Matilda Regina

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Brenda Bruce as Empress Matilda, Queen of England, and Brian Cox as Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine, in "The Devil's Crown"


It begins ...


Some historical records show that Stephen of Blois, grandson of William the Conqueror by his daughter, Adela, and Stephen, Count of Blois, was the last man to board the fated White Ship. The ship itself was crowded and Stephen had, it is believed, been struck by food poisoning from an earlier meal - he almost failed to make the departure, and in the last minutes of his life, as he either froze to death or drowned in the Channel, he probably regretted being so very determined to leave Barfleur. Stephen of Blois was profoundly unlucky - his cousin, Matilda, was, after the sinking of the White Ship, the only legitimate child of Henry Beauclerc, the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and, as history tells, later the first Queen Regnant of England.

This is her story.

 

[A Random Man]

Interesting

 

[Cate13]

Can't wait to see where this goes

 

[FalconHonour]

I just gasped out loud! I can't wait to see where this goes!

 

[HortenseMancini]

GO MATILDA

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

Henry Beauclerc had been widowed two years prior to the sinking of the White Ship, after the death of Matilda of Scotland, and had been secure in his son, William Adelin's survival and that William would produce many children, that he had chosen not to remarry. But now he was practically forced to remarry - and set his sights on Adeliza of Louvain, a French noblewoman who was about eighteen, about the right age to provide Henry with a new male heir immediately. But Henry also had custody of Matilda of Anjou, his nine year old daughter-in-law, and her father heard about the White Ship disaster and demanded that Henry return both his daughter and her dowry, which comprised land and castles in the County of Maine. This was not something that Henry was prepared to even entertain, and wrote to Fulk, Count of Anjou, that he was intending to marry Matilda, allowing Henry to retain her dowry. This was a dangerous decision to make, Matilda of Anjou was nine/ten and Henry was fifty-two, meaning that consumation of the marriage, and therefore producing a male heir, would be at least five or six years away when Matilda was sixteen and he was fifty eight.

By 1126, the marriage was apparently consumated, records indicate that the couple lost a son, named Elias after Matilda of Anjou's younger brother, within days of his birth, and this seems to have driven Matilda into the arms of the church. Matilda - now only sixteen at most - refused any further attempts to consumate the relationship, and Henry might have asked the Pope to anul their marriage, but the Pope, at the behest of Fulk, would eventually refuse the request, which meany that, by 1131, the former Holy Roman Empress, was Heir Apparent in all but name.

Alison Pill as Empress Matilda, Queen of England, in Bernard Cornwell's "Norman Chronicles" in 2010

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

Interesting

Can't wait to see where this goes

I just gasped out loud! I can't wait to see where this goes!

GO MATILDA

Thank you for the comments. I picked up David Mitchell's "Unruly" and started reading - he mentions the fact that Stephen was supposed to be on the White Ship and I thought this would make an interesting divergence point. And here we are.

Also, the Horrible Histories "Anarchy" song is 👍

 

[FalconHonour]

Oh wow! Whoops. I mean, I like Adeliza, but having Henry almost panic and have a kind of midlife crisis, marrying a child, was just so funny! I'm glad you went down that route.

 

[Henry III]

If she lives as long as her old self she would be ruling Queen for 37 years with otl Henry II as Duke of Normandy and her second son Geoffrey getting Anjou

I suppose it would good keeping the kingdom at peace and she could even end up on crusader with Louis Vii of France

Their is the issue if the Welsh to thing about and she has good relations with her uncle King David of Scotland

I do hope that the Otl Anjouvan Empire is not created that eather Louis Vii has a son with Eleanor of aquatane or she marred Henry ii younger brother or some body else

It she does than Matilda and Henry ii can focus on knitting together the Anglo-Norman realm with possible expansions into Brittany or Wales

Looking forward to reading more

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

Depiction of Empress Matilda, Queen of England, from the Gospel of Roger de Pont L'Eveque, Archbishop of Canterbury, c. 1175


Matilda had been widowed in 1125 (Emperor Henry V died of cancer whilst at Utrecht) and returned to England. Her father recognised that as daughter of a King and widow of an Emperor, Matilda would be a more than acceptable match for any monarch. But Henry had his sights set on an unlikely match - the brother of the rejected Adeliza of Louvain, Godfrey. Godfrey of Louvain, of the House of Reginar, was the Heir Apparent to the Duchy of Lower Lorraine, the Landgraviate of Brabant and the Counties of Louvain and Brussels. But he was about a decade younger than Matilda, at sixteen, and he would die in 1142, twenty five years earlier than his wife and only seven years into her reign. To recognise the marriage, his father ceded him the Duchy of Lower Lorraine, and then in 1131, Matilda was recognised in England as Heir, and Godfrey was set for a comfortable life of mistresses, wine and hunting as King Consort.

 

[FalconHonour]

Hurrah! A different husband than Geoffrey! Here's hoping their marriage is somewhat more successful!

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

Hurrah! A different husband than Geoffrey! Here's hoping their marriage is somewhat more successful!

Basically Matilda gets widowed at roughly the right time, Godfrey, Count of Louvain, and Clementia of Bourgone, aren't particularly happy with Henry about breaking off marriage talks over his engagement to Adeliza, and the Godfrey/Matilda match is supposed to be something of a conciliatory measure. Having seen how he's treated Matilda of Anjou, they're probably relieved that Adeliza didn't marry Henry but they're not going to turn down the match.

I will give a mild spoiler - Adeliza is due to come back into the orbit of Empress Matilda in about 1138.

