religion,
rather regarding him as a penniless unfrocked "Scot runagate," whose
alliance was discreditable and distasteful, and might be dangerous.
"Maist unpleasing words" passed, and it is no marvel that Knox, being
persecuted in one city, fled to another, leaving England for Dieppe early
in March 1554. {39}

His conscience was not entirely at ease as to his flight. "Why did I
flee? Assuredly I cannot tell, but of one thing I am sure, the fear of
death was not the chief cause of my fleeing," he wrote to Mrs. Bowes from
Dieppe. "Albeit that I have, in the beginning of this battle, appeared
to play the faint-hearted and feeble soldier (the cause I remit to God),
yet my prayer is that I may be restored to the battle again." {40a} Knox
was, in fact, most valiant when he had armed men at his back; he had no
enthusiasm for taking part in the battle when unaided by the arm of
flesh. On later occasions this was very apparent, and he has confessed,
as we saw, that he did not choose to face "the trouble to come" without
means of retreat. His valour was rather that of the general than of the
lonely martyr. The popular idea of Knox's personal courage, said to have
been expressed by the Regent Morton in the words spoken at his funeral,
"here lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man," is
entirely erroneous. His learned and sympathetic editor, David Laing,
truly writes: "Knox cannot be said to have possessed the impetuous and
heroic boldness of a Luther when surrounded with danger. . . . On more
than one occasion Knox displayed a timidity or shrinking from danger,
scarcely to have been expected from one who boasted of his willingness to
endure the utmost torture, or suffer death in his Master's cause. Happily
he was not put to the test. . . ." {40b}

Dr. Laing puts the case more strongly than I feel justified in doing, for
Knox, far from "boasting of his willingness to face the utmost torture,"
more than once doubts his own readiness for martyrdom. We must remember
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, him