John Knox

BORN: 1513 • Haddington, Scotland

DIED: November 24, 1572 • Edinburgh, Scotland

Scottish religious reformer

Religious reformer John Knox was the leader of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland. His passionate anti-Catholicism led him to denounce Catholic rulers such as Mary I (1516–1558; see entry) of England and the Scottish queen Mary Stuart (1542–1587; see entry). He played a major role in fueling the rebellion that led to Mary Stuart's removal from power, which increased religious and political tensions in both Scotland and England. His intense disapproval of women rulers alienated Elizabeth I (1533–1603; see entry), who supported the Protestant cause but found Knox's views distasteful and extreme.

"England and Scotland shall both know that I am ready to suffer more than either poverty or exile, for the profession of that … heavenly religion, whereof it has pleased His merciful providence to make me … a simple soldier and witness-bearer unto men."

Early life

John Knox was born into a middle-class Catholic family in Haddington, Scotland, around 1513. He attended the local school and left home at age fifteen to study at St. Salvatore's College, University of St. Andrews. He received a bachelor of divinity degree, and he was ordained a priest on April 15, 1536.

The exact reason that Knox rejected Catholicism remains unclear. In 1543 he was serving as a Catholic priest under the archbishop of St. Andrews, but he was becoming exposed to reformist ideas. During this time, the Reformation, a sixteenth-century religious movement that aimed to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the establishment of Protestant churches, was well underway. A Protestant lord, Hugh Douglas of Longniddry, who had hired Knox to tutor his two sons, embraced Protestantism in late 1545.

Though Catholicism was still the official religion of Scotland at this time, Protestant ideas were gaining ground. Students and merchants returning to Scotland from Europe smuggled in the writings of religious reformers such as Martin Luther (1483–1546), a German monk who in 1517 denounced the Catholic Church for its sale of indulgences, which according to church doctrine cancelled the punishment for sins. Luther and his followers saw much corruption in the church. It controlled vast wealth; its highest-ranking clergy held personal riches and ignored the needs of the poor. Furthermore, in the view of reformers, few priests followed true Christian ideals in their own lives. Reformers wished to free the church from these practices and return it to the principles on which it was originally founded. Such ideas, however, were considered dangerous. In 1525 Scotland's Parliament, or legislative body, passed a law banning the importation of literature that preached heresy, or religious belief that contradicted the church's doctrines. The law had little effect, however, and stricter measures were enacted, including the death penalty—by burning at the stake—for those who preached heresy.

Circumstances were complicated even more by the situation in England, where Henry VIII (1491–1547; see entry) had officially broken with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s. In order to obtain a divorce—which the pope, the head of the Catholic Church, had refused to allow—Henry declared himself the supreme head of the church in England. Though he had no interest in creating a reformed church, his action gave political support to those in England who did. As a result England under Henry became a Protestant country. The Scots, always suspicious that Henry wished to dominate them politically, rejected his proposal that their infant queen, the Catholic Mary Stuart, marry his only son and heir, Edward VI (1537–1553). Henry responded by launching military raids into Scotland, prompting the Scots to seek a military alliance with France, a strongly Catholic country. England's aggression gave Scotland renewed cause to fear the rise of Protestantism.

Martyrdom and rebellion

In 1545 George Wishart (1513–1546), a Scottish Protestant preacher who had acted as one of Henry's representatives during these unsuccessful marriage negotiations, was placed under government surveillance in Scotland. Knox joined a group of Protestant lords bent on protecting him. Armed with a two-handed sword, Knox remained with Wishart for five weeks until Wishart finally persuaded him to return to his teaching duties. One day later Wishart was arrested. He was strangled and burned at the stake for heresy.

This event only strengthened the resolve of the reformers. Recognizing that the Scottish cardinal, David Beaton (1494–1546), had called for Wishart's arrest and execution, some Protestant lords broke into the cardinal's castle at St. Andrews and stabbed him to death. Besieged in the castle, the rebels held out for a little more than a year against Scottish government forces. In April 1547 Knox decided to join the rebels to provide them with spiritual support. By mid-July, however, French ships had arrived with military aid for the Scottish troops, and the castle fell on July 31. Knox was captured and sentenced to work as a galley slave on a French ship.

Never a particularly robust man, Knox suffered terribly in the galleys, where he was forced to work to exhaustion and was underfed. His health was weakened by the experience, but he kept his spirit strong through his belief that God would soon free him. After nineteen months, in March 1549, he was released.

