The Ancient Foundations

Today we can ourselves see the foundations of Queen Margaret's Church of the Holy Trinity. They are below the floor of the nave. They were bared during the excavations carried out by the late Dr P. Macgregor Chalmers in 1916, and gratings in the floor of the nave give access to these remnants. Here, in these ancient stones, is the seed of the great glory of the abbey that was to flower on this site.

The work which Malcolm and Margaret had so devoutly begun went on. Their son King David began the raising of the great church now known as the Old Nave. The abbey which he founded as a Benedictine monastery grew into one of the richest monastic establishments in Scotland, "so ample and having so many princely build-ings," says Matthew of Westminster, "that three potent sovereigns, with their retinues, might have been accommodated with lodging here at the same time without incommoding one another.

Thus Dunfermline grew into the capital of the Kingdom-the favourite residence of the Kings of Scotland, and their burying-place. Here Robert the Bruce was buried, and here were born David II, James I and Charles I; and Maud, wife of Henry I of England; and her brothers who became Kings Edgar, Alexander and David I; and that Elizabeth who was later the Electress Palatine and through whom the House of Hanover came to the British throne.

Edward Destroyed It

Three times Edward I occupied Dunfermline. On the morning of his departure after his last visit, 10th February, 1304, this greatest of the Plantagenets gave orders to his men to burn down the monastery. The English view of this deed is presented by Matthew of Westminster:

"Because of the enormous capacity of the place, the elders of the kingdoms of Scotland had been accustomed to assemble there and to frame plots against the king of England, and frequently in time of war-going forth as though from lurking places-they resorted to plundering raids and sanguinary attacks upon the English people. Perceiving therefore that the temple of the Lord was not a church but 'a den of thieves' and as it were 'a thorn in the eye' of the English nation, the army of the king sent rope and hooks and, levelling everything-cloisters, walls and palaces-to the ground, utterly demolished them, only the church being saved from burning and a few houses for the monks who constituted the competent and regular staff."

So that great nave-in which we now walk above the foundations of Margaret's church survived. The Abbey was restored. Once again it grew in wealth and power.

In 1327 Robert the Bruce brought the body of his Queen to be laid within its walls. And as death drew near he made preparations for his own bones to be laid with those of his royal predecessors. A marble tomb, surrounded by an iron-gilt railing and surmounted by a canopy of painted Baltic timber, was ordered from Paris, and erected-probably while he was still alive-in the abbey. There, in 1329, he was buried in a shroud of cloth of gold. Five centuries later, workmen who were clearing debris from the site of the ruined choir came unexpectedly upon a vaulted chamber near the spot where once stood the great altar. In an inner vault was a skeleton closely wrapped in sheet lead. Fragments of the coffin and shreds of cloth of gold were unearthed. The skeleton was that of Bruce-"a man not above ordinary height, the skull low and long-shaped, rather than broad and high. Some of the teeth were still in the sockets." The relics of the great King were for a time exposed for the view of Scottish patriots, and then reinterred in the same spot. That historic resting-place now below the present pulpit is marked by a porphyry slab, which once covered the tomb of an Eastern emperor, and a monumental brass.

Once again-when the storm of Reformation broke-the abbey suffered from violent hands. The Reformers stripped the abbey of its twenty richly jewelled altars and all the ornaments and effigies and furnishings which to them signified idolatry. The conventual church, now deserted, became-as did many of the religious build-ings of Scotland-a "quarry" from which local builders carted away the hewn stones. But the nave, ear-marked by the Reformers as the parish church for Reformed worship, survived, until in January 1753 the steeple, said to have been at least 150 feet high and 50 feet square, collapsed. In 1807 the south-western tower was struck by lightning and fell.

The Great Nave

But each time the great nave was spared. As we stand in it today we can feel, like a presence around us, that massive and grandly beautiful strength which has again and again survived. It stands like a great rock impervious to the pounding of centuries of seas. Bare it is, austere and stony; empty but yet filled. Filled with a rich dignity, a dignity that glows with the beauty of sculptured stone and immemorial arch. Adjoining it is the new church of Dunfermline which the men of a century ago so lovingly built to the glory of their faith. They built grandly according to their lights; and, stirred to patriotism by the thought of raising a shrine above his bones, they fretted upon the tower the name of Bruce whose corpse they had uncovered when they began their work. But that building of a century ago is shadowed into triviality by the great glowing wonder of King David's nave 600 years older.

One of the glories of the building lay hidden for centuries and was not uncovered until 1905. In that year workmen were clearing a site for the erection of a monument at the east end of the south aisle of the nave. It was discovered that the stonework here was not of Norman date. More rubble was removed, and there came into view first the arch and capitals and at last the whole of one of the loveliest and most richly decorated and excellently preserved Norman door-ways to be seen in Scotland. Protected for centuries by the coating of rubble, the sculptured capitals with their design of interlaced foliage and the chisel-sharp chevron motif of the arch were fresh and clean cut. That discovery was added evidence of the link between the builders at Dunfermline and at Durham, for this door's similarity to the door at Durham proved that link as though it were the signature of the architect himself.

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