John Knox (c.1514-November 24, 1572) was the leader of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland.
To appreciate the significance of John Knox, the historical setting of Europe must be explained. The King of France, Francis I, caused a scandal in Europe by making an alliance with Muslim Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent against Italy, Spain and England. Francis I ordered the punishment of religious dissidents known as Waldensians. Over the next century, religious wars between Catholics and Protestants resulted in tragic atrocities.
Lorenzo de' Medici, to whom Niccolò Machiavelli dedicated his notorious book, The Prince, 1515, had his daughter, Catherine de' Medici, marry the next King of France, Henry II.
Henry II suppressed Protestant Huguenots in France. After his death, Catherine de' Medici was credited with the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris in 1572, after which Protestants fled France.
Catherine de' Medici's teenage son, King Francis II, was married to Mary-Queen of Scots,as France had for centuries helped Scotland struggle for independence from England.
When King Francis II died at age 16, Mary-Queen of Scots, age 18, was sent back to Scotland in 1561. She was immediately criticized by Protestant Reformer John Knox from the pulpit.
Earlier, as a young man, John Knox had been arrested and sentenced in 1547 to be a galley slave on a French ship. Sailing away from Scotland, John Knox looked up as they passed St. Andrews and said:
<I see the steeple of that place where God first in public opened my mouth to glory; and I am fully persuaded ... I shall not depart this life till my tongue shall glorify his godly name in the same place.>
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After two years, John Knox was released and exiled to England. Knox rose to be the royal chaplain to the young King Edward VI where he helped influence the writing of the Book of Common Prayer.
When King Edward died, his sister Queen Mary Tudor took the throne and attempted to bring England back under the Catholic Church.
Knox fled from Queen Mary I in 1554. He went to Geneva, working with John Calvin.
Calvin advised the Jeanne d'Albret Queen Regnant of Navarre, near the border of France and Spain:
<Now that the government is in your hands, God will test your zeal and fidelity. You now have an obligation to purge your lands of idolatry by taking into consideration the difficulties which can hold you back, the fears and doubts which can sap courage. And I do not doubt that your advisors, if they look to this world, will try to stop you. I know the arguments advanced to prove that princes should not force their subjects to lead a Christian life, but all kingdoms which do not serve that of Jesus Christ are ruined. So judge for yourself. I do not say that all can be done in a day.>
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John Calvin told the Queen Regnant of Navarre, April 28, 1545:
<A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.> 1514JK003
In 1559, Knox returned to Scotland with Calvinist Protestantism. He preached a sermon in St. Andrews which incited hearers, who proceeded to smash statues and vandalize Catholic churches. He was instrumental in having the Scottish Parliament officially accepted the Reformation in 1560, beginning the Presbyterian Church.
Through Knox, John Calvin's beliefs not only influenced Scotland, but also the millions of Scots, Scots-Irish, Puritan and Presbyterian immigrants who came to America.
U.S. Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft published a ten-volume History of the United States (1834-74), the first comprehensive history of America. Bancroft wrote:
<He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows little of the origin of American liberty.>
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F
ollowing Calvin's example of confronting monarchs, Knox opposed Mary Queen of Scots. His written works include: First Blast of the Trumpets Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1556-58, and the Book of Common Order, which regulated Scottish worship.
Mary-Queen of Scots had a tragic life. After returning from France, she had married Lord Darnley in 1565, but he became jealous of Mary's private secretary, David Rizzio, and had him murdered.
Lord Darnley was then suspiciously killed two years later in an explosion. The chief suspect in his murder was the Earl of Bothwell, who manipulated Mary into marrying him a month later.
This upheaval resulted in the Scottish Parliament forcing Mary to abdicate her throne. She was replaced by her and Lord Darnley's infant son, James.
James, at the age of 13 months, was crowned King James VI of Scotland. John Knox gave the coronation sermon.
The Earl of Bothwell tried to raise forces to return Mary-Queen of Scots to her throne, but he was captured in Norway and died in prison.
Mary-Queen of Scots fled to England in 1568 to be protected by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I,who ended up putting her into forced custody for 19 years.
Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn had refused to be another of Henry's mistresses. This led Henry to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, whose daughter was Mary. Henry broke from the Catholic Church and began the Anglican Church.
