Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (33 page)

Around the time of Richard’s death, Matilda’s much-betrothed daughter Adeliza was again the subject of marriage negotiations. Little had been heard of her since her betrothal to Edwin of Mercia ended in tragedy in 1071, and it is not certain whether she returned to her mother’s household or lived for a time in a nunnery. After three failed betrothals, she would have been forgiven for abandoning any further hope of marriage, but her father had one more candidate in store for her.

In around 1074, Duke William suggested a match between Adeliza and his former protégé, Simon of Crépy, the future count of Amiens, Valois and the Vexin, who had been raised in the ducal court and may also have spent some time with William and Matilda in England.
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The count’s anonymous biographer describes the encounter. Having requested a secret audience with Simon, William told him: “Because I have long since known your faithfulness and love and because I raised you, I wish to increase feelings in you. I have chosen you as the future husband of my daughter who has been asked for in many conversations by the messengers of King Anfurcius of Spain and Robert of Apulia.” Although he professed his gratitude, Simon was clearly not keen on the idea, and claimed that the union would be banned by the church because he was related to the girl’s mother, Matilda: “My lady the queen, your wife, and I, as they say, are bound by ties of blood and close kinship in such a way that we have to ask wise men their advice if this marriage is at all possible and why.” William’s response is interesting. Even though he himself had fallen afoul of the laws on consanguinity, he dismissed Simon’s concern, telling him that he would ask his ecclesiastical advisers to “look round and search whether a gift of alms or the building of a monastery or anything of that kind deals with this problem legally.”
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For all that he was so often hailed as a pious monarch, William clearly believed that godly sanction could be bought—just as he and Matilda had done by building their abbeys at Caen.

The idea that William offered one of his daughters to Count Simon is
supported by the autobiography of Guibert, abbot of Nogent-Sous-Coucy, who asserted that Simon was betrothed to “a young girl of high rank” but subsequently turned his back on the world to become a monk. Upon hearing “that her lover had renounced herself and the world, and not enduring to be considered inferior to him, [the girl] joined the virgin bands that serve God, determined to remain a virgin herself.”
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However, Guibert was reporting this as hearsay, and was writing some years later. The tale is suspiciously similar to the one that, according to Orderic, had unfolded with Alfonso of León seven years before, so it is likely that the accounts became confused—and probably elaborated.

Still, while the evidence is patchy for Adeliza’s fate after her final betrothal, it seems likely that this pious young girl did end her days as a nun. Certainly, she could not have died on her way to marry Alfonso around 1067 because of the number of times that her name subsequently appears in the contemporary records. Of all Matilda’s daughters, she most closely fits the identity of the girl whom Baudri of Bourgeuil refers to as having joined her for a time at La Trinité.
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She was probably also the same girl who “made a pious end” at the nunnery of St.-Léger of Préaux.
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A compelling piece of evidence has recently been brought to light that supports this view. It is a letter to the young princess from St. Anselm, prior of the neighboring abbey of Le Bec. It seems that upon entering the religious life, Adeliza had written to the famed prelate for spiritual guidance. She asked for a selection of psalms upon which to base her life, and those that Anselm chose for her suggest that she had been in some distress, because they all promote contemplation and peace of mind. The letter that St. Anselm wrote to accompany them also hints at some discord between Adeliza and her parents. Referring to the collection of prayers that he included along with the psalms, he explained that two of them in particular, relating to St. Stephen and Mary Magdalene, were aimed at transforming feelings of hatred into love.
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After so many failed betrothals, Adeliza would have been justified in harboring some resentment against her parents, who had apparently shown scant regard for her feelings as they moved from one potential suitor to the next in their quest for political gain. She may also have blamed herself for the fact that each betrothal had come to nothing, believing
that this was a punishment from God for her sinful life—hence the need to atone by entering a nunnery. Although he sought to heal the rift between Adeliza and her parents, St. Anselm could not disguise his distaste for William’s violent profession, for he praised the girl’s life as being nobler than that of her father. He seemed to imply that Adeliza should not blame herself for her sorry fate.
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The date of Adeliza’s death is not recorded, but the sources imply that she was still very young—“of marriageable age,” according to Orderic.
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The letter from St. Anselm was written while he was still prior of Le Bec, which dates it to 1078 or earlier. This means that Adeliza was probably in her early twenties at most. Bayeux and La Trinité are both cited as her place of burial, even though she was probably not serving at either when she died.
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Despite suffering so many tragedies during her short life, her faith remained unshaken to the end. Malmesbury claims that “after her death the callus found on her knees bore witness to her constancy in prayer.”
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Whatever the date or location of her death, the loss of Adeliza must have grieved Matilda sorely, especially if she, like her brother Richard, died young. The idea that the girl had been wretched at the seemingly relentless string of failed betrothals, for which she had harbored increasing resentment against her parents, would have aggravated her mother’s sorrow. But one of Matilda’s other daughters assuaged her grief. Cecilia had apparently flourished in the cloistered world of her mother’s abbey at Caen, and at Easter 1075 she was ordained as a nun by Archbishop John of Rouen. Both William and Matilda were present for the lavish celebrations that accompanied the ceremony, and they would no doubt have looked on with great pride as their daughter took her final vows. It had been almost nine years since Cecilia had entered La Trinité as a novice, which was an unusually long period of training. It is possible that William and Matilda arranged that she should not become a fully ordained nun until their other daughters—who were all destined for political marriages—had survived the perilous years of childhood.

