TWENTY-THREE
Faith endures
Viewed from any angle and distance, with the roof of the chapel visible on the hill above or beyond, Rosslyn Castle today suggests a Disney-esque amalgamation of Camelot and a Jane Austen villa, its sides dropping precariously into the glen far below. You could easily imagine a family of JRR Tolkien’s hobbits being in residence here, or one of those necromancer lairds of the Scottish Border ballads.
Turning sharply on to the low road at the south end of Roslin village, a slope snakes languidly downhill, looping and rising steeply to eventually connect with the A6094 close to Rosewell. Since this is an unexpectedly busy and rather narrow route, it is inadvisable to stop if you are driving. However, seen from across the blanket of trees from the south and from the east, the castle grouping becomes a fantasy high-rise from some melancholy mediaeval fable. You might almost expect to see a ‘Here be Dragons’ signpost.
Yet from the front entrance, on the far side and accessed by a bridge over the glen, the aspect is entirely different. The façade of the main dwelling house within the front courtyard is enclosed by the ruinous remains of the fifteenth-century gatehouse, and cordoned off by a hedge. A sixteenth-century gateway to the northern range was modified in 1690. Also in evidence are the remnants of the late fifteenth-century west range, a rectangular-plan tower, a 1597-built east curtain wall tower, and a range modified in 1622. The approach to this courtyard is over a fifteenth-century bridge, largely reconstructed in 1597. The fabric is pink sandstone rubble. The main dwelling, which appears unexpectedly modern among its ruined surroundings, has slate roofs. Windows are sash, casement or fixed, some with astragals.1
From the muddy footpath below the causeway bridge, a stark rock face soars bleakly upwards. A popular belief has it that the Devil himself rode a black horse vertically up this precipice. Look closely. The hoofprints are still visible.
It is almost one thousand years since William St Clair, known as ‘the Seemly’, was granted these lands of Rosslyn by a legendary Scottish king and his saintly Saxon wife. What is all the more remarkable is that his kenspeckle descendants have succeeded in hanging on to their inheritance through siege and battle, religious strife and erosive death duties, a common bane of the British aristocracy. To achieve this, they have simply moved with the times.
Their castle today, whilst remaining in the ownership of the 7th Earl of Rosslyn, is let out through the Landmark Trust, a charity founded in 1965 which rescues and restores historic buildings at risk and makes them available for holiday lettings. Rosslyn Chapel is conserved and opened to the public by the Rosslyn Chapel Trust, which holds it on 99-year lease from the Rosslyn family. The Rosslyn Chapel Trust has ambitious plans for the comprehensive repair of the chapel, securing its long-term future, and for a sensitive new building to welcome visitors and introduce them to the history and architecture of the chapel. In addition, the trust encourages the use of the chapel by the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Thanks to Scotland’s Celtic tradition in which inheritance favours the female line in the absence of an immediate male heir, the family titles of the St Clairs too have passed through the generations relatively intact. Thus we find the earldoms of Caithness and Rosslyn, and the lordship of Sinclair, extant, with the more ancient lordship of St Clair in the process of being reinstated in the Scottish–Swedish Bonde family of Fife.
Have a look on the Internet and, at my last count, there are 5,630,000 websites connected with the name of St Clair, and 7,420,000 associated with that of Sinclair. The ramifications of the worldwide Scottish clan and family associations are far reaching and extraordinary. No other nation has such a groundswell of organised family linkage or such an international heritage.
In April 2005 Rosslyn Chapel was voted an icon of Scotland by the judging panel of Scotland Magazine, which, in addition to its UK circulation, is distributed extensively across North America. Andrew Russell, Chairman of the Rosslyn Chapel Project Group, accompanied by Helen, Countess of Rosslyn, attended a glitzy awards ceremony held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. This Heart of Scotland Icon Award is presented as part of America’s annual Tartan Week celebrations and, in this case, recognised Rosslyn Chapel as ‘a tourist attraction or place in Scotland which best captures the true nature of Scotland’.