Henry VIII later beheaded Anne Boleyn. The fate of Henry VIII's six wives were:
1) Catherine of Aragon, divorced;
2) Anne Boleyn, beheaded;
3) Jane Seymour, died;
4) Anne of Cleves, divorced;
5) Catherine Howard, beheaded;
6) Catherine Parr, survived.
Elizabeth had been put in the Tower of London in 1554 by her half-sister Queen Mary. When Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth became Queen. She sent Sir Francis Drake to circumnavigate the globe, 1577-1580. She sent Sir Walter Raleigh to found a colony in America in 1584, which he named "Virginia" after the virgin Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth saw some of Shakespeare's plays, notably The Merry Wives of Windsor and Love's Labor's Lost.
Elizabeth was made aware of a plot against her life, which questionably implicated her captive Catholic cousin Mary-Queen of Scots. Elizabeth tragically signed the order for Mary's execution in 1587. Catholics in England went into hiding or fled. Large numbers of priests sent to England were captured and executed.
In 1588, Elizabeth had Sir Francis Drake fight the Spanish Armada. Like Francis I earlier, the seriousness of Spain's threat led Queen Elizabeth to make a treaty with Spain's enemies, Moroccan ruler Mulai Ahmad al-Mansur and the Ottoman Sultan Murad III.
When Elizabeth died in 1603, the son of Mary-Queen of Scots, James I, was made King of England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
King James I had been raised by Scottish Presbyterian Protestant tutors. He was responsible for arranging Anglican, Puritan and Presbyterian scholars to work together to produce the King James Bible - the best-selling and the most distributed book of all time.
King James I is the namesake of Jamestown, Virginia - the first permanent English settlement in America. The Pilgrims were sailing on the Mayflower ship to join the Jamestown Colony when the got blown off course in a winter storm and landed at Cape Cod. The Pilgrims had no charter from the King so they wrote their famous Mayflower Compact.
When Spanish and Italian Catholic troops plotted to help Ireland break from Anglican English control, beginning in 1569, the English crushed the attempt and executed thousands of Irish Catholics. The Irish had their crops and farms destroyed, leading to famine and disease and thousands dying. Over the next century, the British killed over a half-million Irish Catholics and sold the same number into slavery in the West Indies, New England, Barbados and Virginia.
In an effort to make Ireland more Protestant, Britain relocated 200,000 Presbyterians from Scotland to Ireland. In the following years, crop failures, the collapsing linen trade, and increased rents caused over a million Scots and Scots-Irish Protestant Presbyterian descendants to leave Ireland and immigrate to the American colonies.
Between 1717 and 1775, over 200,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America, becoming nearly a third of the country's population. At the time of the Revolution, the population of America was around 3 million, of which Puritans comprised about 600,000.
Other settlers included groups influenced by John Calvin:
900,000 Scots and Scots-Irish Presbyterians;
400,000 German or Dutch Reformed;
Protestant French Huguenots and Episcopalians.
Many of these held the basic Calvinistic confession, which was comprised of 39 Articles.
Through this mass immigration, the influence of John Calvin and John Knox was felt in America.
TIME Magazine published the article "Looking to Its Roots," May 25, 1987:
<Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea. That good idea combines a commitment to man's inalienable rights with the Calvinist belief in an ultimate moral right and sinful man's obligation to do good. These articles of faith, embodied in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution, literally govern our lives today.>
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The first Presbyterian Church in America was founded by Rev. Francis Makemie in Maryland in 1684. By the time of the American Revolution, the Presbyterian denomination was one of the four largest denominations in the country, along withAnglican, Congregational and Baptist.
A descendant of John Knox was Presbyterian minister John Witherspoon, who signed the Declaration of Independence and was a primary proponent of separation of powers.
John Knox, who
died November 24, 1572, stated:
<A man with God is always in the majority.> 1514JK006
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1514JK001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2024). John Knox, statement made while sailing past St. Andrews, Scotland.
1514JK002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2024). John Calvin, to Jeanne d'Albret Queen Regnant of Navarre, near the border of France and Spain.
1514JK003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2024). John Calvin, to Queen Regnant of Navarre, April 28, 1545.
1514JK004. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2024). U.S. Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, ten-volume History of the United States, 1834-74.
1514JK005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2024). TIME Magazine article "Looking to Its Roots," May 25, 1987.
1514JK006. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2024). John Knox, inscription on the Reformation Monument in Geneva, Switzerland. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 162.
