Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (21 page)

However, as early as the nineteenth century, historians were questioning whether Matilda was involved in the making of the Bayeux Tapestry at all. One of them claimed that the tapestry was produced after her death, attributing it instead to her granddaughter and namesake, the empress Matilda.
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Other historians of the period began to voice doubts that any royal woman could have been responsible. Their reasoning says much about the age in which they were writing. The tapestry contains some overtly sexual images in its borders, and it was felt that neither queen could possibly have been involved in such a shockingly crude piece of work.

More important in understanding the provenance of the tapestry are recent painstaking investigations providing compelling evidence that it was in fact made not in Normandy, but in the conquered land, England. The style of decoration mirrors that found in English manuscripts, and some of the Latin names are spelled the English rather than the Norman way. Moreover, Anglo-Saxon women were renowned for their skill at embroidery, and many of them were employed in this profession. William of Poitiers, who was hostile toward the English, admitted that “the women are very skilled at needlework and weaving gold thread.”
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The late King Harold’s sister, Edith, was among them, and it is possible that if any royal lady had a hand in the work, it was she rather than Matilda.

The case for the tapestry’s having been made in England rather than Normandy is also supported by a fresh interpretation of the story it tells. One recent historian has argued convincingly that it was not the great statement of Norman triumphalism that it appears, but a subversive work loaded with hidden meaning. For example, the images depicted in the tapestry imply that Edward the Confessor did not support William’s claim to the English throne, as the Norman chroniclers would have us believe. Furthermore, the scenes in which the Battle of Hastings is played out suggest that it was the French, not the Norman troops, who assumed the starring role. These troops were under the command of Count Eustace II of Boulogne (which was then part of Flanders), who although nominally on William’s side in the battle was otherwise one of the duke’s most troublesome northern French rivals. In fact, Eustace is one of only three Normans who are singled out in the tapestry as being present at Hastings (the others being Bishop Odo and William himself), which again suggests that this was hardly a work celebrating that duchy’s triumph.
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That the artist was a supporter of Eustace adds weight to the notion that the Bayeux Tapestry was a subversive work, and it may also be possible that Eustace himself had commissioned it.
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But the more commonly accepted view is that its patron was Matilda’s brother-in-law, Bishop Odo. In 1824, a French antiquarian, Honoré François Delauney, one of those nineteenth-century historians who did not believe that Matilda was responsible for the tapestry, put forward the theory that it could have been given to Bayeux Cathedral by an immoral cleric.
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Bishop Odo perfectly fitted the bill. His lax morality was notorious, and he made little secret of the fact that he had a mistress and a son. The fact that Odo was bishop of the cathedral in which the tapestry was discovered might seem to strengthen the case for his being its originator, but it was his connections in Kent that have proved more significant. Soon after the Battle of Hastings, William made him earl of that region. Canterbury was its principal town, a thriving artistic center. Any patron intending to commission an embroidery on such a grand scale would naturally have turned to the artisans of this city.

It is with this in mind that most historians are now agreed that the tapestry was made in Canterbury at Odo’s orders with a view to decorating the magnificent new cathedral that he was building at Bayeux. He may have unveiled it at the elaborate consecration ceremony in 1077, which Matilda herself attended. The idea that Matilda was in any way connected to it has thus been cast into grave doubt. She could claim the credit for a number of similarly high-impact gestures to mark her husband’s victory in England, but it is unlikely that the Bayeux Tapestry was one of them.

When William triumphed at Hastings, Matilda had only been regent of Normandy for a little over two weeks, but there was no prospect of her tenure’s coming to an end in the near future—her husband still had much to do in his newly conquered land. He might have won the English crown, but his campaign to subdue the rest of this hostile, rebellious country was only just beginning. His apologist’s bold claim that he “subjugated all the cities of the English in a single day” was wildly exaggerated.
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William’s first task was to take the city of London, which was so far from accepting the Norman duke as its ruler that it had elected Edgar the Aetheling, great-nephew of Edward the Confessor, as king instead. William rapidly reassembled his forces and advanced toward the city. They brought terror wherever they went, for William’s tactic was to force his recalcitrant new subjects into submission with brutality and bloodshed. Entire villages and towns were razed to the ground, and their citizens raped or murdered. The major strategic strongholds of Dover and Southwark
were laid waste by the Norman troops as they advanced toward London—“a most spacious city, full of evil inhabitants, and richer than anywhere else in the kingdom.”
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Meanwhile, the duke ordered a detachment of his army to Winchester in order to secure its surrender and that of Queen Edith, Edward the Confessor’s widow and Harold’s sister, who had become a figurehead for the beleaguered English. Within a few short weeks, both cities had capitulated. Then, in early December, William marched to Berkhamsted, some thirty miles northwest of London, where Edgar the Aetheling had taken refuge. Upon the Conqueror’s arrival, Edgar immediately relinquished the crown, and William was declared king of England.

