Comments on: Seeing the light (box) at Rosslyn Chapel

By: bshistorian

bshistorian — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:51:27 +0000

Hi Steve, and thanks very much for the positive comments. It’s great to see someone who might otherwise be swept up in the romanticism actually taking a closer look at things. I’m sure there’s still plenty to be proud of and interested in without some of the claims that you’ll no doubt be debunking in the process.

Otherwise, things seem to have been pretty quiet on the Rosslyn front – but I’m sure it won’t be long before someone else has a bash!

Look forward to checking out your site.

By: Steve St. Clair

Steve St. Clair — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:58:59 +0000

Terrific reading here. It’s so refreshing to see these subjects (Rosslyn in particular) given a critical examination. Some members of my family are guilty of perpetuating these myths and I, for one, grow increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of any scientific honesty some of my family encourage.

I run the St. Clair / Sinclair DNA project worldwide and am about to come out with a compete report, scientifically based, as honest and critical as possible, in which I examine my family’s path through history and all these stories and myths against the hard cold truth of DNA.

I’ll notify you when to look at the updated site.

Keep up the good work and
Kind Regards,

Steve St. Clair

By: sarsen56

sarsen56 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:22:19 +0000

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By: Rosslyn Chapel’s musical cubes silenced? « The BS Historian

Rosslyn Chapel’s musical cubes silenced? « The BS Historian — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:44:00 +0000

[...] restoration had yet to appear on the radar. Just look at the radically different 1861 replacement east window – and that was intact when they started! The other possibility is that Swarbreck’s [...]

By: bshistorian

bshistorian — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:14:27 +0000

Once again Michael, I greatly appreciate your input – I would not otherwise have been aware of Bambrough’s article. Now to find a copy…

I now have my copy of Rosslyn Chapel Revealed (as opposed to Rosslyn Revealed!) and look forward to getting to grips with it.

By: Michael T R B Turnbull

Michael T R B Turnbull — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:46:01 +0000

The ultimate word on the question is Mark Bambrough’s heavily-illustrated article in The Stained Glass Journal (The British Society of Master Glass Painter Journal [Scotland issue vol. xxx, 2006] ‘Rosslyn Chapel: A Glazing History’. Mr Bambrough is the leading expert on medieval stained glass in Scotland. He confirms that the medieval ‘red light-box’ theory is not based on fact or evidence. Parts of the dismantled medieval stone tracery of the East Window are in the small exhibition down in the Crypt.

By: Graham H

Graham H — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:42:44 +0000

Hi there

Thank you for clearing his up. Rosslyn Revealed is utter pants. It is a manifestation of tired, desperate, immature egos. It misleads readers ignores contradictory facts and is a total waste of money and time. I was utterly frustrated after I read it and demanded a refund from Amazon, which they gave me. They informed me that I was not the only person who had returned this book.

By: bshistorian

bshistorian — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:24:52 +0000

Hi Michael, and thanks for your most interesting comment. I’m glad to see that I’m on the right track with this one. Your book was already on my “to read” list – I’ll look out a copy ASAP.

By: Michael T R B Turnbull

Michael T R B Turnbull — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:06:39 +0000

At last, someone has published the truth. I concur precisely with your conclusions, basing my evidence, as you do, on the Glasgow University Archives Hill and Adamson paper negatives and narrow the replacement of the medieval stone tracery to the 1861 ‘restoration’ (much criticised by the Association of Architects of Scotland) where acid and abrasives were used and indecipherably eroded stone bosses replaced with pristine ‘Masonic’ ones in the Lady Chapel. Prior to the 1860s there were lozenge-shaped lead windows i the rest of the Chapel. More important than Sir Gilbert Haye (cited by Ritchie and Butler) was the Augustinian priest, Fr Richard Augustine Hay, whose voluminous writings can be consulted in manuscript at the National Library of Scotland. Almost everything we know today about Rosslyn Chapel and the St Clair family comes from his transcriptions of now-lost family charters – apart from the one that came up for sale on Ebay a few months ago! The charters he transcribed prove that everything the St Clair family did was done quite openly with the knowledge of the King and the great officers of state, many of whom witnessed the signing of the charters. The St Clairs could not afford to get up to any alternative religious practices as the King would undoubtedly have had them executed! The connection between Rosslyn chapel and Freemasonry also began in the 1860s when the Earl of Rosslyn and architect David Bryce were replacing carvings in the Lady Chapel that had decayed beyond recognition. This is when the popular ‘Masonic’ carvings were inserted. As for the Templar connection – Knights Templar belonged to a religious order – they had to swear an oath of poverty, chastity and obedience to the order’s Rule. Most of the St Clair’s were married, most were rich and none obeyed any Rule set down by a religious order. The St Clairs were not Knights Templar but Crusaders. The full story is in my recently-published book, ‘Rosslyn Chapel Revealed’ (Sutton Publishing Ltd.)