KNOX
683
KNOX
and university. This plan, for which it has been
customary to give all the credit to Protestantism, was
devised on lines already laid down by the ancient
Church; but as a matter of fact it was never carrie<l
into effect. Nor were the provisions for the diversion
of the wealth of the old Church to national purposes
any more effectual. Many of the Protestant nobles
signed the book, but they had no idea of giving up
their own share of the ecclesiastical plunder. "Con-
verted in matter of doctrine", says Lang, "in conduct
they were the most avaricious, bloody, and treacher-
ous of men." Such as they were, they were the pillars
of the new Church and the new religion.
In December, 1.5t)(J,died the young King Francis II of France, " husliand to our Jezebel", as he is styled by Knox, who lost his own wife, Marjorie Bowes, about the same time. The whole situation in Scotland was now changed. The Catholic earls sent Bishop John Lesley to invite the widowed queen to land in the Catholic north; but she distrustetl them, not without reason, and confidetl rather in her Protestant half- brother. Lord James Stewart, who promised that she should be allowed the private celebration of Mass in Scotland. Mary landed at Leith on 19 August, 1561, and on the following Sunday Mass was said in her chapel at Holyrood. This was followed by protests and riots; Knox publicly declared that "one mass was more fearful to him than 10,000 armed men", and in an interview with the queen inveighed aKuinst " that Roman antichrist", denounced the Catliolic Clua-ch as a harlot, conijiared himself to Paul and C^ueen Mary to Nero, and indulf;rd in much other abuse which he reports copiously in his " History" (suppressing most of Mary's replies) and calls "reasoning". The ques- tion of the queen's privilege to have her own Catholic services became a burning one: Lord James (now created Earl of Moray), Morton, Marischal, and other leading Protestants were on her side, Knox and most of the preachers on the other. It was suggested to refer the question to Calvin; but the lords' view was meanwhile accepted, and Mary kept the Feast of All Saints with what Knox calls " mischievous solem- nity". He continued his tirades against the queen both privately and from the pulpit, sometimes re- ducing her to tears by his violence. In the spring of 1562 he held a public controversy on the doctrine of the Mass with Abbot Quintin Kennedy, a Benedictine of Crossraguel ; and he also had a controversial corre- spondence with an able Catholic apologist, Ninian Winzet of Linlithgow.
Some months later Knox found himself in trouble for having summoned the "brethren" from all parts of Scotland to Edinburgh to defend — apparently by violence, if necessary — one Cranstoun, who was to be tried for brawling in the chapel-royal. Knox's letter was interpreted by the council as treasonable, but when brought to trial he was judged to have done nothing more than his duty in summoning the breth- ren in time of danger. Soon after this — in March, 1564 — general surprise seems to have been caused by the second marriage of Knox, his bride being a girl of sixteen, Margaret Stewart, daughter of Lord Ochil- tree. He makes no mention of the fact himself in his "History". The Lords of the Congregation, in the summer of this year, publicly censured Knox for his violence in speech and demeanour against the queen, but Knox retorted with his usual references to Ahab and Jezebel, and maintained that idolaters must "die the death", and that the executioners must be the "people of Cod". The Lords in vain cited the opinions of Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, and other Continental Protestants as entirely opposed to Knox's views, and requested him to write and ascertain their judgment on the questions at issue. Knox flatly refused to write to "Mr. Calvin and the learned of other Kirks", and, as he always produced Scriptural texts to back up his opinions, the Lords were silenced
if not convinced. A year later he was again in con-
flict with the council in consequence of a vehement
attack he had made from the pulpit on Mary and the
young king-eonsort , Dandey, in their presence, about a
month after their marriage. He was formally sus-
pended for a time from preaching, Init he seems to have
disregarded the prohibition, remarking that if the
Church (not the council) commanded him to abstain
he would obey "so far as the Word of God would
permit": in other words, he would obey even the
Church only so far as he himself thought fit. This
particular sermon, which he printed with a preface,
is the only extant specimen of his pulpit eloquence;
it is extremel}' long, and dull to read, whatever may
have been its effect when delivered.
The situation in Scotland was now, from the point of view of Knox and his friends, a gloomy one. Moray and the other lords who had protested against Mary's marriage to Darnley were now in exile; all hope of the queen's conversion to Protestantism was at an end; and her Catholic secretary Rizzio was high in her confidence, indeed her chief adviser. Whether Knox was actually privy to the foul murder of Rizzio before the queen's eyes on 9 March, 1566, is a matter of doubt; but his own statement that " the act was most just and worthy of all praise" shows that his subse- quent approval was beyond any doubt whatever. lie thought it well at this juncture to leave Edin- burgh for a time, and retired to his friends in Ayrshire, where he busied himself with the writing of his " His- tory". In December he received from the General Assembly leave of absence from Scotland for six months, so that he was not a witness of the events of the first half of 1567, which includetl the murder of Darnley, the abduction of Mary by Bothwell, and her marriage to him on 15 May, 1567. The queen was already, after the disaster of Carberry Hill, a prisoner at Lochleven, when Knox re-appeared in Edinburgh and at once resumed, in spite of the dissuasion of Throgmorton, the English Ambassador, his pulpit invectives against the sovereign and his denuncia- tions of the national alliance with France. On 29 July, Knox went to Stirling to preach at the coronation of the young king, James VI, when he protested against the rite of unction as a relic of popery. The appointment of Moray to the regency brought him again into close association with Knox, who, however, after the fall of the queen, his great antagonist, never seems to have regained his former prominence in the country. " I live as a man already dead from all civil affairs", he wrote a little later to Moray's agent in England. "Foolish Scotland", he said on another occasion, "hath disobeyed God by sparing the queen", and he seemed constantly harassed and haunted by a dread of her restoration. Her escape from Lochleven appeared to justify his worst fears, but a fortnight later she was hopelessly defeated at Langside, and was a fugitive to England. Henceforth Knox's declining forces were devoted to his ministerial work, which he seems to have carried on with many intervals of weariness and depression. " With his one foot in the grave", as he describes himself, the assassination of Moray in January, 1569, was a great blow to him. He preached the Regent's funeral sermon in St. Giles's Church and, according to one of his admirers, " moved three thousand persons to shed tears for the loss of such a good and godlie governor". The shock of this event doubtless affected his health, and he was struck by apoplexy in the autumn, and never entirely recovered.
Knox continued to preach in his church in Edin- burgh, but with the nobles, Protestant as well as Catholic, many of them his own former friends, in league for the queen's restoration, he was no longer at home or at ease in the capital; and in the spring of 1571 he retired to St. .Andrews, where he remained for fifteen months, continuing to write, and preaching
