Saints

Queen and patron of Scotland. Born in 1046, Margaret was educated mainly in Hungary, where her family were exiled during the rule of the Viking kings in England. As one of the last members of the Anglo Saxon royal family, she was in danger after the Norman Conquest and took refuge at the court of Malcolm II of Scotland. Intelligent, beautiful and devout, she married Malcolm in 1069 and the union... Read More

Hermit. Born in Leinster, in the 9th century, Fintan was captured and made a slave by Vikings who took him to the Orkneys. He escaped and was protected by a Scottish bishop whose name has been lost. To give thanks for his rescue, Fintan made a pilgrimage to Rome. On his way back he joined a group of Irish hermits on an island in the Rhine near Schaffhausen, where he spent the rest of his life. ... Read More

St Hilda of Whitby As a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon abbess, Hilda was one of the most influential Church leaders of her day. At a time when the monasteries and their estates, rather than parishes and dioceses, formed the basic ecclesial structures in Britain, Hilda exercised largely the same administrative powers a bishop. At Whitby in Northumbria, she built up a thriving double-monastery. Here ... Read More