The poet Fulcoius of Beauvais wrote a poem in honor of the occasion, comparing William with the biblical hero Jephthah, an illegitimate son who triumphed over his enemies and offered his daughter to God as a sacrifice before the battle. One of the lines implies that Matilda had felt
the loss more keenly than her husband, and that her grief was still raw nine years later, for the girl declares: “I am the only daughter of my father and my wholly wretched mother.”
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Although Cecilia was not the only surviving daughter, this declaration would have been consistent with the closeness that seemed to exist between the duchess and her daughters, over whose upbringing she had taken such assiduous care. It is not known how often—if at all—Matilda had seen Cecilia during the intervening years, but it cannot have been as often as she would have liked, as a result of both her own and her daughter’s obligations.

Despite the turmoil and tragedy of her family life during the middle years of the 1070s, for Matilda it was still a case of business as usual. For example, the queen’s name can be found on a charter that was signed shortly after, if not actually at, the ceremony for Cecilia’s dedication.
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It seems, then, that if Matilda felt any resentment toward William for the loss—in different ways—of her daughters, she did not let it interfere with her official duties. This suggests a certain hardness to her character, a pragmatism honed from her years at the heart of Normandy’s political affairs. These qualities may not have made her the most tender of mothers, but they did equip her well to deal with the duties expected of her as William’s consort. Besides, another of her daughters provided her with ample consolation. Adela, who at the time of her siblings’ deaths would have been about ten or eleven years old, had grown into a remarkably intelligent and precocious young woman. Despite the pressures of Matilda’s political role in Normandy and England, she had taken the same care over Adela’s education as she had that of her other daughters, and the girl was probably educated for a time at the abbey of La Trinité in Caen, along with Cecilia.

Adela responded to her studies with enthusiasm. Recognizing her daughter’s ability, Matilda encouraged her learning by advising her that academic prowess was one arena in which women could surpass men—a lesson that she herself had learned as a child. Adela took this to heart and would grow up to become a noted literary patron, something that few women could lay claim to in that age. Her talents would be widely praised by contemporary writers and intellectuals. Baudri de Bourgueil,
Archbishop of Dol, enthused: “She surpasses her father in her appreciation of poetry and her knowledge of books. She rewards the merits of poets, she has critical judgment, and she has her own store of songs and poems to dictate.”
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Others noted her accomplishments, and she would receive letters, poems, and dedications from various celebrated intellectuals during her lifetime, including St. Anselm and Hugues de Fleury.

However, the pride that Matilda took in her youngest daughter was soon to be overshadowed by a dramatic turn of events concerning her eldest son. These events would shatter the unity not just of her marriage, but of the entire ducal family.

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or the first twenty-five years of her marriage, Matilda had been a model wife. Loyal, steadfast, and wise, she had proved an exceptionally capable regent and consort, enabling William to both consolidate his victory in England and maintain his hold over Normandy. United by matrimony and ambition, theirs seemed to be an invincible partnership. As one contemporary observed: “The queen adorned the king, the king the queen.”
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But toward the end of the 1070s, free at last from the unrelenting cycle of childbirth, Matilda began to display the independence of spirit that had caused such ructions with her husband in the very earliest days of their courtship. It would transform her from model wife and consort into one of William’s deadliest enemies.

Around this time, rumors began to circulate that her husband was looking elsewhere for sexual gratification. Perhaps Matilda, who was by now in her mid- to late forties, had begun to lose her famed beauty. The many pregnancies and births that she had endured must also have taken their toll on her body. Some of the rumors can be easily dismissed, however. For example, William was said to have fathered two sons outside his marriage: Thomas of Bayeux, Archbishop of York, and William Peverel. Both stories stem from local tradition, and neither has any basis in fact. Thomas of Bayeux was of the right age to have been William’s son and
was close enough to him to write the epitaph for his tomb, but there is nothing else to support the theory. Neither is there a case for believing that William Peverel, mentioned in Domesday Book, was a natural son of the Conqueror. The only reference to it is in an account by the seventeenth-century antiquarian William Dugdale.
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It is possible that he consulted sources that have since been lost, but the fact that a tale of such significance is not mentioned by any of the major chroniclers of the period makes it dubious in the extreme. Neither is there any reliable evidence to support the rumor that William had a bastard daughter, who later married Hugh du Château-sur-Loire.
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