EARLY DAYS OF DUNFERMLINE.

53

went on with the harrying of Northumberland," whence he returned at last, rich with the "human spoil," the captives of either sex and of all ages, gathered from the fields of England. Toward the end of the same year Malcolm and Margaret were married at Dunfermline.

Malcolm Canmore, the first King of the Scots whom the chroniclers present to us with something like distinct personality, was the son was the son of the "gracious Duncan," murdered by his subjects, Macbeth being probably the prime mover, about the year 1040. Duncan had married a kinswoman of Siward, Earl of Northumbria; so that Malcolm was closely connected on his mother's side with England; and it was by the aid of Earl Siward that he was put in possession of his Scottish kingdom in 1054.* The whole of

Scotland submitted to him, and the coronation of Malcolm at Scone is the first which is recorded to have taken place in that famous abbey. The forefathers of Margaret were the whole line of West Saxon kings; and "her mother's kin went up to the Cæsars who bare rule over Rome." These are the proud words of the English chronicler. The Etheling Edgar, with his mother and sisters, had fled to Scotland after the submission of Edwin and Morcar to the Conqueror, and had passed the winter of 1068--69 with Malcolm. It was, perhaps, during this first visit that the Scottish king "began to yearn" after Margaret. On the second occasion he wooed her so ardently that he might not be withstood. dealt with her brother," says the chronicler, "until he said yea; for in truth he durst not say otherwise, seeing they had come into his power." But Margaret, like her sister

"He

*After the murder of Duncan, Malcolm was for fifteen years in the court of the Confessor, where he "imbibed the cultivation of the English court, Grammar Latin he does not seem to have acquired; but the English and French, for so we must call it by anticipation, he spoke as fluently as the Erse or Gaelic, and was, therefore, to that extent denationalised." (Palgrave, "Hist. of Normandy and England," Vol. IV., p. 311.)

Christina, was strongly inclined to a religious life; and her marriage vow, plighted as it was at last, seems to have been plighted unwillingly. The marriage was nevertheless a most fortunate one. "It was a good day indeed for Malcolm and for Scotland when Margaret was persuaded or constrained to exchange the easy self-dedication of the cloister for the harder task of doing her duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call her. Margaret became the mirror of wives, mothers, and queens, and none ever more worthily earned the honours of saintship.

Her gentle influence reformed whatever needed to be reformed in her husband, and none laboured more diligently for the advance of all temporal and spiritual enlightenment in her adopted country. There was, indeed, no need for Bankhead Margaret to bring a new religion into Scotland, but she gave a new life to the religion which she found existing there, and she made changes in various points where the traditions of the Scottish Church still differed from the received practice of Western Christendom."* To the personal saintliness of Margaret, her biographer, who knew her well, bears ample testimony. To her, rather than to the mother of King Malcolm, apply the words which Shakespeare has placed in the mouth of Macduff:

DUNFERMLINE AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.

*Freeman, "Norm. Conquest," Vol. IV., p. 510. England," Vol. IV., chap. 7.

"The queen that bore thee, Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, Died every day she lived."

Her influence over husband and sons seems to have been without limit.† The marriage greatly advanced the process which was making Scotland English; and it was through Margaret that the old kingly blood of the West Saxons passed into the veins of the descendants.

See also Sir Francis Palgrave's "Hist. of Normandy and

+"Margaret's influence was founded upon love and piety. Her husband's counsellor, minister, friend: all that Margaret disliked, Malcolm disliked; and all that Margaret loved, he loved." (Palgrave, Vol. IV., p. 317.) He acted as his queen's interpreter to the Celtic clergy; and both waited on the poor in the hall of their tower at Dunfermline. Her sons 66 were thoroughly imbued with Margaret's kind and holy spirit, and transmitted the same spirit to their own children. So long as the male lineage of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret subsisted, the kings and princes of Scotland were pre-eminent in Christendom for piety, courtesy, courage, generosity, the acquirements of the understanding, and the graces of the heart." (Palgrave, ut sup.)

of the Conqueror. Her daughter was the "gode Quene Molde "-Edith, named after marriage Matilda, wife of Henry the Beauclerc; and it is through her that Queen Victoria traces her descent from Alfred and "the glorious Athelstan."

Malcolm Canmore was killed during a raid into Northumberland, on St. Brice's Day, 1093. His eldest son Edward fell in the same expedition, and died in the Forest of Jedwood three days after his father. Four days later, say the chroniclers, Queen Margaret died of grief at Edinburgh. Donald Bane, brother of Malcolm, laid claim to the crown, and besieged the fortress; but the queen's body was removed in safety to Dunfermline, not "under cloud of night," but under the protection of a miraculous shroud of mist, which concealed the mourners and their burden. The bodies of Malcolm and of his son Edward, at first buried in Tynemouth Priory, were eventually brought to Dunfermline and buried in the great church there, before the altar of the Holy Cross.

