Jenny Geddes
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Riot against use of prescribed prayer book |
The legendary
Jenny Geddes famously threw her stool at the head of the
minister in
St Giles' Cathedral,
Edinburgh, beginning the riot that led to the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included the
English Civil War.
Since the early years of the seventeenth century, the Scottish Church had been established on the same Episcopalian basis as its English cousin, but was far more puritan, both in doctrine and practice. In
1633 King
Charles I came to St Giles' to have his Scottish coronation service, using the full
Anglican rites, accompanied by
William Laud, his new Archbishop of Canterbury. In the years that followed he began to consider ways of introducing Anglican-style church services on Scotland. The King arranged a Commission to draw up a prayer book suitable for Scotland, and in
1637 an Edinburgh printer produced:
The BOOKE OF Common Prayer :AND Administration Of The Sacraments: :And other parts of divine Service :for the use of the CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. These developments met with widespread opposition.
The first use of the prayer book was in St Giles' on Sunday
23 July 1637, when John Hanna, Dean of
Edinburgh, began to read the Collects, part of the prescribed service, and Jenny Geddes, a market-woman or street-seller, threw her stool straight at the reverend's head. Some sources describe it as a "fald stool" or a "creepie-stool" meaning a folding stool as shown flying in the illustration, while others claim that it was a three-legged
cuttie-stool. As she hurled the stool she is reported to have yelled:
"Deil colic the wame o' ye, fause thief; daur ye say Mass in my lug?" meaning
"Devil cause you severe pain and flatulent distention of your abdomen, false thief: dare you say the Mass in my ear?".
This was the start of a general tumult with much of the congregation shouting abuse and throwing Bibles, stools, sticks and stones. Prebble reports the phrase
"Dost thou say Mass in my lug?" as being addressed to a gentleman in the congregation who murmured a dutiful response to the liturgy, getting thumped with a Bible for his pains, and describes Jenny as one of a number of
"waiting-women" who were paid to arrive early and sit on their folding stools to hold a place for their patrons. The rioters were ejected by officers summoned by the
Provost, but for the rest of the service hammered at the doors and threw stones at the windows.
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Title page of Book of Common Prayer, Scotland 1637 |
More serious rioting in the streets (and in other cities) followed, and the Provost and magistrates were besieged in the City Chambers, to the extent that it became necessary to negotiate with the Edinburgh mob. At the suggestion of the
Lord Advocate it appointed a committee known as
the Tables to negotiate with the
Privy Council. Characteristically, Charles turned down the Tables' demands for withdrawal of the Anglican liturgy and more riots ensued with talk of civil war. This led to widespread signing of the
National Covenant in February
1638, with its defiance of any attempt to introduce innovations like the Prayer Book that had not first been subject to the scrutiny of Parliament and the General Assembly of the Church. In November of the same year, the bishops and archbishops were formally expelled from the Church of Scotland, which was then established on a full Presbyterian basis. Charles reacted by launching the
Bishops' Wars, thus beginning the Wars of Three Kingdoms.
In the aftermath of the riots definitive evidence is hard to come by, and some doubt if Jenny Geddes started the fight or if she even existed, but she remains a part of Edinburgh tradition and has long had a memorial in St Giles. The sculpture which was added recently shows a three-legged
cuttie-stool rather than a folding stool.
Around
1787,
Robert Burns named his mare after Jenny Geddes and wrote amusingly of this faithful horse.
*
Religion in the United Kingdom*
Book of Common Order*
Book of Common Prayer*
Prayer Book Rebellion in the West of England
*
ElectricScotland.com The Churches of Edinburgh*
Jenny Geddes*
Overview of Jenny Geddes*
Robert Burns Country: The Burns Encyclopedia: Geddes, Jenny*
The Lion in the North, John Prebble, Penguin Books 1973
*
Scotland, A Concise History, Fitzroy Maclean, Thames and Hudson 1991, ISBN 0-500-27706-0
