ROMANCE OF HOLYROOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20976, 12 September 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

ROMANCE OF HOLYROOD.

HOME OF SCOTTISH KINGS. MIRACLE OF THE CROSS King George and Queen Mary recently tcok up residence at Holyrood for the first time since 1927, when Queen Mary had the palace 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 tlid 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 September 14, 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 and fled and David went back to the 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 antlers.

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 1880, imprisonment for debt has been outlawed in Scotland.

All Scottish Kings were more or less connected with the great religious house, none more so than James H. 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 he 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 was destroyed. Yet when Mary landed at Leigh 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 ** 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 another marriage in Holyrood, that of the Queen and Bothwell. Afterward she fled from Holyrood. During the night of March 26, 1603, James VI. was aroused and told be was King of England, and in due course he proceeded south. His son, who became Charles 1., 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 went to Holyrood. There were the usual feastings and splendour. Later, Cromwell and his soldiers came, and in 1650 the palace was fired upon, though James V.'s towers stood fast. | Cromwell rebuilt it, but this building was torn down, and between 1671 and 1690 I tho present Holyrood was, constructed.