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KNO 1549. He repaired at once to England, was recommended to the English council, and sent down to preach in Berwick. For two years he laboured there, preaching the gospel, smiting popery, and gaining over crowds of converts to protestantism. Tonstall bishop of Durham did not relish the vicinity of so eloquent and restless an agitator, and accordingly he summoned him to Newcastle. Thither Knox went, and with characteristic intrepidity delivered a pithy and thorough vindication before the bishop and his clergy. This appearance so increased his fame that he was transferred to Newcastle, and appointed one of King Edward's chaplains, with a salary of £40 a year. Such was the confidence placed in him, that he was consulted about the revision of the Book of Common Prayer, and the alteration of some other forms of service in the English church.

His undaunted preaching in the north of England raised up many bitter enemies, and by the influence of the ambitious and unprincipled duke of Northumberland he was summoned to London, and so nobly cleared himself of all imputation, or from what he himself styles "heinous delations and numerous lies," that he was at once acquitted. He preached before his majesty, who was greatly delighted with his sermons; and the council ordered that next year he should be employed in London and the southern counties. At this period his health was far from robust; an "old malady" described by himself as "pain of head and stomach," contracted or exacerbated by his long confinement, greatly troubled him. Archbishop Cranmer presented him to the living of All-Hallows, but he declined it, and gave his reasons stoutly before the privy council, alleging that the reformed church of England still needed further reformation. King Edward with the consent of the privy council offered him a bishopric, which he also declined. It was, as some suppose, a new bishopric to be created, with a cathedral in Newcastle. King Edward died 6th July, 1553, and Knox waited in London till the accession of Mary on the 19th of the same month, when after itinerating through Kent and Buckinghamshire, he returned to Newcastle. At this period he was married at Berwick to Marjory Bowes, a lady to whom he had been long and warmly attached. The union had been opposed by the lady's popish father on various pretexts, and Knox's letters show how chafed he was at the "disdainful pride" of some of her relations. Strong emotions lay deep in his soul. His love-letters are rather theological: but such was his position, and so chequered were his prospects, that we can scarcely wonder that public matters are so closely mixed up with the story of his heart. Yet that unquailing heart, appearing to the world dry, hard, and rugged, had a deep well of tenderness within it. The reign of Mary was now unfolding its terrors in England; dangers were thickening on all sides; his letters to his wife were intercepted; and obeying the "voices of his brethren," and rather against his own will—for he writes, "never could he die in a more honest quarrel"—he left the kingdom, and landed at Dieppe in Normandy on the 20th January, 1554. He departed from Dieppe in February, "whither God knoweth," proceeding through France to Switzerland, and was cordially received by the leading divines of the Helvetic churches, between whom and many of the English reformers a correspondence had been kept up. He returned to Dieppe that he might obtain information about his native land, and learn the "estait of England and Scotland" from his correspondents at home—a journey which his yearning soul induced him to repeat periodically so long as he was abroad. Returning to Geneva, he won the friendship of Calvin; and journeying again to Dieppe, and receiving sad tidings of persecution and sufferings inflicted under Gardiner and Bonner, he retraced his steps with a heavy heart to the city of Calvin, then filled with eminent strangers from all parts of Europe. Here he applied himself to hard study though he was close on fifty years of age, and according to Dr. M'Crie, made himself master of the Hebrew language. A congregation of English exiles at Frankfort having elected him as their pastor, he set out for that city, and immediately commenced his ministry. But the germs of dispute had been already sown on the question of surplice, litany, and order—the puritan controversy in miniature. The English litany was followed to a great extent; but Dr. Cox who had been preceptor to Edward VI. came with other exiles to Frankfort, and raised immediate disturbance by declaring their resolution "to do as they had done in England." Meetings were held, keen controversy commenced, the faction of Cox accused Knox of treason; and though the magistrates of the city would not listen to the calumny, they advised him for the sake of peace to leave the city. Knox went again to Geneva, but his desire to visit Scotland, from which he had gleaned favourable tidings, so grew upon him that he recrossed the channel in 1555, and journeyed at once to Berwick to his wife and household. He then went to Edinburgh and preached privately to many little audiences. Next he accompanied Erskine of Dun into Angus, where during a month's sojourn he preached every day; then he was for a season with Sir James Sandilands at Calder house, still urging on the work of reformation. Afterwards he visited the district of Kyle, the seat of the Scottish Lollards; returning to Angus, where the gentlemen professing the new faith formed and subscribed a bond or covenant for mutual defence and encouragement—probably the first instrument of the kind in Scotland. But his movements were at length discovered, and his preaching was vehemently denounced by the alarmed clergy. Knox was at once summoned to appear before a clerical convention, to be held in the church of the Blackfriars, Edinburgh. But his accusers, never imagining that he would attend, and being not wholly sure of the regent's support, wavered, and then conveniently finding some informality in the summons, resolved to set it aside. At this crisis he wrote his well-known letter to the queen regent; and quiet, earnest, and void of all objurgation as it was, she threw it from her contemptuously, calling it "a pasquil." Word was now brought him that the English congregation at Geneva had chosen him one of their ministers, and he resolved to accede to their wishes. After visiting the earl of Argyle at his fastness of Castle Campbell, and preaching there, he left Scotland in July, 1556, his wife and family having preceded him; and having joined them at Dieppe he proceeded to Geneva, where he remained the two following years. No sooner was it known that he had left the kingdom, than the clergy who had deserted the diet against him met at Edinburgh, and passed the usual sentence of condemnation upon him; and because they had not his person to chain to the stake, they gratified their malice by carrying him to be burnt in effigy at the cross. Against this sentence Knox wrote a sturdy "Appellation," which he sent over to the nobility and people of Scotland.

In the midst of his peaceful life in Geneva he received an invitation to return to Scotland, and his congregation consented to his leaving them, as they felt that Scotland must be sooner or later the scene of his service. But at Dieppe he learned adverse tidings which sorely distressed him, and he sent a letter full of rebuke and sorrow to the nobility who had invited him. Several other epistles followed in a similar strain of disappointment and dignified remonstrance. Knox went back to Geneva in 1558. At this epoch the English translation of the Old Testament was made, commonly called the Geneva Bible. Knox probably had a hand in it, along with Coverdale, Gilby, and others. This Geneva Bible is not to be confounded with the Geneva New Testament, which was published three years earlier, Whittingham, Calvin's brother-in-law, being most probably the translator. Then and there too, he published his "First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women," a vehement defence of what is termed the Salique law, in reference at least to France, and which allows no female to reign. Knox admits his "rude vehemency and inconsidered affirmation" in this tractate, but held to the main principle contended for. Meanwhile, changes favourable to the Reformation were taking place in Scotland; the protestants had growth in numbers and influence; the fruits of Knox's former visit, and of his letters from Dieppe, were becoming more and more apparent; the nobility wished to advance the cause, and subscribed a mutual bond. Persecution indeed broke out, formal complaints were made to the regent to correct ecclesiastical abuses; electric clouds were gathering from all parts of the heavens; and as a resolute struggle was impending, Knox was invited over, and sailing from Dieppe on the 22nd of April, he landed at Leith on the 2nd of May, 1559.

No sooner was Knox's arrival known than, through the influence of the panic-stricken clergy, he was proclaimed an outlaw, in virtue of the former sentence pronounced against him. Going north to Dundee, he joined with the protestants who had there assembled in great numbers and proceeded with them to Perth, where he thundered against image-worship and the idolatry of the mass. The discourse being finished and the audience quietly dispersing, a priest uncovered an ornate altar and prepared to celebrate mass. A boy uttered some words of juvenile