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He
left the university without obtaining a masters degree, and taught
in some capacity at the University of St. Andrews. It appears that
he took the orders of the Catholic priesthood in about 1530 and
served with some religious establishment for the next 10 years in
Haddington, functioning as a notary (this was a task of churchmen in
the middle ages, our word "clerk" comes from cleric) and as a
private tutor.Protestant "heresy" first appeared in Scotland
at the beginning of the fifteenth century, when followers of
Wycliffe (called Lollards) fleeing from persecution in England,
found their way across the border. In 1433, a Czech named Paul
Crawan, a follower of John Huss, was arrested while studying at St.
Andrews University, and burned as a heretic. The fires of
Protestantism which Luther started in Germany came to Scotland from
the German coastal towns, entering through the eastern port cities
of Scotland; Leith, Montrose, and Dundee. Within 10 years of the
posting of the 95 theses in Wittenburg, Protestant tracts were being
smuggled into Dundee, including Tyndale's English translation of the
New Testament (which was published in Germany).
There was at St. Andrews University,
at about the same time as John Knox, a man named George Wishart, who
later fled to England to avoid persecution of the Catholic rule in
Scotland. Ironically, while preaching in Bristol, he was denounced
by King Henry VIII's Church of England as a heretic. He returned to
Scotland, and preached the gospel in various cities and towns. By
1545, persecution in Scotland was growing and Wishart was warned by
the protestant landowners (lairds) to stop preaching and lie low for
a while. Wishart refused, but prophesied that he would soon be
captured and burnt. A group of lairds decided to protect him from
the authorities, and grant him safe conduct, as he traveled for four
weeks from town to town, entering churches without authority, and
preaching to large crowds. Knox, still a Catholic priest, was
employed as a tutor for the sons of one of these lairds and
accompanied the group protecting Wishart, carrying with him a large
double-edged sword. As the danger grew, the group diminished, and
Wishart exhorted the rest to leave him and escape danger. Knox did
not wish to leave him, asking to stay with him until the end, but
Wishart replied, "Nay, return to your home and God bless you. One is
sufficient for a sacrifice." Soon afterwards, Wishart was arrested,
taken to St. Andrews, condemned as a heretic and burnt at the stake.
The martyrdom of Wishart in 1546 was the turning point in the
spiritual life of Knox, causing him to renounce Catholicism and to
profess his adherence to the Protestant faith.
The English and the Scottish
Protestants reacted very differently to persecution. In England,
submission to authority was maintained, even to the flames of
martyrdom. But in Scotland, Cardinal Beaton, (the churchman
considered most responsible for the death of Wishart) was to meet
with a bloody retribution for his merciless enforcement of the law.
Knox writes in his History of the Reformation in Scotland:
- "men of great birth, estimation
and honour, at open tables avowed, that the blood of the said
Master George should be revenged, or else they should cast life
for life."
On May 29, 1546, a party of sixteen
young gentlemen broke into St. Andrews Castle, after killing the
sentry at the gate, and stabbed Cardinal Beaton to death. After
insulting his corpse, they hung the body over the castle wall for
the inhabitants of St. Andrews to see, and held the castle against
the government. This sordid affair was the beginning of the
Protestant revolt in Scotland. Knox has often been denounced by his
critics for his attitude to the death of Beaton. He describes the
murder in his History, concluding with the words, "These things we
write merrily." A more sober comment of his on the murder was:
- "These are the works of God,
whereby He would admonish the tyrants of this earth, that in the
end He will be revenged of their cruelty, what strength so ever
they made in the contrary."
Because of his ties with Wishart, he
considered himself in danger and resolved to leave Scotland, but
Cockburn of Ormiston, whose sons John Knox was tutoring, convinced
him to enter the castle of St. Andrews as a place of safety. It was
there that he received a public call to the ministry, "whereat", to
use his own words, "said John, abashed, burst forth in moist
abundant tears and withdrew himself to his chambers." In June of
that year, the Catholics of Scotland and France joined their forces
to avenge the death of Cardinal Beaton by capturing the Protestant
garrison of St. Andrews. It was stipulated that the lives of the
refugees should be spared, that they should be removed to France,
and that those who declined to serve in the French army should be
conveyed to any other country except Scotland. Knox, sharing the
fate of his companions at the Castle of St. Andrews, was conveyed on
board one of the French ships to Rouen, France.
