Photographs of Scotland and Scottish Castles. - Linlithgow Palace birth place of Mary Queen Of Scots. A great ruin to explore and bring back the ghosts of yesterday. The building was a royal manor prior to the English invasion by Edward the 1 at the end of the 1200's. Edward set about fortifying the building and so by the time of Bannockburn in 1314 it was used as a garrison for the English soldiers. After the Battle of Bannockburn it reverted back to the Scots. A great fire destroyed the building and most of the town after which James 1 set about transforming the Palace into the beginnings of what you can see today.

Mary was born at the palace on the 8th of December 1542 and so began a life which was to be one of tragedy. In 1543 not yet one year old she was crowned Queen Of Scots. Sent to France in 1548 returning as an eighteen year old in 1561 to rule the country, she was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on the 8th of February 1587.

The town of Linlithgow itself is worth a visit, a half hours drive from Edinburgh or a fifteen minute train journey there is plenty to attract the visitor, try a sail on the newly opened Union Canal and visit Falkirk to see the astonishing Millennium Wheel which enables the Union Canal and the Forth & Clyde Canal to be re-linked.