John Knox
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Template:Calvinism John Knox (1505, 1513 or 1514 – 1572) was a Scottish religious reformer who played the lead part in reforming the Church in Scotland in a Presbyterian manner. He is widely regarded as the father of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, and of the Church of Scotland. He died in Edinburgh on November 24, 1572.
Early life
Image:John Knox.jpg Many of the details of Knox's early life are unclear. His place of birth is not known for certain, though Giffordgate, a suburb of the burgh of Haddington, East Lothian (16 miles/26 km east of Edinburgh), is the generally accepted location. He may have been born in either 1513 or 1514, though some sources favour 1505.
His father, William Knox of Haddingtonshire, had fought at the Battle of Flodden; his mother's maiden name was Sinclair. The young Knox received his education via the Scottish Church, which was regarded as "liberal" when compared with the pre-reformation Catholic standards of the day.
The uncertainty about Knox's early life is such that it is not even known at which university he studied, since the dates and time he spent at college are uncertain. He certainly studied under the celebrated John Mair (or John Major), a native, like Knox, of East Lothian and one of the greatest scholars of his time. Mair was at the University of Glasgow in 1522 and at St. Andrews in 1531. The name "John Knox" is listed amongst Glasgow's incorporati in 1522, though it is also claimed that he went to St. Andrews.
Knox did not shine as an outstanding scholar when compared with contemporaries such as George Buchanan and Alesius. Indeed, there is no evidence that he even graduated. He did, however, know Latin well, and was familiar with the works of classical writers, such as Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome. From his writing it is clear that Knox learnt the Greek and Hebrew languages after ending his formal studies.
Knox is first mentioned as a priest in 1540, and in 1543 he was still an ordained Catholic clergyman. A notarial instrument dated 27 March 1543 and signed by him in his capacity as a priest is still in existence, and is kept in the charter-room at Tyninghame Castle.
Up to this time, however, he seems to have employed himself in private tuition, rather than in parochial duties. At the moment when he last signed his name as a priest, he was probably already engaged in the office (which he held for several years) of tutor in the family of Hugh Douglas of Longniddry, in East Lothian. He was also responsible for the education of the son of a neighbour, John Cockburn of Ormiston. Both of these lairds, like Knox himself, had an interest in new religious ideas sweeping Europe at this time.
Conversion to Protestantism
Knox first publicly professed the Protestant faith about the end of 1545, though it is thought that his beliefs had been moving in that direction for sometime. According to Calderwood, it was Thomas Guillaume, a fellow native of East Lothian, who was the first "to give Mr. Knox a taste of the truth." Guillaume was originally a member of the order of Blackfriars, and had been chaplain to James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, Regent of Scotland, for a short time in 1543.
However, it is thought that the Knox's actual conversion was probably the result of his friendship with George Wishart. Wishart, who had returned to Scotland in 1544 after a period of banishment, had preached in favour of the reformation, Knox became one of Wishart's closest associates, and he followed him everywhere. He acted as Wishart's body-guard, bearing, it is said, a two-edged sword in order to defend Wishart against supporters of Cardinal David Beaton, leader of the anti-Protestant movement within the Scottish church.
In December 1545, Wishart was seized on Beaton's orders, and transferred to Edinburgh Castle on 19 January 1546. Knox was present on the night of Wishart's arrest, and was prepared to follow him into captivity, and consequently, in all probability death. Wishart persuaded him against this course however, saying:
- "Nay, return to your bairns [children]. One is sufficient for a sacrifice."
Wishart was subsequently tried for heresy and burnt at the stake in St Andrews in March 1546. Knox went on to become a Protestant minister in St Andrews, a place with which he had strong links throughout his life. It does not appear that he was ever officially ordained, though he was already a priest in the Catholic Church. An account of the proceedings connected with his call to the ministry, together with a report of the first sermon he delivered in St. Andrews, is found in his book, History of the Reformation.
Confinement in the French galleys
After Beaton's death the castle at St. Andrews became a place of refuge for many Scottish Protestants, and Knox resided there in relative peace along with his pupils, the sons of Longniddry and Ormiston, for some several months. At end of July 1547, however, the castle was attacked and captured by pro-Catholic French forces. Knox and some of the rest of the refugees were taken prisoner, and forced to row in the French galleys.
He spent eighteen months as a galley-slave, amid hardships and miseries which are said to have permanently injured his health:
- "How long I continued prisoner [and] what torments I sustained in the galleys, and what were the sobs of my heart, is now no time to recite."
