Last words of the faithful
John Knox
Died 24 November 1572 · Edinburgh
John Knox, the leader of the Scottish Reformation, died in Edinburgh on 24 November 1572. His secretary Richard Bannatyne was present and recorded the scene: Knox asked for 1 Corinthians 15 and then John 17 to be read, calling the seventeenth of John the place where he first cast his anchor. Unable to speak at the last, he was asked to give a sign, and lifted his hand.
The last words
The story behind them
He had shouted at queens. He had preached sermons that emptied and filled a nation, and he had made enemies who are still angry about him four and a half centuries later. At the end he was in a bed in Edinburgh, too weak to lift his head, and the house was full of people waiting.
Bannatyne, his secretary, wrote it down. Knox asked his wife to read him the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, the chapter about the resurrection of the body. Later he asked for something else, and the way he asked for it is the sentence people remember: go, he said, read where I cast my first anchor. They knew what he meant. It was the seventeenth chapter of John, the prayer of Jesus for his own on the night before he died.
Not a new text for the last hour. The first one, again.
By the evening he could no longer speak. Those around him asked him to give them a sign that he died in peace, and Bannatyne records that Knox lifted one hand, and then died. That is the whole of it. A man who had spent his life using words could not use them any more, and the last thing he did was move his hand to answer a question about whether he was afraid.
What they died for, you can meet
None of these people died for an idea. They died holding onto a Person, convinced that death was not the end because he had already walked out of a tomb. The Living Bread is a quiet place to meet that same Jesus, read the Gospels for yourself, and ask your honest questions.
Jesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- What were John Knox's last words?
- According to his secretary Richard Bannatyne, who was present, Knox asked for John 17 to be read with the words 'Go, read where I cast my first anchor.' Later, unable to speak, he was asked to give a sign that he died in peace and lifted his hand.
- What did Knox mean by 'where I cast my first anchor'?
- He meant John chapter 17, the prayer of Jesus for his disciples on the night before the crucifixion. Those in the room understood the reference without being told.
- Who recorded the death of John Knox?
- Richard Bannatyne, his own secretary, who was in the room, in his Memorials of Transactions in Scotland.
