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The Palace of Holyrood House - The Abbey ruin.
Originally an Augustinian monastery founded by David I, son of St. Margaret of Scotland, in 1128.

Name taken from relic, fragment of the True Cross brought to Scotland by St. Margaret.
Holyrood Palace buildings overtook the abbey which became a ruin.

The ruined Holyrood Abbey lies on the north side of the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the end of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. King David I (1080 - 1153) founded the abbey, after he had been attacked by a stag during a hunting expedition, in area of what is now the Canongate. It was run by the Augustinian order (the so-called White Friars), and played an important part in the lives of a succession of Scottish monarchs, who based themselves in the Abbey lodgings rather than in the cold and uncomfortable Edinburgh Castle.

The Abbey was desecrated by Hertford in 1544, and later restored by Abbot Bellenden. The Abbey was damaged during the English raids under Somerset in 1547, and the roofs stripped of their lead coverings. The transepts with their chapels and the quire and presbytery were cast down about 1569 by order of the General Assembly of the Reformed Kirk. The vaulted loft ceiling fell later, in 1768, destroying the main arcading on the north side and north aisle. King Charles I improved the appearance of the truncated Abbey in his zeal for Episcopacy.

The nave was used as the parish kirk under Presbyterianism or Episcopacy depending on the times.

An interesting final chapter in the life of the Abbey was written when James VII (II) established a College of Jesuits within the Holyroodhouse and had a printing press set up for them. He revived the Noble Order of the Thistle in 1687 and intended to have its chapel there.

The congregation was moved to the new kirk in the Canongate. By May 1st 1688 James VII had turned Holyrood Abbey into a Roman Catholic place of worship. William of Orange landed at Torbay on November 5th. People of Edinburgh, accompanied by Magistrates, Heralds, City Guard, invaded the Palace. They overcame the musketeers who defended it, forced entrance into the Royal apartments, and tore out all the furnishings and ornaments of the King's private chapel. They broke into the Kirk and harried the interior. They broke into the Royal burial vault and cast out bones of Kings and Princes. Yes, they were vandals.