- George Melville, 1st Earl of Melville
George Melville, 1st Earl of Melville (1636 –
May 20 ,1707 ), was a Scotsaristocrat andstatesman during the reigns ofWilliam and Mary .In 1643, he succeeded his father as
Lord Melville .Career
At the Restoration of the
Stuarts Melville was a moderate Whig andPresbyterian who whilst serving under theDuke of Monmouth in his suppression of theCovenanters in 1679 had tried to persuade theinsurgents (Whig extremists) to lay down their arms peacefully.Exile
The turning point in his career came in 1683 when Melville and his son
David Leslie-Melville , theEarl of Leven , were accused of complicity in theRye House Plot — a Whig conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York (the future James VII).To escape arrest Melville, together with his son, Leven fled to the Netherlands where they joined the band of British Protestant exiles at the court of Prince William of Orange. Here Melville became one of the chief Scots supporters of William of Orange.
Return
After the "
Glorious Revolution " of 1688 Melville played a prominent part in Scots and English politics, most notably in theConvention Parliament which offered the crown of Scotland to William of Orange and his wife, Mary, daughter of the deposed James VII. In 1689 William made him soleSecretary of State for Scotland and in 1690 he was createdEarl of Melville ,Viscount Kirkaldie , andLord Raith, Monymaill and Balewarie (all in thePeerage of Scotland ).Although Melville’s appointment as
Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland in 1693 was a political demotion he enjoyed substantial emoluments, the more so after 1696 when he becamePresident of the Privy Council of Scotland at an annual salary of £1,000 sterling.In fiction
It is possible that details of Melville and his son's lives were used by
Sir Walter Scott in this novelOld Mortality to lend authentic sounding biographical detail to the heroHenry Morton .In the novel Morton — like Melville a moderate Whig who desires peace and religious tolerance whilst supporting the
Stuart monarchy — is reluctantly involved in theCovenanter uprising of 1689 (albeit on the Rebel side) and attempts to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict between his brotherCalvinists and theAnglican Royalists.Later Morton is forced to flee to the
Netherlands where (living under his mother's name ofMelville ) he becomes one of William of Orange's supporters, before returning to Britain in the wake of the Glorious Revolution.References
"An Historical Account of Melville House", John Gifford
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