He never gave up hope of returning to Scotland, and indeed was confident that he would eventually do so. In his History (vol, i., p. 228), he gave testimony to this fact by mentioning how, during the second visit of the galley to Scotland he was asked by James Balfour (a fellow prisoner) whether he knew where he was. Knox, who at the time was so extremely sick that few hoped for his life, replied:
- "Yea, I know it well; for I see the steeple of that place where God first in public opened my mouth to glory; and I am fully persuaded, how weak soever I now appear, that I shall not depart this life, till that my tongue shall glorify his godly name in the same place."
The French made attempts to have Knox renounce his Protestant beliefs, and was on one occasion asked to kiss the feet of an image of the Virgin Mary. He threw it into the sea, saying "let our lady now save herself; for she is light enough; let her learn to swim".
Residence in England
On his release, which took place early in 1549, through the intervention, apparently, of the English government, Knox found that, in the existing state of the country, he could be of little use in his beloved Scotland. For nearly ten years, accordingly, he submitted to voluntary exile, like many of the worthiest of his countrymen in those troublous times. All those years, however, he devoted himself to ministerial labors in connection with the Reformed Church. His first sphere of duty was provided for him in England, for the space of about five years as a minister of the English Church.
It is to be remembered that, during the whole reign of Edward VI., the Church of England was in a transition state; some of its most marked peculiarities (to which Knox himself and others in Scotland and abroad afterward objected) were then in abeyance, or at least not insisted upon as terms of communion. Thus the use of the prayer-book was not enforced, neither was kneeling at the communion. Episcopal government was of course acknowledged; but Knox held his commission, as a Reformed preacher, directly from the privy council, and was virtually independent of diocesan jurisdiction. Moreover, he seems to have had no strong objection to episcopacy itself, although he disapproved of "your proud prelates' great dominions and charge, impossible by one man to be discharged;" and on this, along with other grounds, he declined the bishopric of Rochester in 1552.
The offices he held in the Church of England are briefly indicated in the History, which says, "He was first appointed preacher to Berwick, then to Newcastle; and last he was called to London and to the southern parts of England, where he remained till the death of King Edward VI of England" (Works,i., p. 280).
From other sources it appears that in 1551 he was appointed one of the six chaplains in ordinary to the king; and in this capacity there was submitted to him, and, after revisal, he joined the other chaplains in sanctioning, The Articles concerning an Uniformity in Religion of 1552, which became the basis of the Thirty-nine Articles (q. v.) of the Church of England.
On the Continent, 1554-1559
From England, after the death of Edward, Knox proceeded to the continent, traveling for a time from place to place in some uncertainty. In Sept. 1554, while living at Geneva, he accepted in accordance with Calvin's counsel a call to the English Church at Frankfurt. Here controversies in connection with vestments, ceremonies, and the use of the English prayer-book met him, and, notwithstanding the great moderation which he showed from first to last, led, in Mar., 1555, to his resignation of his charge (cf. his treatise, A Brief Narrative of the Troubles which Arose at Frankfurt, reprinted in Laing's edition of his works). He returned to Geneva, where he was invited to become minister of the refugee English congregation. In August, however, he was induced to set out for Scotland, where he remained for nine months preaching Evangelical doctrine in various parts of the country, and persuading those who favored the Reformation to cease from attendance at mass, and to join with himself in the celebration of the Lord's Supper according to a Reformed ritual.
In May, 1556, he was cited to appear before the hierarchy in Edinburgh, and he boldly responded to the summons; but the bishops found it expedient not to proceed with the trial. In July an urgent call from his congregation at Geneva, along, probably, with the desire to prevent the renewal of persecution in Scotland, caused him to resume his Genevan ministry. His marriage to Marjorie Bowes, daughter of Richard Bowes, captain of Norham Castle, had meanwhile taken place, and his wife along with her mother accompanied him to Geneva, where they arrived in September.
The church in which he preached there (called the Eglise de Notre Dame la Neuve) had been granted, at Calvin's solicitation, for the use of the English and Italian congregations by the municipal authorities. Knox's life in Geneva was no idle one. To preaching and clerical work of an exacting kind he added a large correspondence; and he was constantly engaged in literary work. His publications at Geneva included his First Blast against the Monstrous Regiment [Rule] of Women; and his long and elaborate treatise on predestination (published 1560) was composed in Geneva.
