Murder on the palace floor

The Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh The official residence in Scotland of His Majesty the King

- John Goodall

To coincide with the publication of a new history of the palace, John Goodall offers an overview of the creation, abandonment and rebirth of this working royal residence over the past 900 years

LATE at night on March 26, 1603, an English courtier, Sir Robert Carey, knocked at the gate of Holyrood-house, the principal palace of the Kings of Scotland on the edge of Edinburgh. He was exhausted by a two-day ride from London and bloodied by a bad fall from his horse. Nevertheless, he was ushered immediately into the royal chamber, where James VI had retired to bed. Sir Robert brought the momentous and long-anticipated news that Elizabeth I was dead. According to Sir Robert’s memoir, he knelt before the King and ‘saluted him by his title of England, Scotland, France and Ireland’. In return, the King ‘gave me his hand to kiss and bade me welcome’. Sir Robert then produced ‘a blue ring’—thrown to him by his sister from a window of Richmond Palace—as a token of his reliability.

The succession of James VI to the English throne marked a watershed in the complex history of this remarkable palace, which is now the subject of a magnificently produced volume published this month—The Palace of Holyroodhouse, edited by Deborah Clarke (Royal Collection Trust, £55)—to which this article is indebted.