Thomas Knox

“ On retiring from Edinburgh, Knox undertook a tour of preaching through the kingdom. The wide field which was before him, the interesting situation in which he was placed, the dangers by which he was surrounded, and the hopes which he cherished, increased the ardour of his zeal, and stimulated him to extraordinary exertions both of body and mind. Within less than two months, he travelled over a great part of Scotland. He visited Kelso, and Jedburgh, and Dumfries, and Ayr, and Stirling, and Perth, and Brechin, and Montrose, and Dundee, and returned to St Andrews. ”

“ Knox said that the bishop deceived many, if he did not fear God. “Well, do as you will; but that man is a dangerous man.”
Knox wished to take his leave of her majesty, but she pressed him to stay. “I have one of the greatest matters that have touched me, since I came into this realm, to open to you, and I must have your help in it,” said she, with an air of condescension and confidence as enchanting as if she had put a ring on his finger. She then entered into a long discourse with him concerning a domestic difference between the earl and countess of Argyle. ”

“ Knox preached that day, and happened to prolong the service beyond his usual time. In one part of the sermon, he quoted these words of scripture, “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them,—children are their oppressors, and women rule over them;” and in another part of it, he mentioned that God punished Ahab, because he did not correct his idolatrous wife, Jezabel.154 Though no particular application was made by the preacher, the king applied these passages to himself and the queen, and, returning to the palace in great wrath, refused to taste dinner. ”

“ In a speech which he delivered before the General Assembly in March 1571, when in his master’s name he craved justice against the calumnies circulated by the queen’s party, he said, “It has pleased God to make me a servant to that man John Knox, whom I serve, as God bears me witness, not so much in respect of my worldly commodity, as for that integrity and uprightness which I have ever known, and presently understand, to be in him, especially in the faithful administration of his office, in teaching of the word of God ”

“ When the queen had composed herself, Knox proceeded calmly to make his defence. Her grace and he had (he said) at different times been engaged in controversy, and he never before had perceived her offended with him. When it should please God to deliver her from the bondage of error in which she had been trained up, through want of instruction in the truth, he trusted that her majesty would not find the liberty of his tongue offensive. Out of the pulpit, he believed, few had occasion to complain of him ”

“ Knox possessed no inconsiderable portion of that enthusiastic heroism which was so conspicuous in the German reformer. “Satan, I confess, rageth,” says he, in a letter written at this time; “but potent is he that promiseth to be with us, in all such enterprises as we take in hand at his commandment, for the glory of his name, and for maintenance of his true religion. And therefore the less fear we any contrary power; yea, in the boldness of our God, we altogether contemn them, be they kings, emperors, men, angels, or devils. ”

“ Knox was a man of wide culture, a good linguist, and a brilliant talker. He was a frequent guest of Dr. Paris, at whose house in London he met Faraday, Sir B. Brodie, Babbage, and other men of science. Among his intimate friends were Rajah Brooke, Admiral Sherard Osborn, Kinglake, Sir Spencer St. John, Kingsley, Thomas Mozley, Wingrove Cooke, and Miss Marianne North. He died in London 5 Oct. 1891. In 1857 he married Susan, daughter of James Armstrong, esq., of the Bengal civil service. Knox published ‘The New Playground, or Wanderings in Algeria,’ in 1881. ”

“ During the time that Knox was in England, that tragedy, so well known in Scottish history, was acted, which led to a complete revolution in the government of the kingdom, and, contrary to the designs of the principal actors, threw the power wholly into the hands of the protestants. Mary’s affection for her husband, which had cooled soon after their marriage, was, from the time of Rizzio’s assassination, converted into a fixed hatred, which she was at little pains to conceal. The birth of an heir to the crown produced no reconciliation between the royal parents ”

“ The queen insisted to have the judgment of the lords of Articles, whether the words he had used in the pulpit were not actionable; but she was persuaded by her counsellors to abandon the idea of a prosecution. “And so that storme quietit in appearance, bot nevir in the hart.”112
No expressions are sufficiently strong to describe the horror which many feel at the monstrous inhumanity of Knox, in remaining unmoved, while “youth, beauty, and royal dignity,”113 were dissolved in tears before him. ”

“ The people may not execute God’s judgment, but must leave it unto himself, who will either punish it by death, by war, by imprisonment, or by some other kind of plagues.”—“I know,” replied Knox, “the last part of your reason to be true; but for the first I am assured ye have no other warrant except your own imagination, and the opinion of such as more fear to offend princes than God.”
“Why say you so?” said Maitland. “I have the judgments of the most famous men within Europe, and of such as ye yourself will confess both godly and learned.” ”

“ Go to the castle, and tell him: ‘John Knox remains the same man now when he is about to die, that ever he knew him when able in body, and wills him to consider what he was, and the estate in which he now stands, which is a great part of his trouble. Neither the craggy rock in which he miserably confides, nor the carnal prudence of that man [Maitland] whom he esteems a demi‐god, nor the assistance of strangers, shall preserve him ”

“ Accordingly, on the 4th of April, 1550, a large assembly being convened in Newcastle, among whom were the members of the council,119 the bishop of Durham, and the learned men of his cathedral, Knox delivered in their presence an ample defence of his doctrine. After an appropriate exordium, in which he stated to the audience the occasion and design of his appearance, and cautioned them against the powerful prejudices of education and custom in favour of erroneous opinions and corrupt practices in religion, he proceeded to establish the doctrine which he had taught. ”

