In 1290, seven-year-old Margaret, known as the Maid of Norway, died off the coast of the Orkney Islands while en route to claim the Scottish crown. Her death plunged Scotland into a succession crisis known as the Great Cause, ultimately leading to Edward I's invasion and the Wars of Scottish Independence. However, in 1301, an astonishing resurrection occurred: a woman arrived in Bergen, Norway, aboard a ship from Lübeck, claiming she was Margaret.
She asserted that she had not died in Orkney but had been sold into secret captivity by her maidservants and spirited away to Germany, where she spent the intervening decade in obscurity. Despite her graying hair and appearance of being roughly forty years old—significantly older than the actual Margaret would have been—she attracted a passionate following among the Norwegian common folk and lower nobility. Many Scots who resisted English rule were eager to believe that their legitimate queen was still alive.
Her claims directly threatened King Haakon V of Norway, who had succeeded Margaret's father, Eric II. Haakon acted swiftly to neutralize the political threat. An official investigation revealed that her age and backstory were fabricated, and she was accused of treason and fraud.
In 1301, the False Margaret was burned at the stake at Nordnes in Bergen, while her husband was beheaded. Despite her execution, popular belief in her royal identity persisted for generations; local peasants even erected an informal martyr's shrine at the site of her execution, venerating her as a tragic folk heroine long after her death.