Lord Henry Darnley's Lodgings at Kirk O' Fields at the Time of His Death

History is long list of dates, names and events that can make it, at time, feel impersonal and hide the real tragedy that existed for those living through it. 

The other day I was looking through an inventory of belongings of the Scottish kings and queens, dating from the late fifteenth century. In a list of hangings, beds and other furnishings made in 1561 I saw a note in one of the margins: 'tint in the king's ludgeing'. The clerk's job was to account for any possessions that were gifted, lent or that broke or needed mending. On this occasion, he was recording damage caused to the belongings of Lord Darnley, in the explosion that took his life on the night of 9-10 February 1567. 

Lord Darnley, Public Domain, Rijksmuseum

Darnley was an erratic and ambitious man, the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. She had famously married him after Elizabeth I offered her own court favourite Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester as a husband to the Scottish Queen. Elizabeth, who called Darnley 'yonder long lad', on account of his height of 6ft 2 inches, would keep a close eye on Mary as a contender for the English throne. Both shared a grandfather in Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth descended from their son Henry - and Mary from Henry's sister Margaret. But by 1567 Darnley had shown that he was a disrespectful and careless king. There are reports that he neglected to go to church with Mary for worship, and rumours of his sexual infidelity. Bursting into a room with Mary heavily pregnant and stabbing her close advisor David Rizzio at Holyrood in 1566 was a scandalous event that shocked people who heard about it all over Europe. With Mary already trying to remove herself from the marriage, suspicious eyes also turned on her when his half-naked body was found in the orchard of his home at Kirk O Fields in Edinburgh. An explosion caused by gunpowder had propelled him out of his lodgings through a window. This sudden and violent death came just eleven months after Rizzio's murder. 

What is interesting about the royal inventory is that each item that was lost or destroyed in the explosion was recorded, and so we can piece together what Darnley's lodgings would have looked like on that winter night in 1567.

The king slept in style, and in August 1565 Mary had given him a bed decorated in shades of violet, gold and silver. It was a four-posted bed, with hangings around it also in violet damask, fairly plain and without fringes. The inventory states that this was lost in the king's lodgings as a result of the blast and was recorded as a:

‘bed of violett broun velvot pasmentit with a pasment maid of gold and silver furnissit with ruif head pece and pandis and thre under pandis. Off the quhilkis under pandis there is ane bot half pasmentit and thre courtingis [curtains] of violet dames [damask] without frenyeis [fringes] or pasment upon the same courtingis’.

Another bed was described as lost in his chambers, one probably for Darnley's use and the other likely to have been that of a servant, accompanying official or chamberlain. This one was silver and green damask: 

'A bed of grene dames garnisit with ruis heidpece three single pandis twa underpandis and three curtenis all pasmentit with silvir pasmentis and freinyeit with silvir and grene silk togiddir with a covering of grene taffeteis stickit and one little burdclaith of grene velvot'.

Darnley also had a cloth of estate - a usually sumptuous fabric which was suspended above a chair when the lord or royal dined or greeted guests. It signalled his or her status and importance and conveyed an air of authority. Darnley's was made with black velvet with a fringe of black silk. The fact it was black also signalled that you were in the company of someone of importance, with black being expensive to buy due to the dyes needed. In the inventory the cloth of estate was also destroyed, and noted as 

'Ane claith [cloth] of estate of blak velvot furnisit with thre pandis and the tail all freinyeit [fringed] with blak silk.'

In addition, Darnley's red and green velvet cushions were lost in the blaze: 

'Foure cusscheonis of reid velvot

Three cusscheonis of grene velvot'

The scene after Darnley's murder. Wikimedia Commons.

He also had a number of tapestries hung in his lodgings for decoration and to keep the rooms warm unfurled against cold plastered walls. They also conveyed opulence, being expensive to create and made from the best quality materials. Sometimes pieces were woven with real gold and silver thread. Six pieces of a tapestry of the 'hunter of coninghis' [the hunter of rabbits] were ruined, leaving one that survived. These were hanging, at the time of the explosion, in Darnley's garderobe, usually the room that contained the toilet. Sometimes the garderobe though was used to describe the room clothing was kept in. In any case, it probably made sense to keep a toilet or a dressing room warm. 

'Ane tapestrie of the hunter of coninghis [conys - 'rabbits'] contening seven peces – sex of thir peces wes tint in the K. gardrop at his death.'

Other tapestries were recorded as destroyed too, but they seem to have been less expensive. Six of them were lost, and they were described as:

‘peces of teapestrie of all fortis mekle and little auld and new’.

There were also:

Scheittis [sheets] of hollane [holland cloth] and lyning alsweill great as small auld and new'.

Seeing items like this described in first-hand accounts really bring home the terror of that night in Edinburgh in 1567, and the death of a man whose presence changed history. 

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Mary Queen of Scots features heavily in my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books. It explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. She is discussed in terms of the relationship between Bess of Hardwick and George Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury. Order your copy here.