John Knox Part 1

John Knox.

by Wm. M. Taylor.

PREFACE.

The sources from which the following narrative has been derived are (1) the splendidly edited and complete edition of Knox's Works in six volumes, by Dr. David Laing; (2) the Memoir of the Reformer, by Dr.

Thomas McCrie, forming the first volume of the collected works of that eminent theologian; (3) the monograph by the late Professor Lorimer, D.D., ent.i.tled "John Knox and the Church of England"; and (4) the Histories of the Period, more especially that of Scotland, by John Hill Burton, vols. iii. and iv., and that of England, by J. A. Froude, vols.

v. and vi. Some a.s.sistance also has been derived from "The Scottish Reformation," by Professor Lorimer; and the two sketches by Carlyle, the one in his "Heroes and Hero Wors.h.i.+p," and the other in his essay on the Portraits {vi} of John Knox, have been both helpful and suggestive.

Quotations have been generally indicated, but this acknowledgment must cover any accidental omission to give to each author his due; and for the rest the reader may be a.s.sured that while no material fact has been omitted, nothing has been recorded for which ample authority could not be given. The figure has been felt to be too large for the canvas to which we have been restricted, but we have sought to reproduce, as faithfully as possible the man as he was, and if we may succeed in removing any of the unreasonable prejudice, with which many still regard the Scottish Reformer, the story of his life will not be retold by us in vain.

W. M. T.

NEW YORK.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY LIFE AND CALL TO THE MINISTRY, 1505-1547.

On the sixteenth day of January, 1546, George Wishart delivered a remarkable sermon in the church of Haddington. Two things had combined to produce special depression in his heart. Shortly before he entered the pulpit a boy had put into his hands a letter informing him that his friends in Kyle would not be able to keep an appointment which they had made to meet him in Edinburgh. This news so saddened him that he expressed himself as "weary of the world," because he perceived that "men began to be weary of G.o.d." Nor was his despondency removed when he rose to preach, for instead of the crowds that used to a.s.semble to hear him in that church, there were not more than a hundred persons present. It was thus made apparent to him that the efforts of his enemies for his overthrow were now to be successful, and so instead of treating the second table of the law as he had been expected to do, he poured forth a torrent of warning and denunciation, not unlike some of the fervid {2} utterances of the old Hebrew prophets. The effect produced was all the more solemn, because he evidently felt that he was bearing his last public testimony against the evils of his times.

When he had concluded he bade his friends farewell, and to John Knox, who throughout his sojourn in Lothian had attended him, armed with a two-handed sword, as a protection against the a.s.sa.s.sination with which he had twice been threatened, and who had pressed to be allowed to accompany him to Ormiston, where he was to spend the night, he said, "Nay, return to your bairns" (pupils), "and G.o.d bless you! One is sufficient for one sacrifice."

The good man's presentiment was all too surely realized. Before midnight the house in which he slept was surrounded by a band of which the Earl of Bothwell was the head, and he was given up by his host to that n.o.bleman, only however on the receipt of a pledge, over which "hands" were "struck," to the effect that his personal safety should be secured, and he should not be delivered into his enemies' power. But promises in these days were not of much account, and Bothwell was easily prevailed upon to give him up to Cardinal Beaton, who took him first to Edinburgh Castle, and afterwards to St. Andrews. There, in defiance of the protest of the Regent, he was hurriedly subjected to the form of a trial by the cardinal, and being, of course, found guilty, he was executed at the stake on the first of March.

{3}

Thus it is, as the body-guard of Wishart, that we get our first glimpse of John Knox in history; and very characteristic of the man this first appearance was. He comes upon the scene as unheralded as Elijah, and, like him too, he is seen from the first to be set for the defence of the truth. He was a sword-bearer all through; only when he laid aside the two-handed brand which he carried before Wishart, he took in its stead "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of G.o.d."

Before proceeding to tell the stirring story of his life, however, it may be well to take a brief survey of the condition of Scotland at the moment when he stepped into the arena of its national strife.

Little more than three years before the date of Wishart's execution, the Queen of Scotland had given birth to that Mary Stuart, whose character has been the puzzle of historians, and whose chequered career has been the theme of poets almost ever since. Her father, James V., broken-hearted by the utter defeat of his army by the English at the battle of Solway Moss, died only a few days after his daughter's birth.

