Margaret Queen of Scotland

ON SAINT MARGARET QUEEN OF SCOTLAND,

AT EDINBURGH THE ROYAL CITY,

THE YEAR 1093.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, at Edinburgh (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

§ I. On her cult, ancient and new, the Life written for her daughter Matilda Queen of England by Theodoric the Confessor; whether also by Turgot Bishop of S. Andrews? What was written by Aelred the Abbot?

Of Margaret, most holy Queen of the Scots, the cult, almost immediately from her death, the venerating subjects embraced, by invoking her in their necessities, continued for a long time alone; no other Church referring her into its Fasti: I believe, because that cult, vague throughout the whole year, was bound to no fixed day; until under Pope Innocent IV, she obtained the honor of solemn Canonization, and her bones lifted from the first place of burial, and placed in a precious case, and translated to the altar on the day XIX June; on which day the History of the aforesaid Translation, but (which we lament) preserved only as far as the beginning, was found by our Rosweyde in the Membraneous Ms. of S. Salvator of Utrecht: the canonization having preceded, sufficient nevertheless, that we are secure about the preceding Canonization. There acceeds the Aberdeen Breviary in Scotland of a most ancient impression, from whose summer part is had the Translation of the Relics of S. Margaret Queen of Scotland at Dunfermline, under King Alexander III, in the year 1251, on June nineteenth, with this proper prayer, O God, who have illustrated the Translation of B. Margaret the Queen which we recall with pious mind by the illustrious miracles of your power, propitiously grant, by her merits and intercession that we be transferred from labor to rest, from exile to the heavenly homeland.

[2] Why or when this day was first changed into the day X of the same month, I have not yet discovered. This day, with Capgrave and Surius going before, and then Molanus, the Roman Church approved; when at the pious prayers of the Catholics of Scotland, Clement X approved, presented to our holy Father Clement X, and through him sent back to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the same Sacred congregation kindly inclined, judged it could be granted, that henceforth could be recited the Office of S. Margaret Queen of Scotland, Semidouble at libitum, of the Common of neither a Virgin nor a Martyr, on the day X June her feast, by all the faithful of Christ of both sexes, both secular and regular, who are bound to the Canonical Hours in the universal Church, if it shall please the Most Holy, on December 2, 1673. And report having been made of the aforesaid, his Sanctity kindly assenting, approved and confirmed the opinion of the same sacred Congregation, on December 20 of the same: just as also by the same authority she was then accepted as Patroness of Scotland, as the Lections approved by his successor have it. That successor was Innocent XI; who similarly assented on February 9, 1678, Innocent XI transferred it to July 8, and ratified the Decree of the same sacred Congregation, by which on January 22 it had judged, that feast with the Office and Mass Semidouble at libitum, by Apostolic concession hitherto celebrated on the day X June, henceforth must be transferred and celebrated every year, on the day VIII July for just causes. What those causes were, it does not please to divine; that they cease, declared the recent Decree of the year 1693, by which on the day IV March our holy Lord Innocent XII is said to have assented, Innocent XII commanded it to be restored to the prior day. that the Office together with the feast be returned to the prior day X June; the petition having been sent back to the Congregation of Sacred Rites, in which the King and Queen of Great Britain, setting forth that the Prince of Wales had taken birth on June 10, were supplicating his Sanctity, not only for the replacement of the feast to the said day X June, otherwise transferred to VIII July; but also that the Office, hitherto in the universal Church celebrated at libitum, henceforth (as on another day September 15, 1691 had been granted) by precept: under the same Semidouble rite, however, most kindly to grant it to be recited.

[3] The sanctity of Margaret with wondrous praises everywhere English and Scottish writers extol, [The Life, by order of the Daughter, married to Henry I King of England, written by Theodoric of Durham,] as many as from her age to our times have treated the history of those kingdoms, old and new, even heterodox: but no one, of whom indeed the writings are had, more luminously than the Author of the Life, by us from the membraneous Codex of the Valcellense monastery in Hainaut, now ours, to be given, ordered to write the same by Matilda Queen of the English, the holy daughter of the Saint herself, married to Henry I; whom Anselm the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the Sunday of the festivity of S. Martin consecrated and crowned Queen in the year 1100, as in the Deeds of the Kings of the English writes Simeon of Durham, in the 12th century. The Author names himself Theodoric, servant of the servants of S. Cuthbert, and thereby he indicates that he is a Monk of Durham, very familiar however with the holy Queen; who himself was her Confessor for a long time, to the holy Confessor. as he indicates at num. 12, and received the entire account of her life from her own mouth, not long after, as he had predicted, about to die at num. 27; and at num. 28 he narrates her death, as he learned from her Presbyter, whom she on account of his simplicity, innocence, chastity had loved more familiarly than the rest, who to the Queen in the extremes of life inseparably was present, and the soul going forth from the body … by prayers had commended to Christ; and after the death of the Queen, for her soul perpetually gave himself over to Christ's service; and at the sepulcher of the incorrupt body of the most holy Father Cuthbert taking up the habit of a Monk, himself for her offered as a sacrifice; when more often, said Theodoric, asked thence by me, thus to relate with tears was wont.

[4] These therefore it was fitting to set forth at more length, so that it would appear, it cannot be, that this last service, which some take from Turgot Prior of Durham: which was of a Presbyter, indeed familiar, but still young, Turgot rendered to Margaret, second Prior of Durham, and afterwards Archbishop of S. Andrew in Scotland. Then, not only the diversity of name stands in the way, that the same Turgot was the writer of the Life here to be given: although John of Tynemouth believed him the same in the new Legend of the Saints of England, edited by John Capgrave; while what Theodoric narrates of himself at num. 27, speaking in the first person; with words slightly changed, he renders in this compendium: Having at length called her Confessor Turgot she began to relate her life … and when she had finished her discourse about necessary things; Farewell, said she: I shall not after these things long subsist in this life: but you after me [not] a small time shall live. Two things are which I ask of you: one, that as long as you live you remember my soul in Masses and prayers; the other, that you bestow care upon my sons and daughters.

[5] Hector Boece of Dundee, who wrote the History of the Scots in 19 books in the year 1526 book 12, [others make this Author of another Life, edited by him already as Bishop in the vernacular,] praises Turgot, as a most holy and most learned man: and when he had narrated, how he as Prior of Durham, with William of Durham and King Malcolm of Scotland, with the old temple destroyed, laid the foundations of the new (which was done in the year 1093, on III Ides of August, on Feria V writes Simeon of Durham) about Turgot himself he adds, that after some time, suppose, after 14 years, made Bishop of S. Andrew, he wrote the Life of D. Margaret and King Malcolm, in the vernacular tongue indeed, but with no less elegance than piety and truth; as one who was most familiar to those, while they lived, and was the best witness to either of their virtues: and a little after: With how great piety toward God, and how holily Malcolm and his wife conversed with men, with how great industry they tried to emend the morals of men; easily he shall understand, who has taken care to read the book of Turgot on the life of Malcolm and D. Margaret. This Life which we give, indeed could be of either day; passing over secular deeds, but weaving virtues almost equally: it is necessary however, that besides this, written in Latin by Theodoric, and sent into England, when Turgot was still Prior, another more prolix one was compiled by Turgot already Bishop in the vernacular, which remained in Scotland, in Boece's time generally known, and now in vain is desired.

[6] Neither stands in the way that the Bishopric of Durham was of English, not Scottish jurisdiction; for the common devotion of both peoples toward S. Cuthbert, as the common Patron; made that diocese to be esteemed common to both; with the Scots possessing a good part of Northumbria contiguous to themselves and the whole of Cumbria, contiguous to Durham. Hence however it is easily understood, either could have been familiar to the Queen, how the Queen could receive thence a Confessor; and Turgot himself, for the sake of office often obliged to make excursions even to the Royal court of the Scots, could come into great familiarity with those Kings, sometimes also be applied for Confession. But because at that time it was very usual, in writing letters, to use only the initial letter of the name, which in the case was T; and thence has more often happened that names have been altered, by those who afterwards presumed to extend them to the full length; it could also have happened in the Prologue of the Life, for Theodoric, Turgot may have crept in, and the contrary.

[7] It could not however have agreed with Turgot, then Prior, and the names easily alternated; and afterwards Archbishop, that she should have used him as it were an ordinary Confessor, and indeed from the beginning of her matrimony with Malcolm, and for a long time; the Saint not having married her husband before the year 1070. For not only of himself writes the Author of the Life at num. 17, that the Queen most familiarly to speak with him and reveal her secrets deigned: but also, as at num. 12 he had premised, she was wont to argue him, that more rarely and more tepidly than she wished, yet not all the things which the author writes about himself fit Turgot he indicated, whatever in her word or deed he saw to be reprehended. But concerning Turgot it is clear from the compendium of his life in the aforesaid Simeon,

that within the first years of William the Conqueror, suppose about the year 1070, still a secular Cleric and sufficiently well lettered, escaped from his custody, by which he was held as hostage for the County of Lincoln, was carried to Olaf the king of Norway; and thence, with much money which he had acquired there by teaching, returning, and with it lost carried to Durham, and received as a Monk about 1084, fourteen years after the Royal marriage; and that in the year 1087 he was made Prior: and in that office he so proved himself to Bishop William, that, with ten years not yet completed in the monastery, leading him forth before the peoples of the whole Episcopate, he enjoined his vices also upon them, contrary to the Acts of Turgot himself. that namely through the office of Archdeaconate, he should perform the care of Christianity throughout the whole Episcopate: as Turgot himself writes, in the History of the Durham church, which is his, not Simeon's, although it is had printed under the latter's name, Henschenius sagaciously observed, on March 20 about to treat of the Translations of S. Cuthbert.

[8] When the Latin Life was being written, already according to the Queen's prediction, noted at num. 27, The Prior Life under Edgar some many years had flowed by from her death for the Author; and her, said he, offspring exalted into the dignity of honor I behold; which seems to be understood not only about her daughter Matilda Queen of the English; but also about Edgar the third of her sons, who after his paternal uncle, and Duncan his Bastard brother, obtained the kingdom of Scotland, in the year 1103, and held it until the year 1109; when on his death succeeded Alexander, to outlive his sister Matilda, who died in the year 1118, by three years. About the former however, the other under King Alexander seems written. rather than about the latter I would think Theodoric to treat; because at num. 30 he narrates, how when the death of her father and brother had come to be announced to the mother, her son, who after his father held the rule of the kingdom, even now in the present, returning from the army: but he says nothing about the Royal body, brought back from Tynemouth to Edinburgh, which however Boece writes was taken care of by Alexander with royal pomp. About the time of his Life, which Turgot had written, conjecture must be made, from the Episcopate which he undertook in the year 1107, deceased in 1115. This Life I would, as later written, and perhaps after the translation of the royal bodies from Tynemouth, the more wish to be found, because I would hope there to find also some miracles of the deceased, which would have promoted the cult, and confirmed the title of sanctity: for I am led by great conjecture, to think it was collected by the order of King Alexander, to further excite the devotion of the Scots toward one who had merited best.

[9] Laurence Surius, who in the prior edition of the year 1571 had not known Margaret; [Something also Aelred the Abbot wrote; from which, and from the I Life drawn Epitome in Capgrave, and Surius.] in the second of the year 1579 inserted a Life received from I know not whom, under the name of an uncertain Author, prefacing, that S. Aelred the Abbot first wrote it. He was the Abbot of Rievaulx, of the Cistercian Order in the country of York; whose Life, as one deceased in the year 1166, you have from Capgrave on our January 12. His works John Bale Cent. 2 Cap. 99, and from him John Pits reviewing, name Aelredus. Among these is noted, Life of Queen Margaret book I: but both testify that it did not seem to them, when they omit, what elsewhere they add, his first words. Among the writers indeed ten afterwards edited and brought to us, the fourth is Aethelred, and among other things of his there written is the Epistle to the illustrious Duke H, that is Henry, afterwards King of the English, the Saint's grandson by his daughter Matilda; to which Epistle, written in the year 1144, in the aforesaid volume is placed the title, Genealogy of the Kings of the English. Here, when I find verbatim the same things, which are added to Theodoric's context in Capgrave concerning Queen Matilda, as received from the mouth of David, King and the youngest of the brothers and an eyewitness; I strongly suspect, that he wrote nothing about the Saint, except what is read in the aforesaid Genealogy. If however he wrote something more, this also is strongly desired. Finally not to be omitted here is our Father William Aloysius Lesley, who in elegant Italian style in the year 1675 at Rome published the Life of S. Margaret, whence at the end here will need to be added some things.

§. II On the year and day of death, to be defined from the opinion of the ancients rather than of the more recent ones.

[10] The year and day of death, neither Theodoric nor Aelred noted: It is clear that on the third day after the killing of the King the Saint died: only from them we have, that on the third day after the King was killed with his son in Northumbria, the Queen died. But what these omitted to indicate, we have from the indubitable testimony of Simeon Monk and Precentor of Durham, who carried the History of the deeds of the Kings of the English from the death of Bede to the death of Henry I; this man also S. Margaret's daughter, no less holy, Matilda, had as wife, deceased in the year 1135. There he, in the year 1093, writing at sufficient length the deeds between William the Younger King of England and Malcolm of Scotland, says they met last at Gloucester, but did not see each other mutually, on the day of the festivity of S. Bartholomew, that is August 24: and when unappeased they had departed from each other, and Malcolm had gathered an army as much as he could, but he was killed in 1093 on November 13. about to lead final desolation, he invaded Northumbria: but next to the river Alne with his firstborn Edward he is killed, on the day of the festivity of S. Brictius, that is November 13.

[11] John Brompton of the same Order and province, Abbot of Jervaulx, in the Chronicle which he led from the year 588 to 1198, contemporaries say, reports the same things in the sixth year of the aforesaid William (but he had taken up the kingdom in the year 1088, on V Kal. of October) and when he had said how unappeased Malcolm departed, he adds; how soon when he had entered the kingdom of the Scots, he gathered an immense army, and bursting in with his firstborn Edward, hostilely invaded the Boreal parts of England, and devastated them to Alewyk by plunder, and destroyed them by burning: where by Robert Moultay Count of Northumbria, and by his kinsman Morell a most strenuous Knight, and refute the year 1097. and other knights of that province, on S. Brictius's day with his son Edward he was killed. Under which testimonies easily is contemned the authority of the more recent Boece and Lesley, not having seen these, ascribing the year 1097 to the slaughter: and Camerarius noting the year 1092. But from the opinion of the aforenamed authors about the year of death, the year of the Translation can also be defined: for this from the Aberdeen Breviary below at num. 49, is said done from the stone tomb, where the bones of S. Margaret had rested for 167 years. Which if you add to the year 1093, you will have the year 1260.

