Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Holyrood

The Abbey of Holyrood was founded by David the First, in 1128. The Scottish legend says, that while hunting and separated from his train, he was attacked and overthrown by a wild stag, and rescued from impending death by the sudden appearance of an arm from a dark cloud, holding a luminous cross, which so frightened the furious animal, that he fled away into the depths of the forest. The monarch determined to erect a religious house on the very spot of his deliverance, and to call it Holyrood, or Holy Cross. It might be proper to supply a strong reason for the selection of so obscure a site, but scarcely necessary to invent a miracle for so common an occurrence, as the erection of an ecclesiastical edifice by king David, as it is well known that fifteen owe their origin to him; among which are the fine abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh, Kelso and Jedburgh, with the Cathedrals of Glasgow and Aberdeen. The gratitude of the monastic orders, whom he patronized, conferred on him the title of Saint; but the heavy expenses thus incurred imposed many burdens upon his realm, and caused James the Sixth, not inappositely, to style him "a saur saint to the crown."

The first view of Holyrood is in strong contrast with the splendid buildings and classic columns of the Calton-Hill. After admiring the monuments of Dugald Stewart and Nelson, and the fine edifice for ​the High School, you look down at the extremity of the Canongate upon the old palace, that, seated at the feet of Salisbury Crag, nurses in comparative desolation the memories of the past. Its chapel, floored with tomb-stones and open to the winds of heaven, admonishes human power and pride of their alliance with vanity.

Through an iron grate we saw in a damp, miserable vault the bones of some of the kings of Scotland; among them those of Henry Darnley, without even the covering of that "little charity of earth," which the homeless beggar finds. In another part of the royal chapel, unmarked by any inscription, are the remains of the lovely young Queen Magdalen, daughter of Francis the First of France, who survived but a short time her marriage with James the Fifth. In the same vicinity sleep two infant princes, by the name of Arthur; one the son of him who fell at Flodden-field, the other a brother of Mary of Scotland. Scarcely a single monument, deserving of notice as a work of art, is to be found at Holyrood, except that of Viscount Bellhaven, a privy-counsellor of Charles the First, who died in 1639. He is commemorated by a statue of Parian marble, which is in singular contrast with the rough, black walls of the ruinous tower, where it is placed. It has a diffuse and elaborate inscription, setting forth that "Nature supplied his mind by wisdom, for what was wanting in his education; that he would easily get angry, and ​as easily, even while speaking, grow calm; and that he enjoyed the sweetest society in his only wife, Nicholas Murray, daughter of the Baron of Abercairney, who died in eighteen months after her marriage."

The grave of Rizzio is pointed out under one of the passages to a piazza, covered with a flat stone. Over the mantel-piece of the narrow closet, where from his last fatal supper he was torn forth by the conspirators, is a portrait said to be of him. Its authenticity is exceedingly doubtful; yet it has been honored by one of the beautiful effusions of Mrs. Hemans, written during her visit to Holyrood in 1829.

In the gallery at Holyrood, which is 150 feet long, and plain even to meanness, are the portraits of one hundred and eleven Scottish monarchs, the greater part of which must of course be creations of fancy. Some of the more distinguished chieftains are interspersed with them. In the line of the Stuarts, we remarked the smallness and delicacy of the hands, ​which historians have mentioned as a marked feature of that unfortunate house. The only female among this formidable assemblage of crowned heads is Mary of Scotland. This her ancestral palace teems with her relics; and however questionable is the identity of some of them, they are usually examined with interest by visitants. The antique cicerone, to whom this department appertained, and whose voice had grown hoarse and hollow by painful recitations in these damp apartments, still threw herself into an oratorical attitude, and bestowed an extra emphasis, when any favorite article was to be exhibited, such as "Queen Mairy's work-box! Queen Mairy's candelabra!" The latter utensil, it seems, she brought with her from France. Probably some tender associations, known only to herself, clustered around it; for she was observed often to fix her eyes mournfully upon it, as a relic of happier days. In her apartments, we were shown the stone, on which she knelt at her coronation, the embroidered double chair, or throne, on which she and Darnley sat after their marriage, the state-bed, ready to perish, and despoiled of many a mouldering fragment by antiquarian voracity, her dressing-case, marvellously destitute of necessary materials, and the round, flat basket, in which the first suit of clothes for her only infant was laid. These articles, and many others of a similar nature, brought her palpably before us, and awakened our sympathies. There was a rudeness, an absolute want of comfort ​about all her appointments, which touched us with pity, and led us back to the turbulent and half civilized men by whom she was surrounded, and from whom she had little reason to expect forbearance as a woman, or obedience as a queen. The closet, to which we were shown the secret staircase where the assassins entered, seems scarcely of sufficient dimensions to allow the persons, who are said to have been assembled there, the simplest accommodations for a repast; especially if Darnley was of so gigantic proportions, as the armor, still preserved there and asserted to be his, testifies. Poor Mary, notwithstanding her errors, and the mistakes into which she was driven by the fierce spirit of her evil times, is now remembered throughout her realm, with a sympathy and warmth of appreciation, which failed to cheer her sufferings during life. Almost constantly you meet with memorials of her. In the Castle of Edinburgh, you have pointed out to you a miserable, dark room, about eight feet square, where her son James the Sixth was born; in the Parthenon, among the gatherings of the Antiquarian Society, you are shown the cup from which she used to feed her infant prince, and the long white kid gloves, strongly embroidered with black, which she was said to have worn upon the scaffold; and in the dining-hall at Abbotsford, you start at a most distressing portrait of her, a head in a charger, taken the day after her execution. Near the Cathedral of Peterborough, where her body was ​interred, the following striking inscription was once put up in Latin. It was almost immediately removed, and the writer never discovered, and we are indebted to Camden for its preservation.

