Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (16 page)

Edward’s flimsy promise and William’s faint hereditary claim were by no means a guarantee of success. True, they both constituted qualifications
for kingship in England, but there were two other such qualifications—namely, being accepted by the English nobles and being consecrated by the church. Almost all of the other claimants met at least one of these four criteria.

Within England, the most powerful contender by far was Harold Godwinson, the earl of Wessex, eldest son of the late Earl Godwine, who had died in 1053. His hereditary right to the throne was tenuous. He was Edward the Confessor’s brother-in-law, and he was distantly allied with the Danish royal house through his mother, Gytha. Nevertheless, together with his brother Tostig, he had a considerable body of support among the English people, who saw him as one of their own. His immense wealth further strengthened his campaign.

Prior to the Viking invasion in the ninth century, what we now know as England was a series of independent kingdoms. They included Wessex, the kingdom named after the West Saxons, which embraced regions south of the Thames from Kent to Cornwall; Mercia, which covered much of the Midlands, stretching from the Thames to the Humber; East Anglia; and Northumbria, which began to the north of the river Humber and extended well into what is now the Scottish lowlands. The Vikings had gradually drawn each of these kingdoms into their domain. The only one to remain was Wessex, which was ruled by Alfred the Great. His descendants were able to turn the tables by steadily taking control of the Viking territories, until the last Viking king, Eric Bloodaxe of York, was driven out in 954.
²

But England remained vulnerable to the great warrior kings of Scandinavia, who saw the kingdom as their right because of the extensive Scandinavian settlements that remained—particularly in the north of the country. One of the most dominant cultures was that of the Danes. This race was “noble of blood and fighters by nature.”
³
Now that Edward the Confessor looked set to die without an heir, their king, Sweyn Estrithson, a nephew of King Cnut, began to circle his prey, as did King Harald III Hardrada of Norway. Both had the military might to pose a serious threat. In view of all of this, the chances of William’s inheriting the English throne must have seemed distant indeed.

But the kingdom was worth fighting for. England was one of the most prosperous realms in western Europe, and its kings had amassed a
rich treasury. It had a population of between one and a half and two million—although it could have been considerably more. Although the majority of the inhabitants lived in small villages or hamlets, there were a number of impressive urban centers, notably London, York, and Winchester—the capital of the ancient kingdom of Wessex—many of which were burgeoning centers of trade. The country was well placed to partake in both the Scandinavian and North Sea trade and the cross-Channel trade with northern France, Flanders, and the Rhineland. Archaeological finds have revealed that the landscape was also effectively exploited, from arable fields and woodland to rivers, quarries, and mines.

By the standards of the day, the system of governmental administration was extraordinarily sophisticated—certainly more so than in Normandy. Particularly impressive was the single national silver coinage and the ability of kings to levy taxes across the country, as first occurred with the Danegeld tax, which was introduced in the late tenth century in order to pay off invading Danish armies. The king could also raise a national army and navy, and he had a central secretariat to issue documents in his name. A similarly efficient organizational structure existed at a local level, with defined communities and courts within shires and their subdivisions, known as hundreds. The religious life of the kingdom was also increasingly ordered, and the English church was an effective unitary body. Comprising the two archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, numerous bishoprics and monasteries, and a huge number of village churches, it was also far more extensive than the Norman one.

Now that William had seen off his most troublesome rivals on his home turf, the idea of conquering England evolved from an appealing but distant prospect into an immediate priority. Even the most brilliant military strategist needs the occasional stroke of luck, and early in 1064, fate played into William’s hands. Word reached him that Earl Harold of Wessex, one of his fiercest rivals for the English throne, had been shipwrecked at Ponthieu, on the coast of Normandy, and taken prisoner by the local lord, Count Guy. According to Malmesbury, the English earl suffered all the indignities of a common prisoner, having his hands bound and feet shackled and being kept in chains until the count decided what should be done with him.
⁴

Just why Harold had been journeying to France in the first place is not
known. Malmesbury’s theory that he had strayed too far from the English coast while on a fishing expedition is hardly credible.
⁵
Meanwhile, William of Poitiers claims that it was to confirm King Edward’s promise of the crown to Duke William, but this is not corroborated by any other source; moreover, it is highly unlikely that Harold—a major rival for the crown—would have been chosen to relay such a message.
⁶
Bishop Eadmer of Canterbury asserted that Harold had been dispatched to retrieve his brother Wulfnoth and nephew Haakon, who had been held hostage in Normandy for several years. He claimed that Edward had given Harold permission to go, but warned him: “I have a presentiment that you will only succeed in bringing misfortune upon the whole Kingdom and discredit upon yourself.”
⁷
The Bayeux Tapestry supports this version of events, and there is a scene that appears to show the English king admonishing Harold for having proceeded with the mission.

Whatever had brought Harold to France, William was quick to seize the opportunity of having the powerful English earl on home territory. He ordered that Harold be released immediately and brought to Eu, where he received him and conducted him with all honor to his court in Rouen. Although it appeared that the duke had rescued his English visitor, for Harold it was a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire. He might have been fêted as an honored guest, but it was clear that he was just as much a captive as he had been in Ponthieu. William had no intention of releasing him without exploiting his unexpected visit to the full.

