St. Margaret of Scotland

St. Margaret of Scotland was born around 1045 in Hungary, where her father, an heir of the old English royal house, lived in exile; through him she was a granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside. Brought to England as a child, she fled north with her family after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and found refuge at the court of Malcolm III of Scotland, who married her around 1070. As queen, Margaret joined deep personal piety to practical energy. She and Malcolm had eight children, whom she raised with care in the faith; three sons became kings of Scotland — among them St. David I — and her daughter Matilda became queen of England. Margaret encouraged the renewal of church life in Scotland, promoting observance of Lent and Easter Communion and helping to align Scottish practice with that of the wider Church. She invited Benedictine monks to found a priory at Dunfermline, and established the ferry across the Firth of Forth — remembered in the name Queensferry — to carry pilgrims to the shrine of St. Andrew. Her charity was legendary and concrete: she fed orphans and the poor with her own hands before she ate, washed the feet of beggars in imitation of Christ, and ransomed English captives. Her confessor and biographer Turgot recorded her habits of prayer, her love of sacred books, and her gentle influence over her rough-hewn husband, who, unable to read, would kiss and adorn the books she treasured. Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle on November 16, 1093, a few days after learning that Malcolm and their eldest son had been killed in battle at Alnwick. She was canonized in 1250 by Pope Innocent IV, and her relics were enshrined at Dunfermline Abbey, a great center of medieval Scottish pilgrimage until the Reformation, after which they were dispersed. Honored as a patroness of Scotland and of large families, she is celebrated on November 16.