John Knox House

John Knox House on Edinburgh's Royal Mile is a town house, built before 1490, that displays exhibits about John Knox, a Protestant leader born between 1505 and 1515, who died at Edinburgh on 24 November, 1572.

John Knox is a controversial figure in Scotland's history, who was appointed minister of the Church of St. Giles' when the Reformed Protestant religion was ratified by law in Scotland in 1560. His History of the Reformation made him a leading figure in the Scottish reformation. He was outspoken in his attacks on the Catholic clergy of Scotland, accusing them of being "gluttons, wantons and licentious revelers." The distaste was mutual; according to the Catholic Encyclopedia [1], "permeated with the spirit of the Old Testament and with the gloomy austerity of the ancient prophets, [Knox] displays neither in his voluminous writings nor in the record of his public acts the slightest recognition of the teachings of the Gospel, or of the gentle, mild, and forgiving character of the Christian dispensation."