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A brief history of Dunfermline

By the marriage settlement of James VI and Anne of Denmark the Palace of Dunfermline was presented to the new Queen as a morrowing gift on the day after the wedding at Upslo in Norway. Her feu-duty was the payment of one silver penny at the feast of Whitsuntide every year. By the gift Her Majesty became Lady of Dunfermline and possessor of all the ' principal mansions, biggings, castles, towers, fortalices and manor places within Her Ladyship.' The Abbey Church was attacked by the reformers in March 1560, but they spared the nave, which served Dunfermline as the Parish Church until the 19th century. It now forms the vestibule of the perpendicular style church which was built in 1821. The most recent addition is the beautiful memorial chapel dedicated in May 1952 to those who died in the Second World War. One visible link with James and his Danish Queen may be observed in the new Abbey Church. This is the front of the royal pew recovered from the older church and bearing the initials of James and Anne. The pew is on the site of the pre-Reformation choir of the church.

Elizabeth, who became Queen of Bohemia and the direct ancestor of the present royal line, was born in the Palace in 1596, and three years later Charles I was born there. Charles II was the last sovereign to reside in the Palace, and his signing of the National Covenant was the finale to the notable events within its walls. This followed the bloody battle of Pitreavie. In that clash between the forces of Charles and Cromwell on a disastrous Sunday in July 1651 nearly 2,000 Royalists were killed, many wounded and 500 prisoners taken. For three days the Pinkerton Burn ran red with blood and wailing women scoured the field seeking their dead or dying menfolk This was the last Covenanting struggle on Scottish soil, and the end of 600 years of residence by Scottish kings in Dunfermline Palace.

The industry which took the place of royal Courts as the basis of community life, had early origins. First to wrench the ' black diamonds ' from Scottish coal fields were almost certainly the monks of Dunfermline and first mention of linen weaving in the burgh was made in 1491. But cloth had been fashioned four centuries before that date. Queen Margaret instituted the embroidery circle, and it may well have been that Abbey priests constructed the first crude hand-weaving loom after seeing the cloth brought to the Court by French and Flemish merchants. By 1828, 1,700 looms were whirring and clacking in the burgh, and in 1845 there were 3,000 hand-looms.

Great personalities have been thrown up at almost every stage of Dunfermline's development. The Rev. Ralph Erskine, the famous Secessionist minister of the early 18th century, at 27 years of age assumed the task, with a senior colleague, of revivifying the ecclesiastic life of the Abbey. Church matters had suffered five years of neglect. Within two years communions were being attended by 4,000 to 5,000 church members, Christian fellowships nourished, and Dunfermline was even subscribing to the sending of missions to the Highlands and America. Erskine's published sermons, poems and essays were among the best-sellers of his time. Then there was Robert Henryson, the ' poet-schulemaister ' of Dunfermline, who midway through the 15th century wrote Aesop's Fables.