Canongate Kirk

This guide to Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh examines a weathered gravestone and brass plaque claiming to mark the burial of David Rizzio, secretary and confidant to Mary, Queen of Scots, murdered by conspiring nobles in 1566. It follows historians who traced when the story first appeared and found the tale doesn't hold up, and asks why a dramatic name still draws visitors off the Royal Mile. The plaque itself was only fixed to the kirkyard wall in the 1950s, decades after the ground had gone quiet.