Born Prince & Princesses
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DUNFERMLINE – BORN PRINCE & PRINCESSES 2 DUNFERMLINE – BORN PRINCE & PRINCESSES BY J. B. MACKIE, F.J.I., Author of “Life and Work of Duncan McLaren.” “Modern Journalism.” “Margaret Queen and Saint.” & Dunfermline; DUNFERMLINE Journal Printing Works. 3 RUINS OF THE ABBEY CHOIR, AULD KIRK, & DUNFERMLINE. CIRCA A.D. 1570. (From Old Sketches and Plans.) 4 PREFACE. ____ These Sketches were written for the Dunfermline Journal for the purpose of quickening local interest and pride in the history of the ancient city. They are now published in book form in the hope that they may prove not an unwelcome addition to the historical memorials cherished by lovers of Dunfermline at home and abroad, and be found helpful to the increasing number of visitors, attracted by the fame of the city, so greatly enhanced within recent years by the more than princely benefactors of one of its devoted sons. J. B. M. Dunfermline, November, 1910. 5 Contents. _______ Chapter 1. - The Children of the Tower. Page 6 II. Edgar the Peaceable. 11 III. Alexander the Fierce. 15 IV. David “the Sair Sanct.” 23 V. Queen Matilda. 29 VI. Prince William and the Empress 35 Matilda. VII. Mary of Boulogne and her Daughter. 40 VIII. James I. 45 IX Elizabeth of Bohemia, “Queen of Hearts.” 54 X Charles I. 61 6 DUNFERMLINE BORN PRINCES AND PRINCESSES . CHAPTER 1 THE BIRTHPLAE OF ROYALTY – MALCOLM AND MARGARET’S FAMILY. Dunfermline has frequently been spoken and written about as a burial place of Scottish Royalty. In the eleventh century the centre of ecclesiastical power was transferred from Iona to Dunfermline, after the Culdee leadership had been overpowered by the authority of the Roman Church, and King Malcolm and Queen Margaret had made the seat of their Court the leading centre of religious worship. The fame of Malcolm and the sanctity of Margaret. The founders of the Abbey, prolonged its prestige; and the splendid fane, the peculiar sacredness of whole attraction Robert the Bruce felt and acknowledged, continued to be recognized and used as a fitting burial place of Royalty, until the removal of the Court to London consequent on the succession of James VI to the Throne of England. Dunfermline, however, is quite as much entitled to distinction as the birth place of Royalty. Here were born, there is reason to believe, COMPOSITION VIEW OF MALCOLM’S TOWER By J. Baine, C.E., Edinburgh, 1790. 7 Duncan, the son of Malcolm Canmore by his first wife, Ingiborg; the six sons and two daughters of Malcolm and Margaret – “children of Dunfermline,” as an old author described them; David, son of King Robert the Bruce; James I of Scotland, the son of Robert III and of Queen Annabella Drummond; Elizabeth, daughter of James VI who because Queen of Bohemia and foundress of the Hanoverian House; Charles I the unhappy successor of the first Sovereign of the United Kingdom, and his younger brother, Robert, who lived only a few weeks. Most of the Royal Families of Europe can claim an ancestral connection with Dunfermline –born Princes and Princesses. As long ago as 820 years or so, what is now the priceless heritage of the people of Dunfermline, formed the home and the playground of Royal children. The means of enjoyment provided for them must have been few and rude compared with those brought within the reach of the boys and girls of the ancient city in these days, by the splendid benefactions of Dunfermline’s devoted and most famous son, Mr Andrew Carnegie. Their playground must have been limited and not quite free from peril in the thick wood, or on the side of the precipitous ravine, or as they attempted to cross the unbridged streams, which, in times of spate at all events, must have “raged like the lion for its prey.” Nor is it likely their companionship were mainly or particularly acceptable. In all probability, they saw more solemn-faced monks, given to fasting and penance, than happy sportive children of their own age. The boy princes may have had true and kindly friends among the Royal retinue, who were loyal to their father and who found delight in training them in hunting and military exercises. Yet not unlikely among those men-at-arms and other servants were some who resented their mother’s reforming and civilizing ways, who cherished a native antipathy to the half-Saxon children, and who regarded their elder brother Duncan, the son of Malcolm’s first wife, Ingiborg, the widow of Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, as the rightful and, as a pure-born Northerner, the more desirable heir- apparent. Possibly their sharp eyes and ears made them aware of the existence of contention between the representatives of the Celtic and Roman Churches, and they may have noticed