Two Saints in One Act

Last night, while sipping my after-dinner tea, I read a short biography of Saint Margaret of Scotland written by Turgot, Bishop of St. Andrews, and translated from the Latin by William Forbes-Leith, S.J. Margaret, who was born in Hungary in about 1045, and who, in addition to her saintly role, was the queen consort of Scotland, is my 26th great-grandmother. If you are wondering how a girl from New Bedford of Azorean-Portuguese descent came to include a Scottish queen among her ancestors, let me tell you that it is no big deal. Anyone of European ancestry who can take her genealogy back to the Middle Ages is more likely than not to find royal ancestors. There were a lot of royals, and details about their lives were recorded and kept. They are the stuff of TV mini-series, and if you find a connection to one of them then you are probably connected to most of them. How? Probably not through the royal sons, who may have gained or lost territorial holdings by going to war, but through the daughters, who were sent off at very young ages to marry dukes, kings, and emperors and to turn kingdoms into empires. No, having a queen as an ancestor is no big deal, but a saint in the family tree is a whole different story. 

Margaret was an English princess, the daughter of Edward the Exile, who had been forced to leave England after the Battle of Hastings. When the family attempted to return to England, which was then controlled by the Normans, a storm caused their ship to reroute to Scotland, where they sought shelter at the court of King Malcolm—yes, that Malcolm, the one who appears as a major character in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Those were violent years, but one thing led to another, and soon Malcolm asked Margaret to accept his hand in marriage. Margaret had been hoping for a religious life but was eventually persuaded to accept Malcolm’s offer. “She had no sooner attained this eminent dignity,” Turbot writes, “than she built an eternal memorial of her name and devotion in the place where her nuptials had been held.” 

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, and their marriage was a happy one. King Malcolm was not a religious man, but he adored his wife and supported her charitable work and her efforts to bring the Scottish church into conformity with the churches on the continent. “Thus it came to pass,” Turbot writes, “that this venerable Queen, who (by God’s help), had been so desirous to cleanse His house from all filth and error, was found day by day worthier of becoming His temple, as the Holy Spirit shone ever brighter in her heart.” She prayed, she fasted, and she was merciful. According to her biographer, “Not only would she have given to the poor all that she possessed, but if she could have done so, she would have given her very self away.” 

Margaret was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1250. She led a holy life, reformed the church, and fed the poor. Her history may seem a little light on miracles, although a story has been told about a book of hers, a beautifully adorned holy book, that was accidentally dropped into the middle of a ford and was later “taken up from the middle of the river so perfect, so uninjured, so free from damage that it looked as if it had not been touched by the water.” That was, I suppose, a miracle. But here is what impresses me the most (and I am again quoting from Turbot): 

“Since the church of St. Andrews was much frequented by the devout, who flocked to it from all quarters, she erected dwellings on either shore of the sea which divides Lothian from Scotland, so that the poor people and the pilgrims might shelter there and rest themselves after the fatigues of their journey. She had arranged that they should there find all that they needed for the refreshment of the body. . . . Moreover, she provided ships for the transport of these pilgrims both coming and going, nor was it lawful to demand any fee for the passage from those who were crossing.“

That ferry across the Firth of Forth was in operation until 1964, when a bridge was built. 

All of this reminds me of another saint, although an uncanonized one. I’m thinking about Edna St. Vincent Millay, called “Vincent” by her friends, who wrote a poem titled “Recuerdo” in which two people, very tired and merry, go “back and forth all night on the ferry.” They lie on the grass, they look at the sky, and they eat a couple of the apples and pears they have just purchased. In the last stanza, they meet an old woman and give her their remaining apples and pears. She weeps and says “God bless you.” Millay ends the poem by saying “And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.” If that isn’t saintly behavior, what is? 

You can read the Millay poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14404/recuerdo

And if you ever find yourself at the Firth of Forth, you can go back and forth all night on the magnificent Forth Road Bridge.