At the time this tract was written the destinies, immediate and
prospective, of the Protestant faith seemed to lay wholly in the laps
of five women, viz:—
CATHERINE DE MEDICI, Queen of France.
MARIE DE LORRAINE, Queen Regent of Scotland, whose sole heir was her
daughter MARY, afterwards Queen of Scots.
MARY TUDOR, Queen of England, having for her heir apparent the Princess
ELIZABETH.
Of these, the last—also of least account at this moment, being in
confinement—was the only hope of the Reformers. The other four, largely
directing the affairs of three kingdoms, were steadfastly hostile to
the new faith. Truly, the odds were heavy against it. Who could have
anticipated that within three years of the writing of this book both
MARY TUDOR and MARY DE LORRAINE would have passed away; that KNOX
himself would have been in Scotland carrying on the Reformation; and
that ELIZABETH would have commenced her marvellous reign. So vast a
change in the political world was quite beyond all reasonable
foresight.
Meanwhile there was only present to the vision and heart of the
Reformer as he gazed seaward, from Dieppe, but the unceasing blaze of,
the martyr fires spreading from Smithfield all over England. Month
after month this horrid work was deliberately carried on and was
increasing in intensity.
We se our countrie set furthe for a pray to foreine nations, we heare
the blood of our brethren, the membres of Christ Iesus most cruellie to
be shed, and the monstruous empire of a cruell women (the secrete
counsel of God excepted) we knowe to be the onlie occasion of all the
miseries: and yet with silence we passe the time as thogh the mater did
nothinge appertein to vs. p. 3.
The vigour of the persecution had struck all heart out of the
Protestants. Was this to go on for ever? Heart-wrung at the ruthless
slaughter—as we, in our day, have been by the horrors of the Indian
mutiny or of the Bulgarian atrocities—the Reformer sought to know the
occasion of all these calamities. At that moment, he found it in the
Empire of Woman. Afterwards he referred much of this book to the time
in which it was written [pp. 58 and 61]. Shall we say that his heart
compelled his head to this argument, that his indignation entangled his
understanding on this subject? Just as MILTON was led to the discussion
of the conditions of divorce, through his desertion by his wife MARY
POWELL; so the fiery martyrdoms of England led KNOX to denounce the
female sex in the person of her whom we still call “Bloody MARY” that
was the occasion of them all.
If in the happiest moment of his happiest dream, JOHN KNOX could have
foreseen our good and revered Queen VICTORIA reigning in the hearts of
the millions of her subjects, and ruling an Empire wider by far than
those of Spain and Portugal in his day; if he could have seen England
and Scotland ONE COUNTRY, bearing the name which, as almost of
prophecy, he has foreshadowed for them in this tract, “the Ile of
greate Britanny;” if he could have beheld that one country as it now
abides in its strength and its wealth, the most powerful of European
states; if he could have realized free Italy with Rome, the Popes
without temporal power, and modern civilisation more than a match for
Papal intrigues; if he could have known that the gospel for which he
lived had regenerated the social life of Great Britain, that it was tha
confessed basis of our political action and the perennial spring of our
Christian activities, so that not merely in physical strength, but in
moral, force and mental enlightenment we are in the van of the nations
of the world: if the great Scotch Reformer had but had a glimpse of
this present reality, this tract would never have been written, and he
would willingly have sung the paean of aged SIMEON and passed out of
this life.
But this work was the offspring of the hour of darkness, if not of
despair. Something must be done. A warrior of the pen, he would forge a
general argument against all female rule that would inclusively destroy
the legal right of MARY to continue these atrocities.