FEATURE John Knox and womankind: a reappraisal

Maureen M Meikle

o promote a woman to bear the mid-sixteenth century. There had reforming clerics such as rule, superiority, dominion or perhaps never been quite so many Christopher Goodman. None the less Tempire above any realm, nation, women in charge at the same time Knox’s timing of the First Blast or city is repugnant to nature, in European history and it was just proved to be catastrophic. The contumely to God, a thing most too much for Knox to bear! ferocity of its text caused his contrarious to his revealed will and In 1558 he had been living in supporters much embarrassment in approved ordinance, and finally it Geneva where he was a leading Geneva, Scotland, France and is the subversion of good order, and Calvinist reformer. Knox would England. Moreover it cost him vital all equity and justice. therefore have objected to anyone, support during a particularly difficult John Knox, The first blast of the male or female, who hindered the phase of the Reformation. The last trumpet against the monstrous regiment progress of the Protestant person Knox would have wanted to of women, 1558. Reformation. However, when these antagonise at this time was the obstacles collectively were ruling ostensibly Protestant Queen John Knox’s infamous remarks about women he felt obliged to lash out in Elizabeth of England, yet this was the ‘monstrous regiment’ are print. Knox’s zeal was quickly precisely what he did do. frequently repeated in modern day undermined, however, for in between It is perhaps a misfortune of media, but few people today realise writing and publishing the First Blast publishing history that Knox’s that the target of his wrath was not of the trumpet against the monstrous slightly more balanced Second Blast womenkind in general.1 To call all regiment of women Mary Tudor died. and Third Blast, which criticised sixteenth-century women, or any This was a classic case of bad timing tyrannous leaders regardless of their women for that matter, a ‘monstrous in the publishing world for now that gender, were never printed. His regiment’ is to portray them in his bête noire had gone, Mary’s sister targets here were monarchs entirely the wrong light. When John and successor Elizabeth Tudor took ‘unworthy of regiment above the Knox was writing his notorious First great offence at his book. Elizabeth people of God.’ One thing is very Blast his intended targets were the would not directly attack Knox, but clear in all this – Knox never powerful ruling Catholic queens of she used subtle means to annoy him intended to denigrate ordinary mid-sixteenth century Britain and such as barring him from entering women. He knew and respected the Europe who were thwarting the England to travel back to Scotland place that women held within the spread of Calvinism. Therefore his in 1559. Knox wrote that ‘my First patriarchal Protestant family. This intended targets were Mary of Guise, Blast hath blown me from all my may well have been subservient to Governor of Scotland, Catherine de friends in England’ for, although the place of the husband, but it was Médicis, shortly to become Regent published anonymously, everyone often the mother who gave children of France and especially Mary Tudor, knew it was he who had written this their primary religious instruction. Queen Regnant of England.2 tract. To be fair, Knox’s opinions Women therefore served as a role ‘Regiment’ simply means rule and were not original for he was merely model for their children’s future Knox’s ‘monstrous regiment’ were reiterating contemporary opinion religious practice. Knox also these powerful Catholic queens of against female rulers, put forward by believed that men and women were

