Saint Margaret of Scotland

Margaret of Wessex was almost 50 years old in 1093 when her husband, King Malcolm III of Scotland, and her eldest son went to war against the English at the Battle of Alnwick, where they were killed on 13 November. Tradition says that her son Ethelred, the lay abbot of Dunkeld, was with her when her son Edgar brought the news.

Margaret died three days later; no one assumes the cause was anything other than grief.

Her close friend, advisor, and biographer, Turgot of Durham, left us with a record of extreme piety. She worked on church reform, trying to bring the practices of the Scottish church closer to those of the continent (where she spent her childhood) and Rome. She performed charitable works, even washing the feet of the poor. She rose each midnight to attend Mass. She brought the Benedictines to establish a monastery at Dunfermline, and paid to establish ferries across the Firth of Forth to allow pilgrims to reach Saint Andrew's in Fife.

Her husband, whom the records call illiterate (but those may have been motivated by political enemies) admired her learning and had her books decorated in gold and silver. A pocket Gospel of hers is in the Bodleian.

Margaret was buried before the high altar at Dunfermline Abbey. Her husband's body had been interred in Tynemouth Priory, but was brought to Dunfermline for reburial near his wife during the reign of their son Alexander (1107 - 1124). That was not, however, the end of their love story.

Pope Innocent IV canonized Margaret in 1250 in recognition of her good works and personal piety. As a result, her body was disinterred at Dunfermline and the remains immediately placed into a reliquary appropriate for a saint of the Catholic Church. When they tried to carry the reliquary to its new location (a new shrine at Dunfermline), however, the path went past the location of Malcolm's remains. Those transporting the reliquary claimed it suddenly became too heavy to move. Interpreting this as a desire for Margaret to remain near her husband, Malcolm's body was likewise disinterred and placed near hers.

That was not the end of her body's travels. Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head exhumed and brought to Edinburgh as a "good luck charm" to assist in childbirth (N.B.: her son James was not born until 1566). In 1597 the head went to the Jesuits at the Scots College in France, but it was lost during the French revolution. The rest of her (and Malcolm) was transferred to Madrid by Philip II of Spain, but the location of their remains has been lost.

Malcolm and Margaret had several sons, any one of which could have assumed the throne in 1093 after Malcolm and his eldest, Edward, died. That was not to be the case, however. Malcolm's successor was Donald III, who swept in and laid siege to Edinburgh and Malcolm's family. Where did he come from? Let's look into that next time.