OF
THE CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN KNOX.
1505.
Knox was born this year, at the village of Gifford, near the town of Haddington, in East-Lothian. His father is said to have been descended from the Knoxes of Ranferly, in the county of Renfrew; and the name of his mother was Sinclair. Knox himself, in describing an interview with the Earl of Bothwell, in 1562, mentions that his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, had all served his Lordship's predecessors, and that some of them had died under their standards; which implies that they must have been settled for a considerable period in East-Lothian, where the Hepburns, Earls of Bothwell, had their chief residence.
1522.
After being educated at Haddington, Knox was sent to the University of Glasgow; where John Major was Principal Regent or Professor of Philosophy and Divinity. The name "Johānes Knox," occurs in the Registers of the University, among those of the students who were incorporated in the year 1522. There is no evidence to shew that he afterwards proceeded to St. Andrews, as is usually stated, either to complete his academical education, or publicly to teach philosophy, for which he had not qualified himself by taking his degree of Master of Arts. If he ever taught philosophy, it must have been in the way of private tuition.
1530.
About this time Knox took priest's orders; and he was probably connected, for upwards of ten years, with one of the religious establishments in the neighbourhood of Haddington. It is generally supposed, that between the years 1535 and 1540, in the course of his private studies, the perusal of the writings of Augustine and other ancient Fathers, led him to renounce scholastic theology, and that he was thus prepared, at a mature period of life, to profess his adherence to the Protestant faith.
1541.
March 8. The name of "Schir John Knox" occurs among the witnesses to a deed concerning Rannelton Law, in a Protocol-book belonging to the borough of Haddington; and there is no reason to doubt that this was the Reformer.