Nova Legenda Anglie (John of Tynemouth/Capgrave), ed. Horstmann 1901 — translated from the Latin. The Malachy life is abridged from St Bernard’s Vita; the file as extracted also contains the following life of St Margaret and the Tiberius manuscript’s appended tales.

¹ St Malachy, whose life St Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, wrote, was born in Ireland of a barbarous people; there he was reared, there he was taught letters. Yet he drew nothing from his native barbarism — no more than the fishes of the sea draw of the brine. His parents were great in birth and power, after the manner of the great ones of the earth. There was a holy man in the city of Armagh, of a very austere life, who lived in a cell beside the church, serving God in fastings and prayers and supplications day and night. To him Malachy betook himself, to receive from him the pattern of his life; and he too sat solitary — yet within a few days he had many imitators, drawn by his example. At length he was ordained priest in the twenty-fifth year of his age. The bishop also committed his own charge to him: to sow the holy seed in a nation that was not holy, and to give the law of life and discipline to a rude people living without law. He began to fulfil the office laid upon him with all eagerness, as one fervent in spirit — to root out barbarous rites and plant those of the Church. Whatever disorderly, unseemly or perverse he met with, his eye spared not; as the hail the gross figs from the trees, and as the wind the dust from the face of the earth, so he strove with all his might to drive out and destroy all such things from his people. The canonical hours after the manner of the universal Church he caused the inhabitants of that province, and the brethren also in his own monastery, to sing — since they would not yet sing them in the city or in the whole diocese. Then he restored the use of confession, the sacrament of confirmation, the contract of marriage — all of which they either knew not or neglected. And since his zeal was greatest concerning the worship of divine things and the veneration of the sacraments, lest perhaps he should appoint or teach anything otherwise than the universal Church observed, he went to Malchus the bishop, that he might inform him more fully of all things. This Malchus was an old man full of days and virtues, and the wisdom of God was in him. By nation he was Irish, but he had lived in England in the monastic habit in the monastery of Winchester, from which he was taken to the bishopric of Lismore. There so great grace was given him from above that he was illustrious not only for life and doctrine but for signs: for he healed a lunatic boy with the holy oil of confirmation, and restored hearing to a deaf man. When Malachy came to him, he was kindly received, and remained with him some years.

² Now it befell that when strife arose between the king of Munster and his brother, and the brother prevailed, the king, driven from the kingdom, fled for refuge to Bishop Malchus; and giving place to wrath, he turned necessity into virtue, choosing to lead a private life. And when the bishop made ready to receive the king with due honour, he refused, saying that he would rather be as one of the poor brethren who were with him, laying aside the royal pride and content with the common poverty — choosing to wait upon the Lord’s will rather than recover the kingdom by force; nor would he have human blood shed for his earthly honour — blood which cries to God against him from the earth. Hearing this, the bishop rejoiced and, marvelling at his devotion, granted his wish. A poor little house was given the king to dwell in, and bread with salt and water for his food, by the hand of Malachy. Every night the king watered his bed with his tears, and quenched the ill-burning lust of the flesh with daily baths of cold water; and praying he said: “See my humility and my labour, and forgive all my sins.” And his prayer was heard — though otherwise than he himself intended. For God stirred up the spirit of the neighbouring king, who, seeing what was done, was filled with zeal and, pitying the desolation of the kingdom and the abasement of the king, came down to the poor man’s cell and urged his return — yet persuaded him not. Still he pressed him, promised aid; and with the bishop’s command and Malachy’s counsel added, the king at last reluctantly consented. And so, with great ease, the robbers were driven out and he was brought back amid the rejoicing of his people and restored to his kingdom.

³ When the sister of the man of God died, he saw a vision concerning her not to be passed over. The saint had loathed her carnal life, and with such zeal that he had vowed he would not see her alive in the flesh. But when she was loosed from the flesh, the vow was loosed; and he began to see in the spirit her whom he would not see in the flesh. One night he heard in a dream a voice saying to him that his sister stood without in the porch, and had tasted no food for thirty whole days. Awaking, he quickly understood for want of what food she pined; and carefully reckoning the number of days he had heard, he found it was the very space since he had ceased to offer for her the bread and wine [of the altar]. Then he, who hated not his sister’s soul but her sin, poured forth prayers to God for her. Not long after, she was seen to have come to the threshold of the church, yet not able to enter, and she appeared in a dark robe. And when he persevered in prayer, he saw her a second time in a whitish robe, admitted indeed within the church but not permitted to approach the altar. At last, a third time, she was seen to be gathered to the company of those clothed in white, and in a white robe.

⁴ A rich and powerful man who held the place called Bangor and its possessions, inspired by God, at once gave all that was his into the hands of Malachy, and himself also — and he was his uncle. This place of Bangor had formerly been a most noble monastery under its first father Congall, bringing forth many thousands of monks, the head of many monasteries. Not only into Ireland and Scotland, but into foreign lands also, those armies of saints poured themselves forth as in a flood. Of these, St Columbanus, going up into the parts of Gaul, built the monastery of Luxeuil, and became there a great nation. They say that monastery was so great that the offices of the divine praises were continued by choirs succeeding one another, so that not a moment of day or night was free from praise. Now this monastery had been destroyed by pirates, and nine hundred monks slain. Great indeed was the possession of that place; but Malachy, content with the holy site alone, yielded all the possessions and lands to another, and built the monastery. In that place a certain man lay sick, beside whom the devil stood openly speaking, persuading him never to believe the counsels of Malachy, but, if he came to him, to kill him with a knife. When this was known — the sick man himself revealing it to those who ministered to him — they brought word to Malachy. But he, taking up the wonted arms of prayer, undaunted assailed the foe, and put to flight both the sickness and the demon.

