THE PEARL OF SCOTLAND:
THE MIDDLE AGES

If you go to Edinburgh Castle today you will find The Stone of Destiny, which is a large stone symbolising Scotland’s pride and honour. A lot of mystery surrounds this stone and thousands of Scots have bled and died over it.

Legend has it that the Scythians brought it to Ireland from the Middle East, and then the Scots there (named after Queen Scota) came with it to Argyll when Fergus was crowned first King of the Scots in this nation in AD 498. The tradition was that wherever the Stone was found the Scots would reign supreme and the ancient kings were crowned on it. For a time the Stone was at Iona where Columba anointed kings over it.

In AD 839, Kenneth McAlpine, King of the Scots, ordered the Stone of Destiny to be taken from Argyll and placed at Scone where Scottish kings would be crowned. At this point it became known as The Stone of Scone.

In 1296, King Edward I (‘Longshanks’) stole it from the Scots and took it to Westminster Abbey in London, where it became known as The Coronation Stone upon which the kings and queens of England have been crowned. In 1996, the British Prime Minister, John Major, returned it to Edinburgh, where it remains today in the Castle.1

Another name for it has been Jacob's Pillow. Some people believe it is the original stone ‘pillow’ upon which Jacob in the Bible (Genesis 28:10-22) slept and had a dream about angels ascending and descending on a ladder to heaven. When he awoke from his dream he named the place Bethel, meaning 'House of God', and said: 'this is the gate of heaven'.

Later Jesus referred to himself as the spiritual gate through which we must go to find God (Matthew 7:13) and said about himself: ‘I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man’ (John 1:51). For many Christians, then, Edinburgh has a godly purpose in making known the message of Jesus Christ to all nations.

Queen Margaret (1047-1093)

If you go up to the Castle you will find that most of the construction is from the 1450s onwards; very little exists before that, due to the ravages of war. One exception is St Margaret’s Chapel, which was built in King David’s time in 1124 and based on a simpler prayer room that belonged to his mother, Queen Margaret.

Queen Margaret was an amazing woman. The Scots loved her and called her The Pearl of Scotland because of her selfless devotion to God on the behalf of the poor and needy. She was married to King Malcolm III, the successor of King Macbeth (made famous by Shakespeare) after coming to Scotland as a refugee when she fled from William the Conqueror.

Her motto was ‘To give our Lord perfect service, Martha and Mary must combine.’ This meant that she believed our spiritual lives for Christ must be outworked in practical help and good works.

Her acts of charity and humility were numerous: washing the feet of the poor; feeding the poor and needy in the Castle – she even fed the orphans with her own silver spoon; paying for the rebuilding of the monastery at Iona, which had been ravaged by the Vikings; building new monasteries for the spreading of the gospel of Christ and for use as education and hospital centres. She was also responsible for making Sunday an official day of rest, and she had a ferry established to ship pilgrims across the Forth estuary on their way to St Andrews. Queensferry is named after her today, as is Queen Margaret University.

Her husband was devoted to her. He was illiterate but used to kiss her Bible fondly, believing that somehow he could get closer to the holy presence of God he often felt in this woman of prayer. Sadly he was killed together with their eldest son in a battle at Alnwick. She was already dying when the news arrived, but this heartbreak accelerated her death. She became known as the patron saint of wives, families and the poor, and she used to say to her children:

‘If you love Him (i.e. Jesus Christ), my darlings, He will give you prosperity in this life and everlasting happiness with all the saints.’

King David
(Ruled from 1124-1153)

King David came to the throne in 1124. He followed the faith of his mother and had St Giles’ Cathedral built in that time by the Lazarite monks. (A more simple church had probably existed on that site since 854, which had been built by the Benedictine monks.)

The Cathedral itself was named after St Giles, the patron saint of lepers, and the Lazarite monks who cared for the lepers, were named after Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead. So here in the heart of Edinburgh is God’s symbol of healing from all that is unclean in our lives, and a sign of his resurrection power.

One day King David was hunting in the forest by Arthur’s Seat when a stag caused his horse to rear up and he fell to the ground. When he looked up, the stag was about to gore him. He grabbed the stag’s antlers and saw a cross shining between the horns.

The stag left him and David went home wondering over this event. That night he had a dream. Three times in this dream he was told to build an abbey at the spot where he saw the cross. He obeyed the dream and so Holyrood Abbey (Holyrood means ‘Holy Cross’) was built, the ruins of which can still be seen next to Holyrood Palace at the bottom of the Royal Mile.