SOURCE: "The Two John Knoxes: England, Scotland and the 1558 Tracts," in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 42, No. 4, October, 1991, pp. 555-76.

In the following essay, Dawson maintains that Knox's writings were intended for different readers and various purposes, and that attempts to interpret them as a unified whole are misguided.

The tracts which John Knox wrote in 1558 are regarded as the core of his political writings and the key to his entire political thought.¹ The most famous—and infamous—of his works, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, was published in the spring and was followed in July by The Letter to the Regent (Augmented), The Appellation and The Letter to the Commonalty of Scotland.² These tracts have suflered from two serious misconceptions. The first is the natural tendency to link all the 1558 material together and in particular to treat the First Blast...