Knox, John

(c. 1513–72)

   Theologian and Polemicist.

   Knox was born in Haddington, Scotland, and was educated at the University of Glasgow and perhaps at St Andrews. He took orders in the Roman Catholic Church, but soon became an enthusiastic supporter of the Protestant Reformation. In 1547 he was taken prisoner by the French, but was released and came to England in 1549. He was appointed chaplain to the boy-king Edward VI and made an important, and radical, contribution to the 1552 Prayer Book. With the accession of Queen mary, he fled to the continent and for a time he lived in Frankfurt. He became pastor of the English church in Geneva in 1556 and it was here that he published his First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. This was directed against the Catholic Mary of Guise, Regent of Scotland, but it did not endear him to the Protestant Elizabeth i who had just succeeded her sister to the throne of England. In 1560, with the death of Mary of Guise, Knox returned to Scotland where he was responsible for the Scottish Confession, a strongly Calvinistic document, which was accepted by the Scottish Parliament. When the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots returned to her kingdom, Knox was fearless in his confrontations with her and frequently preached against the worldliness of her court. When she abdicated, he was the preacher at the coronation of the young King James VI and he supported the Regent, the Earl of Moray. Knox must be seen as the prime architect of the Scottish Reformation. The First Book of Discipline, detailing Church organisation, was largely his work and he was also the author of The History of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland.

   J.A.S. Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland (1960);

   S. Lamont, The Swordbearer: John Knox and the European Reformation (1991);

   J. Ridley, John Knox (1968).