John Knox and the Reformation | Page 2

Christian man; as a shepherd of Calvinistic souls a man

fervent and considerate; of pure life; in friendship loyal; by jealousy
untainted; in private character genial and amiable, I am entirely
convinced. In public and political life he was much less admirable; and
his "History," vivacious as it is, must be studied as the work of an old-
fashioned advocate rather than as the summing up of a judge. His
favourite adjectives are "bloody," "beastly," "rotten," and "stinking."
Any inaccuracies of my own which may have escaped my correction
will be dwelt on, by enthusiasts for the Prophet, as if they are the main
elements of this book, and disqualify me as a critic of Knox's "History."
At least any such errors on my part are involuntary and unconscious. In
Knox's defence we must remember that he never saw his "History" in
print. But he kept it by him for many years, obviously re-reading, for he
certainly retouched it, as late as 1571.
In quoting Knox and his contemporaries, I have used modern spelling:
the letter from the State Papers printed on pp. 146, 147, shows what the
orthography of the period was really like. Consultation of the original
MSS. on doubtful points, proves that the printed Calendars, though
excellent guides, cannot be relied on as authorities.
The portrait of Knox, from Beza's book of portraits of Reformers, is
posthumous, but is probably a good likeness drawn from memory, after
a description by Peter Young, who knew him, and a design, presumably
by "Adrianc Vaensoun," a Fleming, resident in Edinburgh. {0b}
There is an interesting portrait, possibly of Knox, in the National
Gallery of Portraits, but the work has no known authentic history.
The portrait of Queen Mary, at the age of thirty-six, and a prisoner, is
from the Earl of Morton's original; it is greatly superior to the
"Sheffield" type of likenesses, of about 1578; and, with Janet's and
other drawings (1558-1561), the Bridal medal of 1558, and (in my
opinion) the Earl of Leven and Melville's portrait, of about 1560-1565,
is the best extant representation of the Queen.
The Leven and Melville portrait of Mary, young and charming, and
wearing jewels which are found recorded in her Inventories, has

hitherto been overlooked. An admirable photogravure is given in Mr. J.
J. Foster's "True Portraiture of Mary, Queen of Scots" (1905), and I
understand that a photograph was done in 1866 for the South
Kensington Museum.
A. LANG.
8 Gibson Place, St. Andrews.
CHAPTER I
: ANCESTRY, BIRTH, EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT:
1513(?)-1546
"November 24, 1572.
"John Knox, minister, deceased, who had, as was alleged, the most part
of the blame of all the sorrows of Scotland since the slaughter of the
late Cardinal."
It is thus that the decent burgess who, in 1572, kept The Diurnal of
such daily events as he deemed important, cautiously records the death
of the great Scottish Reformer. The sorrows, the "cumber" of which
Knox was "alleged" to bear the blame, did not end with his death. They
persisted in the conspiracies and rebellions of the earlier years of James
VI.; they smouldered through the later part of his time; they broke into
far spreading flame at the touch of the Covenant; they blazed at "dark
Worcester and bloody Dunbar"; at Preston fight, and the sack of
Dundee by Monk; they included the Cromwellian conquest of Scotland,
and the shame and misery of the Restoration; to trace them down to our
own age would be invidious.
It is with the "alleged" author of the Sorrows, with his life, works, and
ideas that we are concerned.
John Knox, son of William Knox and of --- Sinclair, his wife, {2a}
unlike most Scotsmen, unlike even Mr. Carlyle, had not "an ell of
pedigree." The common scoff was that each Scot styled himself "the

King's poor cousin." But John Knox declared, "I am a man of base
estate and condition." {2b} The genealogy of Mr. Carlyle has been
traced to a date behind the Norman Conquest, but of Knox's ancestors
nothing is known. He himself, in 1562, when he "ruled the roast" in
Scotland, told the ruffian Earl of Bothwell, "my grandfather, my
maternal grandfather, and my father, have served your Lordship's
predecessors, and some of them have died under their standards; and
this" (namely goodwill to the house of the feudal superior) "is a part of
the obligation of our Scottish kindness." Knox, indeed, never writes
very harshly of Bothwell, partly for the reason he gives; partly, perhaps,
because Bothwell, though an infamous character, and a political
opponent, was not in 1562-67 "an idolater," that is, a Catholic: if ever
he had been one; partly because his "History" ends before Bothwell's
murder of Darnley in 1567.
Knox's ancestors were, we may suppose, peasant farmers, like the
ancestors of Burns and