Given that the Palace of Holyroodhouse was getting more attention than it is used to in the week that this thread was first written, it seemed like a good idea to take a brief delve into its history of royal residents and one who is highly remarkable but far less well remembered than others.
The palace is well known to be the official residence of the British Monarch in Scotland, but that’s a role that it has only held for just over 100 years, with King George V conferring the status upon it in 1922. It’s also well known that it long served as a royal residence for the Scottish monarchy going back to medieval times, with this situation ending in 1603 when King James VI left it, Edinburgh and Scotland for London and the English throne. James was the palace’s longest term royal resident, being principally based there from his coming of age in 1579 until he left 24 years later. He had promised to return to Edinburgh every 3 years, but did not keep his word and would not return until 1617 (and then after that, never again). There is therefore a period of four centuries to be accounted for between James’ departure and George’s designation.
After James, Royal visits were infrequent. Charles I stayed here when he came to Edinburgh in 1633 for his showpiece Scottish coronation, the façade being remodelled in his honour. He returned to the palace in the turbulent year of 1641, and in 1646, conferred it to one of his principal Scottish supporters; James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton. The hereditary role of Keeper of the palace is one that the Dukes of Hamilton hold hold to this day. It was badly damaged in 1650 by the occupying troops of Oliver Cromwell after their defeat of the Scottish Army at Dunbar. The picture below shows the palace at it was in 1649 following the remodelling for Charles.
After the Restoration in 1660, repairs were made to the palace to allow it to be occupied by Charles II as required and to be a meeting place for his Scottish Privy Council. It was reconstructed between 1670-79 by and it is rumoured that funds and materials for this project were diverted towards the construction of Royston House. The King however did not intend to reside there himself, rather it was to be a seat of his power by proxy in the country, the seat of not just the Privy Council but also the residence of the Lord High Commissioner for Scotland. In 1679, this was James, Duke of Albany, the future King James VII (II of England). His daughter Anne, the future Queen Anne, was also resident with him. When James ascended to the throne in 1685, he set up a Jesuit college in the grounds. The following year he had the Protestant congregation that was worshipping in the Holyrood Abbey Kirk evicted and converted that building to a ceremonial Chapel Royal for his newly created Order of the Thistle. Both of these acts provoked outrage amongst the Edinburgh mob and in 1688 they would destroy the college and desecrate the chapel and its tombs following William of Orange’s taking of the throne.
Following the abolition of the separate Scottish Privy Council on the Act of Union in 1707, the primary function of the palace as a centre of government ceased to be and it was increasingly turned over to grace-and-favour use by the Scottish nobility. This was interrupted briefly by a royal visit in 1745 when a certain man with claim to being a future King Charles III paid an uninvited visit – Charles Edward Stuart, better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Jacobite excitement aside, for the next 100 or so years, British monarchs were uninterested in what was an increasingly decrepit old building in a bad neighbourhood in town; hemmed in on 2 sides by the increasingly undesirable tenements of the Canongate, on another by an irrigated meadow for the settling of sewage as fertiliser and all around by brewing on an industrial scale. It was not until 1822 that a reigning British monarch would visit, the first since Charles I in 1641; King George IV lodged in the far more comfortable surroundings of Dalkeith Palace, but was given a tour of the ancient seat of Royalty and held a reception there. The Palace would not begin to be rehabilitated until the reign of Queen Victoria, its resident nobility being slowly turfed out and it was gradually repaired, restored and improved. But no monarch or senior royal has made Holyrood a permanent home since James VI left over 420 years ago…
Or have they? When I say “no monarch or senior royal” I mean of the British royal family, because you may be surprised to learn that the palace’s 2nd longest royal resident was none other than Charles Philippe, Comte d’Artois, younger brother of King Louis XVI and later King Charles X of France! This future monarch would spend 7 years at Holyrood from 1796 to 1803 with his mistress, Louise de Polastron, following his flight from the French Revolution. When he arrived in Edinburgh, reputedly half the city turned out to welcome him, despite his wish for a low-key reception. He would find Holyrood’s legal status as a debtor’s sanctuary particularly suited to his lifestyle choices.
Nearly thirty years later, he would return to Holyrood as the recently deposed King Charles X following the Second French Revolution, arriving in 1830 and staying this time for two years. He lived with his young grandson, Henri d’Artois, Count of Chambord and Duke of Bordeaux, who had very briefly spend a few days on the French throne as the last Bourbon king. Charles’ son Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angoulême and his wife Marie-Thérèse (who, as daughter of Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette was also Charles’ niece) also fled the wrath of the French republic and made their home in town, staying at 21 Regent Terrace (now 22), overlooking the palace. Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, Duchess de Berry and sister-in-law of Louis-Antoine, lived a few doors down at number 11 (now 12) at this time.
While Edinburgh provided a safe retreat for the French royals, they reputedly found the Scots “tiresome and odd.” They kept themselves distant from their host city, snubbed offers from its institutions and despaired at the prevalence of Sabbatarianism. In turn were an object of fascination for the locals and the Scottish nobility were “astonished” by their “gastronomic powers“. City caricaturist John Kay captured Charles in 1796, walking hand in arm with Lord Adam Gordon, Commander-in-Chief of the Army in Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle.
Charles and his family left Edinburgh for Austria on September 18th 1832, his departure being a public spectacle, as the young Henri in particular was a favourite in the city. The Scotsman reported that “white gloves, white ribbons and white favours of various kinds were worn by a large proportion of the people assembled.” Many white flags can be seen in the illustration below also, these were not a symbol of surrender, but the flag of the Bourbon restoration. The departure was from the Trinity Chain Pier on the 9AM steamer , the SS United Kingdom, from Newhaven to Hamburg, which is what can be seen in the background of the painting.
Charles was now gone for good, but did leave one lasting mark upon the city from his residency. Disliking the attention he attracted from locals wherever we went, he had William Playfair include a convenient gated path through Regent Gardens to allow him to walk unmolested to hear Mass at St. Mary’s Chapel (now St. Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral) at Picardy Place. Whether that story is apocryphal or not, there are indeed gates at both the north and south end of the western boundary of Regent Gardens and pleasant paths laid out between the two.
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