Dunfermline - Abbey

The Benedictine Abbey of the Holy Trinity and St. Margaret was founded in 1128 by King David I of Scotland. It was based on an earlier priory dating to the reign of his father, King Malcolm Canmore and Queen, St. Margaret.

In the decades following its founding, the abbey received substantial endowments, as evidenced by the consecration of 26 altars. The abbey was an important destination for pilgrims, as it housed the reliquary and cult of St. Margaret.

Despite much of the monastic buildings being destroyed by the troops of Edward I in 1303, and the turmoil during the Scottish Reformation, when the abbey church experienced an iconoclasm in 1559 and was looted in 1560, there are still substantial remains

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Robert I of Scotland I (1274 – 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce was King of Scots from 1306 until his death. Robert led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England.

Appointed in 1298 as a Guardian of Scotland alongside his chief rival for the throne, John Comyn of Badenoch. Bruce's involvement in John Comyn's murder in 1306 led to his excommunication by Pope Clement V but he received absolution the from Bishop of Glasgow. Bruce moved quickly to seize the throne, and was crowned king of Scots. Edward I's forces forced him to flee into hiding, before re-emerging in 1307 to defeat an English army and wage a highly successful guerrilla war against the English.

Robert I defeated his other opponents, destroying their strongholds and devastating their lands, what won him control of much of Scotland, and at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Robert defeated a much larger English army under Edward II of England. But despite Bannockburn Edward II refused to renounce his claim to the overlordship of Scotland.

In 1320, the Scottish nobility submitted a declaration to Pope John XXII, declaring Robert as their rightful monarch and asserting Scotland's status as an independent kingdom.

In 1324, the Pope recognised Robert I as king of an independent Scotland. In 1327, the English deposed Edward II in favour of his son, Edward III, and peace was concluded between Scotland and England in 1328, by which Edward III renounced all claims to sovereignty over Scotland.

Robert died at the Manor of Cardross.

Robert's remains were buried in Dunfermline Abbey, while his internal organs embalmed and placed in St Serf's Church, Dumbarton.

However, according to his last will, James Douglas, was to remove the heart and take it on a crusade to the Holy Land to atone for Robert's murder of John Comyn. However, Douglas only made it as far as Spain, where he was killed fighting the Moors at the Battle of Teba. The heart was later found, brought back to Scotland and buried at Melrose Abbey