9 1560 Geneva translation of the Bible, Genesis, Ch,.3, v.21-22. Margery was happy to accompany her mother and fiancé, as her father would not have allowed her to marry Knox in England. Elizabeth and Margery’s actions defied all the patriarchal conventions of the period, for under English Common Law both women were the property of Richard and should have obeyed his wishes. Knox, however, had no objections to their unconventional behaviour as he saw their actions as ‘godly’ and he had little sympathy for the Catholic Richard Bowes’s predicament. Knox and Margery were married in Geneva equal before God, if not in law or his ‘deirlie belovit sister’ until she in 1555, which probably gave his custom. Knox always admired became his wife. Both Margery enemies less ammunition to accuse women who helped him with his Bowes and her mother Elizabeth were him of sexual impropriety. In truth, work, yet still knew their place in persuaded by Knox to leave the Knox liked having female helpers the patriarchal order. Furthermore, North East of England for Geneva. around him, whom he regarded as his notoriety for ferocious preaching This city had become a sanctuary for his spiritual equals. This was why he and harangues against Mary Queen English and Scottish Protestant exiles was prepared to sanction the journey of Scots present an unbalanced view respectively during the reign of of Elizabeth and Margery, and of Knox and women, for in reality Mary Tudor and the regency of Mary others, to Geneva to continue doing Knox was not a mysogynist. of Guise. Knox knew that he could God’s work. His correspondence with In his private life Knox would protect them there, but Elizabeth women was always affectionate and love two wives and father at least two Bowes’s decision to leave could not godly, but what their husbands had sons and three daughters. His first have been easy. She had consciously to say in return is unrecorded. Poor wife was Margery Bowes of the challenged patriarchal custom by Mr Bowes died in 1558 with his wife Yorkshire/Durham gentry family, leaving her Catholic husband still in Geneva and, significantly, he whom he met whilst exiled in Richard, a long-serving Anglo- made no mention of her in his will.3 England in the early 1550s. Knox Scottish Border officer, to be with Anne Lock was another famous first knew her mother, Elizabeth Knox’s ‘faithful’ in Geneva. Knox’s Knox ‘groupie’, who left her husband Bowes, as she had become strongly opponents accused Elizabeth of in London to be with him in Geneva. attached to the Protestant cause and being his mistress, but this was Knox’s letters to Anne have survived regarded Knox as her spiritual unlikely as Knox was nine years and they are always tender. She was mentor. Elizabeth offered the exiled younger than her and, as a always his dearest sister and, no Scot hospitality at her Alnwick home merchant’s son, her social inferior. matter how busy he was with when he was travelling between The only thing he may have been important matters such as starting preaching engagements in Berwick- tempted to do was hug her when the Scottish Reformation, he always upon-Tweed and Newcastle-upon- Tyne. Like many women caught up in the Reformation struggles, There had perhaps never been quite so many women Elizabeth was in spiritual confusion at this time and Knox helped her in charge at the same time in European history and it decide to take a Protestant path away from her Catholic family. It was, after was just too much for Knox to bear! all, a path he had taken himself when he abandoned the priesthood. When Elizabeth was distressed as they stood found time to answer her specific apart they corresponded in most ‘at the copbourd in Anwik’. questions about the Bible and its affectionate and godly terms, Richard Bowes, on the other interpretation. It was to Anne that Elizabeth Bowes was addressed firstly hand, would have been rightfully he poured his heart out when England as a ‘sister’, but after he became aggrieved that his wife of thirty years turned its back on him for unofficially engaged to Margery in had abandoned him and their other publication of the First Blast. January 1553, Knox called her his fourteen children to follow a Spiritually at least, Anne was the ‘deirlie belovit Mother’. Margery was Protestant preacher to a foreign city. woman who got closest to Knox’s

10 soul and he was happy to let her be from the new Queen Elizabeth I. She staunchly Protestant Andrew that close. He therefore appears to was dutifully trying to help her Stewart, Lord Ochiltree. Knox have been able to relate to women’s husband out of the hole he had dug certainly recognised and admired spiritual needs, perhaps more than for himself. She returned to Scotland godly women, but Margaret was a that of his male followers. Writing with Knox in 1559 and he must have mere sixteen years of age when she from Geneva during 1556 Knox been devastated when Margery died married the fifty-eight-year-old freely admitted to Anne that he had in Edinburgh during the autumn of minister! A wife who was forty-two a ‘thrist and langoure... for your 1560. Her mother remained in years the junior of her husband would presence.’ His next letter asked her contact with Knox and his family. raise eyebrows today, but ‘to gyd and conduct your self to this Elizabeth even came to Edinburgh considering that life expectancy was place’ despite her husband’s to look after him and her only around forty years of age in the opposition and the fact that Knox was grandchildren and may have stayed sixteenth century this was a recently married himself. On 8 May in Knox’s household until she died phenomenal age gap. Surprisingly 1557 Anne arrived in Geneva with in 1568. Knox wrote a warm eulogy few commented on the disparity in her two small children and for Elizabeth as she had been with their ages, as Margaret was from a maidservant, but significantly him since her first days of staunchly Protestant family and it without Mr Lock. Knox had painted Protestantism in the earlier 1550s. was seen to be a godly marriage Geneva as the ‘maist perfyt schoole Elizabeth had presumably not alliance. It was neither a platonic of Chryst that ever was in the erth’ – opposed Knox’s remarriage in 1564 marriage, nor a marriage of so how could she resist this Protestant to Margaret Stewart, daughter of the convenience, for Knox fathered three paradise in comparison to Mary Tudor’s perceived reign of terror in England? Anne set about translating the works of Calvin into English but, after Knox left Geneva to go to Scotland, she too returned – but in this instance to her husband in London. Their correspondence fades out in 1562 but, when Anne was widowed in 1571, her husband left her all his goods. Anne remarried firstly the preacher Edward Dering, and upon being widowed for a second time she wed Richard Prowse, a merchant of Exeter. She continued to support Scottish ministers when they visited London in the later sixteenth century. Sadly we have no portrait of Anne to see a likeness of the woman who held such a special place in the affections of Scotland’s most famous churchman.4 Knox trusted his wife implicitly and even allowed her to write letters on his behalf to other notable reformers, such as John Foxe on 18 May 1558. Foxe had castigated him for publishing the First Blast and in his dictated reply Knox let Margery refer to his inexcusable ‘rude vehemencie and inconsidered affirmations’. Although Knox signed the letter, a footnote by Margery affirms her ‘as the writer hereof’ and she sent greetings to Foxe’s wife and mother-in-law. As an Englishwoman, Margery knew how vital support for the Scottish Reformation would be

