[SN: 1505.]
Knox was born this year, at the village of Gifford, near the town of
Haddington, in East-Lothian. His father is said to have been descended
from the Knoxes of Ranferly, in the county of Renfrew; and the name of
his mother was Sinclair. Knox himself, in describing an interview with
the Earl of Bothwell, in 1562, mentions that his father, grandfather,
and great-grandfather, had all served his Lordship's predecessors, and
that some of them had died under their standards; which implies that
they must have been settled for a considerable period in East-Lothian,
where the Hepburns, Earls of Bothwell, had their chief residence.
[SN: 1522.]
After being educated at Haddington, Knox was sent to the University of
Glasgow; where John Major was Principal Regent or Professor of
Philosophy and Divinity. The name "Joh[=a]nes Knox," occurs in the
Registers of the University, among those of the students who were
incorporated in the year 1522. There is no evidence to shew that he
afterwards proceeded to St. Andrews, as is usually stated, either to
complete his academical education, or publicly to teach philosophy, for
which he had not qualified himself by taking his degree of Master of
Arts. If he ever taught philosophy, it must have been in the way of
private tuition.
[Sidenote 1530.]
About this time Knox took priest's orders; and he was probably
connected, for upwards of ten years, with one of the religious
establishments in the neighbourhood of Haddington. It is generally
supposed, that between the years 1535 and 1540, in the course of his
private studies, the perusal of the writings of Augustine and other
ancient Fathers, led him to renounce scholastic theology, and that he
was thus prepared, at a mature period of life, to profess his adherence
to the Protestant faith.
[SN: 1541.]
March 8. The name of "Schir John Knox" occurs among the witnesses to a
deed concerning Rannelton Law, in a Protocol-book belonging to the
borough of Haddington; and there is no reason to doubt that this was the
Reformer.
[SN: 1544.]
Knox entered the family of Hugh Douglas of Longniddry, as tutor of his
sons Francis and George Douglas; and also of Alexander Cockburn, son of
John Cockburn of Ormiston.
[SN: 1545.]
In this year he attached himself as an avowed adherent of George
Wishart, from the time of his first visit to East-Lothian.
[SN: 1546.]
George Wishart suffered martyrdom at St. Andrews, on the 1st of March
1545-6; and on the 29th of May that year, Cardinal Beaton was murdered.
[SN: 1547.]
April 10. Knox, with his young pupils, entered the Castle of St.
Andrews, as a place of safety from the persecution of the Popish clergy.
May. At the end of this month, or early in June, he received a public
call to the ministry, which he obeyed with great reluctance; but having
undertaken the office, he continued, along with John Rough, to preach
both in the parish Church, and in the Castle until its surrender.
June. The French fleet appeared in St. Andrews Bay, to lay siege to the
Castle, which surrendered on the 30th of July; but in defiance of the
terms of capitulation, the chief persons in the place were sent as
prisoners on board the French galleys.
During this winter, the vessel on board of which Knox was confined,
remained in the river Loire.
[SN: 1548.]
The vessel returned to Scotland, about the time of the siege of
Haddington in June; and when within sight of St. Andrews, Knox uttered
his memorable prediction, that he would yet survive to preach in that
place where God had opened his mouth for the ministry.
During this winter, he was kept prisoner at Rouen, where he wrote a
Preface to Balnaves's Treatise of Justification, which was sent to
Scotland, and until some years after his death, was supposed to be lost.
[SN: 1549.]
February. Knox obtained his liberty, after an imprisonment of nineteen
months. He came to England, and soon afterwards was appointed by the
English Council to be a preacher in the town of Berwick.
[SN: 1550.]
April 4. Knox was summoned to appear at Newcastle before Dr. Tonstall,
Bishop of Durham, to give an account of his doctrine.
At the close of this year he was removed from Berwick to Newcastle,
where he continued his ministerial labours.
[SN: 1551.]
December. Knox was appointed by the Privy Council of England one of six
Chaplains to Edward the Sixth. This led to his occasional residence in
London during 1552 and 1553.
[SN: 1552.]
October. He received an offer of the Bishopric of Rochester; but this
preferment he declined.
[SN: 1553.]
In or about February, Knox was summoned before the Privy Council of
England, upon complaints made by the Duke of Northumberland; but was
acquitted.
April 14. He also declined accepting the vacant living of All-Hallows,
in London, and, on account of his refusal, was again summoned before the
Privy Council.
Edward the Sixth died on the 6th of July, and the persecution of the
Protestants being revived during the reign of Queen Mary, most of the
Reformed ministers and many of the laity made their escape, and sought
refuge in foreign countries, in the course of that year.
[SN: 1554.]
January 28. Knox was at Dieppe, where he remained till the end of
February. He then proceeded to Geneva, but was again at Dieppe in July,
"to learn the estate of England."
April 10. The Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, was installed Regent of
Scotland.