[12] Both Authors add about the Queen; the former, that on the third day after the killing of the King she was loosed from the bonds of flesh; Therefore the Queen died on November 16. the other, that she happily terminated the life of this world after three days. Whom preceded the writer of the Life Theodoric, although not seen by them; narrating, how on the fourth day before her death, when the King was in expedition … made sadder than usual, she said to those sitting beside her: Perhaps today such great evil has befallen the kingdoms of the Scots, as has not come for many times past. But on the same day, in which one of her sons returning from the slaughter had announced it to her, she migrated to Christ; as the Life narrates at greater length. Therefore John Molanus rightly, in his more recent Additions to Usuard's Martyrology of the first edition, on which Molanus first set her; made at Louvain in the year 1558, on November 16 wrote, In Scotland of S. Margaret the Queen, whose Life Turgot wrote; but not rightly, following Hector he placed on October 15, In Scotland of S. Malcolm I King, who from Hungary had as consort B. Margaret, and illustrious in sanctity rested in the Lord, in the year 1097. But all these in later editions, that of Louvain in the year 1573, and Antwerp in the year 1583, the same John Molanus prudently took care to be expunged: for he was not I, but he wrongly placed the King on October 15. but III Malcolm: and if at some time he was honored by the Scots as a Saint, on account of the miracle in the translation of his wife done in the year 1251, that ought to have persuaded, that on this June 10 both should be at the same time proposed. Nor did the slaughter happen on the Ides of October in the year 1097 above a thousand, as Boece I know not whence received it; much less on the fourth of the Ides of June, as in Capgrave, and from him in Surius is read.

[13] Whence that obscurity of the death day, But when with affairs disturbed by the death of the King and Queen, the sons being excluded from succession, and their paternal uncle being raised to the throne, and soon their bastard brother; rather perfunctorily was Margaret's funeral cared for; nor was any singular honor paid to her, illustrated by no miracles at the beginning; in face of the day of translation. as the silence of all the aforecited Authors about miracles makes us presume. None of them even calls her Saint, but of Venerable memory Theodoric, that it is no wonder, that the distinct knowledge of the death day among the people having been lost, it yielded entirely to a new and greater solemnity, which was performed on the day XIX June, and then drawn back to X June.

[14] Considering this Molanus in the two later editions, Molanus afterwards omitted Malcolm. with Surius shining before him in the second edition, wrote thus in smaller Roman character, as of a Saint hitherto not found by him in any Martyrology, but known from elsewhere: In Scotland of S. Margaret the Queen: and in Annotation 4 added; About Margaret, Surius, and those whom we note on November 16; where not Turgot alone, as in the first edition, but first is alleged the History of S. Aelred Abbot of Rievaulx, and is added (from Bale probably) Aelred wrote the Life of D. Edward King and Confessor, the Life of David King of Scotland, the Life of holy Margaret Queen of Scotland. About Malcolm however, whom before he had wrongly referred to October 15, and whom he now understood to have died on November 13, he placed nothing on this day. Noting this the recognizers of the Roman Martyrology under Gregory XIII, Margaret inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. judged that they too should omit Malcolm, but for Margaret retain the day X June, not however as the day of death: and therefore, without mention of the Natal or Deposition, otherwise customarily indicated, they simply ordered to be read: In Scotland of S. Margaret the Queen, the bones of both alike elevated. famous for love of the poor and voluntary poverty. But in what manner the bodies of her and of King Malcolm, were elevated, and their biers jointly exposed to public veneration, and finally translated to Spain to the Sanctuary of the Escorial by the care of Philip II, we shall see in Appendix 2 of the Life.

PROPYLAEUM TO THE LIFE.

From the Genealogy of the Kings of Aelred Abbot of Rievaulx, and others.

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, at Edinburgh (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

§. I. History of the Royal family, from the death of King Edgar, who was the great-grandfather of S. Margaret, until her marriage with Malcolm King of Scotland.

[1] With King Edgar a translated to the celestial kingdoms, in the earthly kingdom his son Edward succeeded. Ethelred succeeding his brother S. Edward M. who unjustly killed by impious ones, both on account of the sanctity of his life, and on account of the bitterness of his death, the name and merit of a Saint b, with God giving, he deserved. To whom his brother Ethelred succeeded … and with messengers sent into Normandy he asked Emma, Edmund and Edward he begets. the daughter of Duke Richard, to be given him as wife and received; when already from the daughter of Toreth, a most noble Count, he had received his son Edmund. From Emma then he had two sons, Edward and Alfred … but when he had reigned most laboriously, but most strenuously thirty seven years c at London he died, leaving his son Edmund, Edmund, called the Iron-side, heir of labor and kingdom: of whose wondrous fortitude whatever shall be said would be less, whence on account of the invincible vigor of body he received the name of Yrensyde d that is Iron-side. There are then narrated his battles with Knuth or Canute the Dane, and at length the duel of both, by a sudden convention about dividing the kingdom interrupted. the kingdom with Canute the Dane he divides: There follows the death inflicted treacherously on Edmund in the year 1016: which avenging Knuth could have merited the highest praise, but this he corrupted, wishing both the brothers of Edmund, who were exiled in Normandy, and his little sons, Edmund and Edward, to deprive entirely of the hope of the kingdom. It is narrated also how the Nobles called together, prevaricating faith and justice; offered the kingdom to Knuth, as if Edmund had constituted him guardian of his children, lying upon their own head. For when Knuth had obtained the monarchy of the island with them favoring; he leads her widow, sends the sons to Sweden, he exterminated all who had been first in that counsel, and as many of the royal seed as he found surviving he either drove from the kingdom or killed.

[2] But fearing to strike the little sons of Edmund, he transmitted them to the King e of the Suavi to be killed, but the King of the Suavi, having pity on the distress of the noble boys, destined them to the King of the Hungarians f to be nourished: whom he kindly received, more kindly fostered, most kindly adopted to himself as sons. Moreover Edmund he gave his daughter as wife; to Edward, he joined in matrimony the daughter of his brother * g Henry the Emperor. But a little after Edmund is transferred from temporal to eternal things; who in Hungary obtain royal marriages: Edward enjoys safety and prosperity. Meanwhile with Knuth h dead and his sons who had reigned after him; Edward, brother of Edmund, son of Ethelred, who was exiled in Normandy i … coming into England, by the whole Clergy and People with greatest exultation is received, and at Winchester on the holy day k of Pasch … is consecrated … Who when he had obtained peace as much from his own as from strangers, sends messengers l to the Roman Emperor, whose paternal uncle S. Edward the Confessor asking that his nephew, namely the son of his brother Edmund Iron-side, the future heir of the kingdom owed to himself, he should deign to send. But the Emperor, gratefully receiving the King's messengers, not for a small time with the highest honor detained them.

[3] At length with ships prepared, and all things that seemed necessary for those about to sail brought, his nephew Edward with the family he invites to succeed himself, Edward with his wife Agatha, the daughter of his brother, and her children, Edgar Edeling m, Margaret and Christina, with great glory and riches, as the King had asked, he sends to England. Who with a prosperous course coming into England, both King and People gladdened by his arrival: but after a few days departing from life, he changed joy into mourning, laughter into tears. Nor much after the King himself … having spent in the kingdom 23 years, and 6 months, and 27 days, on the Vigil of Epiphany (in the year 1066) by a happy death terminated his laudable life, and filled the whole island with tears and grief. With him buried … some try to constitute King Edgar Edeling, to whom the kingdom by hereditary right was owed. But because the boy n seemed less worthy of such great honor, Harold o the Count of the family of traitors, whose mind was both more astute, but with both dead they are excluded and whose purse more fertile, and whose soldier more copious, by sinister omen obtained the kingdom: who, as Hector Boece writes, permitting Edgar and his mother and sisters freely to wander wherever they pleased at London, where they lived; and, the children of Edward in the year 1066, as if he had despised fortune, left him innocent in his kingdom, who was the true heir of the kingdom. Yet Agatha, fearing for her son, was receiving him into her own lodging, and most diligently observing.

[4] Then the same writer narrates, how Harold, about to make an excursion into Flanders for the sake of his mind, was compelled beyond expectation to land in Normandy; and feigning that he had come for the sake of affinity and peace, he obtained the daughter of Duke William as wife; but returning to England, he sent her back to the father with insult; which was the cause for William to undertake arms. But in such narration the time and cause of that journey is anticipated: as is understood from Ralph de Diceto, more distinctly pursuing all things, with which I do not wish here to delay: nor did the Norman ever take the daughter Ala as wife, only he had pledged he would take her, and besides many other things he had promised of which he kept nothing. Aelred passing over all these, only says, and with Harold killed the kingdom obtains William the Norman. that Hearing William Duke of the Normans, that no one from the royal seed, but Harold, had invaded the kingdom of his cousin Edward, which to him both by right of consanguinity, and of the ancient convention between himself and Edward, but also of Harold himself with sacrament p of pledge, more justly was owed; with an innumerable army drawn together from parts across the sea, came into England, and by God's judgment Harold himself deprived of kingdom and life at once (on October 14 of the same year in which he had begun to reign) and on the Lord's Nativity caused himself to be crowned King. But Edgar Edeling seeing, the affairs of the English to be everywhere disturbed; having boarded a ship, with his mother and sisters, was trying to return to the homeland in which he was born: but with a tempest arisen in the sea, he is compelled to land in Scotland. By this occasion it came about, that Margaret was handed over to the nuptials of King Malcolm: Edward's son Edgar, with mother and sisters. whose precious death the book edited thence sufficiently insinuates: his sister Christina is blessed as the bride of Christ. Thus far Aelred, from whose pen we also have the life of S. Edward, the aforesaid King and Confessor. To Aelred contemporary was Simeon, Monk and Precentor of Durham, who ends his History of 429 years in the year 1129.

[5] He, about the arrival of S. Margaret in Scotland, writes thus on the year 1068. After these things, with summer namely now grown, the nobler ones of the Northumbrian people, avoiding the austerity of King William, having taken with them Edgar Cliton, and his mother Agatha, and the two sisters Margaret and Christina, by ship went to Scotland, and there with the peace of Malcolm King of the Scots passed the winter. But what further in the following year? It is credible, in 1068 he retires to Scotland: that once and again he resumed navigation always with vain attempt; but by the peculiar providence of God, neither wishing the family dear to him to depart further, and meanwhile drawing them from the danger, to which they would have been exposed, if in Northumbria (whither they had previously withdrawn, that they might be as far as possible from the face of King William) if, I say, in Northumbria, the plundering Scots had caught them: about which Scots the same Simeon on the year 1070 narrates thus. At the same time an infinite multitude of Scots, thence in the year 1070 about to return to Hungary with King Malcolm leading, having been led across Cumberland, devastating all Tefedale and its neighboring places beyond and on this side with fierce plundering: then plundered Cleveland … through the lands of S. Cuthbert fiercely running about, deprives all of all things, and some, even of their very souls. Then also the church of S. Peter in Wearmouth the flame of his men, with him watching, consumed …

[6] There when he was riding around the banks of the river, at Wearmouth there meets him King Malcolm of Scotland and from a higher place watching the cruel crimes of his men against the wretched English, he was feeding his mind and eyes with such a spectacle, it was announced to him that Edgar Cliton, and his sisters girls of royal stock beautiful, and several other very rich men, fugitives from their seats had landed in that port with ships. With right hands given therefore he benignly addresses those coming to him, and to them with all their own he gave the habitation of his kingdom as long as they wished with most firm peace … But after the aforesaid devastation, by whom benignly received he resumes navigation whose cruelty Simeon tragically describes there, Scotland is filled, said he, with male and female slaves of English stock; so that even until today no, I do not say little village, but not even a little house can be found without them: whence ample matter for exercising charity, prepared for her, found Margaret, landing in Scotland. For, as the same Simeon pursues,

[7] but driven by tempest back into Scotland, With Malcolm returned to Scotland, Egelwin Bishop of Durham, beginning to sail toward Cologne, soon a wind rising contrary drove back into Scotland; whither also Edgar Cliton with his own (mother Agatha and sisters) the same wind conveyed with prosperous course. Whose Edgar's sister Margaret King Malcolm, with the consent of her relatives, joined to himself in matrimony; a woman noble in royal stock, but in prudence and religion much more noble; by whose zeal and industry the King himself, having laid aside barbarity of morals, was made more honest and more civil, … Hector Boece conflating both arrivals of Edgar in Scotland into one, pursues the rest no little more distinctly, with these words:

[8] Tossed for some time by the adverse blasts of the winds Edgar, at length unharmed with his own carried into the estuary q of the Forth, into that bay, which even in this our memory is called of D. Margaret from her sister, and again benignly received by the King, he brought his fleet. Whose arrival when to King Malcolm, who then was acting at Dunfermline, had been announced; to them he sent messengers, who should inquire their family and nation, and what they had come there to do. But when he learned that they had sprung from the royal stock, and were English by nation; by no means unmindful, what recently from Edward r he had received of benefits, accompanied by a flourishing throng of noble adolescents, he approached the ship. But Edgar, when he had understood the King to come to him, as adorned as he could, with his mother and sisters, he went forward to meet Malcolm: and all most humanely received by the King, into the royal court with great applause of all were led. But after some days Malcolm, having perceived the probity of Margaret and her most excellent morals, captivated by the virtues of the virgin, addresses the mother about the contracting of nuptials. [with the mother assenting he gives the sister Margaret as wife to him in the year 1070] Nor does the mother refuse: as one who knew, that she would never find an equal husband to him in the orb of the lands for her daughter, either in strength or wealth, if she had spurned him. And so with the immense festivity and apparatus of all the nobility of the kingdom, after the Octaves of Pasch s, the nuptials were celebrated

in the year of Christ sixty-seventh (rather seventieth) above the thousandth; and the bride Margaret was crowned Queen in the solemn manner.

[9] William the Bastard King of England, when what had been done in Scotland, the Norman in vain being indignant; he had heard, fearing lest thence any evils should threaten, when in England he still had many friends of Edgar, lest they should attempt anything new for him through sedition, proscribed all: of whom an immense number came in Scotland to Malcolm … bringing to Edgar many vessels, concealed with great craft, partly golden, partly silver; also certain Relics of Saints; among which that most precious Black Cross, and proscribing the friends of Edgar, which afterwards King David gave to the cenobium, built at his own expense in Lothian, whence it also obtained the name. Thus far Boece. But since this Cross from the Life at num. 29 is understood to have been at Edinburgh when the Queen was dying, and to her son, King David, dying at Carlisle in Cumbria (as is said here below at num. 21) the same Cross is read to have been shown in the Appendix at num. 37, it follows, that it was not always in one place, but David, perhaps foreknowing his own death, brought it out, or was accustomed to carry it about on journeys, among the instruments of the royal chapel.

[10] What followed after the aforenoted proscription of Edgar's friends, pursues, half a century later than Hector, George Buchanan, very ill indeed deserving of Religion and the Church, but of Scottish History, especially in the first ten books, not badly deserving, whose words it pleases here to transcribe. William, said he, sent a herald, who should demand Edgar, and, unless he were surrendered, declare war. Milcolumbus (for so he prefers to write, rather than Malcolm) judging it cruel and wicked, a suppliant, guest, kinsman, and finally a man, and himself to be surrendered to himself demanding. to whom not even enemies could object any crime, to surrender to a most savage enemy for punishment, decreed to suffer anything rather. And so not only did he retain Edgar, but also his friends, fugitives from home in greatest number, he received and endowed with estates. With war between the Scots and English arisen for this cause (or rather, renewed) Sibard Prince of Northumbria, favoring Edgar, joins his forces with the Scots.

