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10 Best Facts about Dunfermline Abbey & Palace

Dunfermline Abbey and Palace is a medieval site first established in the 11th century. Over its long and fascinating history it played host to some of Scotland’s most famous monarchs, becoming the resting place of many including Robert the Bruce.

Queen Margret having fled in 1068  from Norman’s conquest of England in 1066  had grown up at courts familiar with Roman church practices.

Therefore, she tried to provide the Scottish church with the reformed monastic style.

She attempted to introduce Benedictine monasticism into Scotland from England, thus requested Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, send Benedictine monks to the church at Dunfermline.

In the 1070s, the monks from Canterbury to established a priory at Dunfermline.

The new priory was the first Benedictine monastery in the country. David I enlarged the priory as a tribute to his mother and in 1128 it became an abbey.

David also extended the church, which was consecrated in 1150.  When Margaret was canonised a century later the church was enlarged again to include her shrine. 

The abbey and royal palace at Dunfermline hold a key place in Scotland’s history.

Royal burial ground, 12th-century church, towering palace, holy shrine; this varied and interesting site is an excellent source of evidence for a range of historical studies. Take a look a 10 more facts about Dunfermline abbey and Palace.

1. Dunfermline Abbey & Palace was a Royal Burial Place

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Many royals  loved to stay in the abbey guest house. Some royals visited the abbey after they had died albeit in their coffins! Twenty two kings and queens of Scotland were buried here.

Dunfermline Abbey has a special place in the nation’s heart. Laid to rest here are some of Scotland’s great Kings and Queens  including Robert the Bruce.

The abbey’s great nave is also the most visually stunning example of Romanesque architecture in Scotland.

The abbey church is famous as the mausoleum of:

• Margaret (later canonised as St Margaret)
• David I
• Robert I

The very first church, the one built by the first group of monks, was smaller. Archaeologists have worked out where it used to be, and have marked it out with very narrow metal strips on the floor.

They show the shape of the first church. This is perhaps where some members of the Scottish royal family were buried.

All around the church, you might see some of the old stone coffins! Some of them might have been buried under the present floor.

2. Dunfermline Abbey Served as a Royal Palace

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Lots of members of the royal family visited here. Margaret’s son, David, developed the abbey and made it bigger and grander.

Many royals came to stay in the abbey guest house that it in fact  became known as a Royal Palace

The abbey was even popular with royals from other countries. Edward I of England, the Hammer of the Scots, wintered at the abbey when he invaded in 1303.

He wasn’t a grateful guest, though – he destroyed all of the monks’ buildings except the church when he left.

James VI (later James 1 of England) gave the abbey buildings as a present to his wife, Queen Anna of Denmarkin 1560.

She spent lots of energy and money doing up the Royal Palace and making it fit for a queen.

Its monastic guesthouse remained at the heart of the building, and over time it would host many important events.

However, the palace fell into disrepair when James VI and Anna of Denmark left Scotland to assume the English throne.

These days it’s a popular place with the abbey peacocks

3.  Dunfermline Abbey has been a Place of Worship for over 900

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The Abbey Church is the centerpiece of Dunfermline, one of the oldest settlements in Scotland and once its proud capital. 

The history of the abbey is entwined with that of Scotland itself, as Dunfermline was the burial site of the Scottish monarchs before the adoption of the island of Iona,

There has been an abbey at Dunfermline for more than nine hundred years. The church is still in use.

The abbey was started by Queen Margaret, who later became a saint. She invited monks from Canterbury in England to come and set up the first abbey of its kind in Scotland.

The newer part of the church is on the right, it is still quite old and was built nearly 200 years ago in 1818. It was built on top of the ruins of part of David’s church.

Though sacked in 1560 during the Protestant Reformation, parts of the Abbey continued to be used as a parish church and survive into the modern day.

4. St Margaret’s Shrine Head  was given to Mary Queen of Scots

Queen Margaret was a very religious woman. She set up the abbey here and she also paid for a pilgrims ferry to cross the bay of Forth so that they could come and visit the important cathedral at St Andrews.

About a hundred years after she died, the Pope decided that she should be made into a saint.

Her body was dug up from the church where it had been buried and a chapel for her body was built, called a shrine.

Now pilgrims would come and visit her chapel too. They hoped that their sins would be forgiven if they came here, or if they had an illness, they hoped that God might cure them if they visited a shrine.

It was useful for the abbey because the pilgrims made lots of donations of money.

 Her coffin was made of precious materials, decorated with jewels. It had a special wooden cover which was only lifted on important days or for important pilgrims.

