land; with Elogiums on her Children, David, King of Scotland, and Mathilda, Queen of England, also a Postscript clearly proving Charles II.'s Right and Title to the Crown of England.' "It is in small 8vo, and now very rare. A copy was priced lately in a catalogue at £2, 12s. 6d. A Life of this Saint was, I understand, written in Spanish in 1617, and also in Italian in 1674. "Memoires" of her also appeared in French in 1629, but I have never fallen in with them. They must be all very scarce. T. G. S. "Edinburgh." Having a copy of this rare book, for which I paid two guineas, a few extracts from it relative to the last illness and death of Queen Margaret in Edinburgh Castle, the transportation of the coffer containing her head and hair, and some other movables, reputed by her admirers of great value, into the castle of the baron of Dury in this parish, and thence to Antwerp, and afterwards to the Scotch College of Douay in France, briefly noticed at pp. 131-2 of the first volume, may be appropriate and acceptable to some readers. She appear'd four dayes before her death sadder than usual, and told those that were by, that there had happened to the kingdome of Sco.land the greatest misfortune that had been heard of for a long time. The event proved that the queen's words proceeded not from a fit of raverie; for, two dayes after she spoke them, newes came that her husband and her eldest son were kill'd at the castle of Anwick by the treachery of the governour. The violence of her sickness relented a little the last day of her life, and allowed her so much strength as to go to the chapel, where she made a general confession of her whole life, heard mass, and received the most holy sacrament as her last viatick. In the interim, her son Edgar came from the camp; and as he dissembled the death of his father and brother, she conjured him to tell her the full truth. He had no sooner given her an account of all that past, but she said, 'I thank thee, O my God, that, in this last period of my life, thou makest my soul pass through these terrible tryalls; but I hope they will serve to cleanse and refine it, and consume the drosse of my sins.' Then she shed some generous tears, which, in such accidents, are not blameable in the noblest courages." "She rendred her soul to her Creator in Edenburgh Castle, the 10th June, about the end of the 11th age. Her visage, which was pale during her sickness, appeared fresh and red after death. Her body was carried, with royal pomp, to the monastery of Dumfermling, and interred in the Church of the most Holy Trinity, built by herself." "Alexander the Third, King of Scotland, having assembled the clergy and nobility, after many prayers and solemn processions, caused the bones of the holy princess, being his great-grandmother, to be put into a chest of silver, enriched with precious stones, and placed it in the noblest part of the church. When the hereticks had stoln into the kingdome, and trampled under foot all divine and humane lawes, seized the sacred moveables of the church, some things of greater veneration and value were saved from their sacriligious hands, by being transported into the castle of Edinburgh. It had been an easy matter to have nipt in the bud all the seditions of those insolent persons; but they gathered so much strength, by the negligence of the magistrates, that, at last, it was impossible to reduce them to their duty. Some more provident, fearing these mad men might assault the castle, being the chief fort of the kingdome, transported the coffre wherein was the head and hair of S. Margaret, and some other moveables of great value, into the castle of the Baron of Dury. This lord of Dury was a reverend father, priest, and monck of Dumfermling, who, after his monastery was pillaged, and the religious forced to fly away, dwelt in the castle. After this venerable personage had very religiously for some years kept this holy pledge, it was in the year 1597 delivered into the hands of the fathers of the society of Jesus, then missioners in Scotland, who, seeing it was in danger to be lost, or prophaned by the seditious hereticks, transported it to Antwerp. The Lord John Malderus, bishop of that city, being unwilling to trust any but himself, that he might know the truth of this relick, examined very diligently, and upon oath, the fathers of the society, gave an authentick attestation, under the seal of his office, dated the 5th of September, 1620, and permitted it to be exposed to the veneration of the people. The same relick was afterwards acknowledged by my lord Paul Boudot, Bishop of Arras, the 4th of September, 1627. In testimony whereof, he offer'd forty dayes indulgence to all those who would pray before the said holy relick. Lastly, on the 4th of March, 1645, our holy Father, Pope Innocent the Tenth, in the first year of his pontificate, gave plenary indulgence to all the faithful, who, having first confess'd and communicated, would pray before this relick, in the chapel of the Scotch college of Doway, for the ordinary ends prescribed by the Church, on the 10th of June, which is the festival of this holy and illustrious Princess. "Some will admire the innocency of her manners in her tender yeares, the rigour which she exercised on her body in her youth, and the prayers wherewith she nourished her soul: Others will consider her great love towards God and holy things, the contempt she had of her own person; her zeal to build churches; her dexterity to reform the abuses that had crept into the kingdome; her submission to follow the orders of her directors: Others will praise the care she took to instruct her children in the Christian faith; her liberality towards the poor; her innocent artifices by which she gain'd and ruled her husband's spirit, and engraved devotion in it. Methinks I have made a sufficient panegyrick if I say she has been the Pearl of Princess, the Idea of a perfect Queen, one of those wise ones who, by the sweetnesse of her conversation, the innocency of her deportments, and the force of her spirit, reform'd the disorders that had crept into her Kingdome." (Pp. 126-7.)