Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Willock, John
WILLOCK or WILLOCKS, JOHN (d. 1585), Scottish reformer, was a native of Ayrshire, but nothing is known of his parentage. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, and for some time was a friar in Ayr, according to Archbishop Spotiswood of the Franciscan, but according to Bishop Leslie of the Dominican order. Becoming, however, a convert to the doctrines of the early reformers, he some time before 1541 relinquished the monastic habit and went to London, where he became preacher at St. Catherine's Church, and chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey. On the accession of Mary he in 1553 resigned his charge, and, retiring to the continent, commenced to practise as a physician at Emden in Friesland. In 1555, and again in 1556, he was sent to Scotland on a commission to the queen regent from the Duchess of Friesland; but according to Knox his principal purpose in visiting Scotland was ‘to assaye what God wald wirk to him in his native country’ (Works, i. 245). While there he was present at the supper in the house of John Erskine (1509–1591) [q. v.], laird of Dun, when a final resolution was come to by the leading reformers against attendance at the mass (ib. p. 247). After returning to Friesland in 1557, he finally settled in Scotland in 1558, when, although ‘he contracted a dangerous sickness,’ he held meetings with several of the nobility, barons, and gentlemen, ‘teaching and exhorting from his bed’ (ib. p. 256); and, according to Knox, it was the encouragement and exhortations of Willock in Dundee and Edinburgh that made ‘the brethren’ begin ‘to deliberate on some public reformation,’ and resolve to send to the queen regent an ‘oration and petition’ on the subject (ib. p. 301).
Afterwards Willock went to Ayr, where, under the protection of the Earl of Glencairn, he preached regularly in St. John's Church. On 2 Feb. 1558–9 he was indicted for heresy before the queen regent and her council, and for failing to appear and continuing to preach at Ayr he was outlawed on 10 May following. In March 1559 a disputation was proposed between him and Quentin Kennedy, abbot of Crossraguel, at Ayr, but as they failed to agree on the method of interpreting scripture it did not take place (see correspondence between them in appendix to Keith's Hist. of Scotland, App. pp. 193–9, and in the Wodrow Miscellany). The sentence of outlawry of him and others was passed, notwithstanding the assembly of a large body of armed reformers at Perth, to whom a promise had been made that Willock and his friends would not be further molested; but the outlawry could not be rendered effective. Willock had come to Perth in company with the Earl of Glencairn, and while there he and Knox had an interview with Argyll and Lord James Stewart (afterwards Earl of Moray), from whom they received an assurance that should the queen regent depart from her agreement they would ‘with their whole powers’ assist and concur ‘with their brethren in all time to come’ (Knox, i. 342).
After the destruction of the monasteries at Perth, which followed the breach of agreement by the queen regent, Willock and Knox towards the close of June 1559 entered Edinburgh along with the lords of the congregation. Shortly afterwards Knox was elected minister of St. Giles; but after a truce had been completed with the queen regent it was deemed advisable that Knox should for a while retire from Edinburgh, Willock acting as his substitute in St. Giles. During Knox's absence strenuous efforts were made by the queen regent to have the old form of worship re-established, but Willock firmly resisted her attempts; and in August he administered the Lord's supper for the first time in Edinburgh after the reformed manner.
After the queen regent had broken the treaty and begun to fortify Leith a convention of the nobility, barons, and burghers was on 21 Oct. held in the Tolbooth to take into consideration her conduct, and Willock, on being asked his judgment, gave it as his opinion that she ‘might justly be deprived of the government,’ in which, with certain provisos, he was seconded by Knox (ib. pp. 442–3). The result was that her authority was suspended, and a council appointed to manage the affairs of the kingdom until a meeting of parliament, Willock being one of the four ministers chosen to assist in the deliberations of the council. Not long afterwards Willock left for England, but he returned with the English army in April 1560, and at the request of the reformed nobility the queen regent had an interview with him on her deathbed in June following, when, according to Knox, he did plainly show her as well the virtue and strength of the death of Jesus Christ as the vanity and abomination of that idol the mass (ib. ii. 71). By the committee of parliament he was in July 1560 named superintendent of the west, to which he was admitted at Glasgow in July 1561. He was also in July 1560 named one of a commission appointed by the lords of the congregation to draw up the first book of discipline.
As a Scottish reformer Willock stands next to Knox in initiative and in influence; but it is possible that the rigid severity of Knox became distasteful to him, and, apparently deeming the religious atmosphere of England more congenial, he about 1562—in which year he was, however, in June and December moderator of the general assembly—became rector of Loughborough in Leicestershire, to which he was presented by his old friend the Duke of Suffolk. Nevertheless, by continuing for several years to hold the office of superintendent of the west, he retained his connection with the Scottish church, and he was elected moderator of the general assembly on 25 June 1564, 25 June 1565, and 1 July 1568. While he was in Scotland in 1565 the queen made endeavours to have him sent to the castle of Dumbarton, but he made his escape (Cal. State Papers, For. 1564–5, No. 1510). In January 1567–8 the general assembly of the kirk sent him through Knox a letter praying him to return to his old charge in Scotland (Knox, Works, vi. 445–6); but although he did visit Scotland and officiated as moderator of the assembly, he again returned to his charge in England. According to Sir James Melville, the Earl of Morton made use of Willock to reveal to Elizabeth, through the Earls of Huntingdon and Leicester, the dealings of the Duke of Norfolk with the regent Moray, for an arrangement by which the duke would marry the queen of Scots (Memoirs, p. 213).
Willock died in his rectory at Loughborough on 4 Dec. 1585, and was buried the next day, being Sunday; his wife Catherine survived him fourteen years, and was buried at Loughborough on 10 Oct. 1599 (Fletcher, Parish Registers of Loughborough). Though Demster ascribes to him ‘Impia quædam,’ it does not appear that he left any works. Chalmers, in his ‘Life of Ruddiman,’ seeks to identify Willock with one ‘John Willokis, descended of Scottish progenitors,’ who on 27 April 1590 is referred to in a state paper as being in prison in Leicester, after having been convicted by a jury of robbery. The supposition of Chalmers, sufficiently improbable in itself, is of course disposed of by the entry of the rector's death in the parish register, but there is just a possibility that the robber may have been the rector's son.
[Wodrow's Biographical Collections (Maitland Club), i. 99, 448 sq.; Histories by Knox, Keith, and Calderwood; Cal. State Papers, For. 1561–1562, and 1564–5; Cal. State Papers, Scottish, 1547–1563; Wodrow Miscellany, vol. i.; Maitland Miscellany, vol. iii.; Sir James Melville's Memoirs in the Bannatyne Club; Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman; Nichols's Leicestershire; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scoticanæ, ii. 375–6.]