Holyroodhouse and abbey in 1789.jpg

The Palace of Holyroodhouse ( or ), commonly referred to as Holyrood Palace or Holyroodhouse, is the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. Located at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, at the opposite end to Edinburgh Castle, Holyroodhouse has served as the principal royal residence in Scotland since the 16th century, and is a setting for state occasions and official entertaining.

The late Queen Elizabeth II spent one week in residence at Holyroodhouse at the beginning of each summer, where she carried out a range of official engagements and ceremonies. The 16th-century historic apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the State Apartments, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public throughout the year, except when members of the royal family are in residence. The Queen's Gallery was built at the western entrance to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and opened in 2002 to exhibit works of art from the Royal Collection. The gardens of the palace are set within Holyrood Park.

History

12th–15th centuries

The ruined Augustinian Holyrood Abbey that stands next to the Palace of Holyroodhouse was founded in 1128 at the order of King David I. The name derives either from a legendary vision of the cross witnessed by David I, or from a relic of the True Cross known as the Holy Rood or Black Rood, and which had belonged to Saint Margaret, David's mother.Clarke, p. 8. As a royal foundation, and sited close to Edinburgh Castle, it became an important administrative centre. A Papal legate was received here in 1177, while in 1189 a council of nobles met to discuss a ransom for the captive William the Lion.McWilliam ''et al''. p. 125. The Parliament of Scotland met at the abbey seven times between 1256 and 1410, and in 1328 the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton was signed by Robert the Bruce in the ‘King’s Chamber’ at the abbey, indicating that it may already have been in use as a royal residence. In 1371, David II became the first of several kings to be buried at Holyrood Abbey, and James II was born, crowned, married, and buried there. James III and Margaret of Denmark were married at Holyrood in 1469. The early royal residence was in the abbey guesthouse, and by the later 15th century the king occupied dedicated royal lodgings.

16th century

Between 1501 and 1505, James IV constructed a Gothic palace adjacent to the abbey. The impetus for the work probably came from the marriage of James IV to Margaret Tudor, which took place in the abbey in August 1503 while work was still ongoing. The Palace of Holyroodhouse 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 north range of the quadrangle, with the queen's apartments occupying part of the south range. The west range contained the king's lodgings and the entrance to the palace. The master mason Walter Merlioun built a two-storey gatehouse, which was demolished in 1753, although fragments of it remain in the 19th century Abbey Court House which stands on Abbey Strand. The upper floor of the gatehouse was a workshop for the glazier Thomas Peebles until 1537, when it was converted into a space for mending the royal tapestries. In 1512 a lion house and menagerie were constructed in the palace gardens to house the king's lion, civet, tigers, lynx, and bears.Clarke, p. 9. James IV held tournaments of the Wild Knight and the Black Lady in Edinburgh in 1507 and 1508. These events concluded with banquets in the great hall. As the final act of these theatrical events, the Black Lady came into the hall with her Spanish page "Little Martin". A cloud descended from the roof and swept them both away.

James V added to the palace between 1528 and 1536, beginning with the present James V's Tower, which is the oldest surviving part of the palace. This huge rectangular tower, rounded at the corners, provided new royal lodgings at the north-west corner of the palace. Originally equipped with a drawbridge leading to the main entrance on the first floor, it may also have been protected by a moat, and provided a high degree of security. The south range was remodelled, and the old queen’s apartments were converted into a new chapel, and the former chapel in the north range was converted into the Council Chamber, where ceremonial events normally took place. James IV’s west range was demolished and a new west range in the Renaissance style was built to house new state rooms, including the royal library.McWilliam ''et al''. p. 126. The symmetrical composition of the west range suggested that a second tower at the south-west was planned, though this was never executed at the time.Clarke, p. 10. Around a series of lesser courts were ranged the Governor's Tower, the armoury, the mint, a forge, kitchens, and other service quarters. James V’s first wife, Madeleine of Valois, died at Holyroodhouse in 1537.

