Malcolm X – A Traveling Fool

Dunfermline Abbey was another of King David I of Scotland’s abbeys. But this one was personal as it was founded on behalf of his mother, Queen Margaret of Scotland, who was later canonized as a saint. Margaret was buried before the high altar until her canonization, after which a special shrine was built for her and her husband, King Malcolm III. If you are familiar with Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Malcolm was the son of King Duncan (who was murdered in the play by Macbeth). Both in the play and real life, Malcolm avenged his father’s death, taking back the crown.

During the Scottish Reformation, which replaced Catholicism with the Presbyterian religion in Scotland, Margaret’s shrine was destroyed with both her and Malcolm’s remains dispersed and eventually lost. What remained were a couple of stacked slabs upon which her tomb used to sit and upon which visitors often place flowers.

Both Duncan and David were also buried at Dunfermline, along with other Scottish royals of their family. King Robert the Bruce was buried there and can be found under the pulpit of the church that was built inside of the remains of part of the abbey. A beautiful stained glass window showing the wedding of Margaret and Malcolm was also found in the church.

Where Duncan and David’s remains are located, nobody seems certain; just that they were somewhere in the abbey. It seems that Robert the Bruce fared better because he had been buried in the quire of the abbey, which was the part that became the church.

On the whole, this abbey did better than many of David’s abbeys because it survived the Rough Wooing (too far north) and the Reformation zealots were mainly interested in destroying the shrine of a Catholic saint and not necessarily the entire abbey. Around the top of the church end of the abbey is the name “King Robert the Bruce”. That might have helped in saving it.

From Dunfermline, we drove to Bannockburn. This was the site of where Robert the Bruce (who had taken the Scottish crown in 1306) and his army of Scots (and some say Templar Knights, as he accepted many Templars into Scotland who fled persecution in 1307) soundly defeated the English armies of King Edward II in 1314. This was what made Scotland a free and separate country again until King James VI of Scotland also became James I of England in 1603.

A statue of Robert the Bruce on horseback stands above the battlefield as part of a memorial to that victory and to the Bruce himself. They say that the statue is a fairly accurate representation of what he looked like. If so, he was not a handsome guy.

Robert’s 4^th great grandfather was David I. Just a couple generations after David died, the direct royal line died out and the throne was up in the air with twelve claimants for it; all descendants of one or another prior king. Edward I of England was in the position to choose among them and picked John Balliol, mainly because he could use Balliol as a puppet. Long story short (don’t worry, I get to William Wallace shortly), the Bruce ended up as the main candidate and then won at Bannockburn. Stirling Castle could be seen from Bannockburn and that was where we went next.

I love Stirling Castle. This was my second trip to it and it had undergone a lot of improvements since I was there the first time with my mom. Right outside of the castle is another statue of Robert the Bruce, which is a little more idealized. I looked over the wall next to the statue down at Stirling Bridge.

This version of Stirling Bridge was built of stone to replace the wooden bridge that featured so prominently in William Wallace’s victory there. Wallace and his men waited up on Abbey Crag (where the Wallace Monument is today) while the English forces marched across the very narrow (could accommodate only two men on horse abreast) wooden bridge that was the only bridge across the River Forth at Stirling.

Once Wallace felt that enough men had crossed the bridge, the Scots swooped down upon them and pretty much annihilated them. Only one man made it back across the bridge. The English forces burned the bridge so the Scots couldn’t follow them and fled.

At the time of the Battle of Stirling a castle already existed on Castle Crag, although it was not as extensive as the present castle that dates mainly from 15^th and 16^th centuries. However, King Edward I of England’s forces occupied the castle until the Battle of Stirling Bridge when they were dislodged by Wallace and the Scottish forces. The castle then changed hands many times between 1296 (Battle of Stirling Bridge) and the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

The English once again took over the castle in 1336 and were dislodged by Robert Stewart, who became King Robert II of Scotland in 1342. Up until this time, the castle was mainly timber, mud and plaster. The Stewarts began to build in stone by 1380. But still, the majority of the present castle was constructed between 1490 and 1600 by Kings James IV, James V, and James VI (Mary Queen of Scots’ grandfather, father and son).

