Food and the Scottish royal household facts for kids
Some of the remaining and ruined Scottish royal palaces have kitchens, and the halls or chambers where food was served, and rooms where food and tableware were stored. There is an extensive archival record of the 16th-century royal kitchen in the series of households accounts in the National Records of Scotland, known as the Liber Emptorum, the Liber Domicilii and the Despences de la Maison Royale, which are daily records of the purchase of food and drink. The royal kitchens in the 1530s employed around 60 people. Supplies of food for the royal household were known as "furnishing" and were usually managed by the Masters of the Household. Charles II came to Scotland in 1650 and a new Scottish household was created for him, and an account of food and spices survives for his stay at Falkland, Stirling, and Perth, where he may have stayed in the old Gowrie House.
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Kitchens in the royal palaces
There are no 16th-century inventories of kitchen equipment in the palaces. There are references to making furnishings, like the chests or "great kists" made for the petty larder and the silver vessel house at Stirling in 1532 made from "Eastland boards". The same carpenters panelled or partitioned a space called the "kitchen dressory" where food was plated up for serving. They made an oak table for the dressory, a frame for the serving hatch, and a chest for dried salmon. Four gardeners improved a kitchen garden and sowed lettuce and thyme.
Two iron frying pans were bought for the king's kitchen in 1525 and new pewter was bought for Christmas, including four chargers for the king's table, and other dishes and English plates. Murdo Stirling, pâtissier for Mary of Guise, bought four waffle irons in March 1539, and in June 1540 supervised the installation of ovens in the king's ships, including the Salamander for a voyage to Orkney.
A new stone oven at Holyrood Palace in 1532 had a floor made of specially selected tufa stone from North Berwick. The roof of kitchen was provided with a louvre for ventilation, resembling a beehive, an "aiphous in the heid of the samen for the mair vent". Mary, Queen of Scots, had coal brought from Wallyford for the fires in her own apartments, possibly the kitchen ovens were fuelled with wood and charcoal. In 1505 James IV lands at Bonnington including a coal pit to his master cook Thomas Schaw, who was expected to deliver coal to Linlithgow Palace.
Some kitchen equipment was included in an inventory of artillery at Edinburgh Castle in March 1567. It may represent a kitchen within an older Kitchen Tower then serving the castle gunners. There was an iron brander or grid-iron, two iron racks, two spits, and two dressing board tables. In the new bakehouse there was baking board, a storage girnel, and a trough. There were hand-mills for grinding wheat in a cellar. A brewhouse contained a "masking vat", a kettle, a "gyle" vat, and a "cumming", which was a vessel used in brewhouses. Similarly named items appear in the inventories of other Scottish houses and castles.
More kitchenalia was detailed in a 1562 inventory of the Earl of Moray, the half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots, including; skimming ladles, frying pans, goose pans, roasting irons, pestles and mortars, a block stock and a flesh (meat) stock, dressing knives, a coal rake, and pewter plates and vessels.
Stewart silver
James V had various items of silver and silver gilt plate for the table and for display on the cupboard in hall. In 1531 he acquired a quantity of silver plate from Nicholas Cannavett or Canivet, French comptroller of Dunbar, including two square trenchers with salt containers in the corner. These were in Edinburgh Castle in 1543 with other treasures like a silver cup said to have belonged to Robert the Bruce. Mary, Queen of Scots took silverware engraved with the royal arms on her ship to France in 1548 for the cuisine de bouche. James V had two silver gilt ships or nefs for the table, his grandson James VI sent them for repair by a Canongate goldsmith James Acheson in 1602.
Some of the family silver was melted down by Regent Moray in 1567. James VI acquired a cup fashioned from an ostrich egg mounted in silver in 1589. In October 1590 the master of the wine cellar Jerome Bowie and the master of household Andrew Melville made an inventory of old and new silver kept in the cuphouse with the pieces held for daily use by Francis Galbraith in the king's pantry.
Linlithgow Palace
The kitchens at Linlithgow Palace are on three levels within the tower at the north end of the Great Hall. They were modified in 1464, 1470–1, and 1539. Some alterations were occasioned by subsidence. The court kitchen is adjacent to the Great Hall. The room next door was probably the spice house. In August 1539 James Hamilton of Finnart was paid for rebuilding the king's kitchen with a fireplace, an oven, and a room for silver vessels, and another for keeping coal. There is a well in the lower "laich" kitchen.
