Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (52 page)

65.
ASC, pp. 213–14.

66.
GRA, I, p. 477.

67.
OV, III, p. 113.

68.
A catamite is a young man who is involved in a sexual relationship with an older man.

69.
OV, III, pp. 105, 107, 109.

15:
“URMURS OF LOUD AND HEARTFELT GRIEF”

  
1.
Adela was buried at the abbey.

  
2.
OV, II, p. 285.

  
3.
Migne, p. 156.

  
4.
Matilda never forgot the effort that Simon had made on her behalf. Upon his death in 1084, she dispatched a monk to Rome laden with gold and silver “to pay for the burial of the man of God,” and she ordered a magnificent tomb to be erected there. Ibid.; Houts,
Normans in Europe
, p. 199.

  
5.
Cowdrey,
Register of Pope Gregory VII
, pp. 358–59.

  
6.
OV, III, p. 113.

  
7.
Ibid.

  
8.
Round, p. 22; OV, III, p. 112. Easter fell on April 12 that year.

  
9.
Bates,
William the Conqueror
, p. 241.

10.
OV, III, p. 113.

11.
Ibid., II, p. 357; III, p. 113.

12.
This may have been Adela’s second betrothal. There is evidence to suggest that as a child she was promised to Simon Crispin, the count of Amiens, but that this fell through when he chose the monastic life instead.

13.
The marriage itself was celebrated at Chartres, although the exact date is uncertain. The marriage negotiations seem to have been quite protracted, and the ceremony might not have taken place until as late as 1085, when Adela’s name first appears in a charter as Stephen’s wife. OV, III, pp. 116n, 117; Morey and Brooke, p. 78n.

14.
Morey and Brooke, pp. 65–66; Hilton, p. 40. Edith married Matilda’s youngest son, Henry, who took her as his wife after he became king in 1100. She became known as Matilda upon her marriage to Henry, which might have been out of
respect for his late mother. The description provided by the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
of her mother, Margaret, with regard to her marriage to King Malcolm of Scotland could equally have applied to Matilda and William: “The apostle Paul, teacher of all nations, declared: ‘The unbelieving man is saved through his believing wife’ … that is in our language: ‘Very often the unbelieving man is sanctified and saved through a righteous wife’ … This aforesaid queen afterwards performed many useful works in that land to the glory of God, and also throve well in the royal estate, just as was natural to her.” ASC, pp. 201–2.

15.
Bates,
Regesta Regum
, pp. 636–37.

16.
The reference to the younger Matilda that appears in Domesday Book implies that she was no longer living, which would place her death before 1086, when the survey was compiled. The idea that she died young is supported by the fact that she soon disappears from the contemporary sources.

17.
Bates,
Regesta Regum
, pp. 559–62; Morris, vol. VI, no. 17:1; vol. VII, no. 17:1.

18.
Musset,
Les Actes de Guillaume le Conquérant
, no. 12; Stafford,
Queen Emma and Queen Edith
, p. 157n; Bates,
Regesta Regum
, pp. 292–95.

19.
Gathagan, “Embodying Power,” p. 206.

20.
Davis,
Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum
, I, pp. 49–50.

21.
Bates,
Regesta Regum
, pp. 763–64.

22.
Turgis, p. 50.

23.
OV, IV, p. 45. Freeman asserts that Matilda had suffered a “long sickness” but does not substantiate his claim:
History of the Norman Conquest
, IV, p. 651.

24.
Round, p. 157; Bates,
Regesta Regum
, pp. 258–62.

25.
Bates,
Regesta Regum
, p. 296. See also Musset,
Les Actes de Guillaume le Conquérant
, p. 112.

26.
OV, IV, p. 45. Orderic inaccurately states that Matilda died on November 3. He was probably confusing the date with the celebration of her funeral at St.-Évroult the day after her death: ibid., p. 45n. John of Worcester specifies that November 2 was a Thursday: Darlington and McGurh, III, p. 41.

27.
Most sources imply that William was at his wife’s side when she died. It has been suggested by a later source that he was in England when he heard the news that she was dying, and that he left for Normandy with all haste but arrived too late. However, there is no evidence for this in the contemporary records. Turgis, p. 50; OV, III, pp. 103, 105.

28.
GRA, I, p. 503.

29.
Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest
, IV, pp. 651–52.

30.
See, for example, William’s gifts to Edmund’s in Northamptonshire. Morris, vol. XXI, no. 8:4.

31.
OV, IV, pp. 44–46.

32.
Lair, p. 28.

33.
See, for example, Round, pp. 106, 112, 123, 142, 167, 233, 436.

34.
Certe si fortis
, in Delisle,
Receuil de Travaux d’Érudition
, pp. 223–24. Fulcoius continued the theme in another poem dedicated to her memory,
Tempore quae nostro
.

35.
The eulogy was entitled
Consilii virtus decor
.

36.
ASC, p. 215.

37.
Delisle,
Receuil de Travaux d’Érudition
, pp. 224–25.

38.
GRA, I, p. 503; OV, IV, p. 45.

39.
OV, IV, p. 45.

40.
Carey, p. 79.

41.
Davis,
Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum
, I, p. 85; M.A.E. Green, I, p. 11.

42.
OV, IV, p. 45.

43.
Ducarel, p. 65; Strickland, p. 104. The abbess gave the ring to her father, the constable of France, when he received Charles IX at Caen in 1563, the year after the riots. It is not clear what became of it afterward. Ducarel, p. 66, claims that “a very curious manuscript” preserved at La Trinité contained an account of Matilda’s wardrobe, jewels, and “toilette,” but noted with some regret that he was not permitted to make a copy of it. This may be the same list referred to above (p. 43), which is still preserved in the abbey today.

