Records survive of the expenses made to feed the Scottish royal household in the sixteenth century, and the remains of royal kitchens can be seen in the ruins of palaces and castles. Archaeologists can recover evidence of diet from deposits including waste from meals and food preparation. The expenses were managed by courtiers appointed as Masters of the Household.

Overview Some of the remaining and ruined Scottish royal palaces have kitchens, and the halls or chambers where food was served, and rooms where food and tableware were stored. There is an extensive archival record of the 16th-century royal kitchen in the series of households accounts in the National Records of Scotland, known as the Liber Emptorum, the Liber Domicilii and the Despences de la Maison Royale, which are daily records of the purchase of food and drink.Andrea Thomas, Princelie Majestie: The Court of James V (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2005), p. 247.William Angus, "The Royal Household Books and Papers", The Scottish Historical Review, 31:112, Part 2 (October 1952), pp. 192–193: William Angus, "Accessions of Public Records to the Register House since 1905", The Scottish Historical Review, 26:101, Part 1 (April 1947), p. 32.Athol L. Murray, 'The pre-Union Records of the Scottish Exchequer', Journal of the Society of Archivists, 2:3 (April 1961), p. 96

The royal kitchens in the 1530s employed around 60 people. Supplies of food for the royal household were known as "furnishing" and were usually managed by the Masters of the Household.John G. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces (Tuckwell: East Linton, 1999), p. 182. Charles II came to Scotland in 1650 and a new Scottish household was created for him, and an account of food and spices survives for his stay at Falkland, Stirling, and Perth, where he may have stayed in the old Gowrie House.David Stevenson, "Minute Book of the Board of Green Cloth", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XV (Edinburgh, 2013), pp. 55–132.

The household books include many payments for the transport of meat, fish, and cereal products. Such records illustrate the royal itinerary. Much food was transported by boats in the Firth of Forth between Edinburgh, Stirling, and Blackness Castle (the port for Linlithgow Palace). The household books for 1529 record the loss of provisions and barrels of beer from a boat between Leith and Stirling, due to "a great wind from the north by Aberdour".Excerpta e libris domicilii Jacobi Quinti regis Scotorum (Bannatyne Club: Edinburgh, 1836), Appendix pp. 24–25. When James IV, and later, James V and Mary of Guise, went hunting to Glen Finglas supplies were sent from Stirling,James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 435; vol. 7 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 252: Henry Ellis, 'Household Book of James the Fifth', Archaeologia, 22 (London, 1829), p. 10. while the keepers of the hunting forest, the Edmondstones of Duntreath, sourced milk and some provisions locally.William Hepburn, The Household and Court of James IV of Scotland (Boydell, 2023) p. 132: Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1901). pp. 156–7.

Kitchens in the royal palaces

There are no 16th-century inventories of kitchen equipment in the palaces. Much of the equipment was moved when the monarchs progressed between residences. In 1595, an exchequer official John Skene suggested that money could be saved by buying essentials for each palace kitchen rather than carting things around, noting:To eschew the exorbitant expenses maid upoun the cariage of thair majesties houshald stuff, it war very necessair to buy spetis (spits), raxis (racks), fyre vessell and tin vessell and put the same in Falkland, Stiviling, Linlithgow and Halyrudhous, so many as micht convenientlie furneis and staik thair majesteis keichingis.Athol Murray, "Sir John Skene and the exchequer, 1594-1612', Stair Society Miscellany, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1971), pp. 145–146 (partly modernised here).

There are references in the treasurer's accounts to making furnishings for kitchens, like the chests or "great kists" made for the petty larder and the silver vessel house at Stirling in 1532 made from "Eastland boards". The same carpenters panelled or partitioned a space called the "kitchen dressory" where food was plated up for serving. They made an oak table for the dressory, a frame for the serving hatch, and a chest for dried salmon. Four gardeners improved a kitchen garden and sowed lettuce and thyme.Henry Paton, Accounts of the Master of Work, vol. 1 (HMSO, Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 105–08, 100.

Two iron frying pans were bought for the king's kitchen in 1525 and new pewter was bought for Christmas, including four chargers for the king's table, and other dishes and English plates.Excerpta e libris domicilii Jacobi Quinti regis Scotorum (Bannatyne Club: Edinburgh, 1836), p. 72. Murdo Stirling, pâtissier for Mary of Guise, bought four waffle irons in March 1539, and in June 1540 supervised the installation of ovens in the king's ships, including the Salamander for a voyage to Orkney.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 7 (Edinburgh, 1907), pp. 140, 312.

A new stone oven at Holyrood Palace in 1532 had a floor made of specially selected tufa stone from North Berwick. The roof of kitchen was provided with a louvre for ventilation, resembling a beehive, an "aiphous in the heid of the samen for the mair vent".John G. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces (Tuckwell: East Linton, 1999), p. 187: Henry Paton, Accounts of the Masters of Work, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. lii, 72, 100. Mary, Queen of Scots, had coal brought from Wallyford for the fires in her own apartments, possibly the kitchen ovens were fuelled with wood and charcoal.Gordon Donaldson, Accounts of the Collectors of Thirds of Benefices, 1561-1572 (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1949), pp. 146, 156. In 1505 James IV granted lands at Bonnington including a coal pit to his master cook Thomas Schaw, who was expected to deliver coal to Linlithgow Palace.M. Livingstone, Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, 1488-1529, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1908), p. 156 no. 1070.

