Palace of Holyroodhouse: Mary, Darnley and Rizzio
Why is it significant?
Through the iron gates you see it: a long grey palace with a turreted tower at each end, a carved entrance in the middle, and in the forecourt a fountain bristling with Gothic pinnacles and little figures. Behind it rises the green bulk of Arthur's Seat.
Key Facts
| Place | Palace of Holyroodhouse: Mary, Darnley and Rizzio |
|---|---|
| Address | Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8DX, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.95250, -3.17280 |
| Part of Walk | Crowns, Kirks and Sanctuary: Edinburgh's Canongate and the Palace of Holyroodhouse |
| Generated | Generated |
Through the iron gates you see it: a long grey palace with a turreted tower at each end, a carved entrance in the middle, and in the forecourt a fountain bristling with Gothic pinnacles and little figures. Behind it rises the green bulk of Arthur's Seat. This is the King's official residence in Scotland, and few royal homes anywhere have seen so much blood in so small a space.
It began as the guest house of the abbey next door. Around 1500 James IV built a proper palace here for his English bride, Margaret Tudor, and his son James V added the great tower on the left around 1530. Most of what you see today was rebuilt for Charles II in the 1670s by the architect Sir William Bruce, who copied that old tower to make a matching one on the right. Charles himself never set foot in it.
Mary Queen of Scots lived inside the old tower from 1561. On the evening of 9 March 1566 she was at supper in a tiny room off her bedchamber with her secretary, the Italian musician David Rizzio. Her husband, Lord Darnley, came up a private stair with armed nobles. They dragged Rizzio away from the queen, who was six months pregnant, and stabbed him dozens of times. Guides still mention a stain on the floor, which is legend, not forensic fact.
Within a year Darnley himself was dead, found strangled in a garden at Kirk o' Field after an explosion, and Mary had married the man widely suspected of arranging it. Later kings tried to fill the place with dignity instead. Inside hangs a gallery of nearly ninety portraits of Scottish monarchs painted in the 1680s by Jacob de Wet, many of them legendary kings who almost certainly never existed, and several suspiciously alike.
In September 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie held court here for about six weeks, with a ball in that same gallery, before marching south. Today the King comes every summer for a week of ceremonies and a garden party. Now look to the left of the palace front, where roofless Gothic arches rise beside the old tower: the ruins of Holyrood Abbey.