History of the Fife Pitcairns

44 THE FIFE PITCAIRNS.
Andrews. Dury was made Abbot of Dunfermline by James
V., and appears in Parliament as Abbot and Commendator
in 1540, 1542, 1543-44 — Extraordinary Lord in 1541, and
repeatedly chosen as Lord of the Articles, and one of the
Lords of the Secret Council. He was Keeper of the Privy
Seal in 1554. * In 1560 Dury and the Earl of Eglinton were
sent to France, probably to induce the young widowed
Queen of Scots to return to Scotland. He died, or suffered
martyrdom according to Dempster, on the 27th Jan. 1561,
at a very advanced age. Two years after his death he was
canonised by the Church of Rome.
When the Reformation troubles put the sacred relics
of St Margaret, titular saint of Dunfermline and wife of
King Malcolm Canmore, in danger, the coffer, which was
of silver incrusted with precious stones, and contained her
reputed skull and auburn hair, was taken by Dury for
safety, first to his house on Craigluscar Hill, Dunferm-
line, then to Edinburgh, and shortly afterwards to Burnt-
island Castle, the Duries' place, which is situated on a high
rocky eminence near the harbour, and commands a most
extensive and beautiful prospect of the Firth and adjacent
lands on both sides as far as the eye can reach. Chalmers
says that "an important addition was made to the keep
by one of the ancient family of Durie of that Ilk, who
built the north and south wings of the castle in 1382,
during the reign of Robert II., the first of the Stewarts,
over the principal entrance to which the arms of the Duries
are inserted under a Gothic canopy, supported by two
savages, girded by laurels. The castle continued for a
considerable period in the possession of this family, from
which circumstance it has been distinguished by the ad-
ditional title of ' The Abbot's Hall.' "
Their other place was on Craigluscar Hill, and George
Dury resided there after the plunder of the monastery
and the flight of the religious from it. In 1597 the coffer
was delivered to the custody of the Jesuit missionaries in
Scotland, who, thinking it was in danger of being lost,
1 Diurnal of Occunents, Bannatyne Club, p. 64.