ews, afterwards the bishops of Galloway, and
eventually the bishops of Dunblane, possessed in their capacity as deans
an episcopal jurisdiction. The chapel, erected by James III., fell
evidently into a ruinous condition, and in 1594 James VI. pulled the old
structure down and erected on its site the present building. It was the
scene of the baptism of Prince Henry.

ST. GILES, EDINBURGH

"In the centre of the old town of Edinburgh," writes Dr. Cameron
Lees, "stands the great church of St. Giles. From whatever point of
view the city is looked at, the picturesque crown of the steeple is
seen sharply outlined against the sky. Soaring aloft unlike every
other spire in its neighbourhood, it seems like the spirit of old
Scottish history, keeping watch over the city that has grown up
through the long years beneath its shadow. Edinburgh would not be
Edinburgh without it. The exterior of the church itself is plain and
unadorned, and it is evident that unsympathetic hands have been laid
upon it and modernised it; but when one enters the building, a vast
and venerable interior is presented to him, and every stone seems to
speak of the past. St. Giles is a church whose history is closely
interwoven with the history of Scotland from the very earliest ages,
and it has been the scene of many remarkable events which have left
their impress upon our national character."[241]

Dr. David Laing thinks that a parish church of small dimensions may have
existed nearly coeval with the castle and town,[242] and the present St.
Giles occupies the site of the original parish church of Edinburgh.
Symeon of Durham, who flourished in the early part of the thirteenth
century, includes Edinburgh under the year 854 in reckoning the churches
and towns belonging to the Bishopric of Lindisfarne or Holy Island, in
the district of Northumbria, a see which, previous to the Scoto-Saxon
period, extended over the range of Lothian and the more southern
districts of North Britain.[243] The name "Edwinesburch" is taken as
having a special reference to the castle and town.[244] When David I.
founded the abbey in honour of the Holy Cross, the Virgin Mary, and all
the saints, he conferred upon the canons (among other churches) the
church of the castle, the Church of St. Cuthbert under the castle wall,
and at the period there were lands lying to the south of Edinburgh which
bore the name of St. Giles' Gra