The wine cellar is under the royal lodgings on the west side. The palace museum has an eel fork used to catch eels in the loch.
Stirling Castle
Vaulted cellars which served as a kitchen at Stirling Castle were discovered in 1920. This included a bakehouse and larder for bread. There was a kitchen space and a "dressory" for the preparation of food. These preparation spaces open into a corridor which probably linked to the hall. Another, separate, kitchen was provided for James IV in his lodging now known as the King's Old Building, and there was a "petty larder", pantry, and wine cellar. James V and Mary of Guise had kitchens in the cellar of the new Palace. The location of the castle brew house has not been discovered.
In 1533 a priest James Nicholson was in charge of the building fabric at Stirling, and he also fed cranes, herons, peacocks, and bitterns for the king's table. In March 1558 a carpenter Sandy Lawson made a cupboard for Mary of Guise's kitchen called a "gardemange", and a mason, Alexander Loverance, built a passageway from the queen's kitchen to a stairway.
Dunfermline Palace
At Dunfermline Palace some remains of a kitchen can be seen which served both the hall of the royal lodging and the monastic refectory in the 15th century. There are also remains of a second kitchen serving the royal lodgings.
Falkland Palace
At Falkland Palace there was a kitchen to serve the demolished great hall at the garden end of the ruined east quarter. A bakehouse in a cellar kitchen area at the east tower has a service stair accessing the first floor royal lodgings in the east quarter at the other end. Another kitchen in the gatehouse tower served the keeper's lodging.
Accounts survive for Charles II's stay in July 1650. His food was seasoned with saffron, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Every tart provided for the king's table had a pound of sugar, while tarts for lesser courtiers required only half a pound. A servant of the king's tailor was discovered to have taken one of the royal napkins and unpicked the embroidered initials.
Holyrood Palace
Although the old kitchens and Great Hall of Holyrood Palace have been demolished, the supper room, an intimate space in the royal bedchamber, where Mary, Queen of Scots dined with David Rizzio can still be seen. The day after the death of Lord Darnley at the Kirk o' Field, the servant known as "French Paris" came to queen's bedchamber to hang her bed with mourning black and light candles. A lady in waiting, Marie, Lady Seton gave him a fried egg for his breakfast, presumably prepared on a fireplace in the royal suite.
An English herald, John Young, wrote about etiquette and seating arrangements at meals during the reception of Margaret Tudor at Holyrood in 1503. He mentions some dishes at the dinner following her wedding on 8 August. The first course involved a gilded boar's head on a platter, a fair piece of brawn, and gammon ham. Apart from these delicacies, Young does not specify other foods. The ingredients of brawn, calf's head and jelly or aspic are frequently mentioned in later Scottish royal household books. A menu for the whole banquet survives, copied into a London chronicle. It lists the same three opening dishes of the first course as, "The Borys head solemnly shedd, Sheydis & Rondis of Braun with mustard, Gambonys of Bacon with pestellys of pork". Desserts were served with "custard royall". Spiced "Hippocras" wine was made by the apothecary, John Mosman.
The Earl of Atholl's banquet in Glen Tilt
A chronicle written by Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie in the 1570s describes a banquet prepared by the Earl of Atholl for James V to impress a Papal ambassador. This event seems to have taken place in 1532 in a temporary wooden lodge built like a castle in Glen Tilt near Pitlochry. The banquet, as represented by Pitscottie, included:
all manner of meats (foods), drinks, delicacies that was to be gotten at that time in all Scotland either in burgh or in land that might be gotten for money; that is to say, all kind of drink, as ale, beer, wine, both white wine and claret, malvassy, musticat and allicant, inchethrist (or hippocras) and aqua vitae. Further, there was of meats, of bread, white bread main breid and gingerbread, with fleshes (meats), beef, mutton, lamb, cunning (rabbit), crane, swan, wild goose, partridge and plover, duck, "brissill cock" (turkeys) and powins (peacocks) together with black cock and moor fowl and capercaillies and also the stanks (moat) that was round about the palace was sowmond (stocked) full of all delicate fishes, as salmon, trout and perches, pikes and eels and all other kind of delicate fishes that could be gotten in fresh waters was all ready to be prepared for the banquet. Since was there proper stewards and cunning bakers and also excellent cooks and pattisiers with confections [...] for their desserts.
