June X

St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland

From her life, written by Theodoric, a monk of Durham, her Confessarius, and afterwards by St. Aëlred also from the Scottish and English historians. See Fordun, Scoti-chron., l. 5, c. 15, vol. 2, p. 413, ed Hearne.

A. D. 1093.

St. Margaret was little niece to St. Edward the Confessor, and grand-daughter to Edmund Ironside. Upon the death of the latter, who was treacherously murdered by count Edric in 1017, Cnute, 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 Cnute, 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 way with. The Swede refused to imbrue his hands in their innocent blood, though he feared the power of Cnute, 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. Cnute 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 favorite second son Hardecnute; and in England in 1036, Harold was chosen king, who is said to have been also a son of Cnute, 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 honorably 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 Nor man 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 it his dominions, the sight of the young prince and princess made him feel al 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 any thing, 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 Rich-monshire and Cumberland, which should have the statues and arms of the two kings of England and Scotland on each side.

Malcolm was so much taken with the virtues of the princess Margaret, that he most impatiently desired to make her his royal consort. She had learned from her cradle to contemn the vanities of the world, and to regard its pleasures as a poison to the heart, and the bane of virtue. Her amazing beauty, her rare prudence, her wit, and her extraordinary virtue could not fail to excite the admiration of the whole court. But it was her only desire and ambition to render herself agreeable to the King of kings. She seemed to relish no earthly pleasure, finding all delight in the incomparable charms of divine love, which flowed into her pure soul chiefly by the means of assiduous prayer and meditation, in which holy exercises she often spent whole days. She took great pleasure in relieving and serving the poor, and in comforting all that were in distress, considering Christ in his necessitous members. Her consent being obtained, she was married, and crowned queen of Scotland in 1070, being twenty-four years of age. The marriage was solemnized at the king’s royal castle of Dumfermline, built in the midst of a beautiful plain, surrounded with woods, rocks, and rivers, by its situation almost inaccessible to men or beasts, says Fordun, and strongly fortified by art. The Scottish historian adds, that she brought a great fortune to the king in the immense treasures she had carried off from England, together with many most precious relics. Among these was the Black Cross, held in the highest veneration in Scotland in succeeding ages. Malcolm was rough and unpolished, but neither haughty nor capricious; and had no evil inclinations. Margaret, by the most tender complaisance, and the most condescending and engaging carriage, always full of respect, gained so great an ascendant over him, as to seem entirely mistress of his heart; which influence she only exerted to make religion and justice reign, to render her subjects happy, and her husband one of the most virtuous kings that have adorned the Scottish throne. She softened his temper, cultivated his mind, polished his manners and inspired him with the most perfect maxims and sentiments of all Christian virtues. And so much was the king charmed with her wisdom and piety, that he not only left to her the whole management of his domestic affairs, but followed her prudent advice in the government of the state. In the midst of the most weighty concerns and cares of a kingdom, Margaret always kept her heart disengaged from the love of the world, and recollected in God. The continual attention of her soul to him in all her actions, assiduous prayer, and the constant practice of self-denial, were the means by which chiefly she attained to this perfection. At the same time her prudence and care in all things, her application to public and private affairs, her watchfulness in providing for the good of her subjects, and the wonderful ease and wisdom with which she discharged every duty of the regal authority, showed her most extensive genius to the astonishment of foreign nations.

