3-052-331 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Queen Margaret Reading the Bible to King Malcolm, from "The Shores of Fife", 1872. Illustration from a Christmas book. 'Sir Noel Paton's design in the Engraving we have borrowed represents his ideal conception of a well-known incident belonging to the traditions of early Scottish history...The marriage of this powerful heathen monarch with the Saxon Princess Margaret, grandchild of Edmund Ironside and sister of Edgar Atheling, was the occasion that led to the re-establishment of Christianity in Scotland, after the subversion of the ancient Columban Church by the inroad of a fierce barbarian race. It is said that Margaret was her warlike husband's teacher in the faith of Christ; and that she used to read the new Testament to him, explaining its divine lessons of humility, charity, and piety, as she seems to be doing in Sir Noel Paton's frontispiece to this volume. The time in which they lived was the latter part of the eleventh century...This Malcolm is the same who figures in Shakspeare's "Macbeth".' From "Illustrated London News", 1880.