There are records of several other hunting royal trips. Food was brought from elsewhere. Since the 15th century there was a Hunt Hall in Glen Finglas to accommodate the royal party. James IV came to the Hunt Hall in July 1492. In August 1505 he was supplied with dairy goods by two women from Duntreath, and eels and pikes from the Lake of Menteith. In August 1538 James V and Mary of Guise, with six ladies in waiting, went to Glen Finglas, bringing provisions bought in Stirling. Mary, Queen of Scots spent three days in Glen Finglas in September 1563. James V stayed at Cultybraggan near Comrie to hunt deer in September 1532, bringing bread, ale, and fish from Stirling. He frequently hunted in Glen Artney.
The archival record
Wages and fees for servants in the royal kitchen can be found in the accounts of the comptroller, published as the Exchequer Rolls, which include some food purchases. For instance, James IV provided a ship for Perkin Warbeck's servants with mutton, barrels of salmon and herring, and dried cod. Around the same time, James IV's officers sold fleeces, mutton and sheep intestines. Almost all the named kitchen workers were men, except the linen laundress, Margaret Musche in 1496. The exchequer rolls for 1507 record two swans costing 12 shillings bought for a feast, a purchase omitted by mistake from the household books.
One unlucky comptroller, James Colville was sacked in 1538 and charged with treason for his friendship with the Douglas family. He was made personally responsible for £879 worth of wax, spice, and other goods supplied to the household by an Edinburgh merchant, William Tod. The next comptroller, David Wood of Craig, was promoted from Master of King's Larder. Wood noted that suppliers could, "if their conscience would serve them", claim payment several times over, as the royal accounts were kept in such in a way that payments were not recorded.
Household books from the reign of James IV in 1511 until the end of the rule of the Earl of Arran as Regent in 1553 survive in the National Archives of Scotland in two series, known as the Liber Domicilli (NRS E31) and Liber Emptorum (NRS E32). These are written in Latin. The two series duplicate daily summaries of food purchases. The Liber Emptorum books also contain lists of extra purchases called "uncosts", including cord to hang poultry in the larder. James IV held a banquet for Christmas 1511, inviting a French ambassador. Lamb, piglets, quail, plovers, snipe, with young rabbits and a large quantity of calfs' foot jelly were served. An extract from the household books giving an idea of the diet of James V in his minority and the early years of his reign was published in 1836.
Each day the whereabouts and movements of the monarch were noted. These records have often been consulted by historians and cited for the royal itineraries and significant dates. For instance, on 11 June 1533 James V went on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Ninian at Whithorn for a week, riding first to Glasgow, while most of the household remained at Stirling Castle. On 4 August 1536 James V arrived by ship at Whithorn at night and rode to Stirling, recorded as "Ista nocte dominus rex rediit de navibus apud Candidam Casam et equitavit versus Stirling". On 1 March 1539 James was in Edinburgh, and attended the trial and burning of men accused of heresy following the performance of a Passion Play at Stirling, "Accusatio haereticorum et eorum combustio apud Edinburgh. Rege presente".
The household books include provisions bought for hunting trips, wedding feasts (for the daughters of Regent Arran), banquets on the Great Michael, table linen, and soap for its laundry and the swaddling clothes of royal infants. As well as regular meals, sometimes the monarch had afternoon drinks, especially in the hunting field. Occasional expenses include ferry boats and transport. Ginger and pepper, and linen for the cook, were supplied to James V by Michael McQueen, who with his wife Janet Rynd founded the Magdalen Chapel in Edinburgh's Cowgate.
Meat included salted Orkney beef, mutton, calves' heads, and ox feet. Lamb's intestines bought for a feast at St Andrews to welcome Mary of Guise to Scotland were probably used to prepare a form of haggis. A wide variety of fish and sea food was served including mackerel, Loch Fyne herring, conger eel, dried whitings, whale and porpoise. Poultry and birds included moor hens, dotterel, swans, quails and capercaillie. Rabbits were supplied from warrens at Dunbar and baked baby rabbit was a delicacy. Friday was a fish day. The clerks noted several days in the year as feast days of saints. Claret, tavern ale, and imported German beer feature. James V was supplied by the ale wives of North Berwick on his visits to Tantallon Castle. When Regent Arran visited Craignethan Castle with Henri Cleutin wine and beer was supplied by taverns in Lanark. Food gifts are noted in the uncost section with rewards given to the servants of the donors.
