Baring-Gould’s sources: Beatified by Pius IX. in 1847; and inserted in the Martyrology on Dec. 3a] The Blessed Margaret was bom a scion of the illustrious and princely house of Colonna at Rome. She was left an orphan when a child, and was brought up by her brothers, who wanted to get her married when quite young, and so rid themselves of their responsibility for her. But one of them, James, who was studying at Bologna, and was destined for the Church, opposed the others, and inspired in the mind of the young girl an ardent desire to embrace the life of celibacy. She escaped from her brothers’ house, and having cut off her long hair, took refuge in the house of the Poor Clares, near Rome. She undertook the nursing of the sick, and having overcome her natural repugnance to the sight of their sores and the disagreeable nature of the unaccustomed work to which she had devoted herself, passed through her profession, but was not admitted to take the veil on account of her being sickly. She accompanied her brother James, now a cardinal, on a visit of piety to the tombs of the Apostles. She suffered from a tumour during seven years, and died, whilst still young, in 1284.