Monday, 10 June 2024

Saint Margaret. Queen Of Scots (1045-1093). “The Pearl Of Scotland”. Feast Day, Today, 10 June.


Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

Saint Margaret.
   Queen Of Scots.
   Feast Day 10 June.

Semi-Double.

White Vestments.



King Malcolm III of Scotland
greeting Margaret on her arrival in Scotland.
Detail from a mural by William Hole
in The Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
Date: Circa 1899.
Source: Photographed by uploader
Author: William Hole (1846–1917).
(Wikimedia Commons)


Saint Margaret of Scotland.
Available on YouTube at

Margaret and King Malcolm III had eight children; six sons and two daughters:

Edward (circa 1071 — 13 November 1093), killed, along with his father Malcolm III, in the Battle of Alnwick;

Edmund of Scotland (circa 1071 – post 1097);

Ethelred of Scotland, Abbot of DunkeldPerth and KinrossScotland;

Edgar of Scotland (circa 1074 — 11 January 1107), King of Scotland, Regnat 1097-1107;

Alexander I of Scotland (circa 1078 — 23 April 1124), King of Scotland, Regnat 1107-1124;

Edith of Scotland (circa 1080 – 1 May 1118), also named "Matilda", married King Henry I of England, Queen Consort of England;

Mary of Scotland (1082-1116), married Eustace III of Boulogne;

David I of Scotland (circa 1083 – 24 May 1153), King of Scotland, Regnat 1124-1153.



Saint Margaret of Scotland.
Date: 13th-Century.
Author: Anonymous.
(Wikimedia Commons)


Saint Margaret's Church,
East Port, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.
Photo: 16 April 2009.
Source: Own work.
Author: Kilnburn
Attribution|: user:kilnburn
(Wikimedia Commons)

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, was descended from The English Kings by her father and from The Cæsars by her mother. Like the prudent woman, mentioned in the Epistle, she was made still more illustrious by the practice of Christian virtue.

Filled with The Fear of God (Introit), she subjected herself to fearful mortifications and, by her example, she brought the King, her husband, to a better life and her subjects to more Christian morals.

She brought up her eight children with such piety that several of them led a life of high perfection. Nothing, however, was more admirable in her than her ardent Charity towards her neighbour (Collect).


Site of The Shrine of Saint Margaret, Queen of Scots,
Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Scotland.
Photo: 14 October 2011.
Source: Own work,
Author: Kim Traynor
(Wikimedia Commons)

She was called The Mother of Orphans and The Treasurer of The Poor of Jesus Christ. Such was the price at which she bought the precious Pearl of The Kingdom of Heaven (Gospel).

Purified by six months of bodily suffering, she gave up her Soul to God in 1093 at Edinburgh, Scotland. The Holiness of her life and numerous Miracles, wrought after her death, have made her Venerated in the whole World.

She was chosen by Pope Clement X as Patron of The Scottish Nation, over which she had reigned for thirty years.

Let us admire the work of The Holy Ghost in the Soul of the Holy Queen, whom He chose for the furtherance of Christ's Kingdom in Scotland and let us invoke her for the return of Scotland to Roman unity.

Mass: Cognovi.


Saint Margaret's Church,
Davézieux, France.
Photo: 24 May 2013.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)


The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless stated otherwise.

Saint Margaret of Scotland (Scots: Saunt Magret, 1045 – 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English Princess and a Scottish Queen. Margaret was sometimes called “The Pearl of Scotland”. Born in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the shortly-reigned and un-crowned Anglo-Saxon King of England.

Margaret and her family returned to the Kingdom of England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. By the end of 1070, Margaret had married King Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming Queen of Scots.

She was a very pious Roman Catholic, and, among many charitable works, she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, for Pilgrims travelling to Saint Andrews, in Fife, which gave the Towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names.

Margaret was the mother of three Kings of Scotland, or four, if Edmund of Scotland (who Ruled with his uncle, Donald III) is counted, and of a Queen Consort of England. According to the Vita S. Margaritæ (Scotorum) Reginæ (Life of Saint Margaret, Queen (of The Scots)), attributed to Turgot of Durham, she died at Edinburgh Castle, in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1093, merely days after receiving the news of her husband’s death in battle.

In 1250, Pope Innocent IV Canonised her, and her Remains were re-interred in a Shrine in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. Her Relics were dispersed after the Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost. Mary, Queen of Scots, at one time owned her head, which was subsequently preserved by Jesuits in the Scottish College, Douai, France, from where it was subsequently lost during the French Revolution.

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