-To the fourteen altars here stated to have been in the Church of Dunfermline, a fifteenth has to be addedthat of St Laurence, for which, as noticed at pp. 492, 493, Abbot Richard and the Convent in 1455 granted to a person, named Thomas de Camera, and his heirs, a croft of St Laurence, near the lower gate or port of the burgh, at the west end of the Nethertown, where the ruins of a small chapel were still in existence during the last forty years, which I remember having seen. The reddendum for the support of it was 8s. per annum. * Although I have previously stated that the portrait of Malcolm Canmore is the only one which I am aware exists, I must be understood as meaning in a private collection; for I know that there are paintings both of him and his queen, Margaret, in churches, especially on the Continent, of which an example will be immediately given, at the Escurial in Spain. And the visitors of Paris may have observed a beautifullyexecuted colossal marble statue of St Margaret, among about thirty others, in the rich colonnade of more than fifty Corinthian columns which surrounds the Madeleine Church. (Pp. 131-2)-I have been favoured, through Dr E. Henderson, with three recent autograph communications, which may be interesting to some readers, respecting the history and present locality and state of the relics of Queen Margaret. One is from the Rev. C. Holahan, sub-Prior of St Edmund's College, Douay, in France; another from the Rev. T. Hoskins, student at Valladolid, in Spain; and the third, enclosed in the latter, the translation of a letter from the Royal Monastery of the Escurial in that country, situated twenty-five miles north-west of Madrid, where the Palace and the Pantheon, or place of interment for the royal family, under the great church there, are situated. In order that justice may be done to the parties who have obligingly sent these communications for my use, I shall give their statements in their own words : : Reg. de Dunf., pp. 335-6, and present vol. p. 2. 1.-Extract of Letter from Rev. C. HOLAHAN, Sub-Prior. "DOUAY, July 22, 1854. "At the time of the great French Revolution, the head of St Margaret was preserved, not in our college, but in the Scotch college of this town. The troubles obliged us all to flee, and since that period the Scotch college has never been re-opened. After the departure of the Scotch, it became a state prison, then a magazine, a boarding-school, and is at present the Convent of the "Dames de la Sainte Union." The present occupants made researches, and even discovered some secret vaults which appeared to have been opened by the revolutionists, as twelve bodies were discovered in them. Other vaults under the sacristy had been violated. Consequently, as no trace of the relic has been met with, either the Scotch conveyed it away with them in their flight, or it fell into the hands of men who respected nothing. The former supposition was given to me as the more probable. Unfortunately, no one is known here who is able to furnish any positive information. "I am sorry to say that I am no better acquainted with the location of the relics which you have heard are deposited in Spain. We are in communication with the English students at Valladolid, and should I succeed in obtaining any information respecting them, I shall be happy to transmit it to you. "The Benedictine Missal marks the Feast of St Margaret for the 10th June. The following is the collect: 'Deus qui beatam Margaritam Scotorum Reginam eximiâ in pauperes charitate mirabilem effecisti: da ut ejus intercessione et exemplo, tua in cordibus nostris charitas jugiter augeatur. Per,' &c. "The same collect is found in the Roman Missal, formed by order of Urban VIII. "The present monastery and college which we inhabit dates from 1611. It was raised by the liberality of Philip Caravel, Abbot of St Vedastus, at Arras, for his English Benedictine brethren. It bore the title of St Gregory's till the great French Revolution. On the Restoration, or rather some years after, it was recovered and given up to the English Benedictines of St Edmund's, who before the troubles had resided in Paris. The professors number on an average fifteen. It is designed for the education of ecclesiastical students, secular and regular. The ordinary course comprises the Latin, Greek, French, and English languages-mathematics, elocution, geography, philosophy, and theology. The number of students varies from eighty to eighty-five, every branch included. It has no power to confer degrees of any kind. The Douay University no longer exists." 2.-From Rev. T. HOSKINS, Student at Valladolid, per Rev. C. HOLAHAN. August 15, 1854. "After the death of our saint (Nov. 16, 1093), her body was interred in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, where it remained to the change of religion, when, with the exception of what is mentioned in the transcribed letter, all was destroyed, not as Alban Butler says, 'privately rescued from the plundering mob, and carried into Spain to Philip II, and deposited in the Escurial.' That the head was in the Scotch College at Douay, and destroyed by the revolutionists, is correct. This is also certain, that all that now remains of the saint is in the Escurial. But how came it there? When Philip II. of Spain collected for the Escurial all the relics he could procure, he found amongst others at Venice those of St Margaret. It was for many years believed that the entire body of St Margaret was in the Escurial, from a very erroneous account circulated by a George Con (or some such name), a Scotch gentleman, who visited the Escurial to learn all he could respecting the relics. He found, as A. Butler correctly states, an altar or chapel in honour of the saint, and concluded, without minute investigation, that the entire body, save the head, must be there, for the reason that there are (I think, according to Mr Cameron, Rector of the Scotch College) no altars or chapels dedicated to any saints save those whose entire remains are deposited there. A. Butler is also correct in stating that the following inscription is on the shrine : 6 'St Malcolm King and St Margaret Queen.' He might have added that their likenesses are painted on the folding doors at full length. Dr Gillis has twice made researches in Spain, and the results were such as I have transcribed." 3. Translation of Letter from the Royal Monastery of the "From the inventory and record of the holy relics and reliquaries which his Majesty Don Philip II. bestowed upon this his royal house of St Laurence of the Escurial, from the year 1571, in which was made the first donation, to that of 1598, in which he died, we find the following with regard to the relics of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland. "After a short account of the life of the saint, it is said that in the first donation were comprised the following relics :— "A small bone of slight importance (poca cosa); part of the flesh of the right leg two* inches (fingers) square; a part of a member of the same leg three inches long. After the disorder and great confusion "The numeral cannot be well deciphered; it seems originally to have been 'tres,' three; but Mr Cameron, Prior of Douay, takes it to be 'dos,' two." |