John Knox

Knox, John (c.1514-72). Scottish protestant preacher. Born at Haddington and educated at St Andrews University, Knox was ordained a catholic priest before being called to the protestant ministry in 1547. In 1549, following two years' imprisonment on a French galley, he settled in England, where his powerful preaching and extreme reliance on biblical authority established his radical credentials. Driven into continental exile by Mary Tudor's accession in 1553, his radicalism developed a powerful political edge, culminating in his diatribe against female rule, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558). On Elizabeth's accession, Knox returned to Scotland where in 1559 his iconoclastic preaching triggered a protestant rebellion against the regent, Mary of Guise. The reformed settlement of 1560, however, was jeopardized by the return to Scotland in 1561 of the catholic Mary Stuart. While Knox denounced her idolatry from his Edinburgh pulpit, politically he was marginalized and played no significant role in Mary's subsequent downfall.