Part 18

Mary Queen of Scots had been for a short time also queen of France, and in 1561 returned to her native land, a young widow on whom the eyes of Europe were fixed. Knox's objections to the "regiment of women" were theoretical, and in the present case he hoped at first for the best, favouring rather his queen's marriage with the heir of the house of Hamilton. Mary had put herself into the hands of her half-brother, Lord James Stuart afterwards earl of Moray, the only man who could perhaps have pulled her through. A proclamation now continued the "state of religion" begun the previous year; but mass was celebrated in the queen's household, and Lord James himself defended it with his sword against Protestant intrusion. Knox publicly protested; and Moray, who probably understood and liked both parties, brought the preacher to the presence of his queen. There is nothing revealed to us by "the broad clear light of that wonderful book,"[1] _The History of the Reformation in Scotland_, more remarkable than the four Dialogues or interviews, which, though recorded only by Knox, bear the strongest stamp of truth, and do almost more justice to his opponent than to himself. Mary took the aggressive and very soon raised the real question. "Ye have taught the people to receive another religion than their princes can allow; and how can that doctrine be of God, seeing that God commands subjects to obey their princes?" The point was made keener by the fact that Knox's own Confession of Faith (like all those of that age, in which an unbalanced monarchical power culminated) had held kings to be appointed "for maintenance of the true religion," and suppression of the false; and the reformer now fell back on his more fundamental principle, that "right religion took neither original nor authority from worldly princes, but from the Eternal God alone." All through this dialogue too, as in another at Lochleven two years afterwards, Knox was driven to axioms, not of religion but of constitutionalism, which Buchanan and he may have learned from their teacher Major, but which were not to be accepted till a later age. "'Think ye,' quoth she, 'that subjects, having power, may resist their princes?' 'If their princes exceed their bounds, Madam, they may be resisted and even deposed,'" Knox replied. But these dialectics, creditable to both parties, had little effect upon the general situation. Knox had gone too far in intolerance, and Moray and Maitland of Lethington gradually withdrew their support. The court and parliament, guided by them, declined to press the queen or to pass the Book of Discipline; and meantime the negotiations as to the queen's marriage with a Spanish, a French or an Austrian prince revealed the real difficulty and peril of the situation. Her marriage to a great Catholic prince would be ruinous to Scotland, probably also to England, and perhaps to all Protestantism. Knox had already by letter formally broken with the earl of Moray, "committing you to your own wit, and to the conducting of those who better please you"; and now, in one of his greatest sermons before the assembled lords, he drove at the heart of the situation--the risk of a Catholic marriage. The queen sent for him for the last time and burst into passionate tears as she asked, "What have you to do with my marriage? Or what are you within this commonwealth?" "A subject born within the same," was the answer of the son of the East Lothian peasant; and the Scottish nobility, while thinking him overbold, refused to find him guilty of any crime, even when, later on, he had "convocated the lieges" to Edinburgh to meet a crown prosecution. In 1564 a change came. Mary had wearied of her guiding statesmen, Moray and the more pliant Maitland; the Italian secretary David Rizzio, through whom she had corresponded with the pope, now more and more usurped their place; and a weak fancy for her handsome cousin, Henry Darnley, brought about a sudden marriage in 1565 and swept the opposing Protestant lords into exile. Darnley, though a Catholic, thought it well to go to Knox's preaching; but was so unfortunate as to hear a very long sermon, with allusions not only to "babes and women" as rulers, but to Ahab who did not control his strong-minded wife. Mary and the lords still in her council ordered Knox not to preach while she was in Edinburgh, and he was absent or silent during the weeks in which the queen's growing distaste for her husband, and advancement of Rizzio over the nobility remaining in Edinburgh, brought about the conspiracy by Darnley, Morton and Ruthven. Knox does not seem to have known beforehand of Rizzio's "slaughter," which had been intended to be a semi-judicial act; but soon after it he records that "that vile knave Davie was justly punished, for abusing of the commonwealth, and for other villainy which we list not to express." The immediate effect however of what Knox thus approved was to bring his cause to its lowest ebb, and on the very day when Mary rode from Holyrood to her army, he sat down and penned the prayer, "Lord Jesus, put an end to this my miserable life, for justice and truth are not to be found among the sons of men!" He added a short autobiographic fragment, whose mingled self-abasement and exultation are not unworthy of its striking title--"John Knox, with deliberate mind, to his God." During the rest of the year he was hidden in Ayrshire or elsewhere, and throughout 1566 he was forbidden to preach when the court was in Edinburgh. But he was influential at the December Assembly in the capital where a greater tragedy was now preparing, for Mary's infatuation for Bothwell was visible to all. At the Assembly's request, however, Knox undertook a long visit to England, where his two sons by his first wife were being educated, and were afterwards to be Fellows of St John's, Cambridge, the younger becoming a parish clergyman. It was thus during the reformer's absence that the murder of Darnley, the abduction and subsequent marriage of Mary, the flight of Bothwell, and the imprisonment in Lochleven of the queen, unrolled themselves before the eyes of Scotland. Knox returned in time to guide the Assembly which sat on the 25th of June 1567 in dealing with this unparalleled crisis, and to wind up the revolution by preaching at Stirling on the 9th of July 1567, after Mary's abdication, at the coronation of the infant king.

