OS1/15/55/16

Continued entries/extra info

John Knox, the celebrated reformer was born in 1505 of honest parentage. He received the rudiments of leaning in the Grammar School of Haddington and afterwards studied divinity under John Major (also a native of the county) at St Andrews where he completed his education after which he engaged as a tutor in the family of Douglas of Longniddry. The energy of his character and his zeal in the cause of the church are too familiar to every Scotsman to require comment. He died at Edinburgh in 1572 in the 67th year of his age.
It is generally imagined that Haddington was the birthplace of the reformer in consequence of a family of the name of Knox residing more than a century ago in a spot in the Nungate called the Giffordgate, but it is not evident that this family, even although they had been his relatives, dwelt in this place till 26 years after his death. On the 10th of February 1598 William Knox in Morehame and Elizabeth Schortes his wife were infeft in subjects in Nungate of Haddington in virtue of a crown charter. This charter (now in the possession of the Earl of Wemyss) contains no statement of the warrants on which it proceeded farther than that the lands formerly belonged to the abbacy of Haddington and were annexed to the crown. See Mcrie's Life of Knox [page 339]. There is a great probability that Knox was either born on the lands of Morehame or the contiguous ones of Gifford. In a conversation with the Earl of Bothwell (when pleading for some favour) Knox gives the following account of his ancestors. "My Lord (says he) my great grandfather Gudeschir and father have served your lordship's predecessors and some of them have died under their standards and this is a part of the obligations of our Scottish Kindness." Mainshall and the eastern part of Morehame parish belonged at the time Knox flourished to the Earls of Bothwell." Millers Hist [History] of Haddington, page 521.

Transcriber's notes

infeft - to hand over possession of heritable property to (someone). Collins English Dictionary.