In queen’s land
Explore the once-grand Palace of Linlithgow, where the journey of Mary, Queen of Scots, began
Photos: Lynn NicolsonSteeped in history The Palace of Linlithgow
The story of Mary, Queen of Scots, is stranger and more tragic than the most sensational fiction. Though it is more than 400 years since the beautiful queen was beheaded on the orders of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England, her name has resonances not just in her native country but throughout the world.
And, it was in the once-grand Palace of Linlithgow that it all began.Ill-fated queen
This was where Mary, who inherited the throne as an infant, was born in 1542. As we stand in front of the castle with the waters of the loch (lake) beside it sparkling like a diamond-speckled carpet, we seem millennia away from the turbulent times of the ill-fated queen.
We recall the incidents in the life of the thrice-wed and thrice-widowed Mary — married as a child to the Dauphin (prince) of France, then to her cousin Lord Darnley with whom she had her only child James, and, after his murder, to the Earl of Bothwell (was the Earl wholly responsible for killing Darnley, or did Mary have a hand?).
The murder made Mary very unpopular and she had to fight for her throne. Forced to flee her country, she sought the protection of Queen Elizabeth in England.
But, Elizabeth had her imprisoned as she thought Mary was a threat to her life and throne.
Mary was shunted from one gloomy castle to another and finally executed — she was just 44.
Linlithgow, a small town, is a half-hour train ride from Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The ruined palace — it was burnt down in a fire in the 1740s — is just a few minutes’ walk from the station.
The coat of arms above the Eastern gateway is a bit too assiduously…More
