Stone & Incense Search
Start hereCurious, or no faithEvangelical, Pentecostal or ProtestantFrom another faithSomeone I love is CatholicBecoming CatholicI was Catholic once Today in the ChurchLibraryHard questionsVoices of the revivalTake the next stepAboutSources & methodSupport the site
The saints

St. Margaret of Scotland

A queen who softened a rough king and fed the poor before she ate.

Feast: 16 November · 1045 to 1093 · The Middle Ages · Hungary, England and Scotland

Read the story 1 min read
Stained-glass window of St. Margaret of Scotland, crowned, holding a book.

Kjetil Bjørnsrud New york, 2005. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.

Home / The saints / St. Margaret of Scotland

Dunfermline, Scotland, the 1070s

Margaret was an English princess born in exile in Hungary.1

Fleeing after the Norman conquest, she was shipwrecked in Scotland and married King Malcolm III.1

Malcolm was rough and could not read, and he grew to love her so much he had her prayer books decorated with gold.

Patron of Scotland2

01St. Margaret of Scotland

Bread first

Every day she served the poor and orphans before she ate.1

She founded churches, and helped reform the Church in Scotland.1

She died four days after her husband and son were killed in battle.1

Live it this week

Feed someone before yourself

Margaret served the poor before her own meal. One day this week, buy or make a meal for someone in need before you eat lunch.

Notes

How we know · 2 sources for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Margaret of Scotland”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org
  2. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “Saint Margaret of Scotland”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.