IX
JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN
THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT FEMALE RULE
When first the idea became widely spread among men that the Word of God,instead of being truly the foundation of all existing institutions, wasrather a stone which the builders had rejected, it was but natural thatthe consequent havoc among received opinions should be accompanied bythe generation of many new and lively hopes for the future. Somewhat asin the early days of the French Revolution, men must have looked for animmediate and universal improvement in their condition. Christianity, upto that time, had been somewhat of a failure politically. The reason wasnow obvious, the capital flaw was detected, the sickness of the bodypolitic traced at last to its efficient cause. It was only necessary toput the Bible thoroughly into practice, to set themselves strenuously torealise in life the Holy Commonwealth, and all abuses and iniquitieswould surely pass away. Thus, in a pageant played at Geneva in the year1523, the world was represented as a sick man at the end of his wits forhelp, to whom his doctor recommends Lutheran specifics.[60]
The Reformers themselves had set their affections in a different world,and professed to look for the finished result of their endeavours on theother side of death. They took no interest in politics as such; theyeven condemned political action as Antichristian: notably, Luther in thecase of the Peasants' War. And yet, as the purely religious questionwas inseparably complicated with political difficulties, and they had tomake opposition, from day to day, against principalities and powers,they were led, one after another, and again and again, to leave thesphere which was more strictly their own, and meddle, for good and evil,with the affairs of State. Not much was to be expected from interferencein such a spirit. Whenever a minister found himself galled or hindered,he would be inclined to suppose some contravention of the Bible.Whenever Christian liberty was restrained (and Christian liberty foreach individual would be about co-extensive with what he wished to do),it was obvious that the State was Antichristian. The great thing, andthe one thing, was to push the Gospel and the Reformer's owninterpretation of it. Whatever helped was good; whatever hindered wasevil; and if this simple classification proved inapplicable over thewhole field, it was no business of his to stop and reconcileincongruities. He had more pressing concerns on hand; he had to savesouls; he had to be about his Father's business. This short-sighted viewresulted in a doctrine that was actually Jesuitical in application. Theyhad no serious ideas upon politics, and they were ready, nay, theyseemed almost bound, to adopt and support whichever ensured for themoment the greatest benefit to the souls of their fellow-men. They weredishonest in all sincerity. Thus Labitte, in the introduction to abook[61] in which he exposes the hypocritical democracy of the Catholicsunder the League, steps aside for a moment to stigmatise thehypocritical democracy of the Protestants. And nowhere was thisexpediency in political questions more apparent than about the questionof female sovereignty. So much was this the case that one JamesThomasius, of Leipsic, wrote a little paper[62] about the religiouspartialities of those who took part in the controversy, in which someof these learned disputants cut a very sorry figure.
Now Knox has been from the first a man well hated; and it is somewhatcharacteristic of his luck that he figures here in the very forefront ofthe list of partial scribes who trimmed their doctrine with the wind inall good conscience, and were political weathercocks out of conviction.Not only has Thomasius mentioned him, but Bayle has taken the hint fromThomasius, and dedicated a long note to the matter at the end of hisarticle on the Scottish Reformer. This is a little less than fair. Ifany one among the evangelists of that period showed more seriouspolitical sense than another, it was assuredly Knox; and even in thisvery matter of female rule, although I do not suppose anyone nowadayswill feel inclined to endorse his sentiments, I confess I can make greatallowance for his conduct. The controversy, besides, has an interest ofits own, in view of later controversies.
John Knox, from 1556 to 1559, was resident in Geneva, as minister,jointly with Goodman, of a little church of English refugees. He and hiscongregation were banished from England by one woman, Mary Tudor, andproscribed in Scotland by another, the Regent Mary of Guise. Thecoincidence was tempting; here were many abuses centring about oneabuse; here was Christ's Gospel persecuted in the two kingdoms by oneanomalous power. He had not far to go to find the idea that femalegovernment was anomalous. It was an age, indeed, in which women, capableand incapable, played a conspicuous part upon the stage of Europeanhistory; and yet their rule, whatever may have been the opinion of hereand there a wise man or enthusiast, was regarded as an anomaly by thegreat bulk of their contemporaries. It was defended as an anomaly. It,and all that accompanied and sanctioned it, was set aside as a singleexception; and no one thought of reasoning down from queens andextending their privileges to ordinary women. Great ladies, as we know,had the privilege of entering into monasteries and cloisters, otherwiseforbidden to their sex. As with one thing, so with another. Thus,Margaret of Navarre wrote books with great acclamation, and no one,seemingly, saw fit to call her conduct in question; but Mademoiselle deGournay, Montaigne's adopted daughter, was in a controversy with theworld as to whether a woman might be an author without incongruity.Thus, too, we have Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne writing to his daughtersabout the learned women of his century, and cautioning them, inconclusion, that the study of letters was unsuited to ladies of amiddling station, and should be reserved for princesses.[63] And oncemore, if we desire to see the same principle carried to ludicrousextreme, we shall find that Reverend Father in God, the Abbot ofBrantome, claiming, on the authority of some lord of his acquaintance, aprivilege, or rather a duty, of free love for great princesses, andcarefully excluding other ladies from the same gallant dispensation.[64]One sees the spirit in which these immunities were granted; and how theywere but the natural consequence of that awe for courts and kings thatmade the last writer tell us, with simple wonder, how Catherine deMedici would "laugh her fill just like another" over the humours ofpantaloons and zanies. And such servility was, of all things, what wouldtouch most nearly the republican spirit of Knox. It was not difficultfor him to set aside this weak scruple of loyalty. The lantern of hisanalysis did not always shine with a very serviceable light; but he hadthe virtue, at least, to carry it into many places of fictitiousholiness, and was not abashed by the tinsel divinity that hedged kingsand queens from his contemporaries. And so he could put the propositionin the form already mentioned: there was Christ's Gospel persecuted inthe two kingdoms by one anomalous power; plainly, then, the "regiment ofwomen" was Antichristian. Early in 1558 he communicated this discoveryto the world, by publishing at Geneva his notorious book--"The FirstBlast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women."[65]
As a whole, it is a dull performance; but the preface, as is usual withKnox, is both interesting and morally fine. Knox was not one of thosewho are humble in the hour of triumph; he was aggressive even whenthings were at their worst. He had a grim reliance in himself, or ratherin his mission; if he were not sure that he was a great man, he was atleast sure that he was one set apart to do great things. And he judgedsimply that whatever passed in his mind, whatever moved him to flee frompersecution instead of constantly facing it out, or, as here, to publishand withhold his name from the title-page of a critical work, would notfail to be of interest, perhaps of benefit, to the world. There may besomething more finely sensitive in the modern humour, that tends moreand more to withdraw a man's personality from the lessons he inculcatesor the cause that he has espoused; but there is a loss herewith ofwholesome responsibility; and when we find in the works of Knox, as inthe Epistles of Paul, the man himself standing nakedly forward, courtingand anticipating criticism, putting his character, as it were, in pledgefor the sincerity of his doctrine, we had best waive the question ofdelicacy, and make our acknowledgments for a lesson of courage, notunnecessary in these days of anonymous criticism, and much light,otherwise unattainable, on the spirit in which great movements wereini
tiated and carried forward. Knox's personal revelations are alwaysinteresting; and, in the case of the "First Blast," as I have said,there is no exception to the rule. He begins by stating the solemnresponsibility of all who are watchmen over God's flock; and all arewatchmen (he goes on to explain, with that fine breadth of spirit thatcharacterises him even when, as here, he shows himself most narrow), allare watchmen "whose eyes God doth open, and whose conscience hepricketh to admonish the ungodly." And with the full consciousness ofthis great duty before him, he sets himself to answer the scruples oftimorous or worldly-minded people. How can a man repent, he asks, unlessthe nature of his transgression is made plain to him? "And therefore Isay," he continues, "that of necessity it is that this monstriferousempire of women (which among all enormities that this day do abound uponthe face of the whole earth, is most detestable and damnable) be openlyand plainly declared to the world, to the end that some may repent andbe saved." To those who think the doctrine useless, because it cannot beexpected to amend those princes whom it would dispossess if onceaccepted, he makes answer in a strain that shows him at his greatest.After having instanced how the rumour of Christ's censures found its wayto Herod in his own court, "even so," he continues, "may the sound ofour weak trumpet, by the support of some wind (blow it from the south,or blow it from the north, it is of no matter), come to the ears of thechief offenders. _But whether it do or not, yet dare we not cease toblow as God will give strength. For we are debtors to more than toprinces, to wit, to the great multitude of our brethren_, of whom, nodoubt, a great number have heretofore offended by error and ignorance."
It is for the multitude, then, he writes; he does not greatly hope thathis trumpet will be audible in palaces, or that crowned women willsubmissively discrown themselves at his appeal; what he does hope, inplain English, is to encourage and justify rebellion; and we shall see,before we have done, that he can put his purpose into words as roundlyas I can put it for him. This he sees to be a matter of much hazard; heis not "altogether so brutish and insensible, but that he has laid hisaccount what the finishing of the work may cost." He knows that he willfind many adversaries, since "to the most part of men, lawful and godlyappeareth whatsoever antiquity hath received." He looks for opposition,"not only of the ignorant multitude, but of the wise, politic, andquiet spirits of the earth." He will be called foolish, curious,despiteful, and a sower of sedition; and one day, perhaps, for all he isnow nameless, he may be attainted of treason. Yet he has "determined toobey God, notwithstanding that the world shall rage thereat." Finally,he makes some excuse for the anonymous appearance of this firstinstalment: it is his purpose thrice to blow the trumpet in this matter,if God so permit; twice he intends to do it without name; but at thelast blast to take the odium upon himself, that all others may bepurged.
