ABSTRACT
Knox’s The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women1 was published in Geneva in 1558, probably by Jacques Poullain and Antoine Rebul,2 and remains, to this day, one of the Reformer’s most controversial productions. Even those who shared Knox’s religious orientation were uneasy in their response. For instance, John Foxe entered into correspondence with Knox over it (4.352) and the English Reformer, John Aylmer, saw fit to write an entire tract controverting it (which we shall be looking at in due course). Calvin, too, had cause to regret its publication, and to rebuke Knox for setting it forth, for, in 1559, when his Commentaries on Isaiah, which had originally been dedicated to Edward VI, was sent instead to Queen Elizabeth I, she received it icily, largely because she had been deeply offended by certain Genevan publications such as Christopher Goodman’s How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyd, and, of course, Knox’s resounding The First Blast.3 Elizabeth, it should be added, took offence personally to such publications; she was far from seeking to turn the world of the sixteenth century upside down, and her animus should not be regarded as evidence of proto-feminism!