⁵ A certain episcopal see then fell vacant — it had long been vacant — Malachy refusing to consent, whom they had chosen. But as they persisted, he at last yielded, the command of his master and of the metropolitan being added to compel him; and in the thirtieth year of his age he was consecrated bishop of Connor. And when he began to do his office, then the man of God understood that he was sent not to men but to beasts: never yet had he found such men in any barbarism whatever — so wanton in morals, so savage in rites, so unskilled in the faith, barbarous to laws, stiff-necked to discipline, impure in life. Christians in name, pagans in deed. They gave no tithes, no firstfruits; they entered no lawful marriages, made no confessions; he found absolutely none who either sought penance or gave it. Neither in the churches was the voice of one preaching or singing heard. What was the athlete of the Lord to do? Either yield basely, or fight at his peril. But he who knew himself a shepherd and not a hireling chose to stand rather than flee, ready to lay down his life for his sheep. And though all were wolves and none sheep, yet the fearless shepherd stood in the middle of the wolves, and began to admonish publicly, to rebuke in secret, to weep over each one, to entreat now sharply, now gently, as he saw it expedient for each. And when he profited little thereby, he offered for them a contrite and humbled heart; he passed whole nights watching, stretching out his hands in prayer. And when they would not come to church, he ran to meet them through the streets and lanes, panting to win someone for Christ. Through the fields also and the towns he continually went with that holy company of his disciples who never left his side. He went and bestowed even on the thankless the measure of the heavenly wheat. He was not borne on horseback but went on foot — in this proving himself an apostolic man. Blasphemed, he besought; injured, he held up the shield of patience, and overcame evil with good. At last the hardness ceased, the barbarism was stilled: ecclesiastical customs were everywhere received, contrary ones cast out, churches rebuilt, clergy ordained in them, the solemnities of the sacraments duly celebrated, confessions made, the peoples gathered to the church — in short, all things were so changed for the better that that people could now claim what the Lord said by the prophet: “They who before were not My people, are now My people” (Hosea 2:24).

⁶ It happened after some years that the city was destroyed by a king of the northern part of Ireland; and Malachy, driven by necessity, went out with a company of his disciples, a hundred and twenty brethren, and built the monastery of Iveragh. There Cormac the king met him — who, once driven from his kingdom, had received consolation of God’s mercy under Malachy’s care — laying himself and all he had at his feet; and by royal bounty he gave many beasts for the brethren’s use, and gold and silver for the costs of the buildings, going in and out with them in diligence and service — in garb a king, but in soul a disciple of Malachy. There the man of God took his turn in the kitchen ministry, and served the brethren as they sat at table; and in the church, among the brethren succeeding one another in singing or reading, he suffered not himself to be passed over, but strenuously filled the office in his turn as one of them, showing himself not only a sharer but a leader in holy poverty.

⁷ Now it befell that Archbishop Celsus fell sick and knew that he would die; and he made, as it were, a testament that Malachy should succeed him, since none seemed worthier. This he enjoined on those present, this he sent word to the absent, and commanded it by the authority of St Patrick. But a most evil custom had grown up, through the devilish ambition of certain powerful men — the holy see being held by hereditary succession: for they suffered none to be bishops save those of their own tribe and family. For already before Celsus there had been eight married men, without orders, yet literate. Hence that dissolution of ecclesiastical discipline throughout Ireland, that enfeebling of censure, that emptying of religion; hence that savage barbarism everywhere brought in, in place of Christian meekness — no, a certain paganism introduced under the Christian name. For — a thing unheard of since the beginning of Christianity — bishops were changed and multiplied without order, without reason, at the whim of the metropolitan, so that one see was not content with one bishop, but almost every church had its own bishop. Grieving sorely over these things, Celsus took care to have Malachy for his successor, trusting that through him the ill-rooted succession might be rooted out — for he was dear to all, all emulated him, and the Lord was with him.