The terms of the surrender were
grossly violated, and the captives were treated as prisoners of war.
Knox and some of the others were consigned to life-time sentences as
galley slaves. Here they were subjected to much suffering and
humiliation, but despite hardship and threats, none of them
renounced their faith.
In February 1549, after an
imprisonment of 19 months, Knox obtained his release from the French
galleys. Since he probably obtained his freedom due to the
intercession of King Edward VI or the English government (they had
been negotiating for the release of English and Scottish protestant
prisoners in exchange for French prisoners), he came to London, and
was favorably received by Archbishop Cranmer and the lords of
council. He remained in England for five years, during which time he
was first appointed preacher to Berwick, then to Newcastle.
At Berwick, where he labored for two
years, he preached with his characteristic fervor and zeal, exposing
the errors of Romanism with unsparing severity. Although
Protestantism was the official position of the Church of England
since the reign of Henry VIII, there were many loyal Roman Catholics
(papists), even in the high ranks of the clergy. The bishop of John
Knox's diocese, Dr. Cuthbert Tunstall, was an avid Catholic. Knox
was accused of asserting that the sacrifice of the Mass is
idolatrous, and was cited to appear before the bishop to give an
account of his preaching. On April 4, 1550, Knox entered into a full
defense of his opinions, and with the utmost boldness proceeded to
argue that the mass is a superstitious and idolatrous substitute for
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The bishop did not venture to
pronounce any ecclesiastical censure.
At the close of 1550, Knox was
transferred to Newcastle, where he remained until 1553. In 1551, he
was appointed as one of the six chaplains to Edward the VI, and as
such was consulted in the revision and sanction of The Articles
concerning an Uniformity in Religion. Upon revision, these
became the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Knox's
last year in England was spent in London and the southern counties.
About this time, the Duke of
Northumberland proposed that Knox be made bishop of Rochester. A
later letter from Northumberland shows that Knox refused the
bishopric, expressing his wish to return to his congregation in
Newcastle and Berwick (largely Scot congregations near the border).
The letter also suggests that Knox criticized Northumberland for his
vices and covetousness.
Knox left for the north, and on
Christmas day 1552 in Newcastle, preached a most daring sermon. He
had learned from the court that King Edward was dying, and realizing
that the Catholic Mary Tudor might soon come to the throne, he
warned in his sermon the dangers of Papist rule looming ahead, a
warning that might easily have cost him his head. Edward VI died in
July 1553. After a nine-day reign, Lady Jane (grand-daughter of King
Henry VIII and next Protestant in line for the throne) was deposed
and later beheaded by her successor, Mary Tudor (Mary I of England
and later called Bloody Mary), daughter of King Henry VIII by his
first wife Catherine.
Mary, like her mother was Catholic in
faith and in sentiment, and bore deep resentment towards her father
and Protestants for the humiliation of her mother and herself during
the divorce days. When she tried to reintroduce Catholicism to the
realm she met with resistance, and soon a reign of terror ensued.
Knox, who was outspoken in his opposition to Mary's appointment as
queen, was persuaded to withdraw from England, and sailed for Dieppe
(a port city in northern France), arriving in January 1554. The time
afforded in his exile gave the refugee an opportunity of completing
and publishing several treatises, a letter to his former
congregations entitled: A Godly Letter of Warning or Admonition
to the Faithful in London, Newcastle, and Berwick, general
letters of encouragement to all the protestants in England entitled:
Two Comfortable Epistles to his afflicted Brethren in England,
and a letter to the Protestant ministers in England entitled: A
Faithful Admonition to the Professors of God's Truth in England,
all written in 1554.
He lived for a season in Geneva,
Switzerland in the congregation of John Calvin, and was most
impressed. He accepted, in accordance with Calvin's council, an
invitation to pastor an English congregation-in-exile at Frankfort.
An adversary in the congregation, desiring a strict adherence to the
English Book of Prayer and seeking his position as pastor, forced
him to resign by informing the magistrates of Frankfort (who were
Protestant, but under the protection of the emperor) that Knox had
used treasonable language in speaking of the Emperor, the Queen of
England, and her husband Philip II. On March 26, 1555, John Knox
resigned the pastorate and returned to Geneva, where he was asked to
pastor a refugee English congregation, a considerable number of
which were supporters from the Frankfort congregation.
