Kirk o' Field in Edinburgh, Scotland, is best known as the site of the murder in 1567 of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.
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, just adjacent to the city wall, near to the Cowgate. On his return to Edinburgh with Mary early in 1567, Darnley took residence in the Old Provost's lodging, a comfortable two storey house within the church quadrangle.
Early in the morning of 10 February, the house was destroyed by a gunpowder explosion while 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 strangled but unharmed by the explosion. A contemporaneous drawing of the murder scene at Kirk o' Field illustrates at the top left the infant James VI sitting up in his cot praying: "Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord"; in the centre lie the rubble remains of the house; to the right Darnley and his servant lie dead in the orchard; below, the townspeople of Edinburgh gather round and four soldiers remove a body for burial.
Suspicion immediately fell upon Mary and James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, one of her closest and most trusted Noblemen. Although Bothwell was considered to be the lead conspirator, he was subsequently found not guilty at trial by the Privy council of Scotland in April, 1567. Mary married Bothwell the following month, just three months after Darnley's murder.
This led to great public disquiet and ultimately proved to be a major factor in her rapid decline in power and ultimate loss of the Scottish crown. Darnley's death remains one of the great unsolved historical mysteries, compounded by the discovery and controversy surrounding the "Casket Letters" apparently incriminating Mary in the murder plot.
The lands at Kirk o' Field went on to be granted to the city specifically for the foundation of a new university. The University of Edinburgh was founded by King James VI in 1582, and the Kirk o' Field site has long been considered to be at the current location of the Old College. Recent archaeological investigations following the Cowgate fire of 2002 have raised some questions about the exact location of the house.[1]