I wonder sometimes why Sam Logan continues to permit me to go along on his Westminster tours of Great Britain. I often make a fool of myself because I get so excited about Scotland (more than England, but it happens there, too!) that I end up taking up valuable tour time telling stupid stories that probably aren't even true, and which detract from the religious emphasis of the tour. I am highly resolved that, in 2001, I will keep my big mouth shut. But for all that, there are some marvelous stories out there. And I thought it might be fun to include some of them here, along with a few more pictures. So we are off to Edinburgh, and for once, let us begin at the lower end of the "Royal Mile", in an area known as the Canongate.

At the very end of the Royal Mile stands the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which our tour group will visit, if the Queen is not in residence. But this group will be just about as interested in the Canongate Kirk, a bit further up the hill. Note the picture at the top of this webpage. At the very top (not too clear...sorry), you can just see what looks like a deer's antlers...well, that is a deer's antlers. Odd place to begin the story, but you need to look at a list of the Stuart Monarchs of Scotland; on the list, find David I (1080-1153, reigned, 1124-1153). You will want to read the book about him, David the Prince, by Nigel Tranter (London: Coronet Books, Hodder and Stoughton, 1980). Legend has it that while this David was hunting deer in the area now known as the Salisbury Crags, his horse slipped, and he was thrown. As he lay helpless on the ground, a giant stag tried to attack him, and gore him with a huge set of antlers. Suddenly, miraculously, there appeared in his hand a cross, a "holy rood", which he used to fend off the beast until help came.. Thus the palace is called Holyroodhouse, and David had an abbey built attached to the palace, the Holyrood Abbey, actually an Augustinian Monastery, established in 1128. During the 1680's, the congregation built the Canongate Kirk when, the guidebooks say, King James VII took over the Abbey for the use of his Knights of the Thistle. Clarification: this was James VII in the Scottish line of Kings; we know him best as the King James II who was deposed in the so-called "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. It may seem a useless aside, but the group will probably want to visit the little room up at the Castle, at the other end of the Royal Mile, where Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to her son, James (later of King James Bible fame), in 1566- ever wonder why James wasn't born down at the Palace? The truth is some rather messy things had happened down there, and Mary was looking for a safer place to have her child. Among other things, David Rizzio had been murdered there.

It's strange that some of my students still think Scotland is a Roman Catholic country! For the record, it is fiercely Protestant, and was, even more so, in the 16th century, when the Catholic queen, Mary, came over from France to face the wrath of John Knox. It seems Mary had a minstrel, a young man who sang and played the lute (or something) for her, named David Rizzio. Since he had an Italian name, the Scottish lords became convinced he was some sort of agent from the Pope, sent to assure that Scotland would be ruled from Rome. So, one evening, they dragged him out of the Queen's bedroom, and stabbed him to death...it is said his blood can still be seen, on the cold stone floor. Just outside the Canongate Kirk, there is an old, flat, stone slab, which supposedly marks the spot where David Rizzio was buried.

Also in the Canongate Kirkyard, philosophers will find, at the rear of an interesting building called the Canongate Tolbooth, the final resting place of Adam Smith. It is said that he wrote the inscription himself:

I have never been inside the Canongate Kirk, but remember, as noted above, that the church was built during the 1680s, a period in which the English tried to impose their Episcopal church on Scotland. I have a book at home which says this church has a Presbyterian exterior, and an interior arranged in an Anglican way-you might want to peek inside on our visit.

A bit further up the street is an old house that a persistent tradition says was once the home of John Knox. Of course, there are always people ready to ruin a good story by saying the house isn't old enough, or something. A point in favor of the traditional claim is that the street has a peculiar bend in it at that point; this would have provided an ideal place for crowds to gather, so that Knox could have preached to them from a window above--looks good to me!!

