Margaret was the granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside of England but was born in exile in Hungary in 1046. In 1070 she married King Malcolm III of Scotland and had eight children, three of whom reigned as Kings of Scotland, including St David I. Remarkable for her piety and works of charity, she co-founded Dunfermline Abbey and organised ferries at North and South Queensferry for pilgrims crossing the Firth of Forth on the way to St Andrews. She died at Edinburgh in 1093, four days after Malcolm had been killed. She is the secondary patron of Scotland. – CTS New Daily Roman Missal 2012, p 3148; Vatican II Weekday Missal 1975, p 1809
Gertrude was born in 1256 in Eisleben Germany. As a child she was taken to the Cistercian Abbey of Helfta. She showed great talent in her philosophical and literary studies but is best known for her mystical writings. She had a marked devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which later developed into its modern form with the visions of St Margaret Mary. She died on 17 Nov 1302.