CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES.

xii

xiii

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES

OF

THE CHIEF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN KNOX.

Knox was born this year, at the village of Gifford, near the town of Haddington, in East-Lothian. His father is said to have been descended from the Knoxes of Ranferly, in the county of Renfrew; and the name of his mother was Sinclair. Knox himself, in describing an interview with the Earl of Bothwell, in 1562, mentions that his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, had all served his Lordship's predecessors, and that some of them had died under their standards; which implies that they must have been settled for a considerable period in East-Lothian, where the Hepburns, Earls of Bothwell, had their chief residence.

After being educated at Haddington, Knox was sent to the University of Glasgow; where John Major was Principal Regent or Professor of Philosophy and Divinity. The name "Johānes Knox," occurs in the Registers of the University, among those of the students who were incorporated in the year 1522. There is no evidence to shew that he afterwards proceeded to St. Andrews, as is usually stated, either to complete his academical education, or publicly to teach philosophy, for which he had not qualified himself by taking his degree of Master of Arts. If he ever taught philosophy, it must have been in the way of private tuition.xiv

About this time Knox took priest's orders; and he was probably connected, for upwards of ten years, with one of the religious establishments in the neighbourhood of Haddington. It is generally supposed, that between the years 1535 and 1540, in the course of his private studies, the perusal of the writings of Augustine and other ancient Fathers, led him to renounce scholastic theology, and that he was thus prepared, at a mature period of life, to profess his adherence to the Protestant faith.

March 8. The name of "Schir John Knox" occurs among the witnesses to a deed concerning Rannelton Law, in a Protocol-book belonging to the borough of Haddington; and there is no reason to doubt that this was the Reformer.

Knox entered the family of Hugh Douglas of Longniddry, as tutor of his sons Francis and George Douglas; and also of Alexander Cockburn, son of John Cockburn of Ormiston.

In this year he attached himself as an avowed adherent of George Wishart, from the time of his first visit to East-Lothian.

George Wishart suffered martyrdom at St. Andrews, on the 1st of March 1545-6; and on the 29th of May that year, Cardinal Beaton was murdered.

April 10. Knox, with his young pupils, entered the Castle of St. Andrews, as a place of safety from the persecution of the Popish clergy.

May. At the end of this month, or early in June, he received a public call to the ministry, which he obeyed with great reluctance; but having undertaken the office, he continued, along with John Rough, to preach both in the parish Church, and in the Castle until its surrender.xv

June. The French fleet appeared in St. Andrews Bay, to lay siege to the Castle, which surrendered on the 30th of July; but in defiance of the terms of capitulation, the chief persons in the place were sent as prisoners on board the French galleys.

During this winter, the vessel on board of which Knox was confined, remained in the river Loire.

The vessel returned to Scotland, about the time of the siege of Haddington in June; and when within sight of St. Andrews, Knox uttered his memorable prediction, that he would yet survive to preach in that place where God had opened his mouth for the ministry.

During this winter, he was kept prisoner at Rouen, where he wrote a Preface to Balnaves's Treatise of Justification, which was sent to Scotland, and until some years after his death, was supposed to be lost.

February. Knox obtained his liberty, after an imprisonment of nineteen months. He came to England, and soon afterwards was appointed by the English Council to be a preacher in the town of Berwick.

April 4. Knox was summoned to appear at Newcastle before Dr. Tonstall, Bishop of Durham, to give an account of his doctrine.

At the close of this year he was removed from Berwick to Newcastle, where he continued his ministerial labours.

December. Knox was appointed by the Privy Council of England one of six Chaplains to Edward the Sixth. This led to his occasional residence in London during 1552 and 1553.

October. He received an offer of the Bishopric of Rochester; but this preferment he declined.xvi

In or about February, Knox was summoned before the Privy Council of England, upon complaints made by the Duke of Northumberland; but was acquitted.

April 14. He also declined accepting the vacant living of All-Hallows, in London, and, on account of his refusal, was again summoned before the Privy Council.

Edward the Sixth died on the 6th of July, and the persecution of the Protestants being revived during the reign of Queen Mary, most of the Reformed ministers and many of the laity made their escape, and sought refuge in foreign countries, in the course of that year.

January 28. Knox was at Dieppe, where he remained till the end of February. He then proceeded to Geneva, but was again at Dieppe in July, "to learn the estate of England."

April 10. The Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, was installed Regent of Scotland.

