He saw that the country was, by preference, Catholic; that the life of Edward VI.

hung on a thread; and that with the accession of his sister, Mary Tudor, Protestant principles would be as unsafe as under "umquhile the Cardinal." Knox therefore, "from the foresight of troubles to come" (so he writes to Mrs.Bowes, February 28, 1554), {36b} declined any post, a bishopric, or a living, which would in honour oblige him to face the fire of persecution.

At the same time he was even then far at odds with the Church of England that he had sound reasons for refusing benefices.
On Christmas day, 1552, {37a} he preached at Newcastle against Papists, as "thirsting nothing more than the King's death, which their iniquity would procure." In two brief years Knox was himself publicly expressing his own thirst for the Queen's death, and praying for a Jehu or a Phinehas, slayers of idolaters, such as Mary Tudor.

If any fanatic had taken this hint, and the life of Mary Tudor, Catholics would have said that Knox's "iniquity procured" the murder, and they would have had fair excuse for the assertion.
Meanwhile charges were brought against the Reformer, on the ground of his Christmas sermon of peace and goodwill.

Northumberland (January 9, 1552- 53) sends to Cecil "a letter of poor Knox, by the which you may perceive what perplexity the poor soul remaineth in at this present." We have not Knox's interesting letter, but Northumberland pled his cause against a charge of treason.