Read Queens of the Conquest: England’s Medieval Queens Page 55


  29. Ibid.

  14. “The Peace of the King and Me”

  1. Henry of Huntingdon

  2. A stone wall encircling wooden buildings.

  3. Hedley; Brindle and Kerr. Parts of the palace’s foundations were uncovered during excavations after the fire of 1992. At that time, traces of the Conqueror’s wooden palisade were also found.

  4. Gesta Stephani

  5. Crouch: “Robert of Gloucester’s Mother and Sexual Politics in Norman Oxfordshire”

  6. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  7. Aelred of Rievaulx: “Eulogium Davidis Regis Scotorum”

  8. Cannon and Griffiths

  9. Piers of Langtoft

  10. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  11. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154; Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland; Dark

  12. Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland; Heslop

  13. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  14. Historia et cartularium monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestriae

  15. Some ruins of Kingsholm survived until the late eighteenth century, but nothing remains today.

  16. Hildebert of Lavardin: “Letters”

  17. Herbert de Losinga

  15. “All the Dignity of a Queen”

  1. Corpus Christi College MS. 373

  2. Ibid.

  3. Le Livere de Reis de Brittanie

  4. Corpus Christi College MS. 373

  5. Herman of Tournai. Doubts have been expressed as to whether Maud actually bore a child at all, but there is no reason to doubt Herman’s statement, and it is highly unlikely that Henry I would have considered naming Maud his heir had she been barren.

  6. Corpus Christi College MS. 373

  7. Orderic Vitalis

  8. Anglica, Hibernica, Normannica

  9. Foliot

  10. Tyerman; Rössler

  11. Leyser: “The Anglo-Norman Succession”

  12. Stephen of Rouen

  13. Chronicle of Repkav, in Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, praecipue Saxonicarum

  14. Eadmer; Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland

  15. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  16. Strickland says Henry and his family spent Easter there, but he was abroad.

  17. The date is usually given as 1116, but the Queen issued a charter for the soul of her sister to Durham Cathedral before April 1116 (The Early Charters of the Augustinian Canons of Waltham Abbey, Essex 1062–1230).

  18. John of Fordun

  19. Gesta Stephani

  20. Stephen is referred to as the Countess Mary’s son-in-law in a charter of 1115 issued by Count Eustace in confirmation of one granted by her to Bermondsey Abbey the year before (Annales Abbatae de Bermondsey, in Annales Monastici).

  16. “Blessed Throughout the Ages”

  1. Eadmer. Bernard would later serve as chancellor to Queen Adeliza.

  2. Stow: A Survey of London

  3. Walsingham

  4. Cotton MS. Nero D. VII, f.7, British Library

  5. It is often, incorrectly, assumed to be her daughter, the Empress Maud.

  6. Curia Regis Rolls for 1242. The dates of these crown-wearings are not recorded.

  7. Colker; Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland

  8. Crouch: The Normans

  9. Colker; Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland

  10. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154

  11. Orderic Vitalis; Liber Eliensis; Thompson and Stevens

  12. Eadmer

  13. Ibid.

  14. William of Malmesbury

  15. Victoria County History: Sussex. It burned down in 1781 and was the subject of a recent archaeological excavation. Labargé and Kealey both suggest that she may have had some connection with the leper hospital of St. James at Westminster, but there is no record of its history before 1189.

  16. Hilton: Queens Consort; Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland; Luffield Priory Charters

  17. Charters of David I

  18. William of Malmesbury

  19. Henry of Huntingdon; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; John of Worcester

  20. William of Malmesbury

  21. John of Worcester

  22. Liber Monasterii de Hyde; Erickson

  23. Green: Henry I

  24. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate. In the fourteenth century, Piers of Langtoft claimed that Matilda was “entombed in St Paul’s,” while the monks of Reading later asserted, falsely, that she was buried in their abbey with Henry I. These claims may have arisen as a result of memorial tablets being erected to her memory in many churches. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, citing Winchester Cathedral’s registers, incorrectly asserts that, in 1158, her bones were reburied with those of “Queen” Frideswide in one of the mortuary chests in Winchester Cathedral. Frideswide was in fact a Saxon saint who was buried in Oxford.

