Hungarian Heritage Review, 1988 (17. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1988-01-01 / 1. szám
country into utter ruin. Waiting for them was the throne and the love of the entire population. Edmund and Edward accompanied their Hungarian friends into Hungary. There, first Endre, and after his timely death, Bela, was crowned King. Near the border of today’s County of Tolna, in Hungary, they were given an estate, which even to this day is called '‘English Estate.” Living in Esztergom, Edward made acquaintance with Saint Istvan’s beautiful daughter, Agatha. Her beauty was only surpassed by her gentleness and kindness. They soon fell in love, and people from everywhere gathered in Esztergom to attend the wedding. This could have lasted until now, had not the wheel of fate turned again! Canute, England’s Danish King, the “Bloody Hand,” died and soon after also his only son, Hardicanute. In England, no one knew if the Prince Hereditary was dead or alive, therefore Ironside Edmund’s half-brother, Edward ascended the throne. A godly, kindly man, Edward was later canonized. Having no son, he had his nephews traced down and sending an envoy to the court of King Endre, invited his relatives to come home. Edmund was no longer living. Thus, only Edward started homeward with his wife, Princess Agatha and their three children, Christine, Edmund and Margit. Their cortege consisted of two hundred Hungarian knights and ladies-in-waiting. However, their journey began under an unlucky star! Henrick III, the German Kaiser, was angry at Edward because he had fought with King Endre against him some time ago. Henrick’s “hospitality” was such, that he kept them until he died. Continuing their journey they finally arrived in England, where St. Edward greeted them with royal pomp and great joy. The festivities might have lasted forever if the wheel of fate had not turned once again. Prince Edward died, having been in England for only three months, and St. Edward died, too. Scarcely sixteen years old, Edmund, Hungarian-born Prince Hereditary, found himself faced by an army of throne claimers and he never ascended his throne. As usually happens, a foreign conquerer took advantage of the quarrel over succession to the throne, and as a result, England had to suffer William the Conqueror’s Norman rule. Agatha, from the House of Arpad, wanted to return home now with her children, because this life abroad was difficult, especially since she felt unwelcome. She boarded a ship to begin her long, tiresome journey to Esztergom, but in the book of fate, it was written otherwise. A wicked storm came up in the Channel, whipping the foamy waters sky high! It seemed that the ocean wanted to hinder young Princess Margit from leaving her place of destiny. On the shores of Scotland, they became shipwrecked. Agatha, her children, and the two hundred knights accompanying them, managed to save their lives. As soon as Malcolm II, King of Scotland, heard that the shipwrecked royal party had reached shore on his land, he sent a splendid escort to invite them to be guests in his castle. He fell in love with Princess Margit, the beautiful flower from Hungary. Thus it happened that King Istvan’s granddaughter became Queen of Scotland. I could finish with the closing of a fairy tale “.. .and they lived happily ever after,” but the story is not finished. Malcolm and Margit’s descendant was an Edith Matilda, who married a man named Butler. And the Grandmother of America’s great George Washington was a Butler! [From Selected Hungarian Legends, Wass] Hungarian ^CcgtniSs ■■■ — 30 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW JANUARY 1988
