Note 470 — PREFACE (continued 3)

Pasche, or Easter. In 1547, this festival fell on the 10th of April. Thus it was upwards of ten months after the Cardinal's death before Knox took shelter in the Castle of St. Andrews. As this notice fixes the duration of Knox's abode within the Castle to less than four months, we may suppose that his vocation to the ministry, by John Rough, was in the end of May, or early in June 1547. The Castle had been besieged by the Governor, without any success, from the end of August till December 1546. But the French fleet, to assist the Governor in its reduction, arrived in June 1547, and the Castle being again invested both by sea and land, and receiving no expected aid from England, the besieged were forced to capitulate on the last of July that year.