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.
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.
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.
[6] He returned to East Frisia 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";[7] 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.
In March 1559 a disputation was proposed between him and Quintin Kennedy, abbot of Crossraguel Abbey, at Ayr, but as they failed to agree on the method of interpreting scripture it did not take place (see correspondence between them in,[9] and in.
[11] 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.
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 October 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.
Willock returned to Scotland in 1560, and, at the request of the reformed nobility, attended Mary of Guise the queen regent 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.
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 All Saints Church, Loughborough in Leicestershire, to which he was presented by Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon.
[17] He travelled to Scotland in May 1568, and wrote that people of the north of England, who were "mere ignorant of religion and altogether untaught" were pleased at the news that Mary, Queen of Scots had escaped from Lochleven Castle.
George 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.