ST. GILES' CATHEDRAL, EDINBURGH
Edinburgh was not raised to episcopal rank until the time of Charles I. The church has a great history, though it is popularly remembered as the place where Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the dean, when the English service book was introduced in the time of Charles I. The first Church of St. Giles was consecrated in 1243, but it was burnt down during the English wars, when most of the city shared the same fate. Indeed, signs of fire may still be detected on the piers of the choir and elsewhere. The church is remarkable for its numerous chapels. On the south of the nave two were built in 1387, but these have been destroyed by drastic "restoration." There are the Chambers's Memorial Chapel, the Preston Aisle, named after one William Preston, who brought from France a relic of the Patron Saint; the Chapman Aisle, named after Chapman, the "Scottish Caxton," who introduced printing into Scotland, and the Moray Aisle. During the fifteenth century much building was in progress. The choir was lengthened, a clerestory added and the roof raised, and ere the century had elapsed it was raised to the dignity of a collegiate church. The choir is a fine example of fifteenth-century work, and the Gothic crown which surmounts the central tower forms a very distinguishing feature. It is unlike anything else we know. Few scenes and events in Scottish history have not in some way been connected with this church. We see John Knox preaching violently here against the iniquities of the court, and especially of the unfortunate Queen Mary. Knox was appointed minister of the church. It was divided into three portions—the Great and Little Kirk and the Tolbooth. Then in the time of James I. Episcopacy was restored, and in 1633 Charles I. made St. Giles into a Cathedral. Here Jenny Geddes, as we have said, expressed her displeasure at the new English liturgy by throwing her stool at the clergyman, and commenced the famous riot which had lamentable results. Later on we see the struggle between the Covenanters and the Royal Party, and the head of the Duke of Argyll stuck on a spike on a gable of the Cathedral, the advent of "Bonny Prince Charlie," and all the events of Scottish history seem to be associated in some way with St. Giles'. Its war-worn banners, its monuments of national heroes, all combine to add a peculiar interest to the building. The church owes much of its present beauty to the munificence of Dr. William Chambers, who rescued the building from neglect, and renewed and beautified it. He was one of the firm of the great Edinburgh publishers. Amongst other memorials of recent worthies we find a window to R.L. Stevenson, and in the Moray Chapel a monument to General Wauchope, who was killed gallantly leading his troops in the recent war in South Africa. Although the choir is fifteenth-century work, it differs much from that of the same period in England. In Scotland French influence was much felt in the development of architecture, and the builders inclined more to the French Flamboyant rather than to the English Perpendicular.
The new Cathedral of the Episcopal Church of Scotland at Edinburgh, designed by Sir G. Scott, is one of the finest and largest of our modern Gothic buildings.