throughout this trying ordeal he never lost courage, but believed confidently that he would yet preach in Scotland.
When he was released from the galley in 1549, he went to England rather than Scotland, and remained there five years. He preached under English protection at Betwick for two years, and as royal chaplain he addressed the most distinguished and influential audiences in England. In 1552 he had a hand in the compilation of the Book of Common Prayer, thereby putting in his bit to make it more Protestant. Finally, as a crowning glory, he was offered the bishopric of Rochester. This, however, he declined, and for his refusal was called to make an explanation before the Privy Council. When the council expressed its regret that he was of a contrary mind to the common order, Knox replied that he was more sorry that a common order should be contrary to Christ’s institution.
With the death of Edward VI, under whose reign Protestantism had
“sprung up like the gourd of Jonah in the sunshine of the court,” and the ascension of Mary Tudor, “Bloody Mary,” to the throne, with the resultant reversal of religious affiliations, Knox had to flee to Geneva, which had become a city of refuge for Protestant divines from all over Europe.
For a time he shepherded a congregation at Frankfort on the Main and also one at Geneva. These churches were composed of refugees from England.
But not for long did he remain here, for Scotland was calling him. When he returned to his homeland he was welcomed with open arms wherever he went. Scotland seemed to be crying to be released from the Catholic yoke, and the nobles who had laid the groundwork gathered around John Knox to lend their support. It was a heartening experience for the Reformer.
Everywhere he went he celebrated the Lord’s Supper in its simple form and forbade the people to attend mass. From this time on the mass became the distinguishing feature between Protestant and Catholic adherents.
Geneva was calling him to return; but, before answering this summons, he established the Protestant cause as far as he was able. He also gave
instructions that the Scriptures should be read to the edification of all in devotional meetings. When he returned to the Continent he took with him a bride.
Apparently little record remains concerning the actual relationship between Knox and the great Reformer John Calvin, but their association must have been intimate. Of Knox’s opinion of Calvin and of Geneva we are not left in doubt, for he spoke of Calvin as “that singular instrument of Christ Jesus in the glory of His gospel,” and of the city as “the most perfect school of Christ that ever was since the days of the apostles.” This was the model, with some political adaptations of his own, that he used in his own country.
Here at Geneva he had time to read, think, and study, and to associate with some of the most learned men of the age. As a result, most of his works were written during these three years. He helped in the translation of the Geneva Bible. The preachers of Geneva assigned him the task of writing a treatise on predestination, and when it was completed, it received the sanction of Genevan authorities.
One pamphlet, however, which he published in Geneva gave him untold trouble. It was the First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Aiming it at Mary of Lorraine, regent of Scotland, Mary Tudor of England, and Catherine de’ Medici of France, he argued that women had no right to rule. But the tract acted as a boomerang to the Protestant cause when Elizabeth, the Protestant queen, under whom England experienced her most glorious period, came to the throne. Knox was called upon to explain his tract both to Elizabeth and also to Mary, Queen of Scots.
It is said Elizabeth never forgave him and hated the place it was published.
Calvin, when he sensed the harm that the tract was doing to the Protestant cause, took exception to Knox’s writing it; but Knox, it is said, never retracted his opinion on women rulers.
From Geneva, Knox guided the Protestant party in Scotland, and when Mary Tudor of England died in 1558 and Knox was left without a congregation as the exiles returned to England, he made his way to Edinburgh, arriving there in May, 1559.
Here he found himself in the midst of the contest, one that he himself had helped produce. Mary of Lorraine, regent of Scotland, adopting a policy of expediency, had encouraged the Protestant nobles, who had formed the
“Lords of the Congregation.” Under their jurisdiction many churches were established openly. But Mary of Lorraine, a Frenchwoman of the house of Guise, and a papist at heart, determined to see that Scotland should bow to France politically and to Rome religiously.
With that intent she filled Scotland with French soldiers, who ravaged the country. She thought that now was the time to strike. She summoned the Protestant preachers to appear before her May 10, 1559. These, however, with John Knox among them, were accompanied by a contingent of
troops. So was introduced a state of civil war which did not end until Mary’s death, June 10, 1560.
Knox kept on preaching, continually thundering against the mass and everything connected with the papacy. He openly denounced the archbishop, and things got out of hand when mobs tore down images, sacked the monasteries and the churches, and brought about a general state of disorder and confusion. Knox condemned the rioters; but when Mary of Lorraine wanted to punish them, he told her she was fighting against God and not man.
The Reformation in Scotland seems to have been accompanied by greater violence than elsewhere in Europe. It has also been stated that the
corruption of the Catholic Church had reached a greater height in Scotland than in any other country, unless it was in Italy.
Catholics and Protestants were now under arms, and Knox played a strange part in the movement. He appealed to Elizabeth of England for a fleet to help the Protestants in Scotland, and she sent both a fleet and an army. He was at once the army chaplain speaking courage to his forces. He was the secretary of the Congregation, giving instructions and writing commands. He was also the liaison officer, negotiating with the English government. Thus he worked unceasingly in order that the sacred cause of Protestantism might triumph.
With the death of Mary of Lorraine all this ended. The Treaty of Edinburgh, which followed immediately, stipulated that all foreign arms and troops should be removed and that no Frenchman should hold any office of importance. It was a distinct Protestant victory.
On July 1, 1560, began what has been pronounced the most important parliament that ever met in Scotland. This parliament, attended by a large number of lords, barons, and nobles, Knox among them, abolished the jurisdiction of the pope and the celebration of the mass. So stringent did they make the law against the mass that offenders were threatened with death upon the third conviction.