But for the time being, Harold was shown every courtesy by the duke and his family. Malmesbury records: “The duke received him with great respect, and fed and clothed him splendidly, according to the custom of his country.”
⁸
Eager to show off his status as a powerful ruler, William ordered a series of lavish entertainments at his court. He also made sure that his wealth was ostentatiously displayed, and Harold’s apartments were hung with rich jewels, fabrics, and ornaments. It is likely that some if not all of William and Matilda’s children were presented to their English guest, because the duke would have been keen to demonstrate the strength of his dynasty.

Not content with these displays, William also contrived to impress Harold with his military prowess by inviting him to accompany him on campaign to Brittany.
⁹
The image was one of brothers in arms fighting
against a common enemy, but the subtext was clear: William wanted his rival to see just how much he deserved his reputation as one of the most feared warriors in Europe. As Malmesbury neatly put it, the duke had “the deeper design of showing him [Harold] William’s warlike preparations, so that he could see how much Norman swords were superior to English axes.”
¹⁰

Matilda’s reaction to their English guest might have been very different. Did he spark memories of that other Saxon, Brihtric, who had so beguiled her at her father’s court? Harold was said to be charming and attractive, and even Orderic Vitalis, who was highly critical of him, admitted that he was “very tall and handsome, remarkable for his physical strength, his courage and eloquence, his ready jests and acts of valour.”
¹¹
Edward the Confessor’s biographer, meanwhile, described him as “distinctly handsome,” graceful and brave. He also wrote admiringly of Harold’s seemingly inexhaustible energy, claiming that he was “well practised in endless fatigues and doing without sleep and food, and endowed with mildness of temper and a ready understanding.”
¹²
Whether Matilda felt nostalgic or resentful upon meeting this scion of the Anglo-Saxon race is not recorded, but she would certainly have been present for all of the elaborate ceremonials that her husband had ordered. Indeed, she played an equal part in ensuring that their English guest was “hospitably entertained,” and the thirteenth-century Norwegian chronicler Snorro Sturleson describes how “Harald sat on the high seat on one side of the earl [William]; and on the other side sat the earl’s wife.”
¹³

According to a fanciful account of their meeting written by a nineteenth-century poet, when Harold first laid eyes upon Matilda, he was struck by her beauty, which both reminded him of, and eclipsed, his mistress Edith’s celebrated charms: “Ne’er hath he seen a form so fair … A yearning sigh escapes the guest!”
¹⁴
Matilda would then have been in her early to mid-thirties, and she was still renowned for her dignified and graceful bearing. Snorro Sturleson praised her beauty and painted an intriguing picture of a flirtation that sprang up between her and Harold. According to his account, “the earl [William] went generally to bed, but Harald and the earl’s wife sat long in the evenings talking together for amusement at the drinking table.”
¹⁵
Such was the apparent intimacy between them that the duke was seized by jealousy, as Matilda
confided to Harold: “The earl has asked me what it is we have to talk about so much, for he is angry at it.”
¹⁶

None of the earlier sources repeat this tale, but it does have a ring of truth about it. Matilda had become acquainted with members of Harold’s family during her childhood in Bruges—and perhaps even with Harold himself. She was extremely well informed about the politics of that kingdom, and could probably also speak a little of its language—an accomplishment that her husband had not achieved. She therefore had more in common with their English visitor than anyone else at the Norman court, and it is conceivable that they developed an affinity during Harold’s stay.

Having thus been royally entertained at the ducal court, Harold then embarked with William for the campaign in Brittany, where they were to wage war against Count Conan II, whose rebellious barons had looked to the duke for assistance. Spying an opportunity to extend his dominions still further, William had been only too happy to oblige. His English captive distinguished himself in the fighting, even though the campaign as a whole failed to dislodge the Breton ruler.

According to the Bayeux Tapestry, it was on their return journey that William finally made his move and invited Harold to swear fealty to him as the rightful heir to the English crown. This is contradicted by Poitiers, who claims that the oath took place soon after Harold’s arrival in Normandy, at Bonneville-sur-Touques.
¹⁷
Meanwhile, Orderic Vitalis writes that it was at Rouen that Harold recognized the duke as his future sovereign.
¹⁸
The fact that the sources are so contradictory casts doubt not just upon where the oath took place, but whether it took place at all. It may have been another example of later Norman propaganda to justify William’s conquest of England. The only English source to corroborate it is Eadmer, and his account cannot be given full credence because it was written some thirty years after the event, by which time England was firmly under Norman rule.
¹⁹

If Harold did agree to subjugate his own claim to William’s, it was only because he had been backed into a corner. He would have known that the duke, for all his apparent geniality, had no intention of releasing him until he had wrought some advantage from his unexpected visit. Even so, it seems that he resisted as long as possible. According to both
Malmesbury and Jumièges, William was obliged to give him an added incentive by offering him his daughter Adeliza—“who was not yet of age”—in marriage, together with “the whole of her inheritance” and “half the kingdom of England.”
²⁰
Snorro Sturleson agrees, noting that the girl was “very young” (she would have been about seven years old) and that “it was resolved that the wedding should be deferred for some years.”
²¹
Meanwhile, William asked Harold to send his sister to Normandy so that he might give her in marriage to one of his nobles.
²²

The evidence suggests that Matilda was responsible for the betrothal between Harold and her eldest daughter, and that this had been the motive behind all those intimate conversations with their English guest. When Harold learned that William was suspicious of his dealings with his wife, he immediately relayed the content of their discussions: “I have to inform you, earl, that there lies more in my visit here than I have let you know. I would ask your daughter in marriage, and have often spoken over this matter with her mother, and she has promised to support my suit with you.”
²³