In August 1555, he visited Scotland
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 Reformed ritual. His practice was to
meet secretly in private homes for communion in the various towns
and cities where he preached. In May 1556, he was cited to appear
before the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Edinburgh, and he boldly
responded to the summons, but the bishops found it expedient not to
proceed with the trial. Sometime during this visit to Scotland, Knox
was married to Marjorie Bowes, daughter of Richard Bowes, captain of
Norham Castle. They were betrothed in 1553 before he left England.
In July, an urgent call from his congregation at Geneva, along with
the desire to prevent the renewal of persecution in Scotland, caused
him to resume his Geneva ministry.
Knox's life in Geneva was no idle
one. In addition to preaching and pastoral ministry, he carried on a
great deal of significant correspondence with individuals in England
and Scotland, and was constantly engaged in literary work.
Judged by the excitement it created,
the most outstanding writing of this period is The First Blast of
the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, which he
originally released anonymously. It was pointed against the two
Catholic Queens, Mary of Lorraine, regent Queen of Scotland, and
"bloody Mary" Queen of England, but John Knox had no way of knowing
that the Queen of England had very recently died (1558), and that
her step-sister, Elizabeth, a staunch Protestant, succeeded her. It
cannot be denied that this publication was untimely, and might be
expected to expose the author to the resentment of two Queens during
whose reign it was his lot to live.
The resentment to which his blast
against feminine government gave rise did not soon subside. One
immediate effect was that, later, when Knox resolved to return to
Scotland and wanted to pass through England, permission was denied.
He continued to officiate in Geneva till January 1559, when he went
home to Scotland to stay.
He arrived in Edinburgh on May 2,
1559, at a very critical time in Scottish history. During his
absence the reform party had become more numerous, more self-reliant
and aggressive, and better organized, The Queen dowager, Mary of
Lorraine, acting as regent for her daughter, the young Mary, Queen
of Scots, 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 the "idolatry" of Catholicism,
particularly the Mass, 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, destroying images
and statuary, as well as looting. Knox did not approve of this
action, but he never spoke out against it, as Martin Luther did when
his followers engaged in vandalism, because he saw it as a force,
which would promote the overthrowing of an idolatrous religion.
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, in October 1559, he approved of the lords of his party
suspending their allegiance to the regent Queen. The death of the
regent Queen Mary in June 1560 opened the way to a cessation of
hostilities and an agreement leaving the settlement of
ecclesiastical question to the Scottish estates, rather than the
throne. John Knox and the party of Reformers, called the
Congregation, drew up a petition proposing the abolition of Popish
doctrine, the restoration of purity of worship and discipline, and
the appropriating of ecclesiastical revenues to the support of the
ministry, the promotion of education, and the relief of the poor.
This document, called The Confession of Faith Professed and
Believed by the Protestants within the Realm of Scotland (The
Confession), was presented to the Scottish parliament and was
ratified on August 17, 1560. The doctrine, worship and government of
the Roman Church were overthrown and Protestantism was established
as the national religion (The Confession remained the
authorized Scottish creed for two centuries).
Mary, Queen of Scots, youthful,
widowed, and fair, arrived in Scotland in August 1561, thoroughly
predisposed against Knox, while he and the other Reformers looked
upon her with grave suspicion, both as a foreigner and as an adamant
Papist with designs of re-establishing Catholicism in the realm. She
swore to uphold the laws of the land, and to forbid the practice of
the Mass anywhere within the realm, but was permitted to attend her
own private Mass in the palace chapel. She lost no time in summoning
Knox to the palace of Holyrood, to hold with him the first of five
personal interviews. 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 from the very
beginning was unyielding and repelling, abrupt, and confrontational,
his language and manner harsh and uncourtier-like, perhaps
acceptable behavior for a Whitehouse news correspondent today, but
considered rude and disrespectful to a Queen in those times.