Thus it came about, that in a critical time which tested the statesmans.h.i.+p of the world's strongest rulers, alike in England, France, Germany, and Spain, Scotland had a baby sovereign, and the controlling of its affairs became an object of keen compet.i.tion between contending parties. The queen-mother, Mary of Guise, a woman of marked ability, of much cunning, and of little principle, was, both from national and religious leanings, on {4} the side of the Catholic party.

Of that party the head at this time was David Beaton, Archbishop of St.

Andrews, and a Cardinal of the Church. This artful prelate, "the nephew of his uncle," was possessed of eminent talents, but was characterized by cruelty, licentiousness, and unscrupulousness. He had prevailed on James V. to violate the promise which he had made to his uncle, Henry VIII., to meet him at Newcastle. The haughty Tudor had now broken with the Romish see, and was anxious, if possible, to induce his nephew to follow his example. But the cardinal, as great a master of intrigue as was the English king himself, had succeeded in keeping the Scottish monarch from putting himself under the spell of his uncle's influence, and Henry, exasperated at his defeat, sent into Scotland an army, whose success at Solway Moss led indirectly, as we have seen, to the death of James. When that event occurred, Beaton produced a forged will, purporting to be the last testament of the king, and nominating him as Regent with three of the n.o.bles as his a.s.sistants. On the strength of that doc.u.ment he had himself proclaimed as Regent at the Cross of Edinburgh. But the validity of the instrument was annulled by the Scottish Parliament; and in the spring of 1543, James, Earl of Arran, heir presumptive of the crown, was appointed to the dignity which the cardinal had so eagerly, and so unrighteously sought to make his own.

This n.o.bleman, "notorious," as Burton says, "for fickleness," had been at first on the side of the Reformation, {5} and was then a.s.siduously courted by Henry VIII. He had even consented to the marriage of the baby queen to the young English Prince Edward. But the influence of the queen-mother and the cardinal, backed by that of his own natural brother, the Abbot of Paisley, together with the unjust and impolitic demands of the English monarch himself, combined to turn him from his original leanings. He publicly abjured the Protestant faith, and was received into the bosom of the Catholic Church. He broke off all negotiations for a matrimonial alliance between the royal houses of England and Scotland, and ultimately consented to the betrothal of Mary to the Dauphin of France. The result of these proceedings was a protracted war with England, during which Scotland was repeatedly invaded, and portions of it devastated by the southern forces.

But while these political and international intrigues, in which it must be confessed that there was little scrupulousness on either side, were going on, a great spiritual movement was making quiet progress among the people. The Reformation from Popery had begun in Scotland also.

Patrick Hamilton, its protomartyr, had been put to death in 1528; but the smoke of his burning, to borrow the well-known words of one of the elder Beaton's own servants, "had infected all on whom it blew"; and the books of the German Reformers, together with the English Testaments of William Tyndale, had wrought like hidden leaven, especially among the more intelligent of the community. {6} Thus we account for the fact that, in spite of legal prohibitions and public executions, the knowledge of evangelical truth was diffused, even when there was no living voice to proclaim it publicly in the hearing of the mult.i.tudes; so that when a man like Wishart did make his appearance, he found crowds to listen to him appreciatively both in Dundee and Ayr. The Lollards of Kyle had still worthy descendants in that historic district; and the merchants in towns like that of Leith, whose commerce brought them into contact with men from Hamburg, Antwerp, and the cities of the Rhine, were disposed to welcome the new doctrines. Among the n.o.bles, men like Glencairn and Errol and Ruthven ranged themselves on the side of the Reformers; while the influence of a satirist like Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, and a scholar like Henry Balnaves of Halhill, was given heartily to their cause.

But next only to the diffusion of the Scriptures among the people, the greatest factor in the production of the Reformation in Scotland was the degraded condition into which in that country the Church of Rome itself had sunk. "That which decayeth is ready to vanish away." There were no longer in it the elements of vitality. It was past purifying, and had to be swept clean out. Its corruptions were too open to be denied, and too gross to be defended. The grasping selfishness and shameless licentiousness of the upper clergy were equalled only by the ignorance and general incompetence of the lower, so that there had sprung up among the people generally a {7} hatred of the order to which both belonged. This was deepened and intensified by the spirit in which the first efforts of the Reformers had been met, for in Scotland as elsewhere the prison and the stake were the short and easy answers made by papal intolerance to all the arguments which the preachers brought against the errors of Romanism. But these were answers which only turned more general attention to the statements of the Reformers, and gave wider circulation to their words. The storm of contrary wind unfurls the banner, and makes thereby its inscription the more legible, and in the same way the persecution of those who proclaimed the truth only fell out to the furtherance of that which it was designed to arrest.

