Final Years in Edinburgh, 1564–1572
On 26 March 1564 Knox stirred controversy again, when he married Margaret Stewart, the daughter of an old friend, Andrew Stewart, Lord Ochiltree, a member of the Stuart family and a distant relative of the Queen, Mary Stuart. The marriage was unusual because he was a widower of fifty, while the bride was only seventeen. Very few details are known of their domestic life. They had three daughters, Martha, Margaret, and Elizabeth.
When the General Assembly convened in June 1564, an argument broke out between Knox and Maitland over the authority of the civil government. Maitland told Knox to refrain from stirring up emotions over Mary's insistence on having mass celebrated and he quoted from Martin Luther and John Calvin about obedience to earthly rulers. Knox retorted that the Bible notes that Israel was punished when it followed an unfaithful king and that the Continental reformers were refuting arguments made by the Anabaptists who rejected all forms of government. The debate revealed his waning influence on political events as the nobility continued to support Mary.
On 29 July 1565 when Mary married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, some of the Protestant nobles rose up in rebellion including James Stewart. Knox revealed his own objection while preaching in the presence of the new King Consort on 19 August 1565. He made passing allusions on ungodly rulers which caused Darnley to walk out. Knox was summoned and prohibited from preaching while the court was in Edinburgh.
On 9 March 1566, Mary's secretary, David Rizzio, was murdered by Protestant rebels loyal to Darnley. Mary escaped from Edinburgh to Dunbar and by 18 March returned with a formidable force. Knox fled to Kyle in Ayrshire, where he completed the major part of his magnum opus, History of the Reformation in Scotland. When he returned to Edinburgh, he found the Protestant nobles divided over what to do with Mary. Her husband, Lord Darnley, had been murdered in apparent revenge for the assassination of Rizzio (who was a favourite of Mary's), upon which the Queen almost immediately married the chief suspect. The indictment of murder thus upon her, she had been forced to abdicate and was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle. Lord Moray had become the regent of King James VI. Other old friends of Knox's, Lord Argyll and William Kirkcaldy, stood by Mary. On 29 July 1567, Knox preached James VI's coronation sermon at the church in Stirling. During this period Knox thundered against her in his sermons, even to the point of calling for her death. However, Mary's life was spared, and she escaped on 2 May 1568.
The fighting in Scotland continued. Lord Moray was assassinated on 23 January 1570. The regent who succeeded him, the Earl of Lennox, was also a victim of violence. On 30 April 1571, the controller of Edinburgh Castle, Kirkcaldy, ordered all enemies of the Queen to leave the city. But for Knox, his former friend and fellow galley-slave, he made an exception. If Knox did not leave, he could stay in Edinburgh, but only if he remained captive in the castle. Knox chose to leave, and on 5 May he left for St Andrews. He continued to preach, spoke to students, and worked on his History. At the end of July 1572, after a truce was called, he returned to Edinburgh. Although by this time exceedingly feeble and his voice faint, he continued to preach at St Giles'.
After inducting his successor, Lawson of Aberdeen, as minister of St Giles' on 9 November, Knox returned to his home for the last time. With his friends and some of the greatest Scottish nobles around him, he asked for the Bible to be read aloud. On his last day, 24 November 1572, his young wife read from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. A testimony to Knox was pronounced at his grave in the churchyard of St Giles' by the Earl of Morton and newly-elected regent of Scotland: "Here lies one who never feared any flesh".
Knox claimed in his will, "None have I corrupted, none have I defrauded; merchandise have I not made." The paltry sum of money Knox bequeathed to his family, which would have left them in dire poverty, showed that he had not profited from his work in the Kirk. The regent, Lord Morton, asked the General Assembly to continue paying his stipend to his widow for one year after his death; and the regent ensured that Knox's dependents were decently supported.
Knox was survived by his five children and his second wife. Nathaniel and Eleazar, his two sons by his first wife, attended Cambridge University, and died at a young age without issue. His second wife, Margaret, remarried to Andrew Ker, one of those involved in the murder of David Rizzio. Knox's three daughters also married: Martha to Alexander Fairlie; Margaret to Zachary Pont, son of Robert Pont and brother of Timothy Pont; and Elizabeth to John Welsh, a minister of the Kirk. John Knox is currently buried under parking space "#23" in a parking lot that is situated right next to the St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh.
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