Life in exile

Faced with persecution in Scotland, Knox went to England, where the king's Privy Council gave him a preaching position in Berwick. (The Privy Council was a board of advisors that carried out the administrative function of the government in matters of economy, defense, foreign policy, and law and order, and its members served as the king's chief advisors.) Here he was able to recover his health and continue his religious studies. He also met his future wife, Marjory Bowes, to whom he became engaged in 1553. Knox began to refine his beliefs and his teachings, particularly his rejection of the Catholic Mass, during which a priest performs transubstatiation, the miraculous change that occurs when a priest blesses the Eucharist (bread and wine) and it changes into the body and blood of Christ, while maintaining the appearance of bread and wine. He preached this so adamantly that in 1550 the Privy Council ordered him to appear before them to explain his beliefs in more detail. He argued that the authority of Scripture, the church's sacred texts, was supreme, and its teachings were above even those of the pope or the king. Because the Mass was not mentioned in Scripture, he said, it should not be performed. The council accepted his argument, and Knox soon became well known and respected. In 1551 he preached before John Dudley (Duke of Northumberland; 1501–1553), who in effect ruled

Knox's Time as a Galley Slave

John Knox spent nineteen months as a galley slave for the French navy. Galleys were a class of ship powered by both sails and oars. They were about 100 to 150 feet long, with twenty-five oars that passed through oar-holes on the ship's side. Each oar was about 40 to 50 feet long. Normally six men rowed on each oar, but during battle only four men did the job, in order to leave room for the crew's movements.

Galley slaves were chained to their benches by their legs day and night; they ate and slept at their seats. They were forced to row for hours at a time, with only biscuits and water each day and vegetable soup three times a week. They were whipped for any misbehavior. Not surprisingly, no sailor would volunteer to row in the galleys, and the French used convicted criminals and prisoners of war as slaves. The prospect of being captured and forced to row in the galleys of the French terrified the English, and boosted their resolve to defend their country from attack.

Galley slaves on French ships were expected to attend Catholic Mass, which Knox and his fellow Scottish rowers refused to do. In his History of the Reformation in Scotland Knox described an incident in which the French brought an image of the Virgin Mary to him and demanded that he kiss it. He called it an idol and refused to touch it, but they thrust it into his hands. When no one was looking, he threw it into the water.

In addition to being overworked, underfed, and kept in unsanitary conditions, galley slaves risked being killed in battle. Chained at their seats, they could not escape enemy fire. Nor could they save themselves in the event of shipwreck. If no one on board thought to unchain them, galley slaves died when their ships were destroyed. Knox became very ill in the galleys, and he almost died. He was given extra rations, and he gradually recovered his health. He later wrote that his faith helped him to maintain the will to live during this time of brutal suffering.

England for the adolescent king, Edward VI. Dudley was so impressed with Knox that he invited him to London to preach before Edward. Dudley also offered Knox a position as bishop, but Knox declined.

When Edward VI died in 1553, his Catholic half-sister, Mary I, became queen of England and immediately took steps to restore Catholicism there. Realizing that his life would be in danger if he remained in England, Knox fled to Europe, where he remained for the next five years, settling in Geneva, Switzerland. There he met the most influential leaders of the Protestant Reformation, including John Calvin (1506–1564).

In 1555 Knox made a trip to Scotland. Though Mary Stuart, a Catholic, was technically queen, she was still a child and was living in France while her mother, Mary of Guise (1515–1560), ruled on her behalf. Mary of Guise supported tolerant policies toward Protestants, making it safe for Knox to preach freely in Scotland. Nevertheless, Catholic feeling was still strong, and within about six months he was pressured to leave the country. After he left, he was burned in effigy, meaning that a representation of him was burned. During this period in Scotland Knox married Marjory Bowes, returning with her to Geneva in 1556.

Knox planned another trip to Scotland in early 1557. He had been invited by the Scottish Protestant lords to help them start a religious reformation there. But the lords later advised him to wait until conditions in Scotland would be more favorable for such a plan. Knox remained in Europe until 1559.

In Geneva Knox busied himself with writing. One of his most widely known pamphlets, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558), was an attack on the rule of female sovereigns. In this pamphlet, which was published anonymously, Knox wrote that women's rule was "repugnant to nature" and "a disgrace to God." He concluded that it was proper for the Protestant faithful to overthrow their Catholic leader by an armed uprising. Knox frequently denounced the Catholic Church, which he called a "synagogue of Satan" and a "harlot … polluted with all kinds of spiritual fornication." He called Catholic priests "pestilent papists" and "bloody wolves." In 1559, after the death of Mary, Knox published A Brief Exhortation to England, for the Speedy Embracing of the Gospel Heretofore of Mary Suppressed and Banished. This pamphlet urged the English to repent for the "shameful defection" of those who had gone back to Catholicism during Mary's reign. Knox's negative views of female rulers so angered England's newly crowned Protestant queen, Elizabeth I, that she refused to grant him safe conduct through England when he decided to return to Scotland in 1559.

