The lost royal palace once to be found down a city close
The residence of Mary of Guise, widow of James V and mother of Mary Queen of Scots, was demolished in 1845, writes Alison Campsie
Aroyal palace could once be found hidden down an Edinburgh close, but the richly decorated complex of buildings has long disappeared from the city streets.
The Palace and Chapel of Mary of Guise at 533 Castlehill was demolished in 1845 to make way for New College, which now houses the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland.
At the time the royal palace was demolished, it was a crumbling tenement building long vacated by the Queen Regent, then widow of James V, and occupied by those of the ‘most humble ranks of life’.
The last remaining relics from the former three-storey royal complex were hastily removed before the property was pulled down.
They included two Holy Water fountains and the back of the chapel altar, all which ended up in a wood merchant’s yard on Lothian Road following the demolition.
The palace and chapel on Castlehill was accessed through the now demolished Blyth’s, Tod’s and Nairne’s closes. The residence for the Queen Regent was built immediately after the burning of Holyrood Palace and the city by the English in 1544, according to accounts.
Then, in the first major act of the Rough Wooing, Henry VIII ordered the invasion of Scotland to bring to an end the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France.
At the time, the Queen Regent was ruling on behalf of her infant daughter, Mary Queen of Scots.
James Grant, in his classic 19th Century text Old and New Edinburgh, described how the widowed queen, whose husband died in 1542, “would naturally seek a more secure habitation within the walls of the city, and close to the Castle guns.”
It is claimed Mary Queen of Scots later took refuge at 533 Castlehill following the murder of her private secretary Rizzio in 1566 as she “feared to trust herself within the blood-stained precincts of the (Holyrood) palace.”
To the north side of the complex, which was also known as the Guise Houses, were several large windows with views over the Nor Loch, now Princes Street Gardens, surrounding farmhouses, the Firth of Forth and Fife.
Inside, vividly coloured friezes depicted flowers, birds, mythical beasts and geometric designs in shades of peach and blue. Later accounts detailed large handsome fireplaces, clustered pillars, high ceilings, fine stucco and elaborate recesses.
Doors and panels were made in oak and finely carved, with some of these still preserved by National Museum of Scotland.
One chamber was long known as the queen’s Deld-room, where the individuals of the royal establishment were kept between their death and burial.
Robert Chambers, in his 1802 book Traditions of Edinburgh, said: “It was interesting to wander through the dusky mazes of this ancient building, and reflect that they had been occupied three centuries ago by a sovereign princess, and of the most illustrious lineage. Here was a substantial monument of the connection between Scotland and France.
“She, whose ancestors owned Lorraine as a sovereignty, who had spent her youth in the proud halls of the Guises in Picardy, and had been the spouse of a Longueville, was here content to live – in a close in Edinburgh!”
Mary of Guise died at Edinburgh Castle in 1560. A portion of the palace was then purchased by Frenchman Edward Hope. It stayed within the family until the late 17th Century and then sold to John Wightman of Mauldslie, later Lord Provost of Edinburgh.
Grant wrote: “From that period it was the residence of a succession of wealthy burgesses, the closes being then, and till a comparatively recent period, exclusively occupied by peers and dignitaries of rank and wealth. Since then it shared the fate of all the patrician dwellings in old Edinburgh, and became the squalid abode of a host of families in the most humble ranks of life.”