āDaughter of the Rising Sunā: The Death of Matilda of Scotland
I am taking a bit of an English history detour this May Day folks, to talk about Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England, who died at Westminster on this day in 1118
Matilda was actually christened Edith and she was the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and his second wife Margaret of Wessex, better known as St Margaret of Scotland. As well as several half-brothers from her fatherās first marriage to Ingibiorg Finnsdottir, she had seven full siblings- Edward, Edmund, Aethelred, Edgar, Alexander, Mary, and David. At least three (arguably four) of her brothers eventually became King of Scots, while her sister Mary married the Count of Boulogne and was mother to another Queen Matilda, the wife of Stephen, King of England.Ā
Like some of her brothers, Edith bore an Old English name, symbolic of her motherās status as the sister of Edgar Atheling and a representative of the old royal house of Wessex, which had ruled England before the Norman Conquest. This impressive lineage, just as much as her reputed beauty, piety, and learning, was probably a major factor in Henry I of Englandās choice of Edith as his bride, despite the claim of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle that she was then, āmistress of but modest means, being then a ward without either parentā. The marriage took place in November 1100, only a few months after Henry succeeded to the English throne. It was at this point that Edith adopted the name Matilda, which might have been more palatable to the Normans.
(In this fifteenth century genealogy of James II of Scotland and his sisters, their paternal and maternal descent was traced back to St Margaret via David, King of Scots, and Matilda, Queen of England. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.) )
Matildaās moniker āof Scotlandā is also a little bit misleading. Although she was almost certainly born within the bounds of her fatherās kingdom, Matilda and her sister Mary were sent away at a young age and the two princesses spent their formative years in nunneries in the south of England. At Romsey Abbey, where their aunt Christina was abbess, and later at Wilton Abbey near Salisbury, the two girls received instruction in reading and writing as well as in Christian piety, and this education seems to have been largely responsible for their later reputations as cultured and devout noblewomen.Ā
Matilda became known as a literary patron and builder, and she played a leading role in the government of England during her husbandās absences on the continent. She also had a noteworthy, if indirect, impact on the culture of her birth country when she commissioned Turgot, her motherās former chaplain, to write a biography of the late Queen Margaret, which contributed to the growth of that queenās ācultā. She also appears to have been an important early influence in the life of her youngest brother David, who became king of Scots a few years after her death, and whose reign would do much to shape Scotlandās development as a mediaeval kingdom.Ā
In England Matilda presided over a cultured and cosmopolitan court, whilst simultaneously maintaining an almost saintly reputation for personal piety and chastity. Numerous contemporary writers described her in glowing terms, in excess even of the usual praise lavished on kings and queens. For William of Malmesbury, whose āGesta Regum Anglorumā is supposed to have been written at Matildaās request, she was:
āSingularly holy; by no means despicable in point of beauty; a rival of her motherās piety; never committing any improprietyā
In his āHistoria Anglorumā, composed after Matildaās death, Henry of Huntingdon included a short poem on her ārefinement and superiorityā. Meanwhile the mid-twelfth century Cistercian writer Ailred of Rievaulx, who had served at the court of Matildaās brother David I of Scotland commented that:
āAnyone who wants to write about her wonderful renown and her strength of mind, how assiduous and devoted she was at the divine offices and holy vigils, how humble she was, especially considering her great power, will show us another Esther in our own time.ā
The twelfth-century Hyde chronicler also showered the late Queen with praise, describing her as:
āa truly incