The Two John Knoxes: England, Scotland and the 1558 Tracts

Abstract

The tracts which John Knox wrote in 1558 are regarded as the core of his political writings and the key to his entire political thought.1 The most famous - and infamous - of his works, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, was published in the spring and was followed in July by The Letter to the Regent [Augmente], The Appellation and The Letter to the Commonalty of Scotland These tracts have suffered from two serious misconceptions. The first is the natural tendency to link all the 1558 material together and in particular to treat the First Blast and the July tracts .as a unified whole. This has distorted the meaning of all the pamphlets and led to vain efforts to mould them into a composite unit which can then be labelled ‘Knox's political thought’. In fact, it is extremely important to separate them and to make a sharp distinction between their intended audiences and purposes. Crucially, the First Blast was written primarily for an English audience and the July tracts intended for a Scottish one.

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