When the Reformed religion was
formally ratified by law in Scotland in 1560, Knox was appointed
minister of the Church of St. Giles, then the great parish church of
Edinburgh. He was at this time in the fullness of his powers, as is
manifest abundantly in the style of 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. Knox was truly a great
man. Compassionate in his regard for the poor, as a shepherd of
souls a man fervent and considerate, pure in his personal life,
loyal in friendship, untainted by jealousy, genial and amiable in
private character. At the very beginning of his labors as minister
of Edinburgh, his wife died, leaving two sons, Nathaniel, who died
at Cambridge in 1580, and Eleazer, who became vicar of Clacton Magna
and died in 1591.
Queen Mary, after various failed
attempts to win John Knox's favor through flattery and tears,
endeavored to get him into her power by moving the privy council to
pronounce him guilty of treason based on a circular letter he had
written to leading Protestants regarding the trial of two persons
indicted for a riot in the Chapel Royal. Knox's trial took place at
a special meeting of council in December 1562, at which the Queen
was present and acted in the unseemly role of prosecutrix. To her
chagrin, and extreme displeasure, Knox was acquitted and absolved
from all blame by a majority of the noblemen present, and commended
for his judicious defense.
On June 4, 1564, there was a debate
at the General Assembly of the Parliament between the Protestant
lords and courtiers on the one hand, and the leading superintendents
and preachers. Most of the debating was done by Lord Lethington,
representing the nobles and Knox representing the preachers.
Lethington began by objecting to the fact that Knox, in his sermons,
called Mary a slave of Satan, which stirred up the people against
the Queen and her servants. Knox replied that Mary was a rebel
against God, because she maintained that idol, the mass. When
Lethington said that Mary was sincerely convinced that her mass was
good religion, Knox said that the men who had offered their children
to Molech were also convinced that their religion was right, but in
fact they were rebels against God. Lethington challenged Knox's
doctrine that the people are punished for the sins of their rulers,
and will only be saved if they resist their wicked princes. "Then
will ye make subjects to control their princes and rulers?", asked
Lethington. Knox replied, "And what harm should the commonwealth
receive, if that the corrupt affections of ignorant rulers were
moderated, bridled by the wisdom and discretion of godly subjects."
Lethington admitted that the Bible orders that the idolater shall
die the death, but "there be no commandment given to the people to
punish their king if he was an idolater." Knox answered, "I find no
more privilege granted unto kings than unto the people, to offend
God's majesty."
At one point Lethington asked Knox,
"how are ye able to prove that ever God struck or plagued a nation
or people for the iniquity of their prince, if they themselves lived
godly?" Knox replied, "The Scripture of God teaches me that
Jerusalem and Judah was punished for the sin of Manasseh, and if ye
will claim that they were punished because they were wicked and
offended along with their King, I answer that the text says,
'Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to
err.' True it is, for though people willingly followed him in his
idolatry, the king, by reason of his authority, led the people in
defiling all Jerusalem and the temple of God with all abominations,
and so were they all criminal for their sin; the one by act and
deed, the other by suffering and permission: even as all Scotland is
guilty this day of the Queen's idolatry, and ye my Lords, specially
above all others."
Lethington cited Luther, Melanchthon,
Bucer, and Calvin in his support. All of these men would agree that
it is proper for a Christian to refuse to obey civil authority when
it contradicts God's law (passive civil disobedience), but that it
is not proper for a Christian to take up arms and overthrow
that authority (revolution) for the same reason. Against them, Knox
could only quote the Apology of Magdeburg, issued by the Protestant
ministers of the city when they rose to resist the Emperor Charles V
in 1550, which he summarized in one sentence: "That to resist a
tyrant is not to resist God, nor yet His ordinance." The opinion of
the day may have been against Knox, but the future was on Knox's
side.
During this time, March 1564, John
Knox married his second wife, Margaret Stewart of Ochiltre, daughter
of Lord Ochiltre. Knox was 50 and Margaret was 17. What made the
marriage more controversial for some was the fact that Knox was a
man of humble birth, whereas Margaret was the daughter of a duke and
in fact of royal blood. It was reported that Queen Mary "stormeth
wonderfully," which would read today, "had a temper tantrum," when
she heard about the marriage, "for that she is of the blood and
name". The only way that the Catholics could explain the fact that
Knox had been accepted by Lord Ochiltre and Margaret was that he
"resorted to witchcraft."
