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THE first forty years
of John Knox's life are almost an unbroken blank. His History of the
Reformation in Scotland, which is practically his own biography writ
large, maintains a singular silence regarding the early years of his
career. It is supposed that he was so ashamed "of the time spent in
the puddle of papestry" that he preferred to make no reference to
it. What we know of his birth and parentage, and the influences
which were at work in producing him, can be briefly stated.
He was born in the
year 1505 [See Appendix.] at Gifford Gate, near Haddington. His
father was called William, and he had a brother of the same name.
His mother was a Sinclair. This we know from the fact that,
following the common custom of the time, he used her name as his own
to shelter him from persecution. His earlier biographers connect his
family with the noble House of the Knoxes of Ranfurly in
Renfrew-shire, but there is no ground for this belief. He describes
himself as "a man of base estate and condition," and in an
interesting interview which he had with the Earl of Bothwell the
fact of his humble origin is made perfectly clear. "For albeit that
to this hour it hath not chanced me to speak with your Lordship,
face to face, yet have I borne a good mind to your house. . . . For,
my Lord, my grandfather, goodsher, and father have served your
Lordship's predecessors, and some of them have died under their
standards." It is possible that Knox here refers to the Battle of
Flodden; in any case the interview shows that a feudal relation
existed between the House of Bothwell and his family. Like the other
two supreme Scotsmen, Burns and Carlyle, he sprang from the people.
In mind and heart and character he was a genuine product of the
Scottish soil.
The district of East
Lothian was, long before Knox's day, one of the greenest and most
fertile parts of Scotland. It had little in its physical features to
suggest that hardiness and sternness of character which have been
associated with Knox in popular tradition. But, as those who have
made a deeper study of the life of the great Reformer know, there
was a tenderness in his character which formed no unfitting
counterpart to the scenes of his childhood and youth. The religious
Revolution, in which be
was to play so
distinguished a part, demanded qualities which threw into the
background the sympathy and gentleness which by nature were his. In
his native town Knox would see the Romish Church in all its
splendour and, at the same time, in all its corruption. Haddington
was rich in monasteries and churches, and one of the latter, from
its beauty of architecture, was called "The Lamp of Lothian."
Whatever his affection for Haddington may have been, he was at no
pains to hide the slowness with which it accepted the new religion.
In the account which he gives of Wishart's preaching there, he
declares that Haddington was fonder of witnessing Clerk Plays than
listening to the Gospel. The wealth and power of the Church in that
district may have accounted for this.
The future Reformer
was educated first in the Burgh School of his native town, and
afterwards in the University of Glasgow. Scotland, even at so early
a date, showed that interest in education which has characterised it
ever since. Knox afterwards, in his Book of Discipline, gave a
sketch of an ideal system of education for his country, but that
system was not his own invention; it had its bedrock in
pre-Reformation times. The burgh schools of Scotland were no
unworthy precursors of the famous grammar schools of a later age.
Knox entered Glasgow
University in 1522, at the age of seventeen years. He would
naturally have gone to the University of St. Andrews, which was
nearer, but the fame of John Major, who had recently been appointed
principal regent or tutor in the College of the Faculty of Arts in
Glasgow, and who was himself a Haddington man, and educated in its
Burgh School, drew Knox to the younger and more distant University
of the West.
John Major would seem
to have been the beau-ideal of the Scottish professor of the time,
but, reading his works in the light of modern thought, it is not
easy to discover the secret of his popularity. Buchanan, who studied
under him afterwards in St. Andrews, is at no pains to conceal his
contempt. He criticises his professor's teaching as "sophistry
rather than dialectics," and the fact that both he and Knox should
have afterwards travelled far in different directions from the
teaching of Major, shows that he had no great influence over them.
Major was a type of the Schoolman who knew something of the new
Learning without being affected by it. He studied in Paris in the
same College as Erasmus, but, unlike the great Humanist, he remained
practically uninfluenced by the spirit of the Renaissance. All the
same, he had imbibed some generous opinions of government and of the
natural rights and liberty of subjects in relation to their rulers.
In this respect he influenced both Buchanan and Knox, and the
latter's manly insistence on his independence and rights to Queen
Mary, "Madam, a subject born within the same," may have been the
full development of the views of his old master.
Glasgow University at
that time gave little or no promise of its great future. It was poor
in endowments and in teaching. The city itself was dominated by the
Church. The Cathedral, with its Archbishop and Prebendaries, was the
centre and source of the life both of the city and the University.
Knox had the benefit of Major's teaching for a year only, for the
latter was transferred in 1523 to the University of St. Andrews, and
he himself is supposed to have left without taking a degree.