[11] More fortunate, than William had hoped, the just arms of Malcolm had success. And so William, and finally with peace made up receiving him into favor, more wearied by a long than useful and necessary war, at length with his ferocity somewhat assuaged, applied his mind to the studies of peace. Peace was made under these laws, that in Stainmona, as you would say in a stony heath, the boundary of the kingdoms would be described … Milcolumbus should hold Cumbria, by which right his ancestors already had held it; Edgar, received by William into favor, and endowed with ample estates, that he might be far from all suspicion of revolutionizing things, as long as he lived never departed from the court. This peace none of the ancient English writers describes; cursorily John Brompton seems to touch it, where on the year 1071 he narrates, in the year 1071. how after the Assumption of B. Mary, King William, on account of the evils which the Scots had done in England, with a naval and equestrian army set out into Scotland: and when he had entered it, King Malcolm, with messengers sent to him from afar, asked the things of peace … and met him in the place which is called Adyrnythy, and became his man, namely on account of Cumbria and part of Northumbria, left to him.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

It is wondrous, how the writers of his time Simeon, Aelred, Brompton, etc. agree on this word, that they write either Suavos or Suevos, as also does Ordericus Vitalis; although it manifestly appears that the Swedes or Sueones are understood by them: and thus says Brompton, that Canute, by the counsel of his wife Emma (whom, the widow of King Ethelred, he himself had joined to himself, as opportune for confirming his new dominion, with her sons sent into Normandy) having summoned one Dane, by name Walgar, commanded him, to lead the boys into Dacia, and only to do such things about them there, that they would never again appear in England. But he, with the boys received moved by piety, them, with the order of King Canute set aside, transported to the King of the Suevi, to whom, according to some, Canute had sent them to be struck, transported. Who pitying the elegant boys, further destined them to be preserved for life to the King of the Hungarians Solomon, and to be educated according to their nobility. And when the King of Hungary saw the infants, and had learned about their nobility from the saying of Walgar, kindly received them, and as became royal sons he educated. Among those who say the boys were sent to the King himself to be struck, is Ordericus, and he names, Sueno King of Denmark brother of Canute: and adds, that he, with occasion arising, gave them to the King of the Huns, as if his nephews, as hostages.

* rather of S. Henry

p Ralph says, to the Norman expostulating through a legate, Harold answered; The kingdom, which was not yet mine, by what right could I give or promise? but he pretended he had been instituted heir by S. Edward.

q That most ample one in all Scotland, having its name from the Forth river, and separating the province of Fife from Lothian: but in this, a mile and a half from the shore, lies Edinburgh.

r Namely after the death of King Duncan, in the year 1036 or 1040 dead, with his son neglected was taken as King Macbeotha (whom the Scots call Macbeth) nephew of Duncan from a sister, at first pious, so that in the year 1050 set out for Rome, with Simeon of Durham testifying, he scattered silver there: but when afterwards into manifest tyranny he had declined; Malcolm (to whom they ascribe that Roman pilgrimage, at a time foreign to the author's mind) with many of the Magnates inviting, by Edward, to whom he had fled, was led into the kingdom. Simeon thus narrates the matter. In the year 1054 the strenuous Duke of the Northumbrians Siward, by the order of King Edward, with both equestrian army and a valid fleet went to Scotland, and with the King of the Scots Macbeotha he joined battle; and with many thousands of Scots … killed, put him to flight, and Malcolm … (as the King had ordered) constituted King. The Scots write this deed in the year 1061: but when they add the eighth year of King Edward, which is no other than 1054, they are known to err in Chronology.

s In the year 1070 Pasch must have been celebrated, on the day IV April: Octave on the day XI.

§ II. Continuation of the History, from the marriage of Margaret until the death of King David, the youngest born from her.

[12] In the year 1080, with Simeon of Durham as witness, Cliton Edgar in the year 1086 goes off to Apulia, between the Kings again something was disturbed: on account of which William, in the autumnal time sent his son Robert into Scotland against Malcolm; who when he had come to Egglesbreeth, with no business completed returned. Edgar Cliton was meanwhile staying with William; and in the year 1086, with leave obtained from the King, with 200 Knights crossed the sea, and went to Apulia: whose virgin sister Christina, entered the monastery which is called Romsey, and received the garment of nun's habit. The following year returning, with sister Christina placed in the monastery: he could not long be quiet. For with William the elder dying on November 9, a great change of affairs followed; because he had so disposed, that to William the Younger, his second-born, would remain the kingdom of England; to the firstborn Robert the Duchy of Normandy.

[13] Among these, it was difficult for Edgar Cliton so to bear himself in the middle, and ejected by the new King in the year 1088, he flees into Scotland: that he was outside the stroke of calumny, especially when his brother-in-law Malcolm, thinking this his occasion, with his unlimited troops, came as far as Chester-le-Street, situated not far from Durham, as Simeon writes, designating this his fourth excursion into Northumbria. And so, although he without anything further attempted withdrew, I know not by what fear struck; William however about to set out into Normandy, that he might snatch it from his brother, among many noble hostages of England, took also Edgar with him. Then, with a convention made with his brother, whereby between both Kings he afterwards deprived Edgar of the honor, which the Count had given him, and expelled him from Normandy. Who when he had fled back into Scotland, the King of the Scots Malcolm with a great army invaded Northumbria … Which the King hearing, with his brother Robert returned to England, in the month of August; and not much later, with a fleet not modest and an equestrian army, went into Scotland, becomes mediator of peace; to subdue Malcolm … But before he had entered Scotland, a few days before the festivity of S. Michael, almost the whole fleet was sunk; and many from the equestrian army perished from hunger and cold. To whom King Malcolm met in the province of Lothian. Seeing which Count Robert, called Edgar Cliton, whom the King had expelled from Normandy, and then was staying with the King of the Scots, to himself; by whose aid relying he made peace between the Kings … and also pacified Edgar himself with King William.

[14] But the peace between the Kings was not lasting: for in the year 1093 the King of the Scots Malcolm, after on III Ides of August, which in the year 1093 again broken, Feria V, he had placed the first stone of the new church at Durham, on the day of the festivity of S. Bartholomew the Apostle, met King William the Younger, as previously through legates had been established between them, in the city of Gloucester; that, as some of the Magnates of England wished, peace having been restored stable friendship between them might remain. But they departed from each other unappeased: for to see Malcolm or to converse with him, on account of too great pride and power William despised; moreover also him, that according to the judgment only of his Barons in his court he should make right for him, he wished to constrain: but to do this except in the borders of their kingdoms, where the Kings of the Scots had been wont to make right to the Kings of the English, and according to the judgment of the Magnates of both kingdoms, by no means Malcolm wished. Thus far Simeon of Durham, Malcolm falls with his son and following him with the same words John Brompton. The same, with these narrated, soon subjoin, as a matter done in the same year, that the King of the Scots Malcolm, and his firstborn son Edward, with many others in Northumbria, were killed by the soldiers of Robert Count of the Northumbrians … And that army, either pierced by swords; or by inundation of the rivers, which then by winter rains had risen more than usual, were absorbed. But the body of the King, when none of his own remained, who should cover it with earth, two of the natives placed on a cart, buried at Tynemouth.

[15] Aelred of Rievaulx and John Brompton, as I said in Comm. §. 2, November 13. refer that slaughter to the festivity of S. Bricius, that is November 13, in the same manner, in which Simeon here: but very differently Hector Boece narrates thus. William Rufus, scarcely digesting with sick stomach, that the Scots possessed Cumbria and part of Northumbria; he stirred war not undeclared, with castle Alnwick occupied, and the garrison killed. Thus, with things sought in vain back, Malcolm with an immense army, wishing to meet the beginnings, entered Northumbria, and besieged the castle Alnwick with all his troops. And already it was almost brought to an end; when a certain bold English Knight, conceiving a great deed and full of danger, with a most swift horse mounted, with the remaining arms put down, carrying only a spear, having the keys of the gates of the castle fixed at the front, as if about to make surrender, approached the camp of the enemies. Whom when the Scottish sentinels saw coming, all rejoicing run together; and emit a clamor indicator of joy; namely, Hector Boece's fabulous narration, of the manner of the killing; (as they thought) with the so long-lasting labor completed; and lead him coming to the King. The King, aroused by the clamor, comes forth from his tent, to see what new thing had then been done there. The Englishman with spear lowered offers the keys to the King, and with all minds fixed on the keys, with his spear strikes the left eye of the King; and immediately with spurs given to his horse, he escaped into the nearest woods. The King falling amid the hands of his men, immediately expires.

[16] That narration seems similar to a little tale, and the more difficultly to be received, that nothing of this kind do the English mention. More certain things can be held, which further the same Boece adds with these words; The Scots however, What was done with his and his son's body. with King Malcolm killed, with the siege of the castle abandoned, went off in different directions whence they had come, with him buried at Tynmouth, an Abbatial cenobium of England. After some years however, by Alexander the son dug up, to Dunfermline with royal pomp, to the temple of the H. Trinity, they say, translated and buried. At the same time, with another wound was Scotland struck. For Edward, Malcolm's firstborn, with a light battle not far from Alnwick joined with the English, from the wound which there he received died, and the first of all from the royal family obtained burial at Dunfermline (if you except Ethelred, who pre-died his parents, whose body there in the year 1449 is thought to have been found) Margaret, when she had received the slaughter of both husband and son, lying in the castle of Edinburgh from long wasting, with grief augmenting it, after the fourth day, expired her happy soul. With these last things if the report of the English does not entirely agree, they are not therefore less probable to me: for it would not be wonderful, if they did not so distinctly know, whether the bodies only of one or of two had been buried at Tynemouth; or that, with the King's body not found among the crowded corpses around him, the Scots departing took with them the wounded Prince in the battle; who however on the same day died.

[17] The Queen having died after three days, With Malcolm's death known, says Simeon, the Queen of the Scots Margaret, was affected with such great grief, that she suddenly fell into great infirmity. Without delay, with Presbyters summoned to her, she entered the church; and to them confessing her sins, caused herself to be anointed with Oil, and fortified with the celestial Viaticum; praying God with assiduous and most intense prayers, that He would not permit her to live longer in this troublesome life. Nor was she heard much more tardily: for after three days from the killing of the King, loosed from the bonds of flesh, to eternal joys (as is believed) she passed. For while she lived, of piety, justice, peace, and charity she was a devoted cultivator: frequent in prayers, she macerated her body with vigils and fasts, enriched churches and monasteries, loved and honored the servants and handmaids of God: to the hungry she broke bread, clothed the naked; to all pilgrims coming to her lodgings, garments, Dunaldus the King's brother is elected King: and food she furnished; and loved God with her whole mind.

[18] With her dead the Scots elected Dunfenald, the brother of King Malcolm, as their King; and all the English, who were of the King's Court, they expelled from Scotland. But what was done with the Royal children? Edgar, the children of the Queen flee into England: Margaret's brother, said Boece, fearing for the heads of his nephews, with secret messengers calls them into England. There came these three, Edgar, Alexander, and David, with two sisters, whom he joyfully received, and as he could most secretly nourished. Meanwhile a son of King Malcolm, by name Dunecham asked King William, their bastard brother Duncan with paternal uncle expelled reigns: whom he then served as a soldier, that he would grant him the kingdom of his father, and swore him fealty: and so to Scotland, with a multitude of English and Normans hastened, and his paternal uncle Dunefald (in the eighteenth month after the kingdom occupied) expelled, and in his place reigned. The more recent writers call him Bastard, which it follows must be him, if no wife, prior to Margaret, Malcolm had. That he was born earlier I would scarcely doubt: nor must he have got along well with the father, who, with the disagreements between the Scots and English most boiling, was a soldier to the King of the English, lest I suspect something worse.

[19] Then some of the Scots gathered into one (says Simeon) destroyed all his men, but he himself with a few barely escaped. The orphans the King of England protects: Yet however after these things they permitted him to reign, on this account, that he should bring no further English or Normans into Scotland, and would let him serve as a soldier. William's mind could not but be moved by the injury inflicted on his English and Normans. When therefore a certain knight by name Orgar, as Boece says, hoping a great reward from calumny, had accused Edgar before the King of lese majesty, that he had said that himself and his nephews, whom in this he was secretly nourishing, were the true Kings of the English kingdom: and he had paid the deserved penalties of importunate cupidity, and with Duncan's killing heard, vanquished and killed by a certain Knight, who having undertaken Edgar's cause, for the truth of the matter to be decided, had undertaken single combat. When, I say, thus had become known to William the royal offspring of Malcolm, preserved in his kingdom with his paternal uncle; not only not at him was he angry; but, rejoicing to have found whom he might oppose to ungrateful Duncan, kindly treated; and (as Simeon again narrates) in the year 1097 sent Cliton Edgar to Scotland with an army, the firstborn he commits to Edgar the paternal uncle to be brought back. that in it his cousin Edgar, son of King Malcolm, with his paternal uncle Dunefald expelled, who had again invaded the kingdom after Duncan was killed, he should constitute King; with Alexander and David with the sisters, as if hostages of fraternal faith, honorably retained in his court.

[20] Thus far Simeon, whose narration about to complete Boece (although he had not read him, was about to define the years more certainly otherwise) Edgar, said he, judging first by legates to act, if anything in words he could profit, demanded the kingdom from Dunald, promising to give him most beautiful fields in Lothian, Who with S. Cuthbert favoring him conquers Dunald refusing equitable things: if he assented to the petitions. But so far is Dunald from

having performed the orders, that he did not even keep his hands from the violation of the legates. For foully beaten, he cast them into prisons; and a little after, that the crime might be more fully done, even killed them. Then Edgar … enters the way into Scotland. But when with his troops he had settled at Durham, by a dream divinely admonished, that if he should carry with him the standard, which was of divine Cuthbert, undoubted victory would follow; aroused from sleep, in the morning he enters the monastery, and with divine matters to God and divine Cuthbert performed, takes thence his Standard, and carries it spread out on the expedition. Dunald, made to meet Edgar coming with an immense multitude, with the standard of divine Cuthbert and the Royal one seen, at once is abandoned by his own, and casts himself headlong into flight: and when now he was about to cross into the Hebrides, and the first King is anointed. he was captured by the inhabitants, and led to Edgar: by whom cast into prison, in chains after some time died. Edgar, having obtained victory without blood, immediately went to Edinburgh, and thence visited the sepulcher of his mother and brother: where with parental rites performed; and with a council of the Magnates called, he received the rule of the kingdom; and not much later by Godric Bishop of S. Andrew was anointed. For divine Margaret while living had obtained this from Urban (II) the Supreme Pontiff, that thenceforth the Kings should be anointed. Edgar was the first of them all, of those Kings in Scotland sanctified by the sacred unction … this afterwards Pope John XXII confirmed.