In July of 1565, Mary married a
handsome, unscrupulous 18 year-old Catholic Scottish nobleman named
Lord Darnley, from the Stuart family, which claimed to have the
right of heir to the throne in Scotland if Mary should die
childless. Up until this time, the Protestant lords had the support
of Mary, and many felt that this support would be lost with this
marriage. One Protestant lord named Moray, Mary's half-brother and
one of her principal advisers, realizing that this meant the end of
his influence at Court, was assembling the Protestant lords and
preparing for armed insurrection. Mary and Darnley, not wanting the
armed conflict to take the form of a religious war, issued a
proclamation in which they declared their intention of preserving
the Protestant religion, and reissued Mary's proclamation of 1561,
prohibiting anyone, on pain of death, from attempting to alter the
state of the Protestant religion that existed in Scotland when the
Queen first returned from France. In line with this policy of
appeasement, Lord Darnley attended John Knox's service at St. Gile's
on Sunday, August 19, 1565. As he listened to the sermon, Lord
Darnley was enraged by what he perceived were references to himself
and his Queen as King Ahab and Jezebel. He returned to the palace
with the determination not to taste food till the offender had been
punished. Knox was called to appear before the privy council, "from
my bed" as he recalls. Informed that he had offended the king and
that he must desist from preaching as long as their majesties
remained in Edinburgh. Knox replied that he had spoken nothing but
according to his text (Is 26:13-21), and if the church should
command him either to speak or abstain, he would obey, so far as the
word of God would permit him. In regard to the sermon, he deemed it
necessary for his own exoneration to write it out in full what he
had spoken and publish it with a preface. This is the only sermon of
John Knox that has been preserved.
On September 1, 1565, Moray and some
of the other rebel Protestant lords, not the majority but a small
faction, took control of Edinburgh, but 34 hours later were driven
from the city. The royal army chased them in circles all over
Scotland, until the rebels crossed the frontier into England. Queen
Elizabeth refused to extradite them, but rebuked them sorely for
having dared to resist their Queen. It was a hard time for Scotland.
Due to two exceedingly harsh winters in succession, starvation was
rampant. Protestant ministers, deprived of the stipend that the
Catholic clergy had enjoyed, had to rely on their congregations,
many of whom were too poor to support them. Mary denied the request
of the General Assembly to surrender her half of "the thirds" for
the support of the clergy. Knox wrote a letter of encouragement to
all the ministers, urging them not to give up their vocation, and
another to the brethren of the Congregation, to support their own
ministers, who were resigning for lack of food. The General Assembly
declared a fast, and Knox wrote a document explaining reasons for
the fast: the brethren had allowed the return of the Catholic mass
to the realm (not mentioned was the humiliating defeat of the
Protestant rebels); the nobility and the wealthy class were
oppressing the poor; and on the mainland, the Catholics had declared
war on the Protestants at the Council of Trent, with plans to
systematically exterminate Calvinists and Lutherans. Already 100,000
Huguenots had been slaughtered in France.
At the end of February 1566, Mary
expelled more Protestant lords from Scotland when she discovered
they were supporting Moray. On March 7, she opened Parliament with
the intention that they should pass an Act that would declare all
those who fled to England as traitors, and their property be
confiscated. There were rumors that she was planning to join a
Catholic league, with the Pope, the Emperor, the King of Spain, and
others. Twelve wooden altars, to be erected in St. Giles, are said
to have been found in Holyrood. Two days later, on the evening of
March 9, 1566, a band of some twenty men broke into the Queen's room
in the palace at Holyroodhouse, and murdered her secretary David
Riccio, dragging him from the dining room where he was having supper
with the Queen and a few others, stabbing him to death in the
ante-room, and holding the Queen prisoner in the palace. The leader
of this mob was, guess who, the Queen's husband, the King (Lord
Darnley had convinced Mary to give him the title of King but now he
was interested in securing the Crown). Apparently, certain of the
Protestant lords plotted with the King to murder Riccio after
preying on his jealousy and suspicion that Riccio was an adulterer
who had seduced the Queen. They promised him that they would
persuade Parliament to grant him the Crown along with his title of
King. After murdering Riccio, the murderers held the queen prisoner
in the palace. On the same night, one of the Queen's Catholic friars
was murdered in his bed.