His main work was now really done; for the parliament of 1567 made Moray regent, and Knox was only too glad to have his old friend back in power, though they seem to have differed on the question whether the queen should be allowed to pass into retirement without trial for her husband's death, as they had differed all along on the question of tolerating her private religion. Knox's victory had not come too early, for his physical strength soon began to fail. But Mary's escape in 1568 resulted only in her defeat at Langside, and in a long imprisonment and death in England. In Scotland the regent's assassination in 1570 opened a miserable civil war, but it made no permanent change. The massacre of St Bartholomew rather united English and Scottish Protestantism; and Knox in St Giles' pulpit, challenging the French ambassador to report his words, denounced God's vengeance on the crowned murderer and his posterity. When open war broke out between Edinburgh Castle, held by Mary's friends, and the town, held for her son, both parties agreed that the reformer, who had already had a stroke of paralysis, should remove to St Andrews. While there he wrote his will, and published his last book, in the preface to which he says, "I heartily take my good-night of the faithful of both realms ... for as the world is weary of me, so am I of it." And when he now merely signs his name, it is "John Knox, with my dead hand and glad heart." In the autumn of 1572 he returned to Edinburgh to die, probably in the picturesque house in the "throat of the Bow," which for generations has been called by his name. With him were his wife and three young daughters; for though he had lost Margaret Bowes at the close of his year of triumph 1560, he had four years after married Margaret Stewart, a daughter of his friend Lord Ochiltree. She was a bride of only seventeen and was related to the royal house; yet, as his Catholic biographer put it, "by sorcery and witchcraft he did so allure that poor gentlewoman that she could not live without him." But lords, ladies and burghers also crowded around his bed, and his colleague and his servant have severally transmitted to us the words in which his weakness daily strove with pain, rising on the day before his death into a solemn exultation--yet characteristically, not so much on his own account as for "the troubled Church of God." He died on the 24th of November 1572, and at his funeral in St Giles' Churchyard the new Regent Morton, speaking under the hostile guns of the castle, expressed the first surprise of those around as they looked back on that stormy life, that one who had "neither flattered nor feared any flesh" had now "ended his days in peace and honour." Knox himself had a short time before put in writing a larger claim for the historic future, "What I have been to my country, though this unthankful age will not know, yet the ages to come will be compelled to bear witness to the truth."

Knox was a rather small man, with a well-knit body; he had a powerful face, with dark blue eyes under a ridge of eyebrow, high cheek-bones, and a long black beard which latterly turned grey. This description, taken from a letter in 1579 by his junior contemporary Sir Peter Young, is very like Beza's fine engraving of him in the _Icones_--an engraving probably founded on a portrait which was to be sent by Young to Beza along with the letter. The portrait, which was unfortunately adopted by Carlyle, has neither pedigree nor probability. After his two years in the French galleys, if not before, Knox suffered permanently from gravel and dyspepsia, and he confesses that his nature "was for the most part oppressed with melancholy." Yet he was always a hard worker; as sole minister of Edinburgh studying for two sermons on Sunday and three during the week, besides having innumerable cares of churches at home and abroad. He was undoubtedly sincere in his religious faith, and most disinterested in his devotion to it and to the good of his countrymen. But like too many of them, he was self-conscious, self-willed and dogmatic; and his transformation in middle life, while it immensely enriched his sympathies as well as his energies, left him unable to put himself in the place of those who retained the views which he had himself held. All his training too, university, priestly and in foreign parts, tended to make him logical overmuch. But this was mitigated by a strong sense of humour (not always sarcastic, though sometimes savagely so), and by tenderness, best seen in his epistolary friendships with women; and it was quite overborne by an instinct and passion for great practical affairs. Hence it was that Knox as a statesman so often struck successfully at the centre of the complex motives of his time, leaving it to later critics to reconcile his theories of action. But hence too he more than once took doubtful shortcuts to some of his most important ends; giving the ministry within the new Church more power over laymen than Protestant principles would suggest, and binding the masses outside who were not members of it, equally with their countrymen who were, to join in its worship, submit to its jurisdiction, and contribute to its support. And hence also his style (which contemporaries called anglicized and modern), though it occasionally rises into liturgical beauty, and often flashes into vivid historical portraiture, is generally kept close to the harsh necessities of the few years in which he had to work for the future. That work was indeed chiefly done by the living voice; and in speaking, this "one man," as Elizabeth's very critical ambassador wrote from Edinburgh, was "able in one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears." But even his eloquence was constraining and constructive--a personal call for immediate and universal co-operation; and that personal influence survives to this day in the institutions of his people, and perhaps still more in their character. His countrymen indeed have always believed that to Knox more than to any other man Scotland owes her political and religious individuality. And since his 19th century biography by Dr Thomas McCrie, or at least since his recognition in the following generation by Thomas Carlyle, the same view has taken its place in literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Knox's books, pamphlets, public documents and letters are collected into the great edition in six volumes of _Knox's Works_, by David Laing (Edinburgh, 1846-1864), with introductions, appendices and notes. Of his books the chief are the following: 1.--_The History of the Reformation in Scotland_, incorporating the Confession and the Book of Discipline. Begun by Knox as a party manifesto in 1560, it was continued and revised by himself in 1566 as so to form four books, with a fifth book apparently written after his death from materials left by him. It was partly printed in London in 1586 by Vautrollier, but was suppressed by authority and published by David Buchanan, with a _Life_, in 1664. 2.--_On Predestination: an Answer to an Anabaptist_ (London, 1591). 3.--_On Prayer_ (1554). 4.--_On Affliction_ (1556). 5.--_Epistles_, and _Admonition_, both to English Brethren in 1554. 6.--_The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women_ (1558). 7.--_An Answer to a Scottish Jesuit_ (1572).

