Saint Margaret
(St. Margaret; Queen Margaret)

1045 - 1093

The Saintly Queen. Hungarian-born queen of Malcolm Canmore (Malcolm III), who she married after fleeing from the Norman invasion of England, bringing about an alliance between Scotland and the deposed Anglo-Saxon royal family. Margaret is said to have had a remarkable influence on Malcolm, who lost his many of his uncultured ways, although he still found time to invade Northumberland in support of his brother-in-law Edgar Aetheling's claim to the English throne.

Margaret re-founded the monastery on the Island of Iona (originally founded by Saint Columba) and built an abbey at Dunfermline. Gravely ill in Edinburgh Castle, her death was hastened when she received the news that both Malcolm and their eldest son, Edward, had been killed in battle at Alnwick (Northumberland). She was buried with Malcolm in the abbey she founded in Dunfermline and was canonised by Pope Innocent IV in 1249, becoming Scotland's only Royal saint. She was the mother of four Kings of Scotland (Edmund, Edgar, Alexander I and David I).

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