Scotland’s Alexander III, having established a united and economically prosperous Scotland, on March 18-19, 1286 dies suddenly at forty-five in a riding accident; his three-year-old granddaughter Margaret, called the “Maid of Norway,” succeeds him.

The Scottish town of Dunfermline, in Fife, had been first credited as a "menus burgh" by David II with evidence suggesting that burgh of barony status was bestowed between 1124 and 1147.

Royal burgh status had then been granted in 1588 by James VI.

Unfortunately, the Union of the Crowns had soon ended the town's royal connections when James VI relocated the Scottish Court to London in 1603.

The Reformation of 1560 had previously meant a loss of the Dunfermline's ecclesiastical importance.

A major fire in 1624 leaves a large part of the medieval-renaissance burgh in ruin.

Some of the surviving buildings of the fire are the palace, the abbey and the Abbot's House.