that even Blessed Edmund Campion, who went gaily to torture and death,
had doubts as to the necessity of that journey. {40c}

Nor was there any reason why Knox should stay in England to be burned, if
he could escape--with less than ten groats in his pocket--as he did. It
is not for us moderns to throw the first stone at a reluctant martyr,
still less to applaud useless self-sacrifice, but we do take leave to
think that, having fled early, himself, from the martyr's crown, Knox
showed bad taste in his harsh invectives against Protestants who, staying
in England, conformed to the State religion under Mary Tudor.

It is not impossible that his very difficult position as the lover of
Marjorie Bowes--a position of which, while he remained in England, the
burden fell on the poor girl--may have been one reason for Knox's flight,
while the entreaties of his friends that he would seek safety must have
had their influence.

On the whole it seems more probable that when he committed himself to
matrimony with a young girl, the fifth daughter of Mrs. Bowes, he was
approaching his fortieth rather than his fiftieth year. Older than he
are happy husbands made, sometimes, though Marjorie Bowes's choice may
have been directed by her pious mother, whose soul could find no rest in
the old faith, and not much in the new.

At thirty-eight the Reformer, we must remember, must have been no
uncomely wooer. His conversation must have been remarkably vivid: he had
adventures enough to tell, by land and sea; while such a voice as he
raised withal in the pulpit, like Edward Irving, has always been potent
with women, as Sir Walter Scott remarks in Irving's own case. His
expression, says Young, had a certain geniality; on the whole we need not