But Cardinal Beaton's conscience was too hard to feel the crime, and his eye was too dim to see the blunder which he was committing in putting Wishart to death. He looked only at immediate results, and thought perhaps that by silencing the preacher he could arrest the influence of the words which had already gone from him. But in reality he was himself standing above a mine which before long exploded for his own destruction. His checkmating of Henry VIII. so exasperated that monarch that he entered into correspondence, through his agent Sir Robert Sadler, with certain Scotsmen whose disaffection to the cardinal was well known, and who, at his suggestion, or at least with his concurrence and approval, perhaps also with his reward, entered into a conspiracy to "take him out of the way." {8} Accordingly on the morning of the 29th of May, just three months after the martyrdom of Wishart, Cardinal Beaton was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a company of men headed by Norman Leslie. That the wily priest had himself been guilty of attempts to get rid of his adversaries by the same unscrupulous means is not to be denied. It is equally certain that, as things then were, it would have been impossible to bring him to trial for any of his enormities. But still the manner of his "taking off" is not only utterly indefensible, but also worthy of the deepest reprobation, and it is too true, as Dr.

Lorimer has said, that "the exasperation of feeling called forth by a deed so daring and criminal gave rise to proceedings against the conspirators which, being extended to all their abettors real or supposed, had the effect of r.e.t.a.r.ding the progress of the Reformation for many years, and of weighing it down with a load of opprobrium from the effects of which it could only slowly recover."[1]

Foreseeing that they would be the objects of bitter attack, the conspirators, after they had done their b.l.o.o.d.y work, resolved to keep possession of the Castle of St. Andrews which they had so unexpectedly seized, and there they were speedily joined by at least one hundred and forty persons, numbering among them Kirkaldy of Grange, Melville of Raith, Balfour of Mount-quhany, and many gentlemen of Fife and the neighbouring {9} counties. They put the castle into a state of defence, and were besieged by an army under command of the Regent Arran, against whom they held out, more perhaps from the incompetence of the besiegers than from the skill or strength of the besieged, until the end of January, 1547. At that date the siege was suspended under an agreement which stipulated that the Castle was still to remain in the hands of its defenders, on the conditions that they should hold it for the Regent and not deliver it to England; and that they should not be required to surrender it even to the Regent until he had obtained from Rome absolution for those who had been implicated in the murder of the cardinal. Upon his side the Regent agreed to withdraw his forces to the south of the Forth, and from the beginning of the year on till the following June the inmates of the Castle were permitted to go out and in at their pleasure, and to receive all that came to them.

Thus the Castle of St. Andrews became for the time a kind of sanctuary for all who were seeking relief or refuge from the oppression of the rulers in Church and State; and at the following Easter, which fell that year on the 10th of April, John Knox entered its gates under circ.u.mstances which he himself has thus described: "At the Pasch after, came to the Castle of St. Andrews John Knox, who, wearied of removing from place to place by reason of the persecution that came upon him by this Bishop of St. Andrews, was determined to have left Scotland and to have visited the schools of Germany {10} (of England then he had no pleasure by reason that the Pope's name being suppressed, his laws and corruptions remained in full vigour). But because he had the care of some gentlemen's children, whom certain years he had nourished in G.o.dliness, their fathers solicited him to go to St. Andrews, that himself might have the benefit of the castle, and their children the benefit of his doctrine, and so (we say) came he the time foresaid, to the said place, and having in his company Francis Douglas of Longniddry, George his brother, and Alexander c.o.c.kburn, eldest son to the laird of Ormiston, began to exercise them after his accustomed manner."[2]

