I MUST take issue with some of Iain Forde’s claims regarding Saint Margaret. First, it is most unlikely that the only languages she knew were Hungarian and Latin. Her father, known as Edward the Exile, was of the English royal line and had a claim to the throne. Though most of his life had been spent in Hungary, it is surely unlikely that he would not have made himself familiar with the language of the kingdom he hoped to inherit, and ensured that his children knew it as well.
Since Malcolm had certainly become fluent in English while exiled in England during Macbeth’s reign, English was the language which he and Margaret shared: mediaeval liturgical Latin is hardly what one thinks of as a language for intimate domestic conversation.
READ MORE: Malcolm Canmore, the Great Chief who was married to St Margaret
Next, there is no evidence that Margaret was actually hostile to the Gaelic language and its culture, or even to the Celtic church except to the extent that the latter had (as seems clear) become lax and worldly. That she was personally responsible for actively promoting reforms is certain, but these reforms – enthusiastically pursued in the reigns of her sons – had the result of bringing Scotland into the mainstream of religious, political and cultural developments affecting all Europe: of developing the kingdom into a fully-fledged European state. And though her canonisation by the Pope was in part for her introducing Roman practices to Scotland, she was already regarded as a saint in her husband’s kingdom.
Finally, Mr Forde’s statement that there were five kings in five years after Margaret’s death is mistaken: there were three; Donald III (Malcolm’s brother), Duncan II (his son by his first wife) and Edgar (his eldest surviving son by Margaret). And in any event, Margaret is hardly responsible for what happened after her death.
Iain Forde rightly praises Hamish MacPherson and other modern historians for correcting the age-old notion that Scotland was a backward and barbaric state until civilising influences from England had their beneficial effect. But we should not fall into the opposite error of seeing all cultural influence from the south as a betrayal of some true and original Scottish identity, and attacking major historical figures, Margaret being far from the only example, on this ground.
Derrick McClure
Aberdeen
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