John Knox, an unlikely Scottish Reformer, is the most influential Scotsman in Scottish history. Born around 1515, he went to the University of St. Andrew’s before working as a notary priest who drew up and certified contracts.
It was a wild and wooly time in the beginning of the Scottish Reformation. John Knox said that it was merchants and mariners who first brought the Reformation to Scotland, often in the form of books. In 1528, Professor Patrick Hamilton of St. Andrew’s University was burnt at the stake by Cardinal Beaton. John Knox said: “The reek of Master Hamilton’s burning has infected as many as it blew upon.”
Knox’s first reformation appearance was carrying a two-handed sword as he served as a bodyguard for the Scottish Reformation preacher George Wishart. After preaching to the plague-infested people of Dundee, Wishart became a Scottish hero. In December 1545, Wishart at age 33 was taken by the Roman Catholic Cardinal David Beaton to the Castle of St. Andrew’s where he was condemned and three months later was burned at the stake. Beaton, as the most powerful person in Scotland, was nicknamed ‘the cruel persecutor’.
After the killing of Cardinal Beaton by five Scottish Lairds, 150 people took over his castle for nearly a year. Knox’s role was teaching the bible to the children in the castle. The St. Andrew’s Castle Chaplain, during a sermon, prophetically singled out John Knox, commenting that God called John Knox to be a preacher and a leader of this Reformation. All the people at the Castle congregation said ‘yes, we believe it. John Knox, you are our man.’ Bursting into tears, John Knox ran into his chambers. This was Knox’s turning point when he realized God’s call on his life to preach the gospel and change a nation. He was a modern-day prophet, a man of strong feeling. Knox’s two passions were justification by faith alone and the call to flee idolatry. If the bible did not specifically allow something, Knox’s default was to reject it as idolatry.
St. Andrew’s Castle was untouchable until the Scottish Queen Mary of Guise called on the French Navy to siege it. John Knox ended up spending eighteen months as a slave rowing on a open-air French galley. Few people survived such back-breaking rowing for long, being totally exposed to the worst of the weather. While sailing past St. Andrew’s Castle, Knox prophesied in chains that one day he would again preach at St. Andrew’s. It did not look at all likely.
Unexpectedly King Edward Vl rescued John Knox, licensing him to serve as a royal chaplain in Westminster Cathedral and in Hampton Court. During this time of favour, Knox turned down All Hallows Church the most influential pulpit in London, and also the opportunity to be the Anglican bishop of Rochester. Knox was a very fiery preacher, a white-hot firebrand. The English Ambassador Thomas Randall said: “the voice of that one man is able in one hour to put more life in us than a thousand trumpets continually blustering in our ears.” There is in Knox the spirit of an Old Testament Prophet, like Moses at the Burning Bush. The 19th century Scottish author Thomas Carlyle said that he saw in Knox: “a sympathy, a veiled tenderness of heart, veiled, but deep and of piercing vehemence, and withal even an inward gaiety of soul, alive to the ridicule that dwells in whatever is ridiculous, in fact a fine vein of humour….”
His suffering in the French galley ship left him with many health problems: kidney stones, insomnia, fever, parasites, and perhaps PTSD. In a March 23, 1553 letter from Newcastle to his mother-in-law, he said: “My old malady troubles me sore, and nothing is more contrarious to my flesh than writing. Think not that I weary to visit you, but unless my pain shall cease, I shall altogether become unprofitable.” Knox’s life shows how God often delights to work most powerfully through people who are most weak in themselves.
Knox lived a rollercoaster life with many ups and downs. There were three painful Marys in Knox’s life: Mary of Guise, Bloody Mary, and Mary Queen of Scots, all who resisted the Scottish Reformation. With intense waves of persecution from the new Queen, Bloody Mary, Knox fled in 1553 to Dieppe in the Netherlands before moving to Geneva. This gave him a chance to be directly mentored by John Calvin. Historian Philip Schaff held that Knox became more Calvinist than Calvin. While in Geneva, he preached three sermons a week to English refugees, each message lasting well over two hours. Though he wrote a five-volume series on the History of the Scottish Reformation, Knox saw himself as more of a preacher than a writer: “I consider myself rather called of my God to instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, to confirm the weak and rebuke the proud by the tongue and lively voice in these corrupt days, rather than compose books for ages to come.” Knox dreamed of turning Scotland into a nationwide version of Geneva.
Knox had a painful time in Frankfurt where he was ousted from the Anglican Church over the Book of Common Prayer. Then he returned to Scotland where he preached the gospel to working class Scots: “God gave his Holy Spirit to simple men in great abundance.” The Queen mother, Mary of Guise, was a French aristocrat who appealed to the Scottish elite. Knox dared to disagree with Mary of Guise’s inner circle, speaking truth to the powerful. The thundering Scot had a will of steel. With the sudden death of Mary of Guise in 1560, the Scottish Parliament passed the Scottish Confession of Faith, all within five days. Knox helped put out the first Book of Discipline for the Church of Scotland.
When Mary Queen of Scots at age 19 returned to Scotland in 1561, John Knox noted, “She brings with her only darkness and impiety.” She was a great charmer, but nothing worked on Knox who was summoned five times by Mary Queen of Scots. Weeping, flattering and charm did not move John Knox. He taught: “One man with God is always a majority.” Mary Queen of Scots said that she feared the prayers of John Knox more than an army of 10,000 men. Knox is best known for his prayer ‘Give Me Scotland or I die.’ In 1559, Mary Queen of Scots was determined to kill John Knox, ordering her French army to follow John Knox, and fire on Scottish congregations where he was preaching. Knox fearlessly preached the gospel, hunched over the pulpit, and thousands were converted to faith in Christ: “By God’s grace, I declared Jesus Christ, the strength of his death, and the power of his resurrection.” In one famous painting, he is portrayed as preaching with wild, tortured eyes at St. Giles Cathedral to Mary Queen of Scots. John Knox was arrested in Oct 1563 by Mary Queen of Scots after criticizing her upcoming marriage to the adulterous Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley.
John Knox saw education as not the privilege of the few, but the right of all. Education was vital to a population able to read the bible for themselves. Scotland became one of the most literate societies in the world.
Not everyone loved John Knox. He was burned in effigy and almost assassinated on at least one occasion. One hundred years later, his books were still banned by parliament in England, and one of his books was publicly burned. Even in 1739, the famous Great Awakening leader George Whitefield was condemned for allegedly reflecting the doctrine of John Knox. Recently Edinburgh City Council removed Knox’s gravestone, turning his grave site into a parking lot stall #23. Around 75 million Christians today are Presbyterians. It is better known around the world than in the UK.
When he died in 1572, the testimony was given ‘here lies one who never feared any flesh.’ In Arthur Herman’s book How the Scots Invented the Modern World, he showed how John Knox and the courage of his preaching has had lasting impact on western civilization. Bruce Gore says that the idea of government by the people, of the people and for the people can be traced to John Knox. His vision for spiritual freedom led to a passion for freedom from political and cultural oppression.
May John Knox’s passion for freedom in Christ inspire each of us to live more fully alive in Jesus.
Books by Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird include God's Firestarters; Blue Sky, a novel; and For Better, For Worse: Discovering the keys to a Lasting Relationship. Dr Ed’s newest award-winning book The Elisha Code is co-authored with Rev. David Kitz. Earlier books by Dr. Ed include the award-winning Battle for the Soul of Canada, and Restoring Health: Body, Mind, & Spirit.
I found your article very fascinating as I did not know much about John Knox, even though my son went to John Knox Christian School when he was younger. Thanks for the interesting and informative article.