Saint Margaret of Scotland (; , ), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was Queen of Alba from 1070 to 1093 as the wife of King Malcolm III. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland". After the death of Ironside in 1016, Canute sent the infant Edward and his brother to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skötkonung, and they eventually made their way to Kievan Rus'. The provenance of Margaret's mother, Agatha, is disputed.

As an adult, Edward travelled to Hungary. In 1046 he supported the successful bid of King Andrew I for the Hungarian crown. Margaret was born in Hungary about 1045. Her brother Edgar Ætheling and sister Cristina were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret grew up in a very religious environment in the Hungarian court.

Return to England

Margaret came to England with the rest of her family when her father, Edward the Exile, was recalled in 1057 as a possible successor to her great-uncle, the childless King Edward the Confessor. Whether from natural or sinister causes, her father died immediately after landing, and Margaret, still a child, continued to reside at the English court where her brother, Edgar Ætheling, was considered a possible successor to the English throne. If a marriage agreement was made in 1059, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered. Conversely, Symeon of Durham implied that Margaret's first meeting with Malcolm III may not have been until 1070, after William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North.

Malcolm III was a widower, with two sons, Donald and Duncan, and would have been attracted to marrying one of the few remaining members of the House of Wessex, the Anglo-Saxon royal family. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret occurred in 1070. Subsequently, Malcolm executed several invasions of Northumbria to support the claim of his new brother-in-law Edgar and to increase his own power. These, however, had little effect save the devastation of the county.

Progeny

thumb|Malcolm and Margaret from the Forman Armorial (1562)

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children – six sons and two daughters:

  1. Edward (), killed along with his father in the Battle of Alnwick
  2. Edmund ()
  3. Ethelred, abbot of Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
  4. Edgar (), king of Scotland, reigned 1097–1107
  5. Alexander I (), King of Scotland, reigned 1107–24
  6. Edith (), renamed Matilda, queen of England
  7. Mary (1082–1116), countess of Boulogne
  8. David I (), king of Scotland, reigned 1124–53

Piety

thumb|right|Stained glass window showing St. Margaret of Scotland at [[Church of the Good Shepherd (Rosemont, Pennsylvania)]]

thumb|150px|Relief sculpture of St Margaret of Scotland, [[Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.]]

Turgot of Durham, Bishop of St Andrews, became close to the Scottish court and a friend and spiritual adviser to Margaret.* Between 1100 and 1107, Turgot wrote a vita of her at the request of her daughter, Matilda, wife of King Henry I of England. Turgot credits her with having a civilising influence on her husband Malcolm by reading him narratives from the Bible. She instigated religious reform, striving to conform the worship and practices of the Scottish church to those of the continental church, which she experienced in her childhood. This she did on the inspiration and with the guidance of Lanfranc, a future archbishop of Canterbury. Due to these achievements, she was considered an exemplar of the "just ruler", and moreover influenced her husband and children, especially her youngest son, the future King David I of Scotland, to be just and holy rulers.

"The chroniclers all agree in depicting Queen Margaret as a strong, pure, noble character, who had very great influence over her husband, and through him over Scottish history, especially in its ecclesiastical aspects. Her religion, which was genuine and intense, was of the newest Roman style; and to her are attributed a number of reforms by which the Church [in] Scotland was considerably modified from the insular and primitive type which down to her time it had exhibited. Among those expressly mentioned are a change in the manner of observing Lent, which thenceforward began as elsewhere on Ash Wednesday and not as previously on the following Monday, and the abolition of the old practice of observing Saturday (Sabbath), not Sunday, as the day of rest from labour (for more information on this issue see Skene's Celtic Scotland, book ii chap. 8)."

She attended to charitable works, serving orphans and the poor every day before she ate and washing the feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. She rose at midnight each night to attend the liturgy. She invited the Benedictine Order to establish a monastery in Dunfermline, Fife in 1072, and established ferries at Queensferry and North Berwick to assist pilgrims journeying from south of the Firth of Forth to St Andrews in Fife. She used a cave on the banks of the Tower Burn in Dunfermline as a place of devotion and prayer. St Margaret's Cave, now covered beneath a municipal car park, is open to the public. Among other deeds, Margaret also instigated the restoration of Iona Abbey. She is also known to have interceded for the release of fellow English exiles who had been forced into serfdom by the Norman conquest of England.

Veneration

Canonisation, feast day and patronages

Literature attesting to Margaret's miraculous intercession built up over time, much of it written about by the monks of Dunfermline. Pope Innocent IV canonised Margaret in 1250 in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church, work for ecclesiastical reform, and charity. On 19 June 1250, after her canonisation, her remains were transferred to a chapel in Dunfermline's eastern apse.

Amid the Protestant Reformation in Scotland and growing iconoclasm, the bodies of Margaret and Malcolm were removed from Dunfermline by its Abbot, George Durie to Durie's rural estate at Craigluscar. In 1560, Mary, Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597, Margaret's head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scots College, Douai, France, but it was lost during the French Revolution. By 1580 Philip II of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and Malcolm III transferred to the royal monastery, El Escorial, near Madrid, Spain,

In the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, 16 November became free and the Church transferred her feast day to 16 November, the date of her death, on which it always had been observed in Scotland. The most recent Roman Martyrology () commemorates the day as:<blockquote>Saint Margaret, who was born in Hungary and married to Malcolm the Great, King of Scotland, gave birth to eight sons and was greatly concerned about the good of the kingdom and the Church, combining prayer and fasting with generosity towards the poor, thus providing an example of an excellent wife, mother and queen.</blockquote>Some traditionalist Catholics continue to celebrate her feast day on 10 June.