At Easter 1526, when he was 14, James V distributed ale and 14 loaves to poor people in Edinburgh. James V's cooks from 1525 were Hugh Johnston and Walter Gardener. In April 1533 Thomas Marschall was in charge of shopping during the king's visit to Perth, and was subsequently described as head cook.
A few pages which head sections of the accounts have illustrations or doodles including a unicorn, a thistle and rose, Lucretia, and figure of a man with a tent or pavilion, with the motto "spes fove". The motto was also used by Robert Denniston or Danielstoun, rector of Dysart, whose brother William Danielstoun was keeper of Linlithgow Palace.
When James V returned from France with Madeleine of Valois, he bought barrels of olive oil and verjuice, claret and white wine, and no less than 1762 pounds of salted lard, as a commitment to embrace French cuisine. In July 1537 Madeleine was ill at Holyrood, it was said by English spies that the king "doth keep so small an house that there is but only six messes of meat allowed in his house". A number of Scottish food words are borrowed from French, and examples from a list of loan words tabulated by the historian William Tytler in 1790 are frequently cited.
An account of the pursemaster of James V in 1539 in 1540 includes rewards given to servants who brought food gifts. Henry Wardlaw of Kilbaberton sent a boar and Lady Erskine sent him lampreys. When the king and Mary of Guise were at Ravenscraig Castle they ate pikes and eels from Loch Leven, and the Earl of Huntly brought aqua vitae and venison to Falkland. James V also ate pike from the Lake of Menteith and bream from Lochmaben. James V's favourite, Oliver Sinclair, brought 196 Dunbar rabbits for Christmas 1539.
In March 1549 whales beached at or near Cramond Island were salted and packed in barrels. Regent Arran had four barrels sent to Seton Palace, (he was building a fort at Luffness). Some whale oil was bought for use at Edinburgh Castle. Beached whales were a valuable property, and in 1597 Andrew Balfour of Montquhanie feuded with the Earl of Orkney over rights of wreck at Westray.
At the conclusion of the war known as the Rough Wooing, on 21 May 1550, Regent Arran hosted a banquet in his Edinburgh lodging for Mary of Guise's brother, Claude, Marquis de Mayenne, who had been a hostage in England for the peace negotiations. The banqueting hall was decorated with the royal tapestry, benches and stools were upholstered with green cloth and purple velvet by John Frog, and a new outfit in black wool and velvet was bought for Elizabeth Murray, who served or performed at the feast.
Mary, Queen of Scots
A similar record exists for Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots, written in French, and known as the Despences de la Maison Royale. This record has also been consulted for the royal itinerary. Typically, the manuscript shows that on Sunday 9 January 1540 Mary of Guise had dinner at Burleigh Castle and supper at Falkland Palace. Beef, mutton, goose, plovers and partridges were on the menu at dinner, and at Falkland, there was beef, mutton, pork, poultry and rabbit. The pastry cook made partridge pie, a pasty of pig's trotters à la sauce Madame, and craquelin. Dishes made for the common table were also listed, including plate-pasties.
At this time, Mary of Guise paid for the food of her household from her own income rather than from her husband's revenues. A 'Bread book' from 1549, during the years before she became Regent, records allowances of bread for her courtiers and household. The Bread book mentions people called the "Morys", perhaps servants of African origin or the captured Spanish cavalrymen mentioned by Lady Home in her letter of 28 March 1549. Lady Home wrote to Mary of Guise "to be a good princess" to the "Moor" and the Spanish soldiers. The baker broke his arm in 1552.
After the Scottish Reformation, from 1561, some of the expenses of the household were met by "thirds of benefices" collected from teinds. Much of the food produce collected in this manner was sold, and wine and cheese was bought with the proceeds, but some wheat was sent directly to Mary, Queen of Scot's bakers and oats were taken by the master of avery, who fed the queen's horses. John Huntar kept sheep and cattle in Holyrood Park to feed the household.
When Mary visited Rossdhu and Dumbarton Castle in July 1563, fish was served on Saturday 17, including two salted salmon, two salted ling, 50 trout, and 36 plaice, cooked in 16 pounds of butter. The household book was checked and signed by her French former comptroller and master of household, Bartholomew de Villemore. Her argentar and household "furnisher" Alexander Durham collected a contribution of £124-10s-8d in August 1564 from Coupar Angus Abbey towards the expenses of a hunting trip to Glen Tilt, where her father James V had been banquetted.
