Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. I'm your host, Heather Tesco,

and I'm a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it's a pathway to

understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and our connection to our own humanity. This is episode

77, another joint episode with Melita of Tudor Times on John Knox. Just a quick note that

the Renaissance English History podcast is a proud member of the Agora Podcast Network. You can learn more

about our network at agorapodcastnetwork.com. And the

Agora podcast of the month is when diplomacy fails. He's got some really special projects going on

now celebrating his five-year anniversary. So go check that out. Remember, you can get all the

links to more information, resources, and sign up for the super awesome mailing list with extra mini-casts, free e-courses,

stuff like that at englandcast.com. So now let me introduce you to Melita Thomas. Melita is a co-founder

and editor of Tudor Times, a website devoted to Tudor and Stuart History in the period from 1485

to 1625. You can find it at TudorTimes.co.uk.

Melita, who has always been fascinated by history,

ever since you saw the 1970s series Elizabeth R with Glinda Jackson,

also contributes articles to BBC History Extra and Britain Magazine.

We started with her going right in to who John Knox is and the

history of his life. And then we get into talking about his relationship to women, which is what I know

him for. But let's not judge. Let's just start right with his history of his life. And you have to

remember that Scotland in the years after he was born was still

absolutely shell-shocked from the Battle of Flodden. And there was a huge amount of political

infighting and unrest during the reign of James V. And there was a pro-English party, a pro-French party.

The politics of the whole of his life really were efforts of both England

...