Knox was at this time in the prime and vigour of his manhood, being forty-two years of age. He was born in 1505 at Gifford-gate, a suburb connected with Haddington by the old stone bridge across the Tyne. His parents were not distinguished either for rank or fortune, for one of his adversaries affirms that he was "obscuris natus parentibus" (born of obscure parents), and even one of his admirers says that "he descended but of lineage small." His father was William Knox, and his mother's name was Sinclair. Both of them apparently belonged to families that were in some way feudatories to the Earls of Bothwell, for at the Reformer's first interview with that earl, whose name is so tragically {11} coupled with Queen Mary's, he said, "Albeit that to this hour it hath not chanced me to speak to your lords.h.i.+p face to face, yet have I borne a good mind to your house; ... for, my lord, my grandfather, goodschir (_i.e._, according to Mr. Laing, maternal grandfather) and father have served your lords.h.i.+p's predecessors, and some of them have died under their standards." He received his earliest education at the Grammar School of Haddington, and pa.s.sed when he was about sixteen years of age to the University of Glasgow, in the register of which his name appears among those of the students who were incorporated on the 25th October, 1522.

At that time and for a year later John Major, or Mair, Doctor of the Sorbonne, was Princ.i.p.al of the Glasgow University and Professor of Divinity in the same. He had some opinions, both ecclesiastical and political, which were considerably in advance of his age, and it has been supposed that Knox may have received from him some of those principles which he afterwards so ably advocated. But perhaps too much has been made of this by the Reformer's biographers, for Major remained only one year in Glasgow after Knox had been registered as a student at the University; and though he held some liberal notions in politics, he was in theology to the last a rigid scholastic. Moreover, he was so far from being a zealous promoter of the cause of the Reformation that his name appears as a judge on several of the tribunals at which the early Scottish {12} confessors were condemned to banishment or death.

Taking these things into consideration along with the youth of Knox when he first entered college, it will appear hardly likely that he received from Major anything more than a general impulse in the direction of liberty and liberality, which prepared him to look with favour on the efforts of those who, though they might be called innovators, were in reality only seeking to get back to the original simplicity of the gospel, and the primitive purity of the Church.

Knox left Glasgow without taking the degree of Master of Arts, and there is no evidence whatever for the statement sometimes made that he was afterwards connected with the University of St. Andrews. In fact we lose sight of him entirely for a period of eighteen years from the time of his leaving Glasgow. During that interval he was ordained a priest, though by whom, or at what precise date, it is now impossible to determine; but his signature has been found,[3] as notary, to an instrument in the charter-room at Tyninghame, bearing date March 27, 1543, a fact which establishes that up till that time he retained his character as a priest and had the papal authority to act as a notary.

With these functions he seems to have combined that of a teacher of youth, for at the time we come upon him in connection with Wishart, he had under his charge some young men of good family in the land.

{13}

We have no details concerning his conversion from the Romish to the Protestant faith. According to one authority it was Thomas Guillaume who was "the first to give Mr. Knox a taste of the truth." That eloquent preacher,--a native of East Lothian, who had risen to a high place in the order of the Dominicans,--had through the influence of the party of progress been appointed chaplain to the Regent Arran at the time when that weak ruler was favouring the Reformers. Knox himself has described him as "a man of solid judgment, reasonable letters (as for that age), and of prompt and good utterance; his doctrine was wholesome without great vehemency against superst.i.tion." It does not appear, however, from anything he says that he ever came personally into contact with him, though it is possible that some of those clear expositions of Scripture for which Guillaume was so esteemed may have been heard by him, and may have produced a deep impression on his mind.

But beyond all question George Wishart was the true spiritual father of John Knox. The preaching and companions.h.i.+p of that earnest man during that journey through the Lothians, which ended in his apprehension at Ormiston, did more for Knox than any other human instrumentality whatever. They wrought conviction in him, and brought him out into decision, so that from the moment when these two men parted from each other for the last time at the church of Haddington, it was no longer possible for Knox to return into the position of comparative obscurity from which he had {14} emerged to become the body-guard of Wishart. He had come prominently out on the side of the Reformation, and the martyrdom of his teacher would only deepen his determination that he should not go back.

But there was no need for him to throw his life away as a gratuitous sacrifice, and therefore, when he was compelled to seek safety from his persecutors by removing from place to place, and out of weariness was minded to go to Germany, he consented, at the earnest solicitations of the parents of his pupils, to find protection in the Castle of St.