The word "marmalade" does not derive from a combination of the words "Mary" and "malade", as is sometimes claimed, but from a Portuguese word for the quince. Mary certainly enjoyed a quince preserve called "cotignac" in France, as recorded in the accounts of the French royal children's household for 1551. Shortly before the birth of Prince James in June 1566, an associate of Francis Yaxley came from Flanders with a gift for her including "banqueting dishes of sugar and marmalade".
One cook, Nicholas Boindreid, had a relationship with a woman called Bessy Brown in the Canongate. Estienne Hauet alias Stephen Hewat and his wife Elles Boug continued to cook for Mary when she was imprisoned at Lochleven Castle. The queen's food at Lochleven was "furnished" by James Dempsterton or Dempster, a servant of the Laird of Lochleven, while Walter Cockburn furnished the household of her infant son Regent Moray and James VI at Stirling Castle. Estienne and Martin Hauet rejoined Mary's household in England at Tutbury Castle in February 1569.
James VI and Anne of Denmark
Food allowances for the household of James VI as an infant at Stirling Castle in 1568 were set out by Regent Moray. Annabell Murray, Countess of Mar and her servants were to have:
First, daily 14 great breads, 1 quart 1 pint wine, 1 gallon 2 quarts ale, 3 loads of coal weekly in winter, viz., from 1 September to 1 April, and in summer 1 1/2 loads, a half pound of candle in winter, and in summer a half of a quarter of a pound of candle.
To my Lady and her servants daily in the kitchen on a flesh (meat) day, 2 "particles" of beef, 2 boiled poultry, 2 roast capons, 3 quarters of mutton, a kid, a side of "sukand" veal, 6 chickens or doves, with baking meat to my Lady only, at the discretion of the Master Household, with pottages after their discretion, and on the fish days suchlike referred to the Steward and Master Household.
James VI wrote to his nobles and lairds for gifts of food, mostly meat and game, to serve on special occasions, often citing national honour as a reason for soliciting gifts. He wrote to Robert Murray of Abercairny for "venison, wild fowls, fed capons" for the wedding of Henrietta Stewart and George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly in July 1588 at Holyrood. When he was still anticipating the arrival of his bride Anne of Denmark, on 30 August 1589 he wrote to ask the Laird of Arbuthnott and Sir Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch to provide "fat beef, mutton on foot, wild fowls and venison, to be delivered to Walter Naish, Master of the Royal Larder".
When James VI sailed to Norway to meet Anne of Denmark in October 1589, his ship was provisioned with 15,000 biscuit bakes costing £300 Scots. There was beef, mutton, salted goose and goose for baking, rabbits and capons for baking, 200 dried cod fish, 200 ling, and 200 skate, two barrels of salmon, 24 stones of cheese, 3 stones of sugar and 12 pounds of confectionary, ginger, pepper, apples, onions, vinegar, 20 great hams, kale and carrots, 180 live capons and oats to feed them, sack and Madeira wine.
On 19 February 1590, James VI wrote from Kronborg to his Privy Council, urging them to forward preparation for his return, for his "comming hame, God willing, draws neire ... a King of Scotland with a newe married Wife will not come hame every daye ... respect not onely my Honor in this, but the Honor of our wholle Nation ... and specially since I have seen so gude an example in this Countrie ... Faile not to provide gude Cheare for us, for we have heir aboundance of gude Meit and part of Drink".
At Stirling Castle from February 1594 eight aristocratic women or "dames of honour" attending Prince Henry, including Annabell Murray, Countess of Mar, Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar, Lady Abercairny, and Lady Dudhope, were granted a daily allowance for dinner on meat and fish days, including:
On the flesh day to the first service, a piece of beef, two pieces of sodden mutton, a boiled fowl, with six dishes of pottage. Their second service, 12 dishes of roast, at the Master Household's discretion.
The fish day, 12 dishes to the first service viz., plumdames (prunes), rice, butter, eggs, fried toasties, milk and bread, speckit peas, oysters, green kale, and failing of any sort to be supplied with another. The second service, 8 dishes as the season yields, and to their desserts, eggs, raisins, confectionary, and apples, 8 dishes.
As was usual, the servers of the dames' table, and other servants, were fed on the left overs. There was another table for the Mistress Nurse and the women who rocked the cradle, and another for physicians and apothecary, and for the midwife and two others.