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Deacon Brodie

Still further up the street, at the top of an area known as the Mound, is a pub known as Deacon Brodie's Tavern. Again, the story is interesting. The tavern is named for a certain William Brodie. "Deacon" was not a title awarded him by the church, but by the guilds. But he was a respected member of Edinburgh society in the middle of the eighteenth century. He was a fine cabinetmaker by trade, and served for a time on the town council. Sadly, he also had some bad habits; he gambled, and chased after wild women. Such habits can be expensive, so Brodie was deeply in debt. By day, he frequently worked in some of Edinburgh's finest homes. To pay his debts, and support his bad habits, he began making wax impressions of the keys to these fine homes, and at night, he returned to burglarize them. Finally, he was caught, and hanged, in 1788.

In the next century, another citizen of Edinburgh became fascinated with this character, and his split personality...good and respected citizen by day, and criminal by night. He was inspired to write a book about someone with these traits. The writer was, of course, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the book (Which you can access in several "Etext" versions on the Robert Louis Stevenson site) was The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

 Before we go on up the hill to the Castle, take a detour over to the Greyfriars "kirkyard". Greyfriars was the first church built in Edinburgh after the Reformation, in 1620. There are a number of stories here. Scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment of the Eighteenth century will find buried here such worthies as William Robertson, Hugh Blair, and Colin MacLaurin. But the most famous "person" buried here is a little Skye terrier, known as Greyfriars Bobby (if that connection fails, try this one). According to the story, he belonged to a farm worker named John Gray . When his master got too old for heavy labor, he moved into town, and took a flat in an area of Edinburgh known as the Cowgate. When the old man died, he was buried in the Greyfriars churchyard. This little dog followed the funeral procession to the church, and slept that night on his master's grave. To make the story short, the little dog refused to leave, and slept every night on his master's grave...for 14 years! Such incredible loyalty!! There is a pub outside the gate to the churchyard that proudly bears a sign, "Greyfriar's Bobby was fed here!"

On a more serious note, the group will visit that area of the churchyard known as the "Covenanters' Prison", where, back in the 17th century, a lot of good Christians suffered for their faith, and they will seek out the final resting place of Alexander Henderson, chief architect of the National Covenant of 1638 (this document is cited at this point in my principal tour page), a member of the Scottish group that made up the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s, etc.

We become even more serious. I am weak on details, but in this same 17th century, many of those who refused the imposition of the Episcopal faith, replacing Scottish Calvinism, were imprisoned, or exiled (and at least one shipload of such Dissenters sank, with great loss of life), and a number were executed. At the lower end of the Greyfriars churchyard there is a monument, called the Martyrs' Monument, which our group has to visit...always a sobering moment. The language on the monument may sound oldfashioned, and a bit quaint, but the message remains inspiring. In case you cannot read the inscription, this is what it says:

I can still remember the day, back in 1974, when my wife and I went for one of our first walks from our Mews Apartment on Mortonhall Road, across the Meadows, and into town... Before we quite realized where we were, we had rounded the turn, and saw the sign pointing up the hill, "To the Castle". That hill is steeper now, but I'll never forget the excitement of our first visit. So what is there to see in this complex known as Edinburgh Castle?? Too much for one visit. I shall therefore confine my list to only three things:the room in which King James VI and I was born (that means, in case we are less than clear, that he was James VI in the Scottish line of kings, James I in the British line), St. Margaret's chapel, and the Scottish Regalia.. I have little to say about the "birthing room"; it's just a small room on the far side of a fortress, where Mary, Queen of Scots, could feel safe to have her child in peace.

St. Margaret's Chapel deserves more extended comment. Remember Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. Macbeth killed "wise old King Duncan", and then Banquo, whose sons, one of them named Malcolm, fled to England. Well, Banquo appears to be a fictional character. But Macbeth did kill Duncan, and there was a Malcolm , who returned and ruled as Malcolm III. He married a princess, a very pious lady, St. Margaret. One tradition has it that she wanted a place to worship in the Castle complex, and that she had this small chapel built, in about 1080. Most historians say the chapel was built somewhat later, in her honor, by her son, David I, who died in 1153. By any account, St. Margaret's Chapel is the oldest bit of real estate on Castle Rock, and there is a reason for that. When Robert the Bruce defeated the English at Bannockburn in 1314, he came to control this part of Scotland, and the castle, too.. But this area is known as the Borders. It is too close to England, and he knew he could not hold the Castle against English attacks. So he ordered everything on Castle Rock knocked down, except St. Margaret's Chapel. It had no military significance, anyway, and it meant something to him. So Robert the Bruce not only left the chapel in place but, in his will, he left money for its preservation and upkeep. Oh, perhaps I should add that, today, any young lady in Edinburgh, who so wishes, may be married in this historic chapel.

