Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (24 page)

However, there are question marks surrounding the theory of Matilda’s revenge. For example, the charter for Gloucester was removed before her arrival in England. What is more, Domesday Book tells us that Brihtric had inherited the manor of Tewkesbury in 1020, which suggests that he would have been in his sixties when he died—a comparatively advanced age for the time. It is therefore at least as likely that he died from natural causes as at the orders of the woman whose proposal he had so callously rejected all those years ago. Indeed, it might have been his death that caused his manor to become available and subsequently granted to the queen.

Another explanation for Brihtric’s reputed fall from grace could be that he took part in the Exeter rebellion of 1068. He was one of the few Saxon magnates who had not been immediately dispossessed after the
Battle of Hastings, and as such it is possible that he became a figurehead for opposition to the Norman regime. His loyalty to the Norman king was unlikely to have been strong, and he might well have decided to throw all of the wealth and power at his disposal behind the rebels’ cause. The fact that his principal manor of Tewkesbury subsequently suffered “destruction and dismembering” at the hands of one of the king’s most trusted companions, William fitzOsbern, adds weight to this theory.
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But still the rumors persisted, and the prospect that Matilda had a hand in his death remains a tantalizing one. It was in keeping with her pride and strength of will that she would have harbored a simmering resentment against the man who had so humiliated her in Flanders—and a determination to wreak revenge if ever she had the opportunity. And if this revenge was as terrible as the rumors suggest, then she rivaled even her husband in ruthlessness and brutality.

In early 1067, the same year that Matilda allegedly took revenge upon Brihtric, her daughter Adeliza was again the focus of marriage negotiations. The potentate upon whom her father had fixed his sights was Alfonso VI, King of León, part of modern-day Spain. Alfonso had inherited León upon his father’s death in 1065, while his elder and younger brothers had acquired other parts of the vast Spanish empire over which King Ferdinand had ruled.
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Even though Alfonso was only the middle son, his overweening ambition drove him to make war with his brothers and lay claim to their territories. He was a fierce warrior, who earned himself the nickname El Bravo (the Brave), and contemporary sources variously depict him as a valiant hero and a ruthless oppressor. Determined to gain the upper hand over his brothers, he set his sights on a daughter of the new king of England, and the evidence suggests that Adeliza was once more chosen as the intended bride.
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The fact that such a powerful ruler was again singled out for Adeliza suggests that she was considered an appealing match—Orderic describes her as “a most fair maiden,”
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and she was perhaps the most beautiful of Matilda’s daughters. It also lends weight to the notion that she was the eldest, because as such she would have been the most highly prized in the
international marriage market. William of Poitiers claims that two Spanish kings fought for the honor of marrying her. “A bitter quarrel arose between them on her account: for, far from being unworthy, she was in every way worthy of such a parent, and shone with such virtues and such zeal.”
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According to another account, the two combatants were Alfonso of León and Robert Guiscard, the duke of Apulia and Calabria. However, the latter can surely be discounted, because he was already married at the time.

Adeliza had inherited some of her mother’s strong will, and upon hearing that she was to marry Alfonso of León, she reacted with as much distaste as Matilda had shown for William of Normandy. According to Orderic Vitalis, “she who had not enjoyed union with her first betrothed [Harold Godwinson] shrank with loathing from a second marriage.”
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The chroniclers add that Adeliza had also grown into an extremely pious young woman and fervently desired to eschew such worldly concerns by entering a convent. One account claims that she was already a nun when her father decided that she would be more useful to him as a bride to barter with.

Despite her aversion to the idea of marriage, there was little that Adeliza could do to resist her father’s wishes. It is hard to imagine that William had much patience or sympathy with the girl, for he was a staunch traditionalist where his children were concerned, believing that the only useful function daughters could fulfill was to further his political ambitions. There is no record of Matilda’s part in the matter. If she felt any empathy with her daughter, then she either failed to persuade William to abandon the scheme or realized that it was futile even to attempt to change his mind.

Negotiations duly proceeded. Anxious not to let this desirable bride slip away, Alfonso sent proxies to take part in the wedding ceremony on his behalf, as was the custom in diplomatic marriages when the bride and groom lived many miles apart. He must have been impatient to seal the agreement, for it would have taken his prospective bride only a matter of weeks to travel to Spain. Adeliza remained miserable at the prospect of marrying the Spanish king, whom she knew only by his reputation as a grasping and ruthless leader. Orderic even goes so far as to claim that she
still felt too strong an attachment to the late King Harold to marry another: “She had seen and loved the Englishman, but she was terrified of the Spanish husband she had never seen.”
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The poor girl prayed fervently that she might be released from her fate and never set foot on Spanish soil. According to Orderic, her prayers would be answered, but not without great cost, for she died on her way to her prospective new land. Her body was brought back to Normandy by the same entourage that had accompanied her on the journey to Spain. Orderic concludes his tale by claiming that Adeliza was then given a fitting resting place at the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Bayeux.

However, there is good reason to doubt the tragic end to Orderic’s tale. Although other sources suggest that Adeliza died young, they do not relate the deadly divine intervention that saved her from marrying the Spanish king. Such a tragedy would have been much talked of at the Norman court, and yet William of Poitiers, whose account was written at the time that Orderic claims her death occurred, does not mention it at all. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that Adeliza was released from her betrothal to Alfonso by some other means—perhaps the collapse of diplomatic negotiations. Furthermore, Orderic himself claims that a daughter of William and Matilda was betrothed to Earl Edwin of Mercia, a powerful English magnate, when the duke returned in triumph to Normandy in the spring of 1067, and the most likely contender is Adeliza.

Edwin was one of several high-ranking Englishmen whom William brought with him to Normandy that spring. The others included Edwin’s brother, Earl Morcar, and Edgar the Aetheling, the young man whom William’s recalcitrant subjects had proclaimed king. William clearly wished to abide by the old adage of keeping one’s enemies close. These men served as hostages for peace in England during the new king’s absence, depriving the kingdom of any possible figureheads for a rebellion. In order to neutralize the threat of at least one of them still further, the evidence suggests that William betrothed his eldest daughter, Adeliza, to Edwin during this visit.
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Determined to celebrate his triumph in England to the full, William kept a magnificent court that Easter at the old ducal monastery of Fécamp.
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He was joined by Matilda, together with “a brilliant galaxy of bishops and magnates” from across the duchy who flocked to the palace.
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Members of the French aristocracy were also there, in recognition of the fact that William was no longer the vassal of the king of France, but an equal. Men and women of more humble status also thronged the route of their duke’s triumphant return. “Old men, boys, matrons and all the citizens came out to see him; they shouted out to welcome his return, so that you could have thought the whole city was cheering.”
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Even the weather appeared to hail the duke’s victory. William of Poitiers claims that “the sun seemed to shine with the clear brightness of summer, far more strongly than usual at this season.”
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The feasting and entertainments that William and Matilda ordered were so lavish that Normandy had never seen the like. All marveled at “the splendid garments, interwoven and encrusted with gold, worn by the king and his court,” which made their own clothes appear poor by comparison. Indeed, now that they were king and queen of England, William and Matilda’s clothes were more lavish than before. Brightly colored and highly decorated, they would have been made out of priceless materials such as shot silk taffeta and gold thread.

The foreign visitors sent home enthusiastic reports of the couple’s attire, as well as of the rich tapestries and “vessels of silver and gold, of whose number and beauty incredible things could truthfully be told.”
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Poitiers describes “a great banquet” at which William and Matilda “drank only from such goblets or from horns of wild oxen decorated with the same metal at both ends,” proudly adding that the visitors would have “noted many such things, fitting the magnificence of a king, which they praised on their return home because of their novelty.”
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It is likely that Matilda was responsible for this spectacle, for it was the role of the consort to manage and exhibit the family treasure and adornments, and displays of ostentation such as those at the Easter court would have fallen within her remit. It was also the consort’s job to ensure that royals stood out from the crowd, and with the adornments she now employed, the message was clear: William and Matilda were no longer merely duke and duchess of Normandy, but king and queen of England, with all of the associated majesty and splendor.

The celebrations to mark William’s triumph continued long after the assembly at Fécamp. At the beginning of May 1067, he ordered the consecration of the abbey of St. Mary in St.-Pierre-sur-Dives, which attracted
a considerable audience.
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Two months later, on July 1, he and his wife attended the dedication of the magnificent new abbey church of St. Mary in Jumièges. The church, which was situated on the river Seine in Rouen, was one of the most important in Normandy—it had strong ties with the ducal family, and its abbots had played a leading role in both government and church reform. The works had been started by Robert of Jumièges, Edward the Confessor’s archbishop of Canterbury, who had undertaken an ambitious program of building more than twenty years before. The result was an imposing new Romanesque church, which rivaled even William and Matilda’s great abbeys in Caen.

While the new king and queen of England were parading their magnificence throughout the duchy, an event occurred that cast a shadow over their celebrations—for Matilda at least. On September 1, 1067, her father, Count Baldwin V, died. There is no evidence that Matilda had seen her father since her marriage to William. This was by no means unusual: distance and domestic duties meant that when daughters of ruling families were married to foreign potentates, they often bade farewell to their family forever. Nevertheless, she seems to have maintained good relations with both of her parents, perhaps through regular correspondence, and she remained proud of her family connections, as well as of Baldwin’s burgeoning prestige. Little wonder, therefore, that she was said to be “overwhelmed with grief” at her father’s death, as well as by pity for her widowed mother.
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Ever the dutiful daughter, she was no doubt glad that she and William had already provided for Adela some years before, when they had arranged for Abbess Elisabeth of Montvilliers to pay her an annual pension in return for her gift of land in the Pays-de-Caux.