Mrs. Bowes, wife of the Governor of Norham Castle on Tweed. Mrs. Bowes's
tendency to the new ideas in religion was not shared by her husband and
his family; the results will presently be conspicuous. In April 1550,
Knox preached at Newcastle a sermon on his favourite doctrine that the
Mass is "Idolatry," because it is "of man's invention," an opinion not
shared by Tunstall, then Bishop of Durham. Knox used "idolatry" in a
constructive sense, as when we talk of "constructive treason." But, in
practice, he regarded Catholics as "idolaters," in the same sense as
Elijah regarded Hebrew worshippers of alien deities, Chemosh or Moloch,
and he later drew the inference that idolaters, as in the Old Testament,
must be put to death. Thus his was logically a persecuting religion.

Knox was made a King's chaplain and transferred to Newcastle. He saw
that the country was, by preference, Catholic; that the life of Edward
VI. hung on a thread; and that with the accession of his sister, Mary
Tudor, Protestant principles would be as unsafe as under "umquhile the
Cardinal." Knox therefore, "from the foresight of troubles to come" (so
he writes to Mrs. Bowes, February 28, 1554), {36b} declined any post, a
bishopric, or a living, which would in honour oblige him to face the fire
of persecution. At the same time he was even then far at odds with the
Church of England that he had sound reasons for refusing benefices.

On Christmas day, 1552, {37a} he preached at Newcastle against Papists,
as "thirsting nothing more than the King's death, which their iniquity
would procure." In two brief years Knox was himself publicly expressing
his own thirst for the Queen's death, and praying for a Jehu or a
Phinehas, slayers of idolaters, such as Mary Tudor. If any fanatic had
taken this hint, and the life of Mary Tudor, Catholics would have said
that Knox's "iniquity procured" the murder, and they would have had fair
excuse for the assertion.