Early life
John Knox Neither a place nor a date of a birth of John Knox, a Reformer, is settled beyond dispute; however the weightiest considerations favour Giffordgate, a suburban area of the town of Haddington (16 miles east of Edinburgh) when a place, & 1513 or 1514 as the month. (An additional favorite season of birth is 1505.)

His father was William Knox, of fair, though non distinguished, descent, world health organization fought at a Battle of Flodden, and got his zero in the county of Haddington. His mother's title was Sinclair. He received a elements of a liberal spirit which, at least when regards education, animated a Scottish Church possibly prior to the Reformation.

Thence he proceeded either to the University of Glasgow, where a title "John Knox" occurs among a incorporati in 1522, or even to St. Andrews, in which he is stated to use exposed under a celebrated John Major, a indigen, such as Knox, of East Lothian and one of the greatest scholars of his instance.

Major was at Glasgow in 1522 and at St. Andrews in 1531. How else yearn Knox remained at college is uncertain. He sure when shooting never mass produced any pretense to become such the scholar as his coeval George Buchanan and Alesius; nor is there evidence that he potentially graduated. That he was a fair Latinist, & accustomed to survey, appears from either a fact, which seems to exist as swell attested, of his familiarity by having the writings of Saint Augustine and St. Jerome. He acquired a Greek and Hebrew languages at a late time, when his writings suggest.

He was ordained to the priesthood at a few date before 1540, when his status as a priest is 1st mentioned. It seems that within 1543 Knox had non eventually divested himself of Roman orders; at any rate, in his character as the priest, he signed a notarial instrument dated Mar. Twenty-seven of that season, a original of which is however to exist as encountered in the charter-room at Tyninghame Castle.

As much as this instance, yet, he seems to keep around listed himself privately tuition, like than around insular duties; &, at a moment while he previous sign-language his title as a priest, he was probably already engaged in the professional -- which he held for many years -- of private instructor in the personal of Hugh Douglas of Longniddry, in East Lothian, by owning the farther charge of the boy of a neighboring gentleman, John Cockburn of Ormiston. Two one lairds, such as Knox himself, experienced potentially at this period the leaning to the recently school of thought.

Conversion to Protestantism

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Knox 1st publicly professed a Protestant faith about a prevent of 1545. His mind got within tons probability been directed to it faith for a select few period prior to a vary was avowed. Based on data from Calderwood, Thomas Guillaume, a indigene of East Lothian, the choose of Blackfriars & for the short period chaplainside to the Regent Arran in 1543, was the number one "to give Mr. Knox a taste of the truth." His original vary of opinion hequally been attributed to the survey around early manhood, as already stated, of Augustine and Jerome.

A quick instrument of his actual conversion was probably a conditioned & amiable George Wishart, who, when the period of banishment, returned to his native united states around 1544, to perish, within 2 years, at a stake, when a endure & virtually all illustrious of the those of Cardinal Beaton. Among more site within which he preached a Reformed philosophical system Wishart experienced are to East Lothian in Dec., 1545, and there processed Knox's acquaintance.

the attachment which Knox formed for the human too when for the doctrine of Wishart, must exist when described as of the nature and severity of a young enthusiasm. Knox followed a Reformer everyplace, & constituted himself his immune system-guard, bearing, these are said, a 2-edged steel, that he will exist as prepared to defend him against the fundamental's envoy, world health organization were known to exist as shopping for Wishart's life.

On the nighttime of Wishart's apprehension, Knox was hardly restrained from either sharing his captivity, & consequently, likely, his fate. A words of Wishart's expostulation come swell known:

Ministry at St. Andrews

Knox was 1st known as to the Protestant ministry at St. Andrews, which was, throughout his life intimately associated sustaining a Reformer's career. There appears to use at times been there is no regular ordination. Course, he experienced been already ordained as a priest in the Church of Rome. However imposition of mitts & more forms were non regarded by Knox when of to a higher degree secondary importance. The graphic account of the entirely redeeming attached by owning his call for to the ministry, together by owning the report of the foremost sermon he delivered around St. Andrews, is witnessed around his History of the Reformation.