On the 4th of September, he received a call from the English
Congregation at Frankfort on the Maine, to become their minister. He
accepted the invitation, and repaired to that city in November.
[SN: 1555.]
In consequence of the disputes which arose in the English Congregation
at Frankfort, in regard to the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and the
introduction of various ceremonies. Knox was constrained to relinquish
his charge; and having preached a farewell discourse on the 26th of
March, he left that city, and returned to Geneva. Here he must have
resumed his ministerial labours; as, on the 1st of November that year,
in the "Livre des Anglois, à Geneve," it is expressly said, that
Christopher Goodman and Anthony Gilby were "appointed to preche the word
of God and mynyster the Sacraments, _in th' absence of John Knox_." This
refers to his having resolved to visit his native country.
Knox proceeded to Dieppe in August, and in the following month landed on
the east coast of Scotland, not far from Berwick. Most of this winter he
spent in Edinburgh, preaching and exhorting in private.
[SN: 1556.]
In the beginning of this year Knox went to Ayrshire, accompanied with
several of the leading Protestants of that county, and preached openly
in the town of Ayr, and in other parts of the country. He was summoned
to appear before a Convention of the Popish Clergy, on the 15th of May,
at Edinburgh. About the same time, he addressed his Letter to the Queen
Regent.
Having received a solicitation for his return to Geneva, to become one
of their pastors, Knox left Scotland in July that year. Before this time
he married Marjory Bowes. Her father was Richard, the youngest son of
Sir Ralph Bowes of Streatlam; her mother was Elizabeth, a daughter and
co-heiress of Sir Roger Aske of Aske.
On the 13th September, Knox, along with his wife and his mother-in-law,
were formally admitted members of the English Congregation. At the
annual election of Ministers, on the 16th of December, Knox and Goodman
were re-elected.
[SN: 1557.]
Having received a pressing invitation from Scotland, which he considered
to be his duty to accept, Knox took leave of the Congregation at Geneva,
and came to Dieppe; but finding letters of an opposite tenor, dissuading
him from coming till a more favourable opportunity, after a time he
returned again to Geneva.
In May, his son Nathaniel was born at Geneva, and was baptized on the
23d, William Whittingham, afterwards Dean of Durham, being god-father.
On the 16th of December, Knox and Goodman still continued to be
ministers of the English Congregation at Geneva.
[SN: 1558.]
April. Mary Queen of Scots was married, at Paris, to Francis, Dauphin of
France.
In this year Knox republished, with additions, his Letter to the Queen
Regent; and also his Appellation from the cruel sentence of the Bishops
and Clergy of Scotland; and his First Blast of the Trumpet against the
Regiment of Women.
In November, his son Eleazar was born at Geneva, and was baptized on the
29th, Myles Coverdale, formerly Bishop of Exeter, being witness or
god-father.
November 17. Upon the death of Mary Queen of England, Elizabeth ascended
the throne.
On the 16th December, Knox and Goodman were again re-elected ministers
of the English Congregation.
[SN: 1559.]
January 7. Knox took his final departure from Geneva, in consequence of
an invitation to return to Scotland; and was on that occasion honoured
with the freedom of the city.
In March, he arrived at Dieppe, and finding that the English Government
refused to grant him a safeconduct, on the 22d April he embarked for
Leith, and reached Edinburgh on the 2d May. During that month, the Queen
Regent published a Declaration against the Protestants, and the Lords of
the Congregation sent a deputation to remonstrate; but their
remonstrance being despised, they took arms in self-defence.
June 11. Knox preached in St. Andrews; and at Perth on the 25th, when
the populace defaced several of the Churches or Monasteries in that
city.
July 7. He was elected Minister of Edinburgh. Owing to the troubles,
within a brief space he was obliged to relinquish his charge; but he
continued his labours elsewhere for a time, chiefly at St. Andrews.
July 10. On the death of Henry II. of France, his son Francis, who had
espoused Mary Queen of Scots, and had obtained the Matrimonial Crown of
Scotland in November 1558, at the age of sixteen, ascended the throne of
France.
August 1. The Protestants assembled at Stirling, and having resolved to
solicit aid from England, on the 3d of that month Knox proceeded to
Berwick to hold a conference with Sir James Crofts. In this month, he
sent Calvin a favourable report of his labours since his arrival in
Scotland: Calvin's answer to this communication is dated in November.
September 20. Knox's Wife and children, accompanied by Christopher
Goodman, arrived in Edinburgh.
October 18. The Protestants entered Edinburgh, while the Queen Regent
retired to Leith, with the French troops which had come to her aid.
[SN: 1560.]
February 27. A treaty concluded between England and the Lords of the
Congregation. The English fleet blockaded the port of Leith, and
furnished reinforcements, their troops at the same time having entered
Scotland.
April. At the end of this month, Knox had returned to Edinburgh. His
work on Predestination was published this year at Geneva.
