James VI of Scotland was proclaimed King in 1567 after his mother's forced abdication and there followed a succession of regencies. Captain James Stewart (d.1595) instigated the arrest and execution of the pro-English regent James Morton and was created Earl of Arran in 1580 (despite the existence of the true, although insane, incumbent of the title). The young King was seized by the protestant faction in the Ruthven Raid of 1582 but within ten months had escaped, helped, in part, by Robert Melville (1527-1621), Ruthven's clerk and treasurer who took no part in the raid. Arran instigated a counter-coup but was deposed in 1585. Melville was appointed Privy Councillor in 1582.