In Scotland the Calvinists created something unique in sixteenth century Europe: a land of one religion ruled by a monarch of another. Mary Queen of Scots, an eighteen-year-old girl living abroad, married into the French royal family, and the Scots feared that she might deliver Scotland to the French. But John Knox preached everywhere that the people of Scotland could and should challenge the rule of their queen. In 1550, civil war broke out in Scotland. When Mary Queen of Scots returned the next year, a nineteen-year-old widow, she found it in the lap of Protestant "heresy". Over the next few years Knox, the passionate preacher of Calvinism, and Mary, the young queen of Scotland, came to symbolize the Reformation conflict: Protestant against Catholic. Events in Scotland moved in Knox’s direction. Even though Mary and her descendants tried to turn back the clock, Scotland remained the most devoutly Calvinist country in the world.
[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, John-Knox, Queen-of-Scots-Mary, Reformation[/tags]