Thus he ends the preface, and enters upon his argument with a secondarytitle: "The First Blast to awake Women degenerate." We are in the landof assertion without delay. That a woman should bear rule, superiority,dominion or empire over any realm, nation, or city, he tells us, isrepugnant to nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order.Women are weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish. God has denied towoman wisdom to consider, or providence to foresee, what is profitableto a commonwealth. Women have been very lightly esteemed; they have beendenied the tutory of their own sons, and subjected to the unquestionablesway of their husbands; and surely it is irrational to give the greaterwhere the less has been withheld, and suffer a woman to reign supremeover a great kingdom who would be allowed no authority by her ownfireside. He appeals to the Bible; but though he makes much of the firsttransgression and certain strong texts in Genesis and Paul's Epistles,he does not appeal with entire success. The cases of Deborah and Huldahcan be brought into no sort of harmony with his thesis. Indeed, I maysay that, logically, he left his bones there; and that it is but thephantom of an argument that he parades thenceforward to the end. Wellwas it for Knox that he succeeded no better; it is under this veryambiguity about Deborah that we shall find him fain to creep for shelterbefore he is done with the regiment of women. After having thusexhausted Scripture, and formulated its teaching in the somewhatblasphemous maxim that the man is placed above the woman, even as Godabove the angels, he goes on triumphantly to adduce the testimonies ofTertullian, Augustine, Ambrose, Basil, Chrysostom, and the Pandects; andhaving gathered this little cloud of witnesses about him, likepursuivants about a herald, he solemnly proclaims all reigning women tobe traitoresses and rebels against God; discharges all men thenceforwardfrom holding any office under such monstrous regiment, and calls uponall the lieges with one consent to _"study to repress the inordinatepride and tyranny" of queens_. If this is not treasonable teaching, onewould be glad to know what is; and yet, as if he feared he had not madethe case plain enough against himself, he goes on to deduce thestartling corollary that all oaths of allegiance must be incontinentlybroken. If it was sin thus to have sworn even in ignorance, it wereobstinate sin to continue to respect them after fuller knowledge. Thencomes the peroration, in which he cries aloud against the cruelties ofthat cursed Jezebel of England--that horrible monster Jezebel ofEngland; and after having predicted sudden destruction to her rule andto the rule of all crowned women, and warned all men that if theypresume to defend the same when any "noble heart" shall be raised up tovindicate the liberty of his country, they shall not fail to perishthemselves in the ruin, he concludes with a last rhetorical flourish:"And therefore let all men be advertised, for THE TRUMPET HATH ONCEBLOWN."
The capitals are his own. In writing, he probably felt the want of somesuch reverberation of the pulpit under strong hands as he was wont toemphasise his spoken utterances withal; there would seem to him a wantof passion in the orderly lines of type; and I suppose we may take thecapitals as a mere substitute for the great voice with which he wouldhave given it forth, had we heard it from his own lips. Indeed, as itis, in this little strain of rhetoric about the trumpet, this currentallusion to the fall of Jericho, that alone distinguishes his bitter andhasty production, he was probably right, according to all artisticcanon, thus to support and accentuate in conclusion the sustainedmetaphor of a hostile proclamation. It is curious, by the way, to notehow favourite an image the trumpet was with the Reformer. He returns toit again and again; it is the Alpha and Omega of his rhetoric; it is tohim what a ship is to the stage sailor; and one would almost fancy hehad begun the world as a trumpeter's apprentice. The partiality issurely characteristic. All his life long he was blowing summonses beforevarious Jerichos, some of which fell duly, but not all. Wherever heappears in history his speech is loud, angry, and hostile; there is nopeace in his life, and little tenderness; he is always soundinghopefully to the front for some rough enterprise. And as his voice hadsomething of the trumpet's hardness, it had something also of thetrumpet's warlike inspiration. So Randolph, possibly fresh from thesound of the Reformer's preaching, writes of him to Cecil: "Where yourhonour exhorteth us to stoutness, I assure you the voice of one man isable, in an hour, to put more life in us than six hundred trumpetscontinually blustering in our ears."[66]
Thus was the proclamation made. Nor was it long in wakening all theechoes of Europe. What success might have attended it, had the questiondecided been a purely abstract question, it is difficult to say. As itwas, it was to stand or fall not by logic, but by political needs andsympathies. Thus, in France, his doctrine was to have some future,because Protestants suffered there under the feeble and treacherousregency of Catherine de Medici; and thus it was to have no futureanywhere else, because the Protestant interest was bound up with theprosperity of Queen Elizabeth. This stumbling-block lay at the verythreshold of the matter; and Knox, in the text of the "First Blast," hadset everybody the wrong example and gone to the ground himself. Hefinds occasion to regret "the blood of innocent Lady Jane Dudley." ButLady Jane Dudley, or Lady Jane Grey, as we call her, was a would-betraitoress and rebel against God, to use his own expressions. If,therefore, political and religious sympathy led Knox himself
into sograve a partiality, what was he to expect from his disciples? If thetrumpet gave so ambiguous a sound, who could heartily prepare himselffor the battle? The question whether Lady Jane Dudley was an innocentmartyr, or a traitoress against God, whose inordinate pride and tyrannyhad been effectually repressed, was thus left altogether in the wind;and it was not, perhaps, wonderful if many of Knox's readers concludedthat all right and wrong in the matter turned upon the degree of thesovereign's orthodoxy and possible helpfulness to the Reformation. Heshould have been the more careful of such an ambiguity of meaning, as hemust have known well the lukewarm indifference and dishonesty of hisfellow-reformers in political matters. He had already, in 1556 or 1557,talked the matter over with his great master, Calvin, in "a privateconversation"; and the interview[67] must have been truly distasteful toboth parties. Calvin, indeed, went a far way with him in theory, andowned that the "government of women was a deviation from the originaland proper order of nature, to be ranked, no less than slavery, amongthe punishments consequent upon the fall of man." But, in practice,their two roads separated. For the Man of Geneva saw difficulties in theway of the Scripture proof in the cases of Deborah and Huldah, and inthe prophecy of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of theChurch. And as the Bible was not decisive, he thought the subject shouldbe let alone, because, "by custom and public consent and long practice,it has been established that realms and principalities may descend tofemales by hereditary right, and it would not be lawful to unsettlegovernments which are ordained by the peculiar providence of God." Iimagine Knox's ears must have burned during this interview. Think of himlistening dutifully to all this--how it would not do to meddle withanointed kings--how there was a peculiar providence in these greataffairs; and then think of his own peroration, and the "noble heart"whom he looks for "to vindicate the liberty of his country"; or hisanswer to Queen Mary, when she asked him who he was, to interfere in theaffairs of Scotland: "Madame, a subject born within the same!" Indeed,the two doctors who differed at this private conversation represented,at the moment, two principles of enormous import in the subsequenthistory of Europe. In Calvin we have represented that passive obedience,that toleration of injustice and absurdity, that holding back of thehand from political affairs as from something unclean, which lostFrance, if we are to believe M. Michelet, for the Reformation; a spiritnecessarily fatal in the long-run to the existence of any sect that mayprofess it; a suicidal doctrine that survives among us to this day innarrow views of personal duty, and the low political morality of manyvirtuous men. In Knox, on the other hand, we see foreshadowed the wholePuritan Revolution and the scaffold of Charles I.
There is little doubt in my mind that this interview was what causedKnox to print his book without a name.[68] It was a dangerous thing tocontradict the Man of Geneva, and doubly so, surely, when one had hadthe advantage of correction from him in a private conversation; and Knoxhad his little flock of English refugees to consider. If they had falleninto bad odour at Geneva, where else was there left to flee to? It wasprinted, as I said, in 1558; and, by a singular _mal-a-propos_, in thatsame year Mary died, and Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of England.And just as the accession of Catholic Queen Mary had condemned femalerule in the eyes of Knox, the accession of Protestant Queen Elizabethjustified it in the eyes of his colleagues. Female rule ceases to be ananomaly, not because Elizabeth can "reply to eight ambassadors in oneday in their different languages," but because she represents for themoment the political future of the Reformation. The exiles troop back toEngland with songs of praise in their mouths. The bright occidentalstar, of which we have all read in the Preface to the Bible, has risenover the darkness of Europe. There is a thrill of hope through thepersecuted Churches of the Continent. Calvin writes to Cecil, washinghis hands of Knox and his political heresies. The sale of the "FirstBlast" is prohibited in Geneva; and along with it the bold book ofKnox's colleague, Goodman--a book dear to Milton--where female rule wasbriefly characterised as a "monster in nature and disorder amongmen."[69] Any who may ever have doubted, or been for a moment led awayby Knox or Goodman, or their own wicked imaginations, are now more thanconvinced. They have seen the occidental star. Aylmer, with his eye setgreedily on a possible bishopric, and "the better to obtain the favourof the new Queen,"[70] sharpens his pen to confound Knox by logic. Whatneed? He has been confounded by facts. "Thus what had been to therefugees of Geneva as the very word of God, no sooner were they back inEngland than, behold! it was the word of the devil."[71]
Now, what of the real sentiments of these loyal subjects of Elizabeth?They professed a holy horror for Knox's position: let us see if theirown would please a modern audience any better, or was, in substance,greatly different.
John Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, published an answer to Knox,under the title of "An Harbour for Faithful and true Subjects againstthe late Blown Blast concerning the government of Women."[72] Andcertainly he was a thought more acute, a thought less precipitate andsimple, than his adversary. He is not to be led away by such captiousterms as _natural_ and _unnatural_. It is obvious to him that a woman'sdisability to rule is not natural in the same sense in which it isnatural for a stone to fall or fire to burn. He is doubtful, on thewhole, whether this disability be natural at all; nay, when he is layingit down that a woman should not be a priest, he shows some elementaryconception of what many of us now hold to be the truth of the matter."The bringing-up of women," he says, "is commonly such" that they cannothave the necessary qualifications, "for they are not brought up inlearning in schools, nor trained in disputation." And even so, he canask, "Are there not in England women, think you, that for learning andwisdom could tell their household and neighbours as good a tale as anySir John there?" For all that, his advocacy is weak. If women's rule isnot unnatural in a sense preclusive of its very existence, it is neitherso convenient nor so profitable as the government of men. He holdsEngland to be specially suitable for the government of women, becausethere the governor is more limited and restrained by the other membersof the constitution than in other places; and this argument has kept hisbook from being altogether forgotten. It is only in hereditarymonarchies that he will offer any defence of the anomaly. "If rulerswere to be chosen by lot or suffrage, he would not that any women shouldstand in the election, but men only." The law of succession of crownswas a law to him, in the same sense as the law of evolution is a law toMr. Herbert Spencer; and the one and the other counsels his readers, ina spirit suggestively alike, not to kick against the pricks or seek tobe more wise than He who made them.[73] If God has put a female childinto the direct line of inheritance, it is God's affair. His strengthwill be perfected in her weakness. He makes the Creator address theobjectors in this not very flattering vein: "I, that could make Daniel,a sucking babe, to judge better than the wisest lawyers; a brute beastto reprehend the folly of a prophet; and poor fishers to confound thegreat clerks of the world--cannot I make a woman to be a good ruler overyou?" This is the last word of his reasoning. Although he was notaltogether without Puritanic leaven, shown particularly in what he saysof the incomes of Bishops, yet it was rather loyalty to the old order ofthings than any generous belief in the capacity of women, that raised upfor them this clerical champion. His courtly spirit contrasts singularlywith the rude, bracing republicanism of Knox. "Thy knee shall bow," hesays, "thy cap shall off, thy tongue shall speak reverently of thysovereign." For himself, his tongue is even more than reverent. Nothingcan stay the issue of his eloquent adulation. Again and again, "theremembrance of Elizabeth's virtues" carries him away; and he has to harkback again to find the scent of his argument. He is repressing hisvehement adoration throughout, until when the end comes, and he feelshis business at an end, he can indulge himself to his heart's content inindiscriminate laudation of his royal mistress. It is humorous to thinkthat this illustrious lady, whom he here praises, among many otherexcellences, for the simplicity of her attire and the "marvellousmeekness of her stomach," threatened him, years after, in no very meekterms, for a
sermon against female vanity in dress, which she held as areflection on herself.[74]
Whatever was wanting here in respect for women generally, there was nowant of respect for the Queen; and one cannot very greatly wonder ifthese devoted servants looked askance, not upon Knox only, but on hislittle flock, as they came back to England tainted with disloyaldoctrine. For them, as for him, the occidental star rose somewhat redand angry. As for poor Knox, his position was the saddest of all. Forthe juncture seemed to him of the highest importance; it was the nick oftime, the flood-water of opportunity. Not only was there an opening forhim in Scotland, a smouldering brand of civil liberty and religiousenthusiasm which it should be for him to kindle into flame with hispowerful breath; but he had his eye seemingly on an object of evenhigher worth. For now, when religious sympathy ran so high that it couldbe set against national aversion, he wished to begin the fusion togetherof England and Scotland, and to begin it at the sore place. If once theopen wound were closed at the Border, the work would be half done.Ministers placed at Berwick and such places might seek their convertsequally on either side of the march; old enemies would sit together tohear the gospel of peace, and forget the inherited jealousies of manygenerations in the enthusiasm of a common faith; or--let us saybetter--a common heresy. For people are not most conscious ofbrotherhood when they continue languidly together in one creed, butwhen, with some doubt, with some danger perhaps, and certainly notwithout some reluctance, they violently break with the tradition of thepast, and go forth from the sanctuary of their fathers to worship underthe bare heaven. A new creed, like a new country, is an unhomely placeof sojourn; but it makes men lean on one another and join hands. It wason this that Knox relied to begin the union of the English and theScottish. And he had, perhaps, better means of judging than any even ofhis contemporaries. He knew the temper of both nations; and alreadyduring his two years' chaplaincy at Berwick, he had seen his scheme putto the proof. But whether practicable or not, the proposal does him muchhonour. That he should thus have sought to make a love-match of itbetween the two peoples, and tried to win their inclination towards aunion instead of simply transferring them, like so many sheep, by amarriage, or testament, or private treaty, is thoroughly characteristicof what is best in the man. Nor was this all. He had, besides, to assurehimself of English support, secret or avowed, for the Reformation partyin Scotland; a delicate affair, trenching upon treason. And so he hadplenty to say to Cecil, plenty that he did not care to "commit to paperneither yet to the knowledge of many." But his miserable publication hadshut the doors of England in his face. Summoned to Edinburgh by theconfederate lords, he waited at Dieppe, anxiously praying for leave tojourney through England. The most dispiriting tidings reached him. Hismessengers, coming from so obnoxious a quarter, narrowly escapeimprisonment. His old congregation are coldly received, and even beginto look back again to their place of exile with regret. "My FirstBlast," he writes ruefully, "has blown from me all my friends ofEngland." And then he adds, with a snarl, "The Second Blast, I fear,shall sound somewhat more sharp, except men be more moderate than I hearthey are."[75] But the threat is empty; there will never be a secondblast--he has had enough of that trumpet. Nay, he begins to feeluneasily that, unless he is to be rendered useless for the rest of hislife, unless he is to lose his right arm and go about his great workmaimed and impotent, he must find some way of making his peace withEngland and the indignant Queen. The letter just quoted was written onthe 6th of April, 1559; and on the 10th, after he had cooled his heelsfor four days more about the streets of Dieppe, he gave in altogether,and writes a letter of capitulation to Cecil. In this letter,[76] whichhe kept back until the 22nd, still hoping that things would come rightof themselves, he censures the great secretary for having "followed theworld in the way of perdition," characterises him as "worthy of hell,"and threatens him, if he be not found simple, sincere, and fervent inthe cause of Christ's gospel, that he shall "taste of the same cup thatpolitic heads have drunken in before him." This is all, I take it, outof respect for the Reformer's own position; if he is going to behumiliated, let others be humiliated first; like a child who will nottake his medicine until he has made his nurse and his mother drink of itbefore him. "But I have, say you, written a treasonable book against theregiment and empire of women.... The writing of that book I will notdeny; but prove it treasonable I think it shall be hard.... It is hintedthat my book shall be written against. If so be, sir, I greatly doubtthey shall rather hurt nor (than) mend the matter." And here come theterms of capitulation; for he does not surrender unconditionally, evenin this sore strait: "And yet if any," he goes on, "think me enemy tothe person, or yet to the regiment, of her whom God hath now promoted,they are utterly deceived in me, _for the miraculous work of God,comforting His afflicted by means of an infirm vessel, I do acknowledge,and the power of his most potent hand I will obey. More plainly tospeak, if Queen Elizabeth shall confess, that the extraordinarydispensation of God's great mercy maketh that lawful unto her which bothnature and God's law do deny to all women_, then shall none in Englandbe more willing to maintain her lawful authority than I shall be. But if(God's wondrous work set aside) she ground (as God forbid) the justnessof her title upon consuetude, laws, or ordinances of men, then"--ThenKnox will denounce her? Not so; he is more politic nowadays--then, he"greatly fears" that her ingratitude to God will not go long withoutpunishment.
His letter to Elizabeth, written some few months later, was a mereamplification of the sentences quoted above. She must base her titleentirely upon the extraordinary providence of God; but if she does this,"if thus, in God's presence, she humbles herself, so will he with tongueand pen justify her authority, as the Holy Ghost hath justified thesame in Deborah, that blessed mother in Israel."[77] And so, you see,his consistency is preserved; he is merely applying the doctrine of the"First Blast." The argument goes thus: The regiment of women is, asbefore noted in our work, repugnant to nature, contumely to God, and asubversion of good order. It has nevertheless pleased God to raise up,as exceptions to this law, first Deborah, and afterward ElizabethTudor--whose regiment we shall proceed to celebrate.
