ted at the University of Glasgow in
1522. Some suppose that he may have followed Major to St Andrews in
1523, or may have come there later, to study theology or to act as a
private tutor to some young men studying at that university. But there
is no reference to him in the university books, nor mention of his
presence by any one then resident. From 1522 up to 1545-46, when he
appears as sword-bearer to Wishart, his life is to us almost a blank.
But as Minerva was said to have come full armed from the brain of
Jupiter, so did Knox then start up as leader of our Reformation, fully
equipped and singularly matured. Whatever his early training may have
been, he had by that time thoroughly mastered the subjects in
controversy between the two churches, and possibly, as Bayle supposes,
had made himself aquainted in his retirement with the writings of that
great doctor of the western church to whom Luther, Calvin, and Alesius
were largely indebted. I believe no man in recent times has in brief
space sketched his character, both on its brighter and darker sides,
with less partisan feeling than Dr Merle D'Aubigne, when he says: "The
blood of warriors ran in the veins of the man who was to become one of
the most intrepid champions of Christ's army.... He was active, bold,
thoroughly upright and perfectly honest, diligent in his duties, and
full of heartiness for his comrades. But he had in him also a firmness
which came near to obstinacy, an independence which was very much like
pride, a melancholy which bordered on prostration, a sternness which
some took for insensibility, and a passionate force sometimes mistakenly
attributed to a vindictive temper."[82] According to Calderwood, he
received his first "taste of the truthe" from the preaching of his
fellow-countryman, Thomas Guilliame or Williams, a black friar, who in
1543 became one of the chaplains of the regent, and shortly after,
being inhibited to preach, retired into England.[83] The good seed sown
by him was watered by Wishart, and grew up apace, "first the blade, then
the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."

[Sidenote: Tragedy of the Cardinal.]

On 29th May 1546, while the applause of priests and friars was still
ringing in his ears, and he was proudly congratulating himself on the
progress of his new fortifications, and the success of all his measures
to secure the triumph of his party and his own complete personal
ascendancy, the cardinal was suddenly surprised