⁸ Nor was he disappointed of his hope; for on his death Malachy was appointed — yet not at once, nor easily. For see, one of the evil seed, Maurice by name, seized the place, who for five years, relying on secular power, brooded over the church — not a bishop but a tyrant. But while Celsus lay sick, a woman of tall stature and reverend countenance appeared to Malachy, far away as he was. When he asked who she was, it was answered that she was the wife of Celsus; and she, giving him the pastoral staff she held in her hand, vanished. A few days later, Celsus dying sent his staff to Malachy as to his successor; and when Malachy saw it, he knew it was the same he had seen in the vision. The remembrance of that vision chiefly frightened Malachy, lest, if he refused any longer — he who had long enough dissembled — he should seem to resist the divine will. Yet he entered not the city while that usurper lived, lest by that occasion it should happen that any of those to whom he came rather to minister life should die. That man being snatched away by a swift death, a certain Nigellus — no, truly most black — seized the see, whom Maurice while he lived had appointed his heir; for he was of the accursed progeny of Maurice. But the king and the bishops and the faithful of the land assembled notwithstanding to bring Malachy in. And see the counsel of the wicked over against them: a certain son of Belial, ready for malice, mighty in iniquity, knowing the place where they had agreed to assemble, gathered many to himself and secretly occupied a neighbouring hill over against it, from where, while those deliberated, his men might rush with sudden onset upon the unwary and slay the innocent. For they had conspired to slay the king with the bishop, that there might be none to avenge the innocent blood. The thing was made known to Malachy; and entering the church, lifting up his hands, he prayed to the Lord. And see, clouds and darkness, and dark waters in the clouds of the air, turned day into night; lightnings also and thunders and horrible spirits of storms threatened the last day, and the elements essayed death upon all around. For the prayer of Malachy had shaken the elements; and the tempest cut off those only who sought his soul; the dark whirlwind enveloped those only who had prepared the works of darkness. The very man who had been the prince of so great an evil, smitten by the lightning, perished with three others — whose half-burnt and putrid corpses were found the next day clinging to the branches of trees, where an evil spirit had lifted and dashed them. Three others also were found half alive, all the rest being scattered round about.

⁹ In the thirty-eighth year of his age the poor man Malachy entered Armagh as metropolitan of all Ireland. And when the king and the rest who had brought him in returned to their own, he remained in the hand of God: fightings without remained to him, fears within. For see the viperous brood, gnashing and crying that they were disinherited, stirred themselves up wholly within and without against the Lord and against His Christ. Moreover Nigellus, seeing flight at hand, took with him certain insignia of that see: namely the book of the Gospels which had been St Patrick’s, and a staff covered with gold and adorned with most precious gems, which they call “the staff of Jesus”, because the Lord Himself, as the opinion goes, held and fashioned it with His own hands — and this is held in the highest dignity and veneration among that people. The man went wandering about, a second Satan, compassing the earth and walking up and down in it bearing the sacred insignia, which he everywhere displayed and had worshipped; and he seduced many, persuading all that he ought to be bishop. At length the man of God by divine power hedged up his ways, so that the malignant was compelled to restore the insignia and to remain quiet in all subjection for the rest of his days.

¹⁰ A certain man who had the favour of princes and of the king — because he was a flatterer and a babbler and mighty in tongue — favoured the adversaries of Malachy in all things, resisted him to his face, slandered him behind his back, and met him irreverently in every place; but he was speedily rewarded with a reward worthy of his brazen tongue. The cursed tongue swelled and rotted, worms teeming and flowing from it, which he vomited unceasingly for almost seven days, and with them at last he spewed out his wretched life. On another occasion, when Malachy was speaking and exhorting the people, a certain unhappy woman dared to break into his sermon with shameless clamours, not reverencing the priest and the spirit who spoke. She was of the impious brood, and having a spirit in her nostrils she vomited blasphemies and insults against the saint, calling him a hypocrite and an usurper of another’s inheritance, and also taunting him with his baldness. And see, she was turned into madness, the Lord avenging him; and crying continually that she was being choked by Malachy, she paid the penalty of her blasphemy by a horrible death.

¹¹ At length Malachy appointed in his stead Gelasius as archbishop, a man indeed worthy of a bishopric, and returned to his own diocese [Down]. And when Malachy came to Rome, Pope Innocent receiving him honourably set the mitre from his own head upon his head, and gave him also the stole and the maniple; and having saluted him with the kiss of peace, he dismissed him. And coming to Clairvaux to the abbot St Bernard, drawing deep sighs that he might not remain there as he desired, he said: “These meanwhile I pray you keep for me, that they may learn of you what they may afterwards teach us. For they shall be to us as seed, and in this seed shall the nations be blessed — nations which in old days heard indeed the name of monk, but never saw a monk.” And leaving four clerks there, he departed. Who, being proved and found worthy, were made monks. [And afterwards, when the saint was in his own land, he sent others; who, when they had been taught and instructed in the monastic habit, were sent back with holy brother Christian, one of themselves, given them as father; and there were joined to them as many as sufficed for the number of an abbey. Which conceived and brought forth five sons.]

¹² Now Malachy came into Scotland, and sprinkled with holy water Henry, son of King David, who was weighed down with sickness to death, saying: “Take heart, son; you shall not die this time.” And the next day he recovered from all his sickness and received health. And while the man of God prayed, the bond of a mute girl’s tongue was loosed, and she spoke rightly. A frenzied woman, bound with ropes, was brought to him, and he cured her with the sign of the cross before all the people. Once in Scotland, when a certain woman was passing the night in a churchyard that the man of God had blessed for prayer, a barbarous man finding her alone, kindled with lust, rushed upon her. The woman, trembling and perceiving him to be full of a devilish spirit, said: “Ah, wretch, what do you? Consider where you are; reverence these holy things; spare God and Malachy His servant, and spare yourself.” And when he, driven by wicked furies, would not desist — see, a venomous and swollen creature which they call a toad was seen to creep forth from between the woman’s thighs. The man, affrighted, leapt back and at once departed in confusion.

