Early years  David I holds a speculative model of the first St Giles' in a 20th-century window.

The foundation of St Giles' is usually dated to 1124 and attributed to David I. The parish was likely detached from the older parish of St Cuthbert's.[1][2] David raised Edinburgh to the status of a burgh and, during his reign, the church and its lands (St Giles' Grange) are first attested, being in the possession of monks of the Order of Saint Lazarus.[3][4] Remnants of the destroyed Romanesque church display similarities to the church at Dalmeny, which was built between 1140 and 1166.[5] St Giles' was consecrated by David de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews on 6 October 1243. As St Giles' is attested almost a century earlier, this was likely a re-consecration to correct the loss of any record of the original consecration.[6]

In 1322 during the First Scottish War of Independence, troops of Edward II of England despoiled Holyrood Abbey and may have attacked St Giles' as well.[7] Jean Froissart records that, in 1384, Scottish knights and barons met secretly with French envoys in St Giles' and, against the wishes of Robert II, planned a raid into the northern counties of England.[8] Though the raid was a success, Richard II of England took retribution on the Scottish borders and Edinburgh in August 1385 and St Giles' was burned. The scorch marks were reportedly still visible on the pillars of the crossing in the 19th century.[9]

At some point in the 14th century, the 12th century Romanesque St Giles' was replaced by the current Gothic church. At least the crossing and nave had been built by 1387 as, in that year, Provost Andrew Yichtson and Adam Forrester of Nether Liberton commissioned John Skuyer, John Primrose, and John of Scone to add five chapels to the south side of the nave.[10][11]

In the 1370s, the Lazarite friars supported the King of England and St Giles' reverted to the Scottish crown.[9] In 1393, Robert III granted St Giles' to Scone Abbey in compensation for the expenses incurred by the abbey in 1390 during the King's coronation and the funeral of his father.[12][13] Subsequent records show clerical appointments at St Giles' were made by the monarch, suggesting the church reverted to the crown soon afterwards.[14]

Collegiate church

In 1419, Archibald Douglas, 4th Earl of Douglas led an unsuccessful petition to Pope Martin V to elevate St Giles' to collegiate status. Unsuccessful petitions to Rome followed in 1423 and 1429.[15] The burgh launched another petition for collegiate status in 1466, which was granted by Pope Paul II in February 1467.[16] The foundation replaced the role of vicar with a provost accompanied by a curate, sixteen canons, a beadle, a minister of the choir, and four choristers.[17]

 Preston Aisle

During the period of these petitions, William Preston of Gorton had, with the permission of Charles VII of France, brought from France the arm bone of Saint Giles, an important relic. From the mid-1450s, the Preston Aisle was added to the southern side of the choir to commemorate this benefactor; Preston's eldest male descendants were given the right to carry the relic at the head of the Saint Giles' Day procession every 1 September.[18][19] Around 1460, extension of the chancel and the addition thereto of a clerestory were supported by Mary of Guelders, possibly in memory of her husband, James II.[20]

In the years following St Giles' elevation to collegiate status, the number of chaplainries and endowments increased greatly and by the Reformation there may have been as many as fifty altars in St Giles'.[21][22][a] In 1470, Pope Paul II further elevated St Giles' status by granting a petition from James III to exempt the church from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of St Andrews.[24]

During Gavin Douglas' provostship, St Giles' was central to Scotland's response to national disaster of the Battle of Flodden in 1513. As Edinburgh's men were ordered by the town council to defend the city, its women were ordered to gather in St Giles' to pray for James IV and his army.[25] Requiem Mass for the King and the memorial mass for the dead of the battle were held in St Giles' and Walter Chepman endowed a chapel of the Crucifixion in the lower part of the kirkyard in the King's memory.[26][27]

In the summer of 1544 during the war known as the Rough Wooing, after an English army had burnt Edinburgh, Regent Arran maintained a garrison of gunners in the tower of the church.[28]

