John Knox prophesies of himself: his Confidence in God's Deliverance.
Master James Balfour being in the same galley as John Knox, and being wondrously familiar with him, would often ask his opinion whether he thought that they should ever be delivered. His answer ever was, from the day that they entered the galleys, that God, for His own glory, would deliver them from that bondage, even in this life. The second time that the galleys returned to Scotland, when they were lying betwixt Dundee and St. Andrews, and the said John was so extremely sick that few hoped his life, the said Master James willed him to look to the land, and asked if he knew it? He answered, "Yes, I know it well; for I see the steeple of the place in which God first in public opened my mouth to His glory. I am fully persuaded that, however weak I may now appear, I shall not depart this life until my tongue shall glorify His godly name in the same place." The said Master James reported this in presence of many famous witnesses, many years before the said John set his foot in Scotland this last time.
William Kirkaldy, then younger of Grange, Peter Carmichael, Robert and William Leslie, who were all together in Mount St. Michael, wrote to the said John, asking his counsel as to whether they might, with safe conscience, break their prison? His answer was that if, without the blood of any shed or spilt by them for their deliverance, they could set themselves at freedom, they might safely take it: but that he would never consent to their shedding any man's blood for their freedom. He added, further, that he was assured that God would deliver them and the rest of that company, even in the eyes of the world; but not by such means as we had looked for; that was, by the force of friends or by their other labours. He affirmed that they should not be delivered by such means, but that God would so work in the deliverance of them, that the praise thereof should redound to His glory only. He therefore urged every one to take any occasion for deliverance that God might offer, provided that nothing was done against God's express commandment.
John Knox was the more earnest in giving his counsel, because the old Laird of Grange, and others, were averse from their purpose, fearing lest the escaping of the others should be an occasion of their own worse treatment. Thereto the said John answered that such fear proceeded not from God's Spirit, but only from a blind love of self. No good purpose was to be stayed for things that were in the hands and power of God. In one instant, he added, God delivered all that company into the hands of unfaithful men, but so would He not relieve them. Some would He deliver by one means, and at one time, and others must, for a season, abide upon His good pleasure. In the end, they embraced this counsel. Upon the King's Even, when Frenchmen commonly drink liberally, the foresaid four persons, having the help and conduct of a boy of the house, bound all those that were in the Castle, put them in sundry houses, locked the doors upon them, took the keys from the captain, and departed without harm done to the person of any, or without touching anything that appertained to the King, the Captain, or the house.
Great search was made through the whole country for them. But it was God's good pleasure so to conduct them that they escaped the hands of the faithless, albeit it was with long travail, and endurance of great pain and poverty; for the French boy left them, and took with him the small poise that they had. Having neither money, nor knowledge of the country, and fearing that the boy should discover them, as in very deed he did, of purpose they divided themselves, changed their garments, and went in sundry parties. The two brethren, William and Robert Leslie (who now are become, the said Robert especially, enemies to Christ Jesus and to all virtue) came to Rouen. William Kirkaldy and Peter Carmichael, in beggars' garments, came to Le Conquet, and for the space of twelve or thirteen weeks they travelled as poor mariners, from port to port, till at length they got a French ship, and landed in the west. From thence they came to England, where they met with the said John Knox, he and Alexander Clark having been delivered that same winter.
John Knox in England and on the Continent.
The said John was first appointed preacher to Berwick, then to Newcastle; and lastly, he was called to London and the south parts of England, where he remained until the death of King Edward the Sixth. Then he left England, and went to Geneva, where he remained in his private study, until he was called to be preacher to the English congregation at Frankfort. This call he obeyed, albeit unwillingly, at the commandment of that notable servant of God, John Calvin. He remained at Frankfort until some of the learned, more given to unprofitable ceremonies than to sincerity of religion, began to quarrel with him. These men, because they despaired of prevailing before the magistrate there in the overt purpose of establishing their corruptions, accused him of treason committed against the Emperor, and against their sovereign Queen Mary, in that, in his Admonition to England, he called the one little inferior to Nero, and the other more cruel than Jezebel. The magistrate, perceiving their malice and fearing that the said John should fall into the hands of his accusers by one means or another, gave secret warning to him to depart from the city; for they could not save him if he were required by the Emperor, or by the Queen of England, in the Emperor's name. So the said John returned to Geneva, from thence to Dieppe, and thereafter to Scotland, as we shall hear.
In the winter that the galleys remained in Scotland, there were delivered Master James Balfour, his two brethren, David and Gilbert, John Auchinleck, John Sibbald, John Gray, William Guthrie, and Stephen Bell. The gentlemen that remained in prisons were, by the procurement of the Queen-Dowager, set at liberty in the month of July 1550. These were shortly thereafter recalled to Scotland, their peace was proclaimed, and they themselves were restored to their lands, in despite of their enemies. And that was done in hatred of the Duke, and because France began to thirst to have the regiment of Scotland in her own hands. Howsoever it was, God made their enemies set them at liberty and freedom. There still remained a number of common servants in the galleys, but these were all delivered when the contract of peace was made betwixt France and England, after the taking of Boulogne. So was the whole company set at liberty, none perishing except James Melvin, who departed from the miseries of this life in the Castle of Brest in Brittany.
This we write, that the posterity to come may understand how potently God wrought in preserving and delivering those that had but a small knowledge of His truth, and for the love of the same hazarded all. We or our posterity may see a fearful dispersion of such as oppose themselves to impiety, or take upon them to punish the same otherwise than laws of men will permit: we may see them forsaken by men, and, as it were, despised and punished by God. But, if we do, let us not damn the persons that punish vice for just causes, nor yet despair that the same God that casts down, for causes unknown to us, will again raise up the persons dejected, to His glory and their comfort....
Haddington proves the Truth of Master George Wishart's Foreboding.