of Greater Britain.'

[8] Hume Brown's 'Knox,' i. 44.

[9] See Scots Acts, A.D. 1471, c. 43.

[10]

An Petrus Romae fuerit, sub judice lis est:
Simonem Romae nemo fuisse negat.

CHAPTER II

THE CRISIS: SINGLE OR TWO-FOLD?

On this dark background Knox for the first time appears in history. But
we catch sight of him merely as an attendant on the attractive figure of
George Wishart. At Cambridge Wishart had been 'courteous, lowly, lovely,
glad to teach, and desirous to learn'; when he returned to Scotland,
Knox and others found him 'a man of such graces as before him were never
heard within this realm.' He had preached in several parts of Scotland,
and was brought in the spring of 1546 by certain gentlemen of East
Lothian, 'who then were earnest professors of Christ Jesus,' to the
neighbourhood of Haddington. On the morning of his last sermon in that
town he had received (in the mansion-house of Lethington, 'the laird
whereof,' father of the famous William Maitland, 'was ever civil, albeit
not persuaded in religion') a letter, 'which received and read, he
called for John Knox, who had waited upon him carefully from the time he
came to Lothian.' And the same evening, with a presentiment of his
coming arrest, he 'took his good-night, as it were for ever,' of all his
acquaintance, and

'John Knox pressing to have gone with the said Master George, he
said, "Nay, return to your bairns, and God bless you! One is
sufficient for one sacrifice." And so he caused a two-handed
sword (which commonly was carried with the said Master George)
be taken from the said John Knox, who, although unwillingly,
obeyed, and returned with Hugh Douglas of Longniddrie.'[11]

The same night Wishart was arrested by the Earl of Bothwell, and
afterwards handed over to the Cardinal Archbishop, tried by him as a
heretic, and on 1st March 1546 burned in front of his castle of St
Andrews. Ere long this stronghold was stormed, and the Cardinal murdered
in his own chamber by a number of the gentlemen of Fife, whose raid was
partly in revenge for Wishart's death. They shut themselves up in the
castle for protection, and we hear no more of John Knox till the
following year. Then we are told that, 'wearied of removing from place
to place, by reason of the persecution that came upon him by the Bishop
of St Andrews,' he joined Leslie's band in their hold in St Andrews, in
consequence of the desire of his pupils' par