For Christ's Crown & Covenant!

By Angela Wittman The resource used for this story of Elizabeth Melvill (Lady Culross) is the book “Ladies of the Covenant” written by Rev. James Anderson. “Look to the Lord, thou art not left alone, Since He is thine, what pleasure canst thou take? He is at hand, and hears thy every groan: End out thy fight, and suffer for His sake.” (Excerpt from a sonnet written by Elizabeth Melvill in 1605 to John Welsh, a non-conformist minister of the Gospel, while he was imprisoned in the Castle of Blackness.) Elizabeth Melvill was born in Scotland in 1578 and died in 1640. She was an extremely intelligent and highly educated woman who was well known for her knowledge of religion. She unashamedly supported and encouraged the non-conformist ministers who stood for freedom and liberty in the Church and the Worship of God. The story has been told that Lady Culross was a devoted hearer of the preaching of the Gospel, and would often travel to different parishes to hear the preachers and to participa...

Culross Abbey Kirk - Wikimedia These biographical highlights are from Wikipedia : In 1603 Elizabeth 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. 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.[2] Melville's father was the courtier and diplomat Sir James Melville of Halhill (1535–1617), 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. Elizabeth's marriage contract has not survived, but it is clear from the signatures to...

Ane godlie dreame, compylit in Scottish meter be M. M. gentelvvoman in Culros, at the requeist of her freindes , by Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross. Title page. Published 1603 in Edinburgh by Robert Charteris. (Courtesy of National Library of Scotland.) Source: Wikipedia By Elizabeth Melville (Lady Culross,) Published 1603 One day as mourned very sorely, With various things which my soul was grieving My peace fled and could not be relieved With heaviness my heart was very upset I loathed my life, I could not eat or drink I could not speak or look to any living soul But mused alone and diverse things did think. The wretched world did irritate my mind I thought upon this false and Iron age, And how our hearts were so to vice inclined That Satan seemed most fearfully to rage Nothing on earth my sorrow could ease I felt my sin most strongly to increase I grieved my Spirit that was wont to be, My soul was drowned in deep distress... Before the Lord I had thus complained My mind grew calm, ...