John Knox

Reformer

• Born: c. 1514
• Birthplace: Giffordgate, near Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland
• Died: November 24, 1572
• Place of death: Edinburgh, Scotland

Scottish church reformer

The leading reformer and historian of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, Knox gave to Calvinism its Presbyterian expression in both England and Scotland and found in covenant theology the rationale for political militancy.

Area of Achievement Church reform, religion and theology

Early Life

Although the exact date of his birth is still in dispute, John Knox (noks) was born probably at Giffordgate, near Haddington, a small town located eighteen miles east of Edinburgh in the coastal district of East Lothian. His father, William Knox, was a modest tradesman, and his mother’s family name was Sinclair, but not much else is known about his family. He had a brother, William, who became a merchant at Prestonpans and traded goods between England and Scotland, but no other siblings are known.

Like most bright young men of humble birth, Knox was educated for the Catholic Church. He attended Latin school at Haddington, but his college training is far from certain. Historians once thought that he went to the University of Glasgow, but the judgment now is that he attended St. Andrews University in the late 1520’s and early 1530’s and studied under John Major, one of the leading Scholastic thinkers of the day. While his style of argumentation owed much to Scholasticism, Knox was not taken by the Aristotelian teachings of Major. Years later, he claimed to have been quite moved by church fathers such as Saint Augustine (354-430), Saint John Chrysostom (c. 354-407), and Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 293-373). He also studied law. Thanks to a special dispensation, he was ordained into the priesthood before the canonical age of twenty-four. There were, however, many more priests than decent livings in the parishes of early sixteenth century Scotland, and Knox found employment as an apostolic notary, working in effect as a small country lawyer.

Except for his signature on several legal papers, almost nothing is known about Knox during the 1530’s. Those documents, however, make clear that he dealt regularly not only with everyday people but also with the less-powerful lairds and nobility. He must have been aware of the inroads being made by Protestant ideas and the ridicule being heaped on the Church for its wealth and for its many ignorant, venal, and immoral clergymen. By 1544, Knox was working as a tutor, instructing the sons of several Lothian lairds friendly toward George Wishart, a Lutheran preacher fleeing from James Beaton, cardinal and archbishop of St. Andrews. Much influenced by the charismatic Wishart, Knox traveled with him as he preached throughout East Lothian, reportedly brandishing a sword to protect Wishart. In January, 1546, however, Wishart was captured; quickly tried and convicted of heresy, he was burned at the stake the following March. In retaliation, Wishart’s supporters murdered Cardinal Beaton in May, seized St. Andrews Castle, and sought the help of Scotland’s ancient enemy, England, then undergoing religious reformation under Henry VIII.

Other Scottish Protestants took refuge in the castle of St. Andrews, including Knox and his pupils. After hearing the fiery Knox preach, the people gathered at the castle called him to be their minister. For more than a year, he served the congregation at St. Andrews, vigorously attacking the Papacy, the doctrine of purgatory, and the Mass. On July 31, 1547, the St. Andrews Protestants capitulated to a combined force of Scottish troops loyal to the queen regent Mary, the future queen of Scotland, and a fleet of French galleys. According to the terms of surrender, the prisoners, including Knox, were to be taken to France and there freed or transported to a country of their choice. Instead, they were either imprisoned in France or forced to labor as galley slaves. Knox remained in the galleys, probably chained much of the time to his oar, with little likelihood of ever being freed. The hardships deepened his commitment to Protestantism. After serving as a galley slave for nineteen months, Knox, along with several other prisoners, was freed, apparently through the diplomatic efforts of young Edward VI.

Life’s Work

Making his way to England in early 1549, Knox was warmly received by the king’s Privy Council, awarded a modest gratuity, and commissioned to preach in Berwick-upon-Tweed, located near the Scottish border. In late 1550, he removed to Newcastle, where he preached in the Church of St. Nicholas. The next year, he was among the six chosen as royal chaplains, thanks no doubt to his chief patron, the duke of Northumberland, a leading Protestant nobleman. Always vehement in his denunciations of the Roman Catholic Church, Knox believed that the Church of England remained tainted by Catholic doctrine and ritual. He was among those who revised the Book of Common Prayer in 1552, contributing specifically the “black rubric,” which denied that kneeling before the table implied adoration of the bread and wine. His inflexibility probably cost Knox the bishopric of Rochester, and even Northumberland grew weary of the opinionated preacher, though he never doubted Knox’s utility and protected him from the mayor of Newcastle, who despised the irascible Scot. In June, 1553, Knox was sent to preach in Buckinghamshire. Mary Tudor (Mary I), a Roman Catholic, became queen in May, 1553, however, and English Protestants shortly found themselves facing persecution. Near the end of that year, Knox fled to France, joining a growing number of English Protestants known as the Marian exiles.

