Throughout the Middle Ages there were a handful of saintly monarchs, who sought to serve God and their people.
One such saint was St. Stephen of Hungary, a virtuous king who is well-known for his heroic life of holiness.
Another royal saint was St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland.
Interestingly, these two saints, both Hungarian, were related (through marriage), and St. Margaret was never supposed to become the Queen of Scotland.
St. Margaret of Hungary
Henry Grey Graham explains St. Margaret’s background in his book, St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland:
St. Margaret was born in Hungary about the year 1045. Her father, Edward the Stranger, was the younger son of Edmund Ironside, who shared the dominion of England with Canute the Dane…Edward was strong and healthy and grew up into a virtuous accomplished and handsome young man. [St. Stephen] regarded him with much favor and willingly gave his consent to his marriage with his own queen’s sister, the Princess Agatha. Of this marriage St. Margaret was the eldest child.
St. Margaret stayed in Hungary during her childhood and it was only later that she ended up in Scotland.
The Catholic Encyclopediadetails how the events transpired:
It appears that Margaret came with [her father to England and] on his death and the conquest of England by the Normans, her mother Agatha decided to return to the Continent. A storm however drove their ship to Scotland, where Malcolm III received the party under his protection, subsequently taking Margaret to wife. This event had been delayed for a while by Margaret’s desire to enter religion, but it took place some time between 1067 and 1070.
Her husband (the son of the murdered King Duncan, from Shakespeare’s Macbeth) won the devout Margaret’s love with the gift of a jewel-encrusted prayer book. St. Margaret became a virtuous queen and is well-known as one of the more popular royal saints in the Catholic Church.
And today we celebrate...