Library Item

Kirk o'Field - where Henry Darnley was murdered

1827

The annotation in the right of the picture reads "Kirk o field Port with heads over it - chapel of rest". Annotation in the bottom left reads "town wall, lately the College gate". Annotation at the top reads "Our Lady Kirk o' Field - from an old sketch".

James Skene's watercolour drawing, of Kirk O'Field, and the City Walls at Potter Row Port, is based on an historic sketch, in all probability a 1567 pictorial map, which illustrated the location and circumstances of the dramatic death of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary Queen of Scots(1) . The pictorial map, which provided intelligence for the English court, reveals architectural detail of the church of Kirk O'Field, almost identical to that depicted in Skene's drawing.

In early February 1567, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley (1545-1567), was staying at the Provost House at Kirk Fields, whilst convalescing from an attack of small pox. On the night of 9th February, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (1534-1578), took advantage of the Queen's absence at Holyrood, and, according to the subsequent evidence of four of his retainers, arranged for gunpowder to be placed beneath Darnley's chamber. The house was destroyed in the ensuing conflagration, and Darnley's unscathed body later recovered in an adjoining orchard, its condition suggesting either strangulation or asphyxiation. Bothwell, who had long plotted the downfall of the weak and unpopular Darnley, was formally acquitted of the murder of Lord Darnley on 12th April. Just over a month later, on 15th May 1567, he married Queen Mary in a protestant ceremony.

Skene's view of Kirk O' Fields is from within the city, looking south. The church was originally a satellite of Holyrood Abbey and lay outside the city walls. It was located to the south western corner of what is now Old College and part of the University of Edinburgh. Nearby, as Skene's drawing shows, was Potter Row Port or Kirk o'Field Port, one of six gateways which led through the old city walls, its location roughly corresponding with the corner of what is now South College Street and West College Street. Following the battle of Flodden, when the flower of the Scottish nobility had been crushed by an English army under elderly the Earl of Surrey, a new wall, known as the Flodden Wall, was built to strengthen the city defences. The new wall enclosed Kirk o' Fields.

In the early part of the 19th century the antiquarian Skene noted how all part of port gates have vanished in the process of improvement (2).

(1) James Grant, Old and New Edinburgh, 1882, Vol II, 1-7. The 1567 pictorial map is reproduced on p 5.
(2) Skene, James, Reekiana, 1836, Edinburgh Central Library Archive, 57