Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
The return of the young queen to Scotland (August, 1561) revived all the
old dissensions, and introduced new elements into the strife of parties.
By every opinion she held on religion, on the relations of prince and
subject, on the fundamental principles of life, Mary was separated as by
an abyss from the party represented by Knox. If we may judge from the
language which each used of the other, Knox and she failed to find one
point on which genial intercourse was possible. As the minister of St.
Giles (then the only Reformed church in Edinburgh), Knox believed that
Mary was his special charge. Her personal conduct, therefore, no less
than her public policy, were made the subject of his most stringent
criticism; and during the six years of her reign his attitude toward her
was that of uncompromising insistence. The celebration of mass in
Holyrood Chapel, in defiance of the late religious settlement, first
roused his wrath; and a sermon delivered by him in St. Giles led to the
first of those famous interviews with Mary, the record of which makes
such a remarkable portion of his "History of the Reformation." The
division of ecclesiastical property, by which those in actual possession
received two-thirds, the reformed ministers one-third, was a further
ground of quarrel with the new government. The delay of Mary to confirm
the late religious settlement also gave rise to the greatest anxiety on
the part of Knox and his brother ministers. In view of the precarious
interests of the great cause, Knox spoke out with such frankness as to
alienate the most powerful noble in the country, and the one whom he
respected most--Lord James Stuart, afterward the Regent Moray. The
marriage of Mary with Darnley (1565), again, however, led them to common
counsels, as both saw in this marriage the most serious menace against
the new religion. In the subsequent revolt, headed by Moray and the
other Protestant nobles, Knox nevertheless took no part, and remained at
his charge in Edinburgh. But after the murder of Rizzio, he deemed it
wise, considering Mary's disposition toward him, to withdraw to Kyle, in
Ayrshire, where he appears to have written the greater part of his
history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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