SOURCE: An introduction to On Rebellion, by John Knox, edited by Robert A. Mason, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. viii-xxiv.

In the following excerpt, Mason provides an overview of Knox's ideas, the political world around him, and his major writings.

i

There was little in John Knox's background to suggest that as a self-styled instrument of God he was destined to wield considerable influence over the course of the Reformation in Britain. Of his early life, in fact, very little is known. Even the date of his birth—c. 1514—is conjectural, though we can say that he was born of humble parentage in the Scottish burgh of Haddington in East Lothian and was probably educated at the local grammar school before attending St Andrews University. There is no record of his graduating from St Andrews, but he did take holy orders in the later 1530s and, unable to obtain...