God blessed this pious royal couple with a numerous and virtuous offspring, which did not degenerate from the piety of their holy parents. The queen was mother of six boys: Edward, Edmund, Edgar, Ethelred, Alexander, and David: and of two daughters; namely, Maud, or Mathiides, married to Henry I. king of England, and Mary, who married Eustache count of Bologne. Of the sons, Edgar, Alexander, and David I, successively came to the crown of Scotland, and all governed with the highest reputation of wisdom, valor, and piety; especially king David, who may be justly styled the brightest ornament of that throne. The happiness of these princes, and that of the whole kingdom in them, was owing, under God, to the pious care of queen Margaret in their education. She did not suffer them to be brought up in vanity, pride, or pleasures, which is too often the misfortune of those who are born in courts. She inspired them with an early indifference to the things of the world, with the greatest ardor for virtue, the purest love of God, fear of his judgments, and dread of sin. She chose for them the ablest preceptors and governors, persons eminently endued with the spirit of piety and religion; and would suffer none but such to approach them, being sensible that tender minds receive the strongest and most lasting impressions from the behavior of those with whom they converse, especially masters. Instructions are dry, but the words and actions of persons breathe the spirit and sentiments of their hearts, and insensibly communicate the same to others, especially where this influence is strengthened by authority. The zealous mother watched over the masters, examined the progress of her children, and often instructed them herself in all Christian duties. No sooner were the young princesses of an age capable of profiting by her example, than she made them her companions in her spiritual exercises and good works. She daily, by most fervent prayers and tears, conjured Almighty God to preserve their innocence, and fill their souls with the sentiments of those virtues which she endeavored to instill into them. She extended her care and attention to her servants and domestics, and the sweetness and tender charity with which she seasoned her lessons, rendered her endeavors the more effectual. By her prudent zeal and example, concord, charity, modesty, religion, piety, and devotion reigned in the whole court, in which virtue was the only recommendation to the royal favor, and to want devotion was the most certain disgrace.

The holy queen remembered that by the rank in which Providence had placed her, and by the authority which the king lodged in her, the whole kingdom was her family. She found it overrun with many abuses, and plunged in shameful ignorance of many essential duties of religion. It was her first care to procure holy and zealous pastors and preachers to be established in all parts of her dominions. She seconded their ministry with the weight of the royal authority, and that of all the magistrates, to abolish the criminal neglect of abstaining from servile work on Sundays and holidays, and of observing the fast of Lent, with many other abuses; and had the comfort to see, by her zealous endeavors, the strict observance of Lent restored, and the devout celebration of Sundays and festivals enforced, the people consecrating those days to God both by assisting at the whole church office, and instructions, and by private devotions. Simony, usury, incestuous marriages, superstition, sacrileges, and other scandalous abuses were also banished. Many neglected to receive the holy communion even at Easter, alleging a fear of approaching it unworthily. She showed this pretence to be only a cloak for sloth and impenitence, engaged sinners to cancel their crimes by worthy fruits of repentance, and contributed very much to revive the spirit of penance, and frequent communion. She labored most successfully to polish and civilize the Scottish nation, to encourage among that people both the useful and polite arts, and to inspire them with a love of the sciences, and with the principles of all the social and moral virtues. All which she incited her husband to promote by many salutary laws and regulations. Charity to the poor was her darling virtue. Her own coffers could not suffice her liberality to them; and often she employed upon them part of what the king had reserved for his own use and necessities; which liberty he freely allowed her. Whenever she stirred out of her palace, she was surrounded by troops of widows, orphans, and other distressed persons who flocked to her as to their common mother; nor did she ever send any one away without relief. Within doors, when she went into the hall of the palace, she found it filled with poor people: she washed their feet, and served them herself. She never sat down to table without having first fed and waited on nine little orphans and twenty-four grown-up poor. Often, especially in Lent and Advent, the royal couple called in three hundred poor, served them at table on their knees, she the women on one side, the king the men on the other; giving them the same dishes that were served up at their own royal table. She frequently visited the hospitals, attending the sick with wonderful humility and tenderness. By her extensive alms insolvent debtors were released, and decayed families restored; and foreign nations, especially the English, recovered their captives. She was inquisitive and solicitous to ransom those especially who fell into the hands of harsh masters. She erected hospitals for poor strangers. The king most readily concurred with her in all manner of good works. “He learned from her,” says Theodoric, “often to watch the night in prayer. I could not sufficiently admire to see the fervor of this prince at prayer, and to discover so much compunction of heart and such tears of devotion in a secular man.” “She excited the king,” says another ancient author, “to the works of justice, mercy, alms-deeds, and other virtues; in all which, by divine grace, she brought him to be most ready to comply with her pious inclinations. For he seeing that Christ dwelt in the heart of his queen, was always willing to follow her counsels.”