¹³ From the first day of the man of God’s conversion even to the end of his life he lived without anything of his own: no servants, no handmaids, no estates, nor any revenues ecclesiastical or secular — not even in his own bishopric; nor had he a house of his own. For he went about almost incessantly through all the parishes, serving the gospel and living of the gospel, as the Lord ordained for him. Of the episcopal table nothing at all was appointed or assigned whereon the bishop should live. When he went out to preach, the bishop and legate went on foot with footmen — this apostolic pattern the more wonderful in Malachy, as it is over-rare in others. Other prelates lord it over the clergy; he, being free of all, made himself the servant of all. They either eat without preaching the gospel, or preach the gospel that they may eat; Malachy, imitating Paul, eats that he may preach. They reckon piety to be gain and pomp; Malachy claims for himself as his inheritance labour and burden. They, while they receive tithes and firstfruits and oblations, tolls and tributes and infinite other revenues, are anxious none the less what they shall eat and drink; Malachy, having none of these things, yet enriches many out of the storehouse of faith. They have no end of greed or of care; Malachy, desiring nothing, knows not how to think of the next day. They exact from the poor to give to the rich; he solicits the rich for the sustenance of the poor. They empty the purses of their subjects; he heaps the altars for their sins with vows and peace-offerings. They raise high palaces, lift towers and walls to the skies; Malachy, having not where to lay his head, does the work of an evangelist. They mount horses with a crowd of men eating bread for nothing, and not their own; Malachy, girt with the college of holy brethren, goes round on foot, bearing the bread of angels wherewith to satisfy hungry souls. They know not the people; he instructs them. They honour the powerful and the tyrants; he punishes them.

¹⁴ A dumb girl was brought to him by her parents as he passed in the open street, beseeching him with much supplication to deign to help her. He, pouring out prayer to God, touched her tongue with his finger and put spittle into her mouth, and sent her away speaking. A certain nobleman at enmity with the king was reconciled by the hand of Malachy. But the king, made secure and not on his guard, cast him, taken, into bonds. Malachy demanded him of the king with a great company of his disciples. And when the king refused, the man of God said: “You deal unjustly against God and against me and against yourself, breaking the covenant. The man trusted to my faith: if he chance to die, I have betrayed him; I am guilty of his blood. Know that I shall taste nothing, nor shall these, until he is freed.” So speaking he entered the church and with anxious groans besought God to deign to rescue the unjustly detained from the hand of the covenant-breaker and unjust man; and that day and the following night they continued in fasting and prayer. Which being heard, that whereby the king should have been softened hardened his heart; and he took to flight. And Malachy following him said: “you shall be blind and shall not see — that you may see the better, and understand that it is hard for you to kick against the goad.” And so the king was humbled; and diligently fulfilling whatever the man of God enjoined him, he was restored to health.

¹⁵ A certain dumb woman he bade, by the giving of a blessing, say the Lord’s Prayer. She said it, and the people blessed the Lord. When the wife of a certain nobleman was sick to death, Malachy was asked to come down before she died, to anoint the sick with oil; he came down and went in to her. Seeing him she rejoiced, animated with the hope of health. And when he made ready to anoint her, it seemed good to all to put it off rather till the morning. And when the bishop had withdrawn, suddenly there was a cry and wailing, for she was dead. Hearing the tumult, Malachy ran back, and was troubled in spirit, blaming himself that she had died defrauded of the grace of the sacrament. And standing over her, he laboured all night in his groaning and weeping. And in the morning the woman, opening her eyes, sat up and greeted the bishop. For this same woman had been so filled with a spirit of wrath and fury that not only did neighbours and kinsfolk flee her company, but even her own sons could scarce endure to dwell with her. There was clamour and rancour and a mighty tempest wherever she was. Her grieving sons brought her to the bishop, laying a tearful complaint before him. The holy man made her confess her sins; and enjoining penance, he prayed over her that almighty God would give her a spirit of meekness, and bade her in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to be angry no more. Such meekness and patience followed that she who had been custom to provoke all could not be provoked by any losses, insults or afflictions. But I reckon this preferable to the former miracle: for there it was the outward man, here the inward man that had been raised to life.

¹⁶ A certain man honourable in the world’s eyes and God-fearing came to the saint of God and complained to him of the barrenness of his soul, beseeching that he would obtain for him from God the grace of tears. And Malachy, smiling because the spiritual desire in a secular man pleased him, joining his cheek to the man’s cheek as though fondly, said: “Be it to you as you have asked.” From then on his eyes drew forth such great and almost continuous streams of tears that that scripture seemed fit to be applied to him: “a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters.”

¹⁷ Now while the saint of God was offering the sacraments, looking upon the deacon he groaned; and when the office was done, being questioned of his conscience, the deacon confessed — and denied not — that he had been defiled in a dream that night. To whom, enjoining penance, Malachy said: “you ought not to have ministered today, but to have withdrawn yourself in modesty from the sacred things and shown reverence to so great divine mysteries, that purged by this humility you might minister the more worthily thereafter.” On another occasion, while he was sacrificing and praying at the hour of sacrifice, a dove was seen by the deacon to enter through the window in great brightness; and the basilica shone with the bishop. And the dove, flying round awhile, at last settled upon the cross before the priest’s face. After Mass the deacon, adjured by Malachy, was bidden on peril of his life to reveal the secret to none while he lived.

