The Murder of David Rizzio, 1565

Murdered Musician at the Court of Mary, Queen of Scots

Murder of David Rizzio -
Musician at the Court of Mary

David Rizzio (also Riccio, Richio, etc., c.1534-1566) was born at Pancalieri in Piedmont, northern Italy, about the year 1534, though he is sometimes said to have been older. He had an unusually dark complexion and was rather odd-looking, appearing to be old before his time, although any deformity he may have suffered from has probably been exaggerated by his detractors. He came to Scotland in December 1561 as secretary to the Count de Morette, ambassador from the Duke of Savoy, and stayed behind when the embassy departed a month or so later, as musician and part-time secretary, having been recommended to Mary by her uncle, the Cardinal de Lorraine. In 1564 he was appointed the Queen's French Secretary.

It was partly through the agency of Rizzio that Mary met her second husband, Lord Darnley, and Rizzio encouraged her into marriage. Nevertheless it was the jealous Darnley who was the instigator and ring-leader in the plot to get rid of Rizzio the following year. Rizzio was a foreigner, a Catholic, of obscure birth and his influence over the queen was bitterly resented by her whole court. She showered favours on him and he had such household goods and horses as the other courtiers could never aspire to. She also sought to obtain an estate for him outside Edinburgh, but this was not achieved because of his untimely death. The main plotters against him were Darnley, Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay, Moray, Argyll and Glencairn.

On the evening of Saturday 9 March, while the Queen, Rizzio and some others were at supper in the privy chamber off the Queen's bedroom in Holyrood Palace, Darnley and Ruthven entered, followed by the other conspirators. A scuffle ensued, during which the life of the queen, who was six months pregnant, was in danger. The supper table was overturned with all its plates, dishes and candlesticks clattering to the floor. The unfortunate Rizzio, having already been stabbed once in the queen's presence, was dragged screaming into the next room and finished off in a brutal manner, every conspirator taking turns at the dreadful deed, and 'in their hasty jabbing often wounding one other'. He was afterwards found to have been stabbed fifty-six times. The queen was lucky not to have had a miscarriage and fainted away.