JENNY GEDDES AND HER STOOL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 2, 25 September 1937, Page 15

JENNY GEDDES AND HER STOOL

300-Year-Old Mystery

ITHEEE HUNDBED YEAKS AGO, ou July 23> 1637, the farnous incident in which Jenny Geddes and Jb.ex' stool figured occurred in St.- Gilcrs ' Cathedrhl, Edifibufgh. 3%ere ia to be seen on a wai! of the Cathedral & tablet commemorating the xffair, It took place on a Sunday, the day appointed for ihe introduction. 6f the M8w liturgy into ScOttish churches. There ar© many versiona of tlio iiicideat, dAe genefaily fietitfnted beifig that when the Dean of Edinburgk, Dr. George Hanna, entired ihe pixlpif of St. Gilei' and opened the sOfvice book, 4 Aumber of women began clapping their hands and raising an outcryk One vil itated to havAtfafown a fiibte, and another 4 itoolj at the Deafc. The woman Who threw ihe itoo! was generally atmed Jenny Geddes, a herb womtn, Contemporary aceounts itate that as she threw ehe cried, ♦'Trai.tor^ dost thdto eay Mass at my lug?" Tht fame df Jenny Geddes has eonio down thtOugh the cehturied, though her identity has been questioned. WoodroW, the niinistet-historiaii. of Eastwood Partihj Eehfrewshire, Whs one of the first to give publlcity to a theory that ihe was'not Jenny Geddets, but Barbara Hamilton, wife of John Mein, a merchant in EdinbUrgh. Efforts have been made to" show that Jenny Geddes and Barbara Hamilton were one and the aame person; but the mystery of the real identity of the woman Who threw

the fetool remains unaolved. Even Carlyle, Who soaght information to pro* vide a solution, does not seem to have been able to obtain it. - ihe oniy thing bertain is that the action of the woman in question, whether Jenny Geddes or Barbara Hamilton, Or the "good Ghrietian i woman " to whom anonymously Boine accouiits of the indident refer} not oniy created a sensation in St. Giles' itself that Snnddy, and closed all the kirks and suspended all preaching in Edin4 biirgh for the nest few weeks, but lit a flr'e of feligious revolt which spread all over Seotiand and into England, the Scottlsh tising bexng followed by the impeachment of Archbishop Laud and the CxVil Wai-. ihe immcdiato result of the St. Giles ' prbteet in Scotland wais, of course, a demand for the withdrawal of the offendihg liturgy and, this demand not being conceded, arrangements were made to orgnuise resistance to tho policy of Charles I. ihe National Govenant was framed, and there began in Old Greyfriars Churchyard in February, 1638, the signing of that historic document which Was to lead to a long and bitter struggle between the Covenanters and the forces of the Crown. ihe tercentenary of the signing of the Covenant was celebrated in Edinburgh and Glasgow at conventions of the Keformed Preebyt6rian Church.