John Knox.

Our U3A history group had a visit to Saint Giles' Cathedral this afternoon. The guide was good and interesting, but committed the cardinal since of not telling us about the green men in the church. Our group had been split up into two, each with its own guide, and it was only when talking in the gift shop afterwards that I found out about them; however, it was good that that the guides do work on their own initiative. The blip cost me two pounds, the price for using a camera there; a tripod would have been useful with the low light, but the staff might have objected to that, I might have got away with a "gorillapod" though.

I was interested to learn that in his early adult life Knox was a galley slave and made alliances with some of his colleagues(?) that would be useful in later life, that for a religious man he was remarkably intolerant of those whose views were at variance with his own, even to the extent of calling for the deaths of his opponents, but I suppose that was par for the course in his times.
He was also reputed to have preached under the Walking Yew at Ormiston (16 October 2013).

I’m afraid that I found the background in this picture was rather annoying and so removed it. "Art is beauty, beauty is truth" (or something like that: Douglas Adams).