"What wonder is it then," said Knox, "that a young and innocent king be deceived by crafty, covetous, wicked, and ungodly councillors?
I am greatly afraid that Achitophel be councillor, that Judas bear the purse, and that Shebna be scribe, comptroller, and treasurer." {38a} This appears the extreme of audacity.

Yet nothing worse came to Knox than questions, by the Council, as to his refusal of a benefice, and his declining, as he still did, to kneel at the Communion (April 14, 1553).
His answers prove that he was out of harmony with the fluctuating Anglicanism of the hour.

Northumberland could not then resent the audacities of pulpiteers, because the Protestants were the only party who might stand by him in his approaching effort to crown Lady Jane Grey.

Now all the King's preachers, obviously by concerted action, "thundered" against Edward's Council, in the Lent or Easter of 1553.

Manifestly, in the old Scots phrase, "the Kirk had a back"; had some secular support, namely that of their party, which Northumberland could not slight.
Meanwhile Knox was sent on a preaching tour in Buckinghamshire, and there he was when Edward VI.