Next, what is most surprising, Knox’s account of the month of ineffectual siege by the French, while he was actually in the castle, rests on a strange error of his memory.  The contemporary diary, Diurnal of Occurrences dates the sending (the arrival must be meant) of the French galleys, not on June 29, as Knox dates their arrival, but on July 24.  Professor Hume Brown says that the Diurnal gives the date as June 24 (a slip of the pen), “but Knox had surely the best opportunity of knowing both facts” {27a}—­that is, the number of the galleys, and the date of their coming.  Despite his unrivalled opportunities of knowledge, Knox did not know.  It is not quite correct to say that “Knox in his ‘History’ shows throughout a conscientious regard to accuracy of statement.”  Whatever the number of the galleys (Knox says twenty-one; the Diurnal says sixteen), on July 13-14, they are reported by Lord Eure, at Berwick, as passing or having just passed Eyemouth. {27b} They did not therefore suffer for three weeks at the garrison’s hands, or for three weeks desert the siege, but probably reached the scene of action before the date in the Diurnal (July 24), as, on July 23, the French Ambassador in England heard that they were investing the castle. {27c} Allowing five or six days for transmission of news, they probably began the attack from the sea about July 16 or 17, not, as Knox says, on June 30.  Perhaps he is right in saying that the French galleys only fired for two days and retreated, rather battered, to Dundee.  Land forces next attacked the hold, which surrendered on July 29 (as was known in London on August 5), that is, on the first day that the land battery was erected.

Knox gives a much more full account of his own controversies, in April-June 1547, than of political events.  He first, on arrival at the castle, drew up a catechism for his pupils, and publicly catechised them on its tenets, in the parish kirk in South Street.  It is unfortunate that we do not possess this catechism.  At the time when he wrote, Knox was possibly more of “Martin’s” mind, as he familiarly terms Luther, both as to the Sacrament and as to the Order of Bishops, than he was after his residence in Geneva.  Wishart, however, was well acquainted with Helvetic doctrine; he had, as we saw, translated a Helvetic Confession of Faith, perhaps with the view of introducing it into Scotland, and Knox may already have imbibed Calvinism from him.  He was not yet—­he never was—­a full-blown Presbyterian, and, while thinking nothing of “orders,” would not have rejected a bishop, if the bishop preached and was of godly and frugal life.  Already sermons were the most important part of public worship in the mind of Knox.