John Knox

John Knox was born near Haddington, Scotland, and was ordained a Catholic priest. Influenced by the Protestant preacher George Wishart, who was burned for heresy in 1546, he joined the Protestants who held St. Andrews Castle after the murder of Cardinal Beaton. When French forces captured the castle in 1547, Knox spent nineteen months as a galley slave. When the Catholic Queen Mary I came to the English throne, he fled to the Continent, and in Geneva he studied with John Calvin, whose church he called the most perfect school of Christ. In 1558 he published a fierce pamphlet arguing that rule by women was against nature. He returned to Scotland in 1559, and his preaching helped spark a revolt; in 1560 the Scottish Parliament rejected the pope's authority and adopted a Reformed confession of faith that he helped write. As minister of St. Giles in Edinburgh, he clashed in famous interviews with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. He helped shape the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and wrote a History of the Reformation in Scotland. He died in Edinburgh in 1572.

Faith: Trained for the Catholic priesthood but adopted the principles of the Reformers and became a leader of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland. Source: Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900) (via Wikisource)