St. Giles' church and Charles I's coronation visit to Scotland

Abstract In the seventeenth century, St. Giles' was Edinburgh's main church, located, where it still stands today, at the heart of the capital. Yet, during the course of protracted negotiations between 1628 and 1633, Charles and his Scottish privy council vacillated over the suitability of St. Giles' as a venue for the monarch's impending coronation. It remained the favourite in the running until a late stage, before ultimately losing out to Holyrood abbey. This article reconstructs and analyses the story of the church's rejection. It suggests that a caucus of influential Edinburgh citizens mounted a negative campaign to resist the church's selection, anticipating the Caroline court's favoured brand of religious ceremonial. An analysis of Edinburgh's political infrastructure, empowered by absentee monarchy, underpins this reading. It is further substantiated in the closing part of the article by an account of the events that took place at St. Giles' in the immediate aftermath of the coronation. The article concludes by discussing how this particular case study confirms and confounds different strands of early modern British historiography.