[654] The Letter addressed by Knox to the Queen Dowager in 1556, (as above, [note [652],) was reprinted at Geneva, "nowe augmented and explained by the Author, in the yeare of our Lord 1558." It will be included in Volume Third.
[655] Elizabeth Bowes, mother-in-law of the Reformer, sent before him to Dieppe. She was the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Roger Aske of Aske in Yorkshire, and by her husband, Richard Bowes, youngest son of Sir Ralph Bowes of Streathan, had two sons and ten daughters. See Pedigree of the family, in MʻCrie's Life of Knox, vol. ii. p. 407. Knox's first letter addressed "to his mother in law, Mistres Bowis," is dated from London, 23d June 1553.
[656] This very zealous and disinterested friend of the Reformer, as stated in [note [345], was a cadet of the ancient family of Campbell of Loudon.
[657] Archibald Campbell, "the old" Earl of Argyle, was fourth Earl, and died in the year 1558.
[658] Castle Campbell, now in ruins, is situated in the Ochil hills, immediately above the village of Dollar. It was burned and destroyed by Montrose, during the Civil Wars, in 1645.
[659] Sir Colin Campbell of Glenurchy, the ancestor of the Breadalbane family. He was a younger son, but by the death of two elder brothers, he succeeded to the family estates in 1551. He became a stedfast friend to the Reformed religion; and survived till the year 1584.
[660] This date should evidently be 1556. Knox having remained in Scotland till after Spring, he arrived at Dieppe, in the month of July 1556.
[661] Knox's Appellation against the sentence of the Bishops, in 1556, was first printed in the year 1558.
[662] There seems to be a confusion in the dates of the events recorded in this paragraph. Knox, as stated above, had left Scotland in July 1556, and returned in May 1559; yet the Comet he mentions was evidently that which made its appearance in September 1558.—(Hevelii Cometographia, p. 853. See also next note.) Christian the Third, King of Denmark, died at the Castle of Coldinghuus, 1st January 1559, aged 56. The Commissioners for a treaty with England met at Dunse, in July 1556; and afterwards at Carlisle, for settling matters in the Borders. This treaty was concluded in July 1557. Yet the Queen Regent, before November 1557, at the instigation of France, was prevailed upon to declare war with England. But the Nobility and Barons would not consent to the proposed invasion.
[663] Bishop Lesley, at the close of 1558, among other "portenta," describes this "flammivomus et barbatus Cometa."—(De Rebus, &c. p. 540.) Sir James Balfour also says, "A fearfull Comett appeired this zeire [1558,] which not only, as the sequell proved, protendit change in Government, but in Religione lykwayes."—(Annals, vol. i. p. 312.) In those days Comets were regarded as the harbingers of disastrous events. Thus Shakespeare, in the First Part of his Henry VI.,—