Knox’s official attachment to England expired with his preaching license, on the death of Edward vi. and the accession of Mary Tudor.  He did not at once leave the country, but preached both in London and on the English border, while the new queen was settling herself on the throne.  While within Mary’s reach, Knox did not encourage resistance against that idolatress; he did not do so till he was safe in France.  Indeed, in his prayer used after the death of Edward vi., before the fires of Oxford and Smithfield were lit, Knox wrote:  “Illuminate the heart of our Sovereign Lady, Queen Mary, with pregnant gifts of the Holy Ghost. . . .  Repress thou the pride of those that would rebel. . . .  Mitigate the hearts of those that persecute us.”

In the autumn of 1553, Knox’s health was very bad; he had gravel, and felt his bodily strength broken.  Moreover, he was in the disagreeable position of being betrothed to a very young lady, Marjorie Bowes, with the approval of her devout mother, the wife of Richard Bowes, commander of Norham Castle, near Berwick, but to the anger and disgust of the Bowes family in general.  They by no means shared Knox’s ideas of religion, rather regarding him as a penniless unfrocked “Scot runagate,” whose alliance was discreditable and distasteful, and might be dangerous.  “Maist unpleasing words” passed, and it is no marvel that Knox, being persecuted in one city, fled to another, leaving England for Dieppe early in March 1554. {39}

His conscience was not entirely at ease as to his flight.  “Why did I flee?  Assuredly I cannot tell, but of one thing I am sure, the fear of death was not the chief cause of my fleeing,” he wrote to Mrs. Bowes from Dieppe.  “Albeit that I have, in the beginning of this battle, appeared to play the faint-hearted and feeble soldier (the cause I remit to God), yet my prayer is that I may be restored to the battle again.” {40a} Knox was, in fact, most valiant when he had armed men at his back; he had no enthusiasm for taking part in the battle when unaided by the arm of flesh.  On later occasions this was very apparent, and he has confessed, as we saw, that he did not choose to face “the trouble to come” without means of retreat.  His valour was rather that of the general than of the lonely martyr.  The popular idea of Knox’s personal courage, said to have been expressed by the Regent Morton in the words spoken at his funeral, “here lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man,” is entirely erroneous.  His learned and sympathetic editor, David Laing, truly writes:  “Knox cannot be said to have possessed the impetuous and heroic boldness of a Luther when surrounded with danger. . . .  On more than one occasion Knox displayed a timidity or shrinking from danger, scarcely to have been expected from one who boasted of his willingness to endure the utmost torture, or suffer death in his Master’s cause.  Happily he was not put to the test. . . .” {40b}