¹⁸ Once, when he was at Armagh with a certain bishop of his, rising by night he began to hallow with prayers the memorials of the saints who lie in the cemetery of St Patrick. And see, they saw one of the altars suddenly burn. And the man of God, understanding it to be a sign of the great merit of those whose bodies rested beneath the altar, ran and cast himself into the middle of the flames and embraced the altar with outspread arms. What he did or felt there, none knows; but that he came forth from that fire kindled with heavenly fire more than was his custom, I think none of the brethren who were then with him is ignorant.

¹⁹ At length, setting out to cross the sea, one of the brethren said with tearful voice and face: “Alas, you are going away — and in what daily torment you leav me, you know; will you not pity me and help?” The bishop, pitying him, made the sign of the cross upon his breast: “Be assured,” said he, “you shall suffer nothing of this kind until I return.” Now the man was epileptic and fell often; and from that day he was restored to perfect health, and gave thanks to God. As he was embarking, two who were more intimate with him came begging something of him. He granted it. “We would have you promise,” said they, “to return safe to Ireland.” Then he repented of the promise — yet, sorrowful, he consented and went aboard. And when they had made nearly half the sea-passage, a contrary wind suddenly drove back the ship and brought them to the land of Ireland. He landed and passed the night in a certain church, and gave thanks for the divine counsel of providence. And embarking again and making a prosperous passage into Scotland, he crossed England and at length came to Clairvaux — where he was received by the brethren as a true day-spring from on high visiting us out of the west.

²⁰ Now on the day of blessed Luke the evangelist, having devoutly celebrated Mass in the convent, he was seized with fever and took to his bed. And see all the brethren were busy about him with diligent service — seeking medicines, applying fomentations, often pressing him to taste. To whom he said: “It is in vain, these things; yet for your charity’s sake I do whatever you enjoin. This year Malachy must go out of the body. For I know in whom I have believed, and I am sure I shall not be defrauded of the rest of my desire, of which I already hold a part: He who in His mercy has brought me to the place I sought will not deny me the end I longed for equally.” At length he was anointed, and having received the viaticum returned to his bed. For he lay in the upper chamber, and could not bear that the convent should come up to him, but himself went down to them — and yet said that death was at the doors. He died on the fourth of the Nones of November [2 November], in the year of our Lord 1148, the fifty-fourth year of his age.

[The Tiberius manuscript adds this narrative:]

²¹ A certain man became a monk together with his newly-weaned son. When the boy had become a youth, the demons began to assail and tempt him. And he said to his father: “I will go to the world, for I cannot endure the carnal concupiscences.” But the father comforted him. Again he said: “Now I can endure no more, father; let me return to the world.” But the father said: “Hear me, son, yet once more: take you forty loaves and go into the inner wilderness, and be there forty days, and the will of the Lord shall be done.” He went and remained there, labouring and making baskets of dry palm-leaves, and eating dry bread. And after twenty days, see, a demon stood before him in the likeness of an Ethiopian woman, foul and ugly to look upon, so that he could not bear her stench. And she said: “I am she who appears sweet in the hearts of men; but for your obedience and the labour you endure here, God has not suffered me to seduce you, but has made known to you my stench.” And he, returning, told this to his father. His father had known it, and said: “If you had remained the forty days and kept my commandment to the end, you would have seen greater things.”

St Margaret, Queen of Scots #

(Abridged from the life ascribed to Turgot, with an extract from Ailred’s Genealogy of the Kings; the manuscript’s genealogical notes are here rendered in place.)

Genealogy: Ethelred the king by his first wife begot Edmund Ironside; who begot Edward, who, being in exile, begot by Agatha the emperor’s daughter St Margaret, afterwards queen of Scots, and Christina a nun living under rule in the convent of Romsey until death, and Edgar the Atheling who died childless. By his second wife Emma, daughter of Richard duke of Normandy, he begot St Edward the Confessor, king of England. This Richard, called “the Fearless”, begot Richard II, who begot Richard III, whom his brother Robert slew with poison. This Robert begot William the Conqueror of England.

Edmund Ironside begot: Edward, who was slain with his father; Edmund, Edred — who reigned not; Edgar, who reigned nine years. [King Malcolm by his wife Margaret begot:] Alexander, who reigned sixteen years; David, who reigned thirty-nine years, who begot Earl Henry. Henry begot Malcolm, who reigned twelve years; to him succeeded his brother William for forty-eight years; to him succeeded his son for twenty-six years, who begot Alexander who reigned thirty-seven years. On his dying childless, there succeeded by election and, as was said, by right of consanguinity, John de Balliol. [And] Matilda, wife of Henry I king of England; and Mary, countess of Boulogne.

Earl Henry, son of David, begot Malcolm who reigned twelve years; William who reigned forty-eight years; David earl of Huntingdon and Chester, who begot John the earl who died childless; Margaret wife of Alan of Galloway, who begot Dervorguilla wife of John Balliol, who begot John Balliol king of Scots; Helen countess of Winchester; Isabella wife of Robert Bruce, who begot Robert who begot Robert king of Scots; Ada wife of Henry Hastings, who begot Henry, who begot John; and Helen countess of Winchester [sic], who begot the Countess of Ferrers, who begot Robert, who begot John de Souche, who begot Alan; and Elizabs countess of Buchan, who begot John Comyn.

