Holyrood

“ Holyrood was one of those great monastic establishments in which kings could find a lodgment more luxurious than in their own castles, and though there would scarcely seem as yet to have been any palace attached to that holy house, it was already a frequent residence of royalty, and with all its amenities of parks and gardens would be more fit for the reception of a young queen coming straight from princely Windsor than the narrow chambers in the castle. ”

“ The scarlet woman who spreadeth her mantle over the Seven Hills, and waveth her white arms abroad to lure souls to perdition, seducing some with indulgences and driving others to despair with her curse, is battling for her very existence, and that of the reptiles she hath spawned, and who crawl around her feet. Here in Scotland—ay, at Holyrood itself—hath not an image been erected unto Baal? ”

“ THE long irregular line of slowly ascending mediæval street from Holyrood to the Castle was, and is, the backbone of Old Edinburgh. From this backbone there jut out on either side, forming, as it were, the ribs from the spine, all those narrow wynds and quaint closes so characteristic of the Old Town, and so full of the traditions and stories of Old Town life. The main street itself is in three divisions—the Canongate, nearest to Holyrood, then the main portion, or High Street, and, highest up and nearest to the Castle, the Lawnmarket. ”

“ The picture of the magnificent ruin with its delightful accessories, the songs of birds, the soft, genial summer air, the peaceful sky, the half pleasant, half mournful recollections which it arouses, fades from memory, and in its stead rises the semblance of another venerable pile, half abbey, half palace, lying at the foot of lofty crags—the world famous Holyrood. ”

“ Such an opportunity might not offer again, and I knew that Scotland's story was graven upon the face of her Capital. Under the cover of the night I would begin my journey home. So I walked down the Lawn Market, and descended the Canongate until I came within sight of Holyrood. As I went I admired the lordly houses which flanked each side of the thoroughfare--some of them gaunt, grey and forbidding; others finely timbered; others again turreted and adorned with stone-fretwork that proclaimed the high skill of the carvers' art. ”

“ At the end of Canongate, the prolongation of High Street, we come out on a large open square. The palace of Holyrood is before us.
Standing in a hollow, and surrounded by high hills, the aspect of the palace is most sombre. From the moment you cross the threshold, a thousand sad thoughts assail you. You are in the home of Mary Stuart. Everything speaks to you of her. Her sweet, tragic face, her noble presence, her thoughtful brow—you see all again in these halls instinct with her souvenir. They haunt the place as they still haunt the memory of the Scotch. ”

“ Then, walking down towards the other extremity, we entered the Canon Gate, extending down the hill towards Holyrood Palace—Canon Gate, which was the residence of the wealthy canons of the church when Holyrood was an abbey, and after the Reformation the abode of the Scottish aristocracy. At one end of the old city stands Holyrood, at the other the castle rock rears its rugged height.
The new city is beautifully laid out in broad streets and squares, which are adorned with imposing buildings, monuments, and bronze statues of celebrated men ”

“ We drove in under Arthur’s Seat, where the crowd began to be very great, and here the Guard of Royal Archers met us; Lord Elcho walking near me, and the Duke of Roxburgh and Sir J. Hope on Albert’s side. We passed by Holyrood Chapel, which is very old and full of interest, and Holyrood Palace, a royal-looking old place. The procession moved through the Old Town up the High Street, which is a most extraordinary street from the immense height of the houses, most of them being eleven stories high, and different families living in each story. Every window was crammed full of people. ”

“ Slowly and majestically the brilliant train paced down the great street of Edinburgh, the acclamations of the multitude ceaselessly expressing the delight which the people of Scotland felt in this sensible type and emblem of their ancient independence. At length they reached the court-yard of Holyrood-house, where the duke and duchess invited the whole assemblage to a ball, which they designed to give that evening in the hall of the palace ”

