Closing Years

On the accession of Moray to the regentship, Knox was sent by the Assembly to visit the congregations between Stirling and Berwick to foster in the population a spirit favourable to the new government. And this was not the first occasion on which he had been absent for a considerable time from his own pulpit, impressing his personality on the country at large. More than once during Mary’s reign he had been silenced in Edinburgh or banished from the city; and these opportunities were utilised for far-extended visitations in different parts of the country. Once he even went into England; but this was for the purpose of seeing his two sons, who were being brought up by the relatives of their mother. But the Church of St. Giles was still his watchtower, from which he took a keen and wide survey of the political and religious horizon; and the numbers of his devoted disciples grew ever greater in the capital. They looked carefully after his temporal interests and, when the court endeavoured to silence or banish him, they made vigorous protest. Even from distant parts of Scotland, when his life was in peril, warnings came to the authorities from bodies of men, who made it manifest that they were not to be trifled with.

The Good Regent, however, as Moray came to be called, had many enemies, and he was well aware that he was carrying his life in his hand. At length he was assassinated at Linlithgow on 23 January This was the most shattering trial of Knox’s life; and, although at the funeral he preached so as to move three thousand persons to shed tears for the loss of such a good and godly governor, he felt that his share in the affairs of this world was drawing to an end; and, before the close of; the year, he experienced a shock of apoplexy.

Queen Mary “still had a strong party in the country, who desired her return to the throne; and of course the removal of the Good Regent encouraged their designs. Among them the most prominent were Maitland of Lethington and Kirkcaldy of Grange — the one the ablest lawyer and the other the strongest soldier of the age. Both had at one time been disciples of Knox; but now the old man looked on them as backsliders and

Sir Thomas Grainger-Stewart: The Good Regent, denounced them in very plain terms from the pulpit Both, at different times, took the constitutional course of complaining of these attacks to the Kirk Session; Kirkcaldy’s letter of complaint being one of great spirit and earnestness.^ But they were not likely to gain more by this means than did the French Ambassador, who, on one occasion, having complained to the Town Council of the freedom with which Knox had, in the pulpit, handled the name of his royal master, was informed by that body that, so far from being able to assist him, they were not always able to prevent John Knox I from denouncing themselves! Kirkcaldy, however, held Edinburgh Castle; and he managed to make the city so hot for Knox, through whose window a shot was fired one night, the ball lodging in the part of the wall in front of which he usually sat, that the friends of the preacher persuaded him, though with great difficulty, to remove for a time to St. Andrews.

Kirkcaldy’s attacks were, however, coarse in comparison with the skilful thrusts of Lethington, which, for many years, were a source of constant irritation and pain to theReformer; who, however, in dealing with them, revealed the gladiatorial skill of which [he was capable, even in old age. Thus, in March 1571, 1 JVorks, vi. 577.

in answer to an anonjimous libel, with which it is too probable Lethington was connected, Knox replies: “I am not a man of the law, to have my tongue to sell for silver or favour of the world.” “Railing and sedition,” he remarks, “they are never able to prove in me, till that first they compel Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, St Paul, and others to recant; of whom I have learned plainly and boldly to call wickedness by its own name, a fig a fig, and a spade a spade.” And he winds up with this memorable outburst: “What I have been to my country, albeit this unthankful age will not know, yet the ages to come will be compelled to bear witness to the truth. And thus I cease, requiring of all men who have anything to object against me that they will do it as plainly as that I make myself and all my doings manifest to the world; for to me it seems a thing most unreasonable that, in this my decrepit age, I should be compelled to fight against shadows and howlats that dare not abide the light.”

Maitland probably treated with contempt the solemn warnings hurled by the Reformer against himself and Kirkcaldy. But less than a year had elapsed after the last of these utterances before the earthly career of both had been ignominiously owls, * Works vi. 596.

ended; Lethington dying in prison, not without leaving behind the suspicion that he had released himself “the Roman way” from the complications in which he had become hopelessly entangled; and Kirkcaldy perishing on the scaffold, after confessing that it would have been good for him if he had followed the counsel of John Knox, whose prophecies had been fulfilled.

