The martyrdom of Wishart in 1546 was the turning point in the spiritual life of Knox, determining him to renounce scholastic theology and to profess his adherence to the Protestant faith. As this subjected him to suspicion and trouble, he resolved to leave Scotland and visit the schools of Germany; but Douglas of Longniddrie and Cockburn of Ormiston, to whose sons Knox had for some time been acting as private tutor, prevailed on him to relinquish his design, and, along with his pupils, to enter the castle of St Andrews as a place of safety from the Romish clergy. It was there that Knox received a public call to the ministry, “whairat,” to use his own graphic description of the scene in the great church, “the said Johnne abashed, byrst furth in moist abundand tearis, and withdrew him self to his chalmer.”

In June of the same year (1547) the Catholics of Scotland and France joined their forces to avenge the death of Cardinal Beaton by capturing the Protestant garrison of St Andrews, the French fleet appeared in the bay, and the castle surrendered. It was stipulated that the lives of the refugees should be spared, that they should be removed to France, and that such of them as declined entering into the French service should be conveyed to any other country except Scotland. Knox, sharing the fate of his companions, was conveyed on board one of the French ships to Rouen; but the terms of the capitulation were grossly violated, and the captives were treated as prisoners of war. Knox and some others were sent on board the galleys, and, after being loaded with chains, were compelled to labour at the oar. Here they were subjected to many indignities and much suffering; but, in spite of every hardship and every threat, not one of their number renounced his faith. During the ensuing winter the galley in which he was confined lay in the Loire; and in the summer of 1548 it sailed for Scotland, and cruised off the east coast. The hardships to which he was now subjected produced a very serious effect upon his health: he was seized with a violent fever, and no hope was entertained of his recovery. He, however, regained his strength, and during his captivity had sufficient energy of mind to engage in literary work. In the winter of 1548 Henry Balnaves of Halhill, who remained a prisoner in the old palace of Rouen, had sent to Knox a treatise on the doctrine of justification by faith. With this work Knox was so much pleased that, having revised it carefully, divided the contents into chapters, and added a brief summary of the book, he sent it to Scotland for publication with an epistle addressed by “the bound Servant of Jesus Christ unto his best beloved Brethren of the Congregation of the Castle of St Andrewes, and to all Professours of Christs true Evangell” (Wor⅛ of John Knox, vol. iii.). As the old copy of this epistle bears the title of “The Confession of Faith,” this work may have been the “confession of his faith, containing the substance of what he had taught at St Andrews,” which “he found means to convey to his religious acquaintances in Scotland,” and which, Dr M‘Crie thinks, “appears to have been lost” If so, leaving out of view the notices of his first sermon and of his disputation with Friar Arbuckle in St Leonard’s Yards, contained in his Historie, this epistle will rank as the earliest specimen of the Reformer’s composition that has been preserved.

After an imprisonment of eighteen or nineteen months Knox obtained his release from the French galleys in February or March 1549. As he probably owed his freedom to the intercession of Edward VI. or the English Government, he came to London on obtaining his liberty, and was favourably received by Archbishop Cranmer and the lords of council Of the English section of his life, extending over five years, Knox himself disposes in few words: “The said Johne was first appointed preachar to Berwik, then to Newcastell; last he was called to London, and to the sowth partes of England, whar he remaned to the death of King Edward the Sext” (Historie, book i.). At Berwick, where he laboured for two years, he preached with his characteristic fervour and zeal, exposing the errors of Romanism with unsparing severity. The tendency of his zeal was not, however, calculated to recommend him to the bishop of the diocese, Dr Cuthbert Tunstall or Tonstall, who was strongly attached to the old faith. Having been accused of asserting that the sacrifice of the mass is idolatrous, the preacher was cited to appear before the bishop, and to give an account of his preaching. Accordingly, on the 4th of April 1550, Knox entered into a full defence of his opinions, and with the utmost boldness proceeded to argue that the mass is a superstitious and idolatrous substitute for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The bishop did not venture to pronounce any ecclesiastical censure; and the fame of the obnoxious preacher was extended by this feeble attempt to restrain the boldness of his attacks on the doctrines of Rome. The confession or vindication of his doctrine made by Knox on this occasion will be found in vol. iii. of his collected Works— “A Vindication of the Doctrine that the Sacrifice of the Mass is Idolatry,” 1550.

