John Knox

by William M. Taylor

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 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 eggshells." From the steeple of St. Salvador's College and the towers of the Abbey, as well as from the galleys in the bay, the cannon of their assailants 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 passage: "In this town and church began God 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 God alone), in anguish of mind and vehement tribulation and affliction, called to the Lord, when not only the ungodly, 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 God's word to promise that notwithstanding the vehemence of trouble, the long continuance thereof, the dispersion of all men, the fearfulness, danger, dolor, and anguish of our hearts; yet if we call constantly to God, that beyond expectation of all men, He shall deliver." There can be little doubt, as Dr. Laing remarks in a foot-note to this passage, 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 God'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."

And in a letter written in December, 1559, he speaks of "all the torments of the galleys" in such a way as to lead us to conclude that he was subjected to the greatest hardships. Once more, and perhaps most pathetically of all, in that letter to the congregation of Berwick which Dr. Lorimer first printed in his "John Knox and the Church of England," and to which we shall have to make fuller reference by-and-by, he thus writes: "This day I am more vile and of low reputation in my own eyes than I was either that day that my feet were chained in the prison of dolor (the galleys I mean), or yet that day that I was delivered by His only providence from the same."

It is clear, therefore, that his sufferings were severe, and while he endured them with a fortitude that was sustained by his faith in God, he was careful also to maintain always a conscience void of offence. He tells us that those who were in the galleys "were threatened with torments if they would not give reverence to the mass, but they could never make the poorest of that company to give reverence to that idol." He adds the following narrative, and from the ironic humour that plays about his style as he recites it, we cannot doubt that he was himself the hero of the story. "Soon after the arrival at Nantes, their great salve was sung, and a glorious (gaudy) painted board was brought in to be kissed, and amongst others was presented to one of the Scotchmen then chained. He gently said, 'Trouble me not; such an idol is accursed, and therefore I will not touch it.' The patron and the arguesyn (i.e. sergeant who commanded the forçats) with two officers, having the chief charge of all such matters, said, 'Thou shalt handle it,' and so they violently thrust it to his face, and put it betwixt his hands, who seeing the extremity, taking the idol, and advisedly looking about, he cast it into the river, and said, 'Let our lady now save herself; she is light enough; let her learn to swim.' After that was no Scotchman urged with that idolatry."

But sorely bestead as he was in his captivity, he would not sanction any attempt to escape which should savour of violence. Though himself innocent of all complicity in Beaton's murder, he had seen the cause which he had at heart so greatly hindered by the consequences of that evil deed, and he was withal so utterly opposed to everything which he believed that God had forbidden, that he would be no party to doing evil that good might come. Accordingly when Kirkcaldy and two other friends who were confined with him at Mount St. Michael wrote to him to inquire whether they might with safe conscience break their prison, he replied, that if without the shedding of any blood they could set themselves at liberty, they might do so without sin, but that he would never consent to their slaying of others in order to obtain deliverance. He added the expression of his own assurance that God Himself would work out their enlargement in such a way that "the praise thereof should redound to His glory alone." Nor was that with him a mere temporary or intermittent sentiment. It was the settled conviction of his soul; for from the very beginning of his captivity when one of his fellow-prisoners would often ask him if he thought that they should ever be delivered, his invariable answer was that "God would deliver them from that bondage to His glory, even in this life." Nor did he falter, even when his own strength seemed ebbing out, for when the galleys had returned to Scotland in the summer of 1548, and were lying between Dundee and St. Andrews, while he himself was so reduced by illness that his life was despaired of, the same companion bidding him look to the land, asked him if he knew it, whereupon he made reply, "Yes, I know it well, for I see the steeple of that place where God first opened my mouth to His glory, and I am fully persuaded, how weak soever I now appear, that I shall not depart this life till that my tongue shall glorify His holy name in the same place." He tells this almost as if he believed that the Spirit of prophecy spoke through him at the moment; but it is not necessary for us, while admitting the full truth of the narrative, to accept any such explanation. If his anticipation had not been verified, his words might have been entirely forgotten; and the probability is that his conviction rested rather upon his general apprehension of the principles of the Divine administration, than upon any supernatural communication of a special sort. The Psalmist writes that "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him;" and this gracious illumination, which is the heritage of all in the proportion in which they possess the character with which it is associated, is sufficient to account for the correctness of his impression, without having recourse to the theory of prophetic inspiration. That even Knox himself would have thus regarded this matter, seems clear from a passage in his "Faithful Admonition to the Professors of God's Truth in England," which Dr. Lorimer thinks is of standard authority as giving the principle of interpretation for all those places in which he speaks in what may be called a prophetic tone and manner; and in which it has sometimes been thought that he spoke not without some endowment of supernatural insight and foreknowledge. We quote the following sentences: "But ye would know the grounds of my certitude. God grant that hearing them, ye may understand and steadfastly believe the same. My assurances are not marvels of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophecies; but (1) the plain truth of God's word, (2) the invincible justice of the everlasting God, and (3) the ordinary course of His punishments and plagues from the beginning, are my assurances and grounds" (p. 85).

But however we may account for the assurance which he felt, his forecast of the future was certainly remarkably fulfilled; and there are few contrasts in history more striking and suggestive than that between the weak and apparently dying galley-slave looking longingly on the shores of his native land; and the energetic Reformer of a later date, of whom the English ambassador wrote to Cecil saying: "I assure you the voice of one man is able in an hour to put more life in us than six hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears."