John Knox was the leader of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland. He was captured by the French at the siege of St Andrews Castle in 1547 and made to work as a galley slave. On his release he became a preacher in England, and later travelled to Geneva, where he met John Calvin. Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, invigorated by the theology of militant Calvinism. He composed the Confession of Faith, adopted by the parliament of 1560 as the basis of the new Kirk and helped devise the First Book of Discipline. This engraving was made for Jacobus Verheiden's book Praestantium aliquot theologorum, which consisted of fifty engraved portraits of Protestant theologiants (1602).