The small time which the queen allowed herself for sleep, and the retrenchment of all amusements and pastimes, procured her many hours is the day for her devotions. In Lent and Advent she always rose at midnight, and went to church to Matins. Returning home she found six poor persons ready for her: she washed their feet and gave to each a plentiful alms to begin the day. She then slept again an hour or two; and after that rising returned to her chapel, where she heard four or five low masses, and after these a high mass. She had other hours in the day for prayer in her closet, where she was often found bathed in tears. “As to her own eating, it was so sparing that it barely sufficed to maintain life, and by no means to gratify the appetite,” says Theodoric. “She seemed rather only to taste than to take her meal. In a word, her works were more wonderful than her miracles; though these were not wanting to her.” The same author, who was her confessor, writes: “She was endowed with a wonderful spirit of compunction. When she would be speaking to me of the sweetness of everlasting life, her words were full of all grace. So great was her fervor and compunction on these occasions, that she seemed as if she would quite melt into tears; so that her devotion drew also from me tears of compunction. In the church no one was more still in silence, no one more intent than she at prayer.” She often importuned her confessor to admonish her of whatever he perceived blameworthy in her words or actions; and was displeased that he was, as she thought, remiss in this charitable office. Her humility made her desire reprehensions and correction, which the pride of others cannot brook. Every year she kept two Lents of forty days each; the one at the usual time, the other before Christmas; both with incredible rigor. She recited every day the short offices of the Holy Trinity, of the passion of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the dead.

King Malcolm, after his war against William the Conqueror in Northumberland, was disturbed by a rebellion of the Highlanders both in the north and west of Scotland. He composed the north in person; and Walter his general reduced to obedience the rebels in the west.* Malcolm from that time applied himself to improve his kingdom by the arts of peace. He first reformed his own family; and afterwards enacted sumptuary laws, and remedied abuses which had crept in among the people. He built the cathedral of Durham,¹ and made the abbot of that place bishop of Saint Andrew’s, and added the bishoprics of Murray and Caithness to the former four in Scotland. He concurred with his queen in founding the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Dumfermlin. St. Margaret, by her wise counsels, had perfectly convinced her royal consort that the love of peace is the first duty of him who is the common father of his people; war being the greatest of all temporal calamities. Those warlike princes whose heads were crowned with laurels, and whose triumphs dazzle the world, and swell the pages of history with so much pomp, were the scourges of the earth, especially of their own nations, at least in the ages wherein they lived; and their sounding achievements and victories, when placed in the light in which faith commands us to consider them, will appear no better than a long series of boundless ambition, murders, plunder of whole countries, and the most heavy oppression of their own people. Malcolm, however, did not forget that it is an indispensable duty of a king to be expert in war, and always in readiness, that he be not wanting to the protection which he owes his people. William Rufus, who came to the throne of England in 1037, surprised the castie of Alnwick in Northumberland, and put the garrison to the sword. Malcolm lemanded restitution, which being denied, he besieged it. The English garrison being reduced to great extremity, offered to surrender, and desired he king to come and receive the keys with his own hand; but the soldier who presented them to him upon the point of a spear, by a base treachery thrust the spear into his eye, while the king was stretching out his hand to receive the keys, and killed him. His son Edward carried on the siege to revenge the death of his father, but advancing too eagerly was slain in an assault. Whereupon the Scots were so much afflicted that they raised the siege and retired, having buried their king and prince at Tinmonth. Their bodies were soon after removed to Dumfermlin. Malcolm reigned thirty three years, and died in 1093. His name is found in some Scottish calendars enrolled among the saints.

