The queen who became a saint
Queen Margaret of Scotland died at Edinburgh Castle on 16 November 1093, just three days after learning of the death of her husband Malcolm III at Alnwick. She was around 48 years old and had been suffering from a long illness. According to the account of her confessor Turgot, she was praying in her chapel when her son Edgar brought news of the king's death. She clasped the Black Rood — a holy relic she always carried — and died within the hour.
Margaret had come to Scotland as a refugee. Born an Anglo-Saxon princess, the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, she had fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Her marriage to Malcolm III around 1070 was a union of political convenience that became a genuine partnership. Margaret brought to Scotland the learning, piety, and courtly refinement of the European mainstream; Malcolm provided the military might to protect her reforms.
Margaret's transformation of the Scottish Church was her greatest legacy. She convened church councils, reformed liturgical practices, enforced the observance of Lent and Easter communion, and worked to bring Scottish worship into conformity with Rome. She founded the priory at Dunfermline and established the Queen's Ferry across the Firth of Forth to help pilgrims travelling to St Andrews. Her charitable works were legendary — she personally fed orphans and washed the feet of the poor.
Margaret was canonised by Pope Innocent IV in 1250 and is one of Scotland's patron saints. St Margaret's Chapel, perched on the highest point of Edinburgh Castle rock, is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh and dates from the early 12th century — built by one of her sons in her memory. The chapel is tiny, austere, and profoundly moving. Fresh flowers are placed there every week by the members of St Margaret's Chapel Guild. In a castle dominated by military history, Margaret's little chapel is a reminder that Scotland's story is also one of faith, learning, and compassion.