Countess Mary Home

Mary was the second wife and widow of Alexander, 1st Earl Home.

Edinburgh's royal mile is lined with a string of historic buildings, many of them dating from the early to mid seventeenth century and little altered since.

The most interesting from a Cromwellian viewpoint is number 174, better known as Moray House, which stands on the south side of Canongate, not far from Holyrood Palace. The main house was built during the 1620s by Mary, Dowager Countess of Home

Moray House is one of the Canongate’s most impressive town houses. The impressive gateway has at its sides two towering obelisks. It contained a beautiful terraced garden where in 1707 some signatories to the Treaty of Union were added.)

Mary's daughter Margaret, (who became Countess of Moray), inherited the property in 1643.

The house remained in the family until the mid-ninetheenth century.

Mary survived her husband by quarter of a century and died in Aldersgate, London in May 1645. At or a little before her death, her Scottish property was divided between her two surviving children, her daughters Margaret and Anne. The Canongate house passed to Margaret, wife of James, 4th Earl of Moray. The house remained in the family for many generations and became known as Moray House.

Although Cromwell did not mention the exact address of his lodgings in his Scottish correspondence, near contemporary references and strong tradition alike place him at Moray House. He would have been close to Holyrood Palace, damaged by fire at this time, which was one of the principal quarters of his troops. The house remained in the hands of the Moray family and their dcscendants for a further two hundred years and in the early eighteenth century some of the negotiations leading to the Act of Union were conducted here. In 1845 Moray House passed to the North British Railway Company, who quickly sold it to the Free Church of Scotland. Following alteration and extension, it became a school and training college. It remains an educational institution and is not normally open to the public.

This building is now part of Edinburgh University.