There is no evidence as to how the Reformer's explanations werereceived, and indeed it is most probable that the letter was never shownto Elizabeth at all. For it was sent under cover of another to Cecil,and as it was not of a very courtly conception throughout, and was, ofall things, what would most excite the Queen's uneasy jealousy about hertitle, it is like enough that the secretary exercised his discretion (hehad Knox's leave in this case, and did not always wait for that, it isreputed) to put the letter harmlessly away beside other valueless orunpresentable State Papers. I wonder very much if he did the same withanother,[78] written two years later, after Mary had come into Scotland,in which Knox almost seeks to make Elizabeth an accomplice with him inthe matter of the "First Blast." The Queen of Scotland is going to havethat work refuted, he tells her; and "though it were but foolishness inhim to prescribe unto her Majesty what is to be done," he would yetremind her that Mary is neither so much alarmed about her own security,nor so generously interested in Elizabeth's, "that she would take suchpains, _unless her crafty counsel in so doing shot at a further mark_."There is something really ingenious in this letter; it showed Knox inthe double capacity of the author of the "First Blast" and the faithfulfriend of Elizabeth; and he combines them there so naturally, that onewould scarcely imagine the two to be incongruous.
Twenty days later he was defending his intemperate publication toanother queen--his own queen, Mary Stuart. This was on the first ofthose three interviews which he has preserved for us with so muchdramatic vigour in the picturesque pages of his History. After he hadavowed the authorship in his usual haughty style, Mary asked: "Youthink, then, that I have no just authority?" The question was evaded."Please your Majesty," he answered, "that learned men in all ages havehad their judgments free, and most commonly disagreeing from the commonjudgment of the world; such also have they published by pen and tongue;and yet notwithstanding they t
hemselves have lived in the common societywith others, and have borne patiently with the errors and imperfectionswhich they could not amend." Thus did "Plato the philosopher": thus willdo John Knox. "I have communicated my judgment to the world: if therealm finds no inconvenience from the regiment of a woman, that whichthey approve shall I not further disallow than within my own breast; butshall be as well content to live under your Grace as Paul was to liveunder Nero. And my hope is, that so long as ye defile not your handswith the blood of the saints of God, neither I nor my book shall hurteither you or your authority." All this is admirable in wisdom andmoderation, and, except that he might have hit upon a comparison lessoffensive than that with Paul and Nero, hardly to be bettered. Havingsaid thus much, he feels he needs say no more; and so, when he isfurther pressed, he closes that part of the discussion with anastonishing sally. If he has been content to let this matter sleep, hewould recommend her Grace to follow his example with thankfulness ofheart; it is grimly to be understood which of them has most to fear ifthe question should be reawakened. So the talk wandered to othersubjects. Only, when the Queen was summoned at last to dinner ("for itwas afternoon") Knox made his salutation in this form of words: "I prayGod, Madam, that you may be as much blessed within the Commonwealth ofScotland, if it be the pleasure of God, as ever Deborah was in theCommonwealth of Israel."[79] Deborah again.
But he was not yet done with the echoes of his own "First Blast." In1571, when he was already near his end, the old controversy was taken upin one of a series of anonymous libels against the Reformer, affixed,Sunday after Sunday, to the church door. The dilemma was fairly enoughstated. Either his doctrine is false, in which case he is a "falsedoctor" and seditious; or, if it be true, why does he "avow and approvethe contrare, I mean that regiment in the Queen of England's person;which he avoweth and approveth, not only praying for the maintenance ofher estate, but also procuring her aid and support against his ownnative country?" Knox answered the libel, as his wont was, next Sunday,from the pulpit. He justified the "First Blast" with all the oldarrogance; there is no drawing back there. The regiment of women isrepugnant to nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order,as before. When he prays for the maintenance of Elizabeth's estate, heis only following the example of those prophets of God who warned andcomforted the wicked kings of Israel; or of Jeremiah, who bade the Jewspray for the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar. As for the Queen's aid, thereis no harm in that: _quia_ (these are his own words) _quia omnia mundamundis_: because to the pure all things are pure. One thing, inconclusion, he "may not pretermit"; to give the lie in the throat to hisaccuser, where he charges him with seeking support against his nativecountry. "What I have been to my country," said the old Reformer, "WhatI have been to my country, albeit this unthankful age will not know, yetthe ages to come will be compelled to bear witness to the truth. Andthus I cease, requiring of all men that have anything to oppone againstme, that he may (they may) do it so plainly, as that I may make myselfand all my doings manifest to the world. For to me it seemeth a thingunreasonable, that, in this my decrepit age, I shall be compelled tofight against shadows, and howlets that dare not abide the light."[80]
Now, in this, which may be called his "Last Blast," there is as sharpspeaking as any in the "First Blast" itself. He is of the same opinionto the end, you see, although he has been obliged to cloak and garblethat opinion for political ends. He has been tacking indeed, and he hasindeed been seeking the favour of a queen; but what man ever sought aqueen's favour with a more virtuous purpose, or with as little courtlypolicy? The question of consistency is delicate, and must be made plain.Knox never changed his opinion about female rule, but lived to regretthat he had published that opinion. Doubtless he had many thoughts sofar out of the range of public sympathy, that he could only keep them tohimself, and, in his own words, bear patiently with the errors andimperfections that he could not amend. For example, I make no doubtmyself that, in his own heart, he did hold the shocking dogma attributedto him by more than one calumniator; and that, had the time been ripe,had there been aught to gain by it, instead of all to lose, he wouldhave been the first to assert that Scotland was elective instead ofhereditary--"elective as in the days of paganism," as one Thevet says inholy horror.[81] And yet, because the time was not ripe, I find no hintof such an idea in his collected works. Now, the regiment of women wasanother matter that he should have kept to himself; right or wrong, hisopinion did not fit the moment; right or wrong, as Aylmer puts it, "the'Blast' was blown out of season." And this it was that he began toperceive after the accession of Elizabeth: not that he had been wrong,and that female rule was a good thing, for he had said from the firstthat "the felicity of some women in their empires" could not change thelaw of God and the nature of created things; not this, but that theregiment of women was one of those imperfections of society which mustbe borne with because yet they cannot be remedied. The thing had seemedso obvious to him, in his sense of unspeakable masculine superiority,and in his fine contempt for what is only sanctioned by antiquity andcommon consent, he had imagined that, at the first hint, men would ariseand shake off the debasing tyranny. He found himself wrong, and heshowed that he could be moderate in his own fashion, and understood thespirit of true compromise. He came round to Calvin's position, in fact,but by a different way. And it derogates nothing from the merit of thiswise attitude that it was the consequence of a change of interest. Weare all taught by interest; and if the interest be not merely selfish,there is no wiser preceptor under heaven, and perhaps no sterner.
Such is the history of John Knox's connection with the controversy aboutfemale rule. In itself, this is obviously an incomplete study; not fullyto be understood, without a knowledge of his private relations with theother sex, and what he thought of their position in domestic life. Thisshall be dealt with in another paper.
PRIVATE LIFE
To those who know Knox by hearsay only, I believe the matter of thispaper will be somewhat astonishing. For the hard energy of the man inall public matters has possessed the imagination of the world; heremains for posterity in certain traditional phrases, browbeating QueenMary, or breaking beautiful carved work in abbeys and cathedrals, thathad long smoked themselves out and were no more than sorry ruins, whilehe was still quietly teaching children in a country gentleman's family.It does not consist with the common acceptation of his character tofancy him much moved, except with anger. And yet the language of passioncame to his pen as readily, whether it was a passion of denunciationagainst some of the abuses that vexed his righteous spirit, or ofyearning for the society of an absent friend. He was vehement inaffection, as in doctrine. I will not deny that there may have been,along with his vehemence, something shifty, and for the moment only;that, like many men, and many Scotsmen, he saw the world and his ownheart, not so much under any very steady, equable light, as by extremeflashes of passion, true for the moment, but not true in the long-run.There does seem to me to be something of this traceable in theReformer's utterances: precipitation and repentance, hardy speech andaction somewhat circumspect, a strong tendency to see himself in aheroic light and to place a ready belief in the disposition of themoment. Withal he had considerable confidence in himself, and in theuprightness of his own disciplined emotions, underlying much sincereaspiration after spiritual humility. And it is this confidence thatmakes his intercourse with women so interesting to a modern. It would beeasy, of course, to make fun of the whole affair, to picture himstrutting vaingloriously among these inferior creatures, or compare areligious friendship in the sixteenth century with what was called, Ithink, a literary friendship in the eighteenth. But it is more just andprofitable to recognise what there is sterling and human underneath allhis theoretical affectations of superiority. Women, he has said in his"First Blast," are "weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish"; andyet it does not appear that he was himself any less dependent than othermen upon the sympathy and affection of these weak, frail, impatient,feeble, and foolish creatures; it seems even as if he had been ra
thermore dependent than most.
Of those who are to act influentially on their fellows, we should expectalways something large and public in their way of life, something moreor less urbane and comprehensive in their sentiment for others. Weshould not expect to see them spend their sympathy in idyls, howeverbeautiful. We should not seek them among those who, if they have but awife to their bosom, ask no more of womankind, just as they ask no moreof their own sex, if they can find a friend or two for their immediateneed. They will be quick to feel all the pleasures of ourassociation--not the great ones alone, but all. They will know not loveonly, but all those other ways in which man and woman mutually make eachother happy--by sympathy, by admiration, by the atmosphere they bearabout them--down to the mere impersonal pleasure of passing happy facesin the street. For, through all this gradation, the difference of sexmakes itself pleasurably felt. Down to the most lukewarm courtesies oflife, there is a special chivalry due and a special pleasure received,when the two sexes are brought ever so lightly into contact. We love ourmothers otherwise than we love our fathers; a sister is not as a brotherto us; and friendship between man and woman, be it never so unalloyedand innocent, is not the same as friendship between man and man. Suchfriendship is not even possible for all. To conjoin tenderness for awoman that is not far short of passionate with such disinterestednessand beautiful gratuity of affection as there is between friends of thesame sex, requires no ordinary disposition in the man. For either itwould presuppose quite womanly delicacy of perception, and, as it were,a curiosity in shades of differing sentiment; or it would mean that hehad accepted the large, simple divisions of society: a strong andpositive spirit robustly virtuous, who has chosen a better partcoarsely, and holds to it steadfastly, with all its consequences of painto himself and others; as one who should go straight before him on ajourney, neither tempted by wayside flowers nor very scrupulous of smalllives under foot. It was in virtue of this latter disposition that Knoxwas capable of those intimacies with women that embellished his life;and we find him preserved for us in old letters as a man of many womenfriends; a man of some expansion toward the other sex; a man ever readyto comfort weeping women, and to weep along with them.
