Palace of Holyroodhouse
The
Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official
residence of the
Monarch
of the United Kingdom in Scotland. Founded as a monastery by
David I, King of Scots in
1128, it has served as the principal residence of the
Kings and Queens of Scots since
the 15th century.
The Palace stands at the bottom of the
Royal Mile in Edinburgh
, the opposite end to Edinburgh Castle
. Queen
Elizabeth II spends one week in residence at Holyrood at the
beginning of each summer, to host garden parties and official
ceremonies.
She then continues to Balmoral Castle
(which she owns) for her annual two-month
summer holiday.
Holyrood is an anglicisation of the
Scots Haly Ruid (Holy Cross).
Abbey
The ruined
Augustinian Abbey that is sited in the grounds was built in 1126
at the order of King David I of Scotland. It has been the site of
many royal coronations and marriage ceremonies. The roof of the
abbey collapsed in the 18th century, leaving it as it currently
stands, a ruin.
The Abbey was adapted as a Chapel for the
Order of the Thistle by King
James VII , but was subsequently
destroyed by a mob.
In 1691 the then-new Kirk of the
Canongate
replaced the Abbey as the local parish church,
where today the Queen attends services when in residence at the
Palace.
Palace
In the fifteenth century a guesthouse stood on the site of the
present north range of the Palace, west of the Abbey and its
cloister. Many of Scotland's medieval Kings stayed here before the
palace’s construction, and by the late 15th century Holyrood was a
royal residence in all but name; not only was
James II born at Holyrood in 1430, it
was in Holyrood that he was crowned, married and laid to rest.
Between 1498 and 1501,
James IV
constructed a new building, with Holyrood becoming a
palace in the true sense of the word.
Holyrood Palace and Abbey 2006
palace was built around a
quadrangle, situated west of the
abbey cloister. It contained a chapel, gallery, royal apartments,
and a great hall. The chapel occupied the present north range of
the Great Quadrangle, with the Queen’s apartments occupying part of
the south range. A third range to the west contained the King’s
lodgings and the entrance to the palace. He also oversaw
construction of a two storey gate house, fragments of which survive
in the Abbey Courthouse.
James V
added to the palace between 1528 and 1536, beginning with the
present north-west tower. In this tower are the famous suite of
rooms once occupied by
Mary, Queen of
Scots.
The wooden ceilings of the main rooms are from Mary’s time and the
monograms MR (Maria Regina) and IR (Jacobus Rex) refer to Mary and
her son,
James VI. Shields
commemorating Mary’s marriage to
Francis II of France are believed to
have been carved in 1559 but put in their present position in 1617.
The suite contains an audience chamber and the Queen's bedroom,
leading from which are two turret rooms. It was in the northern
turret room, on 9 March 1565, that the infamous murder of David
Rizzio took place in Mary's presence. In later centuries, tourists
were often convinced that they could see his blood stains on the
floor.
After James VI became King of England in 1603 and moved to London,
the palace was no longer the seat of a permanent royal court. James
visited it again in 1617 as did
Charles I in 1633, when he was crowned
King of Scotland in Holyrood Abbey.
In 1650, either by accident or design, the palace was fired during
the visit of
Oliver Cromwell and his
soldiers. Cromwell had the palace rebuilt, but his rebuilding was
pulled down and
Charles II had
the palace re-constructed in its present form between 1671 and 1679
by Sir
William Bruce.
James VII and II lived at
Holyrood between 1679 and 1682 while still Duke of York, in the
aftermath of the
Exclusion
crisis.
After 1707, the Palace was used during the elections of Scottish
representative peer.
Bonnie Prince Charlie held court at
Holyrood for five weeksduring the 1745
Jacobite Rising, and following the
French Revolution,
George III allowed
Louis XVI's youngest brother,
the Comte d'Artois to live at Holyrood.
After their second exile, the French royals lived at Holyrood again
from 1830 until 1832 when they moved to Austria.
In modern
times, monarchs have spent at least one week every year formally
holding court in the Palace in Edinburgh. The present Queen still uses it when she is
in Scotland for State occasions (on non-State occasions, she stays
at Balmoral).
