David Rizzio

David Rizzio was an Italian musician and courtier who became private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots. His closeness to the queen and influence at court provoked hostility among Scottish nobles and Mary’s husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.

Rizzio was murdered in Mary’s presence at Holyrood Palace in 1566 by conspirators who claimed he exercised improper political influence. The killing became one of the defining episodes of Mary’s troubled reign.

In Steven Veerapen’s The Queen’s Consort, Mary, Darnley, James Stewart, David Rizzio and John Knox are historical figures, and the marriage’s political collapse is documented. In Nigel Tranter’s Warden of the Queen’s March, Around Thomas move the central figures of Mary’s reign: John Knox and the Protestant lords, the Regent Moray, the volatile Lord Darnley, David Rizzio and the Earl of Bothwell, with Elizabeth I watching events from across the Border.