  25. William of Malmesbury

  26. Liber Monasterii de Hyde

  27. Ibid.

  28. John of Worcester; Orderic Vitalis

  29. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  30. Dodson mentions a false tradition that has her buried by the entrance to the Chapter House at Westminster.

  31. Liber Monasterii de Hyde

  32. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate. Queen Margaret had been canonized in 1250.

  33. Hardying; Stow: A Survey of London; Westminster Abbey: Official Guide

  34. Robert of Gloucester

  35. William of Malmesbury

  36. Liber Monasterii de Hyde. At least nine laudatory poems were written in her memory (Houts: “Latin Poetry and the Anglo-Norman Court”).

  37. Charters of David I

  38. Westminster Abbey Charters

  39. Pipe Roll 31 Henry I

  40. Meyer von Knonau

  41. Chibnall: The Empress Matilda; Biddle

  42. Meyer von Knonau

  43. Hausmann; Castor; Chibnall: The Empress Matilda

  44. Scheffer-Boichorst

  45. Chibnall: The Empress Matilda

  46. Robert of Torigni; Houts: “The Gesta Normannorum Ducum: a history without an end”; Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland

  47. Liber Monasterii de Hyde

  48. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  49. William of Malmesbury; Mason: Westminster Abbey and Its People

  50. Hilton: Queens Consort

  51. Hardying

  PART THREE: ADELIZA OF LOUVAIN

  1. “Without Warning”

  1. William of Malmesbury

  2. Given-Wilson and Curteis

  3. Gervase of Canterbury

  4. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  5. The castle burned down in 1731, and Royal Square now occupies the site, but there are extensive archaeological remains below the ground.

  6. The castle was extensively rebuilt in the sixteenth century.

  7. Henry of Huntingdon

  8. Chibnall: The Empress Matilda

  9. John of Worcester

  10. William of Malmesbury

  11. John of Worcester. It is clear that the betrothal was negotiated in 1120, not 1121, as is sometimes stated.

  12. William of Malmesbury

  13. Ibid.

  14. Orderic Vitalis

  15. William of Malmesbury

  16. Orderic Vitalis

  2. “A Fortunate Beauty”

  1. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  2. Henry of Huntingdon

  3. Robert of Gloucester

  4. Eadmer; John of Worcester; Orderic Vitalis

  5. John of Worcester

  6. Abernethy

  7. Strickland; The Art of Needlework

  8. Some historians claim that Henry and Adeliza arrived in England at Michaelmas 1120 and were married at Ely soon afterward, but Eadmer is quite clear that they were married in January 1121, and it is unlikely that Adeliza would have resided unmarried in England for three or four months before her marriage.

  9. Eadmer. Other chroniclers give different dates: John of Worcester says the marriage took place on 29 January, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle “before Candlemas” (2 February).

  10.
Pipe Rolls for 1130; Wertheimer

  11. Pipe Rolls for 1130; Hilton: Queens Consort

  12. John of Worcester. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that she was crowned on the same day she was married.

  13. Eadmer

  14. Henry of Huntingdon; John of Worcester

  15. Chibnall: “The Empress Matilda and Bec-Hellouin”

  16. Victoria County History: Berkshire; Hilton: Queens Consort. Reading Abbey would not be completed until 1164, when its church was the largest in England, rivaling St. Paul’s in size. It became one of the richest and most powerful abbeys in the realm. After its dissolution under Henry VIII, it was largely demolished and the site turned into a quarry. The ruins that remain now stand in gardens; the inner gateway has been restored.

  17. Henry of Huntingdon

  18. Piers of Langtoft

  19. Wertheimer

  20. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154

  21. Wertheimer

  22. “Annals of Waverley Abbey”

  23. Henry of Huntingdon

  24. Thompson

  25. She was the great-granddaughter of Albert III, Count of Namur, and therefore the great-niece of his daughter, Ida, Adeliza’s mother.

