because of their inclination to the Reformed doctrines; although, in order to avoid stirr ing popular sympathy, they were charged with imaginary crimes against the State. Now, among those who were suspected or known to favor the Reformation of the Church was Sir John Melville uf Raith, against whom it was not easy to make out a decently prob able indictment; but the devilish ingenuity of the statecraft of those days was equal to almost any emergency. One of Sir John's sons was in England, whither he had either fled for security, as many Scots Reformers did in the early years of the movement, or had been taken as a prisoner of war. About the year 1 547 Sir John wrote a letter in favor of this son to a certain friend he had in Eng land, which letter, being intercepted and laid before the Government, was made the ground of a charge of high treason against the writer, although the substance of the writing was perfectly harmless, and had no reference to politics or religion. Melville was found guilty and hurried to the scaffold. The par allel between his case and that of Lady Glamis was rendered more complete by the terms of a gift of restitution made by Queen Mary in favor of his son fourteen years later. Just as the iniquity of the proceedings in the Glamis case was admitted in the Act restor ing the young Lord Glamis after the death of James V., so in this instance the Queen gave back to young John Melville all the pos sessions forfeited from his father " ffor cer taine allcgit crymes of treasoune, allcgit committit be him." In this tardy act of reparation, which took place in 1562, maybe traced the hand of the great Earl of Murray, Queen Mary's chief and best adviser on her coming to Scotland in 1561. The prelate upon whom public opinion fixed the odium of the judicial murder of Sir John Melville — "the most reverend father in Christ, John, Archbishop of St. Andrews," brother of Regent Arran — offered in his own person a forcible argument for .the re form of the Church. The proceedings in
the trial of the third Lord Sempill for the murder,within quhar, in 1550, the ofArchbishop's Lord Crichton ownofhouse Sanin Edinburgh, afford a startling insight into the nature of that establishment. Sempill's daughter lived there as mistress of the Arch bishop, a lady — if the statement in John ston's manuscript may be accepted — "nather beutifull, of gude fame, or wtherwayis in any sort notable;" nevertheless her influence sufficed to put in motion the powerful inter cession of the Archbishop, and her father received his pardon, on the usual terms of finding surety. The example of the Primate of Scotland was not thrown away upon his clergy. " Bene fit of clergy" — the monstrous privilege of immunity from lay jurisdiction for civil of fences — had been greatly modified by this time; indeed it had become obsolete in re gard to the more heinous offences. Hence there are numerous instances of the appear ance of clerics as " panels " in criminal cases. One of these entries, made in the same year as Lord Sanquhar's murder, may be trans lated at length from the Justiciary Record as an extreme instance of the depths to which the sacred order had fallen : — "Nov. 5, 1550. — Mr. John Ephinstonne, Rector of Innernochty, dilated of art and part of the cruel slaughter and murder of Thomas Cult in Auld Aberdeen, under silence of night : And for theftuously wasting and destroying the goods of William Lowsoune, burgess of Aber deen, for the space of ten years, during which time the said Mr. John lay in adultery with Jonet Colestoune, spouse of the said William : And for oppression done to Mr. Duncan Burnet, Rec tor of Methlik, in unbesetting his way within his lodging in the Chanoury of Aberdeen and Cathe dral Church thereof, where he was for the time celebrating Matins and divine service, invading and striking him to the ground several times with • roungis and battounis,' " &c.
It does not appear that further proceedings were taken in this case, so of course the ver dict of posterity on the reverend gentleman