Confinement in the French galleys

At this period he was living in the castle of St. Andrews. When Beaton's dying, this fastness became the place of refuge for numerous of the Protestants. Along sustaining his pupils, a sons of the lairds of Longniddry & Ormiston, already mentioned, Knox passed there a select few relatively peaceful months. His repose was impolitely interrupted per investiture & capitulation of the castle in the prevent of July, 1547, succeeded, as regarded Knox & a bit of of the rest of the refugees, by confinement in the French galleys.

He spent 18 months as a galley-slave, amid hardships & miseries which are then said to use for good hurt his health.

"How long I continued prisoner," he said at St. Andrews, within 1559, "what torments I sustained in the galleys, and what were the sobs of my heart, is now no time to recite." He adds, all the same, that he universally continued to hope for the go to to his native united states. In the History (vol, we., p. 228), the equivalent confidence of the go to is known as never getting forsaken him; & he gives a curious testimony to the fact by mentioning how else, in 1 occasion, "lying betwixt Dundee and St. Andrews, the second time that the galleys returned to Scotland, the said John [Knox] being so extremely sick that few hoped his life, Maister [afterwards Sir] James [Balfour, one his fellow prisoners] willed him to look to the land, and asked if he knew it.

He answered,

Knox was asked to kiss the feet of an idol, and he said, "Condition pine tree state non; for such an idol is acursed; & so I personally will non touch it." At this reply, they told him to to hold it also. Knox, now angry picked it up and said, "Let my lady okay, save herself; for she is weak plenty; let her see to swim."

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 systems gallant archpriest' dandy dominions & charge, impossible by 1 human to exist as freed;" 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 foremost appointed preacher man to Berwick, then to Newcastle; & previous he was known as to London and to a southern parts of England, in which he remained till the demise 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 [[The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women|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 people" 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.

Knox and Queen Mary

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).

He found her no mean opponent in argument, and had to acknowledge the acuteness of her mind, if he could not commend the qualities of her heart. His attitude for the most part was unyielding and repelling, his language and manner harsh and uncourtierlike. In his preaching and other public utterances he was sometimes even violent.

It must be remembered, however, that the momentous issues at stake required a plain-spoken prophet, not a smooth-tongued courtier. Still it might have been wiser as well as more in keeping with Knox's desire to be "Christ-christly" for him, at the outset of their intercourse, to seek to win rather than repel. Perhaps the Reformer feared Mary's well-known power of fascination and steeled himself against it. Later his heart became wholly hardened toward the adulterous accomplice (or so he believed) to her husband's murder.

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 home," 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 rewards We got that month," writes Melville, "was a coming of that virtually all notable prophet & apostle of my united states, Mr. John Knox, to St. Andrews, world health organization, per faction of the queen occupying the castle & town of Edinburgh, was compelled to dislodge therefrom, sustaining a total of the better, & chose to are to St. Andrews... Mr. Knox would periodically are inside, & repose him around my college-front yard, & call for united states of america scholars unto him, & bless u.s.a., & exhort u.s.a. to underst& God & his act within my united states, & could have per full stimulator; to utilize my instance swell, & see a expert videos, and watch a adept lesson, of my masters... He was super decrepit. I personally saw him day-to-day of his philosophy last hulie & fear [slowly and warily], using a furring of martriks all about his neck, the staff in the of these h&, and serious godly Richard Ballantyne, his servant, holding higher the more oxter [arm-pit], from either a abbey to a parish church; & per said Richard & an additional servant lifted as much as the rostrum, within which he behoved to lean at his number one entry; however ere he experienced through with his sermon, he was & so active & vigorous that he was such as to ding that stump in blads and flee away from 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 wereRefined"; his head "of moderate size"; his face "longish"; his nose "beyond a typical length"; his forehead "like narrow"; his brows "standing out such as the ridge"; his cheeks "somewhat to the full" as well as "ruddy"; his mouth "big"; his "complexion darkish"; his eyes dark blue (or bluish grey) and his glance "keen"; his beard "black, sustaining whiten hairs intermingled" and a "span & the half hanker." In his countenance, which was "grave & severe," "a certain graciousness was united by using natural dignity & stateliness."

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:

The higher testimony to the worth of the human non forswearing faults was pronounced at his grave in the god's acre of St. Giles per Earl of Mortoun, a regent of Scotland, when in contact with an huge concourse, world health organization experienced followed a immune system to its survive resting-place: