Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/266

326 education which was then attainable only by a very few. This is a point, however, on which there has been also much dispute; some representing his parents as in a "mean condition," others as persons of extensive property. Whatever may have been the condition of his parents—a matter of little moment—there is no doubt regarding the only circumstance of any importance connected with the question, namely, that he received a liberal education.

His course of learning began at the grammar-school of Haddington, where he acquired the elements of the Latin language. He was afterwards, about the year 1524, sent to the university of St Andrews. From the circumstance of the name "John Knox" appearing on the list of matriculated students, for the year 1520, in the Glasgow college, it has been presumed that he studied there also, and this, as appears by the dates, four years previous to his going to St Andrews; but the supposition that this John Knox was the reformer, is much weakened by the fact, that many of the Knoxes of Ranfurly, the house from which his father was descended, were educated at the university of Glasgow. Amongst the last of these of any note were Andrew Knox, bishop of the Isles, and, after him, his son and successor, Sir Thomas Knox. In the absence, therefore, of all other evidence, this circumstance in the life of the reformer must be held as extremely doubtful, especially as no allusion is made to it, either by himself, his contemporaries, or any of the earlier writers who have spoken of him. Knox, when he went to St Andrews, was in the nineteenth year of his age, and was yet undistinguished by any indications of that peculiar character and temper, or that talent, which afterwards made him so conspicuous. His literary pursuits had hitherto been limited to the acquisition of the Latin language, Greek and Hebrew being almost unknown in Scotland, although at an after period of life Knox acquired them both. His removal to St Andrews, however, opened up new sources of learning and of knowledge. John Mair, a celebrated doctor of the Sorbonne, who had studied at the colleges of England and Paris, was then principal of St Salvator's college, St Andrews. He was a man of no great strength of mind, nor of very high attainments ; but he had while in Paris imbibed, and he now boldly inculcated, civil and religious principles directly at variance with the opinions and practices of the times. He denied the supremacy of the pope, and held that he was amenable to a general council, which might not only rebuke and restrain him, but even depose him from his dignity. He held that papal excommunications were of no force, unless pronounced on just and valid grounds, and that tithes were not of divine origin. He, besides, fearlessly censured the avarice and ambition of the clergy. And with regard to civil matters,, his opinions were no less daring, and not less boldly inculcated. He taught his pupils to consider kings as having no other right to their elevation, but what proceeded from their people, to whom they were amenable for their conduct, and by whom they might be judicially proceeded against. Such were some of the doctrines taught by Mair; and that they had taken a strong hold of Knox, who was one of his pupils, his after life sufficiently shows. For we find him, with the courage which belonged to his character, practising himself, and showing others how to practise that which his preceptor only taught.

In the studies of the times, Knox now made rapid progress. He was created master of arts, and ordained a priest before he had attained the age (twenty-five) appointed by the canon law for receiving ordination. It will not, perhaps, be lost time to pause for a moment at this period of his life, since it presents us with the interesting sight of a great mind slumbering in its strength, and unconscious at once of the darkness with which it was surrounded, and of there being a brighter and a better world beyond the narrow precincts which it had been taught to consider as the utmost limits of its range. Here we find the