t in Flanders.[270] About 1500 several of
the guilds had chapels assigned to them, and for these they contributed
to the church funds. Many famous Scotsmen were buried within St. Giles,
and amongst them were the Napiers of Merchiston, although it is doubtful
whether Baron Napier rests there or not.[271] The Regent Murray,
assassinated at Linlithgow in 1569, was buried in the south aisle; his
monument was destroyed, but the brass plate, with the inscription
written in his honour by George Buchanan, was rescued, and is inserted
in a new monument erected in the Murray Aisle. The scattered members of
the body of the great Montrose were collected and buried in the Chapman
Aisle, in the south part of St. Giles, in 1661, but all trace of his
remains has now been lost, and no monument until recently indicated his
grave.

The last day on which mass was said in St. Giles was probably the 31st
of March 1560;[272] the disturbances connected with the Reformation
broke out in Edinburgh at an early date, and St. Giles' Church was one
of the first to suffer.

All things have their end.
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men,
Must have like death that we have.

The images were stolen from the church; that of St. Giles was carried
off by the mob, drowned in the North Loch, and then burned; his arm
bone, so precious before, is supposed to have been thrown into the
adjacent churchyard; the church was pillaged and the altars and images
cast down; the valuables were taken by the authorities and sold, while
the proceeds were spent in the repairs of the church.

"Irreverence," writes Dr. Lees, "had long been common. It was not to
be expected that with the change of religion would come any
additional reverence for the things and places which the old
religion had proclaimed sacred. We read without much surprise,
therefore, of weavers being allowed to set up their looms and
exercise their craft 'in ane volt prepared for them in the rufe of
Sanct Gellis Kirk,' of the vestry of the church being turned into an
office for the town clerk.... It is almost inconceivable that old
associations should so thoroughly and quickly have died out."[273]

The church suffered from the over-zeal of the early reformers and also
from the effects of civil contention when Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange
and Queen Mary's adherents retained possession of the castle. Kirkaldy
took forcible possession