John Knox and the Reformation | Page 7

calling himself "the messenger of the Eternal God," and preaching
the new ideas in Haddington to very small congregations. This Wishart,
Knox's master in the faith, was a Forfarshire man; he is said to have
taught Greek at Montrose, to have been driven thence in 1538 by the
Bishop of Brechin, and to have recanted certain heresies in 1539. He
had denied the merits of Christ as the Redeemer, but afterwards
dropped that error, when persistence meant death at the stake. It was in
Bristol that he "burned his faggot," in place of being burned himself.
There was really nothing humiliating in this recantation, for, after his
release, he did not resume his heresy; clearly he yielded, not to fear, but
to conviction of theological error. {15a}
He next travelled in Germany, where a Jew, on a Rhine boat, inspired
or increased his aversion to works of sacred art, as being "idolatrous."
About 1542-43 he was reading with pupils at Cambridge, and was
remarked for the severity of his ascetic virtue, and for his great charity.
At some uncertain date he translated the Helvetic Confession of Faith,
and he was more of a Calvinist than a Lutheran. In July 1543 he
returned to Scotland; at least he returned with some "commissioners to
England," who certainly came home in July 1543, as Knox mentions,
though later he gives the date of Wishart's return in 1544, probably by a

slip of the pen.
Coming home in July 1543, Wishart would expect a fair chance of
preaching his novel ideas, as peace between Scotland and Protestant
England now seemed secure, and Arran, the Scottish Regent, the chief
of the almost Royal House of Hamilton, was, for the moment, himself a
Protestant. For five days (August 28-September 3, 1543) the great
Cardinal Beaton, the head of the party of the Church, was outlawed,
and Wishart's preaching at Dundee, about that date, is supposed by
some {15b} to have stimulated an attack then made on the monasteries
in the town. But Arran suddenly recanted, deserted the Protestants and
the faction attached to England, and joined forces with Cardinal Beaton,
who, in November 1543, visited Dundee, and imprisoned the
ringleaders in the riots. They are called "the honestest men in the
town," by the treble traitor and rascal, Crichton, laird of Brunston in
Lothian, at this time a secret agent of Sadleir, the envoy of Henry VIII.
(November 25, 1543).
By April 1544, Henry was preparing to invade Scotland, and the
"earnest professors" of Protestant doctrines in Scotland sent to him "a
Scottish man called Wysshert," with a proposal for the kidnapping or
murder of Cardinal Beaton. Brunston and other Scottish lairds of
Wishart's circle were agents of the plot, and in 1545-46 our George
Wishart is found companioning with them. When Cassilis took up the
threads of the plot against Beaton, it was to Cassilis's country in
Ayrshire that Wishart went and there preached. Thence he returned to
Dundee, to fight the plague and comfort the citizens, and, towards the
end of 1545, moved to Lothian, expecting to be joined there by his
westland supporters, led by Cassilis--but entertaining dark forebodings
of his doom.
There were, however, other Wisharts, Protestants, in Scotland. It is not
possible to prove that this reformer, though the associate, was the agent
of the murderers, or was even conscious of their schemes. Yet if he had
been, there was no matter for marvel. Knox himself approved of and
applauded the murders of Cardinal Beaton and of Riccio, and, in that
age, too many men of all creeds and parties believed that to kill an

opponent of their religious cause was to imitate Phinehas, Jael, Jehu,
and other patriots of Hebrew history. Dr. M'Crie remarks that Knox
"held the opinion, that persons who, according to the law of God and
the just laws of society, have forfeited their lives by the commission of
flagrant crimes, such as notorious murderers and tyrants, may
warrantably be put to death by private individuals, provided all redress
in the ordinary course of justice is rendered impossible, in consequence
of the offenders having usurped the executive authority, or being
systematically protected by oppressive rulers." The ideas of Knox, in
fact, varied in varying circumstances and moods, and, as we shall show,
at times he preached notions far more truculent than those attributed to
him by his biographer; at times was all for saint-like submission and
mere "passive resistance." {17}
The current ideas of both parties on "killing no murder" were little
better than those of modern anarchists. It was a prevalent opinion that a
king might have a subject assassinated, if to try him publicly entailed
political inconveniences. The Inquisition, in Spain, vigorously
repudiated this theory, but the Inquisition was in advance of the age.
Knox, as to