The earliest record of Reformed sentiment at St Giles' is in 1535, when Andrew Johnston, one of the chaplains, was forced to leave Scotland on the grounds of heresy.[29] In October 1555, the town council ceremonially burned English language books, likely Reformers' texts, outside St Giles'.[30] The theft from the church of images of the Virgin, St Francis, and the Trinity in 1556 may have been agitation by reformers.[31] In July 1557, the church's statue of its patron, Saint Giles, was stolen and, according to John Knox, drowned in the Nor Loch then burned.[32] For use in that year's Saint Giles' Day procession, the statue was replaced by one borrowed from Edinburgh's Franciscans; though this was also damaged when Protestants disrupted the event.[33]

Reformation  Statue of John Knox by James Pittendrigh Macgillivray

At the beginning of 1559, with the Scottish Reformation gaining ground, the town council hired soldiers to defend St Giles' from the Reformers; the council also distributed the church's treasures among trusted townsmen for safekeeping.[34] At 3 pm on 29 June 1559 the army of the Lords of the Congregation entered Edinburgh unopposed and, that afternoon, John Knox, the foremost figure of the Reformation in Scotland, first preached in St Giles'.[35][36] The following week, Knox was elected minister of St Giles' and, the week after that, the purging of the church's Roman Catholic furnishings began.[37]

Mary of Guise (who was then ruling as regent for her daughter Mary) offered Holyrood Abbey as a place of worship for those who wished to remain in the Roman Catholic faith while St Giles' served Edinburgh's Protestants. Mary of Guise also offered the Lords of the Congregation that the parish church of Edinburgh would, after 10 January 1560, remain in whichever confession proved the most popular among the burgh's inhabitants.[38][39] These proposals, however, came to nothing and the Lords of the Congregation signed a truce with the Roman Catholic forces and vacated Edinburgh.[39] Knox, fearing for his life, left the city on 24 July 1559.[40] St Giles', however, remained in Protestant hands. Knox's deputy, John Willock, continued to preach even as French soldiers disrupted his sermons, and ladders, to be used in the Siege of Leith, were constructed in the church.[39][41]

The events of the Scottish Reformation thereafter briefly turned in favour of the Roman Catholic party: they retook Edinburgh and the French agent Nicolas de Pellevé, Bishop of Amiens, reconsecrated St Giles' as a Roman Catholic church on 9 November 1559.[39][42] After the Treaty of Berwick secured the intervention of Elizabeth I of England on the side of the Reformers, they retook Edinburgh. St Giles' once again became a Protestant church on 1 April 1560 and Knox returned to Edinburgh on 23 April 1560.[39][43] The Parliament of Scotland legislated that, from 24 August 1560, the Pope had no authority in Scotland.[44]

Workmen, assisted by sailors from the Port of Leith, took nine days to clear stone altars and monuments from the church. Precious items used in pre-Reformation worship were sold.[45] The church was whitewashed, its pillars painted green, and the Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer painted on the walls.[46] Seating was installed for children and the burgh's council and incorporations. A pulpit was also installed, likely at the eastern side of the crossing.[47] In 1561, the kirkyard to the south of the church was closed and most subsequent burials were conducted at Greyfriars Kirkyard.[48]

Church and crown: 1567–1633  John Knox (top right) preaching the funeral sermon of the Regent Moray, depicted in a 19th-century window

In 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots was deposed and succeeded by her infant son, James VI, St Giles' was a focal point of the ensuing Marian civil war. After his assassination in January 1570, the Regent Moray, a leading opponent of Mary, Queen of Scots, was interred within the church; John Knox preached at this event.[49] Edinburgh briefly fell to Mary's forces and, in June and July 1572, William Kirkcaldy of Grange stationed soldiers and cannon in the tower.[50] Although his colleague of 9 years John Craig had remained in Edinburgh during these events, Knox, his health failing, had retired to St Andrews. A deputation from Edinburgh recalled him to St Giles' and there he preached his final sermon on 9 November 1572.[51] Knox died later that month and was buried in the kirkyard in the presence of the Regent Morton.[52][53]

