On 15 February 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.

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.

He is described as the ninth son, yet speaks in a letter of 1612 as having outlived his ‘fourteen brethren.’[8] His father lost his life in the battle of Pinkie, when Andrew was only two years old and, his mother dying soon after, he was brought up under the care of his eldest brother Richard (1522–1575), afterwards minister of Maryton, who, at a proper age, sent him to the grammar school of Montrose.

He now attained great fluency in Greek, made acquirements in oriental languages, studied mathematics and law, and came under the direct influence of Peter Ramus, whose new methods of teaching he subsequently transplanted to Scotland.

[3] He also attended the last course of lectures delivered by Adrianus Turnebus, professor of Greek, as well as those of Petrus Ramus, whose philosophical method and plan of teaching Melville later introduced into the universities of Scotland.

[11] In addition to teaching, Melville continued to study Oriental literature, and in particular acquired from Cornelius Bertram, one of his brother professors, a knowledge of Syriac.

[3] While he lived at Geneva the massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572 drove immense numbers of Protestant refugees to that city, including several of the most distinguished French men of letters of the time.

[citation needed] In 1574 Melville returned to Scotland, and almost immediately received the appointment of Principal of the University of Glasgow, and began its renewal.

[11] As a member of the General Assembly, he took a prominent part in all the measures of that body against episcopacy; and as he was unflinching in his opposition to that form of church government, he received the name of Episcopomastix, or The Scourge of Bishops.

[13] A remarkable instance of his intrepidity occurred at an interview, which took place in October 1577, between him and the Regent Morton, when the latter, irritated at the proceedings of the Assembly, exclaimed, "There will never be quietness in this country till half a dozen of you be hanged or banished!"

The attention of the Assembly was about this time directed to the reformation and improvement of the universities, and Melville was, in December 1580, removed from Glasgow, and installed principal of St. Mary's college, St. Andrews.

Here, besides giving lectures in divinity, he taught the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Rabbinical languages, and his prelections were attended, not only by young students in unusual numbers, but also by some of the masters of the other colleges.

When the remonstrance was read before his majesty in council, the king's unworthy favourite, the earl of Arran, menacingly exclaimed, "Who dare subscribe these treasonable articles?"

In February 1584 he was cited before the privy council, to answer a charge of treason, founded on some seditious expressions, which it was alleged he had made use of in a sermon on the 4th chapter of Daniel, on the occasion of a fast kept during the preceding month; particularly that he had compared the king's mother to Nebuchadnezzar, who was banished from the kingdom, and would be restored again.

Not being able to prove the charge against him, and unwilling to let him go, the council declared him guilty of declining their jurisdiction, and of behaving irreverently before them, and sentenced him to be imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh, and to be further punished in his person and goods at the pleasure of the king.

After staying some time at Berwick, he proceeded to London, and in the ensuing July visited the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, at both of which he was received in a manner becoming his learning and reputation.

In consequence of this difference with the archbishop, Melville received a written mandate from the king to confine his residence to the north of the Tay, and he was not restored to his office in the university till the following August.

Some time after, when Adamson had been deprived of his archbishopric, and was reduced to great poverty, finding himself deserted by the king, he addressed a letter to his former antagonist, Melville, expressing regret for his past conduct, and soliciting his assistance.

In the following year, when it was proposed to recall the popish nobles from exile, he went with some other ministers to the convention of estates at St. Andrews, to remonstrate against the design, but was ordered by the king to withdraw, which he did, after a most resolute reply.

For several years following King James made repeated attempts to control the church, according to his own arbitrary notions, but he invariably encountered a strenuous opponent in Andrew Melville; and he had recourse at last to one of those stratagems which he thought the very essence of "king-craft", to secure the removal of this champion of presbyterianism from Scotland altogether.

And they whome Chryst hes callit and commandit to watch over his Kirk, and govern his spirituall kingdome, hes sufficient powar of him, and authoritie sa to do, bathe togidder and severalie; the quhilk na Christian King or Prince sould control and discharge, but fortifie and assist, utherwayes nocht fathfull subjects nor members of Chryst.

In May 1606, Melville, with his nephew, and six of their brethren, were called to London by a letter from the king, on the specious pretext that his majesty wished to consult them as to the affairs of the church.

Soon after their arrival they attended the famous conference held on 23 September, in presence of the king at Hampton Court, at which Melville spoke at great length, and with a boldness which astonished the English nobility and clergy.

On St. Michael's day, Melville and his brethren were commanded to attend the royal chapel, when, scandalized at the popish character of the service, on his return to his lodging he vented his indignation in a Latin epigram, for which, a copy having been conveyed to the king, he was brought before the council at Whitehall.

Being by them found guilty of "scandalum magnatum," he was committed first to the custody of the dean of St. Paul's, and afterwards to the charge of the bishop of Winchester; but was ultimately sent to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner for four years.

At first he was treated with the utmost rigour, and denied even the use of pen, ink, and paper; but his spirit remained unsubdued, and he beguiled his solitary hours by composing Latin verses, which, with the tongue of his shoe buckle, he engraved on his prison walls.

[20] At length, in February 1611, at the intercession of the duke of Bouillon, he was released from confinement, on condition of his becoming professor of theology in the Protestant university of Sedan, in France, where he spent the remainder of his life, and died there in 1622, at the advanced age of 77.

[20] On being freed, but refused permission to return to his own country, he was invited to fill a professor's chair in the Academy of Sedan, and there he spent the last eleven years of his life.

Dr. M'Crie, whose Life of Andrew Melville was published in 1824, in 2 volumes, has given the names of all his works, printed and left in manuscript, and there is none of any great extent among them.