11 more children before his death in widowed Mary returned to Scotland they themselves have lived in the 1572. Some sneered that Knox had from France in 1561, Knox was one common society with others, and remarried a lady well above his of only a handful of Scots who did have borne patiently with the errors status, but this did not bother either not celebrate the occasion. Mary’s and imperfections which they could party. As far as Margaret was arrival at Leith aboard a French not amend. concerned, she had married the hero galley gave Knox an unpleasant Mary may have seen the religious of the Scottish Reformation. After his reminder of his years as a French contradiction in this, as she wanted death she remarried the fervently galley slave in the late 1540s. His freedom to worship as she pleased, Protestant Border laird, Sir Andrew greatest fear was that she might, like but Knox had the First Blast on his Ker of Faldonside, in 1574. Margaret her late mother or mother-in-law, mind and he continued: had more children by him and died fight the establishment of his beloved Protestantism. From the If the Realm finds no first Sunday after Mary’s inconvenience from the regiment arrival, Knox stirred up of a woman, that which they trouble for her. He approve I shall not disallow... but orchestrated a riot as she shall be content to live under your went to mass in the Grace, as Paul was to live under chapel at Holyrood Nero and my hope is that, so long House and delivered as you defile not your hands with vitriolic sermons about the blood of the saints of God, that her faith to his Edinburgh neither I nor that Book shall either congregation. hurt you or your authority; for in This battle of words very deed Madame, that Book was moved on to verbal written most especially against that confrontations between wicked Jezebel of England [i.e. Knox and Mary. Mary Tudor]. Although these are well- known encounters, much If by this roundabout apology Knox hyped by Mary’s was hoping for Mary’s conversion to apologists, there were Protestantism, he would be few witnesses to their disappointed. Mary was resolutely debates. We only have Catholic until her death. Once she Knox’s version of events locked horns with Knox, they could to go by, which are never be reconciled. Mary did clearly biased against however ask Knox if the ‘monstrous this queen. Nevertheless regiment’ referred to women in as a Scot, Knox had as general, to which he replied that this much right as any other particular question had never been to make a personal considered in public or in secret. ‘If approach to his monarch. I had intended to have troubled your The Scottish Court was, estate because you are a woman, I Facsimile of a letter from John Knox after all, far more open than the might have chosen a time more (written by his wife) to Mr Foxe. English court of this period. He also convenient for that purpose than believed that monarchs were subject now... when your own presence is in 1611, having witnessed many to God’s authority, which could not within the realm.’ He probably gave dramatic decades of Scottish history. be overruled. His initial audience much the same answer to supporters Mary Queen of Scots did, with Mary in 1561 – recorded in of Elizabeth I, but he would never however, comment on Knox’s second Knox’s History of the Reformation in escape from his First Blast’s slur marriage. She apparently voiced Scotland – began with what can only against female rulers. How could he angry words about a Stewart, of the be described as a plea for academic satisfactorily denounce Mary Queen same blood as her own, marrying the freedom. of Scots whilst looking to Queen man she regarded as her bête noire. Elizabeth I for English support Knox assuredly loved women, but Please your Majesty (said he) that during the Scottish Reformation? Mary wasn’t a woman in his eyes. learned men in all ages have had their Academics debated the issues She was a female Catholic monarch judgements free... from the common raised by Knox’s pamphlet and, and as such was a continuation of the judgement of the world; such also though none of them denied the ‘monstrous regiment’ he had railed have they published, both with pen existence of patriarchy, opponents against back in 1558. When the and tongue, and yet notwithstanding skilfully defended the natural and

