St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland
A.D. 1093.
ST. MARGARET was little niece to St. Edward the Confessor, and granddaughter to Edmund Ironside. Upon the death of the latter, who was treacherously murdered by Count Edric in 1017, Canute or Canutus the Dane, who had before obtained by agreement Mercia and the northern provinces, caused himself to be acknowledged by the bishops, ealdormen, and other chief men of the nation, king of all England, and guardian to the two infant sons of his late colleague, Edward and Edmund, till they should be of age to succeed to the crown of the West-Saxons. But Canute, though he punished the traitor Edric, yet seemed to love the treason, and secretly sent the two young princes to the King of Sweden, that they might by him be made away with. The Swede refused to imbrue his hands in their innocent blood, though he feared the power of Canute, who had added Norway to his native kingdom of Denmark by a treachery no less execrable than that by which he usurped the dominions of these innocent royal children in England. The Swede therefore generously sent the two princes to Solomon, king of Hungary, by whom they were kindly received and educated. Edmund, the elder of them, died; but Edward, the younger, marrying Agatha, sister to the queen, and according to some authors, niece to the Emperor Conrad, a most virtuous and accomplished princess, had by her Edgar, surnamed Etheling, Christina a nun, and St. Margaret. Canute reigned in such a manner as to appear worthy to wear the crown, had it been acquired without ambition and injustice. He was succeeded after his death in Norway by his eldest son Swane, in Denmark by his favourite second son Hardecnute; and in England in 1036, Harold was chosen king, who is said to have been also a son of Canute, though he much degenerated from his virtues both in peace and war. After his death in 1039, Hardecnute came into England, and was acknowledged king, but died two years after. Whereupon Edward the Confessor was called to the crown in 1041. He by ambassadors invited Edward, surnamed Outremer or Etheling, over from Hungary with his children, and received them honourably at London in 1054, where Edward Outremer died three years after, and was buried in St. Paul’s church. At the death of St. Edward, Edgar being but young, and a stranger born, had not interest enough to oppose the powerful party by which Count Harold was placed on the throne in 1066, pretending the crown to have been bequeathed him by the late king, as Hoveden and others relate. But William the Norman affirmed that it had been promised him by St. Edward, and invading England, slew Harold in a great battle near Hastings on the 14th of October, 1066. Many English desired to raise Edgar, the lawful Saxon heir, to the throne; but he was unable to make good his claim by arms, and therefore with the rest of the nobility received the victorious Norman at London. But some time after, he secretly fled from the tyranny of the conqueror, and left the kingdom. The ship in which he put to sea was by a tempest driven upon the coast of Scotland, where Malcolm or Milcolumb III. entertained him and his sister in the most courteous manner. He had the more tender feeling for the misfortune of, the royal exile, having formerly been himself in a like situation. For Macbeth, general of part of the troops, having killed his father, King Donald or Duncan VII., usurped the throne, and Malcolm only saved his life by flight. After wandering over many places, he found a secure retreat in the court of Edward the Confessor, who assisting him with ten thousand men, he marched into Scotland, was joined by his friends, and overcame and slew Macbeth, who had then held his usurped crown seventeen years. Malcolm having thus recovered his dominions, was declared king at Scone in 1057. When Edgar arrived in his dominions, the sight of the young prince and princess made him feel all the weight of their affliction. He gave them the best reception his kingdom could afford, and it gave him the highest pleasure that it was in his power to show them courtesy. William the Norman sent to demand them to be delivered into his hands. Malcolm rejected with horror so base a treachery. Whereupon a war ensued. The Scots defeated Roger, a Norman general, in Northumberland, and afterwards Richard, earl of Gloucester. Upon which William sent his brother Odo, earl of Kent, into Northumberland; but Malcolm gave him a considerable overthrow, and recovered the booty which he had taken. After this, the haughty Norman sent his son Robert at the head of an army who encamped on the Tyne, but without doing anything, except building the city of Newcastle upon Tyne; and soon after the Norman agreed to a peace on these conditions, that he should restore Sibert, earl of Northumberland, and leave Cumberland as formerly to the Scots; that he should treat Prince Edgar as his friend, and that the boundaries of the two kingdoms should be King’s Cross on Stanemoor, between Richmonshire and Cumberland, which should have the statues and arms of the two kings of England and Scotland on each side. 1 Continue reading