Finally, there is a room in the Castle complex that is built like a bank vault, which houses the Scottish Regalia, or the Honours of Scotland. The Honours consist of a Sword of State, a crown, and a scepter. They are the oldest sovereign regalia in the British Isles...older than anything visitors will see down in London, older by at least 150 years!! Many years ago, my wife and I were told a story about the regalia, that may or may not be true. It is known that when he won his Puritan revolution, Cromwell had all of the trappings of royalty in England destroyed, crowns melted down, etc. The story we were told was that Cromwell sent troops north with orders to "..either get the Scottish regalia, or give a good account thereof !", and they didn't get it. In earlier days, there was an artificial lake at the base of the Castle hill, known as the "Nor' Loch" (in the 1750s, the lake was drained to make room for the "New Town"). The English laid seige to the Castle. For several days, the Scots sent a young girl gathering reeds (or something), around the base of the rock. After a while, the English didn't notice her anymore. So one day, the Regalia was lowered, down the side of the rock, and the girl put it in her basket--and was gone!

That's one story. We do know that, after Cromwell had King Charles I executed, in 1649, the Scots used the regalia in the coronation of his son, Charles II, at Scone Palace in 1651 (another account says 1652, need to check that), though it was not until 1660 that he was restored to the throne of all of Great Britain. After the coronation at Scone, this second story says, Charles II ordered the regalia hidden away in Dunnottar Castle. But Cromwell's troops were not far behind, and the regalia had to be smuggled out, and hidden, until the Restoration, at the Kinneff old Church. In one of these smugglings, the Sword of State had to be broken (to fit into the young girl's basket?); to this day, there is a visible line across the blade, showing where it had to be soldered back together. Which story is true? Who knows? What is clear, however, is that many Scots risked their lives to preserve these sacred symbols of Scottish sovereignty....and they did, against all odds, preserve them. Two further points need to be added. First, do you remember the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark? Indiana Jones managed to locate the Ark of the Covenant, and turned it over to the U.S. government , only to have the sacred Ark stuck in a warehouse, and lost! Stupid story! Yes, but the Scottish Regalia was never again used for another coronation after 1651. After their Parliament was dissolved in 1707, the Regalia were taken to Edinburgh Castle, locked in the Crown Room, and remained, untouched, and forgotten, for a hundred years. Sir Walter Scott (who else?) obtained royal permission to search, and on February 4, 1818, in the presence of the Castle Governor, the old oak chest was opened, and the Honours of Scotland were found there, still wrapped in their linen wrappings.

This tale has one more chapter (my second point). In ancient times, the Kings of Scotland were crowned at Scone Abbey, on the so-called Stone of Scone, or the Stone of Destiny (tradition has it this was the stone Jacob used as a pillow at Bethel). In 1296, the English King, Edward I, had the Stone carried off to England, and housed in Westminster Abbey (I once saw it there), as a way of saying that the only real sovereigns in Britain are in London. The Kings and Queens of England were crowned sitting in a chair, with the Stone beneath them-the last so crowned was Elizabeth II. In 1996, the Stone was returned to Scotland, and is now exhibited along with their other traditional national symbols, the Honours of Scotland.

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Saint Andrews

 

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The Westminster tour actually begins in St. Andrews, so I suppose I should have done these pages first. But we get pretty thorough coverage, and a walking tour, of St. Andrews, so there is little for me to add. One emphasis I might add is that the Cathedral, which dates back to 1160, may be in ruins now, but (permit a couple of extra pictures) there is enough remaining to show that it must have been immense! And very impressive...marvelous stonework!! 

 

What else can I add? I think there is a tradition that St. Andrew himself (one of the Twelve), actually visited Scotland on one of his missionary journies. But the more popular tradition is that a certain St. Regulus, or St. Rule, brought some of the relics of St. Andrew to Scotland in about 733.