[21] I return to Simeon, with whom I read, that in the year 1100, on IV Nones of August, on Feria V Indict. VIII, the King of the English William, while in the new forest he was occupied with hunting, struck by an arrow incautiously directed, ended his life … to whom succeeded his younger brother Henry … who took the daughter of the King of the Scots Malcolm and Margaret, by name Matilda, Matilda, the saint's daughter, marries King Henry in the year 1104, in marriage; whom Anselm the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the Sunday of the festivity of S. Martin, consecrated and crowned as Queen … In the year 1104 the body of S. Cuthbert … was found incorrupt, and with limbs so flexible, Edgar in Scotland is succeeded by Alexander in the year 1107 that it seemed more like one sleeping than dead; with Count Alexander, afterwards King of the Scots, present … In the year 1107 Edgar King of the Scots died, to whom his brother Alexander succeeded … In the year 1114 to Henry the Emperor of the Romans Matilda, daughter of the King of the English Henry, on VIII Ides of January at Mainz was betrothed, and was consecrated as Empress … In the year 1118 Matilda Queen of the English at Westminster on the Kalends of May died, and in the very monastery was decently buried. In the year 1124 Alexander King of the Scots died on VI Kal. of May, and to him in the year 1124 David the youngest born of the brothers when he had reigned 18 years and three months: to whom his brother David succeeding, the kingdom, which the former had held most laboriously, received without contradiction, and held everywhere illustrious and quiet.

[22] But Simeon ends his History in the year 1129; which through another 24 years pursues John Prior of Hexham, a most faithful Author; but (as on June 8, before the life of S. William of York the Archbishop, num. 3 I observed) with the deeds of the year 1140 wrongly divided, and the number of the year 1141 wrongly intruded once, vitiated in the following years, with one number always taken away must be corrected; that the last becomes 1153, which now wrongly is noted as 1144: to which very year John, having said many things in the preceding years about deeds done by King David, ends his writing about thus. died in 1153. In the same year (1153) David King of Scotland, at Carlisle pressed by infirmity, on IX Kal. of June died; whose memory through all generations is in blessing. There has not been the like of that Prince in our days, devoted to divine Offices, on individual days all the Canonical hours, even of the Defunct, not omitting to hear. Praiseworthy indeed in him, that in the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the fierceness of his barbarous nation he wisely moderated: with praise of rare sanctity. that in washing the feet of the poor he was frequent, and in feeding and clothing them he was merciful: that the cenobium Saltehou, Mailros, Newbattle, Holm Cultram, Jedburgh, Craq, and these indeed situated across the sea of Scotland, with lands and rents to sufficiency enriched, he himself constructed, besides those good things which in Scotland and in other places he worked: who also among foreign nations gave pilgrims, religious and secular, with his munificence. I would call him glorious, that with daily frugality of food and clothing, with sanctity of honest conversation, with discipline of morals, even to cenobial men he showed himself imitable. He reigned however 29 years; and his body carried to Dunfermline, was buried in the sepulcher of the Kings of Scotland (where also holy Margaret the Queen, his mother, rests) about which it is reported, that the sea, which lies near Dunfermline, raged with stormy crashes of winds, threatening shipwreck to those wishing to cross with the body: but with the body of the King placed in the ship, the sea was quiet from its fervor. When the body was put out from the ship on the other shore, the sea was agitated again with the heats of tempests. That the death of David fell in the same year 1153, is proved also from the premised text of Simeon, asserting that in the year 1124 in the month of April, with Alexander his brother dead succeeded David. But he reigned for 29 years, and so died in the 53rd year of the same century. The same is proved from Aelred below at num. 37 with IX Kal. of June composing the Sunday before the Ascension of the Lord: which concurrence demands the Dominical letter D, and the Ascension celebrated on V Kal., which happened in the year 1153, not the following.

LIFE

By the Author Theodoric Monk of Durham, Confessor of the Saint herself, to her daughter Matilda Queen of England,

from our Membraneous Ms. of Valcellense.

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, at Edinburgh (S.)

BHL Number: 5325

BY THEODORIC THE CONTEMPORARY FROM MSS.

PROLOGUE

To the excellently honorable, and honorably excellent, Queen of the English Matilda, Theodoric, servant of the servants of S. Cuthbert; in the present, the good of peace and salvation; and in the future, the good of all goods.

[1] He prefaces, that he, daughter and Queen of so great a mother Of your mother of venerable memory the conversation pleasing to God, which by the consonant praise of many you had often heard proclaimed, that I should offer it to you handed down in letters, both by asking you commanded, and by commanding you asked. Namely you said me especially in this should be believed, whom, by the grace of great familiarity with her, you had heard for the most part to be conscious of her secrets. These orders and these wishes I gladly embrace; embracing, I much venerate; venerating, I congratulate you, who having been constituted by the King of the Angels Queen of the English, the life of your mother the Queen, who always panted to the kingdom of the Angels, not only to hear, but also imprinted in letters you desire continually to inspect; obey, in her life to be written, that you who knew little the face of your mother, may have a fuller notice of her virtues. And indeed to me of fulfilling the orders is a prone will; but, I confess, the faculty is lacking: greater indeed is the matter of this business, than is to me either of writing or of speaking the efficacy.

[2] There are therefore two things which I suffer, by which I am drawn hither and thither. unequal indeed to my strengths, On account of the magnitude of the matter, I fear to obey; on account of the authority of the commander, and the memory of her about whom one must speak, I dare not contradict. But although, as would be worthy, I am not able to explain so great a matter; yet as much as I can (because both her love and your command requires this) I ought to intimate. For the grace of the holy Spirit, which had given her the efficacy of virtues; to me, as I hope, will administer the help of narrating them: The Lord will give the word to those evangelizing: and again, Open your mouth, and I will fill it. Ps. 67, 12 & 80, 11. For he cannot be lacking in word, who believes in the Word: For in the beginning was the Word, and God was the Word. First therefore I desire, both you, and others to know through you, but instructed with certain knowledge of things, that if all things, which I know to be proclaimed about her, I shall attempt to say, I shall be thought, on account of the apex of royal dignity, in praising the mother to flatter you. But far be from my white hair, in the virtues of so great a woman to mix the crime of lying: in whose exposition, far from adulation and fiction. with God as witness and judge, I profess to add nothing above what is; but lest they seem incredible, to suppress many things in silence, lest, according to that of the Orator, I be said to adorn the crow with swan-like colors.

CHAPTER I.

Nobility of family, royal and matronal virtues.

[3] Many, as we read, drew the origin of their name from the quality of mind; that in them the appellation should pretend, what would agree to the grace, which they received. Thus finally Peter from Peter Christ, Margaret called by name, for the firmness of faith; thus John, which is grace of God, for the contemplation of Divinity and the privilege of divine love; and the sons of Zebedee Boanerges, that is sons of thunder were called, on account of the thunder of evangelical preaching. Which is found in this woman of virtue: who the beauty, which she displayed in her name, with greater beauty of soul she conquered. For she was called Margaret, and herself in the sight of God, by faith and work was held as a precious pearl. as she was also in fact, And so your Margaret, mine, ours, indeed Christ's, and because Christ's therefore more ours, now has left us taken up to the Lord. Taken up she is, I say, Margaret from this world's dunghill, and shines now placed in the ornament of the eternal King. From this no one, as I judge, will doubt, when he shall have heard her life and end of life a little later. Whose conversations with me, seasoned with the salt of wisdom, while I recall; while the tears, which compunction of heart had struck out, she is dead, an argument of mourning and joy. I consider; while the sobriety and composition of morals I observe; while the affability and prudence I remember; mourning I rejoice, and rejoicing I mourn. I rejoice, because she has passed to God, whom she had sighed for: I mourn, because with her in heavenly things I do not rejoice. For her, I say, I rejoice; because she who had believed, now sees the good things of the Lord in the land of the living: but for myself I mourn, because in the land of the dead, while I suffer the miseries of mortal life, daily I am compelled to cry; Wretched man that I am, who shall free me from the body of this death?

[4] Since therefore about her, whom she had in Christ, nobility of mind I must speak; about that also, by which according to the world she had shone, it seems something must be premised. Her grandfather was King Edmund a; who because he was strenuous in fighting and invincible to enemies, from the excellence of virtue had contracted the insignia of his name: Grandfather, King Edmund Iron-side, for what in Latin is called Iron-side, in the language of the English was named. Whose brother by father, but not by mother b; was that most pious and most gentle King Edward c, who had exhibited himself as father of his country; and another in a way Solomon, that is peaceful, more by peace than by arms had protected the kingdom. He bore

[5] Richard also, the father of the mother of the same Edward, Emma, shone forth as worthy of so great a grandson; a man strenuous through all things, Edward also was the son of Richard the Norman through his mother Emma. and worthy of all praise. For no one of his progenitors, was either happier in the honor of County, or more fervent in love of Religion. Placed in highest riches; in spirit, like another David, he was most poor: constituted Lord of peoples, he was most humble servant of the servants of Christ. Among other things which, as a monument of his religious devotion, he had done, that noble Fécamp d monastery the pious worshipper of Christ had built: most illustrious in virtue. in which he himself, indeed in secular dress, but a Monk in deed, often was wont to converse with the Monks, and among them while eating to place foods with silence, and to minister drink; that, according to Scripture, the greater he was, the more he humbled himself in all things. Ecclus. 3, 20 Whose works of magnificence and virtues whoever desires more fully to know, let him read the deeds of the Normans, Edmund's son was Edward, father of Margaret; which also contain his very acts. From these progenitors of such great brightness and excellence, the grandson Edward in nothing degenerated; from father alone, as said before, brother of King Edmund; of whose son e Margaret sprung, with the brightness of merits adorns the bright series of progenitors.

[6] When therefore she still flourished in her early age, she began to lead a life of sobriety, who having been most excellently instituted, and to love God above all things; to occupy herself in the study of divine readings, and in these delightfully to exercise her mind. There was in her for understanding any matter sharp subtlety of wit, for retaining many things tenacity of memory, for producing graceful facility of words. When therefore in the law of the Lord day and night she meditated, and as another Mary sitting by the feet of the Lord, she was delighted to hear his word; more by the will of her own than by hers, indeed by God's ordination, with the most powerful Malcolm King of the Scots, son of King Duncan, she is joined in matrimony f. But although she was compelled to do those things which are of the world, and married to Malcolm King of Scotland, yet from desire she despised to cleave to the things of the world: for she was more delighted by good work, than by the possession of riches. From temporal things eternal rewards for herself she was preparing; because in heaven, where her treasure was, she had placed her heart. And because especially the kingdom of God and his justice she was seeking, to other virtues, fitting her grade, the lavish grace of the Almighty was adding to her honors and riches in abundance. All things that befitted a prudent Queen were done by her command: by her counsel the rights of the kingdom were disposed, by her industry divine religion was augmented, by the prosperity of things the people rejoiced. Nothing was firmer than her faith, more constant in countenance, more tolerable in patience, graver in counsel, juster in sentence, more pleasant in conversation.

[7] After therefore she had ascended the summit of honor; soon in the place where her nuptials had been celebrated, she joined the ornamenting of churchesshe erected an eternal monument of her name and religiosity. For with threefold intention of salvation, she built there a noble church in the honor of the Holy Trinity; namely for the redemption of the King's soul and her own, and for obtaining to her offspring the prosperity of present and future life. Which church she decorated with various kinds of ornaments: among which, for the very most sacred ministry of the Altar, not few vessels of solid and pure gold are known to have been: which the more certainly I could know, as all by the order of the Queen I myself for a longer time there had taken to be preserved. A Cross also, of incomparable price, having an image of the Savior, which with most pure gold and silver with gems running between she had caused to be clothed, she placed there, singular care, which to those looking on openly the devotion of her faith even today demonstrates. Similarly also in any other churches she left signs of her sacred devotion and faith: which the church of S. Andrew has testified, of the Crucified the most beautiful, which there she herself had erected, as today is seen, preserves the image. With these things, that is which pertained to the cult of divine service, her chamber was never empty; which, so to say, was as if a certain workshop of celestial art. There copes of singers, chasubles, stoles, altar palls, also other priestly vestments, and church ornaments were always to be seen. Some by the hand of artisans were being prepared, others already prepared were held worthy of admiration.

[8] To these works women were deputed, who noble by birth, and approvable for sober morals, and the women's quarters most chastely to be composed; were judged worthy to be present in the obsequies of the Queen. There was no entrance for any of the men to them, except those whom she herself, when sometimes she entered to them, permitted to enter with her. To them no dishonest familiarity with men, none ever with petulance lightness. For there was in the Queen such gravity with pleasantness, such pleasantness with gravity, that all who were in her obsequy, men and women, loved her by fearing, and feared by loving her. Wherefore in her presence not only to do nothing execrable, but not even a foul word would anyone have dared to bring forth. For she herself repressing in herself all vices, amiable equally and severe; with great gravity rejoiced, with great honesty was angry. Never in excessive cheerfulness dissolved into laughter, never in being angry was poured into fury. Sometimes at the sins of others, but always at her own she was angry, with that anger to be praised, and always friend to justice, which the Psalmist commanded to be had, Be angry, said he, and sin not. Ps. 4, 5 All her life composed by the highest moderation of discretion, was a certain form of virtues. Her speech, seasoned with the salt of wisdom; her silence, was full of good thoughts. To the sobriety of morals her person so agreed, that she could have been believed born only to the honesty of life. But to say many things briefly, in all things which she spoke, in all things which she did, she showed herself to be thinking heavenly things.

[9] Nor lesser than to herself, to her sons she bestowed care; that namely with all diligence they should be nourished, and as much as possible with honest morals be instituted. Whence because she knew it written, about her children likewise to be rightly instituted, both through others, He who spares the rod hates his son; she had enjoined to a familiar minister, that as often as they should fail by infantile licentiousness, as that age is wont, he himself should restrain them with threats and beatings. Prov. 13, 14 By which religious zeal of the mother, many who were older in age, the infants surpassed in honesty of morals: always among themselves they were benevolent and peaceful, and the lesser everywhere exhibited honor to the greater. Whence also among the solemnities of Masses, when after their parents they proceeded to offer, the younger by no means presumed to go before the older, but according to the order of age the older was wont to precede the younger. Whom often led before her, she diligently studied to teach Christ and the faith of Christ, according to what that age was able to grasp, or through her own self solicitous. and to admonish that they should always fear Him. Fear, said she, O sons, the Lord, because there is no want to those fearing Him; and if you have loved him, He himself to you, O my bowels, both the prosperity of the present life, and with all the Saints eternal felicity will render. These were the mother's desires, this her admonition, this for her offspring day and night with tears her prayer, that they should know their Creator in the faith that works through love, knowing might worship Him, worshipping in all things and above all things love, and loving might come to the glory of the celestial kingdom.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

CHAPTER II.

Care for the honor of the kingdom and ecclesiastical discipline given by Margaret; abuses corrected.

[10] Nor is it to be wondered, that the Queen moderated herself and her own with wise rule, Most studious of sacred reading, who always was governed by the most wise magistery of sacred Scripture. For, what I in her used to admire much, amid the tumults of causes, amid the manifold cares of the kingdom, with wondrous zeal she gave effort to divine reading, about which with most learned men sitting beside her even subtle questions often she discussed. But just as among them no one was more profound than her in genius, so no one was present more illustrious in speech. So it often happened, that from her the very rectors departed much more learned than they had come. Plainly her religious devotion, and no small avidity for sacred volumes was in her, in acquiring which for herself her familiar charity and charitable familiarity often compelled me myself to fatigue myself. Nor in these only did she seek her own salvation, but also of others: and first of all the King himself, to the works of justice, mercy, alms, and other virtues, she herself, with God cooperating with her, had made him most obedient. He learned from her also vigils of the night frequently to extend by praying; and to her husband the King she was the urger of every good; he learned, by her exhortation and example, with groaning of heart and pouring out of tears to pray to God. I confess, I marveled at the great miracle of God's mercy, when I saw sometimes such great intention of praying in the King, such great compunction during praying in the breast of a secular man.

