Margaret of Scotland

Granddaughter of the Anglo-Saxon king Edmund Ironside, born around 1045 in Hungary where her family was exiled, she returned to England and then fled the Norman conquest of 1066. The ship carrying her was driven by a storm to Scotland, where king Malcolm III received and married her around 1070. As queen she set about aligning the Scottish Church with Roman usage — the date of Easter, Lent, the Easter communion — convening synods at which she argued the case herself. She founded the abbey of Dunfermline, restored that of Iona, and established a free ferry for pilgrims crossing the Forth, whose name survives at Queensferry. Chronicles report that she served the poor with her own hands before eating and ransomed English captives. She died in 1093, three days after her husband and eldest son were killed in battle. Canonised in 1250 and patroness of Scotland, she is commemorated on 16 November.