Return to Scotland

By the time Knox returned to Scotland in May 1559, the Protestant lords were in open rebellion against Mary of Guise. A few days later Knox preached a sermon at Perth that inspired his listeners to loot neighboring religious houses. In October the lords removed Mary of Guise from power, and sent to England for support from Elizabeth, a Protestant. In February 1560 the Protestant rebels signed a treaty with England in which England promised military aid to the rebellion in Scotland. In effect, this ended any support for Mary of Guise, who died a few months later. Soon afterward France and England signed the Treaty of Edinburgh, in which both countries agreed to remove their troops from Scotland. At a parliament session in Edinburgh that August, Scotland enacted laws that abolished the authority of the pope, forbade the celebration of the Mass, and instituted a reformed Protestant church in Scotland.

Knox was appointed as the first Protestant minister of St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. He was also asked to join a committee charged with preparing a program of religious reformation and reorganization, including a national system of education. This work became known as the Book of Discipline. One of its central provisions was that the clergy should be elected by democratic process, not through political patronage. Knox believed that those who did not embrace the reformed church were sons of Satan and did not deserve respect or fair treatment. In fact, he thought it permissible to cheat and torment them, and even rejoice in knowing that they would be condemned to hell. In Knox's view, the reformed church required that all members of society should act according to the teachings of the Bible. Even rulers should acknowledge the higher power of the Scriptures and act according to Christian ideals.

Rule of Mary Stuart

The return of Mary Stuart to the Scottish throne in 1561 did nothing to change Knox's hatred and distrust of Catholicism and women's rule. He publicly criticized the queen's love of dancing, causing her to call him before her court for questioning. He told her that he disapproved of her Catholic religion, her flirtation with Henry Stewart (Lord Darnley; 1545–1567), and her general conduct. Though many Protestant lords agreed with Knox, not all of them shared his hostility to Mary; their objections to his extreme views caused him to be officially reprimanded by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1564.

Through much of the 1560s Knox worked on his book, History of the Reformation in Scotland. He also preached regularly, but he did not participate actively in political matters. His first wife died in 1560, leaving him with two sons. In 1563 he married Margaret Stewart, daughter of a Protestant lord. Knox was fifty years old at this time; his bride was only seventeen. This marriage produced three daughters. Though his writings expressed extreme views and employed passionate and sometimes coarse language, in daily life Knox was known as a considerate man who got along well with his neighbors of all social classes.

In 1567 Mary Stuart's husband, Henry Stewart, was murdered. Immediately afterward the queen married James Hepburn (Earl of Bothwell; 1535–1578). The Scots firmly believed that Mary had been involved in Stewart's death, and even those Protestant lords who had previously taken her side now turned against her. Though Knox did not actively participate in the lords' uprising, he did approve of it; in fact, he urged that Mary be executed. Instead the queen rallied some troops to her side and attempted a defense. In 1567 she was defeated in battle and forced her to give up the throne in favor of her infant son, James I (1566–1625; see entry).

Knox allied himself with the Protestant lords who ruled in the infant king's name. But he grew increasingly bitter by what he saw as a betrayal by those Protestant lords who had defended Mary Stuart. He continued to denounce Mary so strongly that her supporters forced him out of Edinburgh. He lived in St. Andrews for one year until tensions died down, returning to Edinburgh in September 1572. By this time he had grown frail, and he soon lost the ability to walk or read. He died that November at the age of fifty-nine.

Though his extremism alienated some Protestants, Knox played a key role in establishing the reformed church in Scotland. The hatred that he preached against Catholics also contributed to religious and political tensions that pitted supporters of Mary Stuart against those who favored Protestant rule. These tensions spilled over into England, where Mary's cause inspired several attempts to overthrow Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne. Mary did have some claim to the English throne as Elizabeth's cousin and great-granddaughter of Henry VII (1457–1509). Largely as a result of Knox's teachings, the Church of Scotland developed along more extreme and intolerant lines than did Protestantism in England.

For More Information

BOOKS

Reid, W. Stanford. Trumpeter of God: A Biography of John Knox. New York: Scribner, 1974.

Ridley, Jasper. John Knox. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.

WEB SITES

"John Knox." English Bible History. http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/john-knox.html (accessed on July 11, 2006).

"John Knox." Mary, Queen of Scots. http://www.marie-stuart.co.uk/knox.htm (accessed on July 11, 2006).

"John Knox." http://www.newgenevacenter.org/biography/knox2.htm (accessed on July 11, 2006).

Maclean, Diane. "John Knox." The Scotsman: Heritage & Culture. http://heritage.scotsman.com/timelines.cfm?cid=1&id=40872005 (accessed on July 11, 2006).

Selected Writings of John Knox: Public Epistles, Treatises, and Expositions to the Year 1559. http://history.hanover.edu/early/knox.html (accessed on July 11, 2006).