¹ When Edmund, the most valiant king who had received from the English the surname of Ironside for his unconquerable strength, was dead, Canute the king, conqueror of England, sent his sons Edmund and Edward — whom for shame he could not smite, because of the treaty of fellowship he had made with their father — to the king of the Swedes to be slain; who, moved with pity, sent them on to Solomon king of the Hungarians to be preserved alive. And Edmund dying childless, his brother Edward married Agatha the emperor’s daughter, of whom he begot St Margaret, afterwards queen of Scots. She, while she yet flourished in earliest youth, began to lead a life of sobriety and to love God above all things, to busy herself with the study of the divine Scriptures and therein delightfully to exercise her mind. At last, more by the will of her kinsfolk than her own — no, by God’s ordinance — she was joined in marriage to Malcolm king of Scots. But though she was compelled to do the things of the world, yet she scorned to cleave to worldly things by desire; for she delighted more in good works than in the possession of riches. All things that befitted a prudent queen’s rule were done: by her counsel the rights of the kingdom were ordered, by her industry the divine religion was increased. Nothing was in her more firm than faith, more constant than countenance, more enduring than patience, graver than counsel, juster than judgement, sweeter than speech. In the place where her marriage had been celebrated she built a noble church in honour of the Holy Trinity, which she adorned with various precious ornaments — among which were not a few vessels of solid and pure gold and silver. She also gave a cross which she caused to be clothed with gold and with gems shining between; and in all the other churches she left tokens of her devotion. There was in her such severity with joyfulness and joyfulness with severity, that all who served her both loved her for fear and feared her for love; and not only in her presence dared none do anything unseemly, but none dared even utter a foul word. Her children she caused to be nurtured with all diligence and instructed in honest manners; and often brought before her she taught them the faith of Christ and diligently admonished them ever to fear Him. “Fear the Lord, O my sons,” she said, “for there shall be no want to them that fear Him. And if you love Him, He will give you prosperity in this present life and eternal felicity with His saints.” These were the mother’s desires, this her constant admonition, this her daily prayer with tears for her offspring — that they might know their Creator, knowing Him worship Him, worshipping Him in all things love Him, and loving Him attain to the glory of the heavenly kingdom. None was deeper than she in wit, none clearer in eloquence. The king himself she kindled to works of justice, mercy, almsgiving and other virtues, and with God’s help made him most obedient. And the king, seeing that Christ truly lived in the queen’s heart, fearing to offend her in anything, studied to obey her wishes and counsels in all things. What she spurned, he too used to spurn; and what she loved, to love for love of her; and the book wherein the queen prayed he delighted to handle and venerate with a kiss. When the king rode forth with a great retinue, she so restrained each of his followers by her censure that none dared seize anything or oppress or injure husbandmen or any of the poor. For the holy queen the more easily despised all worldly pomp and escaped the stain of sins, inasmuch as she ever set the strict day of judgement trembling and quaking before her mind’s eyes. Often therefore she asked her confessor that whatever he found blameworthy in her word or deed he should not hesitate to rebuke and tell her in secret. And when he did this more rarely and coldly than she wished, she pressed herself upon him importunately — blaming him as though he slept and were negligent of her salvation. “Let the righteous smite me in mercy,” she said, “and reprove me; but let not the oil — that is, the flattery — of the sinner anoint my head.” Her own reproof, which another might have reckoned a reproach, she desired for the increase of virtue. When she saw evil, she admonished that it might become good; good, that it might become better.

² For when she had perceived that many unlawful things were done among the Scottish people contrary to the holy custom of the universal Church, she appointed frequent councils to bring back the wanderers to the way of truth, Christ helping. In which strife the king himself sat as her chief helper, most ready to say and do whatever she commanded in this cause — for he knew the English tongue as perfectly as his own, and was the most vigilant interpreter of either party in this council. The queen therefore, having premised that they who with the Catholic Church served one God in one faith ought not to differ from that Church in certain new and strange customs, first proposed that they did not lawfully observe the Lenten fast, because they used to begin it not with holy Church on the Wednesday at the head of the fast, but on the Monday of the following week. They answered: “The fast which we keep, we keep by the Gospel’s authority, which relates Christ’s fast, for six weeks.” And she: “You differ far herein from the Gospel; for it is read there that the Lord fasted forty days, which manifestly you do not. For since six Sundays are taken from the fast in the six weeks, only thirty-six days remain for fasting. It is clear then that you observe a fast not of forty but of thirty-six days by Gospel authority. It remains therefore that you begin to fast with us four days before the beginning of Lent, if you would observe abstinence for the number of forty days after the Lord’s example; otherwise you alone will resist the authority of the Lord Himself and the tradition of the whole holy Church.” They, convicted by this reasoning of truth, began from then on to begin their fasts after the manner of the universal Church.

