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- He was author of the well-known Memoirs of His own Life. At the age of fourteen he was sent to France by Mary of Guise as a page of honour to the young Queen of Scotland. In May 1553 he entered the service of the Constable, under whom he saw considerable military service. At the skirmish of St. Quentin in August 1557, he was wounded and nearly taken prisoner. In 1559 he was sent by Henry II. of France on a special mission to Scotland, which he successfully accomplished. In 1564, having accepted an invitation to return to Scotland, he entered the Queen's service, who, on 20 July 1564, gave him a pension of 100 Scots for life, and was sent by her to England later in the same year on an important mission to Queen Elizabeth. On 22 January 1564-65 he had a Crown charter of the lands of Drumcorse in Linlithgowshire, and on 10 April 1566 he received from Darnley and the Queen, for life, a pension of 500 merks Scots yearly. He attended the marriage of Mary with Bothwell on 15 May 1567, and in August of the same year he was commissioned to meet the Earl of Moray, on his return from France, at Berwick, and offer him the Regency. 12 On the death of Mr. Henry Balnaves of Hallhill, in February 1570-71, James Melville, whom the former had adopted as his son, inherited from him his whole estate, and during the government of the Regent Morton Melville retired into private life. He was made a privy councillor by James VI., who, in 1588, desired that he should be one of the two ambassadors to Denmark to make arrangements for the marriage with the Princess Anna, second daughter of Frederick II., King of Denmark. But Melville would not accept the honour. He was appointed Gentleman of the Queen's Chamber, and was knighted on the occasion of her coronation on 17 May 1590. Sir James was in the Palace of Holyrood on the night of 27 December 1591, when the Earl of Bothwell attempted to get possession of the King's person, and was also with the King at Falkland when Bothwell made his second similar attempt on 28 June 1592. In July 1599 he was one of a commission for raising men for military service, and on 14 July 1600 he was sworn a member of the Privy Council, as reconstituted in 1598. He declined to accompany the Court to London when King James departed from Scotland in 1603. He d. 13 November 1617, aged eighty-two havinh m. to Christine, daughter of David Boswell, of Balmutto, and had issue
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