The English armies of the Earl of Hertford sacked Edinburgh and caused extensive damage to the palace and the abbey in 1544 and 1547 during the War of the Rough Wooing. Repairs were made by Mary of Guise, and in May 1559 she had a new altarpiece installed in the chapel royal, featuring paintings from Flanders set in a frame made by a French carpenter Andrew Mansioun. The altars were destroyed by a Protestant mob later in the same year, and after the Scottish Reformation was formalised, the abbey buildings were neglected. The choir and transepts of the abbey church were pulled down in 1570. The nave was retained as the parish church of the Canongate.
The royal apartments in James V's Tower were occupied by Mary, Queen of Scots from her return to Scotland in 1561 to her forced abdication in 1567. The palace was heated with coal from Wallyford in East Lothian. The queen had archery butts erected in the south gardens to allow her to practise, and she hunted deer in Holyrood Park. There was also a flock of sheep in the park which were managed for the queen by the keeper, John Huntar. Some of her French servants formed relationships with women in the Canongate. The Kirk authorities disapproved and made five of these unmarried women stand with bared heads at the cross near the palace for three hours in December 1564. The series of famous audiences Mary gave to John Knox took place in her audience chamber at Holyroodhouse, and she married her second husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, in her private chapel in July 1565.Clarke, p. 12. It was in the royal apartments that Mary witnessed the murder of David Rizzio, her private secretary, on 9 March 1566. Darnley and several nobles entered the queen’s apartments via the private stair from Darnley's own apartments below. Bursting in on the queen, Rizzio and four other courtiers, who were at supper, they dragged Rizzio through the bedchamber and into the outer chamber, where he was stabbed to death, allegedly receiving fifty-seven dagger wounds. Mary married her third husband, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, at the palace in May 1567.Clarke, p. 12.

During the subsequent Marian civil war, on 25 July 1571, William Kirkcaldy of Grange bombarded the king’s men garrisoned inside the palace with cannon positioned in the Black Friar Yard, near the Pleasance. James VI took up residence at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in 1579 when he began his personal rule. The palace was refurbished by William MacDowall with a new north gallery painted by Walter Binning, and an apartment for the king's favourite, Esmé Stewart. The coronation of James’s queen, Anne of Denmark, took place in Holyrood Abbey in 1590, at which time the royal household at the palace numbered around 600 persons. The palace was not however secure enough to prevent the king and queen being surprised in their lodgings during two raids in December 1591 and July 1593 by Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, a nobleman implicated by the North Berwick Witch Trials. Three of James VI’s children, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Charles, were baptised in the chapel royal. The Parliament of Scotland met at the Palace of Holyroodhouse on 29 occasions between 1573 and 1630.

17th century

James VI was in residence at Holyroodhouse on 26 March 1603 when Sir Robert Carey arrived at the palace to inform the King of Scots that Elizabeth I had died two days earlier, and that James was now King of England and Ireland. With James’s accession to the English throne and his move south to reside in London, the palace was no longer the seat of a permanent royal court. James visited in 1617, and the Chapel Royal was redecorated for the occasion. The west front was remodelled in 1633 in preparation for the coronation of Charles I at Holyrood Abbey, and Charles resided at the palace again from August to November 1641. In 1646 he conferred on James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton and his descendants the office of Hereditary Keeper of the palace. In November 1650, the palace was damaged extensively by fire while it was occupied by Oliver Cromwell’s troops. After this, much of the palace was abandoned.