³ The queen proposed another matter, and bade them show on what grounds on the holy day of Easter they neglected to receive the sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ, after the manner of the holy and apostolic Church. They answered: “The Apostle, speaking of these things, says: “He that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgement to himself.” Therefore, since we know ourselves sinners, we fear to approach that mystery, lest we eat and drink judgement to ourselves.” To whom the queen: “What then? Shall all who are sinners taste not the most holy mystery? Then none ought to receive it, since none is without the stain of sin — not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth. But if none ought to receive it, why does the Gospel cry at the Lord’s saying: “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you”? But plainly the sentence you quote from the Apostle must be understood otherwise, according to the fathers’ understanding. For he counts not all sinners to receive the sacraments of salvation unworthily. For when he had said “eats and drinks judgement to himself,” he added “not discerning the Lord’s body” — that is, he who separates it not in faith from bodily foods eats and drinks judgement to himself. And he also who shall have presumed to approach the sacred mysteries without confession and penance, with the defilement of his crimes — he, I say, eats and drinks judgement to himself. But we who, confession of sins having been made many days before, are chastened with penance, attenuated with fasts, washed from the stains of sins with alms and tears — we, approaching His table on the day of the Lord’s resurrection in the Catholic faith, take the flesh and blood of the immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ not to judgement but to the remission of sins, and to the healthful preparation for everlasting beatitude.” Hearing these things from her they could make no answer, and from then on acknowledged and observed the Church’s custom in receiving the salutary mystery.

⁴ Moreover in certain places of the Scots there were some who had been custom to celebrate masses contrary to the custom of the whole Church — which the queen, kindled with zeal for God, so strove to destroy and annihilate that thereafter none in all the Scottish nation appeared who dared such a thing. They used also, neglecting reverence for the Lord’s day, to labour on it as on other days — which she showed, by reason and authority alike, was not lawful. “The Lord’s day,” she said, “we hold in veneration for the Lord’s resurrection which was wrought on it — that we do no servile works on it, wherein we know we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil. This blessed Pope Gregory also affirms, saying: “On the Lord’s day men must cease from earthly labour and devote themselves wholly to prayers, so that whatever negligence has been done through the six days may be expiated by prayers on the day of the Lord’s resurrection.” The same father Gregory also, smiting a certain man with a sharp rebuke for the earthly work he had done on the Lord’s day, decreed that those by whose counsels he had done it should be excommunicated for two months.” Unable to gainsay these reasonings of the queen, they from then on kept the Lord’s day so that they dared do no work on it. Unlawful marriages with stepmothers also, and likewise the surviving brother taking the dead brother’s wife — which were formerly done there — she showed to be utterly execrable and to be shunned by the faithful as death itself. Many other things also had grown up contrary to the Church’s custom, which, condemning them in the same council, she rooted out from the bounds of the realm.

⁵ For when she spoke with her confessor of the health of the soul and of the sweetness of the everlasting life, she uttered words full of all grace, and was so moved to compunction in speaking that she seemed ready to melt wholly into tears. In church none was quieter than she in keeping silence, none more intent in prayer; never was she custom to speak anything secular in God’s house or do anything earthly, but only to pray — and praying, to pour forth tears. And through excessive abstinence she incurred the affliction of a most grievous sickness. Yet what was more merciful than her heart, what more kind towards the needy? Not only her goods but even herself, if it were lawful, she would gladly have bestowed upon the poor. To all her poor she was poorer: for they who had not desired to have, while she scattered what she had. And when she went abroad, crowds of the wretched, of orphans and widows, flocked to her as to a most loving mother, and none of them departed from her without consolation. At times she carried off whatever of the king’s own she could, to bestow on the needy — which theft of mercy the king ever held acceptable and pleasing, and feigned not to know it. Not only to the needy of her own land but to those of almost all nations she showed her bounty. Numberless captives whom the hostile violence of the Scots had reduced to slavery from the English nation she redeemed and restored to liberty; she sent secret spies through the provinces, that those who were pressed by harder servitude and inhumanly treated might be ransomed by her bounty. The hermits also, shut up in separate cells here and there, serving Christ, she used to venerate, to love, to visit often with her presence and converse, and commended herself to their prayers, and devoutly fulfilled whatever they asked.

⁶ When she had rested a little at the beginning of the night, she entered the church and completed matins of the Holy Trinity, then of the holy Cross, afterwards of St Mary alone; these finished, she began the office of the dead; and then she began the psalter and finished it. While the priests at the fitting hour celebrated the canonical hours, she either finished the psalter she had begun, or having finished one began another. The hours finished, returning to her chamber she washed the feet of six poor people and bade money be given them; and then she gave herself a little to quiet and sleep. At dawn the queen, rising, had nine little orphans destitute of all aid brought in to her at the first hour of the day, and on bended knees fed them with softer foods and put the food into their mouths. Meanwhile it was the custom for three hundred poor to be brought into the hall; and the doors being shut, the king on one side and the queen on the other served Christ in the poor and offered the foods specially prepared. Which done, the queen entered the church and with long prayers and groanings of tears offered herself to God as a sacrifice; and before the greater Mass she heard five or six masses privately. Before her meal she fed twenty-four poor, humbly ministering to them. For she ate only to preserve life, not to yield to pleasure. Her fare was so spare and sober that it provoked hunger rather than restrained it; she seemed to taste food, not to take it. For forty days before Easter and Christmas she afflicted herself with incredible abstinence. On account of the over-rigour of her fasting she suffered a most sharp pain of the stomach until the end of her life — yet the bodily weakness could not weaken the virtue of her work. In holy reading she was studious, in prayers persistent, in almsgiving unfailing, in all things that were God’s she exercised herself vigilantly.

