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Rizzio or Riccio, David c.1533-1566
Italian courtier and musician

Born in Pancalieri, near Turin, he went to Scotland with the Duke of Savoy's embassy, and entered the service of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1561. He quickly became her favourite, and was made her French secretary (1564). He negotiated her marriage with Darnley (1565), with whom he was at first on good terms. Soon, however, Darnley suspected that Rizzio and Mary were lovers, and, with James Douglas, Earl of Morton, William Ruthven and others, entered into a plot to kill him. Rizzio was brutally murdered in the queen's antechamber at Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh.