In one of the suburbs of Haddington, near Edinburgh, called Gifford-gate, dwelt an honorable citizen, member of an ancient family of Renfrewshire, named Knox, who had borne arms, like his father and his grandfather, under the earl of Bothwell. Some members of this family had died under the colors.[16] In 1505 Knox had a son who was named John. The blood of warriors ran in the veins of the man who was to become one of the most intrepid champions of Christ’s army. John, after studying first at Haddington school, was sent at the age of sixteen to Glasgow University.[17] He was active, bold, thoroughly upright and perfectly honest, diligent in his duties, and full of heartiness for his comrades. But he had in him also a firmness which came near to obstinacy, an independence which was very much like pride, a melancholy which bordered on prostration, a sternness which some took for insensibility, and a passionate force sometimes mistakenly attributed to a vindictive temper. An important place was reserved for him in the history of his country and of Christendom. While God was thus preparing these young contemporaries, Alesius, Hamilton, and Knox, and others besides, to diffuse in Scotland the light of the Gospel, ambitious nobles were engaged in conflict around the throne of the king. The old earl of Angus, who had lost his two sons at the battle of Flodden, and had not long survived them, had left a grandson, a handsome young man, not very wise nor experienced, but with plenty of ambition, cleverness, liveliness, and courage. The widow of James IV., regent of the kingdom, married this youth, and by this rash step displeased the nobles. In the fierce encounters which took place between the Angus and Douglas parties on one side, and the Hamiltons on the other, pillage, murder, and arson were not seldom perpetrated. Another regency became necessary. John Stuart, duke of Albany, who was born in France of a French mother, and was residing at the court of Saint-Germain, but was the nearest relation of the King of Scotland, was summoned. He banished Angus, who withdrew with the queen to England. But Albany had soon to return to France, and Queen Margaret and her husband went back to Edinburgh.