“ The young nobility, who had formed great expectations of the splendour and gaiety that were to result, as they thought, from the establishment of a new court, with a young couple at the head of it, were miserably disappointed that pleasure alone was not the deity enshrined in the royal dwelling. To the Queen’s palace they gave the name of Holyrood House, intending to denote thereby that it was the mere abode of chill, gloom, and meanness. ”

“ Ten minutes after his entrance into the city by the Kirk-o'-field Porte, saw him in the presence of Arran, in the old Tower of Holyrood, along the shadowy corridors and past the tall windows of which lights were seen to flicker, and the glitter of armed figures, with helmets and partisans, flitting to and fro, like spectres, half seen and half lost in gloom, as gentlemen and men-at-arms betook them to their harness with soldier-like alacrity. ”

“ In the one, you may perhaps see female prisoners taking exercise like a string of nuns; in the other, schoolboys running at play and their shadows keeping step with them. From the bottom of the valley, a gigantic chimney rises almost to the level of the eye, a taller and a shapelier edifice than Nelson’s Monument. Look a little farther, and there is Holyrood Palace, with its Gothic frontal and ruined abbey, and the red sentry pacing smartly too and fro before the door like a mechanical figure in a panorama. ”

“ Close by this was Holyrood House, or the Palace proper, built in the earlier part of the Sixteenth Century, and chiefly by James IV., to form a distinct royal dwelling, and so supersede that occasional accommodation in the Abbey itself which had sufficed for Scottish sovereigns before Edinburgh was their habitual or capital residence. One block of this original Holyrood House still remains in the two-turreted projection of the present Holyrood which adjoins the ruined relic of the Abbey, and which contains the rooms now specially shown as “Queen Mary’s Apartments.” ”

“ One would imagine that for a man who had lived through that episode in the heart of the old kingdom of the Stewarts, and whose house lay half-way between the artillery of the castle, where a hostile garrison sat grimly watching the invaders below, and the camp at Holyrood—there would have been nothing in his life so exciting, nothing of which the record would have been more distinct. ”

“ The palace of Holyrood-house is an elegant piece of architecture, but sunk in an obscure, and, as I take it, unwholesome bottom, where one would imagine it had been placed on purpose to be concealed. The apartments are lofty, but unfurnished; and as for the pictures of the Scottish kings, from Fergus I. to king William, they are paultry daubings, mostly by the same hand, painted either from the imagination, or porters hired to sit for the purpose. All the diversions of London we enjoy at Edinburgh, in a small compass. ”

“ The canons of the Abbey of Holyrood, or Holyrood House as it is called from the beginning with a curious particularity, had also permission to build another town between themselves and Edinburgh, which would naturally cluster round the Canon's Gate—the road that led to St. Cuthbert's, at the farther end of the North Loch, where every man could say his mass; or more directly still to the dark little chapel upon the castle rock, made sacred by all its memorials of the blessed Margaret. ”

“ All who come from the vicinity of the Louvre, or the Hotel de Guise, bring dangerous letters to Holyrood, dangerous at least to us, and we must have them."
"He has come from France, my lords,—from France direct," said Symon Brodie, approaching and speaking in a whisper, as the abashed landlord withdrew. "Mairower, he is Florence Fawside of that ilk." ”

“ In Scotland as elsewhere the great religious houses seem to have been the best adapted to give hospitality to kings. It was long after this date before anything that could be called an independent royal residence was built at Holyrood itself: for generations the King and Court were but guests in the stately abbey, which was, like the monastery of the Black Friars, so convenient and commodious a house both for entertainment and shelter that its great chambers became the natural, as they were the most stately and pleasant, lodging that could be provided for a monarch. ”

“ Horses were prepared for Mary and her large company of attendants, to ride from Leith to Edinburgh. The long cavalcade moved toward evening. The various professions and trades of Edinburgh were drawn up in lines on each side of the road, and thousands upon thousands [Pg 115] of other spectators assembled to witness the scene. When she reached the Palace of Holyrood House, a band of music played for a time under her windows, and then the great throng quietly dispersed, leaving Mary to her repose. The adjoining engraving represents the Palace of Holyrood as it now appears. ”

