John Knox and the Reformation | Page 4

kin no more is known than of his ancestors. He had a
brother, William, for whom, in 1552, he procured a licence to trade in
England as owner of a ship of 100 tons. Even as late as 1656, there
were not a dozen ships of this burden in Scotland, so William Knox
must have been relatively a prosperous man. In 1544-45, there was a
William Knox, a fowler or gamekeeper to the Earl of Westmoreland,
who acted as a secret agent between the Scots in English pay and their
paymasters. We much later (1559) find the Reformer's brother, William,
engaged with him in a secret political mission to the Governor of
Berwick; probably this William knew shy Border paths, and he may
have learned them as the Lord Westmoreland's fowler in earlier years.
About John Knox's early years and education nothing is known. He
certainly acquired such Latin (satis humilis, says a German critic) as
Scotland then had to teach; probably at the Burgh School of
Haddington. A certain John Knox matriculated at the University of
Glasgow in 1522, but he cannot have been the Reformer, if the
Reformer was not born till 1513- 15. Beza, on the other hand (1580),
had learned, probably from the Reformer, whom he knew well, that
Knox was a St. Andrews man, and though his name does not occur in

the University Register, the Register was very ill kept. Supposing Knox,
then, to have been born in 1513-15, and to have been educated at St.
Andrews, we can see how he comes to know so much about the
progress of the new religious ideas at that University, between 1529
and 1535. "The Well of St. Leonard's College" was a notorious fountain
of heresies, under Gawain Logie, the Principal. Knox very probably
heard the sermons of the Dominicans and Franciscans "against the
pride and idle life of bishops," and other abuses. He speaks of a private
conversation between Friar Airth and Major (about 1534), and names
some of the persons present at a sermon in the parish church of St.
Andrews, as if he had himself been in the congregation. He gives the
text and heads of the discourse, including "merry tales" told by the
Friar. {6} If Knox heard the sermons and stories of clerical scandals at
St. Andrews, they did not prevent him from taking orders. His Greek
and Hebrew, what there was of them, Knox must have acquired in later
life, at least we never learn that he was taught by the famous George
Wishart, who, about that time, gave Greek lectures at Montrose.
The Catholic opponents of Knox naturally told scandalous anecdotes
concerning his youth. These are destitute of evidence: about his youth
we know nothing. It is a characteristic trait in him, and a fact much to
his credit, that, though he is fond of expatiating about himself, he never
makes confessions as to his earlier adventures. On his own years of the
wild oat St. Augustine dilates in a style which still has charm: but Knox,
if he sowed wild oats, is silent as the tomb. If he has anything to repent,
it is not to the world that he confesses. About the days when he was
"one of Baal's shaven sort," in his own phrase; when he was himself an
"idolater," and a priest of the altar: about the details of his conversion,
Knox is mute. It is probable that, as a priest, he examined Lutheran
books which were brought in with other merchandise from Holland;
read the Bible for himself; and failed to find Purgatory, the Mass, the
intercession of Saints, pardons, pilgrimages, and other accessories of
mediaeval religion in the Scriptures. {7} Knox had only to keep his
eyes and ears open, to observe the clerical ignorance and corruption
which resulted in great part from the Scottish habit of securing wealthy
Church offices for ignorant, brutal, and licentious younger sons and
bastards of noble families. This practice in Scotland was as odious to

good Catholics, like Quentin Kennedy, Ninian Winzet, and, rather
earlier, to Ferrerius, as to Knox himself. The prevalent anarchy caused
by the long minorities of the Stuart kings, and by the interminable wars
with England, and the difficulty of communications with Rome, had
enabled the nobles thus to rob and deprave the Church, and so to
provide themselves with moral reasons good for robbing her again; as a
punishment for the iniquities which they had themselves introduced!
The almost incredible ignorance and profligacy of the higher Scottish
clergy (with notable exceptions) in Knox's youth, are not matter of
controversy. They are as frankly recognised by contemporary Catholic
as by Protestant authors. In the very year of the destruction of the
monasteries (1559) the abuses are officially stated, as will be told later,
by the