Following the restoration of Charles II in 1660, the Palace of Holyroodhouse once again became a royal palace and the meeting place of the reconstituted Privy Council.Clarke, p. 14. Repairs were put in hand to allow use of the palace by the Earl of Lauderdale, the Secretary of State, and a full survey was carried out in 1663 by John Mylne.Clarke, p. 14. In 1670, the Privy Council decided to almost completely rebuild the palace. Apart from Holyroodhouse and Windsor Castle, Charles II failed to complete any of his palace modernisation schemes, largely due to lack of money.Clarke, p. 14.McWilliam ''et al''. p. 127. The reason that the Palace of Holyroodhouse was seen as a priority and was completed was that the rebuilding of the palace was paid for by the Privy Council.Clarke, p. 14.McWilliam ''et al''. p. 127. Following the failure of proposals for political union with England in 1669, the Council wanted to emphasise Edinburgh’s position as a royal capital and seat of government. At the time, it seemed unlikely that Charles II would ever visit Edinburgh. In practice, the royal apartments would be occupied by the Lord High Commissioner, and the other apartments were to be given over as lodgings for various officers of state.Clarke, p. 14.McWilliam ''et al''. p. 127.

As Lord High Commissioner from 1669 to 1678, John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale was vicegerent in Scotland and, as the principal occupant of the new palace, he closely supervised the building operations. Plans for complete reconstruction were drawn up by Sir William Bruce, the Surveyor General of the King's Works, and Robert Mylne, the King's Master Mason. The design included a gothic south-west tower to mirror the existing north-west tower, a plan which had existed since at least Charles I's time. Following criticism of Bruce's initial plans for the internal layout from Charles II, Bruce redesigned the layout to provide suites of royal apartments on the first floor, with the Queen's Apartments (built for Catherine of Braganza) in the west range and the King's Apartments in the south and east ranges. The two were linked by the Great Gallery to the north, and the Council Chamber occupied the south-west tower.

Construction began in July 1671, starting at the north-west, which was ready for use by Lauderdale the following year, and by 1674 much of the work was complete. In 1675 Lord Haltoun became the first of many nobles to take up a grace-and-favour apartment in the palace. A second phase of work started in 1676, when the Duke of Lauderdale ordered Bruce to demolish and rebuild the main west façade, resulting by 1679 in the present west front which forms the main entrance. Bruce also constructed a kitchen block to the south-east of the Quadrangle. By 1679 the palace had been reconstructed, largely in its present form. Craftsmen employed included the Dutch carpenters Alexander Eizat and Jan van Santvoort, and their compatriot Jacob de Wet who painted several ceilings. The elaborate plasterwork was carried out by the English plasterers John Houlbert and George Dunsterfield.Clarke, p. 16. In November 1679, James, Duke of Albany, the future James VII, and his wife, Mary of Modena, took up residence at Holyroodhouse following James’s appointment as Lord High Commissioner.McWilliam et al. p. 128. They resided at the palace until February 1680, and then again from October 1680 to May 1682, and during this period culture flourished in Edinburgh under the patronage of James’s vice-regal court. His daughter Anne also resided at Holyroodhouse between 1681 and 1682. When James acceded to the throne in 1685, the Catholic king set up a Jesuit college in the Chancellor's Lodging to the south of the palace. James VII founded the Order of the Thistle in May 1687 and Holyrood Abbey was designated as the chapel for the new order. The interiors of the chapel, and the Jesuit College, were subsequently destroyed by an anti-Catholic mob in December 1688, following the beginning of the Glorious Revolution.

18th century

After the Union of Scotland and Englandin 1707 the palace lost its principal functions. The office of Lord High Commissioner ceased to exist, and with the abolition of the Privy Council in 1708 the Council Chamber became redundant. The Dukes of Hamilton, as Hereditary Keepers, had already taken over the Queen's Apartments in James V's Tower 1684, while the King's Apartments were neglected, and various nobles occupied the grace-and-favour apartments in the palace.

Holyroodhouse briefly became a royal palace once again when Charles Edward Stuart, as 'Prince Regent' for his father, set up court at the palace for six weeks in September and October 1745, during the Jacobite Rising. Charles occupied the Duke of Hamilton's apartments rather than the King's Apartments, and held balls and other entertainments in the Great Gallery. In January 1746, following their defeat by the Jacobite army at the Battle of Falkirk Muir, the government troops of Henry Hawley who were billeted in the palace damaged the royal portraits in the Gallery. The Duke of Cumberland also occupied the apartments in James V's Tower during his march north to Culloden. The potential of the palace as a tourist attraction was already being recognised, with the Duke of Hamilton allowing paying guests to view Mary, Queen of Scots´ apartments in James V's Tower. The precincts of Holyrood Abbey, extending to the whole of Holyrood Park, had been designated as a debtors' sanctuary since the 16th century. Those in debt could escape their creditors, and imprisonment, by taking up residence within the sanctuary, and a small community grew up to the west of the palace. The residents, known colloquially as "Abbey Lairds", were able to leave the sanctuary on Sundays, when no arrests were permitted. The area was controlled by a baillie, and by several constables, appointed by the Keeper of Holyroodhouse. The constables now form a ceremonial guard at the palace.Clarke, p. 20.

19th century

Following the French Revolution, George III allowed the Comte d'Artois, the exiled younger brother of Louis XVI of France, to live at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Artois - who would accede to the French throne in 1824 as Charles X - resided at Holyroodhouse from 1796 to 1803. He occupied the King’s Apartments, and during this period the palace was refurbished. Artois took advantage of the sanctuary provided by the abbey to avoid his creditors. His sons, Louis Antoine and Charles Ferdinand, also spent periods at Holyroodhouse with their father.

During his visit to Scotland in 1822, King George IV became the first reigning monarch since Charles I in 1641 to visit the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Although he was lodged at Dalkeith Palace, the king held a levée at Holyroodhouse, received addresses, and was shown the historic apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots. He ordered repairs to the palace but declared that Queen Mary's rooms should be protected from any future changes. Between 1824 and 1834, Robert Reid oversaw works including the demolition of all the outlying buildings to the north and south of the quadrangle, and the refacing of the south front. Following the July Revolution of 1830, Charles X of France went into exile again, and he arrived to reside at Holyroodhouse again in October, along with his grandson and heir, Henri, Count of Chambord, the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, the Duchess of Berry, Louise Marie Thérèse d'Artois, and their household. The Bourbons remained in Edinburgh until September 1832, when they moved to Prague. In 1834 William IV agreed that the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland could make use of the palace during the General Assembly’s annual meeting, and this tradition continues today.

On the first visit of Queen Victoria to Scotland in 1842, she also stayed at Dalkeith Palace, and was prevented from visiting Holyroodhouse due to an outbreak of scarlet fever in the vicinity. Renovations were carried out by Robert Matheson of the Office of Works in preparation for the queen and Prince Albert's 1850 residence at the palace, and the King's Apartments were refurbished by David Ramsay Hay: the King’s Closet was used as the queen’s breakfast room, the King’s Ante-Chamber as the queen’s bedroom, and the King’s Bedchamber became Prince Albert’s dressing room. A statue of Victoria was erected in the Forecourt in 1851 (it was replaced by the fountain in 1858), and in 1855-56 the King's Drawing Room (the present Throne Room) was refitted by Robert Matheson. Over the next few years, the lodgings of the various nobles were gradually repossessed and, in 1871, Victoria was able to take possession of the second-floor apartments formerly occupied by the Dukes of Argyll (by virtue of their position as Masters of the Household) as her private apartments, freeing up the King’s Apartments to be used as public apartments. From 1854 the historic apartments in James V's Tower were formally opened to the public. Victoria last resided at the palace in November 1886.

20th century to the present day

Although Edward VII visited briefly in 1903, it was George V who transformed Holyroodhouse into a modern palace, with the installation of central heating, electric lighting, the modernisation of the kitchens, and the addition of new bathrooms and a lift. In 1922 the palace was selected as the site of the Scottish National Memorial to Edward VII and a statue of Edward was erected on the Forecourt, facing the Abbey. As part of the memorial, the Forecourt was also enclosed with boundary walls, richly decorated wrought-iron railings and gates. The palace was formally designated as the monarch's official residence in Scotland and became the location for regular royal ceremonies and events.

