The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 | Page 6

he uses these words, "Our most just requeastes, which ye shall, God willing, schortlie hereafter onderstand, together with our whole proceeding from the beginning of this matter, which we ar to sett furth in maner of Historie." That he had commenced the work, further appears from a letter, dated Edinburgh, 23d September 1560, and addressed to Secretary Cecil by the English Ambassador, Randolph, in which he says, "I have tawlked at large with MR. KNOX concerning his HYSTORIE. As mykle as ys written thereof shall be sent to your Honour, at the comynge of the Lords Embassadours, by Mr. John Woode. He hath wrytten only one Booke. If yow lyke that, he shall continue the same, or adde onie more. He sayethe, that he must have farther helpe then is to be had in thys countrie, for more assured knowledge of thyngs passed than he hath hymself, or can come bye here: yt is a work not to be neglected, and greatly wyshed that yt sholde be well handled."
Whether this portion of the work was actually communicated to Cecil at that time, is uncertain; as no such manuscript has been discovered among his papers, either in the British Museum or the State Paper Office. It could only have consisted of part of the Second Book; and this portion remains very much in its original state, as may be inferred from these two passages.--In July 1559, while exposing "the craftyness of the Queen Regent," in desiring a private conference with the Earl of Argyle and Lord James Stewart, with the hope that she might be able to withdraw them from their confederates, we read, "And one of hir cheaf Counsale in those dayis, (and we fear but over inward with hir yit,) said," &c. See page 368 of this volume. This must necessarily have been written during the Queen Regent's life, or previously to June 1560. During the following month, after noticing the Earl of Arran's escape from France, and the imprisonment of his younger brother, Lord David Hamilton, it is stated, "For the same tyme, the said Frensche King, seing he could not have the Erle him self, gart put his youngar brother ... in strait prisoun, quhair he yitt remaneis, to witt, in the moneth of October, the yeir of God 1559." See page 383. In like manner, in a letter of intelligence, dated at Hamilton, 12th October 1559, and addressed to Cecil, Randolph says, "Since Nesbot went from hence, the Duke never harde out of Fraunce, nor newes of his son the Lord David."--(Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 500.) We might have supposed that his restraint was not of long duration, as he is named among the hostages left in England, at the treaty of Berwick, 27th February 1559-60; a circumstance of which Knox could not have been ignorant, as he gives a copy of the confirmation of the treaty by the Duke of Chastelherault and the Lords of the Congregation; but it appears from one of the articles in the treaty of peace in July, that Lord David Hamilton, who was still a prisoner at Bois de St. Vincent, in France, then obtained liberty to return to Scotland; and he arrived at Edinburgh in October 1560. We are therefore warranted to infer that this portion of the Second Book of his History, must have been written towards the end of the year 1559.
Knox himself in his general Preface, says, the intention was to have limited the period of the History from the year 1558, until the arrival of Queen Mary from France to assume the government in this country, in August 1561; thus extending the period originally prescribed beyond the actual attainment of the great object at which the Reformers aimed, in the overthrow of Popish superstition, and the establishment by civil authority of the Protestant faith, which was actually secured by the proceedings of the Parliament that met at Edinburgh on the 1st of August 1560. But he further informs us, that he was persuaded not only to add the First Book as an Introduction, but to continue the Narrative to a later period. This plan of extending the work he carried into effect in the year 1566, when the First and Fourth Books were chiefly written, and when there is reason to believe that he revised and enlarged the intermediate portion, at least by dividing it into two parts, as Books Second and Third. The Fourth Book extends to the year 1564; and he seems to intimate that he himself had no intention to continue the History to a later period; for alluding to the death of David Riccio, in March 1565-6, he says, "of whom we delay now farther to speik, becaus that his end will requyre the descriptioun of the whole, and