(1505-1572)
[Illustration: John Knox. [TN]]
John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer, was born at Giffordgate, a
suburb of the town of Haddington, in 1505, the year preceding the birth
of his famous countryman, George Buchanan. Knox has himself told us in a
single sentence all that is definitely known of his family connections:
"My lord," he represents himself as saying to the notorious Earl of
Bothwell, "my grandfather, grandsire (maternal grandfather), and father
have served under your lordship's predecessors, and some of them have
died under their standards." He received the elements of his education
in the grammar school of his native town, and in 1522 was sent to the
University of Glasgow. St. Andrews was nearer his home, and possessed
the more famous university; but he was probably drawn to Glasgow by the
fame of the most distinguished literary Scotchman of his
generation--John Major, the schoolman. For this reason, at least,
Buchanan was sent to St. Andrews, though Glasgow was nearer his native
place, when Major had migrated to the former university. At Glasgow,
under Major, Knox could have been subjected to none of the influences of
the great intellectual revolution which substituted for the studies and
methods of mediaevalism the ideas of the Revival of Letters. Like all his
educated contemporaries, he learned to speak and write Latin with
perfect fluency; but it was always with an idiom that showed he had none
of the humanist's scruples regarding purity of language. What he learned
from Major was the art for which that scholar was renowned throughout
Europe--the art of logical exercitation; and Knox's writings everywhere
show that all through life he had a natural delight in the play of
dialectic. He left the university without taking the degree of master of
arts, thus by the conditions of all the mediaeval universities precluding
himself from the career of an academic teacher.
During the eighteen years that follow his leaving the university, Knox
passes completely out of sight. All that is known of him during this
period is that, from 1540 to 1543, he acted as notary in his native town
of Haddington. As in the documents that establish this fact his name
appears with the addition of "Sir," the title of priests who were not
Masters of Arts, Knox must have been in orders in the Church of Rome
till as late as 1543. In 1544 we find him acting as tutor to the sons of
Douglas of Lorgniddry and Cockburn of Ormiston--families, it is to be
noted, both favorably disposed to the new opinions in religion now
making their way in Scotland. Through these families he was brought into
contact with George Wishart, who had lately returned from travelling in
Germany and England, with the burning zeal to gain his country to the
Lutheran reformation. From this period the future direction of Knox's
life was decided, and thenceforward, with an intensity and self-devotion
never surpassed, he is the apostle of the cause with which his name is
forever identified--the establishment in Scotland of what he deemed the
only true conception of the primitive church as based on the teaching of
Christ and the apostles. We have reason to believe that, even before
this date, his sympathies were on the side of reform in religion, but
the teaching and example of Wishart seem first to have brought to him
the clear consciousness of his mission. Knox identified himself with
Wishart with all the impetuosity of his character, and was in the habit,
he tells us, of carrying a two-handed sword before the preacher. When
Wishart was seized by the emissaries of Cardinal Beaton, Knox would
willingly have attended him to the last; but Wishart, who knew the fate
in store for him, rejected the offer. "Return to your bairns" (meaning
Knox's pupils), he said, "and God bless you. One is sufficient for one
sacrifice."
Wishart was burned in St. Andrews in March, 1546, and in May of the same
year Cardinal Beaton was murdered. The cardinal's murderers held
possession of the castle of St. Andrews; and, as Knox was known to be
the enemy of Beaton (though he had no share in his assassination), he
was forced (1547) for his own safety to join them with his pupils. Here
his zeal and theological attainments made him so conspicuous that, at
the instance of the leaders of the reforming party (Sir David Lyndsay
among the rest), he was formally called to the ministry, and preached
with much acceptance in the castle and parish church of St. Andrews. A
few months later the castle surrendered to the French; and, in the teeth
of the express terms of capitulation, the more prominent of the besieged
party were sent as prisoners on board the French galleys. For eighteen
months Knox remained a captive, his first winter being spent in a galley
on the Loire, the second in prison in Rouen. His constitution was not
naturally robust, and his hard experience during these two years
seriously impaired his health for the rest of his life. The breach of
faith on the part of the French, and the ignominy to which he was
subjected, were never forgotten by Knox, and must in part explain and
justify his life-long conviction that no good thing could come of French
policy or French religion.