  26. William of Newburgh

  27. Victoria County History: Oxfordshire

  28. Thompson

  29. Orderic Vitalis. Godeschalch is probably to be identified with the Queen’s clerk, Gozo.

  30. Victoria County History: Somerset

  31. The Waltham Annals

  32. Wertheimer

  33. Reading Abbey Cartularies; Norton: England’s Queens; Wertheimer

  34. Reading Abbey Cartularies

  35. Hilton: Queens Consort

  36. Stow: A Survey of London

  37. Hilton: Queens Consort; Abernethy

  38. Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland

  39. Merton College MS. 249, University of Oxford

  40. Henry of Huntingdon

  41. William of Malmesbury

  42. Henry of Huntingdon

  43. “Annals of Waverley Abbey”

  44. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Henry of Huntingdon; Paris; Hedley

  45. Henry of Huntingdon

  46. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Henry of Huntingdon

  47. John of Forde

  48. Chibnall: “The Empress Matilda and Bec-Hellouin”

  49. Orderic Vitalis

  3. “His Only Heir”

  1. William of Malmesbury

  2. There is no substance to Giraldus Cambrensis’s tale that he privately repudiated Maud, went into voluntary exile in England and led a holy, penitential life in the monastery of St. Withburga, Chester.

  3. Anglica, Hibernica, Normannica

  4. Castor

  5. William of Malmesbury

  6. Orderic Vitalis

  7. Anglica, Hibernica, Normannica

  8. William of Malmesbury

  9. Rössler: Die Kaiserin Matilda

  10. William of Malmesbury

  11. Foliot

  12. Robert of Torigni; Chibnall: The Empress Matilda

  13. Dark

  14. Recueil des chartes de l’abbaye de Cluny

  15. Hollister

  16. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  17. Map

  18. William of Malmesbury

  19. Recueil des historiens des croisades

  20. King: “Eustace, Count of Boulogne”

  21. Dark. It is unlikely, given his name, that Baldwin was born after Stephen became king of England in 1135, for the name “Baldwin” does not feature in the English royal line prior to that date.

  22. Huneycutt: “The idea of the perfect princess”

  23. Hugo of St. Vaast

  4. “Royal English Blood”

  1. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Henry of Huntingdon

  2. Chadwick: Empress Matilda’s Bling; Earenfight; Corpus Christi College MS. 373. The hand of St. James still survives today in St. Peter’s Church at Marlow.

  3. Bradbury: Stephen and Matilda

  4. Henry of Huntingdon

  5. Könsgen; Thomson; Chibnall: The Empress Matilda

  6. Gesta Stephani

  7. Foliot

  8. Chadwick: The Enigmatic Brian FitzCount

  9. King: “The Memory of Brian FitzCount”

  10. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  11. William of Malmesbury

  12. Hildebert of Lavardin: “Letters”

  13. William of Malmesbury

  14. Ibid.

  15. Simeon of Durham

  16. William of Malmesbury

  17. John of Worcester

  18. William of Malmesbury

  19. Henry of Huntingdon

  20. Lack

  21. William of Malmesbury

  22. Ibid.

  23. Gesta Stephani

  24. William of Malmesbury; John of Worcester

  25. Gesta Stephani

  26. Paris

  5. “The Offence of the Daughter”

  1. William of Malmesbury

  2. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou

  3. William of Malmesbury

  4. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  5. Geoffrey had been born on 24 August 1113.

