It is, doubtless, to his "torment" in the galleys that Knox refers when
he writes: "I know how hard the battle is between the spirit and the
flesh, under the heavy cross of affliction, where no worldly defence, but
present death, does appear. . . . Rests only Faith, provoking us to call
earnestly, and pray for assistance of God's spirit, wherein if we
continue, our most desperate calamities shall turn to gladness, and to a
prosperous end. . . . With experience I write this."

In February or March, 1549, Knox was released; by April he was in
England, and, while Edward VI. lived, was in comparative safety.




CHAPTER IV: KNOX IN ENGLAND: THE BLACK RUBRIC: EXILE: 1549-1554


Knox at once appeared in England in a character revolting to the later
Presbyterian conscience, which he helped to educate. The State permitted
no cleric to preach without a Royal license, and Knox was now a State
licensed preacher at Berwick, one of many "State officials with a
specified mission." He was an agent of the English administration, then
engaged in forcing a detested religion on the majority of the English
people. But he candidly took his own line, indifferent to the
compromises of the rulers in that chaos of shifting opinions. For
example, the Prayer Book of Edward VI. at that time took for granted
kneeling as the appropriate attitude for communicants. Knox, at Berwick,
on the other hand, bade his congregation sit, as he conceived that to
have been the usage at the first institution of the rite. Possibly the
Apostles, in fact, supped in a recumbent attitude, as Cranmer justly