Of such scraps and fragments of evidence as to his private life and moreintimate thoughts as have survived to us from all the perils thatenviron written paper, an astonishingly large proportion is in the shapeof letters to women of his familiarity. He was twice married, but thatis not greatly to the purpose; for the Turk, who thinks even more meanlyof women than John Knox, is none the less given to marrying. What isreally significant is quite apart from marriage. For the man Knox was atrue man, and woman, the _ewig-weibliche_, was as necessary to him, inspite of all low theories, as ever she was to Goethe. He came to her ina certain halo of his own, as the minister of truth, just as Goethe cameto her in a glory of art; he made himself necessary to troubled heartsand minds exercised in the painful complications that naturally resultfrom all changes in the world's way of thinking; and those whom he hadthus helped became dear to him, and were made the chosen companions ofhis leisure if they were at hand, or encouraged and comforted by letterif they were afar.
It must not be forgotten that Knox had been a presbyter of the oldChurch, and that the many women whom we shall see gathering around him,as he goes through life, had probably been accustomed, while still inthe communion of Rome, to rely much upon some chosen spiritual director,so that the intimacies of which I propose to offer some account, whiletestifying to a good heart in the Reformer, testify also to a certainsurvival of the spirit of the confessional in the Reformed Church, andare not properly to be judged without this idea. There is no friendshipso noble, but it is the product of the time; and a world of littlefinical observances, and little frail proprieties and fashions of thehour, go to make or to mar, to stint or to perfect, the union ofspirits the most loving and the most intolerant of such interference.The trick of the country and the age steps in even between the motherand her child, counts out their caresses upon niggardly fingers, andsays, in the voice of authority, that this one thing shall be a matterof confidence between them, and this other thing shall not. And thus itis that we must take into reckoning whatever tended to modify the socialatmosphere in which Knox and his women friends met, and loved andtrusted each other. To the man who had been their priest, and was nowtheir minister, women would be able to speak with a confidence quiteimpossible in these latter days; the women would be able to speak, andthe man to hear. It was a beaten road just then; and I daresay we shouldbe no less scandalised at their plain speech than they, if they couldcome back to earth, would be offended at our waltzes and worldlyfashions. This, then, was the footing on which Knox stood with his manywomen friends. The reader will see, as he goes on, how much of warmth,of interest, and of that happy mutual dependence which is the very gistof friendship, he contrived to ingraft upon this somewhat dryrelationship of penitent and confessor.
It must be understood that we know nothing of his intercourse with women(as indeed we know little at all about his life) until he came toBerwick in 1549, when he was already in the forty-fifth year of his age.At the same time it is just possible that some of a little group atEdinburgh, with whom he corresponded during his last absence, may havebeen friends of an older standing. Certainly they were, of all hisfemale correspondents, the least personally favoured. He treats themthroughout in a comprehensive sort of spirit that must at times havebeen a little wounding. Thus, he remits one of them to his formerletters, "which I trust be common betwixt you and the rest of oursisters, for to me ye are all equal in Christ."[82] Another letter is agem in this way. "Albeit," it begins, "albeit I have no particularmatter to write unto you, beloved sister, yet I could not refrain towrite these few lines to you in declaration of my remembrance of you.True it is that I have many whom I bear in equal remembrance before Godwith you, to whom at present I write nothing, either for that I esteemthem stronger than you, and therefore they need the less my rudelabours, or else because they have not provoked me by their writing torecompense their remembrance."[83] His "sisters in Edinburgh" hadevidently to "provoke" his attention pretty constantly; nearly all hisletters are, on the face of them, answers to questions, and the answersare given with a certain crudity that I do not find repeated when hewrites to those he really cares for. So when they consult him aboutwomen's apparel (a subject on which his opinion may be pretty correctlyimagined by the ingenious reader for himself) he takes occasion toanticipate some of the most offensive matter of the "First Blast" in astyle of real brutality.[84] It is not merely that he tells them "thegarments of women do declare their weakness and inability to execute theoffice of man," though that in itself is neither very wise nor veryopportune in such a correspondence, one would think; but if the readerwill take the trouble to wade through the long, tedious sermon forhimself, he will see proof enough that Knox neither loved, nor verydeeply respected, the women he was then addressing. In very truth, Ibelieve these Edinburgh sisters simply bored him. He had a certaininterest in them as his children in the Lord; they were continually"provoking him by their writing"; and, if they handed his letters about,writing to them was as good a form of publication as was then open tohim in Scotland. There is one letter, however, in this budget, addressedto the wife of Clerk-Register Mackgil, which is worthy of some furthermention. The Clerk-Register had not opened his heart, it would appear,to the preaching of the Gospel, and Mrs. Mackgil has written seekingthe Reformer's prayers in his behalf. "Your husband," he answers, "isdear to me for that he is a man indued with some good gifts, but moredear for that he is your husband. Charity moveth me to thirst hisillumination, both for his comfort and for the trouble which you sustainby his coldness, which justly may be called infidelity." He wishes her,however, not to hope too much; he can promise that his prayers will beearnest, but not that they will be effectual; it is possible that thisis to be her "cross" in life; that "her head, appointed by God for hercomfort, should be her enemy." And if this be so--well, there is nothingfor it; "w
ith patience she must abide God's merciful deliverance,"taking heed only that she does not "obey manifest iniquity for thepleasure of any mortal man."[85] I conceive this epistle would havegiven a very modified sort of pleasure to the Clerk-Register, had itchanced to fall into his hands. Compare its tenor--the dry resignationnot without a hope of merciful deliverance therein recommended--withthese words from another letter, written but the year before to twomarried women of London: "Call first for grace by Jesus, and thereaftercommunicate with your faithful husbands, and then shall God, I doubtnot, conduct your footsteps, and direct your counsels to His glory."[86]Here the husbands are put in a very high place; we can recognise herethe same hand that has written for our instruction how the man is setabove the woman, even as God above the angels. But the point of thedistinction is plain. For Clerk-Register Mackgil was not a faithfulhusband; displayed, indeed, towards religion, a "coldness which justlymight be called infidelity." We shall see in more notable instances howmuch Knox's conception of the duty of wives varies according to the zealand orthodoxy of the husband.
