ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 403
church, as appears from the Corporation records :-‘‘ 16 June, 1641, the Grayfriars’ Kirk-
Sessionmappliedt o the Corporation, in order to have the Magdalme Chapple bell rung on
their aciount, for which they agreed to pay !240 Scots yearly, which was agreed to duriug
pleasure.’’
This ancient chapel claims our interest now as the arena of proceedings strangely
different from those contemplated by its founders. In 1560, John Craig, B Scottish
Dominican monk, returned to his native country after an absence of twenty-four years,
during which he had experienced a succession of as remarkable vicissitudes as are recorded
of any individual in that eventful age. He had resided as chaplain in the family of Lord
Dacre, an English nobleman, and was afterwards appointed to an honourable office in the
Dominican monastery at Bologna, through the favourable recommendations of the celebrated
Cardinal Pdle. The chance discovery of a copy of Calvin’s Institutes in the
convent library led to an entire change in his religious opinions, in consequence of which
he was compelled to fly ; and being at length seized, he endured a tedious imprisonment
in the dungeons of the Roman Inquisition. From this he was delivered the very day
before that fixed for an Auto-da-f& in which he was doomed to suffer at the stake, in
consequence of the tumultuous rejoicing of the Roman population on the death of the
Pope, Paul IT., in 1559, when the buildings of the Inquisitlbn were pillaged, and its
dungeons broken open. Thence he escaped, amid many strange adventures, first to
Bologna, and then to Vienna, where he was appointed chaplain to the Emperor Maximilian
11. After a time, however, the Inquisition found him out, and demanded his
being delivered up to suffer the judgnent already decreed. “his it was that compelled
his return to Scotland, at the very time when his countrymen were carrying out a system
in conformity with his new opinions. He found, however, on revisiting his country
after so long an absence, that he had almost entirely forgot his native tongue, and he
accordingly preached in Latin for a considerable time, in St Magdalene’s Chapel, tosuch
scholars as his learning and abilities attracted to hear him. He afterwards became
the colleague and successor of Knox, and as such published the banns of marriage in St .
Giles’s Church, preparatory to the fatal union of Queen Mary with Bothwell. We learn
also from Melville’s Diary, that The General1 Assemblie conveinit at Edinbruche
in Apryll 1578, in the Magdalen Chapell. Mr Andro Melvill was chosin Moderator,
whar was concludit, That Bischopes sould be callit be thair awin names, or be the names
of BreitAer in all tyme coming, and that lordlie name and quthoritie banissed from the
Kirk of God, quhilk hes bot‘a Lord, Chryst Jesus.”’ One other incident concerning
the ancient chapel worthy of recording is, that in 1661 the body of the Marquis of
Argyle was carried thither, and lay in the chapel for some days, until it was removed by
his friends to the family sepulchre at Kdmun, while his head was afExed to the north
gable of the Tolbooth.
The Abbey of Holyrood, though a far more wealthy and important ecclesiastical
establishment than St Giles’s College, or any o€her of the ancient religious foundations
of the Scottish capital, may be much more summarily treated of here. Its foundation
charter still exists, and the dates of its successive enlargements and spoliations have
been made the subject of careful investigation by some of our ablest historians. The
Archmlogia Scotica, p. 177. a Melville’s Diary, Wodrow Soc. p. 61.