[11] Herself the Queen of such venerable life, because in her heart she had seen Christ truly to dwell, he in any way to offend feared; who as he esteemed her and all things dear to her; but rather to her wishes and prudent counsels more swiftly in all things to obey he hastened. The things which she had rejected, the same also he rejected; and the things she had loved, with the love of her love loved. Whence also the books, in which she had been wont either to pray, or to read; he, although ignorant of letters, often was wont to turn with his hand and

inspect; and when he had heard which of them was dearer to her, this also he himself held dearer, kissed, often handled. Sometimes also having summoned a goldsmith he commanded the codex itself to be adorned with gold and gems, and adorned the King himself was wont to bring to the Queen, as if a sign of his devotion. This also the most noble gem of royal stock, thus to the husband's honor she consulted, the magnificence of royal honor, made for the King much more magnificent; and to all the Magnates of the kingdom and their ministers most much of glory and beauty she conferred. For she had caused that merchants, by land and sea coming from various regions, should bring several and precious kinds of sellable things, which there until then had been unknown: among which when with various colors garments and various ornaments of garments, the natives by the urging of the Queen bought; so by her instance with various cultivations of garments thenceforth they walked composed, that by such adornment they were in a way believed to be renewed. The obsequies also of the King she established higher, that to him going forth or riding, many troops with great honor should accompany: and this with such censure, that wherever they had come, none of them was permitted to take anything from anyone, nor to oppress or harm rustics or the poor by any means anyone of them would dare. The ornaments also of the royal court she multiplied; and to the splendor of the court. that not only with diverse beauty of palls it should shine, but also with gold and silver the whole house should shine. For either golden or silver, or gilded or silvered were the vessels, in which to the King and the Magnates of the kingdom were brought the dishes and drinks.

[12] And these things indeed she had done, not because she delighted in the honor of the world; but, Meanwhile humble in heart, because royal dignity demanded it of her, she was compelled to discharge. For when in precious adornment as befitted a Queen clothed she went forth, all the ornaments like another Esther she trod down in mind; and herself under gems and gold she considered nothing other than dust and ashes. Finally in such great loftiness of dignity, she always had the greatest care of preserving humility. For the more easily she repressed every swelling of pride from worldly honor, the more the transitory condition of fragile life never had fled from the mind of any. For of that sentence she always remembered, and mindful of human vileness, by which the unstable state of human life is thus described: Man born of woman, living a brief time, is filled with many miseries; who as a flower comes forth and is crushed, and flees like a shadow, and never remains in the same state. Job 14, That also of Blessed James the Apostle she always turned in mind; What is, says he, our life? Jas. 4, 15 A vapor appearing for a little, and afterwards shall be exterminated. And because, as Scripture says, Blessed the man who is always fearful; so much more easily sins the venerable Queen avoided, the more trembling and fearful the strict day of judgment she without ceasing presented to herself before the eyes of her mind. Prov. 28, 14 Whence often she would ask me, that whatever in her either word, she orders to be freely rebuked by the author: or deed I saw to be reprehended, that I rebuking should not hesitate to indicate to her in secret. Which when I did more rarely and more tepidly than she wished, she presented herself importunately to me; she argued me as sleeping and as if negligent of her. Let the just man, said she, rebuke me in mercy and reprove me; but the oil, that is adulation, of the sinner let not anoint my head: for better are the wounds of one loving, than the kisses of an enemy flattering. Saying these things, the rebuke of herself, which any other could have counted to disgrace, she herself sought toward the progress of virtue.

[13] The religious and Queen worthy of God, when in mind, word, and deeds she was tending to the celestial homeland; the inveterate abuses she also invited others to go with her in the immaculate way, that they might with her be able to come to true beatitude. When she saw evil, she admonished that he be made good; the good, that he stand out better; the better, that he should strive to be best. Because the zeal of God's house, which is the Church, eats up one fervent with Apostolic faith: whence also the illicit things, which had sprouted in it, she labored to eradicate utterly. For when against the rule of right faith, and the holy custom of the universal Church, she had seen many things to be done in that people, she established frequent Councils, that by whatever means she might be able, the erring to the way of truth with Christ giving she might bring back. Of which Councils that one is established to be the chief over the others, she takes care to be corrected through frequent Councils; in which she alone, with very few of her own, against the assertors of perverse custom, with the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, for three days fought. You would have believed another Helena to reside there: because as she long ago with the sentences of the Scriptures the Jews, similarly now also this Queen had convicted the erring. But in this conflict the King himself was helper and chief sat, whatever in this cause she had commanded, in one of which she herself for three days disputing, most ready to say and do. Who because he perfectly the language of the English equally as his own knew, was a most vigilant interpreter of both sides in this Council.

[14] Therefore the Queen, with a preface premised, that those who with the Catholic Church in one faith were serving one God, from the same Church should not by any new and foreign institutions differ; first proposed, that they did not lawfully observe the Lenten fast, because this not with the holy Church everywhere, from the fourth feria at the head of the fast, but the following week from the second feria they had been wont to begin. Against them; The fast, they say, which we keep, by Evangelical authority, which narrates Christ's fast, through six weeks we observe. But she, Far, she proves that the fast must be begun from feria 4 of Ashes, said she, in this you depart from the Gospel: for it is read there, that the Lord fasted forty days, which it is manifest you do not do. For when through six weeks six Lord's days are drawn away from fasting, only thirty and six days are known to remain for fasting. Not therefore by Evangelical authority of forty, but of thirty and six days you are known to observe the fast. It remains therefore that on four days before the beginning of Lent you begin to fast with us, if by the Lord's example you wish to observe abstinence in the number of forty days: otherwise against the very authority of the Lord, and the tradition of the whole b holy Church you alone will fight. By this clear reasoning of truth convicted, thenceforth, as the holy Church everywhere is wont, they began the solemnities of the sacred fasts.

[15] Another also proposing the Queen, ordered that they should show, communion must be received at Easter; by what reasoning on the holy day of Pasch, according to the custom of the holy and Apostolic Church, they neglected to receive the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ. Answering they; The Apostle, they say, speaking of these, says: He who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself. 1 Cor. 11, 29 Whence because we recognize ourselves as sinners, lest we eat and drink judgment to ourselves, we fear to approach that mystery. To whom the Queen, What therefore, said she? Shall all who are sinners not taste the most sacred mystery? Then no one ought to receive it, because no one is without the filth of sin, not even an infant whose is one day's life on earth. But if no one ought to receive it, (faithfully however, why with the Lord speaking does the Gospel cry? Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. John 4, 54 But plainly the sentence, which you bring forth of the Apostle, according to the understanding of the Fathers it is necessary you understand otherwise: for not all sinners does he reckon to receive the sacraments of salvation unworthily. For when he had said, He eats and drinks judgment to himself: he added, Not discerning the body of the Lord (that is, not separating it in faith from bodily foods) eats and drinks judgment to himself. But also he who without confession and penitence, and with mind well prepared) with the defilements of his crimes, shall have presumed to approach the sacred mysteries; he, I say, eats and drinks judgment to himself. But we, who many days before, with confession of sins made, are chastised with penitence, attenuated by fasts, washed from the filths of sins by alms and tears; on the day of the Lord's resurrection, approaching to his table in the catholic faith, the flesh and blood of the immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ, not to judgment, but to the remission of sins we take, and to the salutary preparation of receiving eternal beatitude. With these received from her, they could not answer anything; and having recognized thenceforth the Church's institutes, in the reception of the salutary mystery, they observed.

[16] Moreover in some places of the Scots there had been certain ones, who against the custom of the whole Church, I know not by what barbarous rite, c they had been wont to celebrate Masses: which the Queen, kindled with the zeal of God, so to destroy and annihilate strove, Masses must be celebrated rightly, that thenceforth one who should presume such a thing, no one in all the people of the Scots would appear. They were wont also, with reverence of the Lord's days neglected, on those, Lord's days must cease from work, as also on other days, to insist on whatever labors of earthly work: which to be not lawful, by reason equally and by authority, she herself showed. The Lord's day, said she, on account of the Lord's resurrection which happened on it, let us hold in veneration: and on it let us no longer do servile works, on which we know we have been redeemed from the slavery of the devil. This also Blessed Pope Gregory affirms, saying: On the Lord's day from earthly labor must we cease, and in every way insist on prayers; that if any negligence is done through six days, through the day of the Lord's resurrection it may be expiated by prayers. Lib. XI Ep. 6 The same Father Gregory, striking a certain one for earthly work, which on the Lord's day he had done, with strict rebuke; those by whose counsels he had done this, for two months excommunicated to be d he decreed. Against these reasonings of the wise Queen unable to go, so afterwards they observed the reverence of the Lord's days by her insistence, that neither any burdens on these days anyone to carry, nor would another dare to compel another to this. Likewise also the swift marriages of stepmothers, similarly also for the surviving brother to lead the wife of a deceased brother, which there were done before, incestuous marriages must be avoided, she showed to be too execrable, and to be avoided by the faithful like death itself. Many also other things, which against the rule of faith and the institutes of ecclesiastical observances had grown up, she in the same Council took care to condemn, and to drive away from the borders of her Kingdom e. For all things which she had proposed, she so corroborated by the testimonies of holy Scripture and the sentences of the holy Fathers, that against these they could in no way reply; nay rather with pertinacity put down, acquiescing to reason, all to be gladly fulfilled they received.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

and Caithness should be added, as Buchanan writes: who also to the King himself for praise attributes, that he had restrained luxury introduced through foreigners.

Origin of Markettae of Women in Scotland. Among these without doubt was the pestilent (as Boece rightly names it) custom, formerly introduced by Evenus the tyrant, that the Lords or Prefects in their territory should pre-sample the virginity of all brides, with a half mark of silver one night being redeemed by the bride from the wives of the Prefects; which even now (after the nefarious custom was abolished) they are compelled to pay, and call commonly Marketta of women. Nor unlike is, what not far from Louvain in a certain village is done, where the bridegroom redeems his bride's defloration from the local Prefect: than which servitude none ever greater is heard of in story. Thus Boece: Buchanan adds: To the wife's prayers also it is reported Malcolm granted, that the first night of the new bride, which to the Magnates through certain grades by the law of King Eugene was owed, the bridegroom by half a mark of silver could redeem. See what we have said on April 30 on the second Life of S. Forannan Abbot ch. 3 lit. b, and Cangius in the Glossary, treating of Marketum or Marketa, to be paid to lords by serfs of the glebe, for marrying off a daughter or sister.

Our Lesley in the Italian Life refers here, a gracious invention, Custom of drinking toasts after Thanksgiving. commonly attributed to Margaret, of drinking mutual toasts by those, who standing had paid thanksgiving: which Drinks of grace, or of S. Margaret are called. Something similar, after Grace said, the rising guests do in Germany and Belgium, to gain, as they say, the Indulgences of Pope Boniface; perhaps VIII, who in the year 1300 instituted the solemnity of the Jubilee, granting most ample Indulgences. But in the Antwerp Chronicles written in the vulgar tongue and preserved with the heirs of the Very Rev. Mr. Canon Snyders, it is read: that in the year 1430 was made Pope Eugene IV (in the year namely by custom of his age extended to Easter) who granted Indulgences of 40 days, to those drinking after Grace said at table: but the condition is thought to be added, that this drink immediately follow the Grace, and be the last.

CHAPTER III.

Margaret's charity toward the poor, especially during the time of the double Lent, to which she had become accustomed. Zeal for praying.

[17] The Saint to internal compunction, The venerable Queen, therefore, who had striven to purge the House of God, with God helping her, of filth and errors; herself, with the Holy Spirit irradiating her heart, deserved from day to day to be made a worthy temple of God: which I know she was best truly, because both I saw her external works, and her conscience, with her revealing it to me, I knew. For most familiarly to me to speak, and to reveal her secrets she deigned; not because there was any good in me, but because she had thought it was. For when she would speak to me about the salvation of the soul, and about the sweetness of perennial life; she brought forth words full of all grace, which truly the Holy Spirit dwelling in her heart through her mouth was sounding. But she was so compunct in speaking, and zeal for praying and fasting, that she seemed entirely about to dissolve in tears; and by her compunction, my mind in tears was pricked. But before all those mortals whom I now know, in the zeals for prayers and fasts, in the works of mercy and alms she was given. To speak first therefore about prayer, in the church no one was quieter than her in silence, but in praying no one was more intent. For nothing ever in the house of God did she usually speak secularly, nothing earthly to do, but only to pray, in praying to pour out tears; with body indeed on earth, but with mind nearest to God: for besides God, and what was of God, her pure prayer sought nothing. But about fasting what shall I say? except that through too much abstinence she incurred the trouble of most grave infirmity.

[18] She joined generosity toward the poor, To these two, that is to prayer and abstinence, she coupled the benefits of mercy. For what was more clement than her breast? what more benign toward the needy? Not only her own things, but also herself if it were permitted, she would gladly spend on the poor. To all her own poor she was poorer: for they not having, desired to have; she, what she had strove to disperse. When she went out in public or rode, flocks of the wretched, orphans, widows ran together as if to a most pious mother, of whom none departed from her without consolation. And when all things, even taking on loan what she would give, which with her for the uses of the needy she had carried around, she had distributed; garments or any things, which then had those who were rich or ministers present to her, to the poor to be given she was wont to take, lest sometimes a needy one should go away sad. Nor did they bear this with annoyance, but rather strove to offer their own to her; because they knew for certain all to be returned to them by her doubled. Sometimes also whatever it was of the King's own, to be given to the needy she took: which he as a rapine of piety entirely accepted always and held welcome. For because he was wont at his Maundy a on the Lord's Supper, and at the solemnities of Masses to offer golden coins, of these some she often piously stole, and to the poor man who had cried out to her was wont to give. or piously stealing from the King. And often indeed when the King himself knew, yet pretending himself not to know, he was much delighted by such theft; sometimes however with her hand caught with the coins, drawn forth, in my judgment, he joked her to be guilty. Nor only to the native needy, but also to those from almost all nations, hastening to the fame of her mercy, with cheerfulness of heart she exhibited the munificence of her bounty. Ps. 111, 9 We can indeed truly say of her; She has dispersed, has given to the poor; therefore her justice remains forever.

[19] But who shall be able by enumerating to explain, how many and how great by giving a price she restored to liberty, whom from the people of the English b leading away captives hostile violence had reduced to servants? She frees many captives from servitude. For also secret explorers everywhere through the provinces of the Scots she had sent, that namely they might explore which of the captives were pressed by harsher servitude, and treated more inhumanly, and to her subtly where and by whom they were afflicted should report: and to such she, from her inmost bowels having compassion, swiftly to aid, and with them redeemed to liberty she hastened to renew. At which time in the kingdom of the Scots very many, through various places shut in separate cells, through great strictness of life, in flesh not according to flesh were living: Visiting solitaries she asks to be commanded by them to give alms: for they led an Angelic conversation on earth. In these the Queen Christ to venerate, to love, and with her frequent coming and address to visit, and to their prayers herself to commend was zealous. And when she could not obtain, that from her they should wish to take anything earthly; she asked more earnestly, that for her something of alms or mercy to be done they should deign to command. Without delay: whatever was of their will, she devoutly fulfilled; either by recreating the poor from need, or relieving those afflicted from the miseries by which they had been oppressed.