Knox and his five assistants drew up a Confession, the doctrinal standard for Scotland, in four days, and this was adopted by Parliament. This Confession was written on extreme Calvinistic lines, as was Knox’s First Book of Discipline, declared a masterpiece in organization, completed immediately upon the adjournment of parliament.
In order to establish church schools, to provide for the poor, and to pay the clergy, Knox hoped to divert the property of the Catholic Church, but here he was blocked. The avarice of the nobility thwarted his purpose.
They had grabbed the lands of the church and refused to relinquish them, except such a portion as they themselves thought necessary to support the ministers.
As a consequence, Knox’s remaining years were embittered as he saw a starved ministry attempting to carry on, and Protestantism in Scotland remained stunted for years. Yet to Knox’s ideal as propounded in his Discipline may be ascribed the present-day reputa-tion Scotland has attained in the field of education.
Knox had still another battle to fight. Mary, queen of Scots, the
unfortunate Mary who by her own unwise acts lost her crown and later her life, returned from France as a widow of eighteen to Scotland in August, 1561. She was determined to restore Scotland to the Catholic Church.
The most dramatic period of Knox’s life doubtless falls during her reign as he tilted and sparred verbally with Mary when she repeatedly summoned him into her presence. The first such skirmish resulted when Knox condemned the mass which she had celebrated her first Sunday after arriving in Scotland. He had said that one mass was more terrible to him than 10,000 armed invaders. Five times, some say six, she called him before her.
The second occasion was Knox’s sermon against the persecution of the Huguenots in France, an event Mary celebrated with a ball at Holyrood.
The next also concerned the mass. The fourth, which left an aftermath of peril, resulted when Knox had vehemently spoken against her proposed marriage to a Catholic, the son of the king of Spain. This time she
dissolved in tears and sobs as she railed against him; but Knox maintained he was preaching not his own words, but the words that were given him out of the Scriptures.
Knox and his friends knew full well that his life now was in great danger.
When the privy council called him in December, 1563, to answer for the crime of gathering a number of friends to support those who had been arrested for spying upon a mass at Holyrood, his friends urged him to make his peace with the queen beforehand, but Knox in typical fashion, refused, saying,
“I praise my God, through Jesus Christ, I have learned not to cry conjuration and treason at everything that the godless multitude does condemn, neither yet to fear the things that they fear.” — Quoted by James Stalker in John Knox, page 75.
After the queen, arrayed in all her worldly pomp, had assumed her seat, she saw Knox and burst out laughing.
“Know ye whereat I laugh?”
she asked the council.
“Yon man made me weep, and wept never a tear himself; I will see if I can make him cry.” — Ibid., pp.. 75,76.
The crime they attempted to fasten upon him was that he had called the queen’s lieges without her permission. Knox defended himself by saying that he had a perfect right to do so, that he did so every week when he invited people to church, and that there were some before him who had answered the summons. In spite of the efforts to pronounce the death sentence upon him, Knox remained cool and collected. In the end the council acquitted him, but this was doubtless the closest Knox ever came to wearing the martyr’s crown.
Mary had, however, won for herself many friends, among them a group of nobles who were still Catholic, and by her practice of Catholicism many Catholics who had been driven under cover, now came out openly again to practice their religion. Many argued that the mass was not such a terrible thing after all, and even the Earl of Murray, Mary’s half brother, future regent, and Knox’s close associate, asserted that the queen had a right to follow her own religion unmolested.
It seemed for a time that the Protestant movement was destined to fail, had it not been Mary’s own conduct, as it had been Mary of Lorraine’s death, that proved to be Knox’s greatest ally. Her marriage to her cousin Henry Darnley, her favoritism toward the Italian, Rizzio, and her later marriage to the Earl of Bothwell who helped instigate the murder of Darnley, lost her the sympathy of her best counselors and later the friendship of Elizabeth of England. The country revolted in disgust and loathing at her indiscretions, for which she was imprisoned and dismissed from the crown. And to Knox was given the privilege and high honor of preaching at the coronation of her infant son, the future James I of England.
The Earl of Murray, Scotland’s most eminent Protestant lay leader, was made regent, and the Protestant church of Scotland attained full legal status by order of the Scottish parliament in 1567.
An evaluation of Knox, in order to be just, must accord to him the position of a great national hero, both politically and religiously. He led Scotland as none other in her entire history has done. It was his dynamic, fearless personality that brought Scotland out of its political chaos and established a degree of unity, compactness, and order in its national life.
The weapon Knox used to accomplish his purpose was the word of God.
His sermons, of which few have come down to us, were full of vigorous, plain speech, wit, and sarcasm. He did not hesitate to flay rulers, nobles, and princes from the pulpit if what they did failed to measure up to his standard. His sermons have been described like “a match set to kindling wood,” and his words have been compared to hail and bullets because of the forcefulness with which they were spoken. Even during the last year of his life when he was so helpless that he needed to be lifted into the pulpit, James Melville, his successor, wrote,
“He was so active and vigorous that he was like to cling the pulpit in blads (break in pieces) and fly out of it.” — Ibid., p. 87.
The assassination of Regent Murray in 1570 was a most heart-rending experience for Knox, and as he moved more than three thousand persons to tears by his funeral oration, he felt that his own days were numbered.
He suffered an apoplectic stroke shortly after.
His last sermon, preached in Edinburgh, in August, 1572, a few months before he died, execrated the perpetrators of the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew. His last days and hours were spent in meditation, reading the Scriptures, and visiting with friends who came to see him. The end came peacefully and without pain. Regent Morton, who spoke at his grave, asserted,
“Here lies one who never feared the face of man.” — Quoted by Williston Walker in The Reformation, page 334.