Elizabeth Melville
Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross was a Scottish poet. In 1603 she became the earliest known Scottish woman writer to see her work in print, when the Edinburgh publisher Robert Charteris issued the first edition of Ane Godlie Dreame, a Calvinist dream-vision poem. An inscribed flagstone commemorating Melville as one of Scotland's great writers was unveiled by Germaine Greer on 21 June 2014 in Makars' Court, Edinburgh. The inscription is a quotation from her Dreame – "Though tyrants threat, though Lyons rage and rore/ Defy them all, and feare not to win out".
Overview
A large body of Elizabeth Melville's manuscript verse was discovered in 2002, and her extant poetry runs to some 4,500 lines, written in many different verse-forms. There are also twelve letters, eleven of them holographs. Melville was an active member of the Presbyterian resistance to the ecclesiastical policies of both James VI and Charles I. She was a personal friend of leading figures in the presbyterian opposition, whose frustration eventually erupted in 1637 in the Edinburgh Prayerbook Riots, leading to the National Covenant of February 1638, the Glasgow General Assembly which abolished the episcopate, and the outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.Family background
Melvilles
Melville's father was the courtier and diplomat Sir James Melville of Halhill, one of the many children of the Fife landowner Sir John Melville of Raith, an early convert to Protestantism who was executed for treasonable communication with the English invaders in 1548. Despite inheriting his father's Protestant convictions, Sir James began his career as a page to Mary, Queen of Scots in France in 1549. Like his brothers Robert Melville of Murdocairnie and Andrew Melville of Garvock, James later served Mary in Scotland, and remained loyal to her after her fall and forced abdication.The Melville brothers would nonetheless eventually go on to become loyal and valued servants of Mary's son, King James VI of Scotland. Sir Robert Melville became treasurer-depute in 1582, Sir Andrew became master of the household to King James, and Sir James Melville would resume his wide-ranging diplomatic activities. His Memoirs of His Own Life, written in old age for the political education of his heir, are a well-known historical source. James Melville's long association with a French court notable for highly educated women, who both wrote and published their works, may well have inspired his decision to have his daughters well educated, presumably at the family home, the long-vanished Halhill Tower near Collessie. Sir James had inherited Halhill from his adoptive father, the lawyer Henry Balnaves, a close friend of the Reformer John Knox. Like Knox, after the siege of St Andrews Castle, Balnaves had been banished to serve a penal sentence in France. The theme of the persecuted Christian elect is prominent in Eizabeth Melville's poetry; between her father's absolute commitment to the Reformed faith, her paternal grandfather's "martyr" status, and the suffering for the faith of her adoptive grandfather Balnaves, her Protestant antecedents were impeccable.
In the summer of 1569, Sir James Melville married Christian Boswell, one of the many daughters of David Boswell, laird of Balmuto in Fife. David Boswell was a Catholic who had welcomed a visit of Mary, Queen of Scots to his home in February 1565 as an opportunity to celebrate Mass.
The Boswell family was well-connected to King James VI; George Boswell was a royal surgeon, and David's heir, his grandson John Boswell, laird of Balmuto had lent the king money to help pay for the royal wedding voyage to Scandinavia. He was knighted with his son and heir at the baptism of Prince Henry Frederick in 1594. Sir James Melville and Christian Boswell had five children : James, Robert, Margaret, Elizabeth and Christian. James, who inherited Halhill, shared a father-in-law with Elizabeth, namely Alexander Colville, Commendator of the Abbey at Culross, judge and privy councillor. Robert Melville trained for the ministry and for many years assisted the minister of Culross, Mr. Robert Colville, another son of Commendator Alexander. Margaret Melville married Sir Andrew Balfour of Montquhanie in Fife. He was another laird knighted at the baptism of Prince Henry Frederick in 1594. Christian married John Bonar of Lumquhat in Fife.
Archibald Douglas sent Sir James Melville's daughter, presumably Elizabeth, a pair of virginals from London as a present in 1589.