As I have said, he may possibly have made the acquaintance of Mrs.Mackgil, Mrs. Guthrie, or some other, or all, of these Edinburgh friendswhile he was still Douglas of Longniddry's private tutor. But ourcertain knowledge begins in 1549. He was then but newly escaped from hiscaptivity in France, after pulling an oar for nineteen months on thebenches of the galley _Nostre Dame_; now up the rivers, holding stealthyintercourse with other Scottish prisoners in the castle of Rouen; nowout in the North Sea, raising his sick head to catch a glimpse of thefar-off steeples of St. Andrews. And now he was sent down by the EnglishPrivy Council as a preacher to Berwick-upon-Tweed; somewhat shaken inhealth by all his hardships, full of pains and agues, and tormented bygravel, that sorrow of great men; altogether, what with his romanticstory, his weak health, and his great faculty of eloquence, a verynatural object for the sympathy of devout women. At this happy juncturehe fell into the company of a Mrs. Elizabeth Bowes, wife of RichardBowes, of Aske, in Yorkshire, to whom she had borne twelve children. Shewas a religious hypochondriac, a very weariful woman, full of doubts andscruples, and giving no rest on earth either to herself or to those whomshe honoured with her confidence. From the first time she heard Knoxpreach she formed a high opinion of him, and was solicitous ever afterof his society.[87] Nor was Knox unresponsive. "I have always delightedin your company," he writes, "and when labours would permit, you know Ihave not spared hours to talk and commune with you." Often when they hadmet in depression he reminds her, "God hath sent great comfort untoboth."[88] We can gather from such letters as are yet extant how closeand continuous was their intercourse. "I think it best you remain tillto-morrow," he writes once, "and so shall we commune at large atafternoon. This day you know to be the day of my study and prayer untoGod; yet if your trouble be intolerable, or if you think my presence mayrelease your pain, do as the Spirit shall move you.... Your messengerfound me in bed, after a sore trouble and most dolorous night, and sodolour may complain to dolour when we two meet.... And this is moreplain than ever I spoke, to let you know you have a companion introuble."[89] Once we have the curtain raised for a moment, and can lookat the two together for the length of a phrase. "After the writing ofthis preceding," writes Knox, "your brother and mine, Harrie Wycliffe,did advertise me by writing, that your adversary (the devil) tookoccasion to trouble you because that _I did start back from yourehearsing your infirmities. I remember myself so to have done, and thatis my common consuetude when anything pierceth or toucheth my heart.Call to your mind what I did standing at the cupboard at Alnwick_. Invery deed I thought that no creature had been tempted as I was; and whenI heard proceed from your mouth the very same words that he troubles mewith, I did wonder and from my heart lament your sore trouble, knowingin myself the dolour thereof."[90] Now intercourse of so very close adescription, whether it be religious intercourse or not, is apt todisplease and disquiet a husband; and we know incidentally from Knoxhimself that there was some little scandal about his intimacy with Mrs.Bowes. "The slander and fear of men," he writes, "has impeded me toexercise my pen so oft as I would; _yea, very shame hath holden me fromyour company, when I was most surely persuaded that God had appointed meat that time to comfort and feed your hungry and afflicted soul. God inHis infinite mercy_," he goes on, "_remove not only from me all fearthat tendeth not to godliness, but from others suspicion to judge of meotherwise than it becometh one member to judge of another_."[91] And thescandal, such as it was, would not be allayed by the dissension in whichMrs. Bowes seems to have lived with her family upon the matter ofreligion, and the countenance shown by Knox to her resistance. Talkingof these conflicts, and her courage against "her own flesh and mostinward affections, yea, against some of her most natural friends" hewrites it, "to the praise of God, he has wondered at the bold constancywhich he has found in her when his own heart was faint."[92]
Now, perhaps in order to stop scandalous mouths, perhaps out of a desireto bind the much-loved evangelist nearer to her in the only mannerpossible, Mrs. Bowes conceived the scheme of marrying him to her fifthdaughter, Marjorie; and the Reformer seems to have fallen in with itreadily enough. It seems to have been believed in the family that thewhole matter had been originally made up between these two, with no veryspontaneous inclination on the part of the bride.[93] Knox's idea ofmarriage, as I have said, was not the same for all men; but on thewhole, it was not lofty. We have a curious letter of his, written at therequest of Queen Mary, to the Earl of Argyle, on very delicate householdmatters; which, as he tells us, "was not well accepted of the saidEarl."[94] We may suppose, however, that his own home was regulated in asimilar spirit. I can fancy that for such a man, emotional, and with aneed, now and again, to exercise parsimony in emotions not strictlyneedful, something a little mechanical, something hard and fast andclearly understood, would enter into his ideal of a home. There werestorms enough without, and equability was to be desired at the firesideeven at a sacrifice of deeper pleasures. So, from a wife, of all women,he would not ask much. One letter to her which has come down to us is, Ihad almost said, conspicuous for coldness.[95] He calls her, as hecalled other female correspondents, "dearly beloved sister"; the epistleis doctrinal, and nearly the half of it bears, not upon her own case,but upon that of her mother. However, we know what Heine wrote in hiswife's album; and there is, after all, one passage that may be held tointimate some tenderness, although even that admits of an amusinglyopposite construction. "I think," he says, "I _think_ this be the firstletter I ever wrote to you." This, if we are to take it literally, maypair off with the "two _or three_ children" whom Montaigne mentionshaving lost at nurse; the one is as eccentric in a lover as the other ina parent. Nevertheless, he displayed more energy in the course of histroubled wooing than might have been expected. The whole Bowes family,angry enough already at the influence he had obtained over the mother,set their faces obdurately against the match. And I daresay theopposition quickened his inclination. I find him writing to Mrs. Bowesthat she need not further trouble herself about the marriage; it shouldnow be his business altogether; it behoved him now to jeopard his life"for the comfort of his own flesh, both fear and friendship of allearthly creatures laid aside."[96] This is a wonderfully chivalrousutterance for a Reformer forty-eight years old; and it compares wellwith the leaden coquetries of Calvin, not much over thirty, taking thisand that into consideration, weighing together dowries and religiousqualifications and the instancy of friends, and exhibiting what M.Bungener calls "an honourable and Christian difficulty" of choice, infrigid indecisions and insincere proposals. But Knox's next letter is ina humbler tone; he has not found the negotiation so easy as he fancied;he despairs of the marriage altogether, and talks of leavingEngland,--regards not "what country consumes his wicked carcass." "Youshall understand," he says, "that this sixth of November, I spoke withSir Robert Bowes" (the head of the family, his bride's uncle) "in thematter you know, according to your request; whose disdainful, yea,despiteful, words hath so pierced my he
art that my life is bitter to me.I bear a good countenance with a sore-troubled heart, because he thatought to consider matters with a deep judgment is become not only adespiser, but also a taunter of God's messengers--God be merciful untohim! Amongst others his most unpleasing words, while that I was about tohave declared my heart in the whole matter, he said, 'Away with yourrhetorical reasons! for I will not be persuaded with them.' God knows Idid use no rhetoric nor coloured speech; but would have spoken thetruth, and that in most simple manner. I am not a good orator in my owncause; but what he would not be content to hear of me, God shall declareto him one day to his displeasure, unless he repent."[97] Poor Knox, yousee, is quite commoved. It has been a very unpleasant interview. And asit is the only sample that we have of how things went with him duringhis courtship, we may infer that the period was not as agreeable forKnox as it has been for some others.
However, when once they were married, I imagine he and Marjorie Boweshit it off together comfortably enough. The little we know of it may bebrought together in a very short space. She bore him two sons. He seemsto have kept her pretty busy, and depended on her to some degree in hiswork; so that when she fell ill, his papers got at once intodisorder.[98] Certainly she sometimes wrote to his dictation; and, inthis capacity, he calls her "his left hand."[99] In June, 1559, at theheadiest moment of the Reformation in Scotland, he writes regretting theabsence of his helpful colleague, Goodman, "whose presence" (this is thenot very grammatical form of his lament) "whose presence I more thirst,than she that is my own flesh."[100] And this, considering the sourceand the circumstances, may be held as evidence of a very tendersentiment. He tells us himself in his History, on the occasion of acertain meeting at the Kirk of Field, that he was in no small heavinessby reason of the late death of his "dear bedfellow, MarjorieBowes."[101] Calvin, condoling with him, speaks of her as "a wife whoselike is not to be found everywhere" (that is very like Calvin), andagain, as "the most delightful of wives." We know what Calvin thoughtdesirable in a wife, "good humour, chastity, thrift, patience, andsolicitude for her husband's health," and so we may suppose that thefirst Mrs. Knox fell not far short of this ideal.
The actual date of the marriage is uncertain; but by the summer of 1554,at the latest, the Reformer was settled in Geneva with his wife. Thereis no fear either that he will be dull; even if the chaste, thrifty,patient Marjorie should not altogether occupy his mind, he need not goout of the house to seek more female sympathy; for behold! Mrs. Bowes isduly domesticated with the young couple. Dr. M'Crie imagined thatRichard Bowes was now dead, and his widow, consequently, free to livewhere she would; and where could she go more naturally than to the houseof a married daughter? This, however, is not the case. Richard Bowes didnot die till at least two years later. It is impossible to believe thathe approved of his wife's desertion, after so many years of marriage,after twelve children had been born to them; and accordingly we find inhis will, dated 1558, no mention either of her or of Knox's wife.[102]This is plain sailing. It is easy enough to understand the anger ofBowes against this interloper, who had come into a quiet family, marriedthe daughter in spite of the father's opposition, alienated the wifefrom the husband and the husband's religion, supported her in a longcourse of resistance and rebellion, and, after years of intimacy,already too close and tender for any jealous spirit to behold withoutresentment, carried her away with him at last into a foreign land. Butit is not quite easy to understand how, except out of sheer wearinessand disgust, he was ever brought to agree to the arrangement. Nor is iteasy to square the Reformer's conduct with his public teaching. We have,for instance, a letter addressed by him, Craig, and Spottiswood, to theArchbishops of Canterbury and York, anent "a wicked and rebelliouswoman," one Anne Good, spouse to "John Barron, a minister of ChristJesus, his evangel," who, "after great rebellion shown unto him, anddivers admonitions given, as well by himself as by others in his name,that she should in no wise depart from this realm, nor from his housewithout his licence, hath not the less stubbornly and rebelliouslydeparted, separated herself from his society, left his house, andwithdrawn herself from this realm."[103] Perhaps some sort of licencewas extorted, as I have said, from Richard Bowes, weary with years ofdomestic dissension; but setting that aside, the words employed with somuch righteous indignation by Knox, Craig, and Spottiswood, to describethe conduct of that wicked and rebellious woman, Mrs. Barron, woulddescribe nearly as exactly the conduct of the religious Mrs. Bowes. Itis a little bewildering, until we recollect the distinction betweenfaithful and unfaithful husbands; for Barron was "a minister of ChristJesus, his evangel," while Richard Bowes, besides being own brother to adespiser and taunter of God's messengers, is shrewdly suspected to havebeen "a bigoted adherent of the Roman Catholic faith," or, as Knoxhimself would have expressed it, "a rotten Papist."
