John Willock (or Willocks or Willox) (c. 15154 December 1585) was a Scottish reformer. He appears to have been a friar of the Franciscan House at Ayr. Having joined the party of reform before 1541, he fled for his life to England. There he became noted as a zealous and taking preacher. This led to his arrest for heresy under an Act of Henry VIII., "for abolishing diversity of opinion" in matters of religion. He was found guilty of preaching against purgatory, holy water, priestly confession, and prayer to the saints, and of holding that priests might lawfully be married, he was for some time confined in the Fleet prison. After the accession of Edward VI he was chaplain to Henry, Duke of Suffolk, who had married King Henry's niece, and is best known as the father of Lady Jane Grey. He preached for a time in London, in St Katherine's Church, when both he and John Knox, his fast friend, were granted general license to preach anywhere in England. Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, presented him to the rectory of Loughborough in Leicestershire, a living which he continued to hold during King Edward's reign, and again during that of Queen Elizabeth for the rest of his life. Thus in his later years he was in the unique position of being at the same time a parish minister in both England and Scotland. When Mary Tudor came to the English throne in 1553, Willock fled to Embden, in the Protestant Duchy of Friesland. There he practised as a physician with much success, and rose to some eminence. In 1555, and again in 1556, the Duchess Anne of Friesland sent him to Scotland as her Commissioner on matters of trade. In 1558 he returned home, and preached for some time in Dundee, with much acceptance among the friends of reform. In 1559, when John Knox had to leave Edinburgh in peril of his life, Willook took his place as the evangelist of the Reformation. It was then that he conducted in St Giles what is believed to have been the earliest public celebration of the Holy Communion in Scotland after the reformed ritual. In 1560, when Queen Mary of Guise lay dying, the Earls of Argyll and Moray, and other Lords of the Congregation advised her to "send for a godly, learned man of whom she might receive instruction"; and Willock was chosen to minister to her, which he faithfully did. That same year he was made Superintendent of Glasgow and the West. He was also one of the six Johns entrusted with the drawing up of the First Book of Discipline, the others being John Knox, John Winram, John Spottiswood, John Douglas, and John Row. Sometime in that year he went to England, and brought home his wife, Katherine Picknavell, an English lady. He was chosen Moderator of the General Assembly in 1563, 1564, 1565, and 1568. In 1565 Queen Mary endeavoured to put a stop to his activity by having him imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle; but the Reformers were now too strong for her, and she had to depart from her purpose.
After that, Willock went back to his English rectory at Loughborough. In 1567 the General Assembly sent him a strong letter of appeal, begging him to come again to aid the good cause. This led to his return, and he was Moderator of Assembly in 1568. He went again to Loughborough, and was there in 1570 when the Regent Moray was assassinated. Knox then wished much to have the aid of his old friend in the perplexities of the time, but Willock could not come. His letter to Knox tells of his sorrow at the loss of the good regent, and of his great admiration for that departed statesman.
Early life
He was a native of Ayrshire, but nothing is known of his parentage. He was educated at the University of Glasgow.
For some time he was a friar in Ayr, according to Archbishop Spottiswoode of the Franciscan, but according to Bishop Lesley of the Dominican Order. He then embraced the reformed religion and went to London, where, about 1542, he became preacher at St. Catherine's Church and chaplain to Henry Grey, afterwards Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey.
East Frisia
On the accession of Mary to the English throne in 1553 he went to Emden in East Frisia, where he practised as a physician. In 1555, and again in 1556, he was sent to Scotland on a commission to Mary of Guise, the Queen Regent, from Anna of Oldenburg, the Countess and Regent of East Frisia; but according to Knox his principal purpose in visiting Scotland was "to assaye what God wald wirk to him in his native country. While there he was present at the supper in the house of John Erskine of Dun, when a final resolution was come to by the leading reformers against attendance at the mass. He returned to East Frisia in 1557