John Craig

1512-1600. Scottish Reformer. He was a Dominican Friar who became one of the outstanding personalities of the Reformation in Scotland, doing much to shape the future policy of the national church. Imprisoned for heresy in 1536, he escaped to become rector of the Dominican convent in Bologne, where his conversion to Protestantism had taken place. Condemned to death by the Inquisition in Rome, he reached Vienna after a series of dramatic escapes to become the favorite preacher of Emperor Maximilian II. Returning to Scotland in 1560, he joined John Knox* as collegiate minister of St. Giles', Edinburgh, two years later. In 1570 he became chaplain to James VI, drafting the first Scots Catechism and being largely responsible for the King's Confession, or National Covenant,* of 1581.