Margaret, St c.1046-1093
Queen of Scotland

Born in Hungary, where her father Edward the �theling, was in exile, she later went to England, but fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest with her brother, Edgar the �theling. The Scottish king, Malcolm III Canmore, married her at Dunfermline (c.1070). Much of her reputation comes from her confessor and biographer, Turgot. She refined and anglicized the court, brought Benedictine monks to Dunfermline, stimulated change in usages in the Celtic Church, but institutional change and the real influx of new orders were initiated by her sons. Canonized by Innocent IV (1251), she remains the only Scottish royal saint. Her feast day is 16 November.

Bibliography: Mary Clayton and Hugh Magennis, The Old English Lives of St Margaret (1994)