This misfortune was to the good queen an affliction which only her heroic virtue enabled her to bear with resignation. She lay at the same time on her death-bed. Theodoric gives the following account of her last sickness: “She had a foresight of her death long before it happened; and speaking to me in secret, she began to repeat to me in order her whole life, pouring out floods of tears at every word with unspeakable compunction; so that she obliged me also to weep, and sometimes we could neither of us speak for sighs and sobs. At the end she spoke thus to me: Farewell; for I shall not be here long: you will stay some little time behind me. Two things I have to desire of you: the one is, that so long as you live, you remember my poor soul in your masses and prayers: the other is, that you assist my children, and teach them to fear and love God. These things you must promise me here in the presence of God, who alone is witness of our discourse.” She survived this about half a year, during which she was seldom able to rise out of bed, and her pains daily increased upon her, which she bore with incredible patience, in silence and prayer. In the expedition into Northumberland mentioned above, she endeavored to dissuade her husband from marching with his army; but he that only time dissented from her advice, imagining it to proceed only from concern for his safety, and reflecting that the presence of a sovereign raises the courage of the soldiery. His death happened four days before that of the queen. She, on the day he was killed, appeared melancholy and sad, and said to those about her: “Perhaps this day a greater evil hath befallen Scotland than any this long time.” On the fourth day, her pains being somewhat abated, she got up, and went into her oratory, where she received the holy Viaticum. Then feeling the redoublement of her fever with her pains return upon her, she laid herself down again, and desired the chaplains to recite the psalms by her, and to recommend her soul to God. In the mean time she called for the Black Cross. She embraced, and signed herself frequently with it; then held it with both her hands before her, and with her eyes fixed upon it, recited the Miserere psalm and other prayers. Her son Edgar coming in from the army, she asked him how his father and brother did? He, fearing to alarm her, said they were well. She answered him: “I know how it is.” Then lifting up her hands to heaven, she praised God, saying: “I thank thee, Almighty God, that in sending me so great an affliction in the last hour of my life thou wouldst purify me from my sins, as I hope by thy mercy.” Not long after, finding her last moments to approach, she repeated from the prayers of the church for that occasion, the following aspiration: “O Lord Jesus Christ, who by thy death hast given life to the world, deliver me from all evil.” Praying thus, she was loosed from the bonds of her mortal body on the 16th of November, 1093, in the forty-seventh year of her age. She was canonized by pope Innocent IV. in 1251. Her feast was removed by Innocent XII. in 1693, from the day of her death to the 10th of June. Her body was interred, according to her desire in the church which she had built in honor of the Holy Trinity at Dumfermlin, fifteen miles from Edinburgh.² At the change of religion in Scotland, the remains of Saint Margaret and her husband were privately rescued from the plundering mob, and the principal parts afterwards carried into Spain, when king Philip II. built a chapel in the palace of the Escurial, in honor of St. Margaret, for their reception. They still continue there, with this inscription on the shrine: “St. Malcolm, King, and St. Margaret, Queen.” But the head of St. Margaret having been carried to Edinburgh, to queen Mary Stuart, after her flight into England, it was by a Benedictin monk conveyed to Antwerp in 1597, and afterwards by him given to the Scotch Jesuits at Douay, in whose church it is still kept in a silver case.³

The succession of saints which in the posterity of St. Margaret afterwards filled the throne of Scotland,* the sanctification of a court, and of a kingdom was, under God, the fruit of her zeal and pious example. So great and public a blessing is a virtuous wife, and a virtuous mother of a family. Every neighbor is bound at least by example and prayer, especially every parent, master, and mistress, also by correction and exhortation, to endeavor to impart to others, particularly those under their care, this inestimable happiness of piety. As St. Charles Borromeo inculcates,⁴ parents can leave no treasure to their children, nor can masters bestow on servants any recompense for their fidelity, in any respect comparable to this of virtue. Let all superiors who neglect this duty tremble, and reflect that an account will be required of them at the dreadful tribunal of Christ for the sins of those under their care, which by a faithful discharge of their duty they might have prevented. In this sense, as St. Austin observes, is every master bound to be bishop or pastor of his family; and every Christian, at least by example, to his neighbor. But alas! how many make themselves apostles of Satan, and become to others an odor not of life but of death. The baneful example of tepidity and sin, especially in those who are placed in authority, lays families, and the whole world desolate. For to the influence of scandal is owing the universal inundation of vice, ignorance, and insensibility with regard to spiritual duties, which no floods of tears can ever sufficiently lament. On this account is the world declared the enemy of Christ, and is loaded with his curses.

SS. Getulius and Companions, Martyrs

Getulius, the husband of St. Symphorosa, was an officer in the Roman army under Trajan and Adrian; but upon his conversion to the faith, gave up his commission and retired into the country of the Sabines. His brother Amantius was no less zealous in the profession of the faith, but retained his dignity of tribune of a legion. The emperor Adrian sent Cerealis to apprehend Getulius in the country; but that officer was gained to Christ by the two brothers. The emperor, enraged at this news, commanded Licinius to condemn them to death, unless they could be induced to forsake the Christian religion. By the sentence of this inhuman judge, the three above-mentioned martyrs, and a fourth named Primitivus, after suffering twenty-seven days imprisonment at Tivoli, and divers torments, were beheaded together. St. Symphorosa buried their bodies in an Arenarium upon her estate. They suffered in the beginning of the second century, and are mentioned in the ancient Martyrologies on this day. See their acts abridged by Tillemont, t. 3, p. 23.

