Saint Margaret of Scotland, Queen of Scotland

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2013

Saint Margaret of Scotland, stained glass window at St. Margaret’s Chapel at Edinburgh Castle; Credit – Wikipedia

Despite being called Saint Margaret of Scotland, Margaret was born an Anglo-Saxon princess around 1045 in Hungary.  Her father was Edward the Exile (also called Edward Ætheling), the son of King Edmund Ironside (King Edmund II).  Edmund Ironside succeeded his father Æthelred II the Unready as King of England on April 23, 1016. Edmund’s reign was short-lived.  During his seven-month reign, Edmund battled against the Danish Cnut the Great for control of England.  After a victory for the Danes at the Battle of Assandun on October 18, 1016, Edmund was forced to sign a treaty with Cnut which stated that all of England except Wessex would be controlled by Cnut.  When one of the kings died, the other would take all of England, that king’s son being the heir to the throne.  Edmund Ironside died on November 30, 1016, and Cnut became king of all England.

Edmund Ironside had two very young children, Edward and Edmund. According to the English monk and chronicler John of Worcester, King Cnut sent the two children to King Olaf Skötkonung of Sweden to be murdered, but instead, the king sent them to Kyiv where his daughter was the queen.  Sometime in the 1040s, Edward and Edmund, now adults, both traveled to Hungary and helped the exiled Andrew of Hungary become King of Hungary. Edmund died in Hungary before 1054.  Edward the Exile married Agatha,  whose background is uncertain.  Edward and Agatha had three children who were all born in Hungary:  Margaret (born circa 1045), Edgar the Ætheling (born circa 1051), and Cristina (born in the 1040s).

In 1057, Edward the Confessor, the childless King of England, discovered that his nephew Edward the Exile was still alive and summoned him to England in 1057 as a potential successor.  However, Edward died within two days of his arrival in England and the cause of his death has never been determined.  Murder is a possibility, as he had many powerful enemies.  His three children were then raised in the court of Edward the Confessor, who died in January 1066.  At that time Edgar was considered too young to be king and the Witenagemot elected Harold Godwinson king mainly because he could defend England against foreign claimants to the English throne.  In October 1066, William of Normandy (the Conqueror) invaded England and defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings.  Following Harold’s death in battle, the Witenagemot elected Edgar the Ætheling, the last of the House of Wessex, as King of England.  As William of Normandy’s position grew stronger, it became evident to those in power that King Edgar should be abandoned and that they should submit to William.

In 1068, Edgar, along with his mother Agatha and sisters Margaret and Cristina, fled to Northumbria.  Agatha wanted to return to Hungary, but a storm blew their ship off course. They sought refuge from King Malcolm III of Scotland, the Malcolm in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare.  Malcolm’s first wife Ingebjorg Finnsdotter died around 1069, and shortly thereafter he married Margaret.  Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, six sons and two daughters.  Bearing in mind that William the Conqueror’s new dynasty in England was not secure, Margaret and Malcolm gave Anglo-Saxon royal names to four of their sons and named the other two sons after Alexander the Great and the biblical  King David.  Their daughter Edith married King Henry I of England and is the ancestor of the British and other European royal families.

Margaret introduced continental fashions, manners, and ceremonies to the Scottish court, thereby increasing economic ties and communication between Scotland and the European continent.   Malcolm sought Margaret’s advice on matters of state, and with other English exiles, Margaret was influential in introducing English-style feudalism and parliament to Scotland.

Margaret had been religious since childhood and her strong faith influenced her husband.  Margaret taught Malcolm how to control his temper and encouraged his religious faith by reading him Bible stories. She and the king prayed together and fed the hungry, serving as role models to the people of Scotland.  Margaret personally supervised the religious studies and education of her children.

In her private life, Margaret exhibited great piety.  She had certain times of the day for prayer and reading the Bible. She ate sparingly and slept little to have time for prayers. During Lent and Advent, Margaret always awakened at midnight for Mass.  After Mass, she would wash the feet of six poor people and give them alms. Beggars always surrounded her in public and she never refused them. Her biographer Turgot, Bishop of St. Andrews recorded that she never sat down to eat without first feeding nine orphans and 24 adults.

On November 13, 1093, Margaret’s husband Malcolm and her eldest son Edward were killed at the Battle of Alnwick. Malcolm’s eldest son from his first marriage King Donald II of Scotland succeeded him. After King Donald II was killed in battle in 1094, Margaret and Malcolm’s three sons succeeded to the Scottish throne.

Weakened from her constant fasting and austere life, Margaret was already ill when her husband and eldest son went off to battle.  She died at Dunfermline just three days after her husband and son’s death and was buried in Dunfermline Abbey which she and her husband had founded.  Margaret was canonized as a saint in 1250 by Pope Innocent IV.  On June 19, 1250, following her canonization, Margaret’s remains were disinterred and placed in a reliquary at the high altar of Dunfermline Abbey. Malcolm’s remains were reburied next to Margaret.  During the Scottish Reformation in 1560, Dunfermline Abbey was sacked and fell into disrepair.  St. Margaret’s remains, along with those of her husband, were transferred to a chapel in El Escorial, near Madrid, Spain but the location of the remains is now unknown.  Upon the orders of Queen Victoria, the tomb of Saint Margaret and King Malcolm III was restored during the 19th century.

A depiction of Saint Margaret’s original tomb at Dunfermline Abbey; Credit – www.findagrave.com

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