Kirk o' Field

Kirk o' Field in Edinburgh, Scotland, is best known as the site of the murder on 10 February 1567 of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and father of King James VI. The site was occupied by the collegiate church of St Mary in the Fields, or the Kirk o' Field. It was approximately ten minutes' walk from Holyrood Palace, adjacent to the city wall, near to the Cowgate. The site is close to the location of the National Museum of Scotland.

On his return to Edinburgh with Queen Mary early in 1567, Darnley took residence in the Old Provost's lodging, a two-storey house within the church quadrangle. The house was owned by Robert Balfour, whose brother Sir James Balfour was a prominent councillor of Queen Mary. Adjacent was the lodging of James Hamilton, Duke of Châtellerault. At first Darnley's household thought he would be accommodated in the Hamilton Lodging.

Early in the morning of 10 February, the house was destroyed by a gunpowder explosion while Queen Mary was at Holyrood attending the wedding celebration of Bastian Pagez. The partially clothed bodies of Darnley and his servant were found in a nearby orchard, apparently either smothered or strangled but unharmed by the explosion. Another servant was killed in the house by the explosion, which it was said had such, "a force and vehemency, that of the haill ludgeing, walles and uthir, their is na thing left unruinated and doung in drosse to the verie ground stane."

Three witnesses made sworn statements on the following day. Barbara Mertine said she was looking out of the window of her house in Friar's Wynd, and heard 13 men go through the Friar Gate into Cowgate and up Friar's Wynd. Then she heard the explosion, the "craik rais," and 11 more men went by. She shouted after them that they were traitors after an "evill turn." May Crokat lived opposite Barbara, under the Master of Maxwell's lodging. May was in bed with her twins and heard the explosion. She ran to the door in her shirt (sark) and saw the 11 men. May grabbed at one man and asked about the explosion, receiving no answer. John Petcarne, a surgeon who lived in the same street heard nothing, but was summoned to attend Francis Busso, a servant of Queen Mary.

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