“ From Edinburgh Castle, a gradually descending walk, through some of the most interesting portions of the old city, will take the visitor to Holyrood Palace and Abbey,—quite a distance, but which should be walked rather than rode, if the tourist is a pedestrian of moderate powers, as it is thronged with so many points of historic interest, to which I can only make a passing allusion. ”

“ Holyrood, an abbey founded at Edinburgh in 1128 by David I., and dedicated in honour of the Holy Cross, a casket of gold shaped like a cross brought to the country by St. Margaret in 1070; a palace was afterwards attached, which became the chief seat of the Scottish sovereigns of the Stuart dynasty; the parks around were at one time a sanctuary for debtors.
Holywell (3) , a market-town of Flintshire, has an elevated situation, 15 m. NW. of Chester; the principal industry is the smelting of lead, iron, copper, and zinc ores obtained from the surrounding mines ”

“ No doubt it would be a favourite walk with all to pass the port and see what was doing among the great people down yonder at Holyrood, or watch a gay band of French knights arriving from Leith with their pennons displayed, full of some challenge lately given by the knights of Scotland, or eager to maintain on their own account the beauty of their ladies and the strength of their spears against all comers. Edinburgh can never have been so amusing, never so gay and bright, as in these fine times ”

“ His dark eyes were full of animation, and the ringlets of his rich brown hair fluttered in the breeze as he waved his plumed cap to the people who loved him well, for he was better pleased to be thought the king of the poor than king of the peers of Scotland. He was surrounded by all the great officers of state and household; Robert, abbot of Holyrood, bearing his high treasurer's mace with its beryl ball, rode beside Colville of Culross, the great chamberlain of Scotland. ”

“ Holyrood Palace comes into the story as the place where Roland was presented to the Regent Murray, an introduction into which Scott is believed to have woven some recollections of his own presentation to the Duke {267} of Wellington. Although the palace has stood for many centuries and has been the abode of many kings, its real interest centres about the fortunes of Mary Queen of Scots. ”

“ One may, however, if he is interested in slums, pause a moment to look down through the railings of the South Bridge on the screaming peddlers and flaunting shame of bedraggled Cowgate, and behold a district which stands to Edinburgh in the relative position of Rivington Street to New York, or Petticoat Lane to London, or Montmartre to Paris.
The end of the Canongate, a few steps farther on, debouches unexpectedly, and with a sudden unpreparedness for the stranger, on the great open square before Holyrood. There it stands, black and dismal; more like a prison than a palace! ”

“ After the time of Flodden Field, the monarchs very seldom used the castle for anything but a stronghold against their enemies, Holyrood Palace becoming their favourite residence. The last Prince to be born in the [pg 76] castle was James VI., his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, having chosen to be within the protection of its strong walls. ”

“ EDINBURGH. E spend our days as usual, “sight-seeing.” The first place we sought was Holyrood Palace. It is not palatial compared to Windsor, Hampton Court, and the situation is not a cheerful one—low, in a kind of a hollow. I can imagine it oppressively gloomy to a young girl of nineteen, just from gay and sunny Paris, and one of the ornaments of its brilliant court. In the picture gallery there is a lovely, full-length portrait of Mary; but there is a still lovelier picture of her at the castle. ”

“ As one looks down on the busy mass below; when he sees the ruins of this animated map spread out beneath him,—hills, ravine, parks, monuments, princely edifices, as the busy hum of life surges up to him,—he loses sight of "the good time coming," and is satisfied with that which has come already.
Holyrood Palace is situated on the level ground between Calton Hill and Salisbury Crags, the portion connecting the old and new parts of the city. The edifice is built of a brown freestone, and the palace is open to visitors for a small fee. ”