 In 1560 the religion of Scotland changed from Catholic to Protestant.

Protestants thought that people shouldn’t worship saints and should only worship God. A lot of the beautiful things in the church were destroyed, and so was the shrine.

When the shrine was destroyed, the head of St Margaret was given to Mary Queen of Scots.

5. Builders discovered the Body of Robert the Bruce at Dunfermline Abbey & Palace

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When the church was being built in 1818, the builders discovered the remains of a body buried.

They knew it was likely to be one of the Kings or Queens of Scotland, but at first they didn’t know who.

Then they discovered that the body had marks across its chest, and then they realised it must be Robert the Bruce: after he had died, Bruce’s heart was cut out of his body and taken on a pilgrimage to Spain. It was later buried at Melrose Abbey.

They reburied the body, and marked it with a brass plaque, underneath the pulpit

In the abbey church there’s a shiny plaque showing where the most famous King associated with Dunfermline was buried. But you can also see his name on the top of the church tower.

The church tower and his name was added about a hundred and fifty years ago, long after he died.

6. King Charles 1 was born here and was the Last King Born in Scotland

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The cloister of Dunfermline Abbey would become the birthplace of King Charles I, making him the last monarch to be born in Scotland.

Charles I was born November 19, 1600, at Dunfermline Palace, Fife, Scotland and died on January 30, 1649, London as King of Great Britain and Ireland.

His authoritarian rule and quarrels with Parliament provoked a civil war that led to his execution.

Charles I was coronated King of England, Scotland and Ireland on 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.

He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life.

7. Dunfermline Abbey and Palace was Destroyed During Reformation

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During the Scottish Reformation, the abbey church had undergone a first Protestant ‘cleansing’ by September 1559 and was sacked in March 1560.

By September 1563 the choir and feretory chapel were roofless, and it was said that the nave was also in a sorry state, with the walls so extensively damaged that it was a danger to enter.

Some parts of the abbey infrastructure still remain, principally the vast refectory and rooms over the gatehouse which was part of the former city wall.

The nave was also spared and it was repaired in 1570 by Robert Drummond of Carnock.

In 1672 parts of the east end collapsed, while in 1716 part of the central tower is said to have fallen, presumably destabilising much that still stood around its base, and the east gable tumbled in 1726. The final collapse of the central tower took place in 1753.

The nave served as the parish church till the 19th century, and now forms the vestibule of a new church.

8. The Poet Robert Henryson was associated to the Dunfermline Abbey and Palace

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Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500.

Counted among the Scots makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities.

Little is known of his life, but evidence suggests that he was a teacher who had training in law and the humanities, that he had a connection with Dunfermline Abbey and that he may also have been associated for a period with Glasgow University.

His poetry was composed in Middle Scots at a time when this was the state language. His writing consists mainly of narrative works.

His surviving body of work amounts to almost 5000 lines.

9. Dunfermline Abbey and Palace was the Capital of Scotland

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The Abbey Church is the centrepiece of Dunfermline, one of the oldest settlements in Scotland and once its proud capital. 

There have been settlements around Dunfermline for thousands of years, but written records go back to the 11th century.

The name probably means Fort of the Crooked Water referring to the old castle that sat high above the gorge of Pittencrieff Glen.

It was King Malcolm Canmore who made the town his royal centre before the idea of Scotland having a fixed capital city really existed.

Later monarchs preferred different towns with eventually Edinburgh taking over for good. That didn’t mean Dunfermline was ignored entirely.

The last monarch to be born in Scotland was at Dunfermline Palace in 1600, the rather unfortunate Charles I.

The town started to decline after the royal family moved down to London and in 1624 a fire destroyed most of the historic buildings.

10.  Queen Margaret liked Praying in a  Cave

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The holiest of all Scotland’s Queens, Margaret fed orphans, washed the feet of pilgrims and even sponsored a ferry to help them travel to Dunfermline and on to St Andrews.

If you’ve ever wondered about the name Queensferry then this is the lady to thank. It’s no surprise that she was canonised in 1250.

Like the hermit saints of old, Queen Margaret liked nothing more than praying in a little cave.

It might be hard to imagine this historic part of Dunfermline 950 years ago but it would have been a leafy glen, just a short walk from the castle.

When the council decided to build a car park right here, the locals were in uproar.

The compromise came with this little entrance masking a deep tunnel that drops right down to St Margaret’s Cave.

Today Dunfermline Abbey and Palace are managed by Historic Scotland and are open to the public.

With nearly 1,000 years of religious and royal history, Dunfermline Abbey and Palace provide an authentic visit to one of Scotland’s most culturally significant sites.