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| Life of Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland |
Margaret's ancestry tells a lot about why she grew up in Hungary, returned to England, and how she came to be Queen of Scotland.
Her father, Edward Atheling was the Saxon heir to the
throne of England when the Danes took over the country
for a time. This put Edward in danger, and so he was
forced to find safety at the court of King Andrew
in Hungary. At that time, the Hungarian court was
a place that fostered Christianity and welcomed royal
exiles. There, Edward Atheling found both refuge and
a pious wife, Agatha, who was a German princess. There,
too, Edward and Agatha started a family. Their first
child was Margaret, born in 1045, followed by Christina
and Edgar. In Hungary, Margaret was trained to be a
princess by her parents and taught to be a devout
Christian by Benedictine nuns. She absorbed the lessons well.
Back in England, the Saxons threw out the Danes and Edward
the Confessor became king in 1042. He had no children, so
in 1054 he asked his nephew Edward Atheling to return with
his family to England and prepare to become king when the time came.
Edward Atheling, Agatha, and their children arrived in
England around 1057. Before the end of the year, Edward Atheling
was dead, never having met his uncle King Edward the Confessor.
According to the writer of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Edward
Atheling's death made William the Conqueror's Norman Conquest
at the Battle of Hastings, and thus the end of Anglo-Saxon
England, inevitable. When Edward the Confessor died in 1066,
no one of the Saxon royal house remained to become a strong king.
Once again, Margaret's family had to seek refuge. This time,
they found it in Scotland, landing at a spot known since then
as St. Margaret's Hope.
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| Scotland, King Malcolm, and Queen Margaret |
The Scottish nobles were an unruly bunch, staging frequent raids into the north of England and quarreling among themselves. The young prince Malcolm, who was to become Margaret's husband, was still a child when his father, King Duncan, was killed by Macbeth. It was not until 1054 that Macbeth was driven out and Malcolm established on the throne of Scotland, as readers of Shakespeare's Macbeth will remember.
When Margaret and her family arrived in his land in 1070,
King Malcolm greeted them graciously. Margaret had hoped
to become a nun and devote her life to the Church, but
Malcolm had other plans. He courted her and she, aware
of the power for good that the position of Queen of
Scotland could give her, agreed to his proposal of
marriage. They were married when Margaret was 24 and
Malcolm almost 40. Her first act as Queen was to build
a great church dedicated to the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline,
the site of their wedding.
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For 23 years, Malcolm and Margaret ruled Scotland.
Margaret was deeply pious and taught Malcolm
the ways of prayer and charity. His political
preoccupation continued to be invading England,
while she, with his consent built schools,
established abbeys, and personally cared for
pilgrims and the poor by distributing money for
food with her own hands. The coins shown in her
hand on our statue of St. Margaret symbolize
her very great charity.
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The book Margaret is holding on our statue
represents one of her most treasured possessions --
a Gospel Book ornamented with gold and precious
jewels. This book was said to have been dropped
in a river and, when rediscovered much later,
showed no damage. Its miraculous preservation
was attributed to Margaret's holiness. Such a
Gospel book that once belonged to Queen Margaret
is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.
Margaret saw that the Church in Scotland had fallen into lax ways.
As Queen, she prompted the Scottish clergy to hold church councils
to bring Scottish practices into line with disciplines of Rome.
With her encouragement, abuses were curtailed, the proper
ritual of the Mass reestablished, and the rules for Lenten
fasting and Easter Communion restored. Her zeal inspired
a return to the religious and ecclesiastical observances
that were common practice in England and on the continent
of Europe, both places where she had lived.
As a Christian wife and mother, Margaret trained her eight
children in the ways of God. Her daughter Edith married
Henry I and became known as Good Queen Maud of England
for her holy ways. Her son Ethelred became an abbot. As
kings of Scotland, her three youngest sons "carried
on her policies, inaugurating a golden age for Scotland
that lasted 200 years" (Joanne Turpin, Women in Church History).
The youngest of these sons of Margaret and Malcolm, King
David of Scotland, was also canonized as a saint.
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| Queen to Saint |
It was during one of his invasions of England that Malcolm
and his oldest son Edward were killed in battle in
November of 1093. Margaret had been sick for some time,
and she died just a few days after her husband and son.
She was canonized as Saint Margaret in 1250, and her
feast day is the date of her death, November 16.
Margaret's second daughter Mary asked Margaret's
confessor and friend Turgot to prepare a biography
of her mother, in which he wrote: "Queen Margaret
was a virtuous woman, and in the sight of God
she showed herself to be a pearl, precious
in faith and works."
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| More About the Life of Saint Margaret of Scotland |
Read more about St. Margaret in the Catholic Encyclopedia
Read more about St. Margaret at Catholic Online
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Mass Times
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| Saturdays: |
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4:30 PM |
| Sundays: |
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8:00 and 10:00 AM |
| Weekdays: |
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6:30 AM
each weekday |
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8:00 AM
Mondays
Tuesdays
Fridays |
| All School Mass: |
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8:00 AM Fridays |
| Holydays: |
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Refer to bulletin. |
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