Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (45 page)

10.
Adelaide married Enguerrand II, count of Ponthieu; Lambert II, count of Lens; and Odo II of Champagne.

11.
See, for example, GND, II, p. 96n.

12.
Herleva also had at least two daughters by Herluin (Muriel and Isabella), and possibly two others. However, the evidence for their lives is sketchy.

13.
GND, II, p. 97. He also referred to him as “William the Bastard” in his
Ecclesiastical History
. See OV, IV, p. 111.

14.
Poitiers was archdeacon of Lisieux, one of the most important cathedrals in Normandy. As such, he was well acquainted with the ducal family and the workings of the Norman court. Like Jumièges, he was writing at the same time as the events that he described, but his account, the
Gesta Guillelmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum
(
The Deeds of William, Duke of the Normans and King of the English
), which was completed in around 1077, was hardly a balanced appraisal. Written at the duke’s command, it was little more than a propaganda piece to praise—and, more important, to justify—William’s actions.

15.
GRA, I, p. 427.

16.
GND, II, p. 81. Although William’s date of birth is most often assumed to be 1027 or 1028, Robert of Torigni claims that he was only five years old when his father left him in charge of the duchy. It seems unlikely that Robert would have entrusted his kingdom to one quite so young.

17.
Ibid.

18.
Malmesbury claims that Robert’s servant, Ralph Mowin, had poisoned him in the hope of assuming control of the duchy. However, when Mowin returned to Normandy, the truth came to light and he was “universally rejected as a monster and departed into lifelong exile.” GRA, I, p. 309.

19.
Malmesbury asserts that in 1086, shortly before William’s own death, he sent a
mission to reclaim his father’s remains from Nicaea so that he could have them reburied in his native Normandy. The envoys succeeded in recovering Robert’s body, but had only reached as far as Apulia in Italy when they learned of William’s death and therefore decided to bury Robert in Italy. GRA, I, pp. 505, 507. Further evidence of William’s veneration of his late father is provided by Professor Bates, who points to the fact that William founded an abbey in 1063 and dedicated it to St. Stephen. This saint had been uncelebrated in Normandy until Duke Robert acquired one of his fingers during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The relic was sent back to Normandy after the duke’s death and sparked a major cult. Bates,
William the Conqueror
, p. 43.

20.
GRA, I, p. 427.

21.
GND, II, p. 97.

22.
OV, IV, p. 83.

23.
Le Vaudreuil was on the river Seine south of Rouen.

24.
GND, II, p. 91.

25.
Ibid., p. 121.

26.
GRA, I, p. 335.

27.
GND, II, p. 91.

28.
GRA, I, p. 451.

29.
Ibid., p. 477.

30.
ASC, p. 219.

31.
Southern,
Life of St. Anselm
, p. 56.

32.
GND, II, p. 125.

33.
The stigma of William’s birth would still be felt by his successors a century later. His great-grandson, Henry II, snubbed the bishop of Lincoln at a picnic one day because they had quarreled. The king was mending a leather bandage on his finger with a needle and thread. Seeing this, the bishop quipped: “How like your cousins of Falaise you do look.” Luckily for him, Henry appreciated the joke. Bates,
William the Conqueror
, p. 58.

34.
ASC, p. 219; Forester, p. 217.

35.
GND, II, p. 121; GG, p. 9. See also Searle,
Chronicle of Battle Abbey
, pp. 41, 93.

36.
GND, II, p. 189. This is corroborated by Malmesbury, who claims that William was “a practising Christian as far as a layman could be, to the extent of attending mass every day and every day hearing vespers and matins.” GRA, I, p. 493.

37.
Clover and Gibson, p. 61.

38.
OV, II, p. 239.

39.
ASC, p. 219.

40.
GRA, I, p. 507.

41.
According to Malmesbury, the two men were of very different character. He describes Robert of Mortain as “dense and slow-witted,” whereas Odo “was a
man of much livelier mind” who was “a great double-dealer and showed great cunning.” GRA, I, p. 507.

42.
The eighteenth-century historian Rapin claims that there were reports that William was “very much addicted to women in his youth,” but there are no contemporary sources to corroborate this. Rapin, p. 81.

43.
Ibid.

44.
GRA, I, p. 501.

45.
GND, II, p. 189.

46.
Bates,
William the Conqueror
, p. 137.

47.
GND, II, p. 189.

48.
GRA, I, p. 509.

49.
Bates,
William the Conqueror
, pp. 138–39.

50.
GND, II, p. 189.

51.
GRA, I, p. 511.

52.
Ibid., p. 509.

3:
THE ROUGH WOOING

  
1.
GND, II, p. 129.

  
2.
GG, p. 31.

  
3.
Ibid.

  
4.
GND, II, p. 129.

  
5.
Fauroux, pp. 275–77.

  
6.
GND, II, p. 129; Blaauw, p. 109.

  
7.
Strickland, p. 26.

  
8.
Chronicon Turonense
, p. 348.

  
9.
“Cronique attribuée à Baudoin d’Avesnes,” p. 559.

10.
Chronicon Turonense
, p. 348.

11.
“Cronique attribuée à Baudoin d’Avesnes,” p. 559.

12.
Indeed, another account claims that on a later occasion he killed her instantly by kicking at her from his horse and driving his spur into her breast. See p. 77.

13.
Philippe Mouskes and Baldwin of Avesnes,
Chronique Rimée de Philippe Mouskes
, pp. 175–77; “Cronique attribuée à Baudoin d’Avesnes,” p. 559.

