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16 1« ST. MARGARET and always regarded with great venera- tion. It was of gold set with large diamonds and contained a piece of the actual cross of Christ. She devoutly kissed and contemplated it, and when she was cold with the chill of death, she still held it in both hands and kept praying and saying the fifty-first psalm. Her son Edgar, who had gone with the king to Northumberland, came into her room to tell her of the death of his father and brother. Seeing his mother was dying, he was afraid to tell her the sad news ; but she said, " I know, I know, I conjure yon to tell me the truth," and having heard it, she praised God and died, and her pale face recovered its fair and rosy colour. The continuation of the AnncUs of Tighernac say, " Mael- colaim, son of Duncan, king of Scotland, is slain by the Normans, and P]dward his son, and Marita the wife of Maelcolaim died of grief." The Annals of Ulster for 1093 say, « Maelcolaim Mcic Donnocha sovereign of Alban and Echbarda his son, slain by the Franks. His queen, viz. Margarita, died through grief before the end of [three] days." While her body still lay in Edinburgh Castle, Malcolm's brother, Donald Bane, assisted by the King of Norway, attacked the castle, but he only watched the gate, thinking the other parts of the fortifica- tion inaccessible. By the merits of this great Saint, her family and her faithful attendants escaped by a postern called the West Yheiy taking with them the revered corpse. A thick mist hid them from the enemy. They crossed the sea and arrived without hindrance at Dun- fermline, where they buried her according to her own wish. Donald Bane kept the kingdom. Edgar the Athcling took Margaret's children to England, and for fear of the Normans, gave them privately to friends and relations to be brought up. He afterwards helped to restore them to their country. Malcolm and Margaret had six sods and two daughters : Edward, killed with his father at Alnwick; Edmund, who reigned with his uncle, Donald Bane, for three years and died a monk at Montacute in Somersetshire; Ethelred, lay abbot of Dunkeld and earl of Fife ; Edgar, king 1097-1107; Alexander, king 1107-1124; David (St.), king 1124-1153; Mald (St. Matilda (4)), married Henry I., king of England; and Mary, married Eustace, count of Boulogne. ''The zere of Grod a thousand Ixvj zoris Malcolm ye sonne of Duncan tuke ye rewmm of Scotland in Heritage and rignyt xxxvj zeris. The yere of Christ a thousand Ixvj Mergret ye Quvenne was spowsyt wyt Malcolm and had six sonnys and twa dochtiris, Maid Quvenne of Ingland, and Marie Cowntasie of Balanne " (Chron, of the Scots,), Margaret was worshipped without authority until 1250, when Innocent IV. solemnly approved her cult and ordered her sacred body to be translated from its first tomb. On July 19, 1297, all the arrangements being made, the men who were appointed to raise the body, found it impossible to do so ; stronger men were ordered to lift it and tried in vain; still more men were brought, but all their strength was unavailing. Evidently the saint objected to what was being done. The clergy and all present prayed earnestly that the mys- terious opposition might cease and the sacred rite be completed. After some time an inspiration was granted to a devout member of the congregation; namely, that the saint did not wish to be separated from her husband. As soon as they began to take up his coffin, that of his dutiful wife became quite light and easy to move, and both were laid on one bier and translated with ease to the honourable place prepared for them under the high aJtar. In 1 693 Innocent XII. transferred Margaret's festival from the day of her death to June 10. The bodies are said by Pape- broch (AA,SS,) to have been acquired by Philip II., king of Spain (1556- 1598), who placed them in the church of St. Lawrence in his new palace of the Escurial in two urns. The head of St. Margaret, after being in the possession of her descendant Queen^Mary Stuart, was secreted for many years by a Bene- dictine monk in Fife; thence it passed