Introduction
Following the Norman Invasion in 1066, Prince Edgar, whose claim to the throne was at least as strong as William of Normandy’s, allied with King Sweyn II of Denmark (who also had a decent claim) to unseat William. However, the crafty William bought Sweyn off at the last moment, leaving Edgar and his sisters little option but to flee into Scotland.
THIS summer [1067] the child Edgar, with his mother Agatha,* his sisters Margaret and Christina,* Merlesweyne* and several good men, went to Scotland under the protection of king Malcolm,* who received them all.
Then it was that king Malcolm desired to have Margaret to wife: but Edgar and all his men refused for a long time:* and she herself also was unwilling, saying that she would have neither him nor any other person, if God would allow her to serve him in strict continence during this short life. But the king urged her brother until he said yes; and indeed he did not dare to refuse, for they were now in Malcolm’s kingdom.
So that the marriage was now fulfilled [1070], as God had foreordained. The prescient Creator knew long before what he would do with her: namely that she should increase the glory of God in this land, lead the king out of the wrong into the right path, and bring him and his people to a better way. These things she afterwards accomplished.*
* According to William of Malmesbury (?1095-?1143), Agatha was the youngest daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince of Kiev. Her late husband, Edward the Exile, had been forced to flee England when Cnut of Denmark invaded in 1016 and killed his father, King Edmund Ironside. Edward returned to London in 1057, after growing up in Kiev and then moving to Hungary (where Edgar and Margaret were born), and seemed destined to succeed to Edward the Confessor’s crown. However, he died soon afterwards; and when the Confessor died in 1066, Agatha’s young boy Edgar was easily sidelined by Harold Godwinson and then by William of Normandy. See Edward the Exile.
* Christina later became Abbess of Romsey Abbey in Hampshire, and took care of Margaret’s daughter Edith.
* Merlesweyne (or Merleswein) was an Englishman of Danish descent who held the post of Sheriff of Lincolnshire until 1068.
* Malcolm III Canmore, King of Scots (r. 1058-1093), who had come to power by killing King Macbeth and later Macbeth’s son Lulach, both in battle. He was forced to accept the status of William’s vassal by the Treaty of Abernethy in 1072.
* Malcolm had been married before, to Ingeborg Finnsdottir, widow of Thorfinn the Mighty of Orkney. It is not known when she died, but it may have been as long before as 1058.
* Her contemporary biographer, Turgot (?1050-1115) of Durham and later St Andrews, tells us that early in her reign as Queen, Margaret held court on religious matters. She encouraged Scots to say prayers as a special Sunday observance; to keep the Christmas and Lenten fasts for forty days each; to say grace at meal-times; and to receive holy communion at major feasts, telling those who abstained on the grounds that they were too sinful not to be so silly. She put firm a stop to marriages that broke affinity laws and to ‘barbarous’ forms of Christian worship. “Everything that she proposed” said Turgot “she supported so strongly by the testimonies of the Sacred Scriptures and the teaching of the holy Fathers, that no one on the opposite side could say one word against them.”
Précis
In 1067, Prince Edgar, a rival for William I’s crown, was forced to flee into Scotland with his mother and his sisters Christina and Margaret. It soon became plain that King Malcolm was determined to marry Margaret, even though she had decided to be a nun. Margaret relented at last, a decision the Chronicler held was good for Scotland. (59 / 60 words)
In 1067, Prince Edgar, a rival for William I’s crown, was forced to flee into Scotland with his mother and his sisters Christina and Margaret. It soon became plain that King Malcolm was determined to marry Margaret, even though she had decided to be a nun. Margaret relented at last, a decision the Chronicler held was good for Scotland.
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Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, because, despite, just, or, otherwise, unless, whether.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Margaret not want to marry Malcolm?
Suggestion
Because she wanted to become a nun. (7 words)
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Sweyn and Edgar started a rebellion. William bribed Sweyn to go back to Denmark. Edgar fled to Scotland.