After the chapel was discovered, it was intended to be used for its original purpose; a font was gifted to it, and the windows were filled with stained glass. It has now, however, degenerated into a shop for the sale of nicknacks to tourists.
Situated north of the Forth, or “Scots Water,” in the heart of the old Pictish kingdom, Dunfermline was from an early period occupied as a secure and pleasant site by the kings of Scotland. Here Malcolm Canmore had his tower (of which a few crumbling remains still survive), and here he entertained the royal fugitives from England, and married the Princess Margaret, one of these refugees, in 1070.
The King and Queen ended their lives in 1093, within a few days of each other--the first at the siege of Alnwick, and the other in Edinburgh Castle.
According to Turgot, her confessor and biographer, Queen Margaret, immediately after her marriage, founded a church “in that place where the nuptials were celebrated.” This church was dedicated to the Holy Trinity in 1074. It became the place of royal sepulture, and Queen Margaret was buried there a few days after her death. From that time onwards there are continuous references to grants to the Church of the Holy Trinity, and to interments of royal personages therein.
As no notice has been preserved of the erection of any new church till the building of the choir in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, it has been supposed that the nave of the existing structure (which is in the Norman style) may have been the church founded and erected by Queen Margaret. But the style of the building forbids this supposition. None of the English cathedrals were founded till the end of the eleventh century, and few were carried out till the expiry of the first quarter of the twelfth century. Scotland would certainly not be in advance of England in its style of architecture, and we know that little, if any, Norman work was executed in this country till the days of David I. Professor Innes is, therefore, no doubt right when he says--“The original church of Canmore, perhaps not of stone, must have been replaced by a new edifice when it was dedicated in the reign of David I.”[156] The style of the structure is early Norman, and would naturally follow the erection of Durham Cathedral, which took place about twenty-five years earlier.