Abstract

The family background of Agatha, the mother of Margaret of Scotland, is still one of the not yet fully clarified questions of Medieval European history. Here, the possibility that she could have been the daughter of Prince Imre, heir of the Hungarian throne, from the Árpád family and his wife, daughter of Romanos III Argyros, Emperor of the East Roman Empire, is discussed.

Highlights

  • Margaret, royal princess from the family of the Kings of Wessex and, later, of England (*1045/47, +16 November, 1093), married Malcolm III King of Scots approximately in 1069 and, as Queen of Scots, became a key figure in Scottish cultural and religious history

  • A theory is described, according to which Agatha might have been the daughter of Crown Prince Imre of Hungary (Árpáds) and his wife, the daughter of Romanos III Argyros, Emperor of the East Roman Empire

  • The father of Margaret, Prince Edward the Exile (*ca.1016, +4 April, 1057), son of King Edward II, Ironside, had to leave England together with his brother Edmund because of political turbulences at a very young age, and after a few transfers, he found a relatively quiet exile in the Hungarian Kingdom, at the latest, in 1040 (there is a Hungarian estate around Réka Castle named Terra Britanorum de Nádasd, by tradition granted by King Stephen I (István I) of Hungary to the English Edward (Koller 1782; Horvát 1828; Xantus 1878; Rézbányay 1896; Malcomes 1937, 1938; Papp 1967; Szakonyi 2020), which if this tradition is true, would put him in Hungary before Stephen’s death in 1038)

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Summary

Introduction

Our hypothesis, described later in this paper, is more-or-less in line with those variants, according to which Agatha was of Hungarian origin (chronicles: Thomson and Winterbottom 2003; Chibnall 1980; Hardy and Martin 1888; Dunphy and Bratu 2016—studies: Cornides 1778; Bresslau [1879] 1884; Fest 1935, 1938, Fest [1940] 2020; Moriarty 1952; Barrow 1993; Czigány and Korompay 2000; Sauser 2000; Lauder-Frost 2002; Mladjov 2003, 2015) These theories include the possibilities that she was the daughter of Granduke Géza (*940/45, +1 February, 997), that is, she could have been a sister of King (Saint) István [Stephen] I (*969/75, +15 August, 1038); the daughter of István I and his wife Gisela of Bavaria (Liudolfinger/Ottonen-Bayern, *ca.985, +7 May, 1065); or the daughter of one of István’s successors, Salamon (*1052, +1087) and his wife Judith Maria (*1054, +1092/96), who was the daughter of Emperor Heinrich III (Salier, *28 October, 1017, +5 October, 1056, Schwennicke 1998, Table 12).

The Imre Hypothesis
Conclusions
November 1031
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