On the 4th of September, he received a call from the English Congregation at Frankfort on the Maine, to become their minister. He accepted the invitation, and repaired to that city in November.

In consequence of the disputes which arose in the English Congregation at Frankfort, in regard to the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and the introduction of various ceremonies. Knox was constrained to relinquish his charge; and having preached a farewell discourse on the 26th of March, he left that city, and returned to Geneva. Here he must have resumed his ministerial labours; as, on the 1st of November that year, in the "Livre des Anglois, à Geneve," it is expressly said, that Christopher Goodman and Anthony Gilby were "appointed to preche the word of God and mynyster the Sacraments, in th' absence of John Knox." This refers to his having resolved to visit his native country.xvii

Knox proceeded to Dieppe in August, and in the following month landed on the east coast of Scotland, not far from Berwick. Most of this winter he spent in Edinburgh, preaching and exhorting in private.

In the beginning of this year Knox went to Ayrshire, accompanied with several of the leading Protestants of that county, and preached openly in the town of Ayr, and in other parts of the country. He was summoned to appear before a Convention of the Popish Clergy, on the 15th of May, at Edinburgh. About the same time, he addressed his Letter to the Queen Regent.

Having received a solicitation for his return to Geneva, to become one of their pastors, Knox left Scotland in July that year. Before this time he married Marjory Bowes. Her father was Richard, the youngest son of Sir Ralph Bowes of Streatlam; her mother was Elizabeth, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir Roger Aske of Aske.

On the 13th September, Knox, along with his wife and his mother-in-law, were formally admitted members of the English Congregation. At the annual election of Ministers, on the 16th of December, Knox and Goodman were re-elected.

Having received a pressing invitation from Scotland, which he considered to be his duty to accept, Knox took leave of the Congregation at Geneva, and came to Dieppe; but finding letters of an opposite tenor, dissuading him from coming till a more favourable opportunity, after a time he returned again to Geneva.

In May, his son Nathaniel was born at Geneva, and was baptized on the 23d, William Whittingham, afterwards Dean of Durham, being god-father.

On the 16th of December, Knox and Goodman still continued to be ministers of the English Congregation at Geneva.xviii

April. Mary Queen of Scots was married, at Paris, to Francis, Dauphin of France.

In this year Knox republished, with additions, his Letter to the Queen Regent; and also his Appellation from the cruel sentence of the Bishops and Clergy of Scotland; and his First Blast of the Trumpet against the Regiment of Women.

In November, his son Eleazar was born at Geneva, and was baptized on the 29th, Myles Coverdale, formerly Bishop of Exeter, being witness or god-father.

November 17. Upon the death of Mary Queen of England, Elizabeth ascended the throne.

On the 16th December, Knox and Goodman were again re-elected ministers of the English Congregation.

January 7. Knox took his final departure from Geneva, in consequence of an invitation to return to Scotland; and was on that occasion honoured with the freedom of the city.

In March, he arrived at Dieppe, and finding that the English Government refused to grant him a safeconduct, on the 22d April he embarked for Leith, and reached Edinburgh on the 2d May. During that month, the Queen Regent published a Declaration against the Protestants, and the Lords of the Congregation sent a deputation to remonstrate; but their remonstrance being despised, they took arms in self-defence.

June 11. Knox preached in St. Andrews; and at Perth on the 25th, when the populace defaced several of the Churches or Monasteries in that city.

July 7. He was elected Minister of Edinburgh. Owing to the troubles, within a brief space he was obliged to relinquish his charge; but he continued his labours elsewhere for a time, chiefly at St. Andrews.

July 10. On the death of Henry II. of France, his son Francis, who had espoused Mary Queen of Scots, and hadxix obtained the Matrimonial Crown of Scotland in November 1558, at the age of sixteen, ascended the throne of France.

August 1. The Protestants assembled at Stirling, and having resolved to solicit aid from England, on the 3d of that month Knox proceeded to Berwick to hold a conference with Sir James Crofts. In this month, he sent Calvin a favourable report of his labours since his arrival in Scotland: Calvin's answer to this communication is dated in November.

September 20. Knox's Wife and children, accompanied by Christopher Goodman, arrived in Edinburgh.

October 18. The Protestants entered Edinburgh, while the Queen Regent retired to Leith, with the French troops which had come to her aid.

February 27. A treaty concluded between England and the Lords of the Congregation. The English fleet blockaded the port of Leith, and furnished reinforcements, their troops at the same time having entered Scotland.