The next day a proclamation was given
in the King's name, disbanding the meeting of Parliament, and that
evening Moray and company returned from England to Edinburgh. Knox
does not relate the story in his History, which ends its chronology
in June 1564. But he does allude to the incident in the first Book
of the History, with these regrettable words; "in plain terms let
the world understand what we mean, that great abuser of this
commonwealth, that vile knave Davie (Riccio) was justly punished,
the ninth of March, in the year of God 1565... by the hands of James
Douglas, Patrick Lord Lyndesay, Lord Ruthven, with others in their
company, who all, for their just act, and most worthy of all praise,
are now most unworthily left of their brethren, and suffer the
bitterness of banishment and exile." For John Knox to call this
treacherous act of murder a "just act, most worthy of praise" shows
how far, in his political intriguing, he had strayed from his
Christian ideals as a young man. The murder of Riccio was far more
reprehensible than the murder of Cardinal Beaton. Riccio was not
killed because he was a persecutor on whom the Protestants were
inflicting retribution, or even because he was a formidable enemy of
the cause, but merely for the politically beneficial consequences,
which would result from the Queen's secretary being murdered by the
Queen's husband. If Riccio was indeed guilty of adultery, the nobles
might easily have taken, tried, and hanged Riccio.
Two days later after the murder of
Riccio, Mary persuaded Darnley to desert his confederates and help
her to escape to Dunbar. There they raised an army, and prepared to
advance against Edinburgh. When news of this reached Edinburgh, all
the participants in the coup fled the city. Whether he knew
beforehand about the plot or not, his running away did not disarm
suspicion. Knox left town the same day, "with a great mourning of
the godly of religion" says a diarist. The night before leaving, he
composed a soul-searching and melancholic prayer, wherein he asks
God to take his life. The killers of Riccio fled to England. Moray
and the rebels were pardoned by Mary, but the killers of Riccio had
taken their places in exile, taking refuge in England. Knox was not
associated with the murderers and was allowed to return to
Edinburgh. That Christmas Eve, Mary pardoned all the murderers of
Riccio. Knox received permission to visit his sons in
Northumberland, England who were under the care of his mother-in-law
from his first marriage, Mrs. Bowes. He carried with him a letter
from the Congregation against the treatment of Puritans who had
conscientious objections to the apparel of the Anglican Church.
While Knox was away in England, a lot
happened. The Queen had a baby, James (James VI, King of Scotland
and later, James I, King of England), who was baptized a Catholic.
Her husband Lord Darnley was murdered. The Queen then married the
man who murdered her husband, a protestant nobleman by the name of
Bothwell, with whom she had been having an affair prior to the
murder, and more than likely with whom she plotted the murder of her
husband. Mary sought to befriend the Protestants by being married to
her new husband by the Protestant bishop of Orkney and by granting a
large subsidy for the support of Protestant ministers. However, she
alienated the Catholic Church without gaining the support of the
Protestants, who saw her as an adulteress and an accomplice in
murder. She was arrested and imprisoned, her infant son was crowned
King, and Moray, a Protestant, was named regent. Knox called for the
execution of Mary. However, Mary managed to escape, rallied her
supporters, and a civil war ensued between those who supported Mary
as Queen, mostly Catholics but some Protestants, and those who
supported the infant King and Moray. Her army was defeated by regent
Moray on May 12, 1568. Four day later, Mary fled to England and
sought the refuge of Queen Elizabeth.
Knox's life was drawing to a close in
a very dark chapter in Scottish history. Moray was assassinated, and
two of the three successive regents were also assassinated. He had
one thing to be very happy about: when Mary sought refuge in
England, Queen Elizabeth made Mary a prisoner for the rest of her
life. In 1586, after many plots and attempted escapes, Mary was
exposed in a hare-brained plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and
gain the crown of both England and Scotland. Mary was tried,
sentenced to death, and then beheaded in February 1587.
When Knox was dying he asked his wife
to read aloud the seventeenth chapter of John's gospel, saying "Go
read where I cast my first anchor," referring to many years ago,
when, as a poor Catholic cleric, he first trusted in Christ. He died
November 24, 1572 |
