Dunfermline - Kings, Queens, and Legends

By Annie Whitehead

The King sits in Dunfermline town,
Drinking the blood-red wine;
"O where shall I get a skeely skipper
To sail this ship o mine?"

Then up and spake an eldern knight,
Sat at the King's right knee:
"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever sailed the sea."

So begins the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens,  which commemorates two tragic incidents: the drowning of many Scottish nobles returning from accompanying Margaret, the daughter of Alexander III of Scotland, to her marriage to King Eric of Norway, and the death on board ship twenty years after Alexander's death of his grandaughter Margaret, the Maid of Norway, heiress to the Scottish throne, on her voyage to Scotland.

Dunfermline was a royal centre from very early in Scottish history. Malcolm Canmore had a palace there in the eleventh century, and it was in Dunfermline that he married Margaret of England, who was canonised and was remembered as Saint Margaret.

In 1070, Queen Margaret established the first monastery on the site, and the small priory was enlarged into an abbey by her son David.

The abbey became a mausoleum for  Scottish royalty, and was the burial place of Malcolm and Margaret, their son David I, and Robert I (more generally known to the English as Robert the Bruce)

The abbey and lands were given as a wedding gift by James VI (son of Mary, Queen of Scots) to his bride, Anne or Anna of Denmark. Saint Margaret's power was believed to have protected women in pregnancy, and certainly, Anne-Marie, one of the guides at the abbey, told me that many Scottish queens felt a great affinity for the palace and abbey, and she believes the reason is that it was, unlike many other palaces, so strongly associated with a queen, rather than kings.

Visitors to Dunfermline Abbey will see that there are two distinct parts, one being the older abbey building, with the nave built by David I and said to be the most complete surviving example of its type in Scotland.

As with so many Scottish religious buildings, the reformation of 1560 meant that anything associated with Catholic worship was removed and/or destroyed and within three years the choir was roofless. In 1817 William Burn designed a new parish church and it opened on the site of the old choir in 1821. During this time, the remains of Robert the Bruce and fragments of his tomb were unearthed, and the modern church is home to a memorial for him. Major repairs undertaken in the 1840s exposed the the earlier church, under the nave floor.

Above, a bronze case of Robert I's skull; below, his memorial

It was the west side of the monastic cloister which was reused  to become the royal residence gifted by James VI to Anna of Denmark. Anna wanted a residence befitting her status, and William Schaw, the king's Master of Works, was commissioned to build it. This once glorious building is now a ruin, but illustrations show what it once would have looked like.

 the window marked as 2 above, is shown below

below, all that remains of the building shown above

The 'nursery' referred to would have been that of Anna's children: the future King Charles I was born here, as was his sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia. I was told by the guide that Anna was opposed to her sons being sent away for schooling, demanding that they be kept with her.

The history of Dunfermline is not confined to the abbey and palace, however, although my journey did bring me back to the churchyard in an unexpected way...

Across the road from the abbey is the park is Pittencrieff Park, an area popular for walks, and picnics. Within the park itself lie the remains of Malcolm Canmore's Tower, tucked well away from the modern, tarmacked path. The tower is all that marks the centre of Malcolm's centre of government, built on a defensible peninsular outcrop of rock above a deep ravine. The opening lines of the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens are thought to refer to the tower:

Scattered around the park are also signs to 'Wallace's Well', again, hard to find, and easy to miss:

This unprepossessing slab of stones and metal grate gives little away. But an information board explains that in William Wallace's time, the Glen of Pittencrieff would have been a densely wooded area, and the legend has it that Wallace hid in this well shortly after the Battle of Falkirk. It's said that in 1303 he visited Dunfermline with his mother, to pray at the shrine of St Margaret, and that his mother died there and was hastily buried in the churchyard, under a thorn tree. I'd not noticed this tree on my arrival, so this is why I returned to the abbey.

the thorn tree, above, and the plaque, below

Dunfermline had not quite given up all its secrets, however. St Margaret's reputation for piety was not without justification. She used to pray regularly in a little cave, and in her day access was via a wooded path and a short climb up to the cave. Nowadays, visitors must descend a steep tunnel, which was built when the local council built a car park, obscuring the original entrance to the cave.

There is little left of St Margaret's shrine and all that remains now is the stone slab. Originally, her relics were encased in a carved casket covered with gold leaf. It seems likely that her remains were moved from their resting place in the original church when her son, David, began construction of his new church.

The association of Dunfermline with Margaret is hard to escape. Later queens favoured the place, as mentioned above, and it's likely that Anna of Denmark also made arrangements to be buried here when her time came. A burial vault near the south-east doorway was probably intended for her. In the event, the last member of the royal family to be buried here was Robert Stuart, infant son of James VI, in 1602. After James became James I of England, the family moved south, and Anna was buried in Westminster Abbey.

