The ornately carved and pierced cresting with acanthus leaves, scrolls and shells, above a scrolled foliate headboard centred by a silk damask-upholstered shell, on legs with four scrolled feet. The interior, headboard, drapes, pelmets and bedspread covered in crimson silk damask with a repeating motif of pomegranate and foliage. Damask on the interior of canopy original, the rest modern.

James, first Duke of Hamilton (1606-1649) was made Hereditary Keeper of Holyrood by Charles I and it was probably his daughter, Duchess of Hamilton in her own right, who commissioned the bed for the Hamiton apartments although no detailed description survives which can securely link the bed with an inventory of this date. The earliest surviving inventory is dated 23 August 1672 and in the Duke's chamber is 'a bedsted with damask curtines and silk fringed going round the top and a small silk fringe going round each curtain. tester head and underpayne of the same damask.' Unfortunately the colour is not specified.

Between 1679 and 1682, James, Duke of York, was resident at the Palace and the apartments had been emptied of furnishings. The next surviving inventory, of 1684, notes 'In my Lord's Bedchamber One bed with reid Damas courtines & feather bed, etc ...' Subsequent inventories record a red damask bed in the Hamilton apartments however, by the late eighteenth century, the Dukes of Hamilton were infrequent visitors.

By 1854, the Board of Works had taken over the care of the Historical Apartments and displayed this crimson damask bed in Queen Mary (of Scots) Bedroom and soon after, the bed lost all association with its original owners, the Dukes of Hamilton, becoming known, romantically and erroneusly, as Queen Mary's bed, or 'the couch of the rose of Scotland'.