Holyrood Abbey (the Abbey of the Holy cross) was founded in 1128 by king of Scotland David I and belonged to the monks of the Augustinian. The Abbey played an important role not only in religious but also in the political life of Scotland. Here were held the meetings of the nobility and higher clergy, were crowned here and were crowned the kings of Scotland. Kings often stayed in the Abbey, located close to Edinburgh castle, preferring to live here and not in the castle, and at the end of the XV century in the Abbey were separate Royal apartments, and in the early sixteenth century, king James IV builds a Palace adjacent to the Abbey of Holyroodhouse.

In the middle of the XVI century by the English troops, seized the Abbey, he was ruined – building has lost the lead of the roof, the bells were removed, looted valuables. Soon started the Scottish reformation, the Abbey was almost completely destroyed. In 1686 king James VII was founded in Holyrood the Jesuit College and the following year, the Abbey became a Catholic. The Church was rebuilt and it became the chapel of the most Ancient and most noble order of the Thistle, decorated with carved chairs according to the number of knights of the order. However, in 1688 the rebel crowd broke into the Church, destroying both the Church and the chapel and profaning the ancient Royal burial. (Its chapel appeared at the order of the Thistle only in 1911 in St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.)

Poorly repaired roof collapsed during a hurricane in 1768, and since then the Abbey is in the same condition in which we can see it now – picturesque ruins, the impressive remains of its former greatness. During these 250 years has been the restoration and rebuilding of the Abbey, but none of them has not been realized.