Andrews. Let it be noted, however, that he did not enter that stronghold until the 10th of April, 1547, that is, more than ten months after Beaton's murder, and therefore he is not to be reckoned among those who had concocted and carried out the a.s.sa.s.sination of that prelate. He was at that date in too obscure a station to be in any way, even the most remote, a.s.sociated with those who had committed that foul murder, and he went to St. Andrews simply that he might be able to carry on uninterruptedly the education of his pupils. Accordingly, so soon as he was fairly settled there, he resumed the regular routine of his work with them. What that was he has himself informed us in these words: "Besides their grammar and other humane authors" (that is, authors in what were then called the humanity cla.s.ses) "he read unto them a catechism, an account whereof he caused them to give publicly in the parish church of St. Andrews. He read moreover unto them the Gospel of John proceeding where he" (had) {15} "left" (off) "at his departing from Longniddry where before his residence was, and that lecture he read in the chapel within the castle at a certain hour."

These public exercises attracted to them a large number of those who were then sojourning in the castle, among whom were Henry Balnaves of Halhill, a distinguished jurist, who had been already, and was to be again, one of the judges of the court of session, and John Rough, who was the stated preacher to the congregation within the castle. These men were greatly impressed alike with the matter, the method, and the manner of delivery of the lectures, and seeing his fitness for the work, they earnestly entreated Knox to enter at once upon the office of the ministry. But he declared that "he would not run where G.o.d had not called him," and peremptorily refused to accede to their request. Upon this they took counsel with Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, and others, and ultimately agreed that Rough, without giving any formal warning that he was about to do anything of the kind, should address to Knox a special public call in the name and before the face of the congregation. Accordingly, in the presence of the people, and after having preached a sermon on the election of ministers, Rough turned to Knox and said, "Brother, ye shall not be offended, albeit that I speak unto you that which I have in charge even from all those that are here present, which is this: In the name of G.o.d and of His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of these that presently call you by my mouth, I charge you that ye refuse {16} not this holy vocation, but that, as ye tender the glory of G.o.d, the increase of Christ's kingdom, the edification of your brethren, and the comfort of me whom you understand well enough to be oppressed by the mult.i.tude of labours, that ye take upon you the public office and charge of preaching even as ye look to avoid G.o.d's heavy displeasure, and desire that He shall multiply His graces with you." Then turning to the congregation he said, "Was not this your charge to me?" They answered, "It was, and we approve it." The combined suddenness and solemnity of this appeal completely unmanned Knox. He burst into tears and hastened to his closet, where we may well believe that he sought light from G.o.d; and the result Was that he was led to take up that ministry which he laid down only with his life.

Not from the impulse of caprice, or because he desired the position of a preacher, but because he could not otherwise meet the responsibility which G.o.d had laid upon him, did he enter upon that high and honourable vocation. He was to do a work for his countrymen not unlike that which Moses did for his kinsmen, and so like Moses he was called to it in the full maturity of his powers, and entered upon it with the conviction that G.o.d had given him his commission, and he dared not disobey.

Nor did he tarry long before he began to preach, for the call of Providence came almost simultaneously with that of the church. It happened just then that Mr. Rough was engaged in a controversy with a popish {17} dean named Annand. For such a discussion Rough was but poorly furnished, since, as McCrie says, though he was sound in doctrine, his literary acquirements were only moderate. In his emergency he had been much a.s.sisted by Knox, who made such good use of the pen that he beat back his adversary from all his defences. As a last resort Annand took refuge in the authority of the Church, upon which Knox at once exclaimed, in the hearing of those who were present at the discussion, that a distinction must be drawn between the true spouse of Christ and the Church of Rome, and offered to prove by word or writing that the Papal Church had degenerated from that of primitive times more than the Jews who crucified the Saviour had fallen from the ordinances of Moses. On hearing this, the people alleged that they could not all read his writings, but could all listen to his preaching, and therefore insisted, in the name of G.o.d, that he would let them hear his proof of the a.s.sertion which he had made. Such an appeal was not to be resisted, and therefore on the very next Sunday Knox entered the pulpit, and preached (from the text Daniel vii. 24, 25) a sermon, in which, after having given the true marks of the Church, he went on to expose the corruptions of the Romish clergy in their lives, the erroneous doctrine taught by them, especially in the matter of justification, and the enslaving laws enjoined by them in regard to days, and meats, and marriage. In particular he inveighed against the blasphemies of popery. He identified the Papal {18} Church with the Babylonian harlot in the book of the Revelation, and concluded by demanding the most thorough investigation of all the statements which he had made, and the most minute examination of the authorities whom he had cited. This discourse was listened to by a large a.s.sembly, among whom was John Major, his old Glasgow princ.i.p.al, and it produced a great effect upon all. Some said, "Others lopped off the branches of the papistry, but he strikes at the root to destroy the whole." Others predicted that he would meet the fate of Wishart, who had never spoken quite so plainly as Knox had done that day. The new archbishop of St.

