I was encouraged to prosecute my design, in consequence of my possessing a manuscript volume of Knox’s Letters, which throw considerable light upon his character and history. The advantages which I have derived from this volume will appear in the course of the work, where it is quoted under the general title of _MS. Letters_.[1]
{ vi} The other manuscripts which I have chiefly made use of are Calderwood’s large History of the Church of Scotland, Row’s History, and Wodrow’s Collections. Calderwood’s History, besides much valuable information respecting the early period of the Reformation, contains a collection of letters written by Knox between 1559 and 1572, which, together with those in my possession, extend over twenty years of the most active period of his life. I have carefully consulted this history as far as it relates to the period of which I write. The copy which I most frequently quote belongs to the Church of Scotland. In the Advocates’ Library, besides a complete copy of that work, there is a folio volume of it, reaching to the end of the year 1572. It was written in 1634, and has a number of interlineations and marginal alterations, differing from the other copies, which, if not made by the author’s own hand, were most probably done under his eye. I have sometimes quoted this copy. The reader will easily discern when this is the case, as the references to it are made merely by the year under which the transaction is recorded, the volume not being paged.
Row, in composing the early part of his Historie of the Kirk, had the assistance of Memoirs written { vii} by David Ferguson, his father‑in‑law, who was admitted minister of Dunfermline at the establishment of the Reformation. Copies of this History seem to have been taken before the author had put the finishing hand to it, which may account for the additional matter to be found in some of them. I have occasionally quoted the copy which belongs to the Divinity Library in Edinburgh, but more frequently a copy transcribed in 1726, which is more full than any other that I have had access to see.
The industrious Wodrow had amassed a valuable collection of manuscripts relating to the ecclesiastical history of Scotland, the greater part of which is now deposited in our public libraries. In the library of the University of Glasgow, there is a number of volumes in folio, containing collections which he had made for illustrating the lives of the Scottish reformers and divines of the sixteenth century. These have supplied me with some interesting facts; and are quoted under the name of Wodrow MSS. in Bibl. Coll. Glas.