ST. MARGARET OF SCOTLAND (NOV. 16TH)

Saint Queen Margaret of Scotland

Edited by Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

St. Margaret of Scotland (AD 1045 – November 16th, 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess and a Scottish queen. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland". Born in the Kingdom of Hungary, before the Great Schism between East and West became permanent, to the expatriate English prince Edward the Exile, Margaret and her family returned to England in 1057. Following the death of king Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, her brother Edgar Ætheling was elected as King of England but never crowned. After she and her family fled north, Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland by the end of 1070.

The Life of a Pious, Orthodox Queen 

Margaret's biographer Turgot of Durham, Bishop of St. Andrew's, credits her with having a civilizing influence on her husband King Malcolm by reading him narratives from the Bible. She instigated religious reform, striving to conform the worship and practices of the ancient Church in Scotland to those of other Churches. 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.

St. Margaret 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 every night to attend the liturgy. She successfully 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. Andrew's 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 in Scotland. She is also known to have interceded for the release of Orthodox Anglo-Saxons who had been forced into serfdom and captivity by the papalist Normans after their conquest of England.

St. Margaret was as pious privately as she was publicly. She spent much of her time in prayer, devotional reading, and ecclesiastical embroidery. This apparently had considerable effect on the more uncouth Malcolm, who was illiterate: he so admired her piety that he had her books decorated in gold and silver, which became the treasures of Scottish Christianity after her death. One of these, a pocket gospel book with portraits of the Evangelists, is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.

St. Margaret’s influence on following generations was profound. She established a ferry across the Firth of Forth in Scotland for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland, or four, if Edmund of Scotland (who ruled with his uncle, Donald III) is counted, and of a queen consort of England.

Death and Glorification 

According to the Vita S. Margaritae (Scotorum) Reginae (Life of St. Margaret, Queen (of the Scots), attributed to Turgot of Durham, Margaret died at Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1093, on the 16th of November, a few days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. Soon after her death, she was venerated by her people as an example of saintly Christian life, and many wonders were attributed to her, particularly to little girls in need of protection and to pilgrims crossing water. Her intercession became highly sought after and her grave slowly became a place of pilgrimage. In the 13th century, after her fame had spread across Europe, she was declared a saint by the Roman Pope, and her feast day was declared to be June 10th, the birthday of her beatified great-grandson, King James VII. Her remains were moved from her royal grave to the Chapel of Dunsfermline Abbey, in Fife, Scotland, where they remain today. Only in the last few centuries has St. Margaret’s Feast Day begun to be celebrated rightly on the day of her death, as is the custom with all the saints whose day of death represents their glorification in heaven!

COLLECT

ALMIGHTY GOD, Who called Thy servant Margaret to an earthly throne that she might advance Thy heavenly kingdom, and gave her zeal for Thy Holy Church and love for Thy people: Mercifully grant that we also may be fruitful in good works, following her saintly example, so that we might attain to the glorious crown of Thy saints; and may we be upheld by St. Margaret’s intercession before Thy throne in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who livest and reignest with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

(Text: Edited from Wikipedia and the 1979 UK Texts for Common Worship)