The 24th Thursday after Trinity

Margaret was born around 1046, the daughter of Edward Ætheling (son of King Edmund Ironside of England) and Agatha, a woman of Central European (possibly German and Hungarian) descent. She was thus a granddaughter of the Anglo-Saxon royal house of Wessex. When her father died, she and her family lived in Hungary, where she received an excellent education in languages, theology, and classical learning unusual for a woman of her time.

After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Margaret's family was displaced. Her mother Agatha and her brother Edgar (who had some claim to the Anglo-Saxon throne) sought refuge in Scotland. They sailed north and were shipwrecked on the Scottish coast in 1068, where they came under the protection of King Malcolm III of Scotland. Malcolm, who had been living in exile in England and had ties to the Norman court, was establishing his rule after reclaiming the Scottish throne. He was impressed by Margaret's learning, piety, and noble bearing, and he married her in 1070.

Margaret became a powerful influence at the Scottish court. Though she lived less than a quarter-century (she died in 1093), her impact was profound and long-lasting. She was known for her personal asceticism—she spent long hours in prayer, practiced fasting, and wore a hair shirt under her royal robes. Yet she balanced this asceticism with a clear-eyed commitment to her role as queen. She bore Malcolm at least eight children, several of whom became kings or church leaders, ensuring that her reforming legacy would be carried forward by her descendants.

Margaret's principal work was ecclesiastical reform. At the time she arrived in Scotland, the Scottish church, though Christian, had developed distinctive practices that diverged from Roman practice. The Scottish church used different dating for Easter, had different liturgical practices, and had a form of celibacy obligation that differed from the strictures of the Continental reform movements. Malcolm and Margaret, encouraged by the papacy and influenced by Continental reform ideology, worked to align Scottish practice with Rome. Margaret hosted church councils where she advocated (through Malcolm, since women typically did not speak in councils) for the adoption of Roman practices. These councils reformed Scottish ecclesiastical discipline, standardized the liturgy, and brought Scottish monasteries into line with Continental monastic reform.

In addition to her reforming work, Margaret was celebrated for her personal charity and her patronage of the poor. She is described in contemporary sources as having regularly tended to sick people and lepers with her own hands, distributed alms to the poor daily, and in times of famine provided food from the royal stores. She also patronized the building or rebuilding of churches and monasteries and supported pilgrimage and the veneration of relics.

Margaret died on November 16, 1093, in Edinburgh Castle, shortly after hearing of her husband Malcolm's death in battle. She was buried at Dunfermline Abbey, a monastery she had greatly patronized. She was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1250, about 157 years after her death.

Margaret is traditionally remembered as a model of royal piety, ascetic virtue, and pastoral concern for the poor. According to Turgot, miracles of healing occurred at her tomb almost immediately. Her personal gospel book (now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) survives as a physical relic with historical attestation—a manuscript that belonged to her during her lifetime.

Turgot records various acts of piety: Margaret's daily communion and frequent attendance at Mass, her practice of washing the feet of poor pilgrims, her fasting, and her personal care for the sick and needy. She is particularly remembered for her charity during times of famine, when she allegedly provided food from the royal stores, reportedly saying that the poor were Christ in disguise. One tradition records that she refused to eat until the hungry had been fed.

Margaret's role in Scottish ecclesiastical reform became part of her hagiographic identity. She is remembered as the woman who brought the Scottish church into alignment with Continental practice and papal authority. This reform work was gradually carried forward by her sons and grandsons, ensuring that her influence shaped Scottish Christianity for generations.