This was where Mary Queen of Scots was brought shortly after her birth and lived until she was sent to France at the age of five. Stirling Castle was also where her son was brought shortly after his birth and he continued to live there much of the time until he left for London in 1603. His eldest son, Henry, was born there.

As I said earlier, I love Stirling Castle. This is a castle as a castle should be. Now it is a tourist destination and is not used as a royal residence like Holyrood Palace or a military fortress like Edinburgh Castle. They restored both the palace within the castle and the Great Hall.

There was quite a bit of controversy when the Great Hall was painted externally in a bright gold. But that was what it looked like back when James V was king. It certainly stands out as you can see in an included photo of the Great Hall and the Royal Palace.

The interior of the Great Hall was in the process of being restored when Mom and I had visited before, but it was complete by my 2016 visit, including the restoration of the hammerbeam ceiling. They even served soup, sandwiches, and desserts at the far end of the hall with tables and chairs. I can truthfully say that I have dined in the Great Hall of Stirling Castle.

They also had some men dressed as they would have been back in the day. I love when places have costumed interpreters. Loads more tourist sites in both the US and the UK are doing that now. Gives another dimension to the visit.

The Royal Palace was dark and dingy and didn’t have many rooms open when Mom were there in 2005. Nine years later, nearly the whole palace was open and restored and quite amazing. It’s only been in recent years that interior restorations have added loads of colors to the white, grey or blackened stone walls. This is because these rooms originally had bright colors.

After the palace, I went around to the other buildings in the main courtyard – a chapel and the King’s Old Building (parts of which date back to James I). Then I headed for a garden on the other side of the chapel. From the garden, I took some stairs up the wall to do the wall walk.

From there I could clearly see the Wallace Monument, which is a Victorian tower up on Abbey Crag. It contains his claymore, which is a large, two-handed, double-edged sword. I have one that is close to four feet in length. His is said to be nearly six feet as he was nearly seven feet tall himself.

I stayed on the walls for as long as I could, taking them to the end near the castle kitchens. They are next to the North Gate, which is the oldest part of the castle that is still complete (not like the King’s Old Building or the kitchens which have bits and pieces of various building periods). The kitchens themselves are quite old.

I ended this visit there and headed back out to the car park to catch the small group tour bus back to Edinburgh. Since I arrived a little earlier in the evening than usual with these day trips, I decided to have dinner at the restaurant in the hotel that was called Hadrian’s at that time. I had rabbit with whipped potatoes and baby vegetables.

Next time – another trip to much more of Hadrian’s Wall with the opportunity to actually walk on part of it.

My second day of the Hop On Hop Off bus tour, I boarded the Upper Manhattan route at Times Square, which then set off for Columbus Circle. From there we went to Lincoln Center (which houses the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the Juilliard School of Music) and into my former neighborhood. When I had lived in NYC, I spent part of my time in Queens (in Elmhurst, then later in Jackson Heights) and part in Manhattan (on West 73^rd between Central Park West and Columbus).

Three of my favorite residential buildings – the Ansonia, the Dakota, and the San Remo – are also in the vicinity. The Ansonia was built in the 1890s as a luxury residential hotel. Now it has apartments and condos – still luxury. The Dakota was built in the 1880s and supposedly called the Dakota because that part of the city was so sparsely populated when it was built. It was even more luxurious than the Ansonia. The San Remo was the newest of the three, having been built in the 1930s. It has also become the most expensive and deluxe of the three buildings.

The building I lived in (right around the corner from the Dakota) was built in the 1870s, so was already there when the other three buildings were built. It was originally a private house later turned into apartments, two per floor over five floors. I cannot imagine what the rental price would be now for my tiny apartment at the back of the fifth floor (formerly servant’s quarters). Most likely three times as much in monthly rent as the mortgage payment for my whole house.