Accompanying him to France was his wife, Marjory, daughter of Elizabeth and Richard Bowes of Streatlam Castle, Durham. While preaching at Berwick, Knox had become good friends with Elizabeth Bowes. She encouraged Knox to marry her fifth daughter, though Knox was as old as Elizabeth Bowes herself. Her husband, Richard, did not approve of the match, and Elizabeth would later leave her husband and join Knox and her daughter in Geneva, where John Calvin provided refuge for the Marian exiles. At Calvin’s urging, the Scotsman became the preacher to the English congregation at Frankfurt am Main (now in Germany), but was forced to resign after a few months because the Anglican majority there objected to his strict Calvinism in church polity and liturgy. He was then called as pastor to the English congregation in Geneva. Thriving on controversy, he increasingly saw himself as a prophet of the Lord, calling both England and Scotland to repentance and right worship.

Knox returned to Scotland in late 1555. He felt secure enough to do so because Mary of Guise, the queen mother and regent for the young Mary, Queen of Scots, had found it expedient to tolerate Protestantism while she cultivated support for the marriage of her daughter to the dauphin of France. For almost nine months, Knox preached throughout the Lowlands, encouraging Protestant lords and the growing congregations of the faithful. He welcomed the support of John Erskine, Lord of Dun, and Lord Lorne, later the fifth earl of Argyll. He was also heartened that Protestantism could claim the prior of St. Andrews, Lord James Stewart, who later would become the regent, Lord Murray. Knox was well aware, however, that the nobility was largely self-serving and unreliable. His strongest support came from the lairds and the merchants and tradespeople of the towns and cities, where Protestantism was burgeoning. Around Easter, 1556, Knox and his followers, nobles and commoners alike, pledged themselves to advance “the true preaching” of the Gospel. This was the first of several “covenants” inspired by Knox, who was already looking to Calvin’s federal theology to justify political resistance.

Protected by armed noblemen, Knox preached freely and dared to debate Catholic bishops. He was even bold enough to call on the queen regent herself to reform the Scottish Kirk (the Church of Scotland). After he returned to his congregation in Geneva in the fall of 1556, however, the Scottish bishops condemned him in absentia and burned his effigy, and the queen regent ridiculed his plea that she embrace Protestantism. The Protestant party in Scotland needed time to grow stronger, and Knox needed to refine his own thinking. Over the next three years, Knox learned much from and became close friends with John Calvin. He found Geneva under Calvin’s rule “the greatest school of Christ” since the days of the Apostles. He longed for the triumph of Calvinism in both England and Scotland and prayed that both might be delivered from the Catholic women who ruled them. In fact, much to the chagrin of Calvin himself, Knox was hard at work developing a political theory justifying the revolution of godly subjects against ungodly rulers.

In a series of pamphlets published in 1558, Knox set forth his radical political ideas. He began by denouncing women rulers as monstrous and against the laws of God and nature. He then called on the Scottish nobility and the covenanted commoners to take up the sword and defend the faith against their Catholic rulers. Knox himself returned to Scotland in 1559 and became the central figure in its reformation. He wielded terrific political and religious influence, founding Presbyterianism and lecturing Mary, Queen of Scots, on the virtues of the good ruler. His first wife having died, Knox married for a second time in 1564. His bride was thirty-three years his junior and daughter to a laird of the powerful Stewart clan. Knox died in 1572, only two years before the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. His famous The History of the Reformation of Religion Within the Realm of Scotland was published posthumously in 1587.

Significance

Knox was a popular preacher who contributed significantly to the Protestant triumph in both England and Scotland. The Presbyterian church of Scotland did not completely triumph until a few years after his death. Nevertheless, its congregational Calvinism clearly reflected Knox’s views on church polity and would serve as a source of inspiration for the English Puritans, who grew increasingly restless with Anglicanism during the long reign of Elizabeth II.

Knox’s Calvinism made him an internationalist in the faith, but he was first and last a Scotsman and infused Calvinism into Scottish nationalism. His writings did much to popularize the Scottish language. The History of the Reformation of Religion Within the Realm of Scotland, though extremely biased, is the fullest contemporary account of that upheaval. Inspired by Calvin’s Geneva, Knox had plans for transforming his homeland into the City of God he detailed in The First Book of Discipline (1560), which the nobility refused to endorse. Those plans included a national system of poor relief and public education, both supervised by the Reformed Church of Scotland. The subsequent success of Scottish Calvinists in education owes no small debt to Knox’s nationalistic vision.