and heard things which in after years enabled them to understand more readily, and to regard with more sympathy, the patriotic sentiments which made their father’s chiefs and men, and their sons prefer the Culdee to the Roman worship, and distrust the changes wrought by 8 the influence of Saxon civilization fostered by the King and the Queen. Whatever may have been the relations of the young Princes and Princesses with the members of the Court, with the clergy, and with the warriors, and whatever effect these associations may have had on their training and their character, the predominating influence was certainly that of their saintly mother. No one can doubt that in the midst of her exacting devotions as an intensely religious woman, conscious of her responsibility to God, she forgot or minimized her duties to her children. The family life must have been sweetening and refining. It was beautified by the ceaselessly enriching love of father and mother, closely knit together by mutual faith and aim; by the conscientious discharge of daily duties of beneficence; by the cultivation of the taste for the things that are lovely, in all forms of Court Service. The moral atmosphere was pure and exhilarating. In Dunfermline Palace, if anywhere, about the close of the eleventh century, Princes and Princesses were reared “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Judging from a story which tells of a temporary banishment of th two daughters for some fault – or possibly for protection against suspected momentary temptation or danger – to the gloomy Castle Campbell, near Dollar, with the streams of Grief and Care flowing around it and uniting in Doulour – the family discipline cannot have been over-indulgent. Strenuous studies, fitted to make the sons skilled in all knightly accomplishments of the time while as learned as churchmen and the daughters adepts in needlework and all the feminine graces most appreciated in courtly life, must have been maintained. Malcolm and Margaret took care that their children should be taught that life is earnest and real, with Heaven and not the grave as its goal; and tough their sons and daughters were not in their future life exempted from peril and trial, the fruits of their wise, pious training and of their learned studies were in due time abundantly displayed in rich blessings or themselves and for Scotland – and for England, too. “Never,” says William Malmesbury, in his estimate of David and in his reference to him and his predecessors, Alexander and Edgar – “Never have we been told among the events of history of three kings, and at the same time brothers, who were of holiness so great, and savoured so much of the nectar of their mother’s godliness. For, besides their feeding sparingly, their plentiful alms-giving, their zeal in prayer, they so thoroughly subdued the vice that haunts kings’ houses that never was it said that any but their lawful wives came to their bed, or that any of them had shocked modesty by wenching.” 9 But presently “afflictions heaviest shower” was to descend upon the happy family, and “sorrows keenest wind” was to scourge and blight them. A gloom, tenfold darker and more dreadful than that of Castle Campbell, suddenly enshrouded them. In a few short weeks they lost father and mother, eldest brother, and home. Malcolm was treacherously slain by Percy at Alnwick; Edward, the pride and hope of both parents, fell in a vain attempt to avenge his father’s death; Margaret, three days later, expired at Edinburgh; Donald Bane, the paternal uncle, supported by the chiefs and churchmen, who did not like the Saxon ways or the Roman worship, usurped the throne; and Edgar, Ethelred, Alexander, and David were with the aid of faithful family friends, removed to England – not to join their sisters, who had been previously remove thither to have their education completed by their Aunt Christian, a nun at Romsey, but to be secreted in different parts by their Uncle Edgar, who distrusted the friendship of William Rufus, who had succeeded William the Conqueror on the English throne. That he had cause for this suspicion was shown by the favour Rufus showed about this time to Duncan, the elder half-brother of Margaret’s sons. Duncan had joined the Court of Rufus, who, recognising that he had nothing to gain but possibly a good deal to fear from Donald Bane, treated the eldest son of Malcolm as the rightful heir to his father’s throne, dubbed him a knight, and encouraged a number of English and Norman adventurers to volunteer for service under the claimant. The motive of Rufus was evidently a desire to gain authority over Scotland, by using Duncan as his agent or tool, for he required the Scottish Prince to do him homage before he provided him with any assistance.