John Knox and Revolution, 1558
J.H. Burns writes that few men have had a more decisive influence on the history of Scotland than John Knox. At what point in his career did he make up his mind to use his religious authority for political purposes, in order to bring down the “idolatrous sovereignties” that he saw around him? And why did he thus, almost unwittingly, become a revolutionary?
Early in 1558, John Knox returned to Geneva from Dieppe. He had gone there in the previous autumn, having been invited by four Protestant leaders to come back to Scotland and resume the successful preaching of the winter of 1555-56. But “contrary letters”—and, as he later acknowledged, certain hesitations of his own—interrupted his journey at the Channel.
His final return to Scotland was delayed until May 1559. Before that he published three important pamphlets, all written in the first half of 1558: the notorious First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, the Appellation of John Knox, and the Letter to the Commonalty. In so far as Knox made history by writing rather than by speech and action, these, together perhaps with the First Book of Discipline, are his most important works.
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