⁷ A certain book of the Gospels adorned with gems and gold, in which she used to study and read, fell by a keeper’s negligence into water, and remained there a day and a night without any hurt or damage. At length she called her confessor Turgot, then prior of Durham, and began to unfold her life, and at every word poured forth rivers of tears. Such was the compunction between her words and the flood of weeping that doubtless there was nothing she could not then have obtained from Christ. And when she had finished speaking of what was needful, she began thus: “Farewell — I shall not long remain in this life; but you shall live after me a long time. Two things I ask of you: one, that as long as you live you remember my soul in your masses and prayers; the other, that you take care of my sons and daughters, bestow your love on them, teach them above all to fear God; and when you see any of them raised to the height of earthly dignity, draw near to him above all as a father and master — admonishing and, when need requires, rebuking, lest for momentary honour he grow proud, lest he offend God through avarice, lest through worldly prosperity he neglect the felicity of eternal life.” For half a year after this, the burden of her illness increasing, she could rarely rise from her bed; and four days before her death, when King Malcolm was on an expedition, she became sadder than was her custom and said to those sitting by: “Perchance this day so great an evil has befallen the kingdom of Scots as has not come upon it for many years past.” Some days after, by the report of messengers, they learned that on the very day the queen had spoken the king had been slain with his son Edward — whom she, as though foreknowing the future, had earnestly forbidden to go forth anywhere then with the army. On the fourth day after the king’s death, her sickness being somewhat eased, she entered the oratory to hear Mass, and fortified her passing with the viaticum of the Lord’s Body and Blood. And at once weighed down with her former pains and prostrate on the bed, she was pressed more violently towards the end as her trouble increased. The Black Cross of Scotland, which she ever held in great veneration, she caused to be brought, and embraced and kissed it, and often signed her eyes and face with it. Meanwhile her son Edgar, returning from the army, entered the queen’s chamber; she asked him of his father and brother — but he would not tell the truth, lest on hearing of their death she should at once die also. He answered that they were well. But she, sighing deeply, said: “I know, son, I know,” and adjured him not to hide the truth. And he, compelled, set forth what had befallen. Hearing which, she sinned not with her lips nor spoke any folly against God; but lifting her hands to heaven, she broke forth into praise and thanksgiving, saying: “Thanks and praise I render You, almighty God, who have willed me to endure such great anguish in my departing, and thereby to be cleansed, as I hope, from certain stains of sin.” And the queen, feeling death at hand, began to say this prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, who by the Father’s will, the Holy Spirit working with You, did give life to the world through Your death: deliver me.” When she said “deliver me,” her soul, loosed from the bonds of the body, passed to Christ the author of true liberty, whom she had ever loved — made partaker of the felicity of those whose virtues she had followed. And her face, which had grown all pale in death, was afterwards so suffused with a flush mingled with whiteness that she could have been thought not dead but living or asleep. She died on the fourth of the Ides of November [16 November], and was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity which she herself had built, before the altar.

⁸ Now when David, St Margaret’s son, was dwelling in the court of Henry I king of England, he was called one night by his sister Queen Matilda — who followed her mother’s footsteps with a pure heart — and came to her chamber. And see, the room was full of lepers; and the queen, standing in the middle, laid aside her mantle, girt herself with a linen cloth, and putting water in a basin began to wash their feet and dry them, and to press the dried feet between her two hands and kiss them most devoutly. To whom he said: “What do you, my lady? Surely if the king knew these things, he would never deign to touch with his lips your mouth defiled with the corrupt matter of lepers’ feet.” But she smiled and said: “Who knows not that the feet of the eternal King are to be preferred to the lips of a mortal king? I called you for this, dearest brother, that you might learn to do such works by my example. Take the basin therefore, and do as you see me do.” But he — to his own shame — went back to his companions smiling.

[The Tiberius manuscript adds this] narrative:

⁹ A certain ploughman named Peter, having yoked his wagon on the feast of Mary Magdalene, was urging on his oxen with curses — and at once the oxen with the plough were taken up by lightning, and Peter himself, who had uttered the curse, was tormented with a sharper punishment. For fire seized him so that the flesh and sinews of his leg were consumed, the bones laid bare, and the leg loosened from its joint. Then going to the church of the blessed Virgin, he hid the leg-bone in a hole in the church, and besought the blessed Virgin Mary with tears and prayers for his deliverance. And see, the blessed Virgin appearing with St Hippolytus bade Hippolytus restore Peter to his former health — who, taking the leg from the hole, set it in its place in a moment like a graft in a tree. At the grafting he felt such pain that he woke the whole household with his cries. For the new thigh-bone, being softer than the old, made him limp as a witness of the miracle. Then the blessed Virgin appearing again bade Hippolytus supply whatever was lacking to the cure. And he, perfectly healed, entered a hermitage — where the devil appeared to him most often in the likeness of a naked woman, offering herself naked to him; and the more firmly he resisted, the more shamelessly she pressed upon him. At last he bound a priestly stole about her neck, and at once the devil departing, a putrid corpse remained there giving out such a stench that none could doubt it was the body of some woman the devil had assumed.

[Then follows the beginning of the next article:] Of St Maxentia, virgin and martyr.