44.
The tomb measures three feet high by six feet long. Ducarel, p. 63.

45.
OV, IV, p. 45.

46.
Ibid. pp. 45, 47. Orderic’s version of the epitaph is faithful to the original, with the exception of a few minor variations of spelling. See also Boüard,
Histoire de la Normandie
, plate 13; Douglas,
William the Conqueror
, opp. p. 341; Bates,
William the Conqueror
, p. 153.

16:
“THE STORMS OF TROUBLES”

  
1.
OV, IV, p. 47.

  
2.
ASC, p. 218.

  
3.
GRA, I, p. 509.

  
4.
ASC, p. 216. See also Riley, pp. 159–60. Domesday Book consists of two volumes—“Great Domesday” and “Little Domesday.” “Great” comprises a survey of all the counties of England south of a line from the river Tees to the river Ribble in North Yorkshire and Lancashire. The land above that line was evidently still too autonomous for the survey to be completed. This larger volume excludes Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, which are covered by “Little.”

  
5.
GRA, I, p. 509. See also Burgess and Holden, p. 291. Orderic Vitalis agrees that William grew “very corpulent” in his later years. OV, IV, p. 79.

  
6.
ASC, pp. 217–18.

  
7.
As Marjorie Chibnall states: “The death of Queen Matilda on 2 November 1083 probably removed the only influence capable of preventing conflict between the
two.” OV, III, p. 112n. In a similar vein, Professor Barlow comments: “Queen Matilda’s death on 2 November 1083 probably removed his [Robert’s] last friend at court.” Barlow,
William Rufus
, p. 38.

  
8.
OV, III, p. 115.

  
9.
Orderic Vitalis cities both places at different points of his narrative. OV, II, p. 352; III, p. 115.

10.
Orderic Vitalis claims that the marriage had taken place some ten years earlier, following William’s attack on the province. When he had been unable to take it by force, the “statesman king … devised another plan to profit himself and his heirs. He made a treaty of friendship with Alan Fergant and gave him his daughter Constance in marriage with great ceremony at Caen.” OV, II, pp. 351, 353. However, Orderic’s account of Breton affairs is very confused, and none of the other sources give this date for the marriage. Indeed, Alan Fergant did not become count until 1084. It is possible that Constance had been betrothed to him in 1076, when she was still a child, but there is no evidence to suggest that this was the case. Jumièges differs slightly from the commonly accepted date of 1086, claiming that the marriage took place the following year. GND, II, pp. 254, 261. Although Orderic claims that Constance “lived with her husband as a faithful wife for fifteen years,” she was countess of Brittany for a fraction of that time. Her reign was brought to an abrupt end by her premature death in 1090.

11.
The Vexin was divided into two parts: the Norman Vexin, which lay between the rivers Epte, Andelle, and Seine, and the French Vexin, situated between the Epte, the Seine, and the Oise.

12.
GRA, I, p. 511; GND, II, p. 193. Orderic claims that the duke “fell ill from exhaustion and heat.” OV, IV, p. 79.

13.
GND, II, p. 185.

14.
GRA, I, p. 511.

15.
Malmesbury asserts that William “filled the house with complaints that death should overtake him when he had long been planning to reform his life.” GRA, I, p. 511. By contrast, Jumièges writes that the duke accepted his fate calmly. GND, II, p. 185. From what we know of William’s character, it seems unlikely that he would have been so philosophical, and the image of him fighting death as he would any opponent is more believable. He may have lain in this state for as much as six weeks.

16.
GND, II, p. 185.

17.
Ibid., p. 189.

18.
John of Worcester attests that William, like Matilda, died on a Thursday. Darlington and McGurk, III, p. 47.

19.
OV, IV, pp. 101–3.

20.
It is not clear whether this Herluin was related to the man of the same name who married William’s mother, Herleva. Strickland, p. 101, asserts that it was “in all
probability” William’s stepfather himself, although this is unlikely. Quite apart from the fact that he would have been of a very advanced age by 1087, if it had indeed been the original Herluin who arranged William’s funeral, the chroniclers would have named him as such.

21.
Eadmer, p. 26; Burgess and Holden, p. 297.

22.
GRA, I, p. 511.

23.
OV, IV, p. 105.

24.
Burgess and Holden, p. 295.

25.
OV, IV, pp. 101–9.

EPILOGUE: “MOTHER OF KINGS”

  
1.
Houts, “Echo of the Conquest,” p. 139; Houts, “Latin Poetry and the Anglo-Norman Court,” pp. 46–47; Abrahams, pp. 198–99, 255–56.

  
2.
Round, p. 142.

  
3.
Cecilia died on July 13, 1127. GND, II, p. 149n; OV, III, p. 11; IV, pp. 46n, 47. Jumièges implies that Cecilia’s tenure was rather longer than this, for he claims that she “governed the abbey for many years after the death of Matilda the first abbess of the house.” GND, II, p. 261. GRA, II, cites the date of her death as July 13, 1127 (p. 154). Another source claims that Cecilia was in her seventieth year when she died, although this is not substantiated by any of the contemporary sources. Planché, I, p. 83.