A few details of Mary’s household and her travels in 1564 are known from an account of payments made by George Wishart of Drymme, which was published for the first time by the Scottish History Society in 2025.¹ Mary’s trip to the north of Scotland included hunting in Glentilt, (4 July).² Wishart’s account includes payments to the archers of her guard for stuffing their mattresses with new straw every time Mary made a “remove”. The mattresses were called “palyeces” or palliases:

“for making of the palyeces and filling of thame everie xv dayes anis ilk tyme twelf schillings and for threttye removings, twelf schillingis during the tyme of the quenis grace passing fra Edinburgh to Atholl to the huntis to Inverness and throuch the north cuntrie and to hir grace cumming Agane to Edinburgh”³

The 1564 progress involved 30 removings. Mary’s itinerary during her adult reign in Scotland was charted by Edward Furgol in 1988.⁴ George Wishart’s account includes a payment of some relevance to her journey back to Holyrood.⁵ A messenger boy was sent to Lord Forbes, the lairds of “Boquhane” and Drum, the Earl Marischal, and the Countess of Crawford for them to make provision for the queen:

“And to ane boy that passit with writings to my lord Forbes the lairds of Boquhane and Drum erle Merschell and the comptas of Craufurde to mak provisioun for the queinis majesties cumming fra Innerness __ xx s.”⁶

This doesn’t necessary imply that Mary visited all the residences of these people on her journey southwards from Gartly Castle to Dundee (25 August to 8 September), though she did visit the Earl Marischal’s Dunnotar Castle on 5 September.

“Boquhane” is Balquhain Castle, a substantial tower belonging to the Lesley family near Inverurie which survives as a ruin.⁷ Visits to Balquhain and Drum Castle before Mary’s arrival at Aberdeen on 30 August are plausible.

The dowager Countess of Crawford, Katherine Campbell, lived at Edzell and Brechin Castle at this time and may have hosted Mary before she reached Dundee on 8 September. Mary had been to Edzell in August 1562, and an inventory of Edzell made in 1573 details a “queen’s chamber”.⁸

1. Michael Pearce, “Account of George Wishart of Drymme”, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVII (Edinburgh: SHS, 2025), pp. 1-40.. ↩︎
2. John M. Gilbert, Elite Hunting Culture and Mary, Queen of Scots (Boydell, 2024), pp. 127-138. ↩︎
3. Michael Pearce, “Account of George Wishart of Drymme”, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVII (Edinburgh: SHS, 2025), p. 24. ↩︎
4. Edward Furgol, “The Scottish itinerary of Mary Queen of Scots, 1542–8 and 1561–8”, PSAS, 117 (1988), pp. 219-231. A supplement gives Mary’s itinerary ↩︎
5. In 1992, Gordon Donaldson had a look at Wishart’s account with the exact same purpose in mind, see “John Knox on Queen Mary’s Payroll?”, Scotland’s History: Approaches and Reflections (Scottish Academic Press, 1995), p. 63. ↩︎
6. Michael Pearce, “Account of George Wishart of Drymme”, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVII (Edinburgh: SHS, 2025), p. 31. ↩︎
7. Balquhain: HES TROVE ↩︎
8. Mary Verschuur, A Noble and Potent Lady: Katherine Campbell, Countess of Crawford (Dundee: Abertay Historical Society, 2006), pp. 63, 80, 91 fn. 25 citing National Library of Scotland, Acc. 9769 Crawford muniments, 3/1/84. ↩︎