Admittedly the vote was to a degree prompted by the success of The Da Vinci Code – which had sold 25 million copies in forty-four languages over two years – and the subsequent upsurge of international interest in the chapel, but it is also fair to say that the judges were unanimous in their affection for a building which they had all, with one exception, visited at some stage in their lives.
Moreover, the publicity surrounding the chapel could not have come at a more beneficial time for the Rosslyn Chapel Trust since over the past eight years the entire building has required substantial and costly renovation. To a great extent this has been funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund, the Eastern Scotland European Partnership and Historic Scotland, but the ongoing costs of maintaining such a fragile survivor of the fifteenth century are enormous.
On a conservative estimate, over £3 million requires to be raised to fund the repair work which began in 1997, starting with a purpose-designed steel structure being erected by the engineer John Addison to enable the stone roof to dry out thoroughly. Since then an overlay of Caithness slate has been placed over the existing crypt roof, and the priest’s cell, with two more modern buildings beside the crypt being made functional. Although concern has been voiced at the startling increase in visitor numbers since the publication of The Da Vinci Code and the numerous Templar-related books, nobody is going to say that the response has been entirely unwelcome. The accumulative entry fees have been the chapel’s salvation.
Baron St Clair Bonde has been involved as a trustee of the Rosslyn Chapel Trust since its formation in 1995, and finds the chapel the most enchanting place regardless of what might or might not be hidden away beneath it. He has a feeling, however, that at some time in the future all will be revealed, but that, he insists, need not necessarily be a bad thing: ‘If that revelation can help join the gap between the three monotheistic religions that all believe in the same God, albeit from different angles, that would be quite something!’ In the meantime, Rosslyn Chapel remains a working church, with Sunday services, a priest, and a congregation, many of whom understandably resent the intrusion of the occasional tourist with a camera or metal detector during their weekly devotions.
In a published series of five sermons, the Revd Michael Fass, the priest in charge, thoughtfully explains his response to a situation which has only recently arisen over the years of his tenure. He has learned that when people say, ‘This place is not really a church, it’s just disguised as one!’ or ‘I know the Head of God is here – where can I find it?’, it is best to challenge them about their understanding of God.2
‘What is the role and mission of the remnant church in this place and how should we respond to such pressures?’ he also asks. Michael Fass remains passionate that Rosslyn Chapel should fulfil its historic role and ‘not be a place of unhealed or false memories, nor of secrets and sensational speculation of “esoteric” enquiry – for there are no secrets here – and not of the New Age search for personal satisfaction, but rather that it should be a place of Healing, Reconciliation and Prayer.’
As for those evasive treasures which the sleeping St Clair knights of Rosslyn guard deep within their chapel vaults, will some future generation with superior technology one day unearth the Ark of the Covenant or Holy Grail, in whatever form it takes? Or the Holy Rude of Scotland, brought to Rosslyn for safekeeping in the sixteenth century? Now that might be a more realistic prize. Perhaps even the head-shrine of St Margaret, given Father Richard Hay’s close connection with the Scots colleges in both Douai and Paris?3 Fabulous as they are, however, these are only physical curiosities belonging to bygone ages. Taken in their totality, Rosslyn Chapel, Rosslyn Castle and the glen of the River North Esk are the real treasures here.
Ultimately, Michael Fass is right. What really matters is the maintenance and development of this place in its historic and modern role as the location of the divine, and of the holy spirit in the story of Jesus, for which purpose it was built. ‘So we should not focus unduly upon the current restoration and touristic or financial aims, which are of course a laudable means to an end, but not the end in itself,’ he says.
No one can accurately predict the future of Rosslyn Chapel, its owners, its congregation, its castle or the landscape which surrounds it. All the same, it would be gratifying to think that its beauty, and the fascination that this engenders, will continue unspoiled for at least another five hundred years and survive, as surely it will, the cacophony of indulgent and often absurd speculation which has engulfed it at the beginning of the third millennium.