A KING’S GRATITUDE

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1931, Page 9

A KING’S GRATITUDE

WHY HOLYROOD WAS BUILT King George and Queen Mary recently took up residence at Holyrood for the first time since 1927, when Queen Mary had the palate converted into a charming home. Ancient Holyrood was the favourite residence of Scottish Kings, and the locality has never ceased to be associated with the formalities of court and with the private and public affairs of the British Royal Family, says the “New York Herald-Tribune.” Holyrood owes its existence to the escape of King David from a fierce hart which confronted him, as he went hunting in the thick forest of Drumsheugh on 14th September, 1124, which was Holy Rood’s day —still known in other parts of the world as the feast of the Holy Cross. King David was in danger of his life, and as he prayed in his distress, a miraculous cross was thrust into his hand and he held it high above him. The beast turned tail and fled and pavid went back to his fortress. In memory of his escape he vowed to found a monastery on the spot, where accordingly arose the famous Abbey of Holyrood, planted with Augustinian canons. The arms of the Abbey still bear a stag’s head with a cross between its antlexs. \

As a holy .house the Abbey had the first right of sanctuary, and many are the tales which refer to this debtor’s refuge. Sir Walter Scott, in his introduction to the “Chronicles of the Canongate,” toys with this congenial topic. The right of sanctuary still exists. If it be useless, it ’is because, 'since 1800, imprisonment for debt has been outlawed in Shetland.

All Scottish Kings were more or less connected with the great religious more so than James 11., called James the Fiery Face. He was born, christened, crowned and buried there, and his Queen, Mary of Gueldres, was entombed with him. Holyrood inevitably drifted from Abbey to palace, and James IV., entrusted a certain Master Leonard Logy with the'building of a palace which •lie finished in 1503,. in time to receive his master’s bride, Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII. It was to Holyrood also that James V. brought Magdalene, the fair Princess of France. When she landed she knelt and kissed the soil of her new country. In the next reign came those desperate attempts to possess the Scots’ Queen, and at Hereford’s invasion in 1544 the Abbey and palace were destroyed. Yet when Mary landed at Leith in 1551, the damage had already been repaired. The chapel had

been pieced together from fragments of its ruins, and served as parish church of Holyrood, with John Craig, the colleague of Knox, as regular minister. To welcome Mary there was that strange serenade of psalm tunes “made by a company of the most honest,” says Knox, though Bfaiitome avers the Queen’s teeth were set on edge because the psalms were chanted “so unholily out of tune.” Then came the fateful year 1565, when Mary married Darnley and Rizzio was murdered in the supper-room of Mary’s bedchamber. The following year, after Darnley also had been murdered, there was anothei mairiage in Holyrood, that of the Queen and Bothwell. Afterward she fled from Holy rood. * , During the night of 26th March, 1603, James VI. was aroused and told he was King of England, and in due course he proceeded south. His son, who became Charles I. of 'England, was not crowned until 1633, when he asked' the Scots to send him their “honours” to London. They would not hear of it, and the King came to Holyrood. There vfere the usual, feastings ■ aitd splendour. ‘ Later, Cromwell and his soldicis came, and in 1650 the palace was fired upon, though Janies V.’s towers stood fast. Cromwell rebuilt it, but this builcling was torn down, and between 1.67. and 1690 the Holyrood we now know was constructed.