Melville, Andrew
Melville, Andrew (1545–1622). Scottish presbyterian leader and academic. Born in Forfar (Tayside), educated at St Andrews and Paris, Melville was professor at Geneva in close contact with Beza. As principal of Glasgow University (1574) he introduced significant academic reforms there, at Aberdeen (1575), and at St Andrews (1579), where he became principal of St Mary's College (1580). Ecclesiastically more extreme than Knox, he attacked residual episcopacy and, as moderator of the General Assembly (1578) which enthusiastically adopted The Second Book of Discipline with its Bezan ethos, drove the church's organization into extreme non-Erastian presbyterianism. The Scottish Privy Council threatened him with imprisonment (1584) but, though royal supremacy over the church was re-established (1585) and bishops' jurisdiction restored, Parliament endorsed the presbyterian system (1592). When the tide turned again, James VI regained his ecclesiastical powers (1597) and Melville was deprived of his rectorship at St Andrews (1597). After deriding Anglican worship in London, he was summoned before the English Privy Council (1606), disputed with Bancroft, and was sent to the Tower without trial (1607–11). On release he went to Sedan University, France, where he died.
Revd Dr William M. Marshall
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Melville, Andrew