  6. William of Malmesbury

  7. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou

  8. Robert of Torigni

  9. Hildebert of Lavardin: “Letters”

  10. Ibid.

  11. Foliot

  12. Henry of Huntingdon; Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou; Simeon of Durham; William of Malmesbury

  13. William of Malmesbury

  14. Ibid.

  15. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou

  16. Ibid.

  17. Henry of Huntingdon

  18. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou

  19. Ibid.

  20. William of Malmesbury

  21. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou

  22. Gillingham: “Love, Marriage and Politics in the Twelfth Century”

  23. Robert of Torigni

  24. William of Malmesbury

  25. Orderic Vitalis

  26. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou

  27. Ibid.

  28. Castor

  29. Ralph of Diceto

  30. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  31. William of Malmesbury

  32. Ibid.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Simeon of Durham

  35. William of Tire

  36. Green: Henry I

  37. Chibnall: The Empress Matilda

  38. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154

  39. Suger

  40. Charters and Records among the Archives of the Ancient Abbey of Cluni

  41. Recueil des chartes de l’abbaye de Cluny

  42. Simeon of Durham

  43. Green: Henry I

  44. Hildebert of Lavardin: “Letters”

  6. “The Peril of Death”

  1. Henry of Huntingdon

  2. Pipe Roll 31 Henry I

  3. Henry of Huntingdon

  4. William of Malmesbury; Henry of Huntingdon

  5. John of Worcester

  6. Hilton: Queens Consort

  7. Given-Wilson and Curteis

  8. Hildebert of Lavardin: “Letters”

  9. Henry of Huntingdon

  10. Tyerman

  11. Henry of Huntingdon; Robert of Torigni

  12. Hildebert of Lavardin: “Letters”

  13. William of Malmesbury; Henry of Huntingdon. John of Worcester is the only chronicler to state that the oath was renewed at the Easter court of 1128. There is no other evidence for this.

  14. Henry of Huntingdon

  15. Tyerman

  16. Foliot

  17. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou

  18. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou et des Seigneurs d’Amboise

  19. Beem: “Greater by Marriage”

  20. Marcombe; Dugdale and Burnett. Strickland recorded that Adeliza’s deed, with part of her seal, was preserved in the corporation chest at Wilton. The site of the hospital lies just within
the northeastern boundary wall of Wilton Park.

  21. Henry of Huntingdon

  22. Hedley

  23. Henry of Huntingdon

  24. Chibnall: “The Empress Matilda and Her Sons”; Actus pontificum in urbe degentium; “Chronicae Sancti Albini Andegauensis.” According to the thirteenth-century chronicler Matthew Paris, the child was not Geoffrey’s, but the fruit of a love affair between Maud and her cousin, Stephen of Blois. Paris quotes Maud as saying that the two were “acquainted” before she married Geoffrey, but in fact Henry was born five years after the wedding. Thus it is highly unlikely that he was Stephen’s son.

  25. William of Malmesbury

  26. In the thirteenth century, Matthew Paris would claim that Geoffrey gave the child his name because he did not believe that the older boy Henry was his, but this is unlikely.

  27. Robert of Torigni

  28. The bridge was ruinous by 1603 and its remains were dismantled in 1661, the bases of the piers being retained in the hope that it would one day be rebuilt. In 1829 it was rebuilt as the Pont Circonflexe. It was renamed the Pont Corneille in 1848. The modern Pont Mathilde is in a different location.

  29. Robert of Torigni

  30. Henry of Huntingdon

  31. Truax

  32. Ibid.

  7. “Cast Down in Darkness”

  1. Orderic Vitalis

  2. Ibid.

  3. William of Malmesbury

  4. Orderic Vitalis

  5. William of Malmesbury

  6. Robert of Torigni

  7. Orderic Vitalis

  8. Henry of Huntingdon; Robert of Torigni

  9. King: Medieval England

  10. Henry of Huntingdon

  11. Ibid.

  12. Brewer

  13. Henry of Huntingdon

  14. William of Malmesbury

  15. Ibid.

  16. Henry of Huntingdon

  17. William of Malmesbury

  18. Ibid.

  19. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  20. William of Malmesbury; Henry of Huntingdon

  21. John of Salisbury: Historia Pontificalis

  22. Henry of Huntingdon

  23. William of Malmesbury

  PART FOUR: MATILDA OF BOULOGNE AND THE EMPRESS MAUD

  1. “In Violation of His Oath”

  1. Starkey