In February, 1549, on the express intercession of Edward VI., Knox
regained his liberty. As it was still unsafe for him to return to
Scotland, for the next four years, till the death of Edward VI., he made
his home in England. From all that is known of him during these years,
it is clear that he made himself a person to be reckoned with by those
at the centre of authority in the country. By his preaching at Berwick
he gave such offence to the Bishop of Durham that he was removed to
Newcastle, where it was supposed his influence would be less
mischievous. In 1551 he was appointed one of six chaplains to Edward
VI., and in 1552, at the suggestion of the Duke of Northumberland, he
was offered the bishopric of Rochester. As the duke's object in
suggesting the appointment was simply to check, as far as he could, what
he deemed the dangerous activity of Knox, the offer was unhesitatingly
rejected. Knox's importance in England is still further proved by the
fact that, along with five others, he was consulted by Archbishop
Cranmer regarding his forty-five (afterward forty-two) articles of
religion.
On Mary's accession, Knox, like the majority of the Reformed ministers,
had to seek refuge on the continent. That he might be within call,
should circumstances permit his return either to Scotland or England, he
took up his abode at Dieppe till the beginning of the following year
(1554), when he proceeded to Geneva. In July of this year he was again
in Dieppe, "to learn the estate of England;" but with Mary of Lorraine
as regent in Scotland, and Mary Tudor as Queen of England, he was
convinced that for the present both these countries were closed against
him. He accordingly accepted a call from the English congregation at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, where, however, on account of a dispute regarding
the use of the Book of Common Prayer, he remained only a few months. At
Geneva he found a congregation of his own way of thinking; but, eager to
be an apostle in his own country, he once more returned to Dieppe
(August, 1555), whence he ventured into Scotland in September. He
remained in Scotland till July of the next year, residing chiefly in
Edinburgh, but making preaching journeys into various parts of the
country. The new doctrines were steadily spreading in Scotland, but as
yet their supporters were not strong enough to present a confident front
against the government. It was at his own risk, therefore, that Knox
remained in the country; and at the prayer of the congregation in
Geneva, he returned to that town in July, 1556. It was probably during
this visit to Scotland that he married his first wife, Marjory Bowes, to
whom he seems to have been engaged during his sojourn in Newcastle. For
the next two years he remained in Geneva, ministering to his
congregation, and seeing much of Calvin, whose influence on Knox
regarding all the great questions of the time was afterward to bear
fruit in the ordering of affairs in Scotland. To this period also belong
several of his minor writings, and notably his "First Blast of the
Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women," the publication of
which he must afterward have regretted in the interest of the cause he
had most at heart.
Meanwhile, in Scotland the ground was being prepared for the great work
in store for Knox. Under Mary of Lorraine as regent, the French
influence had come to be regarded as a danger to the independence of the
country, and a sense of this danger threw many into the party of reform.
The unworthy lives of the old clergy, and the cupidity of many of the
nobles, worked in the same direction. In 1557 the advocates of reform
bound themselves, by what is known as the First Covenant, to do all in
their power to effect a religious revolution, and by 1558 they felt
themselves strong enough to summon Knox to their aid in the work he
deemed the mission of his life.
In May, 1559, Knox found himself again in Scotland, which he never again
left for a prolonged period. He at once became the life and soul of his
party. At the moment of his arrival the Lords of the Congregation, as
the Protestant nobility termed themselves, were in open revolt against
the regent. By his preaching at Perth and St. Andrews Knox gained these
important towns to his cause, and by his labors in Edinburgh, of which
he was appointed minister, he also won a strong party against the
government. But the reformers, of their own resources, could not hold
their ground against the regent, subsidized by France with money and
soldiers. Mainly, therefore, through the efforts of Knox, who all
through his public career was deep in the politics of the time, the
assistance of England was obtained against what was now deemed the
French invasion. The help of England proved effective, and by the treaty
of Leith (1560), and the death of the regent the same year, the
insurgent party became masters of the country. The estates of Parliament
having met on August 1st, the ministers were ordered to draw up a
Confession of Faith which should embody the new teaching, and on August
17th Protestantism was formally established as the religion of the
country. Having gained thus much, the ministers, desirous of practical
results from their victory, drew up the first Book of Discipline--a
document ever memorable in the history of Scotland, and admirable in
itself for its wise and liberal suggestions for the religious and
educational organization of the country. These suggestions, however,
were little to the mind of the majority of the Protestant nobles, who,
"perceiving their carnal liberty and worldly commodity to be impaired
thereby," sneeringly spoke of them as "devote imaginationis." In the
revolution that had been accomplished Knox had been the leading spirit;
but he saw that the victory was as yet only half gained, and that the
deadliest struggle had still to be decided.
The return of the young queen to Scotland (August, 1561) revived all the
old dissensions, and introduced new elements into the strife of parties.
By every opinion she held on religion, on the relations of prince and
subject, on the fundamental principles of life, Mary was separated as by
an abyss from the party represented by Knox. If we may judge from the
language which each used of the other, Knox and she failed to find one
point on which genial intercourse was possible. As the minister of St.