After the Reformation, parts of St Giles' were given over to secular purposes. In 1562 and 1563, the western three bays of the church were partitioned off by a wall to serve as an extension to the Tolbooth: it was used, in this capacity, as a meeting place for the burgh's criminal courts, the Court of Session, and the Parliament of Scotland.[54] Recalcitrant Roman Catholic clergy (and, later, inveterate sinners) were imprisoned in the room above the north door.[55] The tower was also used as a prison by the end of the 16th century.[56] The Maiden – an early form of guillotine – was stored in the church.[57] The vestry was converted into an office and library for the town clerk and weavers were permitted to set up their looms in the loft.[58]

Around 1581, the interior was partitioned into two meeting houses: the chancel became the East (or Little or New) Kirk and the crossing and the remainder of the nave became the Great (or Old) Kirk. These congregations, along with Trinity College Kirk and the Magdalen Chapel, were served by a joint kirk session. In 1598, the upper storey of the Tolbooth partition was converted into the West (or Tolbooth) Kirk.[59][60]

During the early majority of James VI, the ministers of St Giles' – led by Knox's successor, James Lawson – formed, in the words of Cameron Lees, "a kind of spiritual conclave with which the state had to reckon before any of its proposals regarding ecclesiastical matters could become law".[61] During his attendance at the Great Kirk, James was often harangued in the ministers' sermons and relations between the King and the Reformed clergy deteriorated.[62] In the face of opposition from St Giles' ministers, James introduced successive laws to establish episcopacy in the Church of Scotland from 1584.[63] Relations reached their nadir after a tumult at St Giles' on 17 December 1596. The King briefly removed to Linlithgow and the ministers were blamed for inciting the crowd; they fled the city rather than comply with their summons to appear before the King.[64] To weaken the ministers, James made effective, as of April 1598, an order of the town council from 1584 to divide Edinburgh into distinct parishes.[65] In 1620, the Upper Tolbooth congregation vacated St Giles' for the newly established Greyfriars Kirk.[66][67]

Cathedral  Riot against the introduction of the prayer book

James' son and successor, Charles I, first visited St Giles' on 23 June 1633 during his visit to Scotland for his coronation. He arrived at the church unannounced and displaced the reader with clergy who conducted the service according to the rites of the Church of England.[68] On 29 September that year, Charles, responding to a petition from John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St Andrews, elevated St Giles' to the status of a cathedral to serve as the seat of the new Bishop of Edinburgh.[69][70] Work began to remove the internal partition walls and to furnish the interior in the manner of Durham Cathedral.[71]

Work on the church was incomplete when, on 23 July 1637, the replacement in St Giles' of Knox's Book of Common Order by a Scottish version of the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer provoked rioting due to the latter's perceived similarities to Roman Catholic ritual. Tradition attests that this riot was started when a market trader named Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the dean, James Hannay.[72][73] In response to the unrest, services at St Giles' were temporarily suspended.[74]

 19th century monument to the Marquess of Montrose

The events of 23 July 1637 led to the signing of the National Covenant in February 1638, which, in turn, led to the Bishops' Wars, the first conflict of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.[75] St Giles' again became a Presbyterian church and the partitions were restored.[76] Before 1643, the Preston Aisle was also fitted out as a permanent meeting place for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.[77]

In autumn 1641, Charles I attended Presbyterian services in the East Kirk under the supervision of its minister, Alexander Henderson, a leading Covenanter. The King had lost the Bishops' Wars and had come to Edinburgh because the Treaty of Ripon compelled him to ratify Acts of the Parliament of Scotland passed during the ascendancy of the Covenanters.[78]

After the Covenanters' loss at the Battle of Dunbar, troops of the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell entered Edinburgh and occupied the East Kirk as a garrison church.[79] General John Lambert and Cromwell himself were among English soldiers who preached in the church and, during the Protectorate, the East Kirk and Tolbooth Kirk were each partitioned in two.[80][81]

At the Restoration in 1660, the Cromwellian partition was removed from the East Kirk and a new royal loft was installed there.[82] In 1661, the Parliament of Scotland, under Charles II, restored episcopacy and St Giles' became a cathedral again.[83] At Charles' orders, the body of James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose – a senior supporter of Charles I executed by the Covenanters – was re-interred in St Giles'.[84] The reintroduction of bishops sparked a new period of rebellion and, in the wake of the Battle of Rullion Green in 1666, Covenanters were imprisoned in the former priests' prison above the north door, which, by then, had become known as "Haddo's Hole" due to the imprisonment there in 1644 of Royalist leader Sir John Gordon, 1st Baronet, of Haddo.[85]