"Mary, Queen of Scots, daughter of a king, kins-woman and next heir to the Queen of England, adorned with royal virtues and a noble spirit, having often but in vain implored to have the rights of a prince done unto her, is by a barbarous and tyrannical cruelty cut off. And by one and the same infamous judgment, both Mary of Scotland is punished with death, and all kings now living are made liable to the same. A strange and uncouth kind of grave is this, wherein the living are included with the dead; for we know that with her ashes the majesty of all kings and princes lies here depressed and violated. But because this regal secret doth admonish all kings of their duty, Traveller! I shall say no more."

In the modern portion of Holyrood is a pleasant suite of apartments, which were occupied by Charles the Tenth of France, when he found refuge in Scotland from his misfortunes at home. They have ornamented ceilings, and are hung with tapestry.

The Duke of Hamilton, who is keeper of the palace, has apartments there, as has also the Marquis of Breadalbane. The latter has a large collection of family portraits, among which is a fine one by Vandyke of Lady Isabella Rich, holding a lute, on which ​instrument, we are informed by the poet Waller, she had attained great excellence.

We found ourselves attracted to make repeated visits to Holyrood, and never on those occasions omitted its roofless chapel, so rich in recollections. It required, however, a strong effort of imagination to array it in the royal splendor, with which the nuptials of Queen Mary were there solemnized; and seventy years afterwards the coronation of her grandson, Charles the First. The processions, the ringing of bells, the gay tapestry streaming from the windows of the city, the rich costumes of the barons, bishops, and other nobility, the king, in his robes of crimson velvet, attending devoutly to the sacred services of the day, receiving the oaths of allegiance, or scattering through his almoner broad gold pieces among the people, are detailed with minuteness and delight by the Scottish chronicles of that period. "Because this was the most glorious and magnifique coronatione that ever was seine in this kingdom," says Sir James Balfour, "and the first king of Greate Britain that ever was crowned in Scotland, to behold these triumphs and ceremonies, many strangers of grate quality resorted hither from divers countries."

Who can muse at Holyrood without retracing the disastrous fortunes of the house of Stuart, whose images seem to glide from among the ruined arches, where they once held dominion. James the First was a prisoner through the whole of his early life, and ​died under the assassin's steel. James the Second was destroyed by the bursting of one of his own cannon at the siege of Roxburgh. James the Third was defeated in battle by rebels headed by his own son, and afterwards assassinated. James the Fourth fell with the flower of his army at Flodden-field, and failed even of the rites of sepulture. James the Fifth died of grief in the prime of life, at the moment of the birth of his daughter, who, after twenty years of imprisonment in England, was condemned to the scaffold. James the First of England, though apparently more fortunate than his ancestors, was menaced by conspiracy, suffered the loss of his eldest son, and saw his daughter a crownless queen. Charles the First had his head struck off in front of his own palace. Charles the Second was compelled to fly from his country, and after twelve years' banishment returned to an inglorious reign. James the Second abdicated his throne, lost three kingdoms, died an exile, and was the last of his race who inhabited the palace of Holyrood.