Refuge in St. Giles Cathedral

Selfish confession:  I wasn't sorry to be away from the US in the aftermath of the slaughter of 21 Uvalde innocents, so soon after the ten racist murders in Buffalo.  It's as if hopelessness about gun violence now earns compounded interest. So it was a little startling to discover that this stained glass window depicts history's first assassination by firearm: Regent Moray, a bastard half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots, in 1570 (center panel).  You can see smoke emanating from a gun barrel sticking out of a window near the top (left panel).

Like William Faulkner said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."  Of course political assassination is more understandable than the metastasizing cancer of mass shootings in America but this 1904 bronze relief also validates Faulkner's observation.  In the source photo, Robert Louis Stevenson smoked a cigarette but Augustus Saint-Gaudens replaced it with a writing quill because the sculptor thought smoking was unseemly in church.

Still, St. Giles Cathedral, named for the patron saint of the disabled, offered the solace of beauty on a raw, rainy morning.

The Thistle Chapel made the distinctive cathedral even more memorable.  It's where 16 Scottish Knights of the Thistle have convened for secret meetings since 1911.

The Knights had been homeless for two centuries until King Edward VII ordered that a chapel be built at St. Giles Cathedral with funds donated by a well-connected member of the chivalric order.  Despite being tucked away in the rear of the cathedral and of significantly lower height, the Thistle Chapel remains a crown jewel of the Scottish Arts & Crafts Movement and reflects the close collaboration of mostly local artisans.  Just look at the ceiling!

I couldn't  get over the intricacy of the woodwork.  Can you spot the angel playing the bagpipes?

Queen Elizabeth has appointed more Knights, who are either Scottish or have done something on behalf of Scotland, than any other sovereign.  The current roster includes a Lady.  Each sits in a wooden stall, decorated at the top with a personalized coronet.  Could the rainbow in the one on the left signify an LGBTQ Knight?  The docent (from Wyoming!) smiled indulgently and shook her head no. 

The coronets are replaced when new Knights are admitted, but their personalized stall plates (now numbering in excess of 200) remain after their deaths.

Thom waited patiently near the exit for my caffeinated enthusiasm to wane.  We said goodbye to Chris at breakfast.  He had an afternoon flight back to Prague.