St. Margaret’s Day 1997

Margaret woke suddenly. Years of motherhood brought her to alertness.

She lay quietly. What had woken her?

Had one of the orphans cried out in their sleep? Had one of her sons– Edward or Edmund or Edgar come home? One of the hounds stirred in the rushes by her raised pallet. So it was not physical danger then that alarmed her. She sighed and pushed back the woolen coverlet. She reached for a short house cloak and pulled it over her shoulders as she rose in one graceful movement.

Her husband Malcolm often said that no mother of eight with hair long streaked with gray should be able to move so fluidly and effortlessly. She would laugh and attribute her flexibility to years at looms and churns and cradles and prayer With smiling eyes, Malcolm would add, and years of dancing to the drums and pipes.

She missed him. And the boys. They were in the high hills trying to bring order to the warring clans. A prayer for their safety and the success of their mission rose to her lips. All the hours of her days and nights were punctuated by prayer and praise of her Lord Jesus Christ.

She considered going down to her chapel. But she felt physically tired. Exhausted beyond accountability. It embarrassed her that she had not been able to attend her regular duties for several days now because she felt so weak

Margaret moved to the window. Ah, there it was. She must have woken because a storm was kicking up. Clouds were covering the Pleiades and Orion. Soon the crescent moon would be dark. The churning clouds stirred the inlet water and drew her back almost 30 years ago to another storm.

That night, too, the threatening weather had woken her. She’s gone with her sister Christian(a) to the deck of the ship that was carrying them back to Hungry, where they’d been born– English princesses in exile. Their old brother Edgar stayed below deck with their Mother.

The storm at sea had come up almost as quickly as their situation in Edward the Confessor’s royal household had changed.

Ten years earlier, Edward, who was pious like the two sisters now standing on deck, had vowed never to marry. So he called Margaret’s father back from Hungry to secure the throne. After her father’s sudden , inexplicable death (some whispered "poison"), Edward had protected the three orphaned children. The 10 years they stayed in his court were pleasant.

Margaret and Christian(a) continued their studies in Latin and holy scripture and needlework. Edgar, as the direct heir, did not feel the need for discipline and study. He spent his days gossiping and gaming and hunting. Ready to step up and be crowned when Edward died, Edgar’s ambitions were thwarted by the will of the nobles who passed over him because of his foreign birth to name the more popular Harold, son of the Earl of Godwine, as the next king.

Killed in the Battle of Hastings, Harold was never crowned. As William the conqueror and the Normans took more and more land, Edgar was advised to return to the protection of the Hungarian court with his Mother and sisters. Just a few short hours out to sea and now ship wreck seemed likely.

Together the sister whispered prayers for deliverance. They shared other confidences. A few weeks earlier they had overheard Harold and Christian(a)’s names linked in possible matrimony. Christian(a) murmured "may he rest in peace" as she vowed to live the life of a Benedictine sister. Margaret repeated her sister’s benediction for Harold and vowed to follow Christin(a) into the cloistered life if they did not come to rest in a watery grave that night.

The ship pitched on the waves and clinging together, Margaret’ and Christian(a) made their way below decks. Even Edgar joined in their fervent prayers that the captain and crew find safe passage.

Just then lighting lit the sky and Margaret could see the waters of the Firth of Forth from the castle window. The people now called the sheltered inlet "Margaret’s Hope". Over 20 years ago, when the ship, driven from England by the storms of both war and sea, anchored safely, the widowed King Malcolm and many attendants had ridden down to greet the stranded royal travelers.

The little family was delighted to be greeted by an old friend. Malcolm had also lived in Edward the Confessor’ s household for several years after his father Duncan was killed by Macbeth.

Quickly, 20 year old Margaret found herself the center of Malcolm’s attentions. Embarrassed, she resisted his advances and proposals of marriage. But her family and friends urged her to consider him seriously.

The day she wed Malcolm, Margaret’s sister left to live in a not too distant abbey. The sisters remained close confidants.

Now, Margaret battened down the boards over the window and turned to light a candle. She knew she would not be able to sleep again tonight.

As she reached for her Book of Psalms, she thought again about her life as the exiled English princess who found a home and a crown in Scotland.

She saw Christian(a) often as babies were born and baptized and even buried; ah, sweet young Ethelred. And she was thankful that she had convinced Malcolm that the two girls now young women should live and study with Chirtian(a), who was now abbess of her order. Margaret had bowed to Malcolm’s decision that it was time for the girls to be pledged and betroved and only asked that they have these few years under the tutelage of the Benedictines.

Margaret could not know this night that Matilda would become a future Queen of England, married to Henry I, the third son of William the Conqueror. And that the younger Mary would be the grandmother of another English queen, married to King Stephen.

She only know how hard it had been to convince Malcolm to let the girls go. He loved them dearly. But he was devoted to Margaret. Basically, he was a rough man. But Margaret’s graceful ways pleased him and he tried hard to please her in return.

Although he himself could not read, he found delight in his wife’s scholarship and her friendship with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the chaplain he sent to Scotland when Margaret asked for help to raise the clergy out of ignorance and from the dereliction of their duties.

Margaret put her hand over the illuminated frontpiece of her psalter. It made her feel closer to Malcolm. Early in their marriage, she had thought she had lost it. But Malcolm had taken it and had it bound in gold and gems and pearls. And even now, he delighted in fetching it for her even though others could easily do that small task.

She often read scripture to him. His favorite passage was from Provers: "A good wife is a crown ...Sometimes she would demur and try to read something else. She’d never told him her name came from the Greek for pearl. There’d be no end of his endearments if he knew.

Privately, she considered her name to be a marriage of Mary and Martha, the sisters from Bethany who were friends of her Lord Christ. Raised in the Benediction tradition of the ordered life, Margaret’s days were a balance of prayer and work. Of Mary and Martha.

Sometimes, Margaret could not tell which gave her more pleasure. Opening her home to orphans, tending the sick and washing the feet of the poor or spending the evening hours in prayer in the Chapel.

For several years now, Malcolm had been joining her as she meet people in the great hall to feed and clothe and soothe them. In Lent, the number of poor people they greeted together in Christ’s name might be hundreds...

With little transition of thought, Margaret’ slipped into prayer for her spouse, "He is a good man, Lord Christ. Protect him as you do me. Give strength to his cause and grant this land peace, O Prince of Peace."

Margaret opened the jeweled psalter.

Truly, the adorned book was unusual in the royal household. The King’s family lived simply. When Malcolm offered his heart and throne to Margaret, he also opened his coffers. And Margaret had insisted that they view themselves only as God’s stewards of this wealth. She spent money to build homes for orphans, hospitals and schools. Malcolm went with her to survey the ruins of Iona and together they saw it rebuilt. Malcolm always threw himself into her projects and he told others "she is the incarnation of all that is pure and holy."

But he had laughed at her insistence that there be boats to carry the pilgrims to the island where the relics of th Apostle and beloved Saint Andrew were housed...

"Margaret, my dear heart, the people have renamed the village, Queensferry! They love you as I do."

Yes, she could feel their devotion when she sat on the rock near Dunfermline. They would come near and ask her favor or advice. And as she listened and responded in love, they would call her "blessed" or "good" or even "Sainte Margaret".

Her embarrassment gave way to a shiver at the evil she felt as she remembered a queen they knew before her– the Lady Macbeth. What insanity to turn so far from God’s ways...

That was the very first thing she had taught all the children–to love Christ. Like a refrain, she often said, "If you love Him, He will give you prosperity in this life and everlasting happiness with the Saints."

"I worry about Edmund", she said, voicing her thoughts aloud now. "He’s had some misadventures and is hardened to parental wisdom. It seems easier with the three younger boys– Edgar, and Alexander and David. Maybe it was because they lived all their lives under the roof of a true Christian king– the king Malcolm has grown to be."

"Prayer is the best I know to do for Edmund. Lord Christ, tonight as every other night, I commit Malcolm and all my children to your gracious protection. Almighty God and Father, watch and guard these your servants. Amen."

Even as Margaret began to read the psalms in front of her, one of her sons was coming to her. That night she knew neither the distant or near future. She only knew her present...that her husband and sons were confronting the highland tribes, trying to bring peace to the land.

"Happy are they who consider the poor and needy!

The LORD will deliver them in the time of trouble."

As Margaret spoke these familiar psalms, the distant future drew closer. Nearer came the time when Edgar and Alexander and David would be heralded as the best kings Scotland would ever know.

"God is our refuge and strength,

A very present help in trouble."

With each phrase she recited, the near future was being realized. Edgar was riding hard for home.

"I will dwell in your house for ever;

I will take refuge under the cover of your wings."

Edgar waited for a moment in the doorway, listening to his Mother...

"I will praise the Name of God in song;

I will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving."

She saw him, motioned him to come close and welcomed him with an embrace.

Quietly, tearfully, he told her Malcolm and Edward had fallen and died in battle. She acknowledged his words. Fatigue washed over her. She asked for her black cross to hold. Edgar settled her back in bed and her family gathered around her.

She died four days after Malcolm and Edward.

Her last words were of praise and thanksgiving to God.

She was 49 years old.

Some said, "She died of a broken heart."

Others said, "No, she just went home."

Everyone remembered her and the goodness of her life.

She remains Scotland’s most beloved Queen.

She is known as a saint...and today we remember her...

Let us pray:

Lord, you called your servant Margaret to an earthly throne that she might advance your heavenly kingdom, and gave her zeal for your Church and love for your people; Mercifully grant that we who commemorate her this day may be fruitful in good works, and attain to the glorious crown of your saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. AMEN.