Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/320

 a criminal, preached in the Bishop of Dunkeld's lodging to a larger audience than before. He continued to preach forenoon and afternoon for ten days, and after William Keith, earl Marshal, and Henry Drummond had heard him, they desired him to write to the regent to try to move her to hear the word of God. He sent his famous letter, printed in 1556 (enlarged edition, Geneva, 1558), entitled ‘The Letter to the Queen Dowager,’ which Glencairn presented, but Mary of Guise passed it on to Beaton, bishop of Glasgow, saying, ‘Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil.’ This term, derived from the scurrilous lampoons Italian satirists circulated under the eyes of the pope and cardinals, irritated Knox. Before issuing the letter from the press he added words declaring, in the prophetic strain he affected, ‘God will shortly send his messengers, with whom she would not be able to jest.’

About this time a call reached him from the English church at Geneva, which he accepted. His farewell services in Scotland were held for several days at Castle Campbell, near Dollar, with the old Earl of Argyll and others of his clan and neighbourhood. In July he crossed to Dieppe, whither he had sent his wife and mother-in-law, and they went straight to Geneva. The bishops, after he was gone, again summoned him to Edinburgh, and in his absence condemned him, and burnt his effigy at the cross. But before the end of harvest 1556 he had reached Geneva. On 16 Dec. in the three following years, 1556, 1557, and 1558, Knox and Goodman were chosen ministers by the congregation. Closer contact brought him into terms of warm friendship with Calvin, who directed not only the spiritual, but the temporal affairs of the Swiss republic. As Knox learnt from Wishart how to preach, he now learnt from Calvin how to govern.

In May 1557 James Sym and James Barrow, Edinburgh burgesses, came to Geneva with a letter from Glencairn and other nobles, which entreated him to return to Scotland, now that the persecution was diminishing. Knox, after consulting Calvin and others, replied that he would come as soon as he might ‘put in order the dear flock committed to his charge.’ Whittingham was chosen to fill his place, and on 23 Oct. he arrived at Dieppe. He found there letters of a contrary purport, dissuading him from coming to Scotland, and at once sent on 27 Oct. a sharp letter rebuking his Scottish friends for their vacillation. When this letter was received, along with another afterwards published to the whole nobility, and special missives to the lairds of Dun and Pittarrow, a consultation was held; and the nobles, including old Argyll and his son Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, and Erskine of Dun, and other gentry, signed a bond at Edinburgh on 3 Dec. 1557 by which they promised, ‘before the Majesty of God and his congregation, with all diligence to … establish the most blessed word of God and his congregation.’ They also sent urgent letters to Calvin and Knox urging his return, which were delivered in November. Knox, on 1 and 17 Dec., sent letters to the brethren in Scotland and to the nobility, with exhortations to maintain their principles, not to suddenly disobey authority in things lawful, but ‘to defend their brethren from persecution and tyranny, be it against princes or emperors.’ He finally resolved not to run the risk of returning; otherwise he might possibly have shared the fate of Walter Milne [q. v.], who was burnt for heresy by Archbishop Hamilton.

While still at Dieppe he wrote on 7 Dec. a preface to an ‘Apology for the Protestants in Prison in Paris,’ which he translated, with additions of his own, for the benefit of his Scottish brethren. He at the same time officiated in the protestant congregation not only at Dieppe but also at Rochelle, where he declared that within two or three years he hoped to preach in St. Giles in Edinburgh.

Early in 1558 he returned to Geneva. In that busy year he published six tracts, which covered the whole ground of the conflict raging in Scotland. The titles of four were respectively ‘The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women,’ ‘A Letter to the Queen Dowager Regent of Scotland, augmented and explained by the Author,’ ‘The Appellation from the Sentence pronounced by the Bishops and Clergy, addressed to the Nobility and Estates of Scotland,’ and ‘A Letter addressed to the Commonalty of Scotland.’ The ‘Appellation’ was appended to Gilby's ‘Admonition’ (Geneva, 1558), and, like the ‘Letter,’ restated his doctrinal views, and was addressed to the commons in the tone of a democratic leader. It included a summary of the ‘Second Blast … against Women,’ the only form in which the ‘First Blast’ was continued. In a fifth publication of the same year he bade the inhabitants of Newcastle and Berwick stand by his doctrine; and in a sixth he briefly exhorted England to embrace the gospel speedily. The last two were written at fever-heat, and in his most fiery style. To the exhortation which he addressed to England he appended a list of the names of nearly three hundred Marian martyrs, ‘in thee and by thee, O England, most cruelly murdered by Fire and Imprisonment for the testimony of Christ Jesus and his eternal