Andrew MELVILL- 
worker and organiser

Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae,
H Scott (1915) rev 1917, 1920,1926.
vol 7 p 416 St Mary`s College, 1580

MELVILL, born Baldovie,
1st Aug. 1545, youngest son of Richard
M. of Baldovie and Geills,
daugh. of Thomas Abercrombie of Montrose;
educated
at Grammar School, Montrose, and
Univ. of St Andrews; went to France
in 1564, studied law at Poitiers; became
regent in the College of Marceon, and took
part in the defence of
Poitiers against the Huguenots; proceeded to
Geneva, where he was
app. Professor of Humanity
returned to Scotlandin 1574; app. Principal
of the Univ. of Glasgow in autumn of
that year. He did much
to establish the
Univ. on a proper footing and founded
four Chairs in Languages, Science and
Philosophy; adm. min. of Govan in conjunction
13th July 1577; elected
Moderator of the General Assembly 24th April
1578.
He opposed the Episcopal tendency in
the Church, and did much to establish
the Presbyterian form of government. He
further did much to remodel
the Scottish Univs.,
especially St Andrews, St Mary’s thereafter
being devoted to Divinity, M.
being app. Principal thereof Nov. 1580;
again elected Moderator of the
General Assembly 24th April and 27th June 1582,
and 20th June 1587. In the Assembly of
Oct. 1581, he took an active part
in the libel against Robert Montgomery, Bishop
of Glasgow, for simoniacal practices. M.
was app. on a commission to wait
upon James VI. in 1582, with a remonstrance
and petition which, notwithstanding the
entreaties of his friends, he
presented. On 15th Feb. 1584 he was summoned
before the Privy
Council for alleged treason in a
sermon preached at St Andrews the June
previous, and ordered to be imprisoned at
Blackness, but his friends assisted him to
escape to England. On
Arran’s fall he returned to Scotland and was
restored by
Parliament at Linlithgow Dec. 1585. In
1590 he became rector of the Univ. of St
Andrews, which office he held until 1597,
and at the coronation of
the Queen, 17th May
1590, he recited a Latin poem; was again app.
Moderator of the General Assembly,
7th May1594, but on a visitation of the
Univ. by the King in June 1597, he
was deprived of his rectorship; attended the
General Assembly at Dundee, March1598,
but was ordered to withdraw by the
King. In 1599 he was app. Dean of the Faculty
of Theology. He caused the Synod of
Fife in 1599 to censure certain
propositions in the Basilicon
Doron by the King. At
the Assembly at Montrose in March 1600
he unsuccessfully claimed his right to sit,
but was successful in that at Burntisland
May 1601. He took part in that
held at
Aberdeen in 1605 and
offered, with others, a
protest to Parliament at Perth in 1606
in favour of the right of free Assembly.
For this he was summoned with
others to London, where he was cited before the
English Privy Council for writing a bitter
Latin epigram against the
accessories of Anglican worship and placed
under the custody of
John Overal, D.D., Dean of
St Paul’s, and afterwards of Bilson, Bishop
of Winchester. Again brought before the
Privy Council, he broke into a violent
tirade against that Court and was
committed to solitary confinement in the Tower.
Henri de la Tour, Duc de
Bouillon, having
obtained his release, app. him to the Chair
of Biblical Theology in the Univ. of Sedan,
and M. embarked for France 19th April
1611; died
unmarr. after a series of illnesses at Sedan in 1622.