After the Glorious Revolution, the Scottish bishops remained loyal to James VII.[86] On the advice of William Carstares, who later became minister of the High Kirk, William II supported the abolition of bishops in the Church of Scotland and, in 1689, the Parliament of Scotland restored Presbyterian polity.[87][88][89] In response, many ministers and congregants left the Church of Scotland, effectively establishing the independent Scottish Episcopal Church.[90] In Edinburgh alone, eleven meeting houses of this secession sprang up, including the congregation that became Old St Paul's, which was founded when Alexander Rose, the last Bishop of Edinburgh in the established church, led much of his congregation out of St Giles'.[91][92][93]

Four churches in one: 1689–1843  The General Assembly of 1787, held in the Preston Aisle of St Giles'

In 1699, the courtroom in the northern half of the Tolbooth partition was converted into the New North (or Haddo's Hole) Kirk.[94] At the Union of Scotland and England's Parliaments in 1707, the tune "Why Should I Be Sad on my Wedding Day?" rang out from St Giles' recently installed carillon.[95] During the Jacobite rising of 1745, inhabitants of Edinburgh met in St Giles' and agreed to surrender the city to the advancing army of Charles Edward Stuart.[96]

From 1758 to 1800, Hugh Blair, a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and religious moderate, served as minister of the High Kirk; his sermons were famous throughout Britain and attracted Robert Burns and Samuel Johnson to the church. Blair's contemporary, Alexander Webster, was a leading evangelical who, from his pulpit in the Tolbooth Kirk, expounded strict Calvinist doctrine.[97][98]

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Luckenbooths and Tolbooth, which had enclosed the north side of the church, were demolished along with shops built up around the walls of the church.[99] The exposure of the church's exterior revealed its walls were leaning outwards.[100] In 1817, the city council commissioned Archibald Elliot to produce plans for the church's restoration. Elliot's drastic plans proved controversial and, due to a lack of funds, nothing was done with them.[101][102]

 The High Kirk during the visit of George IV in 1822

George IV attended service in the High Kirk during his 1822 visit to Scotland.[103] The publicity of the King's visit created impetus to restore the now-dilapidated building.[104] With £20,000 supplied by the city council and the government, William Burn was commissioned to lead the restoration.[105][106] Burn's initial plans were modest, but, under pressure from the authorities, Burn produced something closer to Elliot's plans.[101][107]

Between 1829 and 1833, Burn significantly altered the church: he encased the exterior in ashlar, raised the church's roofline and reduced its footprint. He also added north and west doors and moved the internal partitions to create a church in the nave, a church in the choir, and a meeting place for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the southern portion. Between these, the crossing and north transept formed a large vestibule. Burn also removed internal monuments; the General Assembly's meeting place in the Preston Aisle; and the police office and fire engine house, the building's last secular spaces.[108][109][101]

Burn's contemporaries were split between those who congratulated him on creating a cleaner, more stable building and those who regretted what had been lost or altered.[110][111] In the Victorian era and the first half of the 20th century, Burn's work fell far from favour among commentators.[112][113] Its critics included Robert Louis Stevenson, who stated: "…zealous magistrates and a misguided architect have shorn the design of manhood and left it poor, naked, and pitifully pretentious."[114] Since the second half of the 20th century, Burn's work has been recognised as having secured the church from possible collapse.[115][116][117]

The High Kirk returned to the choir in 1831. The Tolbooth Kirk returned to the nave in 1832; when they left for a new church on Castlehill in 1843, the nave was occupied by the Haddo's Hole congregation. The General Assembly found its new meeting hall inadequate and met there only once, in 1834; the Old Kirk congregation moved into the space.[118][119]

Victorian era  Clergy enter St Giles' at its ceremonial re-opening after the Chambers restoration on 23 May 1883

