The Earl"s Palace is a ruined 16th-century castle. It was built by Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney (1533–1593), illegitimate son of King James V and his mistress Euphemia Elphinstone.
The castle was constructed in two phases. The first phase of work, begun in the 1570s, consisted of the great hall located in the south range, above the main door. Beside this was Lord Orkney"s private chamber in the south-east corner tower. An inscription above the entrance, dated 1574, marks this phase. The second phase, completed in the 1580s, saw a new range containing a great hall and chamber built on the north side of the courtyard. The second phase probably followed Robert"s acquisition of the Earldom of Orkney in 1581. After the death of Robert Stewart, the palace was used only occasionally by later earls of Orkney, and was not occupied after the mid-17th century. By 1701 the palace had begun to deteriorate badly.
The two-storey palace was constructed around a central courtyard and well, with large stone towers at three of the four corners. It was as much a fortress as a residence. Only the palace"s upper floors had large windows; the accessible ground floors were equipped with small openings and an array of gun-holes, from which musketeers could cover every side of the building.
References:The Chapel of St. Martin is the only completely preserved Romanesque building in Vyšehrad and one of the oldest in Prague. In was built around 1100 in the eastern part of the fortified outer ward. Between 1100 and 1300, the Rotrunda was surrounded by a cemetery. The building survived the Hussite Wars and was used as the municipal prison of the Town of the Vyšehrad Hill.
During the Thirty Years’ War, it was used as gunpowder storage, from 1700 to 1750, it was renovated and reconsecrated. In 1784, the chapel was closed passed to the military management which kept using it as a warehouseand a cannon-amunition manufacturing facility. In 1841, it was meant to be demolished to give way to the construction of a new road through Vyšehrad. Eventually, only the original western entrance was walled up and replaced with a new one in the sountren side. The dilapidating Rotunda subsequently served as a shelter for the poor.