As a political thinker, Knox is acknowledged as the best-known sixteenth century misogynist. In fact, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558) was a thoroughly uncompromising “complaint” against female rulers generally, though it was specifically directed against “Bloody Mary” Tudor of England (Mary I). Knox also was thinking about Mary of Guise and her daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots. Ironically, shortly after the publication of his complaint, Mary I died, and Protestant Elizabeth I came to the throne. Elizabeth never forgave Knox for what he had written about the illegality of female rulers, and Knox, though he tried to flatter and encourage Elizabeth as the long-sought-after Protestant deliverer, never repudiated his views about women in politics. Knox’s primary concern, however, was justifying the taking of power from Catholic rulers and giving it to Protestant leaders. He thought he had found ample justification in Calvin’s covenant theology.

Not individuals, but the godly congregation covenanted together was the final authority for church polity. Should not the godly so covenanted resist an evil ruler? Passive resistance was as far as Calvin would ever go, fearing the political anarchy associated with Protestantism during the early years of the Reformation. By 1558, Knox was prepared to go much further. His attack on women rulers was less radical than what he had to say about the responsibility of godly nobility and even the commonalty to resist godless rulers. Shortly after The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, in 1558, Knox published The Appellation of John Knox . . . to the Nobility, Estates, and Commonalty (of Scotland), in which he renounced the doctrine of Christian obedience to civil authority if the people in authority were ungodly. He told the nobility that it was their Christian duty to resist the ungodly queen regent. That was bold enough, but Knox had little confidence in the nobility. His most reliable support came from the commonalty, those sturdy farmers, merchants, and tradespeople of the congregations.

Appended to Knox’s appeal was his Letter to the Commonalty of Scotland, in which Knox clearly stated that it was the duty of the common people to protect the true preaching of the Word. The congregations were to follow the nobility, if the lords would take the initiative and fight for reformation of church and state. If the nobility would not, the congregations must take matters into their own hands. It was their duty, as God’s people, and to do less was to risk God’s punishment on Earth and eternal damnation. It is important to note that, in speaking of the power of the people, Knox was referring to the people of God, under the discipline of the congregation, not to the people generally. Indeed, Knox believed that the godliness of the people justified their assumption of power, when all else failed.

Although surely no democrat in the modern sense of the word, Knox contributed mightily to the notion that the people who made the rules for the church could also rule the state. His thinking was widely endorsed by the English Puritans of the next century, who overthrew Charles I and who founded New England in North America. Indeed, Knox’s legacy to both religion and politics has been a lasting one.

Bibliography

Graham, Roderick. John Knox: Democrat. London: R. Hale, 2001. Comprehensive if laudatory biography that seeks to defend Knox from modern charges of misogyny. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Greaves, Richard. Theology and Revolution in the Scottish Reformation: Studies in the Thought of John Knox. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Christian University Press, 1980. This is a fine analysis of Knox’s theological and political thought by a leading scholar of the Reformation. It places Knox’s ideas in historical perspective.

MacGregor, Geddes. The Thundering Scot: A Portrait of John Knox. London: Macmillan, 1958. A sympathetic portrayal of Knox, this popular biography reads like a novel and captures the hardships and triumphs of the Scottish reformer. It embellishes the facts somewhat but remains close to the secondary sources.

Marshall, Rosalind K. John Knox. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2000. A portrait both of Knox and of the Scotland in which he lived, this study seeks to separate myth from reality to capture the complexities of Knox and his career. Includes illustrations, map, bibliographic references, and index.

Reid, W. Stanford. Trumpeter of God: A Biography of John Knox. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. A scholarly study, this work examines the historiography on Knox, carefully separates Knox the individual from Knox the stereotype, and goes into some detail about the political and religious forces and the personalities that shaped the Scottish Reformation and its leading preacher

Ridley, Jasper. John Knox. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. The most extensive biography of Knox to date, this study is drawn largely from the primary sources, especially Knox’s own writings. It is especially strong on politics and Knox’s political thought, but it does not neglect the theological or the personal faith of the reformer.

Walzer, Michael. The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965. This is a remarkable study that demonstrates how Calvinism provided the basis for a political ideology that sanctioned revolution as a positive duty. Walzer sees Knox as an early personification of that radical perspective that contributed much to the concept of popular sovereignty in the Western world.

Watt, Hugh. John Knox in Controversy. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1950. An early scholarly study that challenged the traditional view of Knox as simply an obnoxious bigot. Watt explains the provocation for Knox’s polemics and emphasizes his contribution to building the Scottish Kirk.

Wilkinson, John. The Medical History of the Reformers: Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox. Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 2001. Study of the privations and maladies Knox was inflicted with during his 19-month ordeal as a galley slave. Includes photographic plates, bibliographic references, and index.

Related article in Great Events from History: The Renaissance & Early Modern Era

August 22, 1513-July 6, 1560: Anglo-Scottish Wars; July, 1553: Coronation of Mary Tudor; May, 1559-August, 1561: Scottish Reformation.