 

[Henry III]

Would that put Matilda's children in the orbit of the politics of the holy Roman Empire as well as dealing with France as in the Royal Crown lands

Counts of Anjou, Flanders and Duke of Brittany

All over who can control what on Northern France and the Capet kings for over 100 years I've managed to maintain a balance of power

 

[isabella]

Basically Matilda gets widowed at roughly the right time, Godfrey, Count of Louvain, and Clementia of Bourgone, aren't particularly happy with Henry about breaking off marriage talks over his engagement to Adeliza, and the Godfrey/Matilda match is supposed to be something of a conciliatory measure. Having seen how he's treated Matilda of Anjou, they're probably relieved that Adeliza didn't marry Henry but they're not going to turn down the match.

I will give a mild spoiler - Adeliza is due to come back into the orbit of Empress Matilda in about 1138.

Interesting developments… and that mean who Geoffrey of Anjou, who here was not forced by his father to marry a much older woman, will be free to marry someone of his choice after becoming Duke of Anjou in 1129 (and that someone will be Eleanor of Aquitaine who, heiress of her father or not, is the likeliest match for him)

 

[HortenseMancini]

Hopefully the barons will be more amenable to Matilda succeeding her father with Godfrey as her husband rather than Geoffrey Plantagenet

 

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Sam Claflin as William Clito, claimant to England and the Dukedom of Normandy, in Bernard Cornwell's "Norman Chronicles" in 2010

The recognition of Matilda as the future monarch wasn't without its detractors, and they rallied round William Clito, who by right of male preference primogeniture, as son of Robert Curthose, elder brother of both William II and Henry Beauclerc, should have been Heir Apparent. But Robert was locked up in Cardiff Castle, and William was in Montferrat with his Alemarician in-laws, having failed to secure the County of Flanders a few years earlier. This freed him up for the King of France, his brother-in-law, to offer to fund an invasion of England to claim the throne.

William believed the route to do this was to seize Normandy. His father had earlier ceded control of the Duchy to, first, William II, and then Henry, and they had, in turn, funded his ill fated campaign in the Crusades. If William could seize Normandy, then he could perhaps launch an invasion from, ironically, Barfleur. But Matilda and Godfrey were locked in a dispute with Henry themselves, they had demanded that Matilda's recognition as Heir in England was duplicated in Normandy and that Henry hand over certain castles in the Duchy that had comprised her dowry. Which put Matilda, Godfrey, William and Joanna of Montferrat, in France and the Duchy of Normandy at the same time.

 

[A Random Man]

Good chapter

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

The present day ruins of Chateau Domfront, one of the castles in Normandy promised to Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine, on his marriage to Empress Matilda

The Robertian War of the Norman Succession is used to talk about the period from 1131, and the recognition of the Dowager Empress Matilda as Heir in England, to 1138 and the death of William Clito, legitimatist claimant to both England and Normandy. The two were cousins, both grandchildren of William the Conqueror, but William argued his legitimacy as the male line claimant (in right of his father, and from 1134, in his own right) whilst Matilda was female. That seemed to be William's big argument when it came to both crown's, but in favour of William, his brother-in-law was King of France whom the Duke of Normandy was nominally in suzerainty to. This had been a sore point to both William's and now Henry and William Clito leveraged this connection, now it wasn't just William vs Matilda, it has become France vs Matilda, and after a furious communication with her father, France vs England.

And so the Robertian War of the Norman Succession was a proxy war between France and England. In the midst of the war, Joanna of Montferrat provided William with two daughters, Gisela (after her maternal grandmother, Gisela of Burgundy) and Azalais the Posthumous (after Azelais del Vasto, former Queen of Sicily and Jerusalem) and when the latter was born, sometime in Early 1139, Matilda and Godfrey had not been blessed with children. If Matilda died, then the infant Gisela might be used as a figurehead for Robertian factions and placed upon the throne. After her father's death in Late 1138, she was the legitimate claimant. Joanna had fled to the French Court where her seventeen year old nephew, Louis the Young, was now King, to give birth, and she found comfort from her sister, the Dowager Queen, and was present as Louis' marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, elder sister of the twelve year old, William (XI) the Eagle, Duke of Aquitaine.

There, the Dowager Queen and her sister came into the social circle of Adeliza of Louvain, and her English husband, William d'Albini, a relative commoner that the pair found beneath their station. Joanna might not be able to push her infant daughters claim, her nephew was reluctant to continue the war and Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine and King Consort of England was holding Normandy and had reinforced border castles such as Domfront, Exmes and Argentan, as well as Rouen and Barfleur. But William was handsome, and Adeliza was useful, her brother, after all, was now the King Consort of England.

And then, with much rejoicing, Empress Matilda fell pregnant.

 

[Henry III]

Did you writer that Godfrey dead in 1141 and if Matilda is pregnant in 1139 are 1141 then he may be our she may be her only child

It can be a good thing having one son or a bad too few or too many Princes can be a bad thing

If Louis marred his son to the daughter of the male line it would give France a strong claim England and Normandy

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

Did you writer that Godfrey dead in 1141 and if Matilda is pregnant in 1139 are 1141 then he may be our she may be her only child

It can be a good thing having one son or a bad too few or too many Princes can be a bad thing

If Louis marred his son to the daughter of the male line it would give France a strong claim England and Normandy

Godfrey of Louvain dies in 1142 - and, it's not a massive spoiler, but the child that Matilda is pregnant with in 1139 is not their only one. And there is a French match, but perhaps not the one you were expecting.