ABSTRACT
When Dr Hannah, Dean of St Giles’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, started morning service on Sunday, 23 July 1637, he also began the end of the personal rule. Immediately ‘the inferior multitude’ in the congregation heckled the dean. When the Bishop of Edinburgh entered the pulpit to try and quieten them, they pelted him with cudgels and stools. The Archbishop of St Andrews slipped out through a side door to enlist the aid of the city authorities, who with some difficulty managed to clear the church. As the crowd howled outside, beating at the doors and throwing stones through the cathedral windows, the ministers within finished the service, and then ran the gauntlet back to the safety of their homes. 1