[20] She erects hospices. And because the church of S. Andrew the religious devotion of peoples coming from everywhere frequents; on both shores of the sea, which divides Lothian c and Scotland, she had built habitations; that after the labor of the journey, pilgrims and the poor about to rest there might be able to turn aside; and there all things, which the necessity of refreshing the body demanded, find prepared. Indeed she had constituted ministers there for this alone, that whatever was necessary for those coming, prepared always they should have, and to them with great solicitude minister. To whom also she had assigned ships, that going and returning they should transfer them, nor demand any price of their transportation from those who were to be transferred.

[21] Accustomed to fast twice 40 days, With the daily conversation of the venerable Queen explained, about her daily works of mercy I have also said some things; now in what manner before the Lord's Nativity for forty days, and through the whole time of Lent she was wont to lead, briefly I shall try to say. When at the beginning of the night she had rested for a little, having entered the church, first Matins of the Holy Trinity, after little sleep she gives time to prolix Psalmody, then of the Holy Cross, then of the Holy Mary alone she completed; with these finished she began the Offices of the dead: after which she began the Psalter; nor, until she had brought it to the end, did she cease. While at the fitting hour the Presbyters celebrated morning Lauds; meanwhile she either finished the Psalter begun, or finished one and now had begun another. But with the office of morning Laud completed, returning to the chamber, she was wont to wash the feet of six poor with the King himself; and with the feet of 6 poor washed, she sleeps until morning: and to disburse something, by which they might console their poverty. For it was the highest care of the Chamberlain, that before the entry of the Queen, on each night he should bring in poor, that for serving them entering, she might find them ready. With these performed she gave herself to quiet and sleep.

[22] But when with morning come she had risen from her bed, to prayers and psalms long she was insisting, then to 9 orphans she ministers as a nurse, and amid psalm-singing she performed a work of mercy. For nine infant orphans, destitute of all aid, at the first hour of the day she caused to be brought to her to be fed. For she had ordered softer foods, in which the infant age delights, to be prepared for them daily; which brought she with bent knees to place, to make little soups for them, and with the same spoons which she herself used, the foods to send into their mouths she deigned. So the Queen, who by all peoples was honored, for Christ both the servant and the most pious mother's office she discharged. She could sufficiently fittingly say that of Blessed Job, From my infancy compassion grew with me, then to 300 poor with the King: and from the womb of my mother went forth with me. Job 31, 18 Among these things three hundred poor in the Royal court was the custom to be brought in; who sitting around in order, when the King and Queen entered, by the ministers the doors were closed; for except certain religious Chaplains and some ministers, to be present at the works of their alms was permitted to none. The King from one side, but the Queen from the other side, served Christ in the poor: and with great devotion foods and drink, specially prepared for this, they offered. Which done the Queen was wont to enter the church, and there with prolix prayers and groans of tears to immolate herself to God as a sacrifice. For except the Hours of the holy Trinity, thence she repeated the psalmody and with many Masses heard, of the holy Cross, of

holy Mary, within the space of day and night two or three on these holy days Psalters she completed, and before the celebration of public Mass, five or six privately for herself she caused Masses to be sung.

[23] These completed, when the time of refreshment was at hand, twenty-four poor before her refreshment she humbly ministering herself refreshed. For excepting all, which I have said above, of alms, at midday she refreshed 24 poor, and that throughout the whole year; poor of this number, that is twenty-four, as long as she lived, throughout the cycle of the whole year she had sustained; whom she wherever she stayed, she had established to stay nearby; and whithersoever she went, those to accompany her. Who after she had devoutly ministered to Christ in them, also her own little body she was wont to refresh. Rom. 13, 14 In which refreshment, when the care of the flesh, according to the Apostle, she took before dinner, so sober, she did not make in concupiscences, scarcely had it in the necessities of life. For she ate only to preserve life, not to acquiesce in delight. The refreshment slight and sober, incited hunger more than extinguished it. She seemed to taste food, not to take it. Hence I ask, hence let be weighed, how great and what kind was her continence in fasting, of whom such was the abstinence in feasting. And although in great continence she led her whole life, yet on these, that is forty days before Pasch and the Nativity of the Lord, so that from this her stomach languished until death. with incredible abstinence to afflict herself she was wont. Whence, on account of too much rigor of fasting, most acute pain of stomach she suffered until the end of life: nor however did infirmity of body debilitate the virtue of good work. Studying sacred reading, persisting in prayers, unfailing in alms, in everything pertaining to God exercising herself vigilantly. And because she knew it written, Whom the Lord loves he chastises, and scourges every son whom he receives; the pains of her flesh, as the scourge of a most clement father, with patience and thanksgiving gladly she embraces. Heb. 12, 6

[24] Advancing from virtue to virtue, When therefore to these and such works she was devoted, and was laboring with continuous infirmities, that according to the Apostle virtue might be perfected in infirmity; passing from virtue to virtue, from day to day she was rendered better. 2 Cor. 12, 9 All earthly things in mind deserting, with whole desire she was burning, thirsting for heavenly things, and with the clamor of heart and mouth with the Psalmist saying; My soul has thirsted for God the living fountain, when shall I come and appear before the face of God? Ps. 41, 3 Let others marvel in others at the signs of miracles, she was more wondrous in works, I in Margaret much more admire works of mercies: for signs are common to good and evil, but the works of true piety and charity are proper to the good. Those sometimes show sanctity, these even make it. More worthily, I say, let us marvel in Margaret at the deeds, which made her holy, than at signs, if she had done any, which would have shown her holy only to men. More worthily let us stand amazed at her, in whom through the studies of justice, piety, than at miracles. mercy and charity, we consider the deeds rather than signs of the ancient Fathers. Yet something I shall narrate, which to the indication of her religious life pertains, not inconveniently I should say, as I judge.

[25] She had had a book of the Gospels, with gems and gold adorned, Her book of the Gospels beautiful, in which images of the four Evangelists pictures mixed with gold decorated; and also each capital letter shone all with gold. This codex, before the rest, in which by reading she was wont to study, more dearly always she had embraced. Which a certain one carrying, while perchance he was crossing through a ford; the book, which had been less cautiously wrapped in cloths, fell into the middle of the waters; which the carrier not knowing, the journey which he had begun secure he completed: fallen into a river and opened, but when afterwards he wished to bring forth the book, then first what he had lost he recognized. It was sought long but not found. At length in the depth of the river open it is found to lie, so that its leaves by the impulse of the water were agitated without ceasing, and the little silk cloths by the violence of the river were torn off, which the golden letters, lest they should be darkened by the touch of the leaves, had covered. Who would have thought the book of further worth? Who would have believed even one letter in it would appear? Certainly whole, incorrupt, unharmed, unharmed it is drawn out. from the middle of the river it is drawn, so that it seemed to have been least touched by the water. For the whiteness of the leaves, and the entire form in all of the letters so remained, as it was before it had fallen into the river; except that on the extreme leaves, in part, scarcely any sign of moisture could be seen. The book together with the miracle is brought to the Queen: who with thanksgiving returned to Christ, much more dearly than before the codex embraces. Wherefore let others see, what they think from this; I, for the sake of the love of the venerable Queen, this sign from the Lord d I judge to have been.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

CHAPTER IV.

Death of the Queen foreseen and piously undergone.

[26] Meanwhile when almighty God now was preparing to render eternal rewards for her pious works; Foreknowing her death, she herself for the entry of another life, much more studiously than she was wont, prepared herself. For, as a little later from her own words will be made manifest, her exit from this life, and certain other future things, she seemed to have foreknown long before. And so secretly addressing me, she began to relate to me her life in order, she expounds her whole life to the Author with great weeping, and at each word to pour out floods of tears. So great finally during our conversation was her compunction, so great from compunction had broken forth a profusion of weepings, that (as it seemed to me) without doubt there was nothing, which from Christ then she could not obtain. With her weeping, I also wept: weeping long, sometimes we were silent, because with sob breaking forth we could not bring forth words. with great compunction of both: For the flame of compunction, which had burnt up her heart, from her spiritual words had touched my mind also. While through her tongue I heard the words of the holy Spirit, and through the words I saw through her conscience, of such great grace of her familiarity I judged myself unworthy.

[27] When she had finished the speech about necessary things, again thus to address me she began. Farewell, said she, I shall not after this in this life long subsist: her soul to his prayers, but you not a small time after me shall live. There are therefore two things which I ask of you: one, that as long as you live you remember my soul in your Masses and prayers; another, that you have care of my sons and daughters, bestow love, especially teach to fear and to love God, and from teaching them never desist: and her children to his care she commends, and when into the summit of earthly dignity any of them you shall see exalted, of him especially as father and at the same time master you should approach; namely by admonishing, and when the matter shall require by arguing; lest on account of momentary honor he should swell into pride, lest he should offend God by avarice, lest through the prosperity of the world he neglect the felicity of eternal life. These are, said she, what that solicitously you do, under the presence of God, as to one to live longer. who now to us a third assists, I ask you promise me. With which words I again bursting into tears, what she had asked diligently I promised I would do: for I dared not contradict her, whom thus undoubtedly to predict future things I had heard. Which as she had predicted, so now it is, the matter itself proves: because both I after her death live, and her offspring a I see exalted into the dignity of honor. The conversation completed therefore about to return home, to the Queen the last farewell I said: for her face I never afterwards saw.

[28] The Chaplain, who stood by her dying. Not much later by a sharper than before infirmity she was seized, and before the day of her summoning by the fire of long sickness she was decocted. Whose death thus, as from her Presbyter I learned, I shall narrate: whom she on account of his simplicity, innocence, chastity, before the rest more familiarly had loved: who after the death of the Queen, for her soul perpetually gave himself to Christ's service; made a Monk, he narrates to the Author and at the sepulcher of the incorrupt body of the most holy Father Cuthbert taking the habit of a Monk, himself for her offered as a sacrifice. He therefore to the Queen in the extremities of life inseparably was present, and the soul going forth from the body of her himself by prayers had commended to Christ. Her exit, as he had seen it in order, when often thence by me he is asked, thus to relate with tears he is wont.

[29] how four days before death For half, said he, a year and somewhat more, never could she sit on a horse, but rarely could rise from her bed. On the fourth day before her death, when the King was on an expedition; and to him by a long interval of lands, what concerning him on that day was being done, by no swiftness of any messenger could be known, made sadder than usual, this she said to us sitting by her: Perhaps today such great evil to the Kingdoms of the Scots has happened as for many times past has not come. she would have known the absent King was killed; But we hearing these things, her words then indeed negligently received; but after some days with a messenger coming, on the same day on which the Queen had said these things, that the King had been killed, we understood. Whom indeed she, as if foreknowing future things, much had forbidden, anywhere with the army to go; but I know not by what cause it happened, that then to her admonitions he did not obey.

[30] When therefore the fourth day after the killing of the King was at hand; she, with infirmity a little alleviated, about to hear Masses entered the oratory: and there her exit, which now was imminent, with the most sacred Viaticum of the Lord's body and blood she took care to fortify. to receive the last she rose from her bed; Refreshed with the salutary taste of which, with the prior pains soon aggravated, she is prostrate on the bed, and to the exit

with trouble growing she is more vehemently urged. And what shall I do? Why do I delay? As if the death of my Mistress further I could put off, and make her life longer, so I fear to come to her ultimate. But all flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass: the grass has dried up, and the flower has fallen. Her face now had grown pale with death, and having returned thither, when she ordered me and others with me, the ministers of the sacred Altar, to stand by her, and her soul singing psalms to commend to Christ. She herself also that Cross, which the Black b she was wont to name, and which in the highest veneration always to hold she was wont, the Cross brought to her she would have piously embraced; she commanded to be brought to her. But when the casket, in which it had been enclosed, more quickly could not be opened; the Queen gravely groaning, said: O us wretches, O guilty ones! we shall no further deserve the sight of the holy Cross. At length however from the casket brought forth, and brought to her with reverence she received; to embrace, to kiss; with eyes, face she frequently was zealous to sign herself. And now, with her whole body growing cold, vital heat still palpitated in her breast: nonetheless however she always was praying; and the fiftieth Psalm singing in order, with the Cross meanwhile before her eyes set, with both hands she held.

[31] But having understood, from the returning son, Meanwhile her son, who after his father the rule of the Kingdom even now in the present holds, returning from the army, entered the Queen's chamber. What then his anguish? What torment of soul? He stood there straitened by adversities on every side; whither to turn he knew not. For he came to announce to his mother the killing of the father with brother; the mother, whom especially he had loved, now and now about to die he found: whom first to bewail he did not know. The withdrawal however of the sweetest mother with sharper pain pricked his heart, whom before his eyes almost dead he saw lying. Above all these things care for the state of the Kingdom was disturbing him, which by the death of his father he knew for certain would be disturbed. On every side sorrow, on every side he had contracted pain. The Queen, when as if lying in agony she was thought by those present taken away, the mournful slaughter, suddenly with strengths gathered addresses the son. For she was asked by him about father and brother: but he what was true did not wish to say, lest hearing their death, immediately also she herself should die: for he answered, they were well. But she gravely sighing, I know, said she, son, I know. By this holy Cross, by the closeness of our consanguinity I adjure you, that what is true you proclaim. He compelled, the matter, as it had been done, set forth. What would you think she would do? Who would believe that in so many adversities she would not murmur against God? At the same time indeed she had lost her spouse, she gave thanks to God, had lost a son, infirmity had tortured herself unto death. But in all these she did not sin with her lips, nor did she speak any foolish thing against God: but rather directing her eyes and hands to heaven, she burst forth into praise and thanksgiving, saying: Praises and thanks to you almighty God I return, who me at my exit such great straits to endure; and enduring them from some sin-stains, as I hope, have wished to cleanse.

[32] She had felt death to be at hand; and soon the prayer, which after the reception of the Lord's body and blood by the Priest is usually said, she began: Lord, saying, Jesus Christ, who by the will of the Father c, with the Holy Spirit cooperating through your death have vivified the world, and piously expired; free me. When she said, Free me, with the soul freed from the bonds of the body, to the author of true liberty, whom she had always loved, Christ, she migrated; made partaker of the felicity of those, whose examples of virtue she had followed. For with such tranquility, with such quiet was her exit, that, that to the region of eternal quiet and peace that soul had migrated, no doubt ought to be. And what is wondrous, her face, which in the manner of those dying had grown all pale in death, after death a ruddiness mixed with whiteness so suffused, and with face again ruddy she would be buried at the Holy Trinity. that not dead, but sleeping she could be believed. Therefore her body honorably, as befitted a Queen, wrapped; to the Holy Trinity, which she herself had built, church d we carried: and there, as she had ordered, opposite the altar and the venerable sign of the holy Cross (which there she had erected), to burial we delivered. And so her body in that place now rests, where it in vigils, prayers, pouring out of tears, bowing of knees, to afflict e she had been wont.

ANNOTATIONS BY D. P.

APPENDIX I.

Holy descendants of the holy Queen, in Scotland and England, from Aelred Abbot of Rievaulx, and others.

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, at Edinburgh (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[33] Since the miracles of the holy Queen's writings are nowhere found, in place of them I exhibit the praises of those whom she begot as children. About them Aelred of Rievaulx, The sons Edward; thus begins: There were born to Queen Margaret six sons and two daughters. The sons are named by Boece book 12, I, Edward, whom we have said died with his father; II, Etheldred, who also in early youth was taken by fate, and buried at Dunfermline. Ethelred To this pertains what the same Boece book 18, thus narrates: At about the same time, that is, about the year 1444, with the old wall of the most august temple at Dunfermline demolished, his body incorrupt found in the year 1444, there was found in a leaden coffin the body of a youth, wrapped in fine linen, vivid still in the whole body preserving its color, nor in any part corrupted. The students of antiquity were saying, it was the son of divine Margaret, deceased in early youth. Nor ought it to seem wondrous; when on account of the notable sanctity of the mother's life, it would not be absurd, if he also, walking in the footsteps of his mother, would merit divine honors. These things Boece, who in book 12 as above, to the two aforenamed adds Edmund: Edmund; And He, said he, with the noise of human affairs and of the court left, into England to have gone, and to have given himself to the worship alone of the supernal King is reported.

[34] Aelred when he had said, as above, that to Margaret were born six sons; with the three former omitted, says that of these three, namely Edgar, Alexander, and the splendor of his family David, Edgar, were Kings. Edgar was a sweet and amiable man, similar in all things to his kinsman King Edward; nothing tyrannical, nothing hard, nothing avaricious toward his own exercising, but with the greatest charity and benevolence ruling his subjects. Moreover Alexander to Clerics and Monks sufficiently humble and amiable was, Alexander, to the rest of his subjects beyond measure terrible; a man of great heart, beyond his strength stretching himself in all things. He was however lettered, and in ordaining churches, in seeking out the relics of Saints, in making and ordaining priestly vestments and sacred books, most studious; to all those coming most liberal beyond his strength; toward the poor however so devoted, that in no thing more he seemed to delight, than in receiving them, washing, feeding, and clothing. But what we should think of King David, in the preceding description we have somehow set forth. David, three Kings: Namely from his recent funeral he had begun the writing, so after the first preface to Prince Henry he had written.

[35] The religious and pious King David has migrated from the world: who although a worthy place for such a soul he has found, yet his death indicts mourning for us. For who would not lament, a man, so necessary to the world, the last in life also holy, taken from human affairs, unless he who envies human affairs of peace and progress? For that gentle King, a chaste King, a humble King, who would easily say, what of utility he conferred on human life? whom gentleness made amiable, justice terrible, chastity composed, humility common. All which if in any private person are judged most worthy of praise, how much more in a King? to whom power gives leave for what he pleases, whose vices easily favor inferiors, prone to imitate, ready to flatter; when both impunity gives boldness, and lust sharpens and kindles luxury. For we know that he did not desire the kingdom, but recoiled from it; and rather to have undertaken it on account of others' necessity, than out of lust for dominion overcome greedily to have invaded it: whence also those obsequies, which from the people of the Scots, at the new promotion of Kings, by paternal custom are exhibited, he so recoiled from, that he was scarcely compelled to undertake them from the Bishops.

[36] But raised to King, nothing proud in morals, the people's morals he sweetly reformed, nothing cruel in words, nothing dishonest he displayed in deeds. Whence the whole barbarity of that nation tamed, with such benevolence and humility to the King soon submitted itself; that having forgotten its natural fierceness, to the laws, which the King's gentleness dictated, it submitted its necks; and the peace, which until then it had not known, it gratefully received: whence not undeservedly beloved by God and men he seemed. Beloved by God plainly, who at once in the very beginnings of his reign, those things which are of God diligently exercised, in building churches, in founding monasteries, Bishoprics and monasteries he augmented, which he both amplified with possessions and heaped up with honors. For when in the whole kingdom of the Scots only three or four

Bishops he found, with the rest of the Churches without a Pastor, fluctuating with loss as much of morals as of things; he himself, both from the ancient ones which he repaired, and from the new ones which he himself erected, departing left nine. Monasteries however of the Cluniac, Cistercian, Tyron, Arrouaisian, Premonstratensian, Beauvais Orders, not few, not small, full of Brothers he left: among whom he had been as one of them, both praising the good things, and if any less laudable things emerged shamefacedly dissembling; subject to all, solicitous for all.

[37] O sweet soul, whither have you gone? whither have you receded? Where are those eyes, full of piety and grace, with which both to rejoice with those rejoicing, and to weep with those weeping you were wont? I saw with my own eyes, when sometime prepared to go hunting, accustomed to put nothing before the causes of the poor, with foot placed in the stirrup he wished to mount the horse; at the voice of a poor man, asking that an audience be given to him, that he drew back his foot; and with horse left and returned into the court, that day not to return to the proposed, the cause, for which he had been called, kindly and patiently he heard. He was wont moreover, sitting at the door of the royal court, the causes of the poor and old women, who on certain days, from individual regions wherever he came, were called, diligently to hear, and to each often with much labor to satisfy. For often they would litigate with him, and he with them; when he was unwilling against justice the person of a poor man to take, made all things to all, and they were unwilling to the reason which he showed to acquiesce. Finally if it happened, that a Priest, or a Soldier, or a Monk, or rich or poor, or citizen or stranger, or merchant or rustic, with him had speech; thus with each about his businesses and offices fittingly and humbly he discoursed, that each individual thought him to care for his own things only, and so all joyful and edified he dismissed.

[38] Touched by the infirmity, by which he was to be loosed from flesh, on the fourth feria, that is on the thirteenth Kalends of June, when he had understood the dissolution of the body to be imminent, with his servants called, what he himself felt about himself, without hesitation he set forth. But they in human manner were consoling the sick man, he is sickened; promising him entirely life and health. But when on the sixth feria the disease grew worse, and the force of languor took away from him at once the faculty of standing and walking; with Clerics and religious men summoned, the sacrament of the Lord's body to be given to him he demanded. With them preparing to bring what he had ordered, he forbade, saying, that he would receive the most sacred mysteries before the most sacred altar. Therefore by the hands of Clerics and Soldiers carried into the oratory, after the solemnities of Masses, the venerable Cross, which they call Black, and to the Viaticum carried into the oratory, he asked to be produced for him to adore … This Cross therefore, no less terrible than amiable to the whole people of the Scots, when the King had most devoutly adored, with many tears and Confession of sins premised, he fortified his exit with the reception of the celestial mysteries. Then carried back into the bedchamber, with the Priests coming that they might complete the sacraments of holy Unction, he rose up as he could; and casting himself down from the little bed onto the ground, that salutary office with such devotion he received, that the Clerics, singing psalms a little more hastily, with hand and at the same time speech he restrained, to individual words he himself intended, to individual prayers he himself responded.

[39] Therefore with all duly performed, with the greatest quiet of flesh and mind, he awaited the last day; his own diligently obtesting, that, religiously he dies. as soon as he himself should depart, his death they should make public to all. For the more quickly, said he, my death will be made known, the more quickly to me by the kindnesses of my friends, divine piety will offer some consolation. In this devotion the day closes for him, to which the following with great tranquility he continued through the night. But on the Lord's day which preceded Christ's Ascension, that is on the ninth Kalend. of June, with light coming on, when this sun emerging dispelled the darkness of night by the rays of his light; he himself from the darkness of body to the joys of true light migrating, with such tranquility, that he seemed not to have died, but to have fallen asleep; with such devotion; that he was found to have raised both his hands joined together over his breast toward heaven. These narrated (which to the year 1153 to be fitting proves the day IX Kal. of June, May 24 of the year 1153. that is May 24, when the Sunday before the Ascension concurring, under the Sunday letter D, after Pasch performed on April 19.) These, I say, narrated, for the soul of the deceased well prays Aelred, mindful of most tender affection toward him, and to be mindful, where for the salvation of all to the Father the Son is immolated. Then he begins the genealogy of the Kings of England, and of the same King David of Scotland, to weave; from the mother of Prince Henry, S. Margaret's granddaughter by her daughter Matilda Queen of England, ascending upward to Adam, and thence again descending, the stock drawn from Shem to Woden that is Mercury; and thence to King Edelvulf; to S. Margaret's paternal uncle S. Edward, and his Scottish marriage; whence the three above-mentioned brothers and kings being born when he had briefly praised, he proceeds to their sisters in this manner:

[40] [40] The sister of these Matilda married the most glorious King of the English Henry: of whose admirable glory and virtue of soul, David's sister Matilda, Queen of England, and how assiduous and devout she was in divine offices and sacred vigils, in such great power moreover how humble, whoever shall wish to write, will declare to us another Esther in our times: which we have omitted to do, both on account of the magnitude of the matter and on account of the lesser knowledge still of these things. Yet one of her works I shall report (and this is, what almost in the same words is read in Capgrave, as I have indicated above) which from the mouth of the often to be named and never to be forgotten David the King I heard; through which what kind she was toward the poor of Christ, sufficiently as I judge will appear. When, said he, as an adolescent in the royal court I served, on a certain night in my lodging with my companions doing I know not what, she was wont to wash and kiss the feet of lepers, to the chamber of the Queen I went, called by her herself. And behold the house full of lepers, and the Queen standing in their midst. And with her mantle laid aside when she had girded herself with linen, with water placed in a basin, she began to wash their feet and wipe them, and after wiping with both hands to press them, and most devoutly to kiss. To whom I: What are you doing, said I, O my Lady? Certainly, if the King knew these things, never would your mouth, polluted by the rotting of lepers' feet, with his lips he deign to kiss. Then she smiling; The feet, said she, of the eternal King, who would not know to be preferred to the lips of a King about to die? I certainly therefore have called you, dearest brother, that by my example you should learn to do such things: therefore having taken up the basin do what you see me to do. At this voice I was vehemently terrified, and in no way that I could endure it I answered: for not yet did I know the Lord, nor was his spirit revealed to me. With her therefore insisting on what was begun, I (my fault!) laughing returned to my companions. The sister of this most blessed one, Mary by name, to Eustace Count of Boulogne is given as wife.

[41] Thus far Aelred. John Brompton, on the year in which she died, wrote about her. That in her first years among the Nuns of Winchester she was educated and instructed: In all things imitator of the holy mother, whence, and that she might reject more ignoble nuptials, which her father often offered her, she wore the veil of the sacred robe. Wherefore when King Henry took her to his bed, the matter came into dispute, with Anselm resisting; until by legitimate witnesses it was proved, she without profession, and only on account of suitors to be refused, had worn the veil. She therefore having brought forth double offspring, male and female, ceased to give birth: thence at Westminster staying royally was set forth; under the monastic habit, as I interpret, henceforth to lead a continent life, with the King willing it. For the rest with a hair-shirt under the royal cultivation clothed, barefoot in Lent she went to church: nor did she shrink from washing the ulcers of the sick, handling them with her hands, planting kisses, and serving at table. She was also a great emulator of the divine Office, and therefore prodigal toward Clerics of good melody: whence also Scholastics, famous for songs and verses, to her as if from the whole world flowed together.

[42] About her therefore (I resume Aelred's words) most excellent and most Christian Queen (whom from Hexham we know to have died in the year 1152) was born Matilda, whence was born Empress Matilda, who first to the Roman Emperor (Henry V) then to the most noble Count of Anjou Geoffrey was married. But from Mary was born Matilda, who is given in marriage then to the Count of Mortain, but now to the King of the English Stephen, or rather to the usurper, against the certain right of Empress Matilda; with whom finally he made a pact, that her son Henry should succeed in the Kingdom. Moreover King David, with King Henry handing her over, took as wife Matilda, daughter of Count Wallevus and Judith, who was the niece of the first King William, from whom he took son Henry, a gentle and pious man, a man of sweet spirit and milky heart, and worthy in all things who from such a father should be born … but who one year before him died after Pentecost, May 18 celebrated according to Hexham; with sons left as boys, of whom soon. These are however, who still survive, of this holy generation the remains. Of Empress Matilda you, most splendid man, Henry, whom now Duke of the Normans and Aquitanians, whose son Henry afterwards King. from the part of mother, but from the part of father Count of Anjou, again from the part of mother heir of England we see: also your brothers Geoffrey and William, of whom we hope good, to whom also we wish good: but with no posterity left have died.

[43] About Queen Matilda, daughter of Eustace of Boulogne and the aforesaid Mary, and so granddaughter of S. Margaret, From Mary the other daughter of the saint brief offspring. and pious King Stephen, although not quite piously entered to the kingdom, Stephen William Count of Warenne and Boulogne, deceased without children, made easy and asserted to the aforesaid Count Henry the succession in the maternal kingdom. From the aforesaid Henry, son of King David, Malcolm, William, From David's pre-deceased son three grandsons; both after the grandfather Kings of Scotland, and heir of the ancestral name David Count of Dundee; whose infancy let God pity; pity also you, Prince Henry, whom divine piety has constituted the most noble head of your whole family: let your pious gaze be upon them, sweet affection, and in whatever they shall need the effect of your work: for to you from his grandfather, who loved you before all men, are left orphans.

[44] The first, S. Edward imitating, chose to live a virgin and die. The second, from the second of them of Alexander two Kings, son and grandson: when he had received his brother David back from the holy expedition, so rejoiced, that he founded the Lodorense monastery in thanksgiving: each however with his tutor Henry, on account of Cumbria and part of Northumbria, by arms sometime was compelled to experience. From William proceeded the Kings of Scotland Alexander II and

then III: whose children pre-deceasing the father, imposed on the Scots the necessity of taking a King from the daughters of Count David; first John, the great-grandson of David by his daughter Margaret; then Robert the grandson by the sister of the same Margaret, Isabella or Elizabeth. And hence the posterity succeeded as Kings of Scotland, by various vicissitudes: among whom were those who experienced the adverse fortune of S. Margaret, and emulated the sanctity of life. From the number of these may be, whom the past age lamented executed by the axe, the noble Princess Mary Stuart; and her great-grandson James, of his name in Scotland the seventh; in England the second King; who not long ago for the sake of Religion expelled from his country, sought asylum in France: and also the Most Excellent Lord Count of Perth, whom recently at Antwerp we saw, imitator of ancestral piety and religion, special ornament of the Drummond Family; who himself, both through other of his ancestors, and through Anna Bella Drummond, married to Robert III King of Scotland, refers his family's nobility to holy Margaret herself. He was Chancellor of the Scottish kingdom, with King James flourishing, emulator of that great Chancellor of England Thomas More, equally as he the prison and prison's filth for the cause of faith long endured: from which at length freed, he chose voluntary exile; in this imitating also S. Margaret, who herself also went into exile: a kingdom too with her, if less earthly and brief, about to enter heavenly and eternal.

APPENDIX II.

