Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (7 page)

This was William’s education. Instead of reading and writing, he was taught the brutal lessons of murder, violence, and betrayal. Honing his military skills became a question of survival, not merely a nicety of aristocratic upbringing. As Jumièges observed, living in “hardship and deprivation,”
he had been forever trying to escape from “the snares of his enemies.”
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None of the courtly refinements befitting a duke of one of the most powerful territories in Europe were bestowed upon him. The contrast to the pampered upbringing of his future wife could not have been greater.

During his first tempestuous twelve years in power, William’s main achievement was to escape the clutches of his rapacious and murderous nobles—which, given the extraordinary number of attempts on his life, was no mean feat. He had been able to do little to assert his control and bring his rebellious subjects to heel. The turning point came in 1047, when he was in his twentieth year. Count Guy of Burgundy was one of his deadliest enemies. As a grandson of Duke Richard II (and thereby a cousin of William), he claimed that he had a stronger right to the duchy than this bastard upstart. By 1047, he had amassed such a dangerous body of support—as many as twenty-five thousand troops—in western Normandy that William had little choice but to take up arms.

The two armies met at Val-ès-Dunes. If William had been forced to rely solely upon his own forces, the day would have been lost. Jumièges describes how the duke was confronted by “an army of innumerable hostile and aggressive warriors with drawn swords ready to join battle.”
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Fortunately, he was able to call upon the support of the French king, Henry I, whose goodwill William’s father Robert had been wise enough to cultivate. Malmesbury claims that Henry supported the young duke “most vigorously” during this and other campaigns.
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Thanks to his backing, William’s army was bolstered by an additional ten thousand men. This swung the balance firmly in his favor, and their combined forces won the day. It was a momentous victory, for defeat would have meant deposition. William had emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Gone were the days of being forever on the run from his enemies. Now the twenty-year-old duke was on the offensive. Jumièges proudly described “how valiantly he crushed their reckless necks under his feet.”
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By vanquishing his enemies at Val-ès-Dunes, William had proved that he had the one quality that was prized above all others when it came to governing medieval states: eleventh-century rulers were military leaders
first, politicians second. It was not just Normandy that saw exceptional violence in this period; across whole swaths of western Europe, leaders had to be more than mere figureheads to survive. They had to fight every bit as ferociously as their subjects—if not more so—in order to justify their position. There were few constitutional or legal limitations to their power. Although in theory they were responsible for upholding and enforcing the law, they did not have to abide by it themselves. The fact that they had to exercise some degree of conciliation toward their nobles in order to avoid rebellion did not detract from their immense arbitrary power. They ensured the stability of their kingdom through the sheer force of their personality. Ruthlessness, not diplomacy, won the day.

Duke William of Normandy flourished in such an atmosphere. His military prowess was matched by his unbending will and “superb self-confidence,” and he never flinched from imposing his authority by force.
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Val-ès-Dunes was just the first in a series of bloody conflicts that secured his predominance within the province and repelled the threats from outside. Those whom he conquered were shown no mercy. The savagery of his regime was notorious. According to one chronicler: “Nations foreign and far-distant feared nothing so much as his name.”
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By the age of twenty-two, he had become one of the most respected—and feared—rulers in western Europe.

