John Knox

John Knox (died 24 November 1572) was a Scottish minister, theologian, and writer who spearheaded the country's Reformation and reshaped the Church of Scotland. He was born in Giffordgate, a street in Haddington, East Lothian, and likely studied at the University of St Andrews before working as a notary-priest. The early reformers, especially George Wishart, drew him into the movement to overhaul the Scottish Church. Knox became entangled in the political turmoil surrounding Cardinal David Beaton’s murder in 1546 and the regency of Mary of Guise. French forces captured him the next year, and upon his release in 1549, he went into exile in England.

During his English exile, Knox gained a license to work in the Church of England, rising to become a royal chaplain for King Edward VI. He helped shape the Book of Common Prayer with his reforming ideas. There, he also married his first wife, Margery Bowes. When Queen Mary I took the English throne and restored Catholicism, Knox had to resign and flee. He moved first to Geneva, then to Frankfurt. In Geneva, he studied under John Calvin, absorbing Reformed theology and presbyterian church governance. He wrote a new service book, *The Forme of Prayers*, later adopted by the Reformed Church in Scotland as the Book of Common Order—and it became the first book printed in any Gaelic language. Knox left Geneva to lead an English refugee church in Frankfurt, but disagreements over liturgy forced him out, ending his ties with the Church of England.

Back in Scotland, Knox led the Protestant Reformation alongside the Protestant nobility. This movement amounted to a revolution, pushing out Mary of Guise, who ruled for her young daughter Mary, Queen of Scots. Knox helped draft the new confession of faith and the ecclesiastical order for the reformed Kirk. Between 1559 and 1566, he wrote his five-volume *History of the Reformation in Scotland*. He remained the Protestants’ religious leader throughout Mary’s reign, and in several meetings with the queen, he scolded her for backing Catholic practices. After Mary was imprisoned for her suspected role in the murder of her husband Lord Darnley, and her son James VI became king, Knox openly demanded her execution. He kept preaching until his final days.

Knox was born between 1505 and 1515 in or near Haddington, East Lothian. His father, William Knox, was a merchant; his mother’s maiden name was Sinclair, and she died when he was young. His elder brother William ran the family business, which helped Knox communicate internationally. Knox likely attended the Knox Academy grammar school in Haddington. Since the priesthood was the only academic path outside trade or farming, he went on to study at the University of St Andrews or possibly Glasgow, under the scholar John Major. He was ordained a Catholic priest in Edinburgh on Easter Eve 1536 by Bishop William Chisholm of Dunblane. He first appears in public records as a priest and notary in 1540, still serving in those roles as late as 1543, when a notarial deed called him a “minister of the sacred altar in the diocese of St Andrews, notary by apostolic authority.” Instead of becoming a parish priest, he tutored the sons of Hugh Douglas of Longniddry and John Cockburn of Ormiston—both lairds who had adopted Reformation ideas.

Knox never recorded his own conversion to Protestantism, but Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart were likely key influences. Wishart, a reformer who fled Scotland in 1538 to avoid heresy charges, preached against the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Bristol, England, was forced to recant publicly, and was burned in effigy. He then moved to Germany and Switzerland, where he translated the First Helvetic Confession into English. He returned to Scotland in 1544, but by then the regent James Hamilton and Queen Mother Mary of Guise, along with Cardinal Beaton, were persecuting Protestants. Wishart traveled Scotland preaching reform, and in East Lothian, Knox became one of his closest followers, even acting as his bodyguard with a two-handed sword. In December 1545, the Earl of Bothwell seized Wishart on Beaton’s orders and took him to St Andrews Castle. Knox was there the night of the arrest and wanted to join him in captivity, but Wishart told him, “Nay, return to your bairns and God bless you. One is sufficient for a sacrifice.” Wishart was then prosecuted by Beaton’s heretic-hunter, Archdeacon John Lauder, and burned at the stake on 1 March 1546 in Beaton’s presence. Knox avoided capture because he followed Wishart’s advice and went back to tutoring.