June 10. The Queen Regent died in the Castle of Edinburgh. Articles of
Peace were concluded in July.
August 1. The Scotish Parliament assembled; and, on the 17th, the
Confession of Faith was ratified, and the Protestant religion formally
established.
December 5. Francis II. of France, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots,
died.
December 20. The first meeting of the General Assembly was held at
Edinburgh.
At the end of this year, Knox's Wife died, leaving him the two sons
above mentioned.
[SN: 1561.]
An invitation having been sent by the Protestant Nobility to their
young Queen, to revisit Scotland, she arrived from France, and assumed
the Government, on the 19th of August.
[SN: 1562.]
May. Knox engaged in a dispute at Maybole, with Quintin Kennedy, Abbot
of Crossragwell; of which dispute he published an account in the
following year.
December. He was summoned to appear before the Privy Council, on account
of a circular letter which he had addressed to the chief Protestants, in
virtue of a commission granted to him by the General Assembly.
[SN: 1563.]
The town of Edinburgh formed only one parish. Knox, when elected
Minister, had the assistance of John Cairns as Reader. John Craig,
minister of the Canongate or Holyrood, had been solicited to become his
colleague, in April 1562; but his appointment did not take place till
June 1563.
[SN: 1564.]
March. Knox married to his second wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of
Andrew Lord Ochiltree.
June 30. He was appointed by the General Assembly to visit the churches
in Aberdeen and the North of Scotland. The following Assembly, 26th of
December, gave him a similar appointment for Fife and Perthshire.
[SN: 1565.]
Knox was summoned before the Privy Council, on account of a sermon
which, on the 19th of August, he had preached in St. Giles's Church.
[SN: 1566.]
In this year he appears to have written the most considerable portion of
his History of the Reformation; having commenced the work in 1559 or
1560.
In consequence of the unsettled state of public affairs, after the
murder of David Riccio, 9th of March, Knox left Edinburgh, and retired
for a time to Kyle.
June 19. James the Sixth was born in the Castle of Edinburgh.
December. Knox obtained permission from the General Assembly to proceed
to England, having received from the English Government a safeconduct,
to visit his two sons, who were residing with some of their mother's
relations.
[SN: 1567.]
February 10. Henry Lord Darnley was murdered.
April 24. Bothwell carried off Queen Mary to the Castle of Dunbar; and
their marriage was celebrated on the 15th of May.
June 15. Bothwell fled from Carberry-hill to Dunbar; and the Queen was
brought to Edinburgh, and afterwards confined in Lochleven Castle. About
the same time, Knox returned from England.
July 29. At the King's Coronation at Stirling, Knox preached an
inaugural sermon on these words, "I was crowned young."
August 22. James Earl of Murray was appointed Regent of Scotland.
December 15. Knox preached at the opening of Parliament; and on the
20th, the Confession of Faith, which had been framed and approved by
Parliament in 1560, with various Acts in favour of the Reformed
religion, was solemnly ratified.
[SN: 1568.]
May 2. Queen Mary escaped from Lochleven; but her adherents, who had
assembled at Langside, being defeated, she fled into England, and was
imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth for the rest of her life; having been
beheaded at Fotheringay on the 8th of February 1586-7.
[SN: 1569.]
January 23. The Earl of Murray was assassinated at Linlithgow; and on
occasion of his funeral, Knox preached a sermon on these words, "Blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord." (Rev. xiv. 13.)
[SN: 1570.]
July 12. Matthew Earl of Lennox was elected Regent of Scotland; but was
assassinated on the 4th of September. On the following day, John Earl of
Mar was chosen Regent.
October. Knox had a stroke of apoplexy, but was enabled occasionally to
resume his ministerial labours.
[SN: 1571.]
May 5. The troubles which then agitated the country induced Knox to quit
the metropolis, and to retire to St. Andrews.
September. The news arrived of the massacre of the Protestants on St.
Bartholomew's Eve, 24th of August, at Paris, and in other parts of
France.
[SN: 1572.]
July. On the cessation of hostilities, at the end of this month, a
deputation from the citizens of Edinburgh was sent to St. Andrews, with
a letter to Knox, expressive of their earnest desire "that once again
his voice might be heard among them." He returned in August, having this
year published, at St. Andrews, his Answer to Tyrie the Jesuit.
The Earl of Mar died on the 29th of October; and James Earl of Morton,
on the 24th of November, was elected Regent of Scotland.
On the same day, the 24th of November, having attained the age of
sixty-seven, Knox closed "his most laborious and most honourable
career." He was buried in the church-yard of St. Giles; but, as in the
case of Calvin, at Geneva, no monument was erected to mark the place
where he was interred.
* * * * *
Knox left a widow, and two sons by his first marriage, and three
daughters by the second. In the concluding volume will be given a
genealogical tree, or notices of his descendants.
$THE HISTORY$