12 God-given right of royal women to husbands to become his followers have been no need for husbands to rule where there was no direct male under a smokescreen of ‘godliness’. preach to their wives? heir. This issue is still debated today, These women would have been Quoting the Bible at your wife but in the mid sixteenth century the aware that there was no shortage of would be regarded as being eccentric most obvious reply to Knox’s First opinionated men in the mid sixteenth behaviour today and might even end Blast was John Aylmer’s An Harborow century ready to tell them how they up in divorce proceedings. However, for Faithful and Trewe Subjectes (1559). should behave. These men did not there was no divorce in sixteenth- Aylmer, conscious that Knox had have to look far for inspiration as century England and very little argued that female rule was against the Bible and ancient philosophers divorce in Scotland, so the majority nature, stated that: like Aristotle reinforced the of marriages ended with the death of inferiority of womankind. For either partner. No woman could get If it were unnatural for a woman example, St Paul’s letters to the away from the very first book of the to rule because she lacketh a man’s Ephesians would probably have been Old Testament – Genesis – and what strength, then old kings which be quoted by the literate to married it had to say about Adam and Eve in most meet to rule for wit and women who did obey their husbands. Paradise. The Bible had a far more experience, because they lack These letters ordered wives to central role to play in the lives of strength, should be unmeet for the ‘submit yourselves unto your own everyday men and women in the feebleness of the body. husbands as unto the Lord’ and they sixteenth century and could be read True to the patriarchal norms of this were always to acknowledge that ‘the literally. Adam came first, Eve came period, Aylmer accepted that a husband is the head of the wife’. second, which quite simply is the married queen ‘must be a subject’ to However, it is clear that John Knox origin of prejudice against women her husband, ‘but as a magistrate she was aware that St Paul also instructed and all subsequent gender inequality. may be her husband’s head’. In other husbands to ‘love your wives, even Nevertheless, where St Paul is very words, female rulers were to be as Christ also loved the Church, and direct, Genesis could be open to treated as honorary men when it gave himself for it’. contemporary interpretation. The came to ruling over their subjects and In secular society the sixteenth 1560 Geneva translation of the Bible, Elizabeth would famously remind century was an era of pronounced dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, her subjects in 1588 that she ‘had the double standards, which always would have been known to Knox and heart and stomach of a king’. However back in the late 1550s and 1560s many expected Elizabeth I to In secular society the sixteenth century was an marry and thereafter show obedience to her husband as a dutiful wife in era of pronounced double standards, which all things except matters of state. Subsequent history has shown that always favoured men over women. Elizabeth was well aware of this conundrum and maintained her favoured men over women. It his followers. If one looks carefully power by remaining single. That followed that it was acceptable for at Genesis, chapter two, verses 21-22, Mary Queen of Scots’ second and men to be drunk in public, but not in the Geneva edition there is an third marriages proved to be her so women. Women were to be chaste interesting marginal comment. After regal undoing only enhances at marriage and faithful thereafter, describing how ‘woman’ was created Elizabeth’s shrewdness. but this was not a requirement for from Adam’s rib, the margin states Knox’s behaviour towards the bridegroom. In England women that this was ‘signifying that ordinary women appears equally were the property of their fathers mankinde was perfit when the woman paradoxical, for surely he would not before marriage, and they belonged was created, which before was like have allowed his wives Margery, or to their husbands after marriage. an unperfect buylding’. This was Margaret, to leave him and their Only a widow was truly free of male undoubtedly inserted to flatter a children to follow another Calvinist domination, but she was in an queen regnant, but it had an reformer? Had they threatened to do unenviable situation. If she was poor interesting impact upon literate so, Knox would probably have been and did not remarry, the widow was women for the Geneva Bible was as angry as Richard Bowes and thus seen as a burden on her parish poor widely read until well into the not as understanding as Mr Lock. He fund. However, if she did remarry, seventeenth century. would no doubt have delivered stern she could be accused of being The 1611 King James Bible, which lectures to Margery, or Margaret, on unfaithful to her late husband’s is more familiar today, did not their wifely duties. Yet Knox had memory. The sixteenth century can become the standard Bible until himself pushed the patriarchal therefore be seen as a man’s world, many years after its publication. As boundaries of early modern society but surely if all women behaved the translators of the new authorised in letting married women leave their exactly as men wanted there would version were working for a king,

