By Austin B. Tucker
John Knox first
appeared on the stage of history bearing the two-handed great sword as bodyguard
to reformer George Wisehart. Canon law forbad priests to carry a weapon, but
Knox, already disgusted with Rome, was committed to reforming Scotland. For
five weeks Wisehart and his bodyguards spent each night in a different house
to avoid arrest. Knox was willing to die with the reformer, but when Wisehart
could no longer elude his pursuers, he sent Knox away, saying, "Nay, return
to your bairns [children] and God bless you. One is sufficient for a sacrifice."
Biographer Jasper Ridley believed "if Knox had stayed with Wisehart some nine
hours longer, he would have been burnt as a heretic in 1546."1
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A few weeks later,
a band of Protestants set out to revenge Wisehart. They raided St. Andrew's
Castle and killed Cardinal Beaton. They abused the corpse shamefully. Though
Knox did not share in that raid, he soon shared the blame by moving into the
castle as teacher to children of the rebels. He was indeed in total sympathy
with their deeds, as he would later record in his History of the Reformation.
Detailing the assassination of the cardinal and the desecration of his body,
Knox inserted, “These things we write merrily."2
Those were violent times – especially in Scotland. In the hundred years before
the birth of Knox, every king of Scotland without exception met a violent death.3
The rebel force
in the castle grew to about two hundred. John Rough, their preacher and Henry
Balnavis, another leader, became increasingly impressed with Knox. One day a
Romanist named Arnaud debated in the chapel and spoke of the Roman Catholic
Church as the spouse of Christ. Knox interrupted the speaker from the audience
to say Rome was no spouse but a harlot. He challenged the Romanist to debate
him on that subject. Though Arnaud refused, the congregation insisted that Knox
express his views in a sermon on the next Sunday.
Knox had never
preached, and the prospect of intruding into that holy office terrified him.
They would not be denied, however, so after a week of great soul struggle, in
April 1547, he preached his first sermon. His text was Daniel 7:24-25. Knox
summarized the sermon in his History. He called the Church of Rome the
Antichrist and cited the scandalous lives of some of the popes. He preached
that justification is by faith alone and not by any works of human righteousness.
The reception of this first sermon convinced him that he had God's call to preach.
He never doubted it again.4
The French fleet
came in July 1547 to retake the castle. The defenders surrendered. Knox and
one hundred twenty other captives were sentenced to be galley slaves. They were
chained to a rowing bench twenty-four/seven with a daily ration of one ship's
biscuit and water. It was sometimes as little as three ounces of food daily.
Every three weeks they were afforded a little vegetable soup. Knox was thirty-three
years old and in robust health when he began. Lesser men did not survive.5