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pubOne.info present you this wonderfully illustrated edition. MARGARET OF SCOTLAND, ATHELING- QUEEN AND SAIN

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819939443
Langue	English

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ROYAL EDINBURGH
HER SAINTS, KINGS, PROPHETS AND POETS
ROYAL EDINBURGH
{1}

QUEEN MARGARET'S CHAPEL, EDINBURGH CASTLE.
PART I
MARGARET OF SCOTLAND, ATHELING— QUEEN AND SAINT
It is strange yet scarcely difficult to theimagination to realise the first embodiment of what is nowEdinburgh in the far distance of the early ages. Neither Pict norScot has left any record of what was going on so far south in thedays when the king's daughters, primitive princesses with theirrude surroundings, were placed for safety in the castrumpuellarum , the maiden castle, a title in after days{2} proudly(but perhaps not very justly) adapted to the supposedinvulnerability of the fortress perched upon its rock. Very nearlyinvulnerable, however, it must have been in the days beforeartillery; too much so at least for one shut-up princess, whocomplained of her lofty prison as a place without verdure. If wemay believe, notwithstanding the protest of that much-deceivedantiquary the Laird of Monkbarns, that these fair and forlornladies were the first royal inhabitants of the Castle of Edinburgh,we may imagine that they watched from their battlements morewistfully than fearfully, over all the wide plain, what dust mightrise or spears might gleam, or whether any galley might be visibleof reiver or rescuer from the north. A little collection of huts orrude forts here and there would be all that broke the sweeping lineof Lothian to the east or west, and all that width of landscapewould lie under the eyes of the watchers, giving long notice of theapproach of any enemies. “Out over the Forth I look to the north, ”the maidens might sing, looking across to Dunfermline, wherealready there was some royal state, or towards the faint lines ofmountains in the distance, over the soft swelling heights of theLomonds. No doubt Edinburgh, Edwinesburgh, or whatever theantiquaries imagine it to have been, must have been sadly dull ifsafe, suspended high upon the rock, nearer heaven than earth. It iscurious to hear that it was “without verdure”; but perhaps theyoung ladies took no account of the trees that clothed theprecipices below them, or the greenness that edged the Nor' Lochdeep at their feet, but sighed for the gardens and luxuriance ofDunfermline, where all was green about their windows and thewinding pathways of the dell of Pittendreich would be pleasant towander in. This first romantic aspect of the Castle of Edinburghis, however, merely traditional, and the first real and authenticappearance of the old fortress and {3}city in history is in therecord, at once a sacred legend and a valuable historicalchronicle, of the life of Margaret the Atheling, the first ofseveral Queen Margarets, the woman saint and blessed patroness ofScotland, who has bequeathed not only many benefits and foundationsof after good to her adopted country, but her name— perhaps amongScotswomen still the most common of all Christian names.
No more moving and delightful story was ever writtenor invented than the history of this saint and Queen. She was thedaughter of Edward, called the Outlaw, and of his wife a princessof Hungary, of the race which afterwards produced St. Elizabeth:and the sister of Edgar Atheling, the feeble but rightful heir ofthe Saxon line, and consequently of the English throne. The family,however, was more foreign than English, having been brought up atthe Court of their grandfather, the King of Hungary, one of themost pious and one of the richest Courts in Christendom; and it wasnot unnatural that when convinced of the fact that the mostlegitimate of aspirants had no chance against the force of William,they should prefer to return to the country of their education andbirth. It was no doubt a somewhat forlorn party that set out uponthis journey, for to lose a throne is seldom a misfortune acceptedwith equanimity, and several of the beaten and despondent Saxonshad joined the royal exiles. Their voyage, however, was anunprosperous one, and after much beating about by winds and stormsthey were at last driven up the Firth of Forth, where their shipfound shelter in the little bay at the narrowing of the Firth,which has since borne the name of St. Margaret's Hope.
Lying here in shelter from all the winds behind theprotecting promontory, with perhaps already some humble shrine orhermit's cell upon Inchgarvie or Inchcolm to give them promise ofChristian kindness, with the lonely rock of {4}Edinburgh in thedistance on one side, and the soft slopes of the Fife coast risingtowards the King's palace at Dunfermline on the other, thetravellers must have awaited with some anxiety, yet probably muchhope, the notice of the barbaric people who came to the beach tostare at their weather-beaten ships, and hurried off to carry thenews inland of such unwonted visitors. It is the very spot which isnow disturbed and changed by the monstrous cobwebs of iron whichbear the weight of the Forth Bridge and make an end for ever of theQueen's Ferry, which Margaret must have crossed so often, and bywhich a personage more familiar, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, once, as weall know, made his way to the North; but these are modernreflections such as have nothing to do with that primitive morning,fresh no doubt as to-day with sun and dew, when Malcolm'smessengers came hurrying down to see what were these intruders, andwhat their purpose, and whether anything was to be apprehended froma visit apparently so unusual. The eager and curious emissaries hadapparently no warrant to board the strangers, but gazed andwondered at the big ship and all its equipments, so unlike theirown rude galleys; then hastened back again with an excited andexciting description of the greatness of the passengers on boardand all their splendid array. Malcolm, cautious yet excited too,sent forth, as we are told in the Scotichronicon , “hiswisest councillors” to make further inquiries. They too wereastonished by the splendour of all they saw, and especially by themien of a certain lady among these strangers, “whom, by herincomparable beauty, and the pleasantness of her jocund speech, Iimagined to be the chief of the family, ” said the spokesman; “norwas it wonderful, ” adds the chronicler, “that they should believeher to be the chief who was destined to be Queen of Scotland andalso heir of England. ” Perhaps it was the after light of theseevents that conveyed that high appreciation of Margaret's qualitiesinto the story, for she must have been quite young, and it is veryunlikely that in presence of her mother, and the brother whom theyall considered as the King of England, a young girl, howevergifted, would have taken upon her the chief place. {5}

