Scottish Catholic Observer

Margaret was born around 1045, into an English royal line that had fled to Hungary after a Danish conquest caused them to lose power. Later in life Margaret and her mother where shipwrecked in the Scottish town of Dunfermline, home of the brutal warrior King Malcolm, whom she later married.

Margaret is seen as an exemplary Catholic queen whose education, refinement, and faith made her a civilising influence not only over King Malcolm, but over the entire country.

“The prudent queen directed all such things as it was fitting for her to regulate: the laws of the realm were administered by her counsel; by her care the influence of religion was extended and the people rejoiced in the prosperity of their affairs,” Her confessor and biographer and confessor, a monk named Turgot, wrote.

Pope Innocent IV canonised her in 1249, and her relics were transferred to an elaborate shrine the following year. In 1560, a Protestant mob attacked the shrine, desecrating the site of St. Margaret’s relics. A group of monks preserved the relics, which later ended up in Spain and France.

In response to a 1673 petition, Pope Clement X named St Margaret a patroness of Scotland. She shares the honor with the land’s historic patron, the Apostle St Andrew.