By what means Knox obtained his release from the galling servitude in which he had been held by the French, we have not been able to discover; but it is believed that he was indebted for it to the intercession of England, and it is certain that in the early part of the year 1549, he was employed by the Privy Council of that country as one of the ministers whom its members commissioned to preach the doctrines of the Reformation throughout the kingdom. The probability is that he arrived in London about the month of February, and it is conjectured that as Henry Balnaves was in that city as a commissioner from the besieged in St. Andrews, at the time of the death of Henry VIII., Knox, who had just then entered upon his ministry, may have been beholden to his friend for bringing his name to the favourable notice of the English Reformers. But however that may have been, we come upon authentic and reliable information, when we find in the register of the Privy Council, under date April 7th, 1549, an entry authorizing the payment of five pounds "to {30} John Knox, preacher, by way of reward." Besides this, his name occurs as the sixty-fourth in a list of eighty who obtained licence to preach in England during the reign of Edward the Sixth. He himself informs us in his History, that "he was first appointed preacher to Berwick, then to Newcastle; last he was called to London and to the southern parts of England, where he remained till the death of Edward the Sixth." This is all that he has said directly in that work concerning his residence in England; but so much new light has been shed on this part of the Reformer's career by the painstaking and elaborate monogram of Dr. Lorimer, that we are now able to follow his steps with something like minuteness.