You would have thought that Knox was now pretty well supplied withfemale society. But we are not yet at the end of the roll. The last yearof his sojourn in England had been spent principally in London, where hewas resident as one of the chaplains of Edward the Sixth; and here heboasts, although a stranger, he had, by God's grace, found favour beforemany.[104] The godly women of the metropolis made much of him; once hewrites to Mrs. Bowes that her last letter had found him closeted withthree, and he and the three women were all in tears.[105] Out of all,however, he had chosen two. "_God_," he writes to them, "_brought us insuch familiar acquaintance, that your hearts were incensed and kindledwith a special care over me, as a mother useth to be over her naturalchild_; and my heart was opened and compelled in your presence to bemore plain than ever I was to any."[106] And out of the two even he hadchosen one, Mrs. Anne Locke, wife to Mr. Harry Locke, merchant, nigh toBow Kirk, Cheapside, in London, as the address runs. If one may ventureto judge upon such imperfect evidence, this was the woman he loved best.I have a difficulty in quite forming to myself an idea of her character.She may have been one of the three tearful visitors before alluded to;she may even have been that one of them who was so profoundly moved bysome passages of Mrs. Bowes's letter, which the Reformer opened, andread aloud to them before they went. "O would to God," cried thisimpressionable matron, "would to God that I might speak with thatperson, for I perceive there are more tempted than I."[107] This _may_have been Mrs. Locke, as I say; but even if it were, we must notconclude from this one fact that she was such another as Mrs. Bowes. Allthe evidence tends the other way. She was a woman of understanding,plainly, who followed political events with interest, and to whom Knoxthought it worth while to write, in detail, the history of his trialsand successes. She was religious, but without that morbid perversity ofspirit that made religion so heavy a burden for the poor-hearted Mrs.Bowes. More of her I do not find, save testimony to the profoundaffection that united her to the Reformer. So we find him writing to herfrom Geneva, in such terms as these:--"You write that your desire isearnest to see me. _Dear sister, if I should express the thirst andlanguor which I have had for your presence, I should appear to passmeasure.... Yea, I weep and rejoice in remembrance of you_; but thatwould evanish by the comfort of your presence, which I assure you is sodear to me, that if the charge of this little flock here, gatheredtogether in Christ's name, did not impede me, my coming should preventmy letter."[108] I say that this was written from Geneva; and yet youwill observe that it is no consideration for his wife or mother-in-law,only the charge of his little flock, that keeps him from setting outforthwith for London, to comfort himself with the dear presence of Mrs.Locke. Remember that was a certain plausible enough pretext for Mrs.Locke to come to Geneva--"the most perfect school of Christ that everwas on earth since the days of the Apostles"--for we are now under thereign of that "horrible monster Jezebel of England," when a lady of goodorthodox sentiments was better out of London. It was doubtful, however,whether this was to be. She was detained in England, partly bycircumstances unknown, "partly by empire of her head," Mr. Harry Locke,the Cheapside merchant. It is somewhat humorous to see Knox strugglingfor resignation, now that he has to do with a faithful husband
(for Mr.Harry Locke was faithful). Had it been otherwise, "in my heart," hesays, "I could have wished--yea," here he breaks out, "yea, and cannotcease to wish--that God would guide you to this place."[109] And afterall, he had not long to wait, for whether Mr. Harry Locke died in theinterval, or was wearied, he too, into giving permission, five monthsafter the date of the letter last quoted, "Mrs. Anne Locke, Harry herson, and Anne her daughter, and Katharine her maid," arrived in thatperfect school of Christ, the Presbyterian paradise, Geneva. So now, andfor the next two years, the cup of Knox's happiness was surely full. Ofan afternoon, when the bells rang out for the sermon, the shops closed,and the good folk gathered to the churches, psalm-book in hand, we canimagine him drawing near to the English chapel in quite patriarchalfashion, with Mrs. Knox and Mrs. Bowes and Mrs. Locke, James hisservant, Patrick his pupil, and a due following of children and maids.He might be alone at work all morning in his study, for he wrote muchduring these two years; but at night, you may be sure there was a circleof admiring women, eager to hear the new paragraph, and not sparing ofapplause. And what work, among others, was he elaborating at this time,but the notorious "First Blast"? So that he may have rolled out in hisbig pulpit voice, how women were weak, frail, impatient, feeble,foolish, inconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel,and how men were above them, even as God is above the angels, in theears of his own wife, and the two dearest friends on earth. But he hadlost the sense of incongruity, and continued to despise in theory thesex he honoured so much in practice, of whom he chose his most intimateassociates, and whose courage he was compelled to wonder at, when hisown heart was faint.
We may say that such a man was not worthy of his fortune; and so, as hewould not learn, he was taken away from that agreeable school, and hisfellowship of women was broken up, not to be reunited. Called intoScotland to take at last that strange position in history which is hisbest claim to commemoration, he was followed thither by his wife and hismother-in-law. The wife soon died. The death of her daughter did notaltogether separate Mrs. Bowes from Knox, but she seems to have come andgone between his house and England. In 1562, however, we find himcharacterised as "a sole man by reason of the absence of hismother-in-law, Mrs. Bowes," and a passport is got for her, her man, amaid, and "three horses, whereof two shall return," as well as libertyto take all her own money with her into Scotland. This looks like adefinite arrangement; but whether she died at Edinburgh, or went back toEngland yet again, I cannot find. With that great family of hers, unlessin leaving her husband she had quarrelled with them all, there must havebeen frequent occasion for her presence, one would think. Knox at leastsurvived her; and we possess his epigraph to their long intimacy, givento the world by him in an appendix to his latest publication. I havesaid in a former paper that Knox was not shy of personal revelations inhis published works. And the trick seems to have grown on him. To thislast tract, a controversial onslaught on a Scottish Jesuit, he prefixeda prayer, not very pertinent to the matter in hand, and containingreferences to his family which were the occasion of some wit in hisadversary's answer; and appended what seems equally irrelevant, one ofhis devout letters to Mrs. Bowes, with an explanatory preface. To saytruth, I believe he had always felt uneasily that the circumstances ofthis intimacy were very capable of misconstruction; and now, when he wasan old man, taking "his good-night of all the faithful in both realms,"and only desirous "that without any notable sclander to the evangel ofJesus Christ, he might end his battle; for as the world was weary ofhim, so was he of it";--in such a spirit it was not, perhaps, unnaturalthat he should return to this old story, and seek to put it right in theeyes of all men, ere he died. "Because that God," he says, "because thatGod now in His mercy hath put an end to the battle of my dear mother,Mistress Elizabeth Bowes, before that He put an end to my wretched life,I could not cease but declare to the world what was the cause of ourgreat familiarity and long acquaintance; which was neither flesh norblood, but a troubled conscience upon her part, which never suffered herto rest but when she was in the company of the faithful, of whom (fromthe first hearing of the word at my mouth) she judged me to be one....Her company to me was comfortable (yea, honourable and profitable, forshe was to me and mine a mother), but yet it was not without some cross;for besides trouble and fashery of body sustained for her, my mind wasseldom quiet, for doing somewhat for the comfort of her troubledconscience."[110] He had written to her years before from his firstexile in Dieppe, that "only God's hand" could withhold him from oncemore speaking with her face to face; and now, when God's hand has indeedinterposed, when there lies between them, instead of the voyageablestraits, that great gulf over which no man can pass, this is the spiritin which he can look back upon their long acquaintance. She was areligious hypochondriac, it appears, whom, not without some cross andfashery of mind and body, he was good enough to tend. He might havegiven a truer character of their friendship had he thought less of hisown standing in public estimation, and more of the dead woman. But hewas in all things, as Burke said of his son in that ever memorablepassage, a public creature. He wished that even into this private placeof his affections posterity should follow him with a complete approval;and he was willing, in order that this might be so, to exhibit thedefects of his lost friend, and tell the world what weariness he hadsustained through her unhappy disposition. There is something here thatreminds one of Rousseau.
I do not think he ever saw Mrs. Locke after he left Geneva; but hiscorrespondence with her continued for three years. It may have continuedlonger, of course, but I think the last letters we possess read like thelast that would be written. Perhaps Mrs. Locke was then re-married, forthere is much obscurity over her subsequent history. For as long astheir intimacy was kept up, at least, the human element remains in theReformer's life. Here is one passage, for example, the most likableutterance of Knox's that I can quote:--Mrs. Locke has been upbraidinghim as a bad correspondent. "My remembrance of you," he answers, "is notso dead, but I trust it shall be fresh enough, albeit it be renewed byno outward token for one year. _Of nature, I am churlish; yet one thingI ashame not to affirm, that familiarity once thoroughly contracted wasnever yet broken on my default. The cause may be that I have rather needof all, than that any have need of me._ However it (_that_) be, itcannot be, as I say, the corporal absence of one year or two that canquench in my heart that familiar acquaintance in Christ Jesus, whichhalf a year did engender, and almost two years did nourish and confirm.And therefore, whether I write or no, be assuredly persuaded that I haveyou in such memory as becometh the faithful to have of thefaithful."[111] This is the truest touch of personal humility that I canremember to have seen in all the five volumes of the Reformer'scollected works: It is no small honour to Mrs. Locke that his affectionfor her should have brought home to him this unwonted feeling ofdependence upon others. Everything else in the course of thecorrespondence testifies to a good, sound, downright sort of friendshipbetween the two, less ecstatic than it was at first, perhaps, butserviceable and very equal. He gives her ample details as to theprogress of the work of reformation; sends her the sheets of the"Confession of Faith," "in quairs," as he calls it; asks her to assisthim with her prayers, to collect money for the good cause in Scotland,and to send him books for himself--books by Calvin especially, one onIsaiah, and a new revised edition of the "Institutes." "I must be boldon your liberality," he writes, "not only in that, but in greater thingsas I shall need."[112] On her part she applies to him for spiritualadvice, not after the manner of the drooping Mrs. Bowes, but in a morepositive spirit,--advice as to practical points, advice as to the Churchof England, for instance, whose ritual he condemns as a"mingle-mangle."[113] Just at the end she ceases to write, sends him "atoken, without writing." "I understand your impediment," he answers,"and therefore I cannot complain. Yet if you understood the variety ofmy temptations, I doubt not but you would have written somewhat."[114]One letter more, and then silence.