Eager to formalize his new status, William set about organizing his coronation. He had originally wanted to defer the ceremony so that Matilda might join him, “since if God granted him this honour, he wished for his wife to be crowned with him.” This was more than just devotion: he knew full well that Matilda’s presence—given her ancestral ties with previous English kings—would lend the occasion much-needed legitimacy. However, he had been dissuaded from doing so by his advisers, who had urged him that it was crucial to consolidate his position as soon as possible.
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Plans for the coronation duly proceeded, and the ceremony took place on Christmas Day 1066 in Westminster Abbey, where Harold had been crowned and Edward the Confessor buried. To further legitimize his position and emphasize the continuity of his accession, William ordered that the service should follow that used for previous English kings. He also commissioned a magnificent new crown in the style of Solomon (the ancient king of Israel renowned for his wisdom), “fashioned out of gold and precious stones,” including a sapphire, an emerald, and a large ruby at its center.
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But there was no fooling his new subjects, who still viewed him as a foreigner, a bastard, and a usurper.

Indeed, far from being a cause for celebration, William’s coronation was a tense, somber affair. The crowds that had gathered outside the abbey to witness the arrival of their detested new king were silent and subdued. The only cheering came from the Conqueror’s own men, who were there as much to suppress any trouble as to support their leader. During the ceremony, one of William’s Norman bishops, Geoffrey of
Coutances, sought the assent of those present for their new king, as tradition dictated. Their affirmations were so loud that they alarmed the guards keeping watch outside the abbey, who, fearing an uprising, went on the rampage and torched a series of houses in order to terrify the inhabitants into submission. Meanwhile, the congregation took flight, and the ceremony had to be hastily concluded by the handful of “terrified” clergymen who had stayed behind. The episode tested the nerve of England’s newly crowned king, who, according to one chronicler, was “trembling from head to foot.”
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Still, the English were now forced to acknowledge William as their sovereign, however reluctantly. In doing so, they were also accepting Matilda as their queen. But William was not content with her sharing in his newly won status by association only; he resolved that she, too, would be crowned with full pomp and ceremony as soon as she could join him in England. This met with some opposition from the English barons, because it had not hitherto been the practice of the Saxon kings to gratify their wives with the title of queen. But William was determined. In his eyes, no woman was fitter than she for such a position. Matilda herself was eager to be crowned, and even before she joined her husband in England, she began styling herself queen of that kingdom.
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She was no doubt highly satisfied when she received news of her husband’s plans for her separate coronation. The prospect of playing as active a role in England as she did in Normandy would have appealed to her keen sense of ambition.

It would in fact be two years before Matilda joined her husband in his new kingdom. The reason for this delay is a matter for debate. It is possible that William considered the situation there too volatile, but as we have seen, Matilda’s unquestionable pedigree and heritage would have made her presence advantageous in the duke’s attempts to quickly establish his authority. Moreover, Matilda herself was keen to see her new kingdom—and take possession of her landed wealth. Upon becoming king, William had granted her extensive lands—perhaps as much as a quarter of the total at his disposal. These included rich estates in Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall.
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These lands made Matilda a wealthy woman in her own right, for she could levy taxes, or “geld,” from them. According to Domesday Book, this earned her in the region of £1,070 per year, a staggering sum for the time—equivalent to around £500,000 today. This income alone made her the richest woman in England. But as queen, she was also entitled to claim “Queen Gold,” which was one-tenth of every fine paid to the crown. There were numerous other financial privileges associated with her new position. The city of Warwick, for example, was obliged to provide her with one hundred shillings for the use of her property. Not all of Matilda’s revenue was paid in cash. For example, as well as sending her tolls on all goods landed at Queenhithe, the city of London provided oil for her lamps and wood for her hearth.
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The city of Norwich, meanwhile, had to deliver a palfrey to her each year.

Considering the riches that lay in wait for her in England, it must have been a compelling reason that kept Matilda in Normandy for so long, especially as she had so successfully quelled the threats both within and outside its borders during her regency. One of the stronger explanations is that she had been pregnant when William had set sail for England in September 1066. If she had conceived another child before her husband’s departure, then she would have given birth no later than June 1067.
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As the birth dates of Matilda’s sons do not fall within this period, the child must have been a girl, and it is most likely to have been the one whose name appears in the sources more than any of the other daughters, thanks to her later career: Adela.

The choice of name was significant. Adela was the name of Matilda’s mother, daughter of the king of France, and as such it would have reminded William’s rebellious new subjects of the legitimacy of his dynasty. A poem written in around 1079 by Godfrey of Rheims, chancellor to the French king, provides further evidence. He alludes to Adela’s birth as occurring just after the Norman Conquest:

The duke’s child would rise to become an excellent woman
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The goddess did not think it sufficient for her to be of ducal status
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The royal virgin obtained by fate that her father would be a king
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In order for Adela to be the daughter of a king,

The Fates allowed the father to establish himself as a king
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Because the virgin was not allowed to leave the womb