[Larger Image]

KIRK O’ FIELD SITE IN 1646

25 is the Town Wall. w indicates the University, including Hamilton House

y indicates a rectangular ruin, Darnley’s house (?)

All these facts prove that the old wall which enclosed Kirk o’ Field and the Black Friars on the south had fallen into disrepair, and that new walls had for some time before the murder been in course of building. Now, in the map of 1647, we find a very neat and regular wall, to the south of the site that had been occupied by Kirk o’ Field. Whereas, in Darnley’s time, there had been a gate called Kirk o’ Field Port to the left, or west, of the Kirk o’ Field, by 1647 there was no such name, but, instead, Potter Row Port, to the left, or west, of the University buildings; by 1647 these included Hamilton House, and the ground covered by Kirk o’ Field. This wall, extant in 1647, I take to be ‘the new wall,’ passing lineally ‘to the wall of the church yard’ of Kirk o’ Field. It supplied the place of the wall which, in the chart of 1567 (p. 130), ran south and north past the gable of Kirk o’ Field.

Thus Kirk o’ Field, in February, 1567, had, to the south of it, an old decayed town wall, much fallen down, and was thus within that town wall. But ‘it is traditionally said,’ writes the editor of Keith, Mr. Parker Lawson, in 1845, ‘that the house of the Provost of Kirk o’ Field’ (in which house, or the one next to it, Darnley was blown up) ‘stood as near as possible without the then city walls.’[125] Scott follows this opinion in ‘The Abbot.’ Yet certainly Kirk o’ Field was not without, but within, the ruinous town wall mentioned in the Burgh Records of May 7, 1567. How are we to understand this discrepancy?

The accompanying chart, drawn from a coloured design sent to the English Government in February, 1567, ought to be reversed, as in a mirror. So regarded, we are facing Kirk o’ Field, and are looking from south to north. At our left hand, or westward, is the gate or port in the town wall, called ‘the Kirk o’ Field Port.’ If we pass through it, if the chart be right we are in Potter Row. Just from the Port of Kirk o’ Field, the town wall runs due north, for a few yards: then runs due east, enclosing the church yard of Kirk o’ Field, on the north, and the church itself, shown in ruins, the church, as usual, running from east to west. After running west to east for some fifty yards, the town wall, battlemented and loopholed, turns at a right angle, and runs due south to north, being thus continued till it reaches the northern limit of the plan. Now this wall, here running due south to north, is not the ‘wall of the town decayed and fallen down on the south side of the Provost of Kirk o’ Field’s lodgings,’ as described in the Burgh Records of May 7, 1567. This wall, on the other hand, leaves the collegiate quadrangle of Kirk o’ Field inside it, on the east, and the ruined gable of Darnley’s house, a gable running from east to west, abuts on this wall, having a door through the wall into the Thieves’ Row. It is true that one of Darnley’s servants, Nelson, who escaped from the explosion, declared that the gallery of Darnley’s house, and the gable which had a window ‘through the town wall,’ ran south.

But, by the contemporary chart, the only part of Darnley’s house which was in contact with the town wall ran east to west, and impinged on the town wall, which here ran south to north. Again, in the map of 1647, the wall of that date no longer runs south to north, but is continued ‘lineally’ from that short part of the town wall, in the chart of 1567, which did run west to east, forming there the northern wall of the church yard of Kirk o’ Field. This continuation was ordered to be made by the Town Council on May 7, 1567, three months after Darnley’s murder. Further, in 1646, Professor Crawford wrote that the lodgings of the Provost of Kirk o’ Field, in 1567, ‘had a garden on the south, betwixt it and the present town wall.’[126]

Now the ruins of Darnley’s house, in the map of 1647, have a space of garden between them and ‘the present town wall,’ the wall of 1647. But, in 1567, the gable of Darnley’s house actually impinged on, and had a window and a door through the town wall on, the west according to the chart.

The chart, then, reversed, shows the whole position thus. On our left, the west, is the ruined Kirk o’ Field church, the church yard being bordered, on the north, by the town wall, here running, for a short way, east and west. After the town wall turns at a right angle and runs south to north, it is continued west and east by a short prolongation of some ten yards, having a gate in it. Next, running west to east, are two tall houses, forming the south side of a quadrangle. These Crawford (1646) seems to have regarded as the Provost’s lodgings. The east side of the quadrangle consists of four small houses, as does the north side. The west side of the quadrangle was Darnley’s house. It was in the shape of an inverted L, thus Г. The long limb faced the quadrangle, the short limb touched the town wall, and had a door through it, into the Thieves’ Row. Beyond the Thieves’ Row were gardens, in one of which Darnley’s body and that of his servant, Taylor, were found after the explosion. Mary’s room in the short limb of the Г had a garden door, opening into Darnley’s garden. Behind Darnley’s garden were the grounds of the Black Friars monastery. On the night of the murder Bothwell conveyed the gunpowder into the Black Friars grounds, entering by the gate or through the broken Black Friars wall to the north side of the quadrangle, and thence into Darnley’s garden, and so, by Mary’s garden door, into Mary’s chamber: as the depositions of the accomplices declare.