In exile he was now asking (1554), how was a Protestant minority or majority to oppose the old faith, backed by kings and princes, fire and sword?
He answered the question in direct contradiction of his Berwick programme: he was now all for active resistance.

Later, in addressing Mary of Guise, and on another occasion, he recurred to his Berwick theory, and he always found biblical texts to support his contradictory messages.
At this moment resistance seemed hopeless enough.

In England the Protestants of all shades were decidedly in a minority.

They had no chance if they openly rose in arms; their only hope was in the death of Mary Tudor and the succession of Elizabeth--itself a poor hope in the eyes of Knox, who detested the idea of a female monarch.

Might they "bow down in the House of Rimmon" by a feigned conformity?
Knox, in a letter to the Faithful, printed in 1554, entirely rejected this compromise, to which Cecil stooped, thereby deserving hell, as the relentless Knox (who had fled) later assured him.
In the end of March 1554, probably, Knox left Dieppe for Geneva, where he could consult Calvin, not yet secure in his despotism, though he had recently burned Servetus.