Giles (then the only Reformed church in Edinburgh), Knox believed that
Mary was his special charge. Her personal conduct, therefore, no less
than her public policy, were made the subject of his most stringent
criticism; and during the six years of her reign his attitude toward her
was that of uncompromising insistence. The celebration of mass in
Holyrood Chapel, in defiance of the late religious settlement, first
roused his wrath; and a sermon delivered by him in St. Giles led to the
first of those famous interviews with Mary, the record of which makes
such a remarkable portion of his "History of the Reformation." The
division of ecclesiastical property, by which those in actual possession
received two-thirds, the reformed ministers one-third, was a further
ground of quarrel with the new government. The delay of Mary to confirm
the late religious settlement also gave rise to the greatest anxiety on
the part of Knox and his brother ministers. In view of the precarious
interests of the great cause, Knox spoke out with such frankness as to
alienate the most powerful noble in the country, and the one whom he
respected most--Lord James Stuart, afterward the Regent Moray. The
marriage of Mary with Darnley (1565), again, however, led them to common
counsels, as both saw in this marriage the most serious menace against
the new religion. In the subsequent revolt, headed by Moray and the
other Protestant nobles, Knox nevertheless took no part, and remained at
his charge in Edinburgh. But after the murder of Rizzio, he deemed it
wise, considering Mary's disposition toward him, to withdraw to Kyle, in
Ayrshire, where he appears to have written the greater part of his
history.
The events of the next two years--the murder of Darnley, Mary's marriage
with Bothwell, and her subsequent flight into England--again threw the
management of affairs into the hands of the Protestant party; and under
Moray as regent the acts of 1560, in favor of the reformed religion,
were duly ratified by the estates of the realm. As in the former
revolution, Knox was still the same formidable force the nobles had to
reckon with; and at Stirling, at the coronation of James VI. (1567), he
preached in that strain which gave his sermons the character and
importance of public manifestoes. The assassination of Moray, in 1570,
and the consequent formation of a strong party in favor of Mary, once
more endangered the cause to which he had devoted his life, and the
possession of the castle of Edinburgh by the queen's supporters forced
him to remove to St. Andrews for safety. He had already had a stroke of
apoplexy, and he was now but the wreck of his former self, but his
spirit was as indomitable as ever. The description of him at this
period, by James Melville, can never be omitted in any account of Knox.
"Being in St. Andrews, he was very weak. I saw him every day of his
doctrine go hulie and fear with a furring of martricks about his neck, a
staff in the one hand, and good, godly Richart Ballanden, his servant,
holding up the other, oxter from the abbey to the parish church; and be
the said Richart and another servant lifted up to the pulpit where he
behooved to loan, at his first entry, but or he had done with his
sermon, he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding that
pulpit in blads, and fly out of it."
It was the desire of his congregation of St. Giles to hear him once more
before he died. Accordingly, by short stages, he made his way to
Edinburgh, and on November 9, 1572, at the induction of his successor in
office, he made his last public appearance. He died the same month, at
the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in the churchyard then attached
to St. Giles, behind which church a small square stone in the pavement
of Parliament Square, marked "J. K., 1572," now indicates the spot where
he is supposed to lie. The saying of Regent Morton at his grave, "Here
lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man" (Calderwood),
was the most memorable panegyric that could have been pronounced to his
memory.
Knox was twice married. His first wife, Marjory Bowes, died in 1560,
leaving him two sons. By his second wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of
Lord Ochiltree, whom (little more than a girl) he married in 1564, he
had three daughters. His widow and all his family survived him.
In their broader features the character of Knox and of the work he
achieved cannot be misread. In himself he stands as the pre-eminent type
of the religious reformer--dominated by his one transcendent idea,
indifferent or hostile to every interest of life that did not subserve
its realization. He is sometimes spoken of as a fanatic; but the term is
hardly applicable to one who combined in such a degree as Knox, the
shrewdest worldly sense with an ever-ready wit and a native humor that
declares itself in his most serious moments and in the treatment of the
loftiest subjects. To blame him for intolerance or harshness is but to
pass judgment on his age and on the type to which he belongs. It is his
unquestionable tribute, that the work he accomplished was the fashioning
anew of his country's destinies. It has to be added that by his "History
of the Reformation in Scotland," Knox holds a place of his own in the
history of literature. His narrative, as was to be expected, is that of
one who saw only a single aspect of the events he chronicles; but the
impress of the writer's individuality, stamped on every page, renders
his work possibly unique in English literature.