On the translations of the holy body, and the most recent of the Head to the College of the Scots at Douai.

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, at Edinburgh (S.)

BHL Number: 5328, 5329

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[45] Margaret's body, buried at Dunfermline, lay there unmoved until the time of Alexander III, bones of S. Margaret to be translated who began to reign in the year 1249. He, as in book 12 of the History of the Scots Boece writes, in the second year of his reign now eleven years old, with the Abbots, Bishops, and Barons gathered from the whole kingdom, at Dunfermline, with celebrated and many supplications first held, the bones of Margaret his great-great-grandmother, referred to the Saints (perhaps then first by Pope Innocent IV), dug up from the earth, he placed in a silver casket, ornamented with many gems. And when the Bishops with consent of all attempted to carry them into the sanctuary, and they had now come to the tomb of Malcolm her husband; suddenly all stood still: for the casket, in which the Relics were, pressing on Malcolm's sepulcher stuck, nor could be moved by any force. By this miracle astonished all, they remain unmoved until the bones of King Malcolm are translated together. when they did not find the cause of such a new thing; a certain venerable old man, inspired by divine spirit, with raised voice that all might easily hear him; Margaret, said he, to her Husband, the reverence which living she always exhibited, will not deny to him dead: wherefore she will not permit herself to be carried by your hands into the sanctuary, until Malcolm her husband also dug up from the earth be joined to her side. Which when by the King's command it was done, then at length together with her husband lifted up she was carried into the sanctuary, and to today's day with great veneration of the people are both there venerated.

[46] Therefore each could have been proposed together as a saint here, This passage of Boece, an almost irrefragable witness of the public cult in the church of Dunfermline, communicated also to Malcolm; joined with another passage, where the same Boece had said the killing of that King happened on the Ides of October; moved Molanus, that in the first edition of his Martyrology, on that day he placed S. Malcolm the King. But that in the day and year noted Boece had erred when Molanus had noted, fearing to be deceived again in the second and third edition of his Usuard, he wholly omitted Malcolm, as we have seen in Comm. pr. num. 12: when he could have placed him on the true day of his death, November 13; as Margaret his wife he placed on November 16. I if I had found an earlier witness than Boece, of the common cult given to both spouses on this day X June, on which day I believe the common Translation of both was made; I would not have hesitated to propose both commonly as Saint in the title of this day and treatment; as I proposed on May 11 SS. Walbert and Bertilia, on account of their common veneration on Feria II of Pentecost at Curtissolre in Hainaut. as on May 11, Walbert and Bertilia. But these favor an indubitably present possession; while those to ancient and not entirely certain possession would have to be reduced, the work seems to need greater authority.

[47] The History of the Translation, and of the Canonization that preceded it, was once faithfully described, as I have said, in the Ms. Legendary of S. Salvator of Utrecht; but only its beginning was read there in this tenor. Desiring to run through with a succinct discourse the glorious Translation of the venerable and by God beloved Blessed Margaret Queen of the Scots, On account of the Canonization the Abbot of Dunfermline set out for Rome. we implore the aid of him, who through her made bright the western darkness with the light-flowing rays of illustrious faith. And although the holy Fathers, our predecessors, with ardent desire had desired the time of the visitation or translation of the said Saint, yet they left the entirely untraveled way of approaching this work to posterity. For we have seen that day, and have rejoiced. With Him therefore granting for this, an acceptable time and day of salvation, He who can be circumscribed neither by the compass of places nor by the bounds of times; the Abbot of the house of Dunfermline, to the Bishop of the Apostolic See with royal prayers, testimony of Prelates, and prayers of the clergy and people set out, to relate the series of the matter about his Saint.

[48] He proposed diligently in his auditory, with the Apostolic Senate sitting, that the same Blessed one had led so religious and to God pleasing a life in the earthly kingdom, that to no one is it in doubt, in the Pontifical Consistory he expounds Margaret's sanctity but that on account of her most well-attested merits she had prepared for herself in heaven the reward of glory and honor. The same Abbot added also, for his persuasion, that without scruple of distrust should be affirmed; Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is always wondrous in his Saints, when she was staying in the habitation of this exile, with signs and prodigies of virtues had illustrated her in many ways: and finally from the day of temporal passage, to today's times, with various kinds of diseases attacked, attested by miracles in life and after death, at her sepulcher the grace of votive welfare had granted. Whence most worthy, and consonant with the divine will he said, that so precious a Margaret, in the heart of the earth too long hiding, and as if a lamp submitted with a covering bushel, should be placed upon a candlestick; and from a humble mausoleum above on the height of the earth more eminently elevated, in a sightly hierotheca most decently to be placed.

[49] These things heard and understood, the supreme Pontiff, with certain Bishops directed as inquisitors, ordered, that about the life, merits, and miracles of the aforesaid Saint with truth more diligently known, The Pontiff orders processes to be formed: what they found worthy of faithful report, under their seals, by a faithful messenger they should not delay to send back to his Apostolate. But the said Bishops, as men of sense and devoted zealots of the same Saint, more studiously affecting to execute the business entrusted to them; on a certain day and place admitted witnesses; from their attestations, according to their will, reducing something into writings, they committed them to the same Abbot, to be presented to the supreme Prelate. The rest would that they were found somewhere! Meanwhile from the Translation that followed, it is easily understood, that the Abbot, with which proved, having won the cause at Rome, returned having attained the common wish. But about the very Translation, which from Boece at the beginning is read described, in the Aberdeen Breviary aforecited these Lections are placed, for the first and second Nocturn.

[50] I Lect. Since by most holy Fathers, on account of the devotion of the people, the relics of Saints are wont to be translated, to make a translation, and to be given over to a higher cult in God's temple, and the days of their Translations to be venerated by clergy and people; the true devotion of the devout faithful of Christ of Scotland was not content, but that the blessed relics of S. Margaret the Queen, from a humble subterranean place, to greater veneration should be translated; and from a stone tomb in the same church of Dunfermline, where for one hundred sixty-seven years they had rested, should be taken out. The King with Magnates met at Dunfermline in the year 1251: II. Therefore from Christ our Savior with 1251 years passed, Alexander, of that name the third, illustrious King of the Scots (by the people persuaded for the sake of carrying out the foregoing) with his mother Joanna, then Queen of Scotland, sister of Henry King of England, the firstborn of the same father, with various and many Bishops, Abbots, Dukes, Counts, Lords, Barons and Knights of his kingdom, Clerics and laymen, for the sake of devotion and pilgrimage, came to the church of Dunfermline, much given to fasts and prayers.

[51] III And with sleep induced by contemplation and prayer at night, and with prayers with supplication premised, with morning come the sacred Pontiffs, with palls, mitres, diadem, and Pontifical things accustomed most devoutly clothed themselves, and also of religious devout men, and Priests and Clerics, with banners, crosses, censers, burning torches and most becoming candle-bearers, solemnly arranged a procession; with the sound of bells, and the melody of organs, and most pleasant song, first invoking divine aid; and his most blessed mother of God Mary, and all Saints male and female of the celestial citizens with pure and sincere minds piously imploring their intercessions, that worthy of so great office to be performed they might render themselves, bones transferred to a new case IV They approached, I say, the Pontiffs, with the solemnities and fitting prayers finished, to the place of the sepulcher, where the blessed Relics were enclosed in the aforesaid stone monument; them with their consecrated hands honorably they raised; and into a silver case, with gold and gems adorned, with worthy honor and reverence transferring, placed.

[52] from the lower to the choir of the upper church they carry: V. Nor was there lacking there a miracle of divine grace. For when that treasure of Relics processionally, from that stone tomb, by the hands of Dukes and Counts was carried, from the lower church to the choir of the same, even to the narrow part of the chancel, where then formerly her husband Malcolm King of the Scots' bones and the same's relics, on the northern side of the nave of the further church, under an arched vault on the opposite side were lying; soon the arms of those bearing were rendered so much fatigued and weary, [whom proceeding to the sepulcher of King Malcolm and not being able further to move the ark,] from the too great heaviness of the weight, that the very bier with the Relics they could not move from the place; with other bearers stronger than those added, with the mandate of the Pontiffs: who the more they tried to lift, the less the very bier they could lift or remove. VI With all wondering, with the counsel of the elders taken, it is understood that her bones also must be elevated. all gave themselves to prayers. But with all praying, a voice to a certain devout man was insinuated from heaven, saying; The Relics of B. Margaret cannot be carried further, before the relics of her husband Malcolm likewise be lifted from the earth. Which from then on exhumed, both biers together, without heaviness, most easily, even to the place where at present they are venerated, solemnly they carried, on the thirteenth Kalends of July, in the year above noted.

Which day indeed in memory of this venerable translation is at present cultivated and venerated.

[53] For what cause the aforesaid feast from June 19 was drawn back to June 10, is unknown. One could suspect, on this earlier day, some new Translation was made, when perhaps the church, either deformed by fire, or grown weary with the course of a longer time, It seems afterwards another translation was made, had been restored; or at least the head was separated from the body, separately to be exhibited to the people; as has been done with most other Saints' Heads, in some second translation of them. About the Head of Malcolm however the same ordained, by no indication is found; and so I judge, no proper cult to him was ever bestowed by the Scots, but only joined to that of his wife. There succeeded then in the 17th century after the middle, the miserable desolation and dissipation of all sacred things, and in it the head separated from the body; with heresy predominating in Scotland, through which it is probable also the Dunfermline sanctuary was despoiled, precious arks broken, Relics dispersed, which some faithful secretly gathered.

[54] To obtain these, with great solicitude labored the most pious and most wise King of Spain Philip II; about whom Georgius Coneus, a noble writer, and to be gifted with the Purple Hat by Urban VIII if he had lived, and as their Relics are had in the work on the state of the double religion among the Scots, book 1, on the year 1000 writes, that The Relics of Both among the royal Relics of S. Laurence at the Escorial, are placed in one casket, by Philip II placed in the Escorial church. with their own icons externally, and this inscription, S. Malcolm King, S. Margaret Queen. The foundations of that church which is at the Escorial Philip laid in the year 1563; and celebrated its dedication in 1586, six months before Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots, on February 8 placed her head under the deadly axe; that it is credible, that despairing at last of the Catholic matter among the Scots, Philip took care to ask that the Relics of the Holy Kings be sought, and brought to his new church. The same perhaps knowing that twin effigies of the same, in the Royal palace arranged according to custom, were had, also obtained the same's antitypes, which I would wish drawn to receive, by posterity by the benefit of the chisel to be preserved.

[55] The Head of S. Margaret was carried into the Castle of Edinburgh to be preserved, namely with Mary who was staying there procuring it, The Queen's Head withdrawn from the heretics, and feeling herself unequal to preserving it otherwise from the impious hands of sacrilegious ones; but it was carried there, says Lesley in the Life aforecited, together with hairs and certain other things, which by her holy use and contact she had rendered venerable. But even there to this sacred pledge there was not lasting security, with Mary fleeing into England in the year 1567; and where she had hoped refuge finding a prison. Therefore into the castle of the still Catholic Baron of Duren, brought in the year 1597 to Antwerp, secretly all were taken, and by a certain Benedictine Religious, secretly procuring the sacred Catholic things there, for some years were preserved. Our Lesley, whence we receive these remaining things, says, that the Monk was of the same surname as the Baron (probably and family): and that he in the year 1597 handed over the venerable head to Missionaries of the Society of Jesus. These however wishing to be cautious for it, in 1627 it migrated to Douai, chose to transfer it to Antwerp into Belgium; where the local Bishop, with the customary inquiry premised, and with proper oath taken by those Fathers certified of the truth of the matter, declared, that it could be held for the true head of the holy Queen, and exposed to public veneration, by letters of this kind.

[56] John Malderus, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Antwerp, and approved by Malderus Bishop in 1620, to all about to see these greeting in the Lord. We make known, that we have taken care to have diligently examined and we ourselves considered and recognized the testimonies, which give faith; that certain notable Relics, namely the Head of S. Margaret Queen of Scotland, with heretics rampaging in the same kingdom, were brought to these parts, by the work of R. F. John Robaeus Presbyter of the Society of Jesus, who exhibited them to us. And with all the circumstances by us and our Vicariate well weighed, namely the manner by which to the hands of the said F. Robaeus this notable treasure came; the same relics we have judged to be approved, as true and genuine of the same S. Margaret, as we approve through these present; and so we grant, that they, as sufficiently by us recognized and proved, may be exposed to the people for public veneration. Given at Antwerp, on the day 15 of September, in the year 1620.

[57] The same Head, seven years afterwards, was translated to the Douai College of our Scots in Belgium, Hermannus of Arras in 1623 holds it ratified and by the Ordinary permitted to be exposed for public cult, under this form. Hermannus, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Arras. Since by certain tradition we have received, that the Head of S. Margaret, while she lived Queen of Scotland, was faithfully carried to Antwerp, and there by the Most Reverend Bishop John Malderus approved, and so permitted by the same's ordinary authority, that publicly to the veneration of the faithful it might be exposed; and since to Us indubitable faith has been made, that the same sacred Head from Antwerp to Douai to the Seminary of the Scottish people was brought, and there as in a safe asylum of piety deposited; we permit and exhort, that this sacred treasure, drawn out from hiding places, be held in the open; and publicly in the chapel of the same Seminary, both by inhabitants and other faithful of Christ with all honor and veneration be affected; and this holy Margaret of God by common prayers be invoked; that with what charity on earth, with the same now in heaven she may free the laboring Church from the dark errors of demons. In faith of which we have caused the present to be done through our undersigned Secretary, and with the appending of our seal, which in such things we use, to be fortified. Given in our Episcopal Palace of Arras, on the fifth day of the month of July, in the year of the Lord 1623.

By the mandate of the aforesaid Reverend Lord Bishop of Arras

Le Mesureur.

[58] the successor Paul adds Indulgences of 40 days, 1627. Hermannus the Bishop lived until May 23 in the year 1626, having soon obtained as successor Paul Boudot: who his diocese visiting ex officio, at Douai in the first year of his Pontificate venerating inspected the head of S. Margaret, and granted to those about to visit it Indulgences of 40 days: and Innocent X plenary in the year 1645. Pope Innocent X the Supreme Pontiff, on the day IV March 1645 conceded them to be plenary for the feast day; and so it has been successively confirmed by several of his successors. Finally Clement X in the year, as said in the beginning, 1673, at the prayers of the Catholics of Scotland, presented to him by D. Baron Meneses, Clement X in 1673 the Office and Mass, Knight of the Scots and Legate then of the Grand Duke of Moscow at the Apostolic See, decreed an Office and Mass from the common of one Widow not Martyr to be recited: which how successively augmented, and from an Office at libitum to a precept of strict obligation raised, we have seen above.

[59] Head enclosed in silver. It remains that from the aforesaid Douai College we receive, in what year, by what reason, and through whose munificence the sacred Head already often spoken of enclosed in a most beautiful silver herma is now preserved; with what affection also Charles II the King venerated it, while still in exile from his kingdom with his brother James, after him King: to which to be placed in this place although I have spared no diligence, however by various accidents and unforeseen changes of Superiors it happened, that they could not provide the requested and promised; and I am compelled to defer the reader to the Appendix to be added to this volume or month.