Knox never changed his opinion about
female rule, but lived to regret that he had published that
opinion. Doubtless he had many thoughts so far out of the
range of public sympathy, that he could only keep them to
himself, and, in his own words, bear patiently with the
errors and imperfections that he could not amend. For
example, I make no doubt myself that, in his own heart, he
did hold the shocking dogma attributed to him by more than
one calumniator; and that, had the time been ripe, had there
been aught to gain by it, instead of all to lose, he would
have been the first to assert that Scotland was elective
instead of hereditary - "elective as in the days of
paganism," as one Thevet says in holy horror. (1) And yet,
because the time was not ripe, I find no hint of such an idea
in his collected works. Now, the regiment of women was
another matter that he should have kept to himself; right or
wrong, his opinion did not fit the moment; right or wrong, as
Aylmer puts it, "the BLAST was blown out of season." And
this it was that he began to perceive after the accession of
Elizabeth; not that he had been wrong, and that female rule
was a good thing, for he had said from the first that "the
felicity of some women in their empires" could not change the
law of God and the nature of created things; not this, but
that the regiment of women was one of those imperfections of
society which must be borne with because yet they cannot be
remedied.
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