Andrews, not yet consecrated to his office, expostulated with the vicar-general of the diocese for allowing such heretical doctrines to be promulgated without opposition, and that led to the calling of a convention of the learned men of the abbey and the university, before which Rough and Knox were summoned to make answer to nine articles, involving heresies, which had been drawn from their sermons. But nothing more serious resulted from that meeting than a debate between Knox and a friar named Arbuckle, whose arguments Knox easily refuted, and that too with a considerable mixture of the grim humour which ever and anon laughs outright in the pages of his history. Clearly, therefore, it would be a perilous thing for the Church to let such a man do all the preaching to the people; and so orders were issued that each of the learned men in the abbey and university should preach {19} in his own turn on the Sundays in the parish church. This deprived Knox of the opportunity of addressing the congregation on those days when the greatest numbers were in attendance; but he continued his ministry on the other days of the week, and that with such success that although it lasted in all at this time not more than three months, many of the inhabitants of the town renounced popery, and made confession of the Protestant faith by partaking of the Lord's Supper in the reformed manner, the first occasion on which the ordinance was publicly administered in Scotland after that fas.h.i.+on.

Thus the beginning of Knox's work marks a distinct stage in the history of the Scottish Reformation. At first, and under what has been called by Lorimer the Hamilton period, peculiar emphasis was laid upon the truths which were revived in the teaching of Luther; under the Wishart period the doctrine of the sacraments came into prominence, and then first the influence of Switzerland began to be felt by Scotland; but under Knox attention was directed especially to the nature and const.i.tution of the church, and the first sermon which he preached, and of which we have given the barest outline, had already in it "the promise and the potency" of the great work which he was yet to accomplish for his native land.

[1] "The Scottish Reformation." A Historical Sketch by Peter Lorimer, D.D. London: R. Griffin & Co., 1860, p. 157.

[2] "The Works of John Knox," collected and edited by Dr. David Laing, vol. i. p. 185. Once for all let it be said that in making these quotations the spelling is modernized, but otherwise no alteration is made.

[3] By Dr. David Laing: see "Knox's Works," vol. vi. pp. xxii. xxiii.

{20}

CHAPTER II.

IN THE FRENCH GALLEYS, 1547-1549.

During the months which had elapsed since the time when the Castle of St. Andrews had become a refuge for those who had so summarily and unscrupulously murdered Beaton, changes had occurred both in England and in France which deeply affected their interests. Henry VIII. died on the 28th January, 1547, and for a short time during the minority of Edward the reins of government had been virtually given into the hands of the Duke of Somerset, under the name of Protector. This deprived the besieged of their most powerful friend, for although after Henry's decease the Privy Council fulfilled his directions and voted money to Leslie and others as individuals, together with a certain sum for the maintenance of a garrison in the castle, yet Somerset took little further care of those who remained within its shelter, and left them virtually to their own resources. The death of Francis I. of France, which took place on the 31st of March in the same year, added to their danger, for he was succeeded by Henry II., who as Dauphin had been the leader of the party {21} most opposed to England, and who was therefore by no means indisposed to do anything that would tend to widen the breach between that country and his own. When therefore Somerset, unwisely insisting on reviving the pretensions of feudal superiority over Scotland which had been put forth by Edward I., permitted the Borders to be wasted by fire and sword, and urged the French to abstain from interference, he was met with the reply that their king "might not suffer the old friends of France to be oppressed and alienated from him." In France, therefore, the Regent Arran and the queen-mother found a willing ally, and in the beginning of June Leo Strozzi, prior of Capua, appeared with a fleet of French galleys in sight of the Castle of St. Andrews, and demanded the surrender of its inmates.