In 1892, construction began on the Cathedral of St John the Divine in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan. It is still only about 2/3 completed. Even unfinished, it is the world’s sixth largest church. There are several reasons for the building taking so long to complete. One is that ancient, manual stone cutting methods are being used throughout the building. Then there have been a few wars, the Great Depression, changes in what the style of the church should be, ups and downs in funding, etc. What is completed is stunning. I got off the tour bus there and spent quite some time walking around, looking at everything and taking photos. Then I wanted to pop over to Columbia University briefly.

Founded as King’s College in 1754, Columbia University changed its name in 1784, outgrew its Lower Manhattan location and moved farther up the island to midtown (around Madison Avenue) in 1857. In 1889, it moved to its current site in Morningside Heights, a short distance from the Cathedral of St John the Divine. I had attended some music classes at Columbia when I lived in Manhattan, so I was fairly familiar with the school. Hamilton Hall was the building where I wanted to take a quick photo.

When I got back on a tour bus, we rode to Grant’s Tomb. The old joke is “who is buried in Grant’s tomb?” That would be President (and General) Ulysses S Grant and his wife, Julia. It is in quite a nice location with great views of the Hudson River and New Jersey beyond. It is a rather impressive monument besides.

Next, we crossed into the Manhattan neighborhood known as Harlem. This is a part of the city with some really nice brownstones. Originally founded as a Dutch village in 1658, Harlem (then Haarlem) evolved into a mainly Jewish and Italian settlement in the 19^th century, becoming predominantly black and Puerto Rican in the 20^th century.

The area which is now Harlem was occupied by the Manhattan tribe of Native Americans before the Dutch settled there. During the American Revolution, the British burned Harlem to the ground. The village rebuilt slowly, but then began an economic boom after the Civil War. Prosperity ended with the Great Depression when roughly 25% of the population was hit by unemployment. Once again, it was a long recovery.

Harlem is also home to the Apollo Theatre, which opened in 1934 in a former burlesque house. This venue gave a start to the careers of numerous musicians and singers throughout the next several decades, especially through its Amateur Night contests. Jimi Hendrix won first place in one of those contests in 1964.

On our way back down the island towards Fifth Avenue, we passed a group of beautiful townhouses that were built in the 19^th century and are on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. We also passed the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, a Sunni Islam Mosque which, when a Nation of Islam Mosque (named Mosque No. 7) was where Malcolm X was an Imam before leaving in 1964 for Sunni Islam. We were turning a corner as I was taking a photo from the rear of the upper deck of the tour bus, so the photo looks a bit tipsy.

Along Fifth Avenue, we passed several museums such as the Museum of the City of New York, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Guggenheim, the Neue Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection. Then we passed Temple Emanu-El, where I used to attend services.

The Plaza Hotel was someplace that I went to a few times when I lived in NYC – to attend various recording industry events (the industry in which I was working at the time) and to take my mom to lunch in the Palm Court one of the times when she came to visit me.

When we reached Carnegie Hall, I left the tour bus to get some lunch and switch to the downtown loop so I could complete it. By this point, I was getting tired, so I stayed on until after we left the South Street Sea Port. Then we visited Chinatown, Little Italy, Delancey Street, the United Nations, the Chrysler Building, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall.

When we returned to Carnegie Hall, I found that, instead of ending at Times Square, the tour was ending there. Times Square was a bit of a jaunt from Carnegie Hall. I stopped off for some refreshment (ice cream) and set off down Seventh Avenue.

When I got to 45^th Street, I took a detour to Shubert Alley to visit the theatre shop at One Shubert Alley. Then I turned on 44^th to head back to Seventh (my hotel was at 41^st at about the middle of the block between Seventh and Eighth). I ended up going right by the theatre where David Tennant and Matt Smith were doing a “Meet the Doctors” event – they had been the 10^th and 11^th Doctors in the BBC series Doctor Who.

Next time – A very special time among the Scots in and near Edinburgh with a lot of time spent at Hadrian’s Wall

Tag: Malcolm X

Dunfermline Abbey & Stirling Castle

Upper Manhattan