He was also one of the most hated. His cruelty and brutality were not tempered by conciliation or compromise. His will was the only one that mattered, as anyone who stood in his way found out to his cost. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
describes him as “a very stern man, and violent, so that no one dared do anything against his will.”
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Eadmer, another contemporary, claimed that he was “stiff and terrifying to almost everyone because of his great power.”
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Intolerant and self-righteous to the extreme, William scorned weakness in others—perhaps driven by the deep-seated insecurity that he harbored about his own illegitimacy. Although he was praised for his justice, when blinded by fury his vengeance could be swift and terrible. According to several reliable contemporary accounts, while he was besieging Alençon in 1051, the inhabitants “had beaten pelts and furs in order to insult the duke,” a clear allusion to his menial origins as the grandson of a tanner.
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When the town fell, William ordered that the hands and feet of every man who had participated
in the siege should be cut off. The sources contain no further references to the duke’s being insulted for his bastard status by the citizens of Alençon.
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William was not a subtle man, and his attitude to most matters was conventional, as Matilda would find out to her cost. Domineering and direct, he bulldozed opponents into submission and was merciless in pursuit of his ambitions. But he would not have achieved such staggering success if he had not also had a degree of animal cunning, gained from the hazardous period of his childhood. At its worst, this manifested itself in corruption and avarice, particularly in his later years, but it also made him a match for the most brilliant political strategists. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
describes him as “a very wise man,” and Henry of Huntingdon concurred that he was “wise, but crafty.”
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The duke was also pious. Jumièges claims that “while in his flowering youth, [William] began to devote himself wholeheartedly to the worship of God.” In typically sycophantic style, William of Poitiers, who as well as being William’s apologist was also his chaplain, praises the “utmost zeal” with which he protected the Norman church.
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The duke’s piety apparently stayed with him for life: “He was a holy and devout worshipper of the Christian religion in which he had been brought up in childhood. And if health permitted him he assidiously [sic] attended church at morning and evening and at mass.”
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In 1071, Pope Alexander II would praise him for his “outstanding reputation for piety among the rulers and princes of the world.”
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This manifested itself topographically, and during his reign, a far greater number of religious buildings were founded across Normandy than ever before. The duke was also a keen reformer, determined to root out corrupt ecclesiastical practices. According to Orderic Vitalis, in appointing high-ranking churchmen, he paid more heed to “wisdom and a good life” than to wealth and power.
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Although it was common for military leaders to justify any number of brutalities in the name of religion, it seems that William’s dedication to the church was more than mere lip service. His “devout and eager” belief bordered on the puritanical, and he protected the church every bit as fiercely as he did his dominions. Even the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, which mostly depicts him as a cruel tyrant, admits that he was “kind to those good men who loved God.”
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The young duke was also capable of intense loyalty, particularly toward the relatives of his mother, to whom he seems to have been close. Malmesbury observes that he treated Herleva “with distinguished generosity” throughout her life.
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He promoted her two sons by Herluin de Conteville, Odo and Robert, to the prestigious positions of bishop of Bayeux and count of Mortain respectively.
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He also made Herluin himself a rich man by granting him vast swaths of land across Normandy. When Herleva died in 1050, William made careful provisions for her final resting place, ordering that she should be buried at the abbey of Grestain, founded by Herluin in a beautiful setting near the river Seine.

If William had a softer side, it surfaced most often in his relations with women. Matilda herself would benefit from it, although she would also learn that if crossed, William’s tender feelings would give way to terrifying fury. The duke also believed in fidelity and was known to be chaste.
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This was viewed with some suspicion by contemporaries and “gave occasion for his manhood to be called into question,” for it was positively expected of a young nobleman to sow his wild oats and father a number of illegitimate children before (and indeed after) taking a wife.
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Perhaps William eschewed such behavior because of his intense shame about his own illegitimacy. William of Malmesbury provides another explanation by referring to reports that the duke was impotent.
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His marriage to Matilda would prove how ill-founded these were.

The duke’s apparent abstemiousness extended to his dietary habits. “Moderate in eating and drinking, especially the latter; he abhorred drunkenness in any man, most of all in himself or at his court,” claims Jumièges. “He was so sparing in wine and other drink that after a meal he seldom drank more than three times.”
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This was another trait that would have set him apart from many of his military colleagues.

As with Matilda, there are no surviving contemporary portraits of William, except those found in the Bayeux Tapestry, which are all heavily stylized. They suggest that William adopted the typical Norman style of cropped hair (which may have been of a reddish color) and clean-shaven face. This is corroborated by the images found on the duke’s seals and coins, as well as in illuminated manuscripts.

It seems, though, that he was definitely a well-built man. William’s tomb, which was first opened in 1522, was said to have contained the
skeleton of a large man with exceptionally long arms and legs.
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However, like Matilda’s, it was despoiled during the Calvinist riots later in that century, and the only surviving remnant is a single thigh bone, which might or might not have belonged to William. Still, this was measured during the same 1961 excavations that unearthed Matilda’s tomb, and the conclusion was that William would have been about five feet ten inches tall. He would have towered over most of his contemporaries—not least his diminutive future wife.

That William had an impressive physique is also borne out by the descriptions found in contemporary accounts. “He was great and strong, in body, tall of stature, yet not ungainly,” according to his apologist.
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Malmesbury claims that the duke’s arms and shoulders were so strong that he could draw a bow that other men could not even bend—and that while he was spurring on a horse.
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According to the contemporary narrative
De Obitu Willelmi
, William’s physical vigor was matched by his voice, which was harsh and rough.
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Jumièges agrees that “he could express everything he wished to say very clearly in a rasping voice,” but adds, rather confusingly, that this “did not suit his appearance.”
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He was apparently fond of uttering loud oaths “so that the mere roar from his open mouth might somehow strike terror into the minds of his audience.”
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Coupled with his “ferocious expression,” this would have intimidated anyone who encountered him.
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This terrifying spectacle of a man—at once both domineering and devout, brutal and faithful—was about to take center stage in the life of Matilda of Flanders.