Saint Margaret of Scotland
16 November · Optional Memorial · White
On a wet stone quay King Malcolm bows to kiss the hand of a young woman in white with two long fair plaits, her eyes lowered; behind her rises the striped sail of the ship that brought her. William Hole painted the landing in 1899 on the walls of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. A storm had driven the ship to Scotland.
National Galleries of Scotland, UPG.029: nationalgalleries.org
William Brassey Hole
1899, spirit fresco on canvas, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, UPG.029
The holding institution's record
Her life
Margaret was born about 1045, the daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha. After the Norman Conquest her family tried to return to the Continent, and a storm drove their ship to Scotland, where King Malcolm III took the exiles under his protection and, between 1067 and 1070, took Margaret for his wife. A synod held under her influence regulated the Lenten fast and the Easter communion. She founded the abbey of Dunfermline to enshrine her greatest treasure, a relic of the True Cross, and the National Galleries of Scotland record that she gave pilgrims a ferry across the Forth: the towns on either bank are still called North and South Queensferry.
She foretold the day of her death, and died at Edinburgh on 16 November 1093. Innocent IV canonised her in 1250, and her relics were moved to a new shrine on 19 June 1259. The ferry she gave the pilgrims is gone; the towns on either bank still carry her name, and the crossing is still ours to make.
Gilbert Huddleston, “St. Margaret of Scotland”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9 (1910): newadvent.org
“O Lord Jesus Christ, Who by Thy death didst give life to the world, deliver me.”
A prayer of the Missal that Margaret repeated as she died, as her biographer records, quoted in Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints (Benziger Brothers, 1894): sacred-texts.com
In Scripture
10Who shall find a valiant woman? far, and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her.
20She hath opened her hand to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor.
Proverbs 31:10 · Proverbs 31:20, Douay-Rheims (Challoner).
The day in the next three years
| 2026 | Monday 16 November |
|---|---|
| 2027 | Tuesday 16 November |
| 2028 | Thursday 16 November |
Near this day
The saints of the year · The feasts · The Rosary
Written and checked by the Monstrance editors; sources cited. Scripture in the Douay-Rheims (Challoner). Every painting is in the public domain, and each caption follows the record of the institution that holds it.
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