Palace of Holyroodhouse

This guide to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh opens with a strange fact: King Charles the Second never once saw the palace he ordered rebuilt. It follows architect Sir William Bruce and master mason Robert Mylne through eight years of construction in the 1670s, chasing a single obsession with symmetry against an older, lopsided tower left by James the Fifth a century and a half earlier. Charles paid for the work and approved every drawing sent south to London, then handed the finished palace's keys to his brother, the Duke of York.