barbarism of the Scottish court. She was magnificent
in her own attire ; she increased the number
of persons in attendance on the king, and caused
him to be served at table in gold and silver plate.
She was canonised by Innocent IV. in 1251. For
several ages the apartment in which she expired
was known as ?ye blessit Margaret?s chalmer? (i.e.,
chamber). A fountain on the west side of the
fortress long bore her name; and a small guardhouse
on the western ramparts is still called the
Queen?s, or St. biargaret?s, Post.
The complete restoration of her oratory (says an
Edinburgh Courant of 1853) ?has been effected
in a very satisfactory manner, under the superintendence
of Mr. Grant. The modern western
entrance has been built up, and an .ancient one
re-opened at the north-west corner of the nave.
Here a new doorway has been built in the same
style with the rest of the building. The three
small round-headed windows have been filled with
stained glass-the light in the south side of the
apse representing St. Margaret, the two in the
side of the nave showing her husband, King
Malcolm Canmore and their son St. David, and
the light in the west gable of the nay having
a cross and the sacred monogram with this inscription
:-Hac ediczda oZim Beafce Margaretce
Regim Scofia, puce obiit M.XCIII., ingrate $atria
izqli&zfia Zapsa, Victorire Rpmz prognatre auspiciis
restitufa, A. D. MUCCCLII..?
St. Margaret had scarcely expired, when Bishop
Turgot, her children, and the whole court, were filled
with terror, on finding the fortress environed by an
army composed of fierce western Highlanders, ?clad
in the dun deer?s hide, striped breacan, and hauberks
(or lurichs) of jingling rings,? and led by
Donald Bane, or the fair-haired, the younger brother
of Malcolm III., who had fled to the Hebrides, as
the latter did to England, on the usurpation by
Macbeth.
Without opposition he had himself proclaimed
king, and ,promised to give the Hebrides and other
isles to Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, for assistance
if it were required.
He had resolved to put the orphan children of
Malcolm to death, but believing that egress from
the fortress on the steep could only be had by the
gates facing the little town, he guarded them alone.
The children thus escaped by a western postern,
and fled to England, where they found protection
with their uncle, Edgar Atheling. The two princesses
were afterwards married : Mary to Eustace,
Count of Boulogne, the great Crusader; and
Matilda to Henry of England-a union extremely
popular with the Saxon people.
By the same postern Turgot and others carefully
and reverentlyconveyed the body of the queen,
and carried it ? to Dunfermline, in the woods; and
that Heaven might have some share in protecting
remains so sacred, the legendaries record that a
miraculous mist arose frow the earth, concealing
the bishop, the royal corpse, and its awe-stricken
bearers, from the half-savage Donald and his redhaired
Islesmen, and did pot pass away until they
had crossed in safety the Passagkm Repine, or
Queen?s Ferry, nine miles distant, where Margaret
had granted land for the maintenance of a passage
boat ?-a grant still in force.
She was buried at Dunfermline, under the great
block of grey marble which still marks her grave ;
and in the sides thereof may yet be seen the
sockets of the silver lamps which, after her canonisation,
burned there until the Reformation, when the
Abbot of Dunfermline fled to the Castle of Edinburgh
with her head in a jewelled coffer, and gave
it to some Jesuits, who took it to Antwerp. From
thence it was borne to the Escurial in Spain, where
it is still preserved by the monks of St. Jerome.
Her son xdgar, a prince of talent and valour,
recovered the throne by his sword, and took up
his residence in the Castle of Edinburgh, where
he had seen his mother expire, and where he, too,
passed away, on the 8th of January, 1107. The
register of the Priory of St. Andrews, in recording
his demise, has these words :-? Moriuus in Dun-
Edin, est sepuZfus in Dunfe~ndikg.?
On his death-bed he bequeathed that part of
Cumberland which the kings of Scotland possessed
to his younger brother David. Alexander I., surnamed
the Fierce,? eldest brother of the latter,
was disposed to dispute the validity of this donation
; but perceiving that David had won over the
English barons to his interest, he acquiesced in this
partial dismemberment of the kingdom.
It is in the reign of this monarch, in the first
years of the twelfth century, that the first notices
of Edinburgh as a royal city and residence are
most distinctly found, while? in that of his successor,
David I., crowned in 1124 after being long
resident at the court of his sister Matilda, where,
according to Malmesbury, ?his manners were polished
fiom the rust of Scottish barbarity,? and
where he married Matilda daughter of Waltheof,
Earl of Northumberland, we discover the origin
of many of the most important local features still
surviving. He founded the abbey of Holyrood,
called by Fordun ?? Monastmirm Sancfre Cmcis de
Crag.? This convent, the precursor of the great
abbey, he is said to have placed at first within the
Castle, and some of the earliest gifts of its saintly
