PREFACE.

ABOUT two years ago I was looking through the "Morrice "Collection of Manuscripts in Dr. Williams's Library, London, in search of unpublished papers bearing upon the history of the Elizabethan Puritans, when I came, quite unexpectedly, upon the Knox-Papers, which are here, for the first time, printed, and laid under contribution to the history of the English section of the Scottish Reformer's life and work.

It is very surprising that these Papers were not given to the world long ago, for they are included in the same collection from which Neal derived a large portion of his materials for the "History of the Puritans;" and they must have fallen under the eyes of Brooks, Price, and other original investigators in the same field, who all acknowledge their obligations to the same valuable repository. The explanation in regard to two of the Papers may probably be that the name of Knox appearing in the titles of them may have led these authors too hastily to conclude that they had already been published with his other writings, which were not, till lately, accessible in a collected form, and could not, therefore, be easily compared with the Papers; while in regard to another of the Papers-the most important of all-the absence from it of all names and dates may possibly have made the task of identification

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of authorship too difficult for investigators who, as English Nonconformists, not Scottish Presbyterians, were not sufficiently familiar with the literary characteristics of what Knox himself often calls "his rude hand." The Papers-four in number—are not "originals," but, in the judgment of Mr. Bond, Head of the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, they are contemporary transcripts. They exist in two sets of copies, both belonging to the "Morrice" Collection-the later set made in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the earlier going back to the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth. The later copies were transcribed from the earlier, to which they give references, and are only useful as facilitating the reading of the older set.

The reader will find the Papers in the Second Part of the volume-reproduced from the older set of copies verbatim et literatim-accompanied with all the annotations, in the shape of Introduction and Notes, which seemed necessary and adequate to evince, both directly and indirectly, the genuineness and historical authority of the documents; and to indicate in the case of one of them, No. II., which appears to have been a joint production, the names of the men who in all probability associated themselves with Knox in drawing it up and presenting it to the Privy Council.

The amount of fresh biographical and historical material supplied by these Papers is so very considerable that it appeared to warrant and suggest a re-writing of the English chapter of Knox's life, especially when combined with the important letters of the period first given to the world by the late Mr. Tytler, in his "England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary," and by the Rev. Thomas Walter Perry, in his work, published in 1863, entitled "Some Historical Considerations relating to the Declaration on

Kneeling, appended to the Communion Office of the English Book of Common Prayer," in which a highly valuable letter of Archbishop Cranmer to the Privy Council, bearing upon Knox, was first published. Having conceived this design, it became necessary to extend the range of my inquiries much beyond what was necessary to the elucidation of the Papers. The narrative portion of the volume ranges over the whole ten years of Knox's work in England and among Englishmen out of England, with which, of course, I have taken care to interweave all the material of a biographical and historical kind that has now, for the first time, become available. The effect of this is to exhibit all the new facts in situ, where they can be best appreciated and understood; these new facts supplementing the old ones, and the old facts so perfectly dovetailing with the new, as to authenticate them as true parts of the same story-links of it which have been long missing, but have at length been found.

The reader will please to note that the volume is offered not as a History but as a "Monograph." The rules which determine the forms and proportions of History are more stringent than those which apply to the somewhat indeterminate shapes proper or possible to the Monograph; and my chief reason, I confess, for preferring the latter form of composition was, that I wished to make larger and freer use of Knox's own writings, in the way of culling their most personal and characteristic passages, than would have been allowable in the case of a regular historical narrative. I wished, as much as possible, to let Knox himself be seen and heard in my book; and this all the more that it is wholly taken up with the English section of his life and teaching. Énglishmen, of course, are not nearly so familiar with his true mind and character as Scotchmen may naturally be supposed to be, though

very much has been done by two great writers of our own time— Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Froude-to explode the old misconceptions and prejudices of the English mind in regard to this grand historical figure. It seemed to me an appropriate aim, in drawing up a fuller account than has hitherto been possible of what this extraordinary Scotchman had been and had done in England, to endeavour to awaken among the English people a livelier interest in his person, and a higher degree of sympathy with his richly endowed and strongly marked nature; for his endowment was one of tenderness joined to strength-of humour as well as seriousness -of geniality and severity-of man-like sympathies added to godly zeal and fervour—and all this in a degree which is never imagined by any who have only read what others have written about him often under the influence of strong prejudice, instead of having looked into his own expressive face, and listened to his own many-toned voice, as these are only to be seen and heard in his own writings.

It is a singular coincidence that these Knox-Papers should have come to light, after an interval of more than three centuries, at a time of ecclesiastical agitation in the Church of England like the present, when they will naturally have a double degree of significance and interest. It is hoped that the fresh light which they throw upon the history of King Edward's Second Prayer Book, and his Forty-two Articles, will be equally welcome to all parties of the Anglican Church, however different may be the uses which they may be expected to make of the new facts now become available.

In my narrative of Knox's action and influence on this important field, I have not been careful, of course, to conceal on which side of the struggle of parties in which he figured my own sym