322 



KNIGHTHOOD KNOX. 



taste and liberality. This collection he bequeathed, 

 at his death, to the British museum. His principal 

 writings are, Remains of the Worship of Priapus, 

 lately existing in Naples, and its Connexion with 

 the Mystic Theology of the Ancients (4to, 1786); an 

 Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet (4to, 1791); 

 Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (8vo, 

 1805); and Prolegomena in Homeriim, reprinted in 

 the Classical Journal. He was also author of some 

 poems. He died in 1824, aged 76. 



KNIGHTHOOD. See Chivalry. 



KNIGHTS OF ST JOHN. SeeJoAn, Knig/tts of St. 



KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE, or KNIGHTS OF 

 PARLIAMENT, in the British polity, are two 

 knights, or gentlemen of estate, who are elected on 

 ihe king's writ, by the freeholders of every county, 

 to represent them in parliament. The qualification 

 of the knight of the shire is, to be possessed of 600 

 per annum in a freehold estate. 



KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. See Templars. 



KNIPHAUSEN. See Kniephausen. 



KNIVES. See Cutlery. 



KNOLLES, RICHARD, author of a History of the 

 Turks, was entered at the university of Oxford about 

 1560, and became a fellow of Lincoln college, which 

 he left to be master of the free school of Sandwich, 

 in Kent. He composed his History of the Turks 

 (folio, 1610), being the labour of twelve years. It 

 has passed through several editions, and is executed 

 in a manner which has transmitted his name with 

 honour to posterity. Several continuations have ap- 

 peared, the last of which is that of Sir Paul Rycaut. 

 Knolles is also author of the lives and conquests of 

 the Ottoman kings and emperors until 1610, and a 

 Brief Discourse on the Greatness of the Turkish 

 Empire. He translated Bodin's Six Books of a Com- 

 monwealth. 



KNOUT; the severest punishment in Russia. 

 The criminal, standing erect, and bound to two stakes, 

 receives the lashes, which are inflicted with a leather 

 strap, in the point of which wire is interwoven, on 

 the bare back. Almost every lash is followed by a 

 stream of blood. From 100 to 120 lashes are the 

 highest number inflicted, and are considered equal 

 to the punishment of death. If the criminal survives, 

 he is exiled for life into Siberia. Formerly, the nose 

 was slit up, and the ears cut off, in addition, and a W 

 (war, rogue) cut in the skin of the forehead, and made 

 indelible by rubbing in gunpowder. At present, the 

 two former punishments, at least, are abolished. If 

 the criminal is sentenced to a smaller number of 

 lashes, the last part of the punishment is not inflicted, 

 and he is sent to Siberia for a few years only. 



KNOX, JOHN, the chief promoter of the reforma- 

 tion in Scotland, was descended from an ancient 

 family, and bofn at Gifford, in East Lothian, in 1505. 

 He received his education at the university of St 

 Andrews, where he took the degree of master of arts 

 much before the usual age. Having embraced the 

 ecclesiastical profession, he began, as usual, with the 

 study of scholastic divinity, in which he so much dis- 

 tinguished himself, that he was admitted into priest's 

 orders before the time appointed by the canons. He 

 soon became weary of the theology of the schools, 

 and resolved to apply himself to that which was more 

 plain and practical. This alteration of opinion led 

 him to attend the sermons of Thomas Guillaume, or 

 Williams, a friar of eminence, who was so bold as to 

 preach against the pope's authority ; and he was still 

 more impressed by the instructions of the celebrated 

 Geor ge Wishart, so that he relinquished all thoughts 

 of officiating in the church of Rome, and became 

 tut:>r to the sons of the lairds of Long Niddrie and 

 Ormistoun, who had embraced the reformed doctrines. 

 Here he preached not only to his pupils, but to the 



people of the neighbourhood, until interrupted hy 

 cardinal Beaton, archbishop of St Andrews, who 

 obliged him to conceal himself ; and lie thought of 

 retiring to Germany. The persuasion of the fathers 

 of his pupils, and the assassination of Beaton by the 

 Leslies, encouraged him to remain. He took shelter, 

 under the protection of the latter, in the castle of St 

 Andrews, where, notwithstanding the opposition of the 

 clergy of St Andrews, lie preached the principles of 

 the reformation with extraordinary boldness, imtil the 

 castle of St Andrews surrendered to the French in 

 July, 1547, when he was carried with the garrison 

 into France, and remained a prisoner on board the 

 galleys until the latter end of 1549. Being then set 

 at liberty, he passed over to England, and, arriving 

 in London, was licensed either by Cranmer or the 

 protector Somerset, and appointed preacher, first at 

 Berwick, and afterwards at Newcastle. In 1552, 

 he was appointed chaplain to Edward VI., and 

 preached before the king, at Westminster, who re 

 commended Cranmer to give him the living of All- 

 hallows, in London, which Knox declined, not choos- 

 ing to conform to the English liturgy. It is said that 

 he refused a bishopric, regarding all prelacy as sa- 

 vouring of the kingdom of antichrist. He, however, 

 continued his practice as an itinerary preacher, until 

 the accession of Mary, in 1554, when he quitted 

 England, and sought refuge at Geneva, where he had 

 not long resided before he was invited, by the Eng- 

 lish congregation of refugees at Frankfort, to become 

 their minister. He unwillingly accepted this invita- 

 tion, at the request of John Calvin, and continued 

 his services until embroiled in a dispute with doctor 

 Cox, afterwards bishop of Ely, who strenuously con- 

 tended for the liturgy of king Edward. Knox, in his 

 usual style of bold vituperation, having in a treatise 

 published in England, called the emperor of Germany 

 as great an enemy to Christ as Nero, his opponents 

 accused him to the senate of treason, both against 

 the emperor and queen Mary; on which he received 

 private notice of his danger, and again retired to 

 Geneva, whence, after a residence of a few months, 

 he ventured, in 1555, to pay a visit to his native, 

 country. Finding the professors of the Protestant 

 religion greatly increased in number, and formed into 

 a society under the inspection of regular teachers, he 

 finally joined them, and produced so great an effect 

 by his exertions, both in Edinburgh and other places, 

 that the Roman Catholic clergy, alarmed at his pro- 

 gress, summoned him to appear before them in the 

 church of the Blackfriars, in that metropolis, May 

 15, 1556. This summons he purposed to obey, rest- 

 ing on the support of a formidable party of nobles 

 and gentry, which so alarmed his opponents, that 

 they dropped the prosecution. Thus encouraged, 

 he continued preaching with additional energy and 

 boldness, and was even induced to write to the queen 

 regent, Mary of Lorraine, a letter, in which he 

 earnestly exhorted her to listen to the Protestant 

 doctrines. While thus occupied, he was strongly 

 urged to pay a visit to the English congregation at 

 Geneva; and he accordingly departed for that place 

 in July, 1556. He was no sooner gone than the 

 bishops summoned him to appear before them; and, 

 as that was impossible, they passed sentence of death 

 against him as a heretic, and burned him in effigy at 

 the cross at Edinburgh. Against this sentence he 

 drew up an energetic appeal, which was printed at 

 Geneva, in 1558, previously to which, he was invited 

 to return to Scotland, and had actually reached 

 Dieppe on his way, when he received other letters 

 recommending delay; which epistles he answered by 

 such strong remonstrances against timidity and back- 

 sliding, that those to whom he addressed them entered 

 into a solemn bond or covenant, dated December 3. 



