Saints

St David of Scotland Scotland's greatest king was the sixth and youngest son of St Margaret of Scotland and Malcolm III, born in 1085. He married Matilda, daughter of Waldef, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, which gave him a claim to the earldom Northumberland. For many years he waged a long and unsuccessful war against England, but after being crowned king of Scotland in 112... Read More

This 12th century saint was a Scottish fisherman from Perth. As a young man he experienced a conversion and devoted himself to caring for orphans and the poor. One child in his care had been abandoned as a baby on a church doorstep. In 1201 he set off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but only reached Rochester in Kent, when he was set upon by thieves and murdered. According to the legend, his ... Read More

Monk. Born in Northumbria in 673, Bede studied at the newly-founded monastery of Wearmouth, and then Jarrow. Here he became a monk, and spent the rest of his life - probably travelling no further afield than York and Lindisfarne. The Venerable Bede said: "I have devoted my energies to the study of the Scriptures. Observing monastic discipline, singing the daily services in church, study, teachin... Read More