Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/140

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Margaret
134
Margaret

that as the bearers of her corpse passed the tomb of Malcolm the burden became too heavy to carry, until a voice of a bystander, inspired by heaven, exclaimed that it was against the divine will to translate her bones without those of her husband, and they consequently carried both to the appointed shrine. Before 1567, according to Papebroch, her head was brought to Mary Stuart in Edinburgh, and on Mary's flight to England it was preserved by a Benedictine monk in the house of the laird of Dury till 1597, when it was given to the missionary Jesuits. By one of these, John Robie, it was conveyed to Antwerp, where John Malder the bishop, on 15 Sept. 1620, issued letters of authentication and license to expose it for the veneration of the faithful. In 1627 it was removed to the Scots College at Douay, where Herman, bishop of Arras, and Boudout, his successor, again attested its authenticity. On 4 March 1645 Innocent X granted a plenary indulgence to all who visited it on her festival. In 1785 the relic was still venerated at Douay, but it is believed to have perished during the French revolution. Her remains, according to George Conn, the author of 'De Duplici Statu Religionis apud Scotos,' Rome, 1628, were acquired by Philip II, king of Spain, along with those of Malcolm, who placed them in two urns in the chapel of St. Laurence in the Escurial. When Bishop Gillies, the^ Roman catholic bishop of Edinburgh, applied, through Pius IX, for their restoration to Scotland, they could not be found.

Memorials, possibly more authentic than these relics, are still pointed out in Scotland : the cave in the den of Dunfermline, where she went for secret prayer; the stone on the road to North Queensferry, where she first met Malcolm, or, according to another tradition, received the poor pilgrims; the venerable chapel on the summit of the Castle Hill, whose architecture, the oldest of which Edinburgh can boast, allows the supposition that it may have been her oratory, or more probably that it was dedicated by one of her sons to her memory; and the well at the foot of Arthur's Seat, hallowed by her name, probably after she had been declared a saint.

[The Life of Queen Margaret, published in the Acta Sanctorum, ii. 320, in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglise, fol. 225, and in Vitae Antiques SS. Scotia?, p. 303, printed by Pinkerton and translated by Father Forbes Leith, certainly appears to be contemporary, though whether the author was Turgot, her confessor, a monk of Durham, afterwards archbishop of St. Andrews, or Theodoric, a less known monk, is not clear; and the value attached to it will vary with the religion or temperament of the critic, from what Mr. Freeman calls the 'mocking scepticism' of Mr. Burton to the implicit belief of Papebroch or Father Forbes Leiih. Fordun and Wyntoun's Chronicles, Simeon of Durham (edition by Mr. Hinde), and William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum are the older sources; Freeman's Norman Conquest, Skene's Celtic Scotland, Grrub, Cunningham, and Bellesheim's Histories of the Church of Scotland, and Robertson's Scotland under her Early Kings give modern versions.]

MARGARET (1240–1275), queen of Scots, was the eldest daughter and second child of Henry III of England and of his queen, Eleanor of Provence. She was born on 5 Oct. 1240 (Green, Princesses, ii. 171, from Liberate Rolls; Flores Hist. ii. 239; cf. Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, iv. 48, and Tewkesbury Annals in Ann. Monastici, i. 116). The date of her birth is given very variously by different chroniclers, while others get some years wrong through confusing her with her younger sister, Beatrice, born in Aquitaine in 1243 (Winchester Annals in Ann. Mon. ii. 89; Osney Annals and Wykes in ib. iv. 90). Sandford's statement that she was born in 1241 is incorrect (Genealogical History, p. 93). She was born at Windsor, where the early years of her life were passed along with her brother Edward, who was a year older, and the daughter of the Earl of Lincoln. She was named Margaret from her aunt, Queen Margaret of France, and because her mother in the pangs of child-birth had invoked the aid of St. Margaret (Matt. Paris, iv. 48). On 27 Nov. a royal writ ordered the payment of ten marks to her custodians, Bartholomew Peche and Geoffrey de Caux (Cal. Doc. Scotland, 1108-1272, No. 1507). She was not two years old when a marriage was suggested between her and Alexander, the infant son of Alexander II, king of Scots, born in 1241 (Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, iv. 192). Two years later there was a fresh outburst of hostilities between her father and the king of Scots; but the treaty of Newcastle, on 13 Aug. 1244, restored peace between England and Scotland (Fœdera, i. 257). As a result it was arranged that the marriage already spoken of should take place when the children were old enough. Margaret was meanwhile brought up carefully and piously and somewhat frugally at home, with the result that she afterwards fully shared the strong family affection that united all the members of Henry III's family.

In 1249 the death of Alexander II made Margaret's betrothed husband Alexander III of Scotland. Political reasons urged upon both countries the hurrying on of the mar-