For the feast at the baptism of Prince Henry at Stirling Castle in August 1594, James VI sent letters to several lairds and landowners, asking them to send "quick stuff" for the feast, live animals, especially deer and wild fowl, such as they "may have in readiness and spare". The banquet included a course of desserts fashioned in the shape of fish by a Flemish sugar confectioner Jacques de Bousie served in the Great Hall from a model ship with working cannon. The sugar fish were presented in glasses supplied by the court sommelier Jerome Bowie. The poet William Fowler described the scene, explaining that the sugar-laden ship represented the king and queen's good fortune in their voyage across the North Sea and her safe delivery from the "conspiracy of witches", and so Neptune:
did bring such things as the Sea affords, to decore this festival time withal: which immediatly were delivered to the Sewers (servers), forth of the galleries of this ship, out of christalline glasse, very curiously painted with gold & azure, all sorts of fishes: as herrings, whitings, flooks (flounder), oysters, buckles (shell fish), limpets, partans (crab), lapstars (lobsters), crabs, spout-fish, clams: with other infinite things made of sugar, and most truely represented in their own shape. And whilst the ship was unloading: Arion sitting upon the galley nose, which resembled the form of a dolphin fish, played upon his harp.
In March 1595 James VI solicited a gift of beer brewed in England from Sir Robert Cecil and Elizabeth I for the cellars of Stirling Castle and Holyroodhouse. In later years, in March, English beer for James and Anne of Denmark was brewed by Robert Sky and sent to Scotland. For the baptism of Princess Elizabeth on 28 November 1596, James VI sent invitations and requests for "wild meat and venison" to the Earl of Rothes, Lord Lindsay and Gray, the Constable of Dundee, and the lairds of Balwearie, Easter Wemyss, Wester Wemyss, Torrie, and Bonnyton.
Fragments of household books remain for James VI and Anne of Denmark covering most of 1598. These were long preserved by the family of the comptroller, George Home of Wedderburn. They are written in the Scots Language, (as is a book from 1512 covering the food of the household of James V as a baby at Linlithgow Palace), and detail the wedding feast of Anne of Denmark's preacher John Sering and Little Anna, and the visit of Ulrik, Duke of Holstein. The queen's accounts were sometimes countersigned by the master of work, William Schaw.
The town hosted a banquet for the Duke of Holstein at the house of Ninian MacMorran at Riddle's court on 2 May 1598. The queen's cook Hans Poppilman was employed and tableware and tapestries were borrowed from Holyrood Palace. Wine was sweetened and spiced to make hippocras by two apothecaries, John Lawtie and John Clavie. Alexander Barclay, an apothecary who frequently worked for the court, made a mutchkin of perfumed rose water. On 22 May 1598 James VI drank all night with the Duke of Holstein. On 19 June, his birthday, James VI had supper at Crichton Castle after a day's sport of hawking.
The baptism of Prince Charles was held in December 1600 at Holyrood House. This time James VI sent an invitation and request to Walter Dundas of Dundas for venison, wild meat, "brissel foulis", and capons. This would be his contribution or "propyne" to "great provision and cheer".
Anne of Denmark had Danish kitchen staff including a cook called Marion who was a bedchamber servant. James VI was supplied with shortbread and oatcakes by Christian Lindsay, who is also thought to have been a poet.
Banquet in Edinburgh, 1617
James VI returned to Scotland in 1617 for a visit, leaving Anne of Denmark in London. There were elaborate preparations. Silver and damask table cloths and napkins were sent ahead, in several qualities according to the status of the diners. The Privy Council asked the depute-treasurer Gideon Murray to make plans to finance feeding the royal party, and the provision of "wheat, beir, oats, wine, spices, beef, mutton, and other provisions" to the royal houses. He devised a special tax. Country lairds were asked to send produce, John Grant of Freuchie was asked to provide capercailzies and ptarmigan, for delivery to King James at Newcastle.
Edinburgh town hosted a banquet for King James, in a specially built banqueting house in the Council House Yard. An account for the banquet also survives. The king's fool or "pleasant" Archibald Armstrong was paid £66. There was French and Rhenish wine, sack, ale and beer. An Italian expert laid the table linen. 500 oranges were used to make a dessert with some strawberries and cream. The main courses were of venison and poultry. After the feast the visiting courtiers or "strangers danced through the town". With two other small intimate banquets hosted by Joseph Marjoribanks, the costs of the entertainment was nearly six times greater than the banquet at Riddles Court in 1598. Marjoribanks' country house at Prestonpans, Northfield, still survives.
