This is the fourth of a series of ten 'cameo' articles that appeared in The Scottish Field magazine beginning in December 1990 issue. These articles were intended to be provocative. Tranter has dealt with this subject in much greater depth in novel, Margaret the Queen. I'll add my two-cents' worth after the master storyteller has made his point.       Rory Mor.

      MARGARET the Saint. Was she one? The Romish Church thought so, as well it might, and canonised her after her death. But was she a blessing indeed, or something of a disaster for Scotland?

      Margaret Atheling, sister of the true heir to the English throne, Edward, who had been dispossessed by William the Conqueror, was a beautiful, clever, kind and attractive woman, who came to be well-loved by the common people of her adopted country.

      That adoption was dramatic, to say the least. After an abortive attempt to win back his throne from the Conqueror, Edward Atheling was on his depressed way back to his refuge in Hungary with his mother and two sisters, when a storm dispersed his fleet and his own ship was driven helplessly northwards and wrecked at Jarrow in Northumberland.

      And it so happened that King Malcolm Canmore was then at his favourite sport of raiding into England, and he captured the Athelings. What he would have done with them is unclear (for he is no gentle character), had he not fallen headlong for Margaret's good looks. He packed them all off to his palace of Dunfermline in Fife, and carried on with his reiving and ravishment.

      When Malcolm returned home, he decided to marry Margaret. Mind you, he already had a wife and two children. But he sent the queen packing, up to Kincardine in the Mearns where she died six weeks later, "not without suspicion of poison." So Margaret suddenly became Queen of Scotland, as it were by accident, instead of returning to Hungary.

      But that young woman saw this as no accident; it was the hand of God. She was a very strong Catholic, granddaughter indeed of St. Stephen of Hungary. God must have sent her to Scotland for some purpose, some major purpose. And she esteemed that it could only be for the replacing of the native Celtic, or Columban, Church by the Romish one. After all, it was obviously in error. It did not recognise the Pope as the Vicar of Christ; and it celebrated Easter six days earlier than did Rome. So this she would make her life's work -- and her boorish husband did not care one way or the other.

      Single-handed, this extraordinary young woman set herself to pull down the Church Columba had founded five hundred years before -- the Church of Scotland -- and to substitute it with the Church of Rome. That she was able to succeed in this is scarcely believable, but she did. Of course, by its very nature, the Celtic Church was without any centralised or supreme leadership, being of a monastic system, non-hierarchical, governed only by the abbots of many monasteries. So there was no leading figure to oppose her, the Queen. And she was as astute as she was determined, and could call on major help from Rome. At any rate, she won.

     The question is -- did Margaret serve Scotland well or ill? There are differing views on that, of course, but the fact remains that the old Celtic Church suited the Scots character as the Romish one never could, the former not exactly democratic but with no command system, no hierarchy of Pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops and the rest, instead placing more influence with the people, the congregations who were allowed to decide how they wanted to worship.

      The thought cannot fail to occur -- would the Reformation ever have been necessary had Margaret not done what she did. Possibly not, for while the Romish Church in Scotland had become grievously corrupt, its leaders obsessed with power, prestige and wealth, this could scarcely have happened with the old Church, by its very structure.

     It's a thought, isn't it, that but for a storm at sea we might never have had a John Knox, Covenanters, even the Presbyterian Church, or the Episcopalian one either, and we might all still be Culdees -- that is 'Keledei', the Friends of God.

     Think of that the next time you cross the Forth Road Bridge at Queensferry -- for that was Queen Margaret's Ferry instituted by her to take pilgrims to her fine new Romish Abbey of Dunfermline, the first great stone cathedral-like kirk in Scotland.

      In his novel, Margaret the Queen, Tranter describes how the new Queen of Scots worked to bring Saxon customs including the language of the Saxons to the court as well as their religion. But could one woman, albeit a much admired queen, change the language of a nation so completely that English had become the dominant language less than 200 years later? Not by herself, of course. But just as she set the forces in motion that resulted in the rise of the Romish Church, so did she do the same for 'Inglis' as English was first called in Scotland. The first of these forces was her sons, particularly her youngest, David whose actions are discussed next. .