On the 4th of September, he received a call from the English Congregation at Frankfort on the Maine, to become their minister. He accepted the invitation, and repaired to that city in November.

1555.

In consequence of the disputes which arose in the English Congregation at Frankfort, in regard to the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and the introduction of various ceremonies. Knox was constrained to relinquish his charge; and having preached a farewell discourse on the 26th of March, he left that city, and returned to Geneva. Here he must have resumed his ministerial labours; as, on the 1st of November that year, in the "Livre des Anglois, à Geneve," it is expressly said, that Christopher Goodman and Anthony Gilby were "appointed to preche the word of God and mynyster the Sacraments, in th' absence of John Knox." This refers to his having resolved to visit his native country.

Knox proceeded to Dieppe in August, and in the following month landed on the east coast of Scotland, not far from Berwick. Most of this winter he spent in Edinburgh, preaching and exhorting in private.

1556.

In the beginning of this year Knox went to Ayrshire, accompanied with several of the leading Protestants of that county, and preached openly in the town of Ayr, and in other parts of the country. He was summoned to appear before a Convention of the Popish Clergy, on the 15th of May, at Edinburgh. About the same time, he addressed his Letter to the Queen Regent.

Having received a solicitation for his return to Geneva, to become one of their pastors, Knox left Scotland in July that year. Before this time he married Marjory Bowes. Her father was Richard, the youngest son of Sir Ralph Bowes of Streatlam; her mother was Elizabeth, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir Roger Aske of Aske.

On the 13th September, Knox, along with his wife and his mother-in-law, were formally admitted members of the English Congregation. At the annual election of Ministers, on the 16th of December, Knox and Goodman were re-elected.

1557.

Having received a pressing invitation from Scotland, which he considered to be his duty to accept, Knox took leave of the Congregation at Geneva, and came to Dieppe; but finding letters of an opposite tenor, dissuading him from coming till a more favourable opportunity, after a time he returned again to Geneva.

In May, his son Nathaniel was born at Geneva, and was baptized on the 23d, William Whittingham, afterwards Dean of Durham, being god-father.

On the 16th of December, Knox and Goodman still continued to be ministers of the English Congregation at Geneva.

1558.

April. Mary Queen of Scots was married, at Paris, to Francis, Dauphin of France.

In this year Knox republished, with additions, his Letter to the Queen Regent; and also his Appellation from the cruel sentence of the Bishops and Clergy of Scotland; and his First Blast of the Trumpet against the Regiment of Women.

In November, his son Eleazar was born at Geneva, and was baptized on the 29th, Myles Coverdale, formerly Bishop of Exeter, being witness or god-father.

November 17. Upon the death of Mary Queen of England, Elizabeth ascended the throne.

On the 16th December, Knox and Goodman were again re-elected ministers of the English Congregation.

1559.

January 7. Knox took his final departure from Geneva, in consequence of an invitation to return to Scotland; and was on that occasion honoured with the freedom of the city.

In March, he arrived at Dieppe, and finding that the English Government refused to grant him a safeconduct, on the 22d April he embarked for Leith, and reached Edinburgh on the 2d May. During that month, the Queen Regent published a Declaration against the Protestants, and the Lords of the Congregation sent a deputation to remonstrate; but their remonstrance being despised, they took arms in self-defence.

June 11. Knox preached in St. Andrews; and at Perth on the 25th, when the populace defaced several of the Churches or Monasteries in that city.

July 7. He was elected Minister of Edinburgh. Owing to the troubles, within a brief space he was obliged to relinquish his charge; but he continued his labours elsewhere for a time, chiefly at St. Andrews.

July 10. On the death of Henry II. of France, his son Francis, who had espoused Mary Queen of Scots, and had obtained the Matrimonial Crown of Scotland in November 1558, at the age of sixteen, ascended the throne of France.

August 1. The Protestants assembled at Stirling, and having resolved to solicit aid from England, on the 3d of that month Knox proceeded to Berwick to hold a conference with Sir James Crofts. In this month, he sent Calvin a favourable report of his labours since his arrival in Scotland: Calvin's answer to this communication is dated in November.

September 20. Knox's Wife and children, accompanied by Christopher Goodman, arrived in Edinburgh.

October 18. The Protestants entered Edinburgh, while the Queen Regent retired to Leith, with the French troops which had come to her aid.

1560.

February 27. A treaty concluded between England and the Lords of the Congregation. The English fleet blockaded the port of Leith, and furnished reinforcements, their troops at the same time having entered Scotland.

April. At the end of this month, Knox had returned to Edinburgh. His work on Predestination was published this year at Geneva.

June 10. The Queen Regent died in the Castle of Edinburgh. Articles of Peace were concluded in July.

August 1. The Scotish Parliament assembled; and, on the 17th, the Confession of Faith was ratified, and the Protestant religion formally established.

December 5. Francis II. of France, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, died.

December 20. The first meeting of the General Assembly was held at Edinburgh.

At the end of this year, Knox's Wife died, leaving him the two sons above mentioned.

1561.

An invitation having been sent by the Protestant Nobility to their young Queen, to revisit Scotland, she arrived from France, and assumed the Government, on the 19th of August.

1562.

May. Knox engaged in a dispute at Maybole, with Quintin Kennedy, Abbot of Crossragwell; of which dispute he published an account in the following year.

December. He was summoned to appear before the Privy Council, on account of a circular letter which he had addressed to the chief Protestants, in virtue of a commission granted to him by the General Assembly.

1563.

The town of Edinburgh formed only one parish. Knox, when elected Minister, had the assistance of John Cairns as Reader. John Craig, minister of the Canongate or Holyrood, had been solicited to become his colleague, in April 1562; but his appointment did not take place till June 1563.

1564.

March. Knox married to his second wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of Andrew Lord Ochiltree.

June 30. He was appointed by the General Assembly to visit the churches in Aberdeen and the North of Scotland. The following Assembly, 26th of December, gave him a similar appointment for Fife and Perthshire.

1565.

Knox was summoned before the Privy Council, on account of a sermon which, on the 19th of August, he had preached in St. Giles's Church.

1566.

In this year he appears to have written the most considerable portion of his History of the Reformation;