St. Landry, C., in Latin, Landericus,

bishop of paris

He succeeded Audobert in that see, in the reign of Clovis II., about the year 650. In a great famine he distributed among the poor all his own little furniture, and melted down for their use the sacred vessels of the church From the first foundation of ecclesiastical revenues under the Christian emperors, it was a customary law for every bishop to erect and maintain a general hospital, which was usually situated near the cathedral. Thus the ancient Lateran hospital stands near the basilic of that name in Rome, and Saint Landry is said to have first founded in this manner the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, near his cathedral, the church of our Lady, upon the spot where the palace of Erchinoald, mayor of the palace, before stood. That hospital is served by one hundred nuns, and fifty novices of the order of Hospitallers, following the rule of St. Austin. They watch almost every motion of the poor patients with incredible tenderness and patience, giving them all allowances if not contrary to their health. This hospital seems the largest in the world for the sick, but it is too much crowded for want of space; that at Milan is more numerous, but receives the poor that are well. But the hospitals of the Holy Ghost, and of St. Philip Neri at Rome, seem the best regulated in the universe See Henschenius and Papebroke, t. 2, Junij, p. 293.

St. Landry was buried in the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, which was then called St. Vincent’s, as was also the church and abbey since called of St. Germain-des Prez. His relics are kept in a silver shrine in the same church of St. Germain-l’Auxerrois, except two bones which were given in 1408 to the parish church of St. Landry, which was originally a chapel near the saint’s house in which he was accustomed to pray. St. Landry subscribed, with twenty-three other bishops, the charter given by Clovis II. in 653 to the monastery of St. Denys, the original of which, written on Egyptian paper, is still preserved.¹ He is honored with an office in the new Paris Breviary.*

B. Henry of Treviso, C.

He was a native of Bolsano, in the mountainous part of Tirol, between Trent and Brescia, and of mean extraction. The poverty of his parents deprived him of the advantage of a school education, but from his infancy he studied earnestly to improve every day in the love of God, the true science of a Christian. In quest of work he left Bolsano in his youth, and settled at Treviso, the capital city of a province in the Venetian territories. He gained his bread by day-labor, to which he applied himself with unwearied cheerfulness, and which he sanctified by a spirit of penance and recollection. He could not read, but he never failed to assist at all sermons and instructions as much as it lay in his power to do; and by his earnestness and attention he always reaped great advantage from whatever he heard relating to piety. He was diligent in attending at the whole divine office, and all public prayer whenever he could: he heard mass every day with an edifying devotion, and when at work joined in desire with those who had the happiness to be always employed in singing the divine praises at the foot of the altars. All the time that was not employed in labor and necessary duties, he spent in his devotions either in the church or in private, having his beads always in his hands. Under his painful and assiduous labor he led a most abstemious life, and secretly gave all that he was able to save of his wages to the poor. He studied always to conceal his devotions and other virtues from the eyes of men; but through the veil of his extreme humility they spread the brighter rays. Such was his meekness that under sickness or other afflictions, nothing that could savor of complaint or murmuring was ever heard from his mouth; he was an utter stranger to all resentment, and was sweet and affable to the whole world. When children or others reviled and insulted him, he made no other return than by good words, and by praying for them. He frequented the sacraments with extraordinary devotion, and went every day to confession; not out of scrupulosity, either magnifying small imperfections into great sins, or apprehending sin by a disordered imagination where a sound judgment discovers no shadow of evil, but out of a great desire of preserving the utmost purity of conscience, that his soul might be worthy to praise Him who is infinite purity and sanctity, and before whom the very angels are not without spot, that, is, they appear all imperfection if compared to him. The saint was so solicitous to give all his actions to God with the most pure and perfect intention, that he feared a fault of immortification or idle curiosity in a glance of the eye to look at the flight of a bird if it any way distracted his mind, or hindered his recollection and attention to God at his work. When by old age he was no longer able to follow his day-labor, a certain pious lawyer gave him a lodging in his own house, and the servant of God lived by daily alms that were sent him, of which he never reserved any thing to the next day; but what he retrenched from his own meal he gave away to those whom he thought in the greatest distress. He died on the 10th of June, 1315. An incredible concourse of people resorted to the little chamber in which his body lay exposed, and three notaries, appointed by the magistrates to take in writing an account of the miracles wrought by God at his relics, compiled a few days before his burial a relation of two hundred and seventy-six. Out of devotion to his memory every one sought to obtain some little part of his small furniture, which consisted only of a hair-shirt, a log of wood which served him for a pillow, and twigs, cords, and straw, which made up his hard bed. The Italians call him St. Rigo, the diminutive of the name Arrigo, or Henry. See his life written by Dominic, bishop of Treviso, an eye-witness of his virtues, in the Bolland., t. 20, ad Junij, 10, p 368 and Contin. of Fleury’s Eccles. History.