Knox was an old man when he was driven from Edinburgh to sojourn in St. Andrews; and of his venerable appearance at this time we have received from James Melville, then a student there, a description which is one of the gems of biography: — “Of all the benefits that I had that year (1571) was the coming of that most notable Prophet and Apostle of our nation. Master John Knox, to St. Andrews. I heard him teach the Prophecy of Daniel. I had my pen and my little book, and took away such things as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text he was moderate the space of half-an-hour. But, when he entered to application, he made me so to grue and tremble that I could not hold the pen to write. He would sometimes come in and repose himself in our College Yard. He would call us scholars unto him and bless us, and exhort us to know God and His work in our country, and to stand by the good cause. I saw him ‘every day of his doctrine go hulie and fear, with a furring of martricks about his neck, a staff in the one hand, and good, godly Richard Bannatyne, his servant, holding up the other oxter from the Abbey to the Parish Church. Then, by the same Richard and another servant, he was lifted up to the pulpit, where he behoved to lean at his first entrance; but, ere he had done with his sermon, he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding the pulpit in blads and fly out of it.” To all the inhabitants of the ancient seat of learning, however, the presence of Knox was not so acceptable; he became involved there in more than one of those disputes with which small university towns are incessantly agitated; and his experience made him leave to the Church, as a solemn legacy, the advice: “Above all things preserve the Kirk from the bondage of the Universities.” It was here that he was brought into momentary contact with a movement which was to have enduring importance for the Church, but of which even his penetration did not at the time foresee the issues. The Government, under the regency of the Earl of Mar, was pressed for money; and again the plan of squeezing it out of the Church was resorted to. It was in the brain of the Earl of break in pieces.

Morton, subsequently Regent, that the device of Tulchan Bishops was fabricated — that is, of reviving the office of bishop, but only for the purpose of allowing the Government with a show of legality to draw the salary, while the incumbent contented himself with a small moiety of the same. One of these new prelates was appointed Archbishop of St. Andrews while Knox was there; but the aged Reformer refused to bear any part in the proceedings. He is said to have had no conscientious objections to the office itself; but, at all events, Beza, with whom he was corresponding on the subject, gave no uncertain warning of the danger which, in no long time, was to become manifest enough in Scotland.

In August 1572 Knox returned to Edinburgh; and, the same month, came from France the news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Once more all the fire of his nature blazed up in a denunciation which he pronounced from the pulpit of St. Giles’ against the latest act of that bloody House, which he looked upon as the worst enemy of Scotland and of Protestantism. But this was almost the last effort of his declining strength. They had to partition off a little space in his great church, where he could still preach to a few, when his voice was too weak to overtake the multitude. He had the felicity of seeing a colleague — James Lawson from Aberdeen — settled over his old congregation; and his own very last appearance in public was at the induction of Lawson on 9 November.

At length he who had encountered so many adversaries was called upon to meet the last enemy; and it was given him to do so not only so as to enjoy comfort himself but to leave also to his friends and to posterity the assurance that he had obtained the victory.^ Two days after the induction of Lawson, he was taken with a sore cough, which! annoyed and enfeebled him. Paying his servant, Jamie Campbell, his wages that day, he added: “Thou wilt get no more of me in this life “; and so he gave him twenty shillings extra. On Friday he rose about his accustomed hour, but was unable to stand; and, when asked for what purpose he rose, he said that he was going to Church to preach, for he thought it had been Sunday; all night he had been meditating on the resurrection of Christ, on which he was to discourse after doing so on His death; many times he had prayed that he might end his ministry by preaching on that doctrine. On Saturday he was able to sit down at table for Narratives by Bannatyne and Lawson in Works, vi.

the last time; two acquaintances, John Durie and Archibald Stewart, dining with him. He caused pierce a hogshead of wine which was in the cellar, “and willed the said Archibald to send for the same as long as it lasted; for he would not tarry till it was drunken.” On Sunday he kept his bed but desired the office-bearers of the Church to come and see him. This they did next day; and he was able to speak, reviewing his ministry among them and exhorting them so tenderly that they departed with tears. But, retaining Lawson and Lindsay, he directed them to carry a last message of warning to Kirkcaldy of Grange in the Castle; “For,” said he, “the man’s soul is dear unto me, and I would not have it perish, if I could save it.” He was the worse of the effort to address the representatives of the congregation and could not afterwards speak without pain. Still he had an apt word for everyone who came to visit him; and many did so, among them Lord Boyd, Lord Morton, Lord Lindsay, Lord Ruthven and Lord Glencairn.