At the Disruption of 1843, Robert Gordon and James Buchanan, ministers of the High Kirk, left their charges and the established church to join the newly founded Free Church.[b] A significant number of their congregation left with them; as did William King Tweedie, minister of the first charge of the Tolbooth Kirk,[c] and Charles John Brown, minister of Haddo's Hole Kirk.[110][122][123] The Old Kirk congregation was suppressed in 1860.[124][d]

At a public meeting in Edinburgh City Chambers on 1 November 1867, William Chambers, publisher and Lord Provost of Edinburgh, first advanced his ambition to remove the internal partitions and restore St Giles' as a "Westminster Abbey for Scotland".[127] Chambers commissioned Robert Morham to produce initial plans.[101] Lindsay Mackersy, solicitor and session clerk of the High Kirk, supported Chambers' work and William Hay was engaged as architect; a management board to supervise the design of new windows and monuments was also created.[128][129]

The restoration was part of a movement for liturgical beautification in late 19th century Scottish Presbyterianism and many evangelicals feared the restored St Giles' would more resemble a Roman Catholic church than a Presbyterian one.[130][131] Nevertheless, the Presbytery of Edinburgh approved plans in March 1870 and the High Kirk was restored between June 1872 and March 1873: the pews and gallery were replaced with stalls and chairs and, for the first time since the Reformation, stained glass and an organ were introduced.[101][132]

The restoration of the former Old Kirk and the West Kirk began in January 1879. In 1881, the West Kirk vacated St. Giles'.[133] During the restoration, many human remains were unearthed; these were transported in five large boxes for reinterment in Greyfriars Kirkyard.[134] Although he had managed to view the reunified interior, William Chambers died on 20 May 1883, only three days before John Hamilton-Gordon, 7th Earl of Aberdeen, Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, ceremonially opened the restored church; Chambers' funeral was held in the church two days after its reopening.[101][135]

20th and 21st centuries  The interior at the beginning of the 20th century, looking east from the nave

In 1911, George V opened the newly constructed chapel of the knights of the Order of the Thistle at the south east corner of the church.[136]

Though the church had hosted a special service for the Church League for Women's Suffrage, Wallace Williamson’s refusal to pray for imprisoned suffragettes led to their supporters disrupting services during late 1913 and early 1914.[137]

Ninety-nine members of the congregation – including the assistant minister, Matthew Marshall – were killed in World War I.[137] In 1917, St Giles' hosted the lying-in-state and funeral of Elsie Inglis, medical pioneer and member of the congregation.[138][139]

Ahead of the 1929 reunion of the United Free Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland, the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act 1925 transferred ownership of St Giles' from the City of Edinburgh Council to the Church of Scotland.[140][141]

The church escaped World War II undamaged. The week after VE Day, the royal family attended a thanksgiving service in St Giles'. The Albany Aisle at the north west of the church was subsequently adapted to serve as a memorial chapel to the 39 members of the congregation killed in the conflict.[142]

To mark her first visit to Scotland since her coronation, Elizabeth II received the Honours of Scotland at a national service of thanksgiving in St Giles' on 24 June 1953.[143]

From 1973 to 2013, Gilleasbuig Macmillan served as minister of St Giles'.[144] During Macmillan's incumbency, the church was restored and the interior reoriented around a central communion table, the interior floor was levelled and undercroft space was created by Bernard Feilden.[101][145]

St Giles' remains an active parish church as well as hosting concerts, special services, and events.[146] In 2018, St Giles' was the fourth most popular visitor site in Scotland with over 1.3 million visitors that year.[147]

On 12 September 2022, the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II was taken to the cathedral for a service of thanksgiving, having travelled from Balmoral Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse the previous day.[148][149] The Queen's coffin then lay at rest at the cathedral for 24 hours, guarded constantly by the Royal Company of Archers, allowing the people of Scotland to pay their respects. In the evening, the Queen's children; King Charles III, the Princess Royal, the Earl of Inverness and the Earl of Forfar held a vigil at the cathedral, a custom known as the Vigil of the Princes.[150]

On 5 July 2023, the Honours of Scotland were presented to King Charles III in a ceremony held in St Giles' Cathedral. The ceremony was formally described as a National Service of Thanksgiving and Dedication to mark the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.[151]

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