April. At the end of this month, Knox had returned to Edinburgh. His work on Predestination was published this year at Geneva.

June 10. The Queen Regent died in the Castle of Edinburgh. Articles of Peace were concluded in July.

August 1. The Scotish Parliament assembled; and, on the 17th, the Confession of Faith was ratified, and the Protestant religion formally established.

December 5. Francis II. of France, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, died.

December 20. The first meeting of the General Assembly was held at Edinburgh.

At the end of this year, Knox's Wife died, leaving him the two sons above mentioned.

An invitation having been sent by the Protestant Nobilityxx to their young Queen, to revisit Scotland, she arrived from France, and assumed the Government, on the 19th of August.

May. Knox engaged in a dispute at Maybole, with Quintin Kennedy, Abbot of Crossragwell; of which dispute he published an account in the following year.

December. He was summoned to appear before the Privy Council, on account of a circular letter which he had addressed to the chief Protestants, in virtue of a commission granted to him by the General Assembly.

The town of Edinburgh formed only one parish. Knox, when elected Minister, had the assistance of John Cairns as Reader. John Craig, minister of the Canongate or Holyrood, had been solicited to become his colleague, in April 1562; but his appointment did not take place till June 1563.

March. Knox married to his second wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of Andrew Lord Ochiltree.

June 30. He was appointed by the General Assembly to visit the churches in Aberdeen and the North of Scotland. The following Assembly, 26th of December, gave him a similar appointment for Fife and Perthshire.

Knox was summoned before the Privy Council, on account of a sermon which, on the 19th of August, he had preached in St. Giles's Church.

In this year he appears to have written the most considerable portion of his History of the Reformation; having commenced the work in 1559 or 1560.

In consequence of the unsettled state of public affairs, after the murder of David Riccio, 9th of March, Knox left Edinburgh, and retired for a time to Kyle.xxi

June 19. James the Sixth was born in the Castle of Edinburgh.

December. Knox obtained permission from the General Assembly to proceed to England, having received from the English Government a safeconduct, to visit his two sons, who were residing with some of their mother's relations.

February 10. Henry Lord Darnley was murdered.

April 24. Bothwell carried off Queen Mary to the Castle of Dunbar; and their marriage was celebrated on the 15th of May.

June 15. Bothwell fled from Carberry-hill to Dunbar; and the Queen was brought to Edinburgh, and afterwards confined in Lochleven Castle. About the same time, Knox returned from England.

July 29. At the King's Coronation at Stirling, Knox preached an inaugural sermon on these words, "I was crowned young."

August 22. James Earl of Murray was appointed Regent of Scotland.

December 15. Knox preached at the opening of Parliament; and on the 20th, the Confession of Faith, which had been framed and approved by Parliament in 1560, with various Acts in favour of the Reformed religion, was solemnly ratified.

May 2. Queen Mary escaped from Lochleven; but her adherents, who had assembled at Langside, being defeated, she fled into England, and was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth for the rest of her life; having been beheaded at Fotheringay on the 8th of February 1586-7.

January 23. The Earl of Murray was assassinated at Linlithgow; and on occasion of his funeral, Knox preached a sermon on these words, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." (Rev. xiv. 13.)xxii

July 12. Matthew Earl of Lennox was elected Regent of Scotland; but was assassinated on the 4th of September. On the following day, John Earl of Mar was chosen Regent.

October. Knox had a stroke of apoplexy, but was enabled occasionally to resume his ministerial labours.

May 5. The troubles which then agitated the country induced Knox to quit the metropolis, and to retire to St. Andrews.

September. The news arrived of the massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew's Eve, 24th of August, at Paris, and in other parts of France.

July. On the cessation of hostilities, at the end of this month, a deputation from the citizens of Edinburgh was sent to St. Andrews, with a letter to Knox, expressive of their earnest desire "that once again his voice might be heard among them." He returned in August, having this year published, at St. Andrews, his Answer to Tyrie the Jesuit.

The Earl of Mar died on the 29th of October; and James Earl of Morton, on the 24th of November, was elected Regent of Scotland.

On the same day, the 24th of November, having attained the age of sixty-seven, Knox closed "his most laborious and most honourable career." He was buried in the church-yard of St. Giles; but, as in the case of Calvin, at Geneva, no monument was erected to mark the place where he was interred.

Knox left a widow, and two sons by his first marriage, and three daughters by the second. In the concluding volume will be given a genealogical tree, or notices of his descendants.xxiii