page_title: Holyrood Abbey
section_title: 16th century onwards
hierarchical_section_title: Holyrood Abbey / History / 16th century onwards
caption_attribution_description: English: Ruins of Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh
context_page_description: Holyrood Abbey is a ruined abbey of the Canons Regular in Edinburgh, Scotland. The abbey was founded in 1128 by King David I. During the 15th century, the abbey guesthouse was developed into a royal residence, and after the Scottish Reformation the Palace of Holyroodhouse was expanded further. The abbey church was used as a parish church until the 17th century, and has been ruined since the 18th century. The remaining walls of the abbey lie adjacent to the palace, at the eastern end of Edinburgh's Royal Mile. The site of the abbey is protected as a scheduled monument.
context_section_description: Royal influence over the abbey further increased when in 1538 Robert Stewart, the infant, illegitimate son of James V, was appointed as commendator of Holyrood.
  During the War of the Rough Wooing, the invading English armies of the Earl of Hertford inflicted structural damage on Holyrood Abbey in 1544 and 1547. Lead was stripped from the roof, the bells were removed, and the contents of the abbey were plundered. In 1559, during the Scottish Reformation, the abbey suffered further damage when a mob destroyed the altars and looted the rest of the church. With the reformation and the end of monastic services, the east end of the abbey church became redundant. In 1569, Adam Bothwell, the commendator of Holyrood, informed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that the east end was in such a state of disrepair that the choir and transept should be demolished. This was done the following year, retaining only the nave, which by then was serving as the parish church of the burgh of Canongate. Between 1570 and 1573 an east gable was erected, closing the east end of the former nave, all but two of the windows in the nave were blocked up, the royal tombs were removed to a new royal burial vault in the south aisle and the old east end was demolished.
  The abbey was extensively remodelled in 1633 for the coronation of Charles I.
  In 1686, James VII established a Jesuit college within Holyrood Palace. The following year, the Protestant congregation was moved to the new Kirk of the Canongate, and the abbey was converted into a Roman Catholic Chapel Royal and the chapel of the Order of the Thistle. The abbey church was remodelled according to the plans of James Smith, and was fitted with elaborate thrones and stalls for the individual Knights of the Thistle, carved by Grinling Gibbons. However, in 1688, following the Glorious Revolution, the Edinburgh mob broke into the abbey, entered the Chapel Royal and desecrated the royal tombs.
  The association of the church with these events and the absence of a royal court left the building out of public interest. The ageing timber roof trusses were replaced by stone vaults and outer stone slabs in 1758-60 by the architect John Douglas and the stonemason James McPherson. However this proved to be a disastrous change. The excessive weight of the stone could not be supported by the walls. The strength of stone vaults depends on the containment of their thrusts, which the decayed flying buttresses could not contain any more, and a small movement (less than 1/30 of the span) can cause severe deformation and collapse. It took six years for the deformation to become alarming. This forced the Barons of the Exchequer (the administrators of the Palace) to close the church on safety grounds in 1766, following inspection by William Mylne. 
  On 2 December 1768 the roof collapsed in two stages, leaving the abbey as it currently stands, a roofless ruin.
  The restoration of the abbey has been proposed several times since the 18th century – in 1835 by the architect James Gillespie Graham as a meeting place for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and, in 1906, as a chapel for the Knights of the Thistle – but both proposals were rejected.
  In July 1829, the ruins of the Holyrood Chapel were visited by Felix Mendelssohn. Holyrood, as Mendelssohn related to his family in a letter, served as inspiration for his Scottish Symphony.
caption: The ruins of the abbey church
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