“ Of this last opinion was Knox, with almost all the ministers, and the great body of the people. The chief ground upon which they insisted for this, was not her maladministration in the government, or the mere safety and peace of the commonwealth; which were the reasons upon which the parliament of England, in the following century, proceeded to the execution of her grandson. But they founded their opinion upon the personal crimes with which Mary was charged. Murder and adultery, they reasoned, were crimes to which the punishment of death was allotted by the law of God and of nations. ”

“ John Knox, the celebrated Reformer, left three daughters, one of whom was married to a Mr Baillie of the Jerviswood family, and by him had a daughter, who was married to a Mr Kirkton of Edinburgh. By this marriage Mr Kirkton had a daughter, Margaret, who was married to Dr Andrew Skene in Aberdeen. Dr Skene left several children, the eldest of whom, Dr Andrew Skene, had by his wife, Miss Lumsden of Cushnie, several sons and daughters. One of these, Mary, was married to Andrew Thomson of Banchory, who had issue by her, Margaret, Andrew, and Alexander. ”

“ Ye crave of them service: they crave of you protection and defence against wicked doers. Now, madam, if you shall deny your duty unto them, (which especially craves that ye punish malefactors,) think ye to receive full obedience of them? I fear, madam, ye shall not.” The queen broke off the conversation with evident marks of displeasure.
Having imparted the substance of what had passed between them to the earl of Murray, Knox meant to return to Edinburgh next day without waiting for any further communications with the queen. ”

“ On the other hand, when we consider that Knox was at this time deserted by his friends, and stood almost alone in resisting the will of a princess, who accomplished her measures chiefly by caresses and tears, we may be disposed to form a more favourable idea of his conduct and motives. We behold not, indeed, the enthusiastic lover, mingling his tears with those of his mistress, and vowing to revenge her wrongs; nor the man of nice sensibility, who loses every other consideration in the gratification of his feelings ”

“ Enemies we have many, by reason of the Frenchmen who lately arrived, of whom our papists hope golden hills. As we be not able to resist, we do nothing but go about Jericho, blowing with trumpets, as God giveth strength, hoping victory by his power alone.”423
Soon after his arrival in Scotland, he wrote for his wife and family, whom he had left behind him at Geneva. On the 13th of June, Mrs Knox and her mother were at Paris, and applied to Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, the English ambassador, for a safe conduct to pass into England. ”

“ Disaffection to the work often lurks under cavils against the instruments by which it is carried on; and had Knox been softer and more yielding in his temper, he would have been pronounced unfit for his office by the very persons who now censure his harshness and severity. “But wisdom is justified of all her children.” Before the Reformation, superstition, shielded by ignorance, and armed with power, governed with gigantic sway. Men of mild spirits, and of gentle manners, would have been as unfit for taking the field against this enemy, as a dwarf or a child for encountering a giant. ”

“ There is more wisdom than many seem to perceive in the maxim which Knox is said to have inculcated, “that the best way to keep the rooks from returning, was to pull down their nests.” In demolishing, or rendering uninhabitable, all those buildings which had served for the maintenance of the ancient superstition, (except what were requisite for the protestant worship,) the reformers only acted upon the principles of a prudent general, who dismantles or razes the fortifications which he is unable to keep, and which might afterwards be seized and employed against him by the enemy. ”

“ Oppression makes a wise man mad; but (to use the words of a modern orator, with a more just application) “the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools. Their cry is the voice of sacred misery, exalted, not into wild raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of prophecy and inspiration.”
Knox returned to Geneva, and applied himself to study with all the ardour of youth, although his age now bordered upon fifty. ”

“ The friendship between the earl of Murray and the Reformer had been renewed in the beginning of 1565. Knox was placed in a very delicate predicament by the insurrection under Murray, and the other lords who opposed the queen’s marriage. His father‐in‐law was one of their number. They professed that the security of the protestant religion was the principal ground of their taking arms; and they came to Edinburgh to collect men to their standard. ”

“ In contemplating such a character as that of Knox, it is not the man so much as the reformer, that ought to engage our attention. The talents which are suited to one age and station would be altogether unsuitable to another ”

“ He was particularly displeased at the testimony which they publicly bore to the characters of Knox, Buchanan, and the regent Murray, who “could not be defended,” he said, “but by traitors and seditious theologues.” Andrew Melville told him that they were the men who had set the crown on his head, and deserved better of him than to be so traduced. James complained that Knox had spoken disrespectfully of his mother; to which Patrick Galloway, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, replied, “If a king or a queen be a murderer, why should they not be called so?” ”

“ This was very grating to the ears of the opposite faction, particularly to Robert and Archibald Hamilton, the former one of the ministers of the city, and the latter a professor in one of the colleges. Irritated by the censures which Knox pronounced against his kinsmen, Robert Hamilton attempted to injure his reputation, by circulating in private that it did not become him to exclaim so loudly against murderers; for he had seen his subscription, along with that of the earl of Murray, to a bond for assassinating Darnley at Perth. ”

“ When the queen returned to Edinburgh, Knox left it, and retired to Kyle. There is no reason to think that he was privy to the conspiracy which proved fatal to Rizzio. But it is probable that he had expressed his satisfaction at an event which contributed to the safety of religion and the commonwealth, if not also his approbation of the object of the conspiracy.171 At any rate, he was sufficiently obnoxious to the queen on other grounds ”

“ Knox said that he was not unacquainted with the disagreeable variance which had subsisted between that honourable couple, and, before her majesty’s arrival in this country, had effected a reconciliation between them. On that occasion, the countess had promised not to complain to any creature before acquainting him; and having never heard from her on that subject, he had concluded that there was nothing but concord between her and his lordship. “Well,” said the queen, “it is worse than ye believe. ”