Perhaps the least known, but not the least curious and tragical story of a Claimant is that of the woman who, in the first year of the fourteenth century, attempted to personate the Maid of Norway, heiress to the crown of Scotland, and presumptive heiress also to that of Norway.—It had been given out that the Maid of Norway had died on her voyage to Scotland; but that, it was now alleged, was a mistake; she did not die; but she was ‘sold’ or betrayed by those who had charge of her, and carried away to an obscure hiding-place on the continent. She had at last found means to escape, and coming from Lübeck to Bergen—the very same port from which she had sailed for Scotland ten years before—she there presented herself to the people of Norway as the Princess Margaret. Although her father, King Eirik, was now dead, and her uncle Hakon possessed the throne, her right of succession to the crowns of Norway and of Scotland had been secured by the marriage contract of Norburgh, by which her father had espoused her mother Margaret, the daughter of Alexander III., king of Scotland. The Claimant appeared old for her years, and was white-haired; but sorrow brings gray hairs more surely than age. She was a married woman; and her husband came with her to Norway, and subsequently shared her tragic fate. King Hakon himself was present at her trial in Bergen, of which, unfortunately, no record exists. But we learn from the _Iceland Annals_ that she was burned to death as an impostor at Nordness, and her husband beheaded. When she was being taken through the Kongsgaard Port to the place of execution, she said; ‘I remember well when I, as a child, was taken through this self-same gate to be carried into Scotland; there was then in the High Church of the Apostles an Iceland priest, Haflidi by name, who was chaplain to my father, King Eirik; and when the clergy ceased singing, Sir Haflidi began the hymn _Veni Creator_, and that hymn was sung out to the end, just as I was taken on board the ship.’