With the exception of some months spent in Dieppe, France (1557-58) when he was contemplating a return to Scotland, he continued to officiate in Geneva (while deeply interested in his native land and in constant communication with the reform party there) till Jan., 1559, when he finally left for home.
Organization of the Church in Scotland
He arrived in Edinburgh May 2, 1559. The time was a critical one. During his absence the reform party had become more numerous, more self-reliant and aggressive, and better consolidated. The queen dowager, Mary of Lorraine, acting as regent for her daughter, the young Mary I of Scotland, then in France, had become more desirous to crush the Protestants and determined to use force. Civil war was imminent, but each side shrank from the first step. Knox at once became the leader of the Reformers. He preached against "idolatry" with the greatest boldness, and with the result that what he calls the "rascal multitude" began the "purging" of churches and the destruction of monasteries. Politics and religion were closely intertwined; the Reformers were struggling to keep Scotland free from the yoke of France, and did not hesitate to seek the help of England.
Knox negotiated with the English government to secure its support, and he approved of the declaration of the lords of his party in Oct., 1559, suspending their allegiance to the regent. The death of the latter in June, 1560, opened the way to a cessation of hostilities and an agreement leaving the settlement of ecclesiastical questions to the Scottish estates. The doctrine, worship, and government of the Roman Church were overthrown by the parliament of 1560 and Protestantism was established as the national religion. Knox, assisted by five other ministers, formulated the confession of faith adopted at this time and drew up the constitution of the new Church — the First Book of Discipline.
The church - or Kirk - was organised on presbyterian lines. Priests were replaced by ministers (from the Latin for servants), with each parish governed by elders in the absence of bishops.
Knox and Queen Mary
Image:KnoxMaryLongBeachCovenantPC.jpg Queen Mary returned to Scotland in August, 1561, thoroughly predisposed against Knox, while he and the other Reformers looked upon her with anxiety and suspicion. Fundamental differences of character and training made a keen encounter between the two inevitable. Five personal interviews between Knox and the queen are recorded (each at Mary's invitation).
Some sources—for example, Schaff (2000:iii.lxx.vii)—portray Knox as having an "unyielding and repelling" attitude towards Mary, and claim that he was "harsh and uncourtierlike" with her. However, others—like Mackenzie (1888:351)—deny this, pointing out Knox's experience in Courts during his Chaplaincy for Edward VI. Mackenzie (1888:352) even claims that there was a most remarkable character witness for Knox: Queen Mary.
- The last time he stood in her presence, Knox put it to her if he had ever spoken an offensive word in any one of their interviews. The Queen, thus appealed to, could not, and did not say that he ever had.
There is agreement, though, that Knox did sometimes upset Mary. Mackenzie (1888:370-371) reports that Mary worked herself into an enormous fury during one of her meetings with Knox, angry at his public opposition to her proposed marriage to Don Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain.
Ministry in Edinburgh and private life
Knox's life from the time of his return to Scotland in 1559 is a part of the history of his country and its full story is to be sought in the histories of Scotland. Only details which have a more personal interest can be noted here. When the Reformed religion was formally ratified by law in Scotland in 1560 he was appointed minister of the Church of St. Giles, then the great parish church of Edinburgh. He was at this time in the fulness of his powers, as is manifest abundantly in the style of his History of the Reformation— a work which appears to have been begun about 1559, and completed in the course of the next six or seven years.
The History, if sometimes rough and even coarse in language, and not always commendable in temper and spirit, is written with a force and vigor not surpassed by any of his other writings-- of all which it may be said, that, whatever their faults, they are works of true genius, and well worthy in their character, upon the whole, of the great leader and statesman who wrote them.
At the very beginning of his labors as minister of Edinburgh, he had the misfortune to lose his much-loved and helpful young wife, whom John Calvin described as suavissima. She left two sons, one of whom, Nathanael, died at Cambridge in 1580; the other, Eleazer, became vicar of Clacton Magna in the archdeaconry of Colchester and died in 1591. In 1564 Knox made a second marriage, which was greatly talked of at the time because the bride was remotely connected with the royal family and still more because she was a maiden of seventeen while Knox was three times as old. The young lady was Margaret Stewart, daughter of Andrew, Lord Stewart of Ochiltree. She bore Knox three daughters, of whom the youngest, Elizabeth, became the wife of the famous John Welsh, minister of Ayr.
