THE STUART VAULT AT HOLYROOD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2369, 27 July 1899, Page 55

THE STUART VAULT AT HOLYROOD.

The Queen, with laudable regard for longdefunct relatives, has just effected the renovation of the so-called "Stuart Vault" at Holyrood, which, for many years has been exposed, like the ruinous chapel in which. iL

is situated, tc the four winds of heaven. The sepulchre has now beer, closed to the inspection of the curious, and the new and very handsome oaken door has been provided with a brass plate inscribed with the names of "David 11, James 11, and Queen Mary of Gueklres ; Arthur, third son of James IV; James V, his Queen, Maudlyn, and son. Arthur, Duke of Albany (whose mother, by the "way, was Mary of Guise), and Henry, Lord Darnley." It is added that " these mortal remains of her Stuart ancestors were reverently collected and entombed by Queen Victoria, Ao, 1899."

Singular to say, the only Stuart King with any property in his vault happens to be James V, who died at Falkland, and was brought to Holyrood in 1542.

During the 30 years the vault was in actual use, the remains of David II (Bruce), and those of James H, who was killed by the bursting of a -cannon at Roxburghe, in 1460, and of Arthur Stuart, the infant son of James IV, 1510, were collected and brought to Holyrood from other places. Mary of Gueldres, whose . remains still occupy the only coffin in the vault, was buried in Trinity Church, Edinburgh, November 16, 1463, and when that church was" destroyed to make way for the Great Northern Railway, in 1848, her coffin was removed to Holyrood.

The bodies of the Stuart sovereigns, prior to their accession to the throne of England, can hardly be said to have rested in intimate association with one another. The corpse of James IV was, for many years, a.bove ground, in a lumber room at Richmond. Robert "H (first of the line) died at Dnndonald; his successor at Rothsay; James lat Perth ; James II at Roxburghe ; and James IH at Cambuskenneth ; so that " the Stuart vault at Holyrood " should, more properly, or less misleadingly, be styled the vault of James V. However, it is quite impossible to identify any of the bones, save those of Mary of Gueldres, with their original owners, and.- Mary was not a "Stuart." The remains of Charles I are at Windsor, and those of James II in France, but Westminster Abbey covers the residue of deceased Stuarts, five in all, including the two regal daughters of the last James. The body of Mary Queen of Scots was primarily buried at Peterborough, and aftersward removed to the Abbey.