HOLYROOD CASTLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIX, Issue 13109, 24 April 1903, Page 5

HOLYROOD CASTLE.

AN INSANITARY PALACE.

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. , LONDON, April 22.

Scottish feeling is incensed owing to tihe fact that neither King Edward nor the High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland will occupy Holyifbod during their approaching official visits. Mr Arthur Balfour has explained that the palace is in an insanitairy condition.

(Holyrood, which was built in / 1123, and was originally an abbey, early ' became th-e occasional abode of the Scottish kings. Robert Bruce and Edward Baliol held parliaments within its walls. James Il.nv'a/s bom in it, orowned in it, married in it, 'buried in it. The foundations of the palace, apart from-the abbey, were laid about 1501 by Jamesi IV., who made Edinburgh the capital of Scotland. Henceforth Holyrood Palace was the chief seat of the Scottish sovereigns. It was mostly destroyed by the English in 1544, but immediately afterwards rebuilt on a larger scale. Queen Mary took up her abode in the palace when she returned from France in. 1561. Here, in 1566, Rizzio was torn from her side and murdered. It was ga.rrisoned after the battle of Dunbar in 1650 by Cromwell's troops, who burned the greater part of it to the -ground. It was rebuilt by Charles 11., from the designs of Sir William Bruce of Kinross, between 1671 and 1679. After the accession of James VI. to the throaie of England it ceased to be occupied as a permanent royal residence. But George TV. held his court in it in 1822, and Queen Victoria occasionally spent a night within its Walls. At the present day the disposition of the rooms in the older portion seems to be much the same as in tlhe time of Queen Mary. The picture-gallery, containing badly-painted " portraits" of fabulous Scottish kings, and a few genuine .works of art, possesses romantic interest as the soene of the balls and receptions, of Prince Charlie in 1746. The palace,' with its precincts and park, was in Catholic times a sanctuary for all kinds of offenders, but afterwards the privilege of sanctuary was extended to none except insolventi debtors. Do Quincey is the most illustrious person who availed himself of tho privilege. B\it now, from recent ameliorations in the laws affecting debtors, especially the Debtors (Scotland} Act, 1880, the protection has no longer legal validity.)