Marriage
Elizabeth's marriage contract has not survived, but it is clear from the signatures to a legal document of February 1597 that by that date, she was already married to John Colville. On 16 February 1599, Alexander Hume would end the epistle dedicating his Hymnes and Sacred Songs with the injunction "Love your husband: have a modest care of your family", which suggests the existence of more than one child. John Colville was styled "of West Comrie", an estate a little to the north-east of Culross, and in keeping with the Scottish custom of calling landowners by the name of their property, his wife was initially known as "Lady Comrie". It is incorrect to call her "Elizabeth Colville": Scottish women retained their maiden names after marriage. In addition to West Comrie, John Colville owned the lands of Lurg and Kincardine, just to the west of Culross.John Colville is frequently described as "John, Lord Colville of Culross", a peerage title that he never held. The "Colville of Culross" peerage was created in 1604 and confirmed in 1609 for John Colville's cousin, Sir James Colville of East Wemyss. Sir James, 1st Lord Colville of Culross, was the distinguished son of another James Colville, the older half-brother of John Colville's father, Alexander commendator of Culross. Sir James was much-appreciated by King James as a soldier and diplomat. He had fought on behalf of Henri de Navarre during the French Wars of Religion, and retained close links with the French court until the end of his eventful life. His own line failed c.1678, in Ireland, and then the title of Lord Colville came to the descendants of Elizabeth Melville and John Colville of West Comrie, although it was not claimed by them until 1722.
On the death of his father in 1597, John Colville became titular Commendator of Culross. As the title pages of the second and third editions of Ane Godlie Dreame show, Elizabeth Melville soon became known as "Lady Culross younger", rather than "Lady Comrie". She continued to be known as Lady Culross for the rest of her life, despite the fact that John Colville resigned the title of Commendator of Culross in 1609.
Elizabeth's surviving letters, held in Edinburgh University Library, prove that she and John Colville had at least seven children: Alexander, James, Robert, John, Samuel, and at least two daughters: one not mentioned by name, who died before 1625, and Christian. Alexander, Robert, John and the deceased daughter appear in a letter of 29 January 1629 to her son James. The financial problems that Melville recounts in this letter indicate that her husband was a poor estate-manager. From her comments in another letter it seems that John Colville also had shortcomings as a family man: Melville wrote that the death of her clerical brother-in-law Robert was:
a soir strok to this congregatioun, and chiefly to me, to quhom he wes not only a pastour and a brother, bot, under God, a husband and a father to my children. Nixt his awin familie, I have the greattest los
Elizabeth Melville's children
Information about Elizabeth's children is far from plentiful. With the exception of Elizabeth's eldest and youngest sons, Alexander and Samuel, what is known mostly stems from her extant letters, above all from the two she wrote to her son James, in 1625 and 1629. These were edited and published only in 2015. From the first letter, we learn of the daughter whose name is not mentioned, who died piously after a hard struggle at an unknown date; she is also mentioned in the second letter, written to James at court in London. It tells us that James was under the patronage of Sir Robert Kerr of Ancram, and that his brothers John and Robert were in Sweden with Robert Leslie. John had kept up his learning, and sent Latin verse to his father. Nothing more is known of Robert and John, or their unspecified sister; the brothers are not mentioned in a bond of provision made by John of West Comrie on 5 May 1643 which names only Alexander, James and Samuel. Elizabeth Melville’s letter of 1629 talks about the considerable financial difficulties in which the family finds itself. The lands of Kinnedar have had to be sold off outright, and those of Comrie sold under reversion, redeemable by her eldest son, Alexander, the purchaser in both cases being John Colville’s younger brother, Mr Robert, minister of Culross. Lady Culross indicates that Alexander Colville did not keep in frequent contact with her, and asks James to write to him about the redemption of the Comrie land.Dr. Alexander Colville
After studying at Edinburgh, in 1619 Alexander had moved to teach at the Protestant academy in Sedan in France, the home of the banished Scottish presbyterian spokesman Andrew Melville. There Alexander took his D.D. degree in 1628 and married the daughter of a French pastor in 1631. In 1641, the General Assembly asked him to return to teach at St. Andrews, which he did at a date as yet unclear. By 1649, he was professor of theology in St. Mary's College there, and would experience problems in the 1650s thanks to the antics of his disruptive youngest brother Samuel. During the Covenanting period, Dr. Alexander Colville seems to have been a generally respected moderate Covenanter, but at the Restoration, he conformed to episcopacy. He died in 1666. The descendants of his son John, minister of Mid-Calder, would inherit the title of Lord Colville of Culross, on the extinction of the senior line in 1678. However, they did not use the title until Elizabeth Melville's great-great-grandson John successfully claimed it in 1723. The present Viscount Colville of Culross is his direct descendant.In A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry for 1853, vol.3, p. 71, Sir Bernard Burke misidentified Elizabeth Melville's son Dr Alexander as an Ulster planter and clergyman also named Dr Alexander Colville. The latter, almost certainly a scion of the Colvilles of Cleish, acquired a very considerable fortune and built Galgorm Castle near Ballymena, gaining a reputation for necromancy in the process. Burke's mistake has unfortunately given rise to erroneous statements in various publications and online genealogies.