Memorials and Tolerance

On Saturday we went touring.

Covenanters monument 

Our first stop was just a few miles away, the Covenanter's Monument. All there is, is a column plus a dedicatory stone, so worn now as to be practically unreadable. It stands beside the road with very little fanfare but represents an important chunk of Scottish history.

Covenanters were Scottish Protestants who took a covenant that supported their religious ideas and rejected the papacy and religious practices of the Catholic Church. This led to a number of bloody confrontations as the politics, royalty and religion of England, Ireland and Scotland swung between Catholicism and Protestantism in the 16th and 17th centuries. The memorial reflects a bloody period when a number of Covenanters were killed. Neither side in this conflict is without blame and it seems a great argument for a little more tolerance, which was a good introduction for our next visit of the morning and which deserves its own heading

Rosslyn Chapel

We headed a little further south down to Rosslyn chapel. 

If you want a more glorious picture of it, but without Louise standing in front of it, here is their official website with professional photos: https://www.rosslynchapel.com/

Built in the mid-fifteenth century, this was the private chapel of a wealthy Catholic family. Apparently intended to be a much more grandiose building in the traditional crucifix shape, only the nave (the long bit) was ever built. This bit, however, is truly amazing. Apparently intended for educational as well as religious purposes every stone surface is elaborately carved with various scenes and illustrations from the Bible and from various legends and history. The place fell into disrepair after the Catholic family was forced to abandon it (religious conflicts again!). It was extensively overgrown and in the Romantic period of the nineteenth century became popular as the Green Chapel. It was visited by a young queen Victoria who gave instructions to restore and update it. They modified it extensively, adding stained glass windows among other improvements. By the twentieth century it was pretty sad shape again and water had seeped into the sandstone but then a Mrs. Brown visited it and told her husband Dan, who wrote a book called the DaVinci Code and he included the crypt of the Chapel in a crucial scene. Then the Pope threatened to ban the book, on the not unreasonable grounds that it was defamatory toward the Catholic Church and historically wildly inaccurate, which made lots of people curious and turned it into a best seller. Then the actual chapel and crypt were filmed in the movie--and suddenly the number of (paying) visitors jumped from 7000 a year to about 140,000 a year, and the Rosslyn Trust had enough money to restore the chapel, which they have done lovingly and carefully. The book and movie are no longer popular but the chapel is now a sufficient attraction in its own right that last year they had a record-breaking number of visitors.
The chapel is carved with thousands of figures. Unfortunately the rules of the trust strictly enjoin against photography indoors. A few of the most notable figures include a representation of the Nativity in a protrusion from the ceiling. Here's a picture from Cornell University Library via Wikimedia Commons. You can also see the general ornateness of the pillars in the background.

The four ceiling panels were also elaborately carved (sorry, no photo). We had a conversation with the guide about it and she pointed out a panel filled with stars, which also contains representations of God the Father, the Saviour with outstretched arms, sun, moon and stars, and an angel with a sword. We both immediately thought of the war in heaven, but didn't say so out loud.

A historical legend has it that a master mason carved a pillar and then went on a journey to study a more elaborate pillar to carve on the opposite side. While he was gone his apprentice carved the second pillar with a much more elaborate design, shown here with another public image. When the master returned he was so enraged that his apprentice had outdone him he slew him with his hammer, for which he was duly hanged for murder. 

The guide will point out the images of the apprentice with a head wound, and his mother carved into the wall, and a doleful image of the mason, positioned to gaze forevermore on the work of his erstwhile apprentice. 

At this point I should mention that there is no contemporary documentation for any of the images or stories and the guide dutifully points out that you are free to doubt any of the stories presented, or even to make up your own.

A more charming story is that of William the cat. William is a cat who adopted the chapel and each day comes to supervise and guard it. He greets many leading characters from the carved bestiary and then patrols the chapel. In the story he points out to all a leak he has discovered in the ceiling--which leads to a roof repair and a major restoration of the chapel. William to the rescue! This is all told in a children's picture book for sale in the gift shop.

The best part of this story is that much of it is true. There really is a William the Cat who lived in the village but adopted the church and comes every day to visit it and sleep on the pews. When we were assembling for the guide's presentation a visitor wanted to move the cat so he could sit near the front and was gently but firmly informed that the cat has precedence and William can sleep wherever he likes. The visitor found a seat elsewhere. Also part of the true story is that there were leaks in the roof and the restoration project did fix them.

Here is a picture of Louise petting William. He is growing rather old now. You can see his white whiskers. Louise commented to the guide that one photograph we really wanted to take was not of the interior of the chapel, but of the cat, and the guide indicated that would be alright. Richard quickly and quietly took the picture before anyone could object.

More of the true story of the chapel is that it is the home of an active Episcopalian congregation, who use its formal name, the  Collegiate church of St. Matthew. They are small but close.  We fell into conversation, as we so often do, with a lady arranging the flowers for the next day's services. It was a great conversation and she shared with us lots of details of her group and their faith. We clearly identified ourselves right up front and were able to exchange some shared viewpoints as fellow Christians. We did think of issuing some kind of invitation but it didn't seem quite right when (a) she was talking to us inside her own church and (b) telling us how happy she was in her own group. We accepted that we had made a friend and potentially she will have a favourable view of Mormons when she next meets them. Perhaps our earlier visit to the Covenanter's monument influenced our thinking. A little tolerance and Christians grouping together in the world, rather than contending, is not a bad thing. Not that this changes our own personal convictions for a second, but this was not the time and not the place.

On a side note it turns out to be very easy to open conversations with strangers if you start by complimenting them on something, whether it be flowers, their dog (everyone with a dog, loves their dog), or the colour of their shoes--yes there are lots of people with amazingly luminous shoes, and since they bought them and wear them, it's safe to assume they are proud of them.