John Knox
John Knox founded and fathered the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. He lived from 1505 to 1572, a contemporary of John Calvin. Like Calvin he was one of the great reformers.
John was born of well-to-do Catholic parents, who afforded him an excellent education. After receiving the Master of Arts from the University of Glasgow, he took a position on their faculty. In all his studies he followed a pragmatic course, choosing subjects which would prepare him for an academic future. Though he learned Latin, French, Greek and Hebrew, he also devoted close attention to his native English, hoping someday to perform a better translation of the Bible. At 25, before the prescribed age, the Catholic Church ordained John. He continued studying, especially the New Testament and early church fathers such as Jerome and Augustine.
Such studying convinced him, gradually, that the Roman church did not follow the New Testament pattern in either doctrine or government. He became a disciple and body guard of George Wishart, a man who was condemned, banished, and finally burned at the stake without trial for preaching the reformed doctrines. He desired to burn with Wishart, but Wishart urged John to stick with his pupils. Not long after Wishart’s execution, Cardinal Beaton, the cruel man behind much of the persecution, was himself murdered in his own room in St. Andrews castle. Rebels quickly captured the castle and transformed it into a haven for all those who dared oppose the pope. John Knox and his pupils sought safety behind the walls, but he declared, “You brag about the thickness of these walls. They are but egg shells...we shall be delivered into enemy hands and carried into a strange country.” A few days later, July 31, 1547, the French navy stormed St. Andrews, and took everyone captive to France.
Knox and others suffered the next nineteen months as galley slaves on the French warship, “Notre Dame”. Even though chained to a bench with low criminals, lashed daily with the whip, nearly starved, and constantly ridiculed by the other prisoners, Knox never lost hope. “God will yet deliver us, and I shall preach again at St. Andrews!” Somehow he managed to write many manuscripts during this horrible imprisonment, including his confession of faith. Through circumstances not entirely clear, all those captured at St. Andrews were set free early in 1549.
Knox accepted an invitation to preach in England, where Edward VI was now king. There followed five wonderful years of progress for the Gospel. Many were converted to Christ, and John’s fame as a preacher and prayer-warrior was firmly established. Edward ordered that a Bible be placed in every church, and all signs of popery be removed. Knox knew such good times could not last long, so he labored all the more. He engaged to marry Miss Marjorie Bowes, but not until 1553 were the vows repeated. July of that year the king died. Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant, took the throne, but “Bloody” Mary Tudor arrived and dispossessed her, threw Jane and her husband into prison, and had them executed after some priests were unable to effect their conversion. Life for all Protestants was threatened under Mary’s reign, and many fled to the continent for safety.
Knox left his wife in England and escaped to Switzerland. For a short time he pastored a flock of refugees in Frankfurt, Germany, but after a doctrinal dispute returned to Geneva, bringing half of the congregation with him. His wife and mother-in-law joined him there, and at last they were able to establish a home. Two fine sons were born, one of whom later became a clergyman. Knox drank in the wisdom of men such as John Calvin during these quiet years. But he was not idle—he also joined a team of learned men who had begun a new translation of the Bible into English. The fruit of their labor is known as the Geneva Bible; much of the King James Version is founded on this Bible.
The years of John Knox’s real power were still ahead. In 1559 he returned to Scotland, much to the horror of Mary of Guise, the Catholic queen mother. The reformers rallied around John’s preaching, and marched into Edinburgh six thousand strong. Mary deceitfully agreed to their demands or most of them; but as soon as the French arrived, she attacked them. Had she not died shortly after, a full scale revolution would have been on her hands. She was replaced by her daughter, who at 18 was already a widow, Mary Queen of Scots. But before she arrived, Parliament abolished the Pope’s authority and made celebration of the mass illegal. Mary, a devout Catholic, celebrated mass in her household anyway. The people objected, and Knox preached against her. This led to the first of five audiences, in which she with tears and every other female wile attempted to stop his work. Eventually she exiled him, but the tables quickly turned. The people, disgusted over her lawless attitude and deadly love affairs, seized her and put her into prison. Knox returned and preached the sermon at the coronation of her baby boy, James VI. Mary escaped to England, but in 1587 Elizabeth consented to her execution.
Knox died in 1572, shortly after the terrible St. Bartholomew’s massacre. He strongly denounced the bloodshed, and fought for the right of the Protestants in the new government. Scotland owes her freedom and Christian heritage to John Knox, more than to any other man.