the only light-hearted man in the
company. 'He ate and drank and crakked als merrelie and frie-myndit as
at anie tyme and mair,' drinking to his gaoler and fellow-prisoners, and
bidding his brethren make ready to follow. While seated at table, the
macer of the Council appeared with a warrant charging him to enter the
Castle of Blackness within twenty-four hours. When the macer had
withdrawn, Melville left the manse, and, confiding his intention to only
a few friends, made his escape from the city, accompanied by his brother
Roger, and within the twenty-four hours was safely over the Border and
lodged in Berwick.

[Footnote 12: Loose and living.]

Melville's exile at this juncture, when he was so much needed at home to
meet the tyranny of the Court, was a severe blow to his brethren in the
ministry and to all the friends of the Church. They were entering a
heavy battle when they were deprived of their trusted captain. More
than James Melville could have said at that time that they felt a 'cauld
heavie lumpe' lying on their hearts. The ministers of Edinburgh showed
their characteristic spirit in this crisis, and raised such a storm
against the King and Council on account of their treatment of Melville
that the Court had to defend itself by an apologetic proclamation.

Within a few months after Melville's flight measures were passed through
Parliament which upset all that the Church had done during the previous
decade to extricate itself from the confusion of the Tulchan Episcopacy.
They were devised by Arran and by Archbishop Adamson, who persistently
used his influence at Co