Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 – 16 November 1093), also known as
Margaret of Wessex, was an
English princess of the
House of Wessex. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland". Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of
Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned
Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret and her family returned to England in 1057, but fled to the
Kingdom of Scotland following the
Norman conquest of England of 1066. Around 1070 Margaret married
Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming
Scottish queen. She was a pious woman, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the
Firth of Forth for pilgrims travelling to
Dunfermline Abbey, which gave the towns of
South Queensferry and
North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland (or four, if one includes
Edmund of Scotland, who ruled Scotland with his uncle,
Donald III) and of a queen consort of England. According to the
Life of Saint Margaret, attributed to
Turgot of Durham, she died at
Edinburgh Castle in 1093, just days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. In 1250 she was
canonised by
Pope Innocent IV, and her remains were reinterred in a shrine at Dunfermline Abbey. Her relics were dispersed after the
Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost.