Presbyterian polity
After the Glorious Revolution, the Scottish bishops remained loyal to James VII. On the advice of William Carstares, who later became minister of the High Kirk, William II supported the abolition of bishops in the Church of Scotland and, in 1689, the Parliament of Scotland restored Presbyterian polity. In response, many ministers and congregants left the Church of Scotland, effectively establishing the independent Scottish Episcopal Church. In Edinburgh alone, eleven meeting houses of this secession sprang up, including the congregation that became Old St Paul's, which was founded when Alexander Rose, the last Bishop of Edinburgh in the established church, led much of his congregation out of St Giles'.