14.
Strickland, p. 25.

15.
“Interdixit et Balduino comiti Flandrensi, ne filiam suam Willelmo Normanno nuptui daret; et illi, ne eam acciperet.” Mansi, col. 742.

16.
Robert had also repudiated his first wife, Rozala of Italy, when she failed to give him an heir. Ironically, his third wife, Constance of Arles, gave him the sons he had hoped for but incited them to rebel against their father.

17.
Douglas,
William the Conqueror
, p. 76.

18.
Ibid.

19.
GND, II, p. 147.

20.
Blaauw, pp. 109–10, certainly believes this was the case and asserts it strongly. See also Mason,
William II
, p. 27.

21.
Prentout, pp. 14–29, provides a useful précis of this argument. See also Boüard,
Guillaume le Conquérant
, pp. 163–65; Douglas,
William the Conqueror
, p. 380.

22.
This theory was put forward by the mid-nineteenth-century medievalist Thomas Stapleton, in “Observations in Disproof.” See also Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest
, III, pp. 86–87, 651–60, and Appendix O; Freeman, “Parentage of Gundrada”; Blaauw; Lair, pp. 25–26; Planché, pp. 134–35; Prentout, pp. 9–14; Waters; Guérard, p. 201; H.W.C. Davis, I, p. 52.

23.
Also referred to as “Gundrada” and “Gundred.”

24.
There is no direct reference to Matilda’s being the mother of Gerbod and Frederic; this is inferred from contemporary evidence about Gundreda’s brothers. Orderic Vitalis claims that Gundreda was the sister of Gerbode, a Fleming, to whom Duke William later gave the earldom of Chester. His account is confirmed by a reference in the chronicle of Hyde Abbey to “Gerbodo” from Flanders, brother of a countess. A number of references contained within Domesday Book to a man named Frederic from Flanders led Stapleton to conclude that he, too, was a brother of Gundreda—and therefore a son of Matilda. Another nineteenth-century historian claims that there was a third son, Richard Guett, who was listed as the brother of “the Countess of Warren” in a bequest to Bermondsey Abbey, although the evidence for this is flimsy. OV, II, p. 221; Edwards, pp. xcvii, 296; Morris, vol. XVIII, no. 18:7; Clay, pp. 44–45; Planché, pp. 136–37, 144.

25.
This is supported by another Lewes charter, which records that the manor of Carleton in Norfolk was given to the priory by “Matilda, mother of the Countess Gundred.” Clay, pp. 43, 61; Freeman, “Parentage of Gundrada,” p. 681; M.A.E. Green, I, pp. 73n, 77.

26.
Clay, pp. 40–41, 44, 56–57; M.A.E. Green, I, pp. 74–75. Strickland, pp. 97–98, accepts this theory and confidently names Gundreda as the “sixth and youngest daughter of the Conqueror and Matilda.” The belief that Gundreda was the daughter of William and Matilda evidently still prevailed in the sixteenth century. The British Library contains a sketch from around the time of Henry VIII’s reign that shows the couple with three of their sons and three of their daughters. Gundreda is included among the latter. BL Harleian 1449 fo.6b. The badly damaged tombstone that bore Gundreda’s epitaph was discovered at Isfield Church near Lewes in 1774 by the antiquary Sir William Burrell, who reerected it in St. John’s Church, Southover. In 1845, her lead coffin was discovered by workmen during the construction of the Lewes and Brighton railway. It bore the inscription “Gundrada” and lay alongside that of her husband, William of Warenne, in the grounds of St. Pancras Priory, Lewes, which they had founded. The coffins were later reinterred
in a specially constructed chapel at the priory. H.W.C. Davis, I, p. 52; Clay, pp. 40–41, 44.

27.
If they were not mother and daughter, Matilda and Gundreda do seem to have been well acquainted. Gundreda shared Matilda’s Flemish descent and might have been affiliated to her father’s court. The evidence suggests that she was of noble birth, and the intriguing inscription on her tomb implies that she was part of the ducal family itself. It is possible that she was a daughter of one of Matilda’s brothers. There is no Gundreda listed among their children, but the records concerning female offspring are notoriously sketchy during this period, and she could in any case have been illegitimate. Alternatively, she may have been a member of Matilda’s household—the duchess retained a number of Flemish ladies in her service throughout her life. It has even been suggested that Gundreda was adopted by Matilda and William as a child. Certainly, the couple seem to have held her in some esteem, for they granted various estates to her and her husband. Gundreda, for her part, was grateful to Matilda, for she later gave her the manor of Cariton in Cambridgeshire as a gift. Clay, pp. 43, 54–55, 56–57, 59–62. See also H.W.C. Davis, I, p. 52.

28.
OV, II, p. 105.

29.
This had been a controversial marriage. According to one account, Richildis had proved as unwilling a bride as Matilda, and had refused to marry Robert for fear of offending the emperor. This had prompted Count Baldwin to take matters into his own hands. He gathered a troop of soldiers together and took Richildis by force to Flanders, where she was married to his son before any further protests could arise. Lair, pp. 21–22.

30.
Round, p. 421; Smet, p. 552; Fauroux, pp. 254, 284–86, 293–95, 302–3;
Chronicon Turonense
, p. 348. For a more recent discussion of the subject, see Davis, “William of Jumièges,” pp. 603–4; Barlow,
William Rufus
, p. 8n; Douglas,
William the Conqueror
, pp. 379–80.

31.
GG, p. 33. Presumably Matilda would also have been presented with lavish gifts by her husband-to-be, as this was traditional. An old English poem prescribed: “A king shall buy a queen with goods, with cups and with bracelets.” Stafford,
Queens, Concubines and Dowagers
, p. 57.