Theatre , built for himself by
William Bruce and one of the first Palladian houses in Britain The loss of a royal court when
James VI inherited the English and Irish thrones in 1603 and the hostility of the Kirk, meant that theatre had struggled to survive in seventeenth-century Scotland. After the Restoration there were attempts to revive Scottish drama. In 1663 Edinburgh lawyer William Clerke wrote
Marciano or the Discovery, a play about the restoration of a legitimate dynasty in Florence after many years of civil war. It was performed at the Tennis-Court Theatre at Holyrood Palace before commissioner Rothes. Thomas Sydsurf's ''Tarugo's Wiles or the Coffee House'', was first performed in London in 1667 and then in Edinburgh the year after and drew on
Spanish comedy. Sydsurf was also manager from 1667 of the Tennis-Court Theatre and ran a company of players in Edinburgh's Cannongate. The repertoire followed that in London and there were no new Scottish plays after ''Tarugo's Wiles''. The Duke of Albany brought with him a company of actors when he was resident at Holyrood as commissioner. He was also joined by a group of Irish players, who brought their own costumes. He encouraged court
masques and seasons of plays at the Tennis-Court Theatre, one of which included acting by
Princess Anne, the future Queen Anne.
Architecture The Restoration saw the introduction of a style of country house among the Scottish nobility that encouraged a move towards a more leisure-oriented architecture already adopted in continental Europe. Its pioneer was
Sir William Bruce (c. 1630–1710) who was the key figure in introducing the
Palladian style to the country. Bruce was influenced by English architects
Inigo Jones and
Christopher Wren (1632–1723), particularly the latter's interpretation of the
Baroque. Bruce built and remodelled country houses, including
Thirlestane Castle and
Prestonfield House. Among his most significant work was his own Palladian mansion at
Kinross, built on the Loch Leven estate he had purchased in 1675. As the
Surveyor and Overseer of the Royal Works Bruce undertook the rebuilding of the Royal Palace of
Holyroodhouse in the 1670s, giving the palace its present appearance. After the death of Charles II in 1685, Bruce lost political favour.
James Smith (c. 1645–1731) worked as a mason on Bruce's rebuilding of Holyrood Palace. In 1683 he was appointed Surveyor and Overseer of the Royal Works, responsible for the palace's maintenance. With his father-in-law, the master mason
Robert Mylne (1633–1710), Smith worked on
Caroline Park in
Edinburgh (1685), and
Drumlanrig Castle (1680s). Smith's country houses followed the pattern established by Bruce, with hipped roofs and pedimented fronts, in a plain but handsome Palladian style.
Art , by
John Michael Wright, an early example of the full-length portrait in
Highland dress, c. 1680 Sculpture was dominated by foreign professionals. The equestrian statue of Charles II outside
Parliament House (1684/5) was a lead replica of Dutch-born
Grinling Gibbons's (1648–1721) bronze statue at Windsor, the first in Britain to depict a monarch in classical dress. John Van Ost (fl. 1680–1729) supplied lead garden statuary for
Hopetoun House and
Drumlanrig Castle. William Bruce favoured Dutch carvers for his realisation of Kinross House, where there are
festoons, trophies and
cornucopia around the doorways and gates. These may have included Jan van Sant Voort, a Dutch carver known to have been living in Leith, who supplied Bruce with a carved heraldic
overdoor in 1679 and who worked on Bruce's rebuilding of Holyrood Palace. From 1674 the London plasterers George Dunsterfield (fl. 1660–1676) and John Houlbert (fl. 1674–1679) worked for Bruce at
Thirlestane, Berwickshire and at Holyroodhouse. Dunsterfield was also active at
Balcaskie, Fife and probably at
Kellie Castle, Fife.
John Michael Wright (1617–1694) had been trained by the first significant native artist in Scotland,
George Jamesone of Aberdeen (1589/90–1644). Wright also studied in Rome with
Poussin and
Velázquez and painted portraits of both Scottish and English subjects, including his sensitive portrait of William Bruce (1664) and styled himself as "king's painter". His full-length painting of
Lord Mungo Murray in
Highland dress (c. 1680) is an early example of what became a standard format of Scottish portrait. Also important was the miniaturist
David Paton (fl. 1668–1708), who worked mainly in
plumbago, but also painted portraits in
oil. Visiting artists included
Jacob de Wett (c. 1610–c. 1691), who was commissioned in 1684 to paint images of 110 kings for Holyroodhouse and similar work at
Glamis Castle.
Intellectual life The period between 1679 and 1689 saw the foundation of a large number institutions that would be important in Scottish cultural and intellectual life. These included the
Royal College of Physicians in 1681, and three professors of medicine were appointed at the University of Edinburgh in 1685. James VII created the
Order of the Thistle in 1687 and the
Advocates Library, planned since 1682, was opened in 1689. The offices of Royal Physician, Geographer Royal and
Historiographer Royal were founded between 1680 and 1682. Immediately after the Restoration there was a purge of Presbyterians from the universities, but most of the intellectual advances of the preceding period were preserved. The
five Scottish universities recovered from the disruption of the preceding decades with a lecture-based curriculum that was able to embrace economics and science, offering a high-quality liberal education to the sons of the nobility and gentry. All saw the establishment or re-establishment of chairs of mathematics. Astronomy was facilitated by the building of
observatories at St. Andrews and at King's and Marischal colleges in Aberdeen.
Robert Sibbald was appointed as the first Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh and he co-founded the
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1681. ==Footnotes==