Some kitchen equipment was included in an inventory of artillery at Edinburgh Castle in March 1567. It may represent a kitchen within an older Kitchen Tower then serving the castle gunners. There was an iron brander or grid-iron, two iron racks, two spits, and two dressing board tables. In the new bakehouse there was baking board, a storage girnel, and a trough. There were hand-mills for grinding wheat in a cellar. A brewhouse contained a "masking vat", a kettle, a "gyle" vat, and a "cumming", which was a vessel used in brewhouses. Similarly named items appear in the inventories of other Scottish houses and castles.HMC Mar & Kellie, 2 (London, 1930), p. 25: Thomas Thomson, Collection of Inventories (Edinburgh, 1815), pp. 173–4.

More kitchenalia was detailed in a 1562 inventory of the Earl of Moray, the half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots, including; skimming ladles, frying pans, goose pans, roasting irons, pestles and mortars, a block stock and a flesh (meat) stock, dressing knives, a coal rake, and pewter plates and vessels.HMC 6th Report: Moray (London, 1877), pp. 647–9, he was Earl of Mar at this time, the inventory does not give the location of the kitchen.

Stewart silver James V had various items of silver and silver gilt plate for the table and for display on the cupboard in hall. In 1531 he acquired a quantity of silver plate from Nicholas Cannavett or Canivet, French comptroller of Dunbar, including two square trenchers with salt containers in the corner.Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1903), p. 462. These were in Edinburgh Castle in 1543 with other treasures like a silver cup said to have belonged to Robert the Bruce.Thomas Thomson, Collection of Inventories (Edinburgh, 1815), pp. 71, 73, 111. Mary, Queen of Scots took silverware engraved with the royal arms on her ship to France in 1548 for the cuisine de bouche. James V had two silver gilt ships or nefs for the table, his grandson James VI sent them for repair by a Canongate goldsmith James Acheson in 1602.Thomas Thomson, Collection of Inventories (Edinburgh, 1815), pp. 71, 111: NLS Balcarres Papers 5: NRS E23/11/24.

Some of the family silver was melted down by Regent Moray in 1567.Joseph Robertson, Inventaires de la Royne Descosse (Edinburgh, 1863), p. cxlviii-cxlix. James VI acquired a cup fashioned from an ostrich egg mounted in silver in 1589. In October 1590 the master of the wine cellar Jerome Bowie and the master of household Andrew Melville made an inventory of old and new silver kept in the cuphouse with the pieces held for daily use by Francis Galbraith in the king's pantry.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "King James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588–1596", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), p. 65: NLS Adv. MS 34.2.17, f. 28r-v., and NRS E34/40.

Linlithgow Palace The kitchens at Linlithgow Palace are on three levels within the tower at the north end of the Great Hall. They were modified in 1464, 1470–1, and 1539. Some alterations were occasioned by subsidence. The court kitchen is adjacent to the Great Hall. The room next door was probably the spice house.John G. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces (Tuckwell: East Linton, 1999), pp. 183–5. In August 1539 James Hamilton of Finnart was paid for rebuilding the king's kitchen with a fireplace, an oven, and a room for silver vessels, and another for keeping coal.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 7 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 195. There is a well in the lower "laich" kitchen.Adrian Cox, Linlithgow Palace (Historic Scotland, 2010), p. 22.

The wine cellar is under the royal lodgings on the west side. A carved stone corbel depicts a figure drinking. The palace museum has an eel fork used to catch eels in the loch.Adrian Cox, Linlithgow Palace (Historic Scotland, 2010), pp. 15, 23, 29.

Stirling Castle

Vaulted cellars which served as a kitchen at Stirling Castle were discovered in 1920. This included a bakehouse and larder for bread. There was a kitchen space and a "dressory" for the preparation of food. These preparation spaces open into a corridor which probably linked to the hall. Another, separate, kitchen was provided for James IV in his lodging now known as the King's Old Building, and there was a "petty larder", pantry, and wine cellar. James V and Mary of Guise had kitchens in the cellar of the new Palace. During the baptism of James VI, Lord Darnley's meals were supplied from the Queen's kitchen rather than the main kitchen. The location of the castle brew house has not been discovered.John G. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces (Tuckwell: East Linton, 1999), pp. 185–6:John Hosack, Mary Queen of Scots and her accusers, 1 (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1869), p. 533.

In 1533 a priest James Nicholson was in charge of the building fabric at Stirling, and he also fed cranes, herons, peacocks, and bitterns for the king's table.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, 1531–1538, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1905), pp. 96–7, 206. In March 1558 a carpenter Sandy Lawson made a cupboard for Mary of Guise's kitchen called a "gardemange", and a mason, Alexander Loverance, built a passageway from the queen's kitchen to a stairway.Henry Paton, Accounts of the Masters of Work, vol. 1 (HMSO, Edinburgh, 1957), p. 296: George Powell McNeill, Exchequer Rolls, 1557–1567, vol. 19 (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 132.