The First Blast of the Trumpet

The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women is the 1558 polemical tract by John Knox (c. 1514-1572), the Scottish minister and leader of the Scottish Reformation who founded the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and shaped Reformed Protestantism in the British Isles. Knox wrote the piece from exile in Geneva against the Catholic women rulers of England, Scotland, and France, principally Mary I of England, Mary of Guise as Regent of Scotland, and Catherine de’ Medici in France. The tract argues from biblical, classical, and patristic sources against the rule of women, and proved a serious embarrassment to Knox when Elizabeth I succeeded the Catholic Mary later in 1558. The piece is a primary source for sixteenth-century Reformation political theology. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.