Upon Knox’s reforming work while a preacher at Berwick some interesting light has recently been thrown by the late Dr Lorimer’s John Knox and the Church of England, 1875. When looking through the “Morrice” collection of manuscripts in Dr Williams’s library, London, Dr Lorimer came upon four papers never before published. One of these is a letter from “Johne Knokks to the Congregatioun of Bervik,” and another is “The practice of the Lord’s Supper used in Berwick by John Knox, 1550.” With this “practice,” which is nothing more than a fragment, Dr Lorimer associates “A Summary, according to the Holy Scriptures, of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper” to be found in the third volume of the Works, and to which Dr Laing has assigned the date 1550. Founding upon these documents, Dr Lorimer maintains that the very beginning of Puritan practice in the Church of England in the administration of the Lord’s Supper is to be found in the order followed by Knox at Berwick, inasmuch as he not only substituted common bread for “wafer-breads,” thus anticipating by several years the substitution as authorized by Edward’s second PrayerBook, published in 1552, but gave the first example of the substitution of sitting instead of kneeling in the act of communion, which has ever since continued to be a characteristic Puritan practice. At the close of 1550, or early in 1551, Knox was transferred to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he remained, with occasional absences in London, till the spring of 1553. In the closing month of 1551 he was appointed one of six chaplains to Edward VI., and in virtue of this appointment he was consulted in the preparation of the formularies of the Church of England. A book of forty-five articles of religion, forming the basis of the thirty-nine articles of the Anglican Church, drawn up by Cranmer, was submitted to the royal chaplains for their opinion. An original copy of these articles is preserved in H.M. State Paper Office with the autographs of the chaplains, the sixth being “Jo. Knox.” Shortly after this the duke of Northumberland originated a proposal to make Knox a bishop. The letters bearing upon the proposal, not known to Dr M i Crie, were discovered by the late Mr Tytler, and published by him in his England under the Reigns of Edward and Mary, vol. ii. The duke’s wish was that the king would “appoint Mr Knocks to the office of Rochester Bishoprick.” When, however, the Scotch chaplain was informed of what was in contemplation, and was instructed to wait upon Northumberland, the latter did not find the man he thought to benefit eager to grasp at promotion, and the matter ultimately came to nothing by default of Knox himself. The last year of work in England was spent mainly in London and the southern counties. As royal chaplain Knox preached in turn before the court, and found favour with his royal hearer; but he was twice summoned before the privy council, first to answer complaints made by his would-be ducal patron, and then to vindicate his declinature of the vacant living of All Hallows in London.

Edward VI. having died in July 1553, and, the Marian persecutions having shortly afterwards broken out, Knox was persuaded to withdraw from England, and sailed for Dieppe, landing at that town in January 1554. The enforced leisure of exile gave the refugee an opportunity of completing and publishing several treatises during two sojourns in the same year at Dieppe. “An Exposition upon the Sixth Psalm of David,” addressed to Mrs Bowes, “A Godly Letter of Warning or Admonition to the Faithful in London, Newcastle, and Berwick,” “Two Comfortable Epistles to his afflicted Brethren in England,” and “A Faithful Admonition to the Professors of God’s Truth in England,” all belong to the year 1554. After visiting the churches of France and Switzerland, Knox accepted an invitation to become one of the pastors of the English congregation at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and repaired thither in November of the same year. Soon after his settlement dissensions arose in the congregation in regard to the use of the surplice, the omission of the litany, the audible responses, and kneeling at the communion (see the letters and extracts from the “Brief Discourse of the Troubles at Frankfort” given by Dr Laing in vol. iv. of Knox’s Works). A party in the congregation, clamorous for a strict adherence to the English Book of Prayer, lodged information with the magistrates that Knox, in his “Faithful Admonition,” had used treasonable language in speaking of the emperor, the queen of England, and her husband Philip II. Not wishing to increase the troubles, the maligned preacher relinquished his charge on the 26th March 1555, and retired to Geneva. The closing months of that year and the opening ones of the year following form an important period in the public labours and the private life of the Reformer; for he then visited his native country, preached in Edinburgh, in West Lothian, and in Ayrshire, and dispensed the communion privately in several places. Before his visit came to a close he addressed a letter to the queen regent, in the hope that she might be persuaded to extend her protection to the Reformed preachers, or at least listen favourably to their doctrine. This letter, “augmented and explained by the author,” and reprinted in 1558, “An Exposition upon Matthew iv., concerning the temptation of Christ in the wilderness,” and “A letter of wholesome counsel, addressed to his Brethren in Scotland,” belong to the year 1556. In visiting Scotland at that time, however, Knox was influenced by other considerations than those bearing simply on the public weal. For as far back as his Berwick ministry he had become acquainted with the family of Richard Bowes, and formed an attachment for the fifth daughter, Marjory. Dr M i Crie represents the marriage as having taken place in 1553 before Knox left England; and in support of his view it falls to be said that after that date Knox addresses Mrs Bowes as “Dearly Beloved Mother,” and that he speaks of Marjory as his “wife,” his “dearest spouse.” But, considering the strong opposition to the union on the part of Richard Bowes and other relatives, as also the very uncertain and precarious position of the reformer at the time, there is good reason to think, with Dr Laing, that then the parties had only formally pledged themselves to one another “before witnesses,” and that the actual marriage took place when Knox visited Scotland in 1555.

