Editing Margaret, Maid of Norway (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:Margaret, Maid of Norway.jpg|thumb|[[Lerwick Town Hall]] stained glass window depicting "Margaret, Queen of Scotland and daughter of Norway"]]
Margaret was the last legitimate scion of the line of King [[William the Lion]].{{sfn|Duncan|2002|p=195}} [[Competitors for the crown of Scotland|Thirteen men]] laid claim to succession, most notably Bruce and Balliol.{{sfn|Prestwich|1988|p=382}} King Eric half-heartedly claimed the Scottish crown as well and died in 1299.{{sfn|Helle|1990|p=152}} In 1301 she was impersonated by a German woman, [[False Margaret]], who was burned at the stake.{{sfn|Helle|1990|p=155}}

Historians debate whether Margaret should be considered a queen and included in the [[list of Scottish monarchs]]. She was never inaugurated,{{sfn|Oram|2002|p=107}} and her contemporaries in Scotland described her as queen very rarely, referring to her instead as their "lady". She was usually called Scotland's "lady", "heir", or "lady and heir" and rarely as "queen" during the deliberations of the [[Great Cause]] after her death.{{sfn|Duncan|2002|p=181}} One of her biographers, [[Archie Duncan (historian)|Archie Duncan]], argues that because she was "never inaugurated, she was never queen of Scots".

On the other hand, documents issued from late 1286 no longer refer to the "king whosoever he may be", indicating that Margaret may have already been regarded as queen. Another of her biographers, Norman H. Reid, insists that Margaret was "accepted as queen" by her contemporaries but that, owing to the lack of Inauguration, "[her] reign never started". [[Pope Nicholas IV]] considered Margaret to be the monarch of Scotland and treated her as such, sending to her a bull regarding the [[episcopal election]] of [[Matthew de Crambeth]].{{sfn|Reid|1982|p=79}} In modern historiography she is nearly unanimously called "queen", and reference books give 19 March 1286, the date of Alexander III's death, as the start of her reign.{{sfn|Duncan|2002|p=181}}