At this time the Reformer lived a very laborious life. He was much engrossed with the public affairs of the national Church, and at the same time devoted to his work as a parish minister, to say nothing of his continual, and perhaps, in his position, unavoidable controversies, more or less personal, with the ecclesiastical and political factions of the day, which he regarded as his country's enemies. He was, however, not without social and family enjoyments. A fair stipend of four hundred marks Scots, equal to about forty-four pounds of English money of that day, enabled him to exercise hospitality and to advance money to a friend in need. He had a good house, which was provided and kept in repair by the municipality.
His home, during the greater part of his ministry in Edinburgh, stood on the site now occupied by the City Council Chambers. Another house in Edinburgh, still preserved with little change and known since the eighteenth century at the latest as "John Knox's house," may have been occupied by him toward the close of his life. With all his severity, there must have been much sympathy in a man who was repeatedly invited to reconcile the sundered, husband with wife, friend with friend. He lived in kindly relations with his neighbors, many of whom, in every rank, were among his intimate friends, and he was not indisposed to mirth and humor, of which, as of other traits of his character, his writings furnish abundant evidence.
Personal appearance and manner
An interesting description of Knox's appearance, and especially of his style as a preacher, in his later years, is furnished in the Diary of James Melville (published by the Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1829, pp. 26, 33). Melville was at the time a student in St. Andrews, and the period he refers to is the year 1571, when Knox, for his personal security, had, not for the first time in his life, taken refuge in that city.
"Of all the benefits I had that year," writes Melville, "was the coming of that most notable prophet and apostle of our nation, Mr. John Knox, to St. Andrews, who, by the faction of the queen occupying the castle and town of Edinburgh, was compelled to remove therefrom, with a number of the best, and chose to come to St. Andrews... Mr. Knox would sometimes come in, and repose him in our college-yard, and call us scholars unto him, and bless us, and exhort us to know God and his work in our country, and stand by the good cause; to use our time well, and learn the good instructions, and follow the good example, of our masters... He was very weak. I saw him every day of his doctrine go hulie and fear [slowly and warily], with a furring of martriks about his neck, a staff in the one hand, and good godly Richard Ballantyne, his servant, holding up the other oxter [arm-pit], from the abbey to the parish church; and by the said Richard and another servant lifted up to the pulpit, where he behoved to lean at his first entry; but ere he had done with his sermon, he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding that pulpit in blads and flee out of it."
A Latin epistle sent by Sir Peter Young to Theodore Beza in 1579, contains a description of the Reformer's personal appearance in later years. His stature was "a little under middle height"; his "limbs were graceful"; his head "of moderate size"; his face "longish"; his nose "beyond the average length"; his forehead "rather narrow"; his brows "standing out like a ridge"; his cheeks "somewhat full" as well as "ruddy"; his mouth "large"; his "complexion darkish"; his eyes dark blue (or bluish grey) and his glance "keen"; his beard "black, with white hairs intermingled" and a "span and a half long." In his countenance, which was "grave and severe," "a certain graciousness was united with natural dignity and majesty."
Testimonies to his character
John Knox died as he had lived— full of faith, but always ready for conflict. He found a devoted nurse in his young wife; and all the noblest and best men of Scotland hung about his house for tidings of the progress of his malady, in the vain hope of his being longer spared. His servant, Richard Ballantyne, after detailing the incidents of his last hours, says of him:
- "Of this manner departit this man of God, the lycht of Scotland, the comfort of the Kirke within the same, the mirrour of Godliness, and patrone and example to all trew ministeris, in puritie of lyfe, soundness in doctrine, and in bauldness in reproving of wicketness, and one that caired not the favore of men (how great soever they were) to reprove thair abuses and synes . . ."
- "What dexteritie in teiching, bauldness in reproving, and hatred of wickedness was in him, my ignorant dulness is not able to declair."
A higher testimony to the worth of a man not without faults was pronounced at his grave in the churchyard of St. Giles by the Earl of Mortoun, the regent of Scotland, in the presence of an immense concourse, who had followed the body to its last resting-place:
- "Here lyeth a man who in his life never feared the face of man, who hath been often threatened with dagge and dagger, but yet hath ended his dayes in peace and honour."
John Knox's gravesite at the Church of St Giles has been (along with various other graves) covered over by a visitors car park. He is buried under car park number 23.
References
- Mackenzie, The Reverend James, The History of Scotland, London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1888.
- Schaff, Philip, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. VI: Innocents - Liudger, Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2000-01-27, v0.1.
External links
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