Knox's life is more or less touched upon by all the Scottish histories and Church histories which include his period, as well as in the mass of literature as to Queen Mary. Dr Laing's edition of the _Works_ contains important biographical material. But among the many express biographies two especially should be consulted--those by Thomas McCrie (Edinburgh, 1811; revised and enlarged in 1813, the later editions containing valuable notes by the author); and by P. Hume Brown (Edinburgh, 1895). _John Knox and the Reformation_, by Andrew Lang (London, 1905), is not so much a biography as a collection of materials, bearing upon many parts of the life, but nearly all on the unfavourable side. (A. T. I.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] John Hill Burton (_Hist. of Scotland_, iii. 339). Mr Burton's view (differing from that of Professor Hume Brown) was that the dialogues--the earlier of them at least--must have been spoken in the French tongue, in which Knox had recently preached for a year.

KNOX, PHILANDER CHASE (1853- ), American lawyer and political leader, was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the 4th of May 1853. He graduated from Mount Union College (Ohio) in 1872, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1875. He settled in Pittsburg, where he continued in private practice, with the exception of two years' service (1876-1877) as assistant United States district attorney, acquiring a large practice as a corporation lawyer. In April 1901 he became attorney-general of the United States in the cabinet of President McKinley, and retained this position after the accession of President Roosevelt until June 1904, when he was appointed by Governor Pennypacker of Pennsylvania to fill the unexpired term of Matthew S. Quay in the United States Senate; in 1905 he was re-elected to the Senate for the full term. In March 1909 he became secretary of state in the cabinet of President Taft.

KNOXVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Knox county, Tennessee, U.S.A., in the E. part of the state, 160 m. E. of Nashville, and about 190 m. S.E. of Louisville, Kentucky, on the right bank of the Tennessee river, 4 m. below the point where it is formed by the junction of the French Broad and Holston Rivers. Pop. (1880), 9693; (1890), 22,535; (1900), 32,637, of whom 7359 were negroes and 895 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 36,346. It is served by the main line and by branches of the Louisville & Nashville and the Southern railways, by the Knoxville & Bristol railway (Morristown to Knoxville, 58 m.), by the short Knoxville & Augusta railroad (Knoxville to Walland, 26 m.), and by passenger and freight steamboat lines on the Tennessee river, which is here navigable for the greater part of the year. A steel and concrete street-car bridge crosses the Tennessee at Knoxville. Knoxville is picturesquely situated at an elevation of from 850 to 1000 ft. in the valley between the Smoky Mountains and the Cumberland Mountains, and is one of the healthiest cities in the United States. There are several beautiful parks, of which Chilhowie and Fountain City are the largest, and among the public buildings are a city-hall, Federal building, court-house, the Knoxville general hospital, the Lincoln memorial hospital, the Margaret McClung industrial home, a Young Men's Christian Association building and the Lawson-McGhee public library. A monument to John Sevier stands on the site of the blockhouse first built there. Knoxville is the seat of Knoxville College (United Presbyterian, 1875) for negroes, East Tennessee institute, a secondary school for girls, the Baker-Himel school for boys, Tennessee Medical College (1889), two commercial schools and the university of Tennessee. The last, a state co-educational institution, was chartered as Blount College in 1794 and as East Tennessee College in 1807, but not opened until 1820--the present name was adopted in 1879. It had in 1907-1908 106 instructors, 755 students (536 in academic departments), and a library of 25,000 volumes. With the university is combined the state college of agriculture and engineering; and a large summer school for teachers is maintained. At Knoxville are the Eastern State insane asylum, state asylums for the deaf and dumb (for both white and negro), and a national cemetery in which more than 3200 soldiers are buried. Knoxville is an important commercial and industrial centre and does a large jobbing business. It is near hardwood forests and is an important market for hardwood mantels. Coal-mines in the vicinity produce more than 2,000,000 tons annually, and neighbouring quarries furnish the famous Tennessee marble, which is largely exported. Excellent building and pottery clays are found near Knoxville. Among the city's industrial establishments are flour and grist mills, cotton and woollen mills, furniture, desk, office supplies and sash, door, and blind factories, meat-packing establishments, clothing factories, iron, steel and boiler works, foundries and machine shops, stove works and brick and cement works. The value of the factory product increased from $6,201,840 in 1900 to $12,432,880 in 1905, or 100.5%, in 1905 the value of the flour and grist mill products alone being $2,048,509. Just outside the city the Southern railway maintains large car and repair shops. Knoxville was settled in 1786 by James White (1737-1815), a North Carolina pioneer, and was first known as "White's Fort"; it was laid out as a town in 1791, and named in honour of General Henry Knox, then secretary of war in Washington's cabinet. In 1791 the _Knoxville Gazette_, the first newspaper in Tennessee (the early issue, printed at Rogersville) began publication. From 1792 to 1796 Knoxville was the capital of the "Territory South of the Ohio," and until 1811 and again in 1817 it was the capital of the state. In 1796 the convention which framed the constitution of the new state of Tennessee met here, and here later in the same year the first state legislature was convened. Knoxville was chartered as a city in 1815. In its early years it was several times attacked by the Indians, but was never captured. During the Civil War there was considerable Union sentiment in East Tennessee, and in the summer of 1863 the Federal authorities determined to take possession of Knoxville as well as Chattanooga and to interrupt railway communications between the Confederates of the East and West through this region. As the Confederates had erected only slight defences for the protection of the city, Burnside, with about 12,000 men, easily gained possession on the 2nd of September 1863. Fortifications were immediately begun for its defence, and on the 4th of November, Bragg, thinking his position at Chattanooga impregnable against Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Hooker, despatched a force of 20,000 men under Longstreet to engage Burnside. Longstreet arrived in the vicinity on the 16th of November, and on the following day began a siege, which was continued with numerous assaults until the 28th, when a desperate but unsuccessful attack was made on Fort Sanders, and upon the approach of a relief force under Sherman, Longstreet withdrew on the night of the 4th of December. The Confederate losses during the siege were 182 killed, 768 wounded and 192 captured or missing; the Union losses were 92 killed, 394 wounded and 207 captured or missing. West Knoxville (incorporated in 1888) and North Knoxville (incorporated in 1889) were annexed to Knoxville in 1898.

See the sketch by Joshua W. Caldwell in _Historic Towns of the Southern States_, edited by L. P. Powell (New York, 1900); and W. Rule, G. F. Mellen and J. Wooldridge, _Standard History of Knoxville_ (Chicago, 1900).

KNUCKLE (apparently the diminutive of a word for "bone," found in Ger. _Knochen_), the joint of a finger, which, when the hand is shut, is brought into prominence. In mechanical use the word is applied to the round projecting part of a hinge through which the pin is run, and in ship-building to an acute angle on some of the timbers. A "knuckle-duster," said to have originally come from the criminal slang of the United States, is a brass or metal instrument fitting on to the hand across the knuckles, with projecting studs and used for inflicting a brutal blow.

KNUCKLEBONES (HUCKLEBONES, DIBS, JACKSTONES, CHUCK-STONES, FIVE-STONES), a game of very ancient origin, played with five small objects, originally the knucklebones of a sheep, which are thrown up and caught in various ways. Modern "knucklebones" consist of six points, or knobs, proceeding from a common base, and are usually of metal. The winner is he who first completes successfully a prescribed series of throws, which, while of the same general character, differ widely in detail. The simplest consists in tossing up one stone, the _jack_, and picking up one or more from the table while it is in the air; and so on until all five stones have been picked up. Another consists in tossing up first one stone, then two, then three and so on, and catching them on the back of the hand. Different throws have received distinctive names, such as "riding the elephant," "peas in the pod," and "horses in the stable."