Page:The Queens of England.djvu/21

MATILDA OF SCOTLAND. it Agatha, and showed every attention and respect to her who had been once a queen, and to her children. Margaret, the elder of the two young princesses, was a beautiful girl, in the first dawn of womanhood, with soft blue eyes, and long silken, fair hair — hair celebrated seven hundred years after Margaret had lived, reigned, and died. Young Malcolm saw, loved, and wooed her, and the fugitive Agatha joyfully con- sented to a marriage which made- her daughter Queen of Scotland, and united the fallen fortunes of her house to one not less royal or noble, and worthy of alliance with the child of Edward Atheling. So the young Scottish monarch won the bride which fortune and those seemingly adverse winds had cast upon his shores ; and the place where fair Margaret first set her foot on Scottish ground is called "Queen's Ferry" to this day. The union thus suddenly formed, as it were by the hand of destiny, proved most happy. Margaret brought to the half-civilized Scottish court the Anglo-Saxon refinement which had been first taught by Alfred the Great, and had gathered strength from the time of those palmy days until the rude Norman barons came and destroyed all. We may judge of the intellectual condition of Malcolm's court from the fact that the young king himself could neither read nor write, and that the sole amusement of the nobility consisted in hunting, fight- ing, and feasting. No very refined society was this for the widow of Edward Atheling; but the gentle Margaret loved her young husband, as indeed she was bound to do, in return for the disinterested affection which had made him choose her, an exiled and disinherited princess, to be Queen of Scot- land. By the influence of love she exercised the strongest sway over Malcolm ; to a meek spirit she united a firm and clear judgment and a pious mind. All these qualities won her the highest respect from her rude but generous-hearted lord, and her influence over him lasted to the end of his life. In good time the young queen of Scotland became a mother. Her first child, a daughter, was born in the year 1077, and to her Margaret gave the sweet Saxon name of Editha ; but circumstances occurred which changed the appellation of the little maiden to one better known in history. Thus it hap- pened. Robert, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, was leading his father's troops against Malcolm of Scotland, the two countries being then at war. Soon after the birth of