She is also venerated as a saint in the Anglican Communion. Margaret is honoured in the Church of England, the Scottish Episcopal Church and in the Calendar of the Episcopal Church (United States) on 16 November.

Institutions bearing her name

Several churches throughout the world are dedicated in honour of St Margaret. One of the oldest is St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, which her son King David I founded. The Chapel was long thought to have been the oratory of Margaret herself, but is now thought to have been established in the 12th century. The oldest edifice in Edinburgh, it was restored in the 19th century and refurbished in the 1990s.

<gallery>

Site of the shrine of St. Margaret, Dunfermline Abbey Fife.jpg|Site of the ruined Shrine of St Margaret at Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Scotland

St Margarets Chapel.JPG|St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle

St Margaret's (Roman Catholic) Church, Dunfermline.jpg|St Margaret's Church in Dunfermline

St Margaret reliquary historyofstmarga00unknuoft 0431.jpg|1897 picture of the St Margaret reliquary in St Margaret's Convent in Edinburgh

</gallery>

See also

  • List of Catholic saints
  • List of Scottish consorts
  • Mecseknádasd, Hungary
  • Queen Margaret College (Glasgow), former college that merged with Glasgow University
  • Queen Margaret Union, student union at Glasgow University
  • Saint Margaret of Scotland Anglican Episcopal Church, Hungary
  • Saint Margaret of Scotland, patron saint archive

References

Citations

</references>

Sources

  • Duncan, A.A.M., The Kingship of the Scots 842–1292: Succession and Independence. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2002. ISBN 0-7486-1626-8
  • Oram, Richard, David I: The King Who Made Scotland. Tempus, Stroud, 2004. ISBN 0-7524-2825-X
  • Ritchie, R. L. Graeme, The Normans in Scotland, Edinburgh University Press, 1954

Further reading

  • Chronicle of the Kings of Alba
  • Anderson, Marjorie O. (ed.). Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland. 2nd ed. Edinburgh, 1980. 249-53.
  • Hudson, B.T. (ed. and tr.). Scottish Historical Review 77 (1998): 129–61.
  • Anderson, Alan Orr (tr.). Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500–1286. Vol. 1. Edinburgh, 1923. Reprinted in 1990 (with corrections).
  • Turgot of Durham, Vita S. Margaritae (Scotorum) Reginae.
  • Ed. and trans. Catherine Keene, in Saint Margaret, Queen of the Scots: A Life in Perspective, New York, 2013, Appendix: Translation of the Dunfermline Vita, pp.&nbsp;135–221.
  • Ed. J. Hodgson Hinde, Symeonis Dunelmensis opera et collectanea. Surtees Society 51. 1868. 234-54 (Appendix III).
  • tr. William Forbes-Leith, SJ, Life of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland by Turgot, Bishop of St Andrews. Edinburgh, 1884. PDF available from the Internet Archive. Third Edition. 1896.
  • Trans. anon., The Life and Times of Saint Margaret, Queen and Patroness of Scotland. London, 1890. PDF available from the Internet Archive.
  • William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum.
  • Ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom, William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum. The History of the English Kings. OMT. Vol 1. Oxford, 1998.
  • Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica
  • Ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis. 6 vols. OMT. Oxford, 1968–80.
  • John of Worcester, Chronicle (of Chronicles).
  • Ed. B. Thorpe, Florentii Wigorniensis monachi chronicon ex chronicis. 2 vols. London, 1848-9.
  • Trans. J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England. Vol. 2.1. London, 1855. P. 171–372.
  • John Capgrave, Nova Legenda Angliae
  • Acta Sanctorum Vol. 2, June, 320. London, 1515. 225.

;Secondary literature

  • Baker, D. "A Nursery of Saints: St Margaret of Scotland Reconsidered." In Medieval Women, ed. D. Baker. SCH. Subsidia 1. 1978.
  • Bellesheim, Alphons. History of the Catholic Church in Scotland. Vol 3, trans. Blair. Edinburgh, 1890. pp.&nbsp;241–63.
  • Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints. 10 June.
  • Challoner, Richard. Britannia Sancta, I. London, 1745. P. 358.
  • Dunlop, Eileen, Queen Margaret of Scotland, 2005, NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing, Edinburgh, 978 1 901663 92 1.
  • Huneycutt, L.L. "The Idea of a Perfect Princess: the Life of St Margaret in the Reign of Matilda II (1100–1118)." Anglo-Norman Studies, 12 (1989): pp.&nbsp;81–97.
  • Madan. The Evangelistarium of St. Margaret in Academy. 1887.
  • Parsons, John Carmi. Medieval Mothering. 1996.
  • Olsen, Ted. Kristendommen og Kelterne Forlaget. Oslo: Forlaget Luther, 2008. (P.&nbsp;170). . Norwegian.
  • Skene, W.F. Celtic Scotland. Edinburgh.
  • Stanton, Richard. Menology of England and Wales. London, 1887. P. 544.
  • Wilson, A.J. St Margaret, Queen of Scotland. 1993.
  • The Heraldry of Queensferry, which provides the best information and images, interspliced throughout the page, on St Margaret's arms and their variations. Archived 23 July 2018
  • University of Pittsburgh: Margaret of Scotland
  • Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Margaret of Scotland
  • Medieval Women: The Life Of St Margaret, Queen Of Scotland by Turgot, Bishop of St Andrews Ed. William Forbes-Leith, S.J. Third Edition. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1896 . Retrieved 14 March 2011.