When Charles II was in Scotland in 1650, spices were bought in December for Christmastime from Andrew Reid, a merchant in Perth, including especially "scrotckets and confects", sugar treats. A 'scorchet' was a sugar sweet flavoured with rose water, known to have been served at Scottish celebrations and banquets since the 15th century.
Academic research
The household records supply several historic dates. The death of James V on 14 December 1542 was noted as "Hodie dominus noster illustrissimus rex apud Falkland clausus est extremus". The death of Mary of Guise on 11 June 1560 as, "Mardy unziesme jour de Juing la royne trespassa dedans le charteau d'Edinburg à l'heure de une heure apres mynuict". This official time of death of the queen dowager appears in two contemporary notices of her death like a court circular. Early historians and chronicle writers may have accessed the household books, which seem to have been kept in this form since 1453.
A family history, the Memory of the Somervilles, describes a wedding "infare" at Cowthally Castle and, a few weeks later, the wedding at Craignethan Castle attended by James V. The author, James Somerville cited family household accounts, (now lost). However, the attendance of the king at these two events does not appear in the royal household books, casting doubt on the narrative and suggesting that the king did not visit Craignethan until July 1541, after the execution of his former favourite, James Hamilton of Finnart. James Somerville also claimed that James IV attended a wedding infare at Cowthally in September 1489 or 1490, and describes the meat, fish, and poultry provided. Again, this visit does not seem to fit the royal records. A 17th-century family history of the Lords Lovat makes similar reference to now lost family household books and lavish hospitality, and was written by James Fraser of Phopachy, a grandson of Simon Fraser, 6th Lord Lovat's master household who kept the accounts. These stories, and Pitscottie's description of the Atholl banquet, demonstrate that the provision of food in quantity was a significant element of courtly and aristocratic display, to be incorporated in the storytelling and recollections of later generations.
William Bourne, a zoologist, researched and identified some of the birds mentioned in the household books of James V, (using the extract published in 1836). The historian Amy Blakeway has abstracted data from the royal household books to illustrate the 16th-century inflationary price rise in Scotland. Blakeway has also compared costs to test the contemporary assertion of the comptroller David Wood of Craig that Regent Arran spent more on his household in 1543 than James V, that he "haldis ane greit hous and is at mair (more) sumpteous expense nor (than) umquhile (the late) our said soverane lord held in his time". While 1543 may have been expensive for Arran, costs in later years were lower.
Masters of the Royal Household
The Master of Household was responsible for the budget and buying food. Margaret Tudor's household was also served by an admimistrator called the "Great Purveyor". This office was held by Duncan Forestar of Skipinch in 1508.
David Beaton and Harry Lindsay were masters of household for Anne of Denmark. They complained in 1591 about missing allowances for the meals of ladies in waiting and other courtiers, including Marie Stewart, who deserved a "disjeune" or breakfast because she was a "tender bairn". At this time various suggestions were made to reduce the expenditure of both households on food. James Hudson reported that the king's table and the queen's "had like to have been unserved for want, the queen her house and trayne are more costlie to him than his own". After calculating and extrapolating the costs of food, the Master Households were advised that no more than £900 should be spent yearly on spices for the queen bought from Andrew Quhyte, and no more than £1500 on sugar, comfits, almonds, oil, and lard supplied by Robert Robesoun.
Servants and artisans who joined the royal households were given allowances of food according to their rank. Rolls of the royal household usually include these allowances, often organised in tables of servants who ate together, like Anne of Denmark's Danish servants. In November 1602 the embroiderer Thomas Barclay joined her household at Dunfermline Palace and she wrote to her Master of Household, Patrick Hume of Polwarth, asking him to give Barclay meat, bread, ale, candle and coal. The allowance was called an "ordinar".
Office holders included:
- James Anstruther
- Gilbert Balfour of Westray.
- David Beaton of Melgund
- Robert Beaton of Creich
- Alan Cathcart, 4th Lord Cathcart
- John Campbell of Lundy
- Mungo Graham of Rathernis, (died 1589)
- Matthew Hamilton of Milnburn
- Patrick Hepburn, 1st Earl of Bothwell
- Patrick Hume of Polwarth
- Harry Lindsay of Carrestoun
- Patrick Lyon, 1st Lord Glamis
- Andrew Melville of Garvock
- Robert Sempill, 3rd Lord Sempill
- Bartholomew de Villemore