Its use
has increased substantially since the setting up of the Scottish
Parliament
in 1999, with various members of the Royal Family,
notably Prince Charles and
Princess Anne often staying
there. At one time it was thought that a member of the Royal
Family, widely expected to be the
Princess Royal (who has strong Scottish
connections) may well become a full-time royal resident in the
Palace, representing the Queen; however, this has not come to
fruition, and the idea was probably no more than a rumour or
fanciful thought by some. At the Palace the Queen meets and
appoints the
First Minister
of Scotland. During the British presidency of the
European Union a meeting of the
European Council took place here.
During times when no members of the Royal Family are in residence,
the Palace is open to the public.
The
Queen's
Gallery
is located within the Palace complex, while the new
Scottish
Parliament Building
is located across the road from the
palace.
Architectural historian Dan
Cruickshank selected the Palace as one of his eight choices for
the
2002 BBC
book
The Story
of Britain's Best Buildings.
Big Royal Dig
The Palace of Holyroodhouse was one of three Royal sites excavated
over four days by the
Time Team of
archaeologists led by
Tony Robinson,
on 25-28 August 2006. In the United Kingdom,
Channel 4 devoted an evening programme to each
day's findings and also followed the whole dig live on
More4, together with a
simulcast on the internet.
A view of the palace and abbey in 1789.
Timed to help celebrate the 80th birthday of
Queen Elizabeth II, along
with many other events ongoing throughout 2006, this marked the
150th dig conducted by
Time Team.
For the
first time, the Queen gave permission for trenches to be dug in
the
Garden
of Buckingham Palace
, as well as in Windsor Castle
, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Big
Royal Dig is an example of the Queen opening up her homes for
greater access to the public, as she did during her
Golden Jubilee Weekend in 2002 and
throughout 2006 for her 80th birthday.
The archaeologists had an unprecedented opportunity to probe the
geophysics and history of three royal residences over a four-day
period, with teams working concurrently in the three
locations.
Part of
the cloister of Holyrood Abbey
, running in line with the existing ruined Augustinian Abbey built in
1128 by King David I of
Scotland, was unearthed. Also the square tower of the
lost palace of
James IV was
discovered. Unfortunately they did not locate the
real tennis court of his granddaughter,
Mary Queen of Scots. (This had been
targeted near "Queen Mary's Bath-house", a building on the
periphery of Holyroodhouse.)
Notably, they found an area of reddened earth, where
Henry VIII had ordered the palace to
be burned when chagrined at the Scots' refusal to marry the infant
Mary Stuart (later
Mary Queen of
Scots) to his son Edward (later
Edward VI).
Among the objects found at Holyroodhouse were a
seal matrix, used to stamp the wax seal on
correspondence or documents, and a 1634
double tournois
coin. The archaeologists also targeted the mound in the garden of
Holyroodhouse, where Queen
Elizabeth II played as a
girl.
The Keeper of Holyroodhouse
Holyrood Palace as seen from Calton
Hill.
Holyrood Palace prior to the fire of
1650.
A measure of the importance of Holyroodhouse is the status of its
Keeper, who was appointed to oversee the Palace in the absence of
the court. There were various grants of the office of
Keeper of
Holyroodhouse until 1646 when
King Charles I conferred it heritably
on the
1st
Duke of Hamilton, whose descendants
have retained it ever since. The post is one of the
Great Offices in the Royal Household
in Scotland, and indeed the private ducal apartments cover a larger
area of the palace than the state ones. As well as his own deputy,
the Keeper still appoints the
Bailie of
Holyroodhouse, who is responsible for law and order within the
Holyrood Abbey Sanctuary. The High Constables of Holyroodhouse are
responsible to the Keeper.
There was
formerly a separate Keeper of
Holyrood Park
, which
surrounds Holyroodhouse, and the title was held on an hereditary
basis by the Earls of
Haddington. This was purchased by the Crown and the
office extinguished in 1843 after disputes over the Keeper's right
to allow quarrying within the Park.
See also
References
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