A portion of the south end of the transept appears at the extreme left of the picture, and farther in the picture, to the east, is an equestrian statue of Charles II. A little to the west of this statue, and just out of the limits of the picture, is a stone, believed to cover the remains of John Knox. Above all rises the fine crown and spire of the tower.
“Since the days of John Knox,” says Professor Hume Brown in his History of Scotland, “the citizens of Edinburgh had been noted for their stubborn adhesion to Presbyterian doctrine and polity. With no other section of his subjects had James VI. found greater difficulty in enforcing the Articles of Perth. In 1584, Bishop Adamson, as the representative of Episcopacy, had been violently interrupted while conducting service in the church of St. Giles. If, therefore, Edinburgh should patiently endure the new Liturgy,[27] its example could not fail to have a good effect on the rest of the country. It was in the same church of St. Giles that the experiment with the new Service-Book was now made; and, unluckily for its promoters, Edinburgh even surpassed its evil record. Every precaution was taken to ensure the decorous behaviour of the congregation. The two archbishops with several of their suffragans, the Lords of Privy Council, and the Lords of Session, were present to give solemnity to the occasion. No sooner, however, had the dean opened the new Liturgy than the tumult began. There arose ‘such an uncouth noise and hubbub in the Church that not any one could either hear or be heard. The gentlewomen did fall a tearing and crying that the Masse was entered among them and Baal in the Church. There was a gentleman who standing behind a pew and answering Amen to what the dean was reading, a she zealot hearing him starts up in choler, “Traitor (says she), dost thou say Mass at my ear,” and with that struck him on the face with her bible in great indignation and fury.’[28] It was in vain that Archbishop Spottiswoode endeavoured to allay the tumult, and the service closed amid uproar and confusion—the bishop being pursued to his residence with volleys of stones and imprecations. Such was the discouraging reception of Laud’s Service-Book in the leading church of Scotland.”[29]
And during this uproar tradition avers that a “kail-wife,” when the collect was given out, hurled her stool at the Dean, crying, “Deil colic the wame o’ ye!”
It is all very well to cast doubt on whether Jenny Geddes existed in mortal life: none can doubt her claim to immortality. If tangible proof be demanded,—is not the very stool she aimed at the Dean to be seen in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum to this day?
It is difficult now for a stranger to understand fully the very strong antagonism between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians.
’Piscy, ’Piscy, Amen!
Doon on yer knees and up agen!
the little street urchins still cry in shrill disapproval as the “chapels” skale.[30] The antagonism was in its early days political and temperamental as well as ecclesiastical, for the Episcopalians were royalists and cavaliers to a man. In the eighteenth century the terms Episcopalian and Jacobite were held as almost synonymous. The two classes were diametrically opposed in their dispositions and ways and ideals; and yet each represented many of the finest characteristics of the Scottish character, and each can lay claim to a goodly number of the Scotsmen and Scotswomen of whom Scotland is proudest and fondest. But the feeling betrays itself even yet where education has tended to sharpen the angles of temperament instead of rounding them off.
“This is Edinburg,” a Cockney youth with a tourist ticket was overheard to say, as the train approached the Northern Capital.