* In recompense the king created him high steward of Scotland, from which office his posterity took their surname of Stuart: they came to the crown in king Robert II., nephew to king David Bruce, or David II. in 1371

¹ Fordun, Scoti-chron., l. 5, c. 17, vol. 2, p. 417.

² Fordun, Scoti-chron. ed. Hearne, t. 2, 1. 5, c. 21, p. 425.

³ See Bolland. Acta Sanct

* Maud, the daughter of St. Margaret, and first wife to Henry I. of England, so faithfully imitated the humility, charity, and other virtues of our saint, that she has been ranked by our ancestors in the catalogue of the saints, on the 30th of April. She built two great hospitals in London; that of Christ’s-Church within Aldgate, and that called St. Giles’s, und was buried at Westminister, near the body of St. Edward the Confessor. (See Hoveden, ad an 1118; Westin. et Paris eodem anno.) As to the surviving sons of St. Margaret, after a short usurpation of Duncan, Edgar reigned in peace nine years, reverenced by all the good, and feared by the bad. Alexander I. succeeding him, with uncommon bravery extinguished several rebellions in the beginning of his reign; after which he built several churches and monasteries, particularly one in the isle of Emona, in honor of St. Colm, endowing them, and principally the church of St. Andrew, with large revenues. He filled the throne seventeen years. After him David I. reigned twenty-nine years. He equalled the most pious of his predecessors in condescension and charity to the poor, and surpassed them all in prudence and justice, condemning his judges most rigorously in cases of false judgment. He founded and endowed four bishoprics, namely, those of Ross, Brechin, Dunkelden, and Dun blaine; and fourteen abbeys, six of which were of the Cistercian order. After the death of his virtuous wife Sibyl, niece to William the Conqueror, he lived twenty years a widower. He bore the death of his own most hopeful son with astonishing patience amidst the mourning of the whole kingdom. Upon that occasion he invited the chief nobility to supper, and comforted them, saying, “That it would be foolish and impious to repine in any thing whatever, at the will of God, which is always most holy, just, and wise; and that seeing good men must die, we ought to comfort ourselves, because no evil can happen to their that serve God, either alive or dead.” He recommended his three grandsons, especially Malcolm the eldest, to the nobility, and afterwards died in that greatest sentiments of piety at Carlisle, on the 29th of May, 1153. His name was placed among the saints in many Scottish calendars. His grandson king Malcolm IV., surnamed the Maiden, is also esteemed a saint. He was so great a lover of peace that he bore the most manifest wrongs rather than he would see a war lighted up. He built many churches and mouas teries, and was remarkable for his angelical purity, meekness, and humility. His extraordinary virtues are highly extolled by Neubrigensis, one of our most exact historians, l. 1, c. 25, l. 2 c. 18, and Fordun, forces p. 689 to 700 ed. Hearne.

⁴ In Cone Mediol. v., parte 3.

¹ See Mabill. Diplomatica, l 5, tab. 17, l. 6, n. 7.

* By the order of St. Landry, Marculphus, a monk of Paris, wrote in 660, Formularum Ecclesiasticarum libri duo, published with notes by Bignon, and again by Baluze. They contain copies of charters, recommondatory letters of bishops, and the like.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 536–545). New York: P. J. Kenedy.