Elizabeth II spent one week (known as ‘Royal Week’) at the Palace of Holyroodhouse each summer during her reign. While serving as Duke of Rothesay, Charles III also stayed at Holyroodhouse for one week a year, carrying out official duties. Following the death of Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle in September 2022, her coffin was transported to the palace, where it lay in repose in the Throne Room from 11 to 12 September, before being taken in procession to St Giles' Cathedral. These were the first obsequies held in Scotland for a monarch since the burial of James V at Holyrood Abbey in January 1543.

Investitures and banquets are held in the palace's Great Gallery, audiences are held in the Morning Drawing Room, lunch parties and receptions take place in the Throne Room, dinner parties are held in the State Dining Room, and annual garden parties are hosted in the gardens. When the King is in residence, the Scottish version of the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom is flown; at all other times, the Royal Banner of Scotland is displayed. During the King's visits, the Royal Company of Archers form his ceremonial bodyguard. The Ceremony of the Keys, in which the King is formally presented with the keys of Edinburgh by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, is held on his arrival. The wedding reception of Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall was held in the palace following their wedding at the Canongate Kirk in 2011.

In its role as the official residence of the monarch in Scotland, the Palace of Holyroodhouse has hosted a number of foreign visitors and dignitaries, including Olav V and Harald V of Norway, Mikhail Gorbachev, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, Nelson Mandela, Vladimir Putin, Mary McAleese, Pope Benedict XVI, and Justin Trudeau. A meeting of the European Council was held at the palace in December 1992 during the British presidency of the council. Queen Elizabeth II gave a dinner at Holyroodhouse for the Commonwealth heads of government in October 1997 during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Edinburgh.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse remains the property of the Crown. As the official royal residence in Scotland, building conservation and maintenance work on the Palace and Abbey falls to the Scottish Government and is delivered on their behalf by the Conservation Directorate of Historic Environment Scotland. Public access is managed by the Royal Collection Trust, with revenues used to support the work of the trust as custodians of the Royal Collection. In April 2016 the Royal Collection Trust announced it was to fund a £10m project to redevelop the outside space at Holyroodhouse, including Holyrood Abbey, the grounds and forecourt. The project was completed at the end of 2018 in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland, and included the restoration of the Abbey Strand buildings which now house a learning centre.

Architecture

The Palace of Holyroodhouse as it stands today was designed by Sir William Bruce and built between 1671 and 1678, with the exception of the 16th-century north-west tower built by James V. The palace is laid out round a central, classical-style three-storey plus attic quadrangle layout. The palace extends approximately from north to south and from east to west. The 16th-century north-west tower is balanced with a matching south-west tower, each with a pair of circular angle turrets with ball-finialled, conical bell-cast roofs. The towers are linked by a recessed two-storey front, with the central principal entrance framed by giant Doric columns and surmounted by the carved Royal arms of Scotland. Above the arms a crowned cupola with a clock rises behind a broken pediment supported by dolphins, on which are two reclining figures.Clarke, p. 28.

The north and south fronts have symmetrical three-storey facades that rise behind to far left and right of the two-storey west front with regular arrangement of bays. General repairs were completed by the architect Robert Reid between 1824 and 1834 that included the partial rebuilding of the south-west corner tower and refacing of the entire south front in ashlar to match that of the east. The east (rear) elevation has 17 bays with lightly superimposed pilasters of the three classical orders on each floor. The ruins of the abbey church connect to the palace on the north-east corner. For the internal quadrangle, Bruce designed a colonnaded piazza of nine arches on the north, south and east facades with pilasters, again from the three classical orders, to indicate the importance of the three main floors. The plain Doric order is used for the services of the ground floor, the Ionic order is used for the State Apartments on the first floor, while the elaborate Corinthian order is used for the royal apartments on the second floor.

Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank selected the palace as one of his eight choices for the 2002 BBC
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