According to agreement this was conditioned on the reception from Rome of absolution for the murderers of Beaton. But although Strozzi brought absolution with him, it was expressed in such an equivocal form,--"Remittimus irremissibile," we pardon that which is unpardonable,--that the persons interested refused to accept it, and the siege was renewed. Arran, hearing of the arrival of his allies, hastened from the west country to co-operate with them, and the result was such as might have been expected. For this time the defenders had to contend with skilled gunners, before whose batteries, as Knox had forewarned them would be the case, "their walls were no better than eggsh.e.l.ls." From the steeple of St. Salvador's College and the towers of the Abbey, as well as from the galleys in {22} the bay, the cannon of their a.s.sailants poured shot in upon them, while within the walls the plague broke out with virulence. So in the end of July Kirkcaldy of Grange went forth with a flag of truce to make the best possible terms with the victors. The conditions obtained were that the lives of all within the castle, whether English or Scotch, should be spared; that they should be safely transported to France; and that in case, upon conditions that by the king of France should be offered unto them, they could not be content to remain in service and freedom there, they should, at the expense of the king of France, be safely conveyed to what country they would require, other than Scotland. These promises, however, were shamefully broken, for the vanquished were taken on board the vessels which had been plentifully loaded with the spoils of the castle, and carried to France, where they were held in bondage for many months. One detachment of them was taken to Cherbourg, and another to Mount St. Michael. Knox himself was reduced to the condition of a galley-slave.

We have no connected account of his experiences in this time of trial, but here and there in his works he has dropped incidental hints which give us glimpses of his sufferings, and of the manner in which they were endured by him. In his history of the Reformation, in connection with the account of an effort made by some of his friends to dissuade him in the year 1559 from preaching in St. Andrews, we have a report of the answer which he gave to them, and in that occurs the following pa.s.sage: {23} "In this town and church began G.o.d first to call me to the dignity of a preacher, from, the which I was reft by the tyranny of France by procurement of the bishops as ye all well enough know. How long I continued prisoner, _what torment I sustained in the galleys, and what were the sobs of my heart_, is now no time to consider." An equally pathetic reference to his misery during this season of bondage, and to his solace under it, is to be found in his treatise on the true nature and object of prayer, in which after having referred to the words, (Ps. vii. 16, 17) "His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealings shall come down upon his own pate. I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the Lord most high," he goes on to say, "This is not written for David only, but for all such as shall suffer tribulation to the end of the world. For I, the writer hereof (let this be said to the laud and praise of G.o.d alone), in _anguish of mind and vehement tribulation and affliction_, called to the Lord, when not only the unG.o.dly, but even my faithful brethren, yea and mine own self, that is all natural understanding in me, judged my cause to be irremediable; and yet in my greatest calamity, and when my pains were most cruel, would His eternal wisdom that I should write far contrary to the judgment of carnal wisdom, which His mercy has proved true. Blessed be His holy name! And therefore I dare be bold, in the verity of G.o.d's word to promise that notwithstanding the vehemence of trouble, the long continuance thereof, the {24} dispersion of all men, the fearfulness, danger, dolor, and anguish of our hearts; yet if we call constantly to G.o.d, that beyond expectation of all men, He shall deliver." There can be little doubt, as Dr. Laing remarks in a foot-note to this pa.s.sage, that Knox here refers to his bodily and mental sufferings during his confinement on board the French galley, and so we see that his faith was not a mere sentimental thing, that, as he has himself elsewhere expressed it, he was no mere "speculative theologue," but indeed a steadfast believer, who had proved G.o.d's faithfulness to His promise even in the sorest tribulation.

Again in the epistle to the congregation of the Castle of St. Andrews prefixed by him to the tract on Justification by Faith, which his friend Henry Balnaves had written during his imprisonment at Rouen, we find among other allusions to his support under his sufferings the following words: "I exhort that ye read diligently this treatise, not only with earnest prayer that ye may understand the same aright, but also with humble and due thanksgiving unto our most merciful Father, who of His infinite power hath so strengthened the hearts of His prisoners, that in despite of Satan they desist not yet to work, but in the most vehemency of tribulation seek the utility and salvation of others."