So what else is there to say? You will get a good walking tour, and will hear all about John Knox, the Castle, etc. One other tale worth telling concerns James Sharp.There is a book you must read, The Life of James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews, 1618-1679, a Political Biography, by Julia Buckroyd (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, Ldt., 1987). I once did a review of that book for the Journal of Church and State (Vol.30, no. 3,Autumn, 1988, p.607). The book tells the story of a Scotsman, James sharp, who apparently became convinced that the best interests of his country could be served by accepting the English forms of worship, and accepting rule of the Scottish church by Bishops. Many of his countrymen disagreed, so on May 3, 1679, he was dragged from his coach, and murdered. You can see a reenactment of the murder on the web. In 1992, my wife and I first took one of Sam's tours, and, on Sunday, worshipped in the old Holy Trinity Church. References to this church can be found as early as 1163; the present building dates from 1412.Archbishop Sharp preached in this church, and visitors can see his tomb, and a memorial funded and built by his son, in 1680; below the monument is a relief which depicts the murder, in graphic detail.

Philosophers will recognize the name of Adam Ferguson, who was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. They may also wonder, as I do, why he was buried in St. Andrews, and why there is a portrait of him at St. Salvator's College?

Dunblane is not on our tour schedule. It never is; I really don't know why. But the three times I've taken this tour, the group has stopped there on the way to Stirling. The town is worth a visit, for at least four good reasons. First, there is a cathedral there that is worth seeing (pardon the tilt!).

And the history of this cathedral is impressive The story is that Christianity was brought to Dunblane by a certain Saint Blane in about the year 602. No doubt he built a church on this site, but the present cathedral dates from the 12th and 13th centuries. In the North Aisle of the cathedral, there is a stone, that I think was dug up during one of the cathedral renovations, that may date back to the 9th century!! Truly, an "old rugged cross".

Dunblane also has a small museum...with an original of the National Covenant of 1638. Sinclair Ferguson will tell the group all about it, but the National Covenant was said to be largely the work of Alexander Henderson, and was signed by all sorts of important Scots in 1638, at the Greyfriar's Church, Edinburgh. As in the case of our Declaration of Independence, there had to be more than one copy, so that it could be read, and signed, in different parts of the country. This was the one for the Dunblane area. Incredible!!

Of interest to those of use who are book nuts, is a small building near the museum known as the Leighton Library. It was built to house the library of Robert Leighton, who served as Bishop of Dunblane, back in the 17th century. It now has about 4500 books, dating from about 1504-1840. On our last visit, I found elegant first editions of works by many of my favorite (mostly 18th century) authors: Hugh Blair, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, George Campbell, Francis Hutcheson, Dugald Stewart, my man Thomas Reid, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Cudworth, etc., etc. Dazzling!!

Sadly, in 1996, the people of Dunblane discovered that "school shootings" are not an exclusively American phenomenon, as a man (how can we describe him?) broke into the elementary school there, and gunned down several students (children 5 and 6 years of age), and their teacher.I live in Waco, Texas, which has seen more than its share of tragic events. Indeed, Waco used to be called "Six-shooter junction". We still see lots of pick-up trucks with gun racks in their back windows, and shootings are not uncommon there. I am not suggesting that anyone, anywhere, would accept this sort of tragedy as routine. I am saying that there is something especially shocking about such an event happening in an elementary school, in a village in Great Britain, described in its promotional literature as "Situated by the picturesque Allan Water". There are a number of sites on the web dedicated to the children of Dunblane; I found this one quite moving. It closes with a prayer that reads in part:

Dear Lord, Please hold these

Precious Celtic Hearts

Gently in Your loving arms,

Kiss their rosy cheeks,

Give them eternal rest.

But let us not close this visit to Dunblane on a sad note. Permit me, instead, to close by simply saying that on our last visit to Dunblane, my wife and I learned once more that some of the best and friendliest folks you will meet in Scotland...are dogs!!