13 John Knox, Returning Home After REFERENCES Having Preached His Last Sermon. 1. E. Ewan & M.M. Meikle, eds. Women in Circa 1800s Scotland, c. 1100 - c. 1750 (Tuckwell Press, 2002), xix-xxx. women living in the mid sixteenth 2. Judith M. Richards, ‘“To Promote a Woman to Beare Rule”: Talking of Queens in Mid- century that Knox never intended to Tudor England’, Sixteenth Century Journal, denigrate. The all too frequent 28 (1997), 101-121. mention of women as a ‘monstrous 3. A. Daniel Frankforter, ‘Elizabeth Bowes and John Knox: a woman and Reformation regiment’ is in truth a monstrous Theology’, Church History, 56 (1987), 333-347. misquote. C. Newman, ‘The Reformation and Elizabeth Bowes: a study of a sixteenth-century Northern Gentlewoman’, in W. J. Shiels & D. Wood, eds., Women in the Church, Studies in Church FURTHER READING History 27 (1990), 325-333. 4. S.M. Felch, ‘“Deir Sister”: The letters of John J. Knox, The Works of John Knox, ed. Knox to Anne Vaughan Lok’, in Renaissance D. Laing, 6 vols (Edinburgh, and Reformation, 19/4 (1995), 47-68 and ‘The Rhetoric of Biblical Authority: John Knox Bannatyne Club, 1846-64). and the Question of Women’, Sixteenth A. Lock, The Collected Works of Anne Century Journal, 26/4 (1995), 805-22. Vaughan Lock, ed. S.M. Felch James VI & I, there is naturally no (Renaissance English Text Society, Maureen Meikle is a senior mention of man’s imperfections Tempe, Arizona, 1999). lecturer in early modem history before woman came along beside R. A. Mason, ed. John Knox and the at the University of Sunderland. verses 21 and 22 of Genesis, chapter British Reformations (Ashgate, 1998), She is co-editor, with Elizabeth three. This change of emphasis was chs 4 & 11. Ewan, of Women in Scotland, c.1100- part of the male backlash against Amanda Shephard, Gender and 1750 (Tuckwell Press, 2002) and women after the death of Elizabeth Authority in Sixteenth-Century is currently completing a in 1603. For although the status of England: The Knox Debate (Keele biography of Anna of Denmark, women in society had been under University Press,1994). consort of Jame VI & I. attack throughout the sixteenth century, few dared to say anything openly when there were powerful queens regnant of England. For example, in sixteenth-century England female heiresses were being squeezed out of their inheritances by discreet male-only entail of landed estates. However, men who dared to speak out against female rule could be accused of treason as Elizabeth was always ultrasensitive about her rights to the English throne. Knox was truly fortunate to be both a Scot and out of England in 1558, for had he been there he could have been executed for treasonable assertions in The First Blast. Still, as the examples of Elizabeth Bowes and Anne Locke demonstrate, Knox did not mislike women. In truth he had a soft spot for women and was a loving father and husband who never intended to challenge all of womankind in the First Blast. It was just Catholic queens who angered him and frankly their numbers could be counted on the fingers of one hand. There were millions of other

Statue of John Knox at the High Kirk of St Giles, Edinburgh

14