We thus bring Malcolm and his queen to their last resting-place, and find ourselves confronted with the "great church" at Dunfermline. Changed as it is, in the greater part indeed destroyed and rebuilt, this church is still not only the most distinct memorial of the royal marriage which exists, but also, as we shall see on entering the nave, of the English influences which that marriage brought with it. It was founded by St. Margaret herself. "After she had attained the height of worldly honour," says her biographer, "she raised a lasting memorial of her name and of her piety, at the place where her marriage had been celebrated. She built there a noble church in honour of the Holy Trinity, and with triple intention; for the health and safety of the king's soul, and of her own, and for the happiness of her children in this life and in that to come. She adorned the church with various ornaments, among which were many vessels of pure and solid gold for the service of the altar; and a cross bearing the image of the Saviour, of inestimable value, formed of gold and silver, and inlaid with sparkling gems." A small religious house was connected, probably from the first, with this Church of the Trinity; but it was not apparently until the reign of Margaret's son, David I., that "soir sanct for the crown," that the house rose to the dignity of a great Benedictine abbey. Geoffry, Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, became in 1128 the first Abbot of Dunfermline; and the church which Margaret had at least begun, and which at her death was so far completed that she herself, and immediately afterwards her husband and her son, were laid at rest in it, was henceforth recognised as the Westminster of Scotland-the place of interment for the royal race of the kingdom.

It is, perhaps, better to describe the church in its present condition before considering what part, or whether any part, of it can belong to the time of Margaret and Malcolm. In approaching the great mass of building we are first struck by the open parapet of the central tower, bearing the words "King Robert the Bruce." This, of course, is modern; and although such a lettered parapet is, at least in domestic architecture, often picturesque and interesting, it is here somewhat out of place, in spite of the fact that the Bruce himself sleeps in the church below. This tower, with the transepts opening from it, and the choir beyond, represents the "new church" of Dunfermline, built from the designs of Mr. Burn, and opened for public worship on the 20th of September, 1821. It was built, as we are assured, nearly on the lines of ancient foundation; but no fragment

of it is old. Before its construction the nave served as the parish church, and the eastern portion was partly in ruin, and partly arranged as a churchyard. Church and monastic buildings suffered not a little in the great storm of the Reformation; and Lindesay of Pitscottie, in chronicling the events of May, 1560, says, "Upoun the 28 day thairof, the wholl lordis and baronis that war on this syd of Forth passed to Stirling, and be the way kest down the Abbey of Dunfermling." The "kesting down" may have been tolerably complete so far as the eastern part of the church was concerned. But the nave either proved too strong for the destroyers, or was retained for the purposes of the "new profession." This nave is one of the most interesting ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland; and of

late years it has received much attention from the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Considerable repairs have been made, and many windows of stained glass have been inserted. The nave consists of a centre and side aisles, with towers at the western end of the latter. In the towers, the west front, and the windows of the aisles, there is work of more than one period; but the mass of the nave, including arcades, triforium, and clerestory, is Norman; and, although on a smaller scale, it at once recalls the design and peculiar decoration of the great nave of Durham. The piers at Dunfermline are higher and less massive; and the triforium and clerestory have not that equal development which gives such especial grandeur to Durham, and to other Norman churches of similar plan, such as the Cathedrals of Norwich and Peterborough. But the

general character is the same. Wall arcades and window mouldings have much in common; and above all, many of the great piers have the incised devices-the curved lines sweeping round from base to capital, and the broad arrow-head or zigzag-which distinguish Durham and Lindisfarne from the great Norman churches of the south. All the details of the work at Dunfermline are noticeable. The capitals of the great piers are plainly cushioned, and their bases are equally simple. The wall arcade under the aisle windows has double shafts, some of which are carved. The triforium extended quite over the aisles, and the roof sloped from the base of the small clerestory lights. The whole work speaks, as distinctly as any such work can speak, of English influence. Whatever the architectural style of Scotland may have been before the reign and the marriage of Malcolm-whether any national character had been, or might have been, developed,

* These devices occur in Harold's Church at Waltham; but that is a rare and, indeed, almost a unique exception.

as in Ireland, or whether the churches and monastic buildings were for the most part of wood-it is certain that a great change is to be dated from that period, and that English builders exercised for a considerable time an influence beyond the Tweed not less powerful than that which was affecting the whole Scottish state from other English sources. The questions of special interest which thus rise before us are, What

is the date of this Norman work at Dunfermline? and does any part of it belong to the lifetime of Malcolm and Margaret?

Queen Margaret, as we have seen, founded the church here not long after her marriage, in 1070. In the year of his death (1093), Malcolm was present at Durham, when the foundation of the existing cathedral was laid by the bishop, William of St. Carileph; and at Carileph's death, in 1095, it would appear that the work at Durham had not advanced farther westward than the transept. Dunfermline is so directly a copy of Durham that we are led at once to the conclusion that, while the destroyed eastern part of the church may have