True it is that I have many whom I bear in equal remembrance before God
with you, to whom at present I write nothing, either for that I esteem
them stronger than you, and therefore they need the less my rude
labours, or else because they have not provoked me by their writing to
recompense their remembrance. "[83] His "sisters in Edinburgh" had
evidently to "provoke" his attention pretty constantly; nearly all his
letters are, on the face of them, answers to questions, and the answers
are given with a certain crudity that I do not find repeated when he
writes to those he really cares for. So when they consult him about
women's apparel (a subject on which his opinion may be pretty correctly
imagined by the ingenious reader for himself) he takes occasion to
anticipate some of the most offensive matter of the "First Blast" in a
style of real brutality. [84] It is not merely that he tells them "the
garments of women do declare their weakness and inability to execute the
office of man," though that in itself is neither very wise nor very
opportune in such a correspondence, one would think; but if the reader
will take the trouble to wade through the long, tedious sermon for
himself, he will see proof enough that Knox neither loved, nor very
deeply respected, the women he was then addressing. In very truth, I
believe these Edinburgh sisters simply bored him. He had a certain
interest in them as his children in the Lord; they were continually
"provoking him by their writing"; and, if they handed his letters about,
writing to them was as good a form of publication as was then open to
him in Scotland. There is one letter, however, in this budget, addressed
to the wife of Clerk-Register Mackgil, which is worthy of some further
mention. The Clerk-Register had not opened his heart, it would appear,
to the preaching of the Gospel, and Mrs. Mackgil has written seeking
the Reformer's prayers in his behalf. "Your husband," he answers, "is
dear to me for that he is a man indued with some good gifts, but more
dear for that he is your husband. Charity moveth me to thirst his
illumination, both for his comfort and for the trouble which you sustain
by his coldness, which justly may be called infidelity." He wishes her,
however, not to hope too much; he can promise that his prayers will be
earnest, but not that they will be effectual; it is possible that this
is to be her "cross" in life; that "her head, appointed by God for her
comfort, should be her enemy." And if this be so--well, there is nothing
for it; "with patience she must abide God's merciful deliverance,"
taking heed only that she does not "obey manifest iniquity for the
pleasure of any mortal man. "[85] I conceive this epistle would have
given a very modified sort of pleasure to the Clerk-Register, had it
chanced to fall into his hands. Compare its tenor--the dry resignation
not without a hope of merciful deliverance therein recommended--with
these words from another letter, written but the year before to two
married women of London: "Call first for grace by Jesus, and thereafter
communicate with your faithful husbands, and then shall God, I doubt
not, conduct your footsteps, and direct your counsels to His glory. "[86]
Here the husbands are put in a very high place; we can recognise here
the same hand that has written for our instruction how the man is set
above the woman, even as God above the angels. But the point of the
distinction is plain. For Clerk-Register Mackgil was not a faithful
husband; displayed, indeed, towards religion, a "coldness which justly
might be called infidelity." We shall see in more notable instances how
much Knox's conception of the duty of wives varies according to the zeal
and orthodoxy of the husband. As I have said, he may possibly have made the acquaintance of Mrs.
Mackgil, Mrs. Guthrie, or some other, or all, of these Edinburgh friends
while he was still Douglas of Longniddry's private tutor. But our
certain knowledge begins in 1549. He was then but newly escaped from his
captivity in France, after pulling an oar for nineteen months on the
benches of the galley _Nostre Dame_; now up the rivers, holding stealthy
intercourse with other Scottish prisoners in the castle of Rouen; now
out in the North Sea, raising his sick head to catch a glimpse of the
far-off steeples of St. Andrews. And now he was sent down by the English
Privy Council as a preacher to Berwick-upon-Tweed; somewhat shaken in
health by all his hardships, full of pains and agues, and tormented by
gravel, that sorrow of great men; altogether, what with his romantic
story, his weak health, and his great faculty of eloquence, a very
natural object for the sympathy of devout women. At this happy juncture
he fell into the company of a Mrs. Elizabeth Bowes, wife of Richard
Bowes, of Aske, in Yorkshire, to whom she had borne twelve children. She
was a religious hypochondriac, a very weariful woman, full of doubts and
scruples, and giving no rest on earth either to herself or to those whom
she honoured with her confidence. From the first time she heard Knox
preach she formed a high opinion of him, and was solicitous ever after
of his society. [87] Nor was Knox unresponsive. "I have always delighted
in your company," he writes, "and when labours would permit, you know I
have not spared hours to talk and commune with you." Often when they had
met in depression he reminds her, "God hath sent great comfort unto
both. "[88] We can gather from such letters as are yet extant how close
and continuous was their intercourse. "I think it best you remain till
to-morrow," he writes once, "and so shall we commune at large at
afternoon. This day you know to be the day of my study and prayer unto
God; yet if your trouble be intolerable, or if you think my presence may
release your pain, do as the Spirit shall move you.... Your messenger
found me in bed, after a sore trouble and most dolorous night, and so
dolour may complain to dolour when we two meet.... And this is more
plain than ever I spoke, to let you know you have a companion in
trouble. "[89] Once we have the curtain raised for a moment, and can look
at the two together for the length of a phrase. "After the writing of
this preceding," writes Knox, "your brother and mine, Harrie Wycliffe,
did advertise me by writing, that your adversary (the devil) took
occasion to trouble you because that _I did start back from you
rehearsing your infirmities. I remember myself so to have done, and that
is my common consuetude when anything pierceth or toucheth my heart. Call to your mind what I did standing at the cupboard at Alnwick_. In
very deed I thought that no creature had been tempted as I was; and when
I heard proceed from your mouth the very same words that he troubles me
with, I did wonder and from my heart lament your sore trouble, knowing
in myself the dolour thereof.