No change of circumstances could be much more bitter than that which exile brought to Knox. He had been a decently endowed official of State, engaged in bringing a reluctant country into the ecclesiastical fold which the State, for the hour, happened to prefer. His task had been grateful, and his congregations, at least at Berwick and Newcastle, had, as a rule, been heartily with him. Wherever he preached, affectionate women had welcomed him and hung upon his words. The King and his ministers had hearkened unto him--young Edward with approval, Northumberland with such emotions as we may imagine--while the Primate of England had challenged him to a competitive ordeal by fire, and had been defeated, apparently without recourse to the fire-test. But now all was changed; Knox was a lonely rover in a strange land, supported probably by collections made among his English friends, and by the hospitality of the learned. In his wanderings his heart burned within him many a time, and he abruptly departed from his theory of passive resistance. Now he eagerly desired to obtain, from Protestant doctors and pontiffs, support for the utterly opposite doctrine of armed resistance. Such support he did not get, or not in a satisfactory measure, so he commenced prophet on his own lines, and on his own responsibility. When Knox's heart burned within him, he sometimes seized the pen and dashed off fiery tracts which occasionally caused inconvenience to the brethren, and trouble to himself in later years. In cooler moments, and when dubious or prosperous, he now and again displayed a calm opportunism much at odds with the inspirations of his grief and anger.