Saint Margaret of Scotland

Margaret was born in Hungary in 1045, in exile: she was the daughter of Prince Edward and granddaughter of Edmund II, and her family was the Anglo-Saxon royal house driven out by the Danes. They returned to England in 1057, and in 1066 they had to flee again, because of the Norman Conquest. A storm drove the ship carrying them away onto the coast of Scotland. King Malcolm III took them in, and in 1070 he married Margaret. That queen who came from the sea changed the country. She brought the Benedictines to Scotland, had the abbey of Dunfermline and the ancient monastery of Iona rebuilt, and set up a free ferry so that pilgrims could cross the Firth of Forth: the two villages at either end of that crossing are still called South Queensferry and North Queensferry, the queen’s ferry. She had the poor served at table before she ate, and with her own money she ransomed English prisoners. Malcolm, who couldn’t read, had her books bound in gold to please her. She was the mother of three kings of Scotland and of a queen of England. She died at Edinburgh Castle on November 16, 1093, three days after learning that her husband and eldest son had fallen in battle. She was canonized in 1250 and is the patron saint of Scotland. If your name is Margaret, today is your name day.