THE PALACE OF HOLYROOD.
While Mr. George and the boys were in Edinburgh, they went one day to
visit the Palace of Holyrood, and they were extremely interested in what
they saw there. This palace stands, as has already been stated, on a
plain, not far from the foot of a long slope which leads up to the
castle.
As long as Scotland remained an independent kingdom, the Palace of
Holyrood was the principal residence of the royal family. Queen Mary was
the last of the Scottish sovereigns--that is, she was the last that
reigned over Scotland alone--for her son, James VI., succeeded to the
throne of England, as well as to that of Scotland. The reason of this
was, that the English branch of the royal line failed, and he was the
next heir. So he became James the First of England, while he still
remained James the Sixth of Scotland. And from this time forward the
kings of England and Scotland were one.
Mary, therefore, was the last of the exclusively Scottish line. She
lived at Holyrood as long as she was allowed to live any where in peace;
and on account of certain very peculiar circumstances which occurred
just before the time that she left the palace, her rooms were never
occupied after she left them, but have remained to this day in the same
state, and with almost the same furniture in them as at the hour when
she went away. These rooms are called Queen Mary's rooms, and almost
every body who visits Scotland goes to see them.
The reason why the rooms which Mary occupied in the Palace of Holyrood
were left as they were, and never occupied by any other person after
Mary went away, was principally that a dreadful murder was committed
there just before Mary quitted them. This, of course, connected very
gloomy associations with the palace; and while great numbers of persons
were eager to go and see the place where the man was killed, few would
be willing to live there. The consequence has been, that the apartments
have been vacant of occupants ever since, though they are filled all the
time with a perpetually flowing stream of visitors. The circumstances of
the murder were very extraordinary. Mr. George explained the case
briefly to the boys during their visit to the palace, as we shall
presently see.
On leaving the hotel they went for a little way along Prince's Street.
On one side of the street there was a row of stores, hotels, and other
such buildings, as in Broadway, in New York. On the other side extended
the long and deep valley which lies between Prince's Street and Castle
Hill. The valley was crossed by various bridges, and beyond it were to
be seen the backs of the lofty houses of High Street, rising tier above
tier to a great height, looking, as has already been said, like a range
of stupendous cliffs, lifting their crests to the sky.
There were scarcely any buildings on the valley side of the street,
except one or two edifices of an ornamental or public character. One of
these was the celebrated monument to Sir Walter Scott.
[Illustration: SCOTT'S MONUMENT.]
The party paused a short time before this monument, and then went on.
They passed by one or two bridges that led across the valley, and also,
at one place, a broad flight of steps, that went down, with many
turnings, from landing to landing, to the railway station in the valley.
At last they came to the bridge where they were to cross the valley.
They stopped on the middle of the bridge, to look down. They saw streets
far below them, and a market, and trains of railway carriages coming and
going, and beyond, at some distance, an extensive range of pleasure
grounds, with ladies and gentlemen rambling about them, and groups of
children playing. These pleasure grounds extended some way up the slope
of the Castle Hill. Indeed, the upper walks lay close along under the
foot of the precipices on which the castle walls were built above.
After passing the bridge, Mr. George and the boys went on, until, at
length, they came to High Street; which is the great central street of
ancient Edinburgh, leading from the palace and abbey on the plain up to
the castle on the hill. There, if they had turned to the right, they
would have gone up to the castle; but they turned to the left, and so
descended towards the palace, on the plain.
At length they reached the foot of the descent, and then, at a turn in
the street, the palace came suddenly into view.
There was a broad paved area in front of it. In the centre of the
building was a large arched doorway, with a sentry box on each side. At
each of these sentry boxes stood a soldier on guard. All the royal
palaces of England are guarded thus. There was a cab, that had brought a
company of visitors to see the castle, standing near the centre of the
square, by a great statue that was there. Another cab drove up just at
the time that Mr. George arrived, and a party of visitors got out of it.
All the new comers went in under the archway together. The soldiers paid
no attention to them whatever.
The arched passage way led into a square court, with a piazza extending
all around it. The visitors turned to the left, and walked along under
the piazza till they came to the corner, where there was a little
office, and a man at the window of it to give them tickets. They paid
sixpence apiece for their tickets.
After getting their tickets they walked on under the piazza a little way
farther, till at length they came to a door, and a broad stone
staircase, leading up into the palace, and they all went in and began to
ascend the stairs.
At the head of the stairs they passed through a wide door, which led
into a room where they saw visitors, that had gone in before them,
walking about. They were met at the door by a well-dressed man, who
received them politely, and asked them to walk in.
"This, gentlemen," said he, "was Lord Darnley's audience chamber. That,"
he continued, pointing through an open door at the side, "was his
bedroom; and there," pointing to another small door on the other side,
"was the passage way leading up to Queen Mary's apartments."
Having said this, the attendant turned away to answer some questions
asked him by the other visitors, leaving Mr. George and the boys, for
the moment, to look about the rooms by themselves.
The rooms were large, but the interior finishing of them was very plain.
The walls were hung with antique-looking pictures. The furniture, too,
looked very ancient and venerable.
"Who was Lord Darnley?" asked Waldron.
"He was Queen Mary's husband," replied Mr. George.
"Then he was the king, I suppose," said Waldron.
"No," replied Mr. George, "not at all. A king is one who inherits the
throne in his own right. When the throne descends to a woman, she is the
queen; but if she marries, her husband does not become king."
"What is he then?" said Waldron.
