In the consummation of the religious revolution during the next quarter of a century, one factor was the personality of John Knox. A born partisan, a man of one idea who could see no evil on his own side and no good on the other, as a good fighter and a good hater he has had few equals. His supreme devotion to the cause he embraced made him credulous of evil in his foes, and capable of using deceit and of applauding political murder. Of his first preaching against Romanism it was said, "Other have sned [snipped] the branches, but this man strikes at the root," and well nigh the latest judgment passed upon him, that of Lord Acton, is that he differed from all other Protestant founders in his desire that the Catholics should be exterminated, either by the state or by the self-help of all Christian men. His not to speak the words of love and mercy from the gospel, but to curse and {358} thunder against "those dumb dogs, the poisoned and pestilent papists" in the style of the Old Testament prophet or psalmist. But while the harshness of his character has repelled many, his fundamental consistency and his courage have won admiration. As a great preacher, "or he had done with his sermon he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding the pulpit in blads and fly out of it." His style was direct, vigorous, plain, full of pungent wit and biting sarcasm.
Even the year of his birth is in dispute. The traditional date is 1505; but it has been shown with much reason that the more likely date is 1513 or 1514. That he had a university education and that he was ordained priest is all that is known of him until about 1540. During the last months of Wishart's life Knox was his constant attendant. His own preaching continued the work of the martyr until June, 1547, when St. Andrews was captured by the French fleet and Knox was made a galley slave for nineteen months. Under the lash and, what grieved him even more, constantly plied with suggestions that he should "commit idolatry" in praying to the image of Mary, his heart grew bitter against the French and their religion.
Released, either through the influence of the English government, [Sidenote: January 1549] or by an exchange of prisoners, Knox spent the next five years in England. After filling positions as preacher at Berwick and Newcastle, [Sidenote: 1551] he was appointed royal chaplain and was offered the bishopric of Rochester, which he declined because he foresaw the troubles under Mary. As the pioneer of Puritanism in England he used his influence to make the Book of Common Prayer more Protestant. Not long after Mary's accession Knox fled to the Continent, spending a few years at Frankfort and Geneva. He was much impressed by "that notable servant of {359} God, John Calvin" whose system he adopted with political modifications of his own.
In the meantime things were not going well in Scotland. The country had suffered another severe defeat [Sidenote: September 10, 1547] at the hands of the English in the battle of Pinkie. The government was largely in the hands of the Queen Dowager, Mary of Lorraine, who naturally favored France, and who married her daughter, the Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin Francis, [Sidenote: April 24, 1558] both of them being fifteen years old. By treaty she conveyed Scotland to the king of France, acting on the good old theory that her people were a chattel. Though the pact, with its treason to the people, was secret, its purport was guessed by all. Whereas the accession of Francis II momentarily bound Scotland closer to France, his death in the following year again cut her loose, and allowed her to go her own way.
All the while the Reformed party had been slowly growing in strength. Somerset took care to send plenty of English Bibles across the Cheviot Hill, rightly seeing in them the best emissaries of the English interest. The Scotch were drawn towards England by the mildness of her government as much as they were alienated from France by the ferocity of hers. In Scotland the English party, when it had the chance, made no Catholic martyrs, but the French party continued to put heretics to death. The execution of the aged Walter Milne, [Sidenote: 1558] the last of the victims of the Catholic persecution, excited especial resentment.
Knox now returned to his own country for a short visit. [Sidenote: Knox, August, 1555] He there preached passionately against the mass and addressed a letter to the Regent Mary of Lorraine, begging her to favor the gospel. This she treated as a joke, and, after Knox had departed, she sentenced him to death and burnt him in effigy. From Geneva he continued to be the chief adviser of the {360} Protestant party whose leaders drew up a "Common Band," usually known as the First Scottish Covenant. [Sidenote: December 3, 1557] The signers, including a large number of nobles and gentlemen headed by the earls of Argyle, Glencairn and Morton, promised to apply their whole power, substance and lives to maintain, set forward and establish "the most blessed Word of God and his congregation." Under the protection of this bond, reformed churches were set up openly. The Lords of the Congregation, as they were called, demanded that penal statutes against heretics be abrogated and "that it be lawful to us to use ourselves in matters of religion and conscience as we must answer to God." This scheme of toleration was too advanced for the time.
[Sidenote: 1557]
As the assistance of Knox was felt to be desirable, the Lords of the Congregation urgently requested his return. [Sidenote: 1558] Before doing so he published his "Appellation" [Sidenote: May 2, 1559] to the nobles, estates and commonalty against the sentence of death recently passed on him. When he did arrive in Edinburgh, his preaching was like a match set to kindling wood. Wherever he went burst forth the flame of iconoclasm. Images were broken and monasteries stormed not, as he himself wrote, by gentlemen or by "earnest professors of Christ," but by "the rascal multitude." In reckoning the forces of revolution, the joy of the mob in looting must not be forgotten. [Sidenote: May 11] From Perth Knox wrote: "The places of idolatry were made equal with the ground; all monuments of idolatry that could be apprehended, consumed with fire; and priests commanded, under pain of death, to desist from their blasphemous mass." Similar outbursts occurred at St. Andrews, and when Knox returned to Edinburgh, civil war seemed imminent. Pamphlets of the time, like The Beggars' Warning, [Sidenote: 1559] distinctly made the threat of social revolution.
{361} But as a matter of fact the change came as the most bloodless in Europe. The Reformers, popular with the middle and with part of the upper classes, needed only to win English support to make themselves perfectly secure. The difficulty in this course lay in Queen Elizabeth's natural dislike of Knox on account of his First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. In this war-whoop, aimed against the Marys of England and Scotland, Knox had argued that "to promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire above any realm is repugnant to nature, contrary to God, and, finally, it is the subversion of good order and of all equity and justice." The author felt not a little embarrassment when a Protestant woman ascended the throne of England and he needed her help. But to save his soul he "that never feared nor flattered any flesh" could not admit that he was in the wrong, nor take back aught that he had said. He seems to have acted on Barry Lyndon's maxim that "a gentleman fights but never apologizes." When he wrote Elizabeth, [Sidenote: July 20, 1559] all he would say was that he was not her enemy and had never offended her or her realm maliciously or of purpose. He seasoned this attempt at reconciliation by adding a stinging rebuke to the proud young queen for having "declined from God and bowed to idolatry," during her sister's reign, for fear of her life.
But the advantages of union outweighed such minor considerations as bad manners, and early in 1560 a league was formed between England and the Lords of the Congregation. Shortly after the death of Mary of Lorraine [Sidenote: June 11, 1560] the Treaty of Edinburgh [Sidenote: Treaty of Edinburgh, July 6] was signed between the queen of England and the lords of Scotland. This provided: (1) that all English and French troops be sent out of Scotland except 120 French; (2) that all warlike preparations cease; (3) that the {362} Berwickshire citadel of the sea, Eyemouth, be dismantled; (4) that Mary and Francis should disuse the English title and arms; (5) that Philip of Spain should arbitrate certain points, if necessary; (6) that Elizabeth had not acted wrongfully in making a league with the Lords of the Congregation. Mary and Francis refused to ratify this treaty.