And I think the best of the Reformer died out with that correspondence.It is after this,
of course, that he wrote that ungenerous descriptionof his intercourse with Mrs. Bowes. It is after this, also, that we cometo the unlovely episode of his second marriage. He had been left awidower at the age of fifty-five. Three years after, it occurredapparently to yet another pious parent to sacrifice a child upon thealtar of his respect for the Reformer. In January, 1563, Randolph writesto Cecil: "Your Honour will take it for a great wonder when I shallwrite unto you that Mr. Knox shall marry a very near kinswoman of theDuke's, a Lord's daughter, a young lass not above sixteen years ofage."[115] He adds that he fears he will be laughed at for reporting somad a story. And yet it was true; and on Palm Sunday, 1564, MargaretStewart, daughter of Andrew Lord Stewart of Ochiltree, aged seventeen,was duly united to John Knox, Minister of St. Giles's Kirk, Edinburgh,aged fifty-nine,--to the great disgust of Queen Mary from family pride,and I would fain hope of many others for more humane considerations. "Inthis," as Randolph says, "I wish he had done otherwise." The Consistoryof Geneva, "that most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earthsince the days of the Apostles," were wont to forbid marriages on theground of too great a disproportion in age. I cannot help wonderingwhether the old Reformer's conscience did not uneasily remind him, nowand again, of this good custom of his religious metropolis, as hethought of the two-and-forty years that separated him from his poorbride. Fitly enough, we hear nothing of the second Mrs. Knox until sheappears at her husband's deathbed, eight years after. She bore him threedaughters in the interval; and I suppose the poor child's martyrdom wasmade as easy for her as might be. She was "extremely attentive to him"at the end, we read; and he seems to have spoken to her with someconfidence. Moreover, and this is very characteristic, he had copied outfor her use a little volume of his own devotional letters to otherwomen.
This is the end of the roll, unless we add to it Mrs. Adamson, who haddelighted much in his company "by reason that she had a troubledconscience," and whose deathbed is commemorated at some length in thepages of his history.[116]
And now, looking back, it cannot be said that Knox's intercourse withwomen was quite of the highest sort. It is characteristic that we findhim more alarmed for his own reputation than for the reputation of thewomen with whom he was familiar. There was a fatal preponderance of selfin all his intimacies: many women came to learn from him, but he nevercondescended to become a learner in his turn. And so there is notanything idyllic in these intimacies of his; and they were never sorenovating to his spirit as they might have been. But I believe theywere good enough for the women. I fancy the women knew what they wereabout when so many of them followed after Knox. It is not simply becausea man is always fully persuaded that he knows the right from the wrongand sees his way plainly through the maze of life, great qualities asthese are, that people will love and follow him, and write him lettersfull of their "earnest desire for him" when he is absent. It is not overa man, whose one characteristic is grim fixity of purpose, that thehearts of women are "incensed and kindled with a special care," as itwere over their natural children. In the strong quiet patience of allhis letters to the weariful Mrs. Bowes, we may perhaps see one cause ofthe fascination he possessed for these religious women. Here was onewhom you could besiege all the year round with inconsistent scruples andcomplaints; you might write to him on Thursday that you were so elatedit was plain the devil was deceiving you, and again on Friday that youwere so depressed it was plain God had cast you off for ever; and hewould read all this patiently and sympathetically, and give you ananswer in the most reassuring polysyllables, and all divided intoheads--who knows?--like a treatise on divinity. And then, those easytears of his. There are some women who like to see men crying; and herewas this great-voiced, bearded man of God, who might be seen beating thesolid pulpit every Sunday, and casting abroad his clamorousdenunciations to the terror of all, and who on the Monday would sit intheir parlours by the hour, and weep with them over their manifoldtrials and temptations. Nowadays, he would have to drink a dish of teawith all these penitents.... It sounds a little vulgar, as the past willdo, if we look into it too closely. We could not let these great folk ofold into our drawing-rooms. Queen Elizabeth would positively not beeligible for a housemaid. The old manners and the old customs go sinkingfrom grade to grade, until, if some mighty emperor revisited theglimpses of the moon, he would not find any one of his way of thinking,any one he could strike hands with and talk to freely and withoutoffence, save perhaps the porter at the end of the street, or thefellow with his elbows out who loafs all day before the public-house. Sothat this little note of vulgarity is not a thing to be dwelt upon; itis to be put away from us, as we recall the fashion of these oldintimacies; so that we may only remember Knox as one who was verylong-suffering with women, kind to them in his own way, loving them inhis own way--and that not the worst way, if it was not the best--andonce at least, if not twice, moved to his heart of hearts by a woman,and giving expression to the yearning he had for her society in wordsthat none of us need be ashamed to borrow.
And let us bear in mind always that the period I have gone over in thisessay begins when the Reformer was already beyond the middle age, andalready broken in bodily health: it has been the story of an old man'sfriendships. This it is that makes Knox enviable. Unknown until pastforty, he had then before him five-and-twenty years of splendid andinfluential life, passed through uncommon hardships to an uncommondegree of power, lived in his own country as a sort of king, and didwhat he would with the sound of his voice out of the pulpit. And besidesall this, such a following of faithful women! One would take the firstforty-two years gladly, if one could be sure of the last twenty-five.Most of us, even if, by reason of great strength and the dignity of greyhairs, we retain some degree of public respect in the latter days of ourexistence, will find a falling away of friends, and a solitude makingitself round about us day by day, until we are left alone with the hiredsick-nurse. For the attraction of a man's character is apt to beoutlived, like the attraction of his body; and the power to love growsfeeble in its turn, as well as the power to inspire love in others. Itis only with a few rare natures that friendship is added to friendship,love to love, and the man keeps growing richer in affection--richer, Imean, as a bank maybe said to grow richer, both giving and receivingmore--after his head is white and his back weary, and he prepares to godown into the dust of death.
FOOTNOTES:
[60] Gaberel's "Eglise de Geneve," i. 88.
[61] "La Democratie chez les Predicateurs de la Ligue."
[62] "Historia affectuum se immiscentium controversiae de gynaecocratia." It is in his collected prefaces; Leipsic, 1683.
[63] "OEuvres de d'Aubigne," i. 449.
[64] "Dames Illustres," pp. 358-360.
[65] Works of John Knox, iv. 349.
[66] M'Crie's "Life of Knox," ii. 41.
[67] Described by Calvin in a letter to Cecil, Knox's Works, vol. iv.
[68] It was anonymously published, but no one seems to have been in doubt about its authorship; he might as well have set his name to it, for all the good he got by holding it back.
[69] Knox's Works, iv. 358.
[70] Strype's "Aylmer," p. 16.
[71] It may interest the reader to know that these (so says Thomasius) are the "ipsissima verba Schlusselburgii."
[72] I am indebted for a sight of this book to the kindness of Mr. David Laing, the editor of Knox's Works.
[73] "Social Statics," p. 64, etc.
[74] Hallam's "Const. Hist. of England," i. 225, note ^m.
[75] Knox to Mrs. Locke, 6th April, 1559.--Works, vi. 14.
[76] Knox to Sir William Cecil, 10th April, 1559.--Works, ii. 16, or vi. 15.
[77] Knox to Queen Elizabeth, July 20th, 1559.--Works, vi. 47, or ii. 26.
[78] _Ibid._, August 6th, 1561.--Works, vi. 126.
[79] Knox's Works, ii. 278-280.
[80] Calderwood's "History of the Kirk of Scotland," edition of the Wodrow Society, iii. 51-54.
[81] Bayle's "Historical Dictionary," art. KNOX, remark G.
[82] Works, iv. 244.
[83] Works, iv. 246.
[84] _Ibid._, iv. 225.
[85] Works, iv. 245.
[86] _Ibid._ iv. 221.
[87] Works, vi. 514.
[88] _Ibid._ iii. 334.
[89] Works, iii. 352, 353.
[90] _Ibid._ iii. 350.
[91] _Ibid._ iii. 390, 391.
[92] Works, iii. 142.
[93] _Ibid._ iii. 378.
[94] _Ibid._ ii. 379.
[95] _Ibid._ iii. 394.
[96] Works, iii. 376.
[97] Works, iii. 378.
[98] _Ibid._ vi. 104.
[99] _Ibid._ v. 5.
[100] _Ibid._ vi. 27.
[101] _Ibid._ ii. 138.
[102] Mr. Laing's preface to the sixth volume of Knox's Works, p. lxii.
[103] Works, vi. 534.
[104] _Ibid._ iv. 220.
[105] _Ibid._ iii. 380.
[106] _Ibid._ iv. 220.
[107] Works, iii. 380.
[108] _Ibid._ iv. 238.
[109] Works, iv. 240.
[110] Works, vi. 513, 514.
[111] Works, vi. 11.
[112] Works, vi. 21, 101, 108, 130.
[113] _Ibid._ vi. 83.
[114] _Ibid._ vi. 129.
[115] _Ibid._ vi. 532.
[116] Works, i. 246.
THE BODY-SNATCHER
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 3 Page 10