"Nothing but the queen's husband," said Mr. George.
"Hoh!" exclaimed Waldron, in a tone of contempt.
"He does not acquire any share of the queen's power," continued Mr.
George, "because he marries her. She is the sovereign alone afterwards
just as much as before."
"And so I suppose," said Rollo, "that when a king marries, the lady that
he marries does not become a queen."
"Yes," said Mr. George, "the rule does not seem to work both ways. A
lady who marries a king is always called a queen; though, after all, she
acquires no share of the royal power. She is a queen in name only. But
let us hear what this man is explaining to the visitors about the
paintings and the furniture."
So they advanced to the part of the room where the attendant was
standing, with two or three ladies and gentlemen, who were looking at
one of the old pictures that were hanging on the wall. It was a picture
of Queen Mary when she was fifteen years old. The dress was very quaint
and queer, and the picture seemed a good deal faded; but the face wore a
very sweet and charming expression.
"I think she was a very pretty girl," whispered Waldron in Rollo's ear.
"She was in France at that time," said the attendant, "and the picture,
if it is an original, must have been painted there, and she must have
brought it with her to Scotland, on her return from that country. She
brought a great deal with her on her return. There were several vessel
loads of furniture, paintings, &c. The tapestry in the bedroom was
brought. It was wrought at the Gobelins."
Mr. George went into the bedroom, to look at the tapestry. Two sides of
the room were hung with it.
"It looks like a carpet hung on the walls," said Waldron.
"Yes," said Mr. George; "a richly embroidered carpet."
The figures on the tapestry consisted of groups of horsemen, elegantly
equipped and caparisoned. The horses were prancing about in a very
spirited manner. The whole work looked very dingy, and the colors were
very much faded; but it was evident that it must have been very splendid
in its day.
After looking at the tapestry, and at the various articles of quaint and
queer old furniture in this room, the company followed the attendant
into another apartment.
"This," said he, "is the room where Lord Darnley, Ruthven, and the rest,
held their consultation and formed their plans for the murder of Rizzio;
and _there_ is the door leading to the private stairway where they went
up. You cannot go up that way now, but you will see where they came out
above when you go up into Queen Mary's apartments."
"Let us go now," said Waldron.
"Well," said Mr. George, "and then we can come into these rooms again
when we come down."
So Mr. George and the boys walked back, through Lord Darnley's rooms, to
the place where they came in. Here they saw that the same broad flight
of stone stairs, by which they had come up from the court below,
continued to ascend to the upper stories. There was a painted
inscription on a board there, too, saying, "To Queen Mary's apartments,"
with a hand pointing up the staircase. So they knew that that was the
way they must go.
As they went up, both Rollo and Waldron asked Mr. George to explain to
them something about the murder, so that they might know a little what
they were going to see.
"Well," said Mr. George, "I will. Let us sit down here, and I will tell
you as much as I can tell in five minutes. Really to understand the
whole affair, you would have to read as much as you could read in a
week. And I assure you it is an exceedingly interesting and entertaining
story.
"Darnley, you know, was the queen's husband. Her first husband was the
young Prince of France; but he died before Queen Mary came home. So that
when she came home she was a widow; very young, and exceedingly
beautiful. There is a very beautiful painting of her, I am told, in the
castle."
"Let us go and see it," said Waldron.
"To-morrow," said Mr. George.
"After Queen Mary had been in Scotland some little time," continued Mr.
George, "she was married again to this Lord Darnley. He was an English
prince. The whole story of her first becoming acquainted with Darnley,
and how the marriage was brought about, is extremely interesting; but I
have not time now to tell it to you.
"After they were married they lived together for a time very happily;
but at length some causes of difficulty and dissension occurred between
them. Darnley was not contented to be merely the queen's husband. He
wanted, also, to be king."
"I don't blame him," said Waldron.
"I should have thought," said Rollo, "that Mary would have been willing
that he should be king."
"Very likely she might have been willing herself," said Mr. George, "but
her people were not willing. There were a great many powerful nobles and
chieftains in the kingdom, and about her court, and they took sides,
one way and the other, and there was a great deal of trouble. It is a
long story, and I can't tell you half of it, now. What made the matter
worse was, that Darnley, finding he could not have every thing his own
way, began to be very harsh and cruel in his treatment of Mary. This
made Mary very unhappy, and caused her to live a great deal in
retirement, with a few near and intimate friends, who treated her with
kindness and sympathy.
"One of these was David Rizzio, the man who was murdered. He was one of
the officers of the court. His office was private secretary. He was a
great deal older than Mary, and it seems he was an excellent man for his
office. He used to write for the queen when it was necessary, and
perform other such duties; and as he was very gentle and kind in his
disposition, and took a great interest in every thing that concerned the
queen, Mary became, at last, quite attached to him, and considered him
as one of her best friends. At last Lord Darnley and his party became
very jealous of him. They thought that he had a great deal too much
influence over the queen. It was as if he were the prime minister, they
said, while they, the old nobles of the realm, were all set aside, as if
they were of no consequence at all. So they determined to kill him.
"They formed their plot in the room below, where we have just been. It
was in the evening. Mary was at supper that night in a little room in
the tower up above, where we are now going. There were two or three
friends with her. The men went up the private stairway, and burst into
the little supper room, and killed Rizzio on the spot."
"Let us go up and see the place," said Waldron.
So Mr. George rose, and followed by the boys, he led the way into Queen
Mary's apartments.