General Notes

From Brian Tompsett:  She was Canonized in 1250  and her feast day is 16 November. In 1`057 she arrived at the English Court of Edward the Confessor,  Ten years later she was in exile after William defeated Harodl at the Battle of Hastings. She fled to Scotland where she was married against her wishes to King Malcolm to whom she bore six sons and two daughters.  Her unlearned and boorish husband grew daily more graceful and Christian undeer the Queen's graceful influence.  Her reamins were removed to Escorial, Spain and her head to Dounai, France."

Sources:
1.  Title:  "Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists Who Came to New England Between 1623 and 1650"
Author:  Frederick Lewis Weis
Publication:Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD, 1999
Pages: 1-22

2.  Title:University of Hull
    Author:  Brian C. Tompsett
    Webpage: http//www.dcs.hull.ac.uk/cgi-bin/gedlkup/n=royal?royal01512

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 beascertained with accuracy, but it must have been between the
years 1038, when St. Stephen died, and 1057, when her father returned to
England. It appearsthat 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 practicesof 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
Bodleianlibrary 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 theFrench 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, amonk of Durham and later Archbishop of
St. Andrews, and also to Theodoric, asomewhat obscure monk; but in spite
of much controversy the point remains quite unsettled. The feast of St.
Margaret is now observed by the whole Churchon 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 grantedthem refuge. He very soon offered the whole family
a permanent home with himand asked that the Princess Margaret should
be