Vicesimus Knox

1752 - 1821

About the Author

Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821) was an English minister who ran afoul of the British authorities in the 1790s with his sermons opposing the war against the French. He was educated at home by his father, attended St. John’s College, Oxford, where he became a fellow, and then was headmaster of Tonbridge School from 1778 to 1812. His main work, The Spirit of Despotism, is an analysis of how political despotism at home can arise under the cover of fighting a foreign war.

In The Library:

• author: The Best of the OLL No. 2: Vicesimus Knox, “The Prospect of Perpetual and Universal Peace” (1793) (2013)
• author: The Spirit of Despotism (1821 ed.) (1795)
• author: The Works of Vicesimus Knox, vol. 5 (Personal Nobility, Spirit of Despotism, Antipolemus) (1824)
• author: The Works of Vicesimus Knox, vol. 6 (Sermons) (1824)

Quotations:

• Vicesimus Knox tries to persuade an English nobleman that some did not come into the world with “saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths” and some others like him came “ready booted and spurred to ride the rest to death” (1793) (17 January, 2005)
• Vicesimus Knox on how the aristocracy and the “spirit of despotism” use the commemoration of the war dead for their own aims (1795) (1 June, 2010)
• Knox on how the people during wartime are cowered into submission and pay their taxes “without a murmur” (1795) (18 January, 2011)
• The 6th Day of Christmas: Vicesimus Knox on the Christian religion and peace on earth (1793) (29 December, 2012)