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Reformation Scotland -- Abbey and Palace of Holyroodhouse

High Street - The Canongate: The Canongate had been called the "Canons' gait", "gait" being the Scots for a road or way.  King David I granted the Canons, by his Great Charter, the right to have their own burgh between the Abbey and the King's own Royal Burgh of Edinburgh.  This became known as the Burgh of Canongate which became extinct in 1856.  Straight ahead is the north-west tower of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.  During the period 1498 to 1591 King James IV began the building of this tower.  The Palace was completed by King Charles II in 1671.
 
This tower contains the stair that was used by the intruders who invaded Mary's privacy, dragged Rizzio from her presence and murdered him.  Left, the Huntly House, a reconstructed town dwelling of 1517, now the principal museum of local history.  Right, the Canongate Church, built as the parish church of the burgh of Canongate in 1688.  That is, it wasn't there during Knox' day.  James VII (II) moved the protestant congregation out of the Abbey church into this one when he re established Roman Catholic worship in the Abbey.

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The Palace entrance: The Palace of Holyrood House:  Holy Rood  =  Holy Wood , a term for Christ's cross.  The Palace is the official residence of Her Majesty the Queen when she is in Edinburgh.  It originated as a guest house for the Abbey of Holyrood, which is now a ruin adjoining the Palace.  When King James IV made Edinburgh the Capital of Scotland at the beginning of the 16th century, the guest house became a Royal Palace.  The Palace as seen today is mainly the work of King Charles II who began rebuilding in 1671.  Mary Queen of Scots is the most famous historical figure associated with the Palace.
 
The Palace was originally the Augustinian Abbey of Holyrood, occupied by the Canons Regular from the Priory of St. Andrews in Fife.  According to the Holyrood Ordinale, written about 1460 for use in the Abbey and still on display there, there is a legend about the founding of the Abbey.  It parallels those of well known patron saints of hunting, St. Hubert (8th century) and St. Eustache (2d century).  The legend goes like this: In 1128, David I, King of Scots, was residing at the Castle of Edinburgh.  On September 14th, after attending mass on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he was inveigled by his courtiers to go hunting.  This was against the wish of Alwin, and English Austin Canon, who was the King's Secretary and Confessor.  The course of the hunt lay eastward through the valley of Abergare - now the Canongate.  Near the north side of Salisbury Crag a stag turned on the King, threw him from his horse, and wounded him in the thigh.  In self defense the King attempted to grasp the stag's horns, taking hold of a crucifix which suddenly appeared set between the antlers of the animal.  The crucifix remained in the King's grasp while the stag departed.  That night David heard a voice in a dream instructing him to "make a house for Canons devoted to the Cross".  The spring was then called the Spring of the Crucifix, and near it the King erected the monastery of the Holy Rood and caused Alwin to be the first Abbot thereof.
 
The early "Palace" had been a guest house west of the man Abbey buildings.  Kings of Scots made their lodgings in this building and it became the nucleus of a larger residence, and still later, of the Palace.
 
Above the entrance are the great arms of the Kings of Scotland.  The motto above the arms is  In Defence .  The motto below is  Nemo me impune lacessit , the motto of the Most Noble Order of the Thistle -- "No one insults me with impunity".

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The Palace Forecourt: It was at this palace in 1688, after the landing of William of Orange, that an Edinburgh mob built a great fire and burned books, images, and every tangible symbol of Roman Catholicism.  The altar vessels and monstrance were saved and are in the possession of the Scottish Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church.  The fountain was erected much later, by Queen Victoria, but based on a design created for James V.

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The Abbey ruin.- inside the nave: The Abbey was desecrated by Hertford in 1544, and later restored by Abbot Bellenden.  The Abbey was damaged during the English raids under Somerset in 1547, and the roofs stripped of their lead coverings.  The transepts with their chapels and the quire and presbytery were cast down about 1569 by order of the General Assembly of the Reformed Kirk.  The vaulted loft ceiling fell later, in 1768, destroying the main arcading on the north side and north aisle.  King Charles I improved the appearance of the truncated Abbey in his zeal for Episcopacy.
 
The Abbey saw some famous events:

• King David II was buried near the high altar.
   
• King James II born at Holyroodhouse; was crowned, married, and buried in the Abbey Kirk.
   
• King James III, IV, and V married there.
   
• Mary, Queen of Scots, married her second husband, Lord Darnley, there.
   
• Queen Mary's later marriage to the Earl of Bothwell took place according to Protestant rites in the older Palace chapel.
   

The nave was used as the parish kirk under Presbyterianism or Episcopacy depending on the times.
 
An interesting final chapter in the life of the Abbey was written when James VII (II) established a College of Jesuits within the Holyroodhouse and had a printing press set up for them.  He revived the Noble Order of the Thistle in 1687 and intended to have its chapel there.  (It's now in St. Giles' Cathedral.) The congregation was moved to the new kirk in the Canongate.  By May 1st 1688 James VII had turned Holyrood Abbey into a Roman Catholic place of worship.  William of Orange landed at Torbay on November 5th.  People of Edinburgh, accompanied by Magistrates, Heralds, City Guard, invaded the Palace.  They overcame the musketeers who defended it, forced entrance into the Royal apartments, and tore out all the furnishings and ornaments of the King's private chapel.  They broke into the Kirk and harried the interior.  They broke into the Royal burial vault and cast out bones of Kings and Princes.  A post-Reformation burial vault on the south aisle contains the remains of:

• King David II
   
• King James II and his Queen
   
• Mary of Gueldres
   
• King James V and his first wife, Magdalene of France
   
• King Henry, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary, Queen of Scots.  (These remains had been collected from their lairs when the individual monuments were destroyed during the Reformation.)
   

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