It's said that from the 1590s onwards she and James were all but estranged. I wonder if she yearned to return to her wonderful palace at Dunfermline...

[all photographs by and copyright of the author]

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Whitehead is an author and historian, and a member of the Royal Historical Society. Her first two novels are set in tenth-century Mercia, chronicling the lives of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, who ruled a country in all but name, and Earl Alvar who served King Edgar and his son Æthelred the Unready who were both embroiled in murderous scandals. Her third novel, also set in Mercia, tells the story of seventh-century King Penda and his feud with the Northumbrian kings. She is currently working on a history of Mercia for Amberley Publishing, to be released in 2018.
Amazon Page
Website
Blog

William Wallace, the Hero?--Two Sides to Every Story

By Rosanne E. Lortz

Whenever I study history, I have an innate bias in favor of the underdog. When the Britons face the invading Angles and Saxons, I root for King Arthur’s warriors at Badon Hill. When the Anglo-Saxons bear the iron yoke of the Normans, I rally with Robin Hood’s men in Sherwood Forest. And when the Scots thwart Edward I’s ambition to rule the entire island, I look to William Wallace as the hero of the hour.

My first introduction to William Wallace was in The Scottish Chiefs, a nineteenth century novel by Jane Porter. The highly romanticized story, strewn with N. C. Wyeth’s poignant illustrations, appealed to my young teenage self. My second encounter with Wallace was in the 1995 movie Braveheart. The much grimier, but still highly romanticized story appealed to my older teenage self. Both stories made me want to cry “Freedom!” with the Scottish warrior and shed tears for his patriotic martyrdom.

Wyeth's William Wallace

Later, when I was curious enough to sift fact from fiction, I discovered that both of these retellings were about as accurate as a perjurer’s deposition. But, even with all the embellishments discarded, I had no doubts where my loyalty lay. I was still committed to William Wallace, and taking Edward I’s side was unthinkable.

This certainty was sorely shaken when I encountered the Flores Historiarum, a Latin chronicle written by several English hands during the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. It was begun at St. Alban’s Abbey, continued at Westminster Abbey, and today there are approximately twenty manuscripts extant.

The Flores Historiarum presents a much less romanticized view of William Wallace; it presents an English opinion of the Scottish hero:

About the time of the festival of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a certain Scot, by name William Wallace, an outcast from pity, a robber, a sacrilegious man, an incendiary and a homicide, a man more cruel than the cruelty of Herod, and more insane than the fury of Nero…a man who burnt alive boys in schools and churches, in great numbers; who, when he had collected an army of Scots in the battle of Falkirk against the King of England, and had seen that he could not resist the powerful army of the king, said to the Scots, "Behold I have brought you into a ring, now carol and dance as well as you can," and so fled himself from the battle, leaving his people to be slain by the sword. 

He, I say, this man of Belial, after his innumerable wickednesses, was at last taken prisoner by the king's servants and brought to London, as the king ordained that he should be formally tried, and was on the eve of St. Bartholomew [23rd August, 1305] condemned by the nobles of the kingdom of England to a most cruel but amply deserved death. First of all, he was led through the streets of London, dragged at the tail of a horse, and dragged to a very high gallows, made on purpose for him, where he was hanged with a halter, then taken down half dead, after which his body was vivisected in a most cruel and torturous manner, and after he had expired, his body was divided into four quarters, and his head fixed on a stake and set on London Bridge. But his four quarters thus divided, were sent to the four quarters of Scotland. Behold the end of a merciless man whom his mercilessness brought to this end.

For the William Wallace of this story, the punishment fits the crime. For the William Wallace of this story, the reader has no tears.

The portrayal of William Wallace in the Flores Historiarum is certainly as yellow as a jaundiced eye can make it. Some could argue that it is as far removed from truth as the whitewashed hagiographies of several centuries later. But whether it is accurate or not, for me, this passage has always illustrated an important lesson: there are two sides to every story.

As a historical novelist concerned about my craft, I can’t always follow my innate biases. I can’t just root for the underdog, or the man with the most glamorous legends. If two voices deserve to be heard, I must let them both speak.

Wallace Monument near Stirling Bridge

____________________________

Rosanne E. Lortz is the author of I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince, a historical adventure/romance set during the Hundred Years' War, and Road from the West: Book I of the Chronicles of Tancred, the beginning of a trilogy which takes place during the First Crusade.

You can learn more about Rosanne's books at her Official Author Website where she also blogs about writing, mothering, and things historical.