t congregation in the besieged fortress of S. Andrew's; when
the French took the place in 1547 he was made prisoner and condemned
to serve in the galleys. But while his feet were in fetters, he
uttered his conviction in the fiery preface to a work on
Justification, that this doctrine would yet again be preached in his
fatherland.[193] After he was released, he took a zealous share in the
labours of the English Reformers under Edward VI, but was not
altogether content with the result; after the King's death he had to
fly to the continent. He went to Geneva, where he became a student
once more and tried to fill up the gaps in his studies, but above all
he imbibed, or confirmed his knowledge of, the views which prevailed
in that Church. 'Like the first Reformers of French Switzerland, Knox
also lived in the opinion that the Romish service was an idolatry
which should be destroyed from off the earth. And he was fully
convinced of the doctrine of the independence of the spiritual
principle side by side with the State, and believed that the new
spiritualty also was authorised to exclude men from the Church, views
for which Calvin was at that very time contending. Thus he was equally
armed for the struggle against the Papacy and against the temporal
power allied with it, when a transient relaxation of ecclesiastical
control in Scotland made it possible for him to return thither. In the
war between France and Spain the Regent took the side of France: she
lighted bonfires to announce the capture of Calais; out of antipathy
to Mary Tudor and her Spanish government she allowed the English
fugitives to be received in Scotland. Knox himself ventured to return
towards the end of 1555: without delay he set his hand to form a
church-union, according to his ideas of religious independence, which
was not to be again destroyed by any State power.

Among the devout Protestants who gathered together in secret the
leading question was, whether it was consistent with conscience to go
to mass, as most then did. Knox was not merely against any one doing
wrong that good might come of it, but he went on further to restore
the interrupted Protestant service of God. Sometimes in one and
sometimes in another of the places of refuge which he found he
administered the Communion to little congregations according to the
Reformed rite; this was done with greater solemnity at Easter 1556 in
the house of Lord Erskine of Dun, one of those Scottish noblemen