. He
remained in Scotland till July of the next year, residing chiefly in
Edinburgh, but making preaching journeys into various parts of the
country. The new doctrines were steadily spreading in Scotland, but as
yet their supporters were not strong enough to present a confident front
against the government. It was at his own risk, therefore, that Knox
remained in the country; and at the prayer of the congregation in
Geneva, he returned to that town in July, 1556. It was probably during
this visit to Scotland that he married his first wife, Marjory Bowes, to
whom he seems to have been engaged during his sojourn in Newcastle. For
the next two years he remained in Geneva, ministering to his
congregation, and seeing much of Calvin, whose influence on Knox
regarding all the great questions of the time was afterward to bear
fruit in the ordering of affairs in Scotland. To this period also belong
several of his minor writings, and notably his "First Blast of the
Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women," the publication of
which he must afterward have regretted in the interest of the cause he
had most at heart.

Meanwhile, in Scotland the ground was being prepared for the great work
in store for Knox. Under Mary of Lorraine as regent, the French
influence had come to be regarded as a danger to the independence of the
country, and a sense of this danger threw many into the party of reform.
The unworthy lives of the old clergy, and the cupidity of many of the
nobles, worked in the same direction. In 1557 the advocates of reform
bound themselves, by what is known as the First Covenant, to do all in
their power to effect a religious revolution, and by 1558 they felt
themselves strong enough to summon Knox to their aid in the work he
deemed the mission of his life.

In May, 1559, Knox found himself again in Scotland, which he never again
left for a prolonged period. He at once became the life and soul of his
party. At the moment of his arrival the Lords of the Congregation, as
the Protestant nobility termed themselves, were in open revolt against
the regent. By his preaching at Perth and St. Andrews Knox gained these
important towns to his cause, and by his labors in Edinburgh, of which
he was appointed minister, he also won a strong party against the
government. But the reformers, of their own resources, could not hold
their ground against the regent, subsidized by France with money and
soldiers. Mainly, therefore, throug