E-text prepared by Jordan, Thomas Strong, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) JOHN: KNOX by A: TAYLOR INNES Famous Scots: Series Published by Oliphant Anderson Ferrier Edinbvrgh and London The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the printing from the press of Messrs Turabull & Spears, Edinburgh. _May_ 1896. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I THE SCHOLAR AND PRIEST: HIS ENVIRONMENT 9 CHAPTER II THE CRISIS: SINGLE OR TWO-FOLD? 25 CHAPTER III THE INNER LIFE: HIS WOMEN FRIENDS 48 CHAPTER IV THE PUBLIC LIFE: TO THE PARLIAMENT OF 1560 65 CHAPTER V THE PUBLIC LIFE: LEGISLATION AND CHURCH PLANS 95 CHAPTER VI THE PUBLIC LIFE: THE CONFLICT WITH QUEEN MARY 117 CHAPTER VII CLOSING YEARS AND DEATH 144 CHAPTER I THE SCHOLAR AND PRIEST: HIS ENVIRONMENT The century now closing has redeemed Knox from neglect, and has gathered around his name a mass of biographical material. That material, too, includes much that is of the nature of self-revelation, to be gleaned from familiar letters, as well as from his own history of his time. Yet, after all that has been brought together, Knox remains to many observers a mere hard outline, while to others he is almost an enigma--a blur, bright or black, upon the historic page. There is one real and great difficulty. For the first forty years of his life we know absolutely nothing of the inner man. Yet at forty most men are already made. And in the case of this man, from about that date onwards we find the character settled and fixed. Henceforward, during the whole later life with its continually changing drama, Knox remains intensely and unchangeably the same. It is the contrast, perhaps the crisis, which is worth studying. The contrast, indeed, is not unprecedented. More than one Knox-like prophet, in the solemn days of early faith, 'was in the desert until the time of his shewing unto Israel'; and not the polished shaft only, but the rough spear-head too, has remained hid in the shadow of a mighty hand until the very day when it was launched. But each such case impels us the more to inquire, What was it after all which really made the man who in his turn made the age? * * * * *