PILLAR IN NAVE, DUNFERMLINE ABBEY
{6}The report he received, however, had so mucheffect upon King Malcolm that he went himself to visit thestrangers in their ship. He was not a mere barbaric prince, to bedazzled by the sight of these great persons, but no doubt had manya lingering recollection in his mind of Siward's great house inNorthumberland, where he had taken refuge after his father'smurder. It is curious and bewildering to go back in that dawn ofnational life to familiar Shaksperian regions, and to think thatthis primitive King who had so much in him of the savage, alongwith all his love and gentleness, was the son of that graciousDuncan who addressed his hostess like a kingly gentleman though herhospitality was to be so fatal. King Malcolm came down, no doubtwith such state as he could muster, to see the wandering foreignprinces. He was not unlearned, but knew Latin and the Englishtongue, though he could not read, as we are afterwards told. He hadalready reigned for fourteen years, after about as long a period ofexile, so that he could not now be in his first youth, although hewas still unmarried. He came down with his suite to the shore amidall the stir of the inquiring country folk, gathered about to seethis strange thing— the ship with its unusual equipments, and thegroup of noble persons in their fine clothes who were to be seenupon the deck. The Athelings were carrying back with them toHungary all the gifts with which the Emperor, Henry III, had loadedtheir father when he went to England, and had jewels and vessels ofgold and many fine things unknown to the Scots. And Margaret, eventhough not so prominent as the chroniclers say, was evidently bythe consent of all a most gracious and courteous young lady, withunusual grace and vivacity of speech. The grave middle-aged King,with his recollections of a society more advanced than his own,which probably had made him long for something better than his rudecourtiers could supply, would seem at once to have fallen under thespell of the wandering princess. She was such a mate as a poorScots King, badgered by turbulent clans, could scarcely have hopedto find— rich and fair and young, and of the best blood inChristendom. Whether the wooing was as short as the record we haveno means of knowing, but in the same year, 1070, Margaret wasbrought with great rejoicing to Dunfermline, and there married toher King, amid the general joy. {7}

DUNFERMLINE ABBEY
{8}The royal house at Dunfermline, according to thechronicle, was surrounded by a dense forest and guarded by immensecliffs. The latter particular, however, it is difficult to accept,for the dell in which the ruins of the mediæval palace (a buildingmuch more recent, it is needless to say, than that of Malcolm)still stand, though picturesque in its acclivities and precipices,is as far as possible from including any cliffs that could becalled immense. The young Queen made a great change in the internalarrangements of what was no doubt a grim stronghold enough, soft aswas the country around. Probably the absence of decoration andornament struck her painfully, accustomed as she was to palaces ofa very different kind— for almost the first thing we hear in thecontemporary history written by her confessor Theodoric, afterwardsa monk at Durham, is of the workshops and rooms f