On sentiment, Cavalier or Puritan, reason is thrown away.

I have been surprised to find how completely a study of Knox’s own works corroborates the views of Dr. Robertson and Lord Hailes.  That Knox ran so very far ahead of the Genevan pontiffs of his age in violence; and that in his “History” he needs such careful watching, was, to me, an unexpected discovery.  He may have been “an old Hebrew prophet,” as Mr. Carlyle says, but he had also been a young Scottish notary!  A Hebrew prophet is, at best, a dangerous anachronism in a delicate crisis of the Church Christian; and the notarial element is too conspicuous in some passages of Knox’s “History.”

That Knox was a great man; a disinterested man; in his regard for the poor a truly Christian man; as a shepherd of Calvinistic souls a man fervent and considerate; of pure life; in friendship loyal; by jealousy untainted; in private character genial and amiable, I am entirely convinced.  In public and political life he was much less admirable; and his “History,” vivacious as it is, must be studied as the work of an old-fashioned advocate rather than as the summing up of a judge.  His favourite adjectives are “bloody,” “beastly,” “rotten,” and “stinking.”

Any inaccuracies of my own which may have escaped my correction will be dwelt on, by enthusiasts for the Prophet, as if they are the main elements of this book, and disqualify me as a critic of Knox’s “History.”  At least any such errors on my part are involuntary and unconscious.  In Knox’s defence we must remember that he never saw his “History” in print.  But he kept it by him for many years, obviously re-reading, for he certainly retouched it, as late as 1571.

In quoting Knox and his contemporaries, I have used modern spelling:  the letter from the State Papers printed on pp. 146, 147, shows what the orthography of the period was really like.  Consultation of the original MSS. on doubtful points, proves that the printed Calendars, though excellent guides, cannot be relied on as authorities.

The portrait of Knox, from Beza’s book of portraits of Reformers, is posthumous, but is probably a good likeness drawn from memory, after a description by Peter Young, who knew him, and a design, presumably by “Adrianc Vaensoun,” a Fleming, resident in Edinburgh. {0b}

There is an interesting portrait, possibly of Knox, in the National Gallery of Portraits, but the work has no known authentic history.

The portrait of Queen Mary, at the age of thirty-six, and a prisoner, is from the Earl of Morton’s original; it is greatly superior to the “Sheffield” type of likenesses, of about 1578; and, with Janet’s and other drawings (1558-1561), the Bridal medal of 1558, and (in my opinion) the Earl of Leven and Melville’s portrait, of about 1560-1565, is the best extant representation of the Queen.

The Leven and Melville portrait of Mary, young and charming, and wearing jewels which are found recorded in her Inventories, has hitherto been overlooked.  An admirable photogravure is given in Mr. J. J. Foster’s “True Portraiture of Mary, Queen of Scots” (1905), and I understand that a photograph was done in 1866 for the South Kensington Museum.