Dunfermline Abbey and Palace

Dunfermline Abbey was founded in the eleventh century by Saint Margaret of Scotland, the wife of King Malcolm III. Queen Margaret brought Benedictine monks from Canterbury to begin the monastic life at Dunfermline. The heart of any Benedictine community is the church. The church of Dunfermline Abbey, seen in the photograph below, was no exception. It was here that the Benedictines each day would have celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and chanted the Divine Office.

Dunfermline enters Drummond history when Annabella Drummond, queen and wife of King Robert III, gave birth to the future King James I of Scotland in Dunfermline Palace, 1394.¹ After the death of Queen Annabella, 1401, she was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.² One of the windows in the church shows a beautiful emblazonment of Annabella Drummond's coat of arms; that is, Scotland impaling: Or, three bars wavy Gules.

¹ Weis, Frederick Lewis. Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonist Who Came to America before 1700. Eds. William R. Beall and Kaleen E. Beall. 8th ed. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004) 238.² Burke, John and Sir Bernard Burke. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage. Ed. L.G. Pine. 101st ed. (London: Burke's Peerage Limited, 1956) 1712.

Notes: A special thanks goes to Greg Sullens for editing the photos on this Web page. The photos remain my property and may not be used, copied, or stored for any reason.

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