General Notes

St. Margaret of Scotland
Born about 1045, died 16 Nov., 1092, was a daughter of Edward
"Outremere", or "the Exile", by Agatha, kinswoman of Gisela, the wife of
St. Stephen of Hungary. She was the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside. A
constant tradition asserts that Margaret's father and his brother Edmund
were sent to Hungary for safety during the reign of Canute, but no record
of the fact has been found in that country. The date of Margaret's birth
cannot be ascertained with accuracy, but it must have been between the
years 1038, when St. Stephen died, and 1057, when her father returned to
England. It appears that Margaret came with him on that occasion and, on
his death and the conquest of England by the Normans, her mother Agatha
decided to return to the Continent. A storm however drove their ship to
Scotland, where Malcolm III received the party under his protection,
subsequently taking Margaret to wife. This event had been delayed for a
while by Margaret's desire to entire religion, but it took place some
time between 1067 and 1070.
In her position as queen, all Margaret's great influence was thrown into
the cause of religion and piety. A synod was held, and among the special
reforms instituted the most important were the regulation of the Lenten
fast, observance of the Easter communion, and the removal of certain
abuses concerning marriage within the prohibited degrees. Her private
life was given up to constant prayer and practices of piety. She founded
several churches, including the Abbey of Dunfermline, built to enshrine
her greatest treasure, a relic of the true Cross. Her book of the
Gospels, richly adorned with jewels, which one day dropped into a river
and was according to legend miraculously recovered, is now in the
Bodleian library at Oxford. She foretold the day of her death, which took
place at Edinburgh on 16 Nov., 1093, her body being buried before the
high altar at Dunfermline.
In 1250 Margaret was canonized by Innocent IV, and her relics were
translated on 19 June, 1259, to a new shrine, the base of which is still
visible beyond the modern east wall of the restored church. At the
Reformation her head passed into the possession of Mary Queen of Scots,
and later was secured by the Jesuits at Douai, where it is believed to
have perished during the French Revolution. According to George Conn, "De
duplici statu religionis apud Scots" (Rome, 1628), the rest of the
relics, together with those of Malcolm, were acquired by Philip II of
Spain, and placed in two urns in the Escorial. When, however, Bishop
Gillies of Edinburgh applied through Pius IX for their restoration to
Scotland, they could not be found.
The chief authority for Margaret's life is the contemporary biography
printed in "Acta SS.", II, June, 320. Its authorship has been ascribed to
Turgot, the saint's confessor, a monk of Durham and later Archbishop of
St. Andrews, and also to Theodoric, a somewhat obscure monk; but in spite
of much controversy the point remains quite unsettled. The feast of St.
Margaret is now observed by the whole Church on 10 June.
Margaret was born around 1045 in Hungary, the daughter of the exiled
English Prince Edward "the Outlaw" Atheling of the English royal house of
Wessex, and a German Princess named Agatha. Margaret was raised in the
court of St. Stephen, King of Hungary. In 1057 when she was about 12,
Margaret and her family returned to England, where the king was St.
Edward the Confessor.
After the Norman conquest in 1066 and after her father's death in 1068,
Agatha with her son and two daughters resolved to return to Hungary and
embarked with that intent. Their ship was driven up the Firth of Forth to
Dunfermline, where Malcolm III, king of Scotland, received them
hospitably and granted them refuge. He very soon offered the whole family
a permanent home with him and asked that the Princess Margaret should
be