Charles' attempt to impose doctrinal changes on the presbyterian Scottish Kirk, including a Prayer Book causing a riot in St Giles' on 23 July 1637, which precipitated the formation of the Covenanters and the beginnings of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

[42][43] David raised Edinburgh to the status of a burgh and, during his reign, the church and its lands (St Giles' Grange) are first attested, being in the possession of monks of the Order of Saint Lazarus.

[46] Jean Froissart records that, in 1384, Scottish knights and barons met secretly with French envoys in St Giles' and, against the wishes of Robert II, planned a raid into the northern counties of England.

[75] At 3 pm on 29 June 1559 the army of the Lords of the Congregation entered Edinburgh unopposed and, that afternoon, John Knox, the foremost figure of the Reformation in Scotland, first preached in St Giles'.

[89] In 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots was deposed and succeeded by her infant son, James VI, St Giles' was a focal point of the ensuing Marian civil war.

[117] After the Covenanters' loss at the Battle of Dunbar, troops of the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell entered Edinburgh and occupied the East Kirk as a garrison church.

[135] From 1758 to 1800, Hugh Blair, a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and religious moderate, served as minister of the High Kirk; his sermons were famous throughout Britain and attracted Robert Burns and Samuel Johnson to the church.

Burn also removed internal monuments; the General Assembly's meeting place in the Preston Aisle; and the police office and fire engine house, the building's last secular spaces.

[150][151] Its critics included Robert Louis Stevenson, who stated: "…zealous magistrates and a misguided architect have shorn the design of manhood and left it poor, naked, and pitifully pretentious.

[139] Lindsay Mackersy, solicitor and session clerk of the High Kirk, supported Chambers' work and William Hay was engaged as architect; a management board to supervise the design of new windows and monuments was also created.

[196] Following the early 19th-century demolition of the Luckenbooths, Tolbooth, and shops built against St Giles', the walls of the church were exposed to be leaning outward by as much as one and a half feet in places.

[191] Neither Albany nor Douglas was closely associated with St Giles' and tradition holds the aisle was donated in penance for their involvement in the death of David Stewart, Duke of Rothesay.

[248] For the Aisle's dedication as a memorial chapel in the wake of the Second World War, the Minton tiles were replaced with Leoch paving stones from Dundee while the heraldic medallions and marble bands were retained.

[19][240][255][260] The remains of St John's Chapel are visible in the east wall of the north transept: these include fragments of vaulting and a medieval window, which faces into the Chambers Aisle.

[268] Archaeological excavations in the 1980s found evidence these works and the creation of the Preston Aisle may have been partially spurred by a structural failure of parts of the church due to poor foundations and the need for renovations.

[300][301] The largest of these memorials is a massive plaque surmounted by an urn designed by David Bryce to commemorate George Lorimer, Dean of Guild and hero of the 1865 Theatre Royal fire (1867).

[300][305] The first memorial installed after the Chambers restoration was a brass plaque dedicated to Dean James Hannay, the cleric whose reading of Charles I's Scottish Prayer Book in 1637 sparked rioting (1882).

[286][307] Other historical figures commemorated by plaques of this period include Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray (1893); Robert Leighton (1883); Gavin Douglas (1883); Alexander Henderson (1883); William Carstares (1884); and John Craig (1883), and James Dalrymple, 1st Viscount Stair (1906).

[315] Pilkington Jackson executed a pair of bronze relief portraits in pedimented Hopton Wood stone frames to commemorate Cameron Lees (1931) and Wallace Williamson (1936): these flank the entrance to the Thistle Chapel in the south choir aisle.

[321] The Elsie Inglis memorial in the north choir aisle was designed by Frank Mears and sculpted in rose-tinted French stone and slate by Pilkington Jackson (1922): it depicts the angels of Faith, Hope, and Love.

[63][d] The Dean of Guild's accounts from the 16th century also indicate the church possessed an Easter sepulchre, sacrament house, rood loft, lectern, pulpit, wooden chandeliers, and choir stalls.

[2] On 16 December 1558, the goldsmith James Mosman weighed and valued the treasures of St Giles' including the reliquary of the saint's arm bone with a diamond ring on his finger, a silver cross, and a ship for incense.

[338][339] A reredos in the form of a Gothic arcade stood at the east end of the church from the Chambers restoration; this was designed by William Hay and executed in Caen stone with green marble pillars.

[178] A large wooden panel, showing the arms of George II hangs on the tower wall above at the west end of the choir: this is dated 1736 and was painted by Roderick Chalmers.

In 1906, after the sons Ronald Leslie-Melville, 11th Earl of Leven donated £24,000 from their late father's estate, Edward VII ordered a new Chapel to be constructed on the south side of St Giles'.

Lorimer assembled a team of leading figures in the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement, including Phoebe Anna Traquair for enamelwork, Douglas Strachan for stained glass, Joseph Hayes for stonework, and the brothers William and Alexander Clow for woodwork.

[407] Three successive vicars of St Giles' in the 15th century – John Methven, Nicholas Otterbourne, and Thomas Bully – were noted churchmen who also held senior positions in the Scottish royal court.

[408] In 1467, a bull of Pope Paul II made St Giles' a collegiate church and replaced the role of vicar with a provost accompanied by a curate and sixteen canons.

[19] Notable ministers in St Giles' during the 18th century include the influential Covenanter and Whig, William Carstares; the evangelical preacher, Alexander Webster; and Hugh Blair, a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment.

[419] St Giles' is referenced twice in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961): first as a location the title character and her "set" of pupils pass by on a walk around Edinburgh and again as one of the "emblems of a dark and terrible salvation" contemplated by the protagonist, Sandy Stranger.