For the Scots, there is no more sacred place than the Isle of Iona. The reasons are lost in antiquity. It is claimed that 60- or some say 48- Norwegian and, later, Scottish kings are buried there.One of the last, or perhaps the last, was King Duncan, buried here in about 1040. Many of the tombstones are so worn with time that nothing can be read of their inscriptions. Some have been brought inside, to prevent further deterioration. On one such, you can only make out the outline of a broadsword. Was this a nobleman? A great warrior? Duncan?? We will never know.

It is known that St. Columba came over from Ireland to convert the Picts in the year 563. Sadly, the little island was open to Viking attacks, and was sacked in the ninth century. The Abbey was abandoned, and re-established by St. Margaret in the eleventh century (there is a small chapel, called St Oran's Chapel, near the Abbey that resembles St. Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh).

I recently read an article, by Alan Klehr and Winsoar Churchill, in British Heritage magazine (April/May, 2001, pp.52-58), on the tour of the Hebrides made in1773 by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Each man then wrote his own impressions of the tour. My copy of the book is Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., edited by R.W. Chapman (Oxford University Press, London, 1970). Dr. Johnson was not impressed with Scotland; he said, for example, that the only good thing to be seen from Edinburgh Castle was the road back to England. But Boswell quoted (to the best of his memory) what the Englishman had to say when they reached Iona;

"'We are now treading that illustrous Island , which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barrarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish, if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force on the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona!'" (from the book cited above, p. 385).

Actually, what Dr. Johnson wrote about his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, including the passage quoted above, can be found on the web. The entire text makes good reading.

There was also a Nunnery, built in 1208 by Reginald, Lord of the Isles. Reginald was, of course, the son of Somerled the Mighty, who cleared the Vikings out of the Hebrides. Again, you need to read the book by Nigel Tranter, Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1983). Some visitors actually prefer the Nunnery to the Abbey. I am aware that it is bad form to mix quotes in this way, but one of my wife's favorite mystery writers is Jeanne M. Dams. In her book, Holy Terror in the Hebrides (Walker and Company, New York, 1997), Ms. Dams speaks (p. 12) of the .."very lovely ruins of the Nunnery". Then, on the next page, she explains what she means:

"It may sound odd to refer to ruins as lovely, but the soft pink granite of the broken walls glowed in the afternoon sun, and the few arches that still remained had lost none of their delicate beauty. A well-tended garden nodded gently in what might have been the old cloister, and here and there tiny plants bloomed cheerfully in niches of the walls. I sat on a bench in the sun and watched as small birds flitted in and out of the empty windows or perched atop roofless walls. Bees and butterflies and large, beautiful dragonflies roamed among the flowers, and in one sunny corner a small black-and-white cat sat washing itself, now and then pausing, one paw in the air, to eye the birds. The Nunnery was, in its gentle way, a busy place, but utterly peaceful".

But what really captivates us all are those marvelous crosses on Iona!! Incredible!!

A visit to Iona is like a visit to the past. Motor vehicles are not permitted, and the horse and buggy remain the favored mode of transport.

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Yes, there is lots more !!

 

 

A book you must buy for this whole period of Scottish church history is The Scots Worthies, by John Howie; the book was written in 1774, and reprinted many times thereafter. I am fortunate to have a 19th century copy. During that century, the book, full of moving stories and wonderful pictures, was cherished by Scots everywhere. Note, for example, the picture (above) of Stirling Castle, which the Westminster group will visit. Tourists tend to concentrate on Edinburgh Castle, but, historically, it seems more Scottish monarchs lived in Stirling.

For our stay in England, I found on the web a helpful account of the University of Cambridge; the article was first published in the Catholic Encyclopedia-in 1908. But I appreciated its discussion of the origin and history of the university, and the way the school works- not at all like American universities.

What else? I feel sure more will be added to this work in progress, but I think of just a tidbit or two. First, you will note that, in Britain, mailboxes have engraved (or something) on them, an indication of the sovereign in power when the box was put up. Most will have an "ER" for Queen Elizabeth. In some older boxes you will see a "GR", for her father. But note the mail slot at Blanchland, where the tour will spend two days---which tells the visitor that, at the time this box was put in place, the monarch was Queen Victoria!!

 

Yes, there is more, but let me close, for now, with a picture that everyone will recognize---

 

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EHD