When a pious gentlewoman began to praise God for what he had been, he turned on her with, “Tongue! tongue! lady; flesh of itself is overproud and needs no means to esteem itself.” On another occasion, coming out of a fit of abstraction, in which he had exhibited signs of deep distress, he said: “I have before this sustained many conflicts in this frail life and many assaults from Satan, but at this time that roaring lion hath most furiously attacked me and put forth all his strength, that he might devour and make an end of me at once. Often before hath he placed my sins before my eyes, often tempted me to despair, often has he endeavoured to entangle me with the allurements of the world; but, these weapons being broken by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, he could accomplish nothing. But now he has attacked me in another way; for the cunning serpent has endeavoured to persuade me that I have merited heaven itself and a blessed immortality by the faithful discharge of the ministerial office committed to me. But blessed be God, who suggested to me those passages of Scripture by which I was able to grapple with him and extinguish this fiery dart; among which were these, “What hast thou that thou hast not received? ’ and,” By the grace of God I am what I am; “and,” Not I, but the grace of God in me “; and, thus being vanquished, he went away; wherefore I give thanks to my God by Jesus Christ, who was pleased to grant me the victory. I am firmly persuaded that he will not attack me further, but that, in a short time, without any great bodily pain and without any distress of mind, I shall exchange this mortal and miserable life for an immortal and blessed life, through Jesus Christ.”

On Friday he gave orders to Richard Bannatyne, his secretary, to get his coffin made ready. One more Sunday he was spared, and, when most of the family were at Church, he lay thinking, till he burst out to a friend who had continued beside him: “These two last nights I have been in meditation on the Kirk of God, the Spouse of Jesus Christ, despised of the world but precious in His sight, I have called to God for her, and committed her to her Spouse, Jesus Christ. I have been fighting against Satan, who is ever ready to assault; yea, I have fought against spiritual wickedness in heavenly things and have prevailed. I have been in heaven and have possession, and I have tasted of the heavenly joys, where presently I am.” After Church many came in to see him; and, when asked if he had any pain, he replied: “No more pain than he that is now in heaven. I am content, if God so please, to lie here for seven years.”

Monday, 24 November, was his last day on earth. He rose and put on some of his clothes, but was persuaded to go to bed again in the forenoon. To an old friend, Robert Campbell of Kinzeancleugh, he said: “I must leave the care of my wife and bairns unto you, to whom you must be a husband in my room.” Daily those around his bed had been wont to read to him favourite passages of Scripture, such as Isaiah liii. and the Epistle to the Ephesians, together with portions of the Psalter, and certain sermons of Calvin. This last day, he caused his wife to read i Corinthians XV. and, when it was ended, exclaimed: “Is not that a comfortable chapter?” At five o’clock he said to her again: “Go read where I cast my first anchor,” meaning John xvii. It was late at night before the last struggle set in. Hearing him give a long sigh and a sob, his servant Richard sat down before the bed and said: “Now sir, the time that you have long called to God for, to wit, an end of your battle, is come. And, seeing all natural power now fails, remember upon those comfortable promises which oftentimes you have shown us of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And, that we may understand and know that you hear us, make us some sign.” And so he lifted up one hand and immediately thereafter rendered his spirit, sleeping away without pain about eleven at night.

“On this manner,” as the faithful Richard remarks, “departed this man of God, the light of Scotland, the comfort of the Kirk within the same, the mirror of godliness, and a pattern and example to all true ministers in purity of life, soundness of doctrine, and boldness in reproof of wickedness.” No better inscription could have been placed on his tombstone; but the sentence of the Regent Morton, uttered at the side of his open grave, is the epitaph which has caught the fancy of posterity and sums up the ,, veneration and gratitude of his fellow-countrymen: “Here lies one who never feared the face of man.”