Thus far the career
of the Reformer can be partly traced, but for the next twenty years
hardly a single record of it can be found. It is generally believed,
however, that he returned to East Lothian, and acted first as a
notary and afterwards as private tutor in the families of the local
gentry. Indeed, this can be authenticated, for documents have been
recently discovered which prove him to have acted in the former
capacity, and he himself tells us that at the time of Wishart's
preaching in Haddington he was private tutor in the families of
Cockburn of Ormiston and Hugh Douglas of Longniddry. There is no
record of the time when he took priest's Orders, but in later years
his Catholic adversaries railed at him as one of the "Pope's
Knights," and as having received Orders by which he "were umquhile
called Sir John." The tradition, incorporated in his Life by Beza,
and repeated and expanded by later biographers, that he excelled as
a lecturer in Philosophy, and threw over the study of Aristotle for
that of St. Jerome and St. Augustine, may be true, but it is without
historical proof.
Knox, however, must
have been during those long years directing his attention to the
great questions which were influencing the whole of Western Europe.
The minds of men everywhere were being stirred by the religious
Revolution which had already all but run its course on the
Continent, and the fact that Knox suddenly appeared in the Castle of
St. Andrews in 1547 fully armed for the great warfare which he was
to wage, shows that he must have been preparing for it by a long
course of thought and study. He never pretended that there was
anything miraculous in his renunciation of the old religion and his
acceptance of the new. Study and reflection, and external
influences, must be regarded as having played an important part in
that transformation of heart and mind which not only saved himself
but his country from Popish darkness and superstition.
On the Continent, and
even in England, the Renaissance preceded the Reformation; in
Scotland this was reversed. Indeed, the Renaissance never really
took hold in Scottish soil. The Revolution was pre-eminently a
religious one. This may account for its thoroughness, and for the
supreme influence which the Reformed religion exercised over the
life and thought of Scotland for generations. Theology became the
absorbing interest, to the exclusion of Art and Letters. In Germany
and in England it was different. The Renaissance in the former
country preceded the Reformation, and in England they went hand in
hand. This may explain the more human religious life of Luther and
the less intense fervour of the English Reformers. They took a
broader view of life and destiny. Their minds were both Hebraistic
and Hellenistic; while the Scottish mind was Hebraistic only. It is
hard to say whether the Scottish people have gained or lost by this.
For one thing, it has given that moral grit to the nation which has
made it great; while, on the other hand, it has, to a certain
extent, robbed it of those more human interests which play a
necessary part in the all-round development of a people.
But long before the
times of Luther and Calvin a spirit of reform had manifested itself
in the Scottish Church. The Lollards of Kyle in the fifteenth
century preached some of those very doctrines which afterwards
became the watchwords of the Reformation. They had their spiritual
descendants, and from their day until the time of Knox himself, the
blood of Scottish martyrs testified that the spirit of pure religion
was far from dead. The country was thus prepared for a full
participation in the religious Revolution which had already
powerfully affected the Continent, and was making rapid headway in
England. The Reformed views were being spread by means of books and
preachers. The nations that had been under the influence of the
Papacy were beginning; to assert their political rights and to
become individualised. They were attaining to self-consciousness.
The age of unquestioning faith was gone; and Scotland, though a
little in the rear of this movement, was about to show that in
carrying it out it meant to be thorough.
Had the Church in
England, however, not been reformed it is possible that no
religious- Revolution would have taken place in Scotland. The
northern, country at this time was divided in its allegiance between
France and England. Both countries courted its alliance. James v.
was dead. The nation was nominally under the Regency of Arran, but,
as a matter of fact, the real power lay in the hands of Cardinal
Beaton and the Queen-Dowager Mary of Lorraine. 'Those who were bound
by every tie to France saw in an alliance with it the only hope for
the Catholic Church. England, on the other hand, courted the
friendship of Scotland chiefly for political reasons. Henry VIII.,
in order to bind the two countries together, determined to marry his
son, the future King Edward VI., to the young Queen Mary of Scots.
Between Scotland and England there had been a long and deadly
enmity, and the natural tendency of politicians was to favour an
understanding with France; but the secret policy of the latter
country, which was to make of Scotland a French province, caused
them to hesitate, and the Protestant party in the country, which was
now considerable, saw that their only chance of success lay in
friendship with England. Had England remained Roman Catholic the
incipient Protestantism of Scotland would have died a natural death,
for it was the support, partly genuine and partly selfish and
political, which the country across the border gave in the time of
need that really saved Protestantism for Scotland. |
