Presumably the Presumably the Scottish poor.
Presumably there were plenty of "
poor"--and
destitute--in
Scotland alone, or across its southern border, from the year that the
Nordmanni (d.b.a.
vikings) began their destructive raids on northern Britain at Lindisfarne (793), thro' at least William the Conquerer's suppression of the Rising of the North and colder-blooded Harrying of the North [†] in not-yet pacified newly Norman Britain (1069--1070).
The poor and the destitute wherever [St. Margaret of Scotland] found them
Irrelevant & immaterial. And fascinatingly, not even
mentioned in the
Catholic Encyclopedia article about her [‡].
To be an analogy that's
honestly applicable to the current
immigration controversy in Europe:
•
all of the queenly saint's "poor and
destitute" would've had to
travel all the way to
Scotland from distant places like
Cyprus,
Crete, or Sicily (how would the genuinely "
poor" pay for such extensive travel?);
• selfishly bypassed several
nearer ports of refuge known not to offer a reception as
profitable as in Scotland (altho' her realm is really quite the contrary--a harsh physical environment in which
frugality was a
necessity, not merely an eccentricity); and
• the queen's "
destitute" would have been primarily downtrodden
families--many women & children--arriving in wretched health, instead of being primarily
young adult men in
excellent health, exhibiting a degree of
health & fitness like newly deployed
soldiers, and wearing nearly fresh clothing and shoes instead of wearing rags and walking on unshod battered feet.
-------
Note †: The quaintly-titled "Harrying" (lit. "to ravage, despoil, pillage") by William the
Conqueror Bastard must've been a great inspiration to Yankee Gen. W.T. Sherman, 8 centuries later.
Note ‡: Elevated from English royalty to Queen of Scotland by marriage to King Malcolm III "Canmore" of Scotland: uncertain year in period 1067--1070. Died 16 Nov. 1092. "St. Margaret of Scotland".
Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. 9): <
www.newadvent.org/cathen/09655c.htm>.