Qualla: Church of the Holy Rude https://qualla.com/church-of-the-holy-rude en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/p/church-of-the-holy-rude-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Church of the Holy Rude https://qualla.com/church-of-the-holy-rude Church of the Holy Rude: Introduction https://qualla.com/church-of-the-holy-rude/ Photo credit Char, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 29 July 1567, a thirteen-month-old infant was carried up the slope from Stirling Castle into a church whose nave was already a century old, and was anointed King of Scots. James VI would not remember the ceremony. He had not yet learned to walk. His mother Mary, Queen of Scots, had been forced to abdicate the week before and was a prisoner at Lochleven. Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, performed the rites. John Knox preached the sermon. The Church of the Holy Rude has hosted royalty before and would host the dead of Stirling after, but that one summer afternoon is what gave it permanence in Scottish memory: one of three churches still in active use in Britain that have witnessed a coronation.

Read more: Church of the Holy Rude on Qualla

Image: Char | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/p/church-of-the-holy-rude-wp/gcvp-church-of-the-holy-rude-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Church of the Holy Rude: Founded in Fire and Rebuilt in Stone https://qualla.com/church-of-the-holy-rude/ Photo credit Remi Mathis, CC BY-SA 3.0. David I founded a church on this rock in 1129, naming it for the Holy Rood, the relic of the True Cross. Nothing of that first building survives. A catastrophic fire swept Stirling in 1405, and the church burned with the town. Work on a new nave was underway by 1414, and the vaul...

Read more: Church of the Holy Rude on Qualla

Image: Remi Mathis | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/p/church-of-the-holy-rude-wp/gcvp-church-of-the-holy-rude-founded-in-fire-and-rebuilt-in-stone.mp3 0:06 2 full Church of the Holy Rude: Musket Balls and Schism https://qualla.com/church-of-the-holy-rude/ Photo credit Stephencdickson, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Church of the Holy Rude wears its scars. The north wall and tower are pocked with musket-ball damage, long attributed to the siege of Stirling Castle by General Monck in 1651 during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Closer study suggests something stranger. The damage clusters ...

Read more: Church of the Holy Rude on Qualla

Image: Stephencdickson | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/p/church-of-the-holy-rude-wp/gcvp-church-of-the-holy-rude-musket-balls-and-schism.mp3 0:06 3 full Church of the Holy Rude: The Body-Snatching Stone https://qualla.com/church-of-the-holy-rude/ Photo credit Stephencdickson, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the old graveyard, beside seventeenth-century slabs and the moss-softened heraldry of merchants, stands a stone unlike any other in Scotland. It carves a depiction of body-snatching directly into the granite. Mary Stevenson died in November 1822, aged 55. Two days after her bu...

Read more: Church of the Holy Rude on Qualla

Image: Stephencdickson | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/p/church-of-the-holy-rude-wp/gcvp-church-of-the-holy-rude-the-body-snatching-stone.mp3 0:06 4 full Church of the Holy Rude: The Glass and the Oak https://qualla.com/church-of-the-holy-rude/ Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Inside, the building is light and architecture. The late nineteenth century filled the windows with stained glass by Ballantine and Co., Adam and Small, and Cottier and Co., colour pouring into the medieval frame. In 1940, in the middle of another war, the church was carefully re...

Read more: Church of the Holy Rude on Qualla

Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/v/p/church-of-the-holy-rude-wp/gcvp-church-of-the-holy-rude-the-glass-and-the-oak.mp3 0:06 5 full