John Knox
Preacher of the Scottish Reformation. He ministered in England under Edward VI and among the exiles at Frankfurt and Geneva, returned to Scotland in 1559, helped write the Confession and Book of Discipline of 1560, and told the story in his History.
What is told here comes from Knox’s own History, in which he writes of himself in the third person. He was a preacher at Berwick, Newcastle and London in the reign of Edward VI. After the king’s death he went to Geneva, was sent at the bidding of John Calvin to serve the English congregation at Frankfurt, was forced out of that city after a quarrel over ceremonies, and returned to Geneva (Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 1, pp. 231–232).
He arrived in Scotland on 2 May 1559 (Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 1, p. 318). After the Parliament of 1560 he was one of six ministers charged with writing the Book of Discipline, who, he says, had already drawn up the doctrine, that is, the Confession (Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 2, p. 128). When Mary, Queen of Scots returned in 1561 and had mass said in her chapel, he preached against it, and the queen had a long conversation with him, which he reports (Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 2, pp. 276–278). See the Scottish Reformation.
In the timeline
- August 1560, firm dateThe Scottish Reformation
In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament, meeting while its Catholic queen is in France, ratifies a Protestant confession of faith written by John Knox and his colleagues, ends the pope’s jurisdiction and forbids the mass.
Primary sources
The History of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland
- Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 1, pp. 231–232gutenberg.org
- Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 1, p. 318gutenberg.org
- Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 2, p. 128gutenberg.org
- Knox, History of the Reformation vol. 2, pp. 276–278gutenberg.org