The ruined royal palace where Mary, Queen of Scots was born in 1542.
What happened here?
A royal manor stood here from the 12th century, but the palace as it's recognisable today was begun under James I in 1424, on a favoured stopover on the road between Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle. Successive Stewart kings kept adding to it, building the grand quadrangular ruin that survives now.
Mary, Queen of Scots was born here in December 1542 — six days before she became queen at less than a week old, on her father James V's death. She was the third generation of Stewart monarchs born at Linlithgow: James V himself was born here in 1512, and Princess Elizabeth followed in 1596.
Why does this matter to Mary's story?
This is where Mary's story begins, and it sets the pattern for her entire reign: a monarch before she could walk, in a country used to Stewart kings, not queens who inherited quite this young.
What happened next?
The palace fell out of regular royal use after the 1603 Union of the Crowns moved the court to London, and was gutted by fire in 1746, during the Jacobite rising — commonly attributed to the government troops occupying it at the time. It's now a roofless but substantially intact ruin, cared for by Historic Environment Scotland.
What to look for while you're here
- The gap where the North Range once stood — it collapsed in 1607, taking with it the quarter usually identified as housing the apartment where Mary was born, though its former location can still be traced.
- The elaborate courtyard fountain, built for James V — one of the oldest surviving fountains in Britain.
- The scale of the Great Hall, one of the largest in Scotland, a sense of the court Mary was born into.