At the urgent solicitation of the English congregation at Geneva, consisting largely of those who had withdrawn from Frankfort, Knox left Scotland in the summer of 1556; and in the “Livre des Anglois à Geneve,” on the 13th September of that year, the names of “John Knox, Marjory, his wife, Elizabeth, her mother, James (blank), his servant, and Patrick, his puple,” are entered as members of the English congregation. In Geneva the Scotch Reformer laboured with voice and pen till 1559. The literary works of that period, in addition to ten Familiar Epistles, include Letters to his Brethren and the Lords professing the truth in Scotland, three in number, 1557; An Apology for the Protestants who are holden in prison at Paris, 1557; The Appellation from the Sentence pronounced by the bishops and clergy, 1558; A letter addressed to the Commonality of Scotland, 1558; An Epistle to the inhabitants in Newcastle and Berwick, 1558; and A brief exhortation to England for the speedy embracing of the Gospel, 1559. Judged by the excitement it created, the most outstanding writing of this period is The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women; and it cannot be denied that this publication was unseasonable, and might be expected to expose the author to the resentment of two queens during whose reign it was his lot to live. Indeed the sounder of the First Blast would seem to have realized that it was “blown out of season,” for, whereas his purpose was “thrice to blow the trumpet in the same matter, if God so permit,” and on the last occasion to reveal his name, the intention was never carried into effect. The resentment to which his blast against feminine government gave rise in queenly breasts did not soon subside; one immediate effect was that, when Knox resolved to return to Scotland, and applied to the English Government for permission to pass through the sister kingdom, the application was refused. Impatient of delay he sailed from Dieppe direct for Leith, and, landing at that port in safety, reached Edinburgh on 2d May 1559.

From this time to the close of his life the biography of the Reformer becomes inseparably connected with the history of Scotland. Within a few days of his arrival in Scotland, through the representations of the Romanist clergy to the queen-regent, Knox was proclaimed an outlaw and a rebel; but, undeterred by considerations of personal danger, he lost no time in joining the leaders of the Protestant party then assembled in Dundee. From Dundee he went with them to Perth, where his preaching was the antecedent though not the cause of a tumult which resulted in the altar, images, and other ornaments of the church being torn down, and the houses of the grey and black friars being laid in ruins. St Andrews is the next place of importance at which Knox joined the Protestants, at this time called the congregation, the lay leaders of the party, mostly noblemen, being known as the lords of the congregation. Here Knox announced his intention to preach in the cathedral church; and, undismayed by the threats of the archbishop, unmoved by the remonstrances of his friends, he carried his purpose into effect, preaching on four successive days, and with such signal effect that the provost, bailies, and inhabitants agreed to set up the Reformed worship in the town, stripped the church of images and pictures, and pulled down the monasteries. By the end of June Knox was again in Edinburgh, preaching in St Giles’s and the abbey church; and on the 7th July he was elected minister of Edinburgh.

When the army of the queen-regent took possession of the capital, and the lords of the congregation agreed to leave it, they took their minister with them from a regard alike to the danger to which he would be exposed if left behind and the service it was in his power to render the Protestant cause. The result abundantly verified the wisdom of the step, for, set free from city labours, Knox travelled over a great part of Scotland, and visited the towns of Kelso, Jedburgh, Dumfries, Ayr, Stirling, Perth, Brechin, Montrose, Dundee, and St Andrews, with marked results in the diffusing of knowledge and the strengthening of the hands of fellow Protestants. By the end of April 1560 we find him once more in Edinburgh, having rendered important service to the Protestant leaders in their negotiations to procure aid from England, and, of necessity rather than from choice, acting the part of a politico-ecclesiastic. The most elaborate theological writing of the Scottish Reformer, although written before his final return to Scotland, was published in this year, 1560, at Geneva. It is An Answer to the Cavillations of an Adversary respecting the doctrine of Predestination.

The event of greatest political importance in this same year 1560 was the assembling of the Scottish parliament at Edinburgh, on 1st August. A petition having been presented by the Protestants of the country, craving the abolition of Popish doctrine, the restoration of purity of worship and discipline, and the appropriating of ecclesiastical revenues to the support of the ministry, the promotion of education, and the relief of the poor, the ministers and barons were required to lay before parliament a summary of Reformed doctrines. “Within foure dayis” this was done. The confession was read before the whole parliament, and after reasoning and voting was ratified by Act of Parliament, and the Protestant religion formally established. The Confessioun of faith professit and belevit be the Protestants iνithin the Realme of Scotland, &c., in the composing of which no small share must have fallen to the minister of Edinburgh, is inserted by him at length in book iii. of his Historie. Between the dissolution of parliament and the first meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on the 20th December, Knox and three other ministers were engaged in drawing up the plan of ecclesiastical government known as the Book of Policy, or First Book of Discipline. This standard document, approved by the General Assembly and subscribed by a majority of the members of privy council, is also incorporated in Kuox’s Historie.

The youthful, widowed, and fair Queen Mary, having arrived in Scotland in August 1561, lost no time in sending for Knox to the palace of Holyrood, in order that she might hold with him the first of those four or five dialogues which historians have rendered with dramatic effect not always consistent with historical accuracy. The charge brought against the Reformer of treating his sovereign with rudeness and disrespect in the course of those interviews has been thoroughly disproved by his biographer giving the details of what passed as furnished by one of the parties in his Historie, and is quite discredited...