JK GILLON

Edinburgh's Royal Tennis Court was in a covered building just outside the gates of Holyrood Palace. Royal or Real Tennis originated in France. It is considered the oldest and most difficult of all ball games and was a fashionable amusement in the 16th and 17th centuries in Scotland. It is much more elaborate than modern tennis. Play involves hitting a ball with racquets both over a net and against the walls of the court.

The Duke of Albany, later James VII of Scotland, was among the players in the Royal Tennis court. The Royal Tennis Court is also connected with early Scottish theatre. In the latter part of the 16th century, several theatrical companies performed in a temporary theatre at the Royal Tennis Court. In 1601, an English company of actors, headed by a Laurence Fletcher, 'comedian to his Majestie', appeared at the Royal Tennis Court. Among Fletcher's company was William Shakespeare. It is generally agreed that he visited Scotland at this time and sketched out a plan for Macbeth.

Members of the Royal Family, including the future Queen Anne, took part in some of the many plays. The last recorded theatrical presentation at the Royal Tennis Court was in 1714 when Macbeth was performed 'in the presence of a brilliant array of Scottish Nobles, after an archery competition'.

The use of the Tennis Court as a theatre was often in defiance of the city churchmen. In 1599, the clergy took out an interdict against a company of English comedians and in 1710, the Theatre was denounced as a 'hotbed of vice and profanity'.

The Royal Tennis Court was eventually turned into a weaver's workshop and was finally burnt down in 1771. A restored Real Tennis court at Falkland Palace in Fife is now the only one in Scotland.