The Martyr of the Solway
The Martyr of the Solway by Millais by Anita Davison It is summer 1637, and the cathedral of St. Giles in Edinburgh is packed, among the congregation are serving women, seated on three-legged stools keeping places for their mistresses. Dean John Hanna appears carrying a brown leather bound copy of the English Prayer Book, dressed in a white surplice, not the black Geneva gown approved of by the Reformed Church. The murmurs begin and a servant girl named Jenny Geddes hurls her folding-stool at the pulpit screeching "Daur ye say mass in my lug" (Dare you say mass in my ear). Her stool is followed by others, until the church is in uproar and the Dean pulls off his surplice for fear of being torn to pieces. David Lindsay, recently appointed Bishop of Edinburgh, tries to quieten the crowd, but beneath a tumult of sticks and stones, the Dean and the Bishop take cover in the vestry. This demonstration seems ludicrous today, but for the citizens of Edinburgh it was in deadly earnest...