Our earliest knowledge of Knox, apart from mention of him in notarial documents, is derived from his own History of the Reformation.

The portion of that work in which he first mentions himself was written about 1561-66, some twenty years after the events recorded, and in reading all this part of his Memoirs, and his account of the religious struggle, allowance must be made for errors of memory, or for erroneous information.

We meet him first towards the end of "the holy days of Yule"-- Christmas, 1545.

Knox had then for some weeks been the constant companion and armed bodyguard of George Wishart, who was calling himself "the messenger of the Eternal God," and preaching the new ideas in Haddington to very small congregations.

This Wishart, Knox's master in the faith, was a Forfarshire man; he is said to have taught Greek at Montrose, to have been driven thence in 1538 by the Bishop of Brechin, and to have recanted certain heresies in 1539.