A precious pearl saw the light in Hungary, and lived at the court of the Confessor, a School of Holiness. Torn from homeland, you embrace another. You became Queen and Mother, the glory of Scots. Your Queen's crown, a crown of Charity. Your way, the Royal Way of the Cross...Once, mere men, placed crowns upon your head. But I, Innocent, Peter's successor, Servant of Christ, now place upon your head, the greatest crown of all, sainthood. - The Canonisation Oration of Innocent IV on St Margaret, made in 1250 St Margaret is, after Mary, Queen of Scots, perhaps the most famous woman in Scottish history, and her life is amongst the most extraordinary of any other major Scottish historical figure. Her father was the son of Edmund Ironside, who fled England on the accession of Cnut. As heirs to Edward the Confessor she and her brother returned from exile in Hungary to the England of the Confessor. Passed over as king on the succession of Harold II, Edgar and his sister fled to Scotland, where she married Malcolm Canmore. She was mother to eight children and gained a reputation for sanctity almost unparalleled in history.
But this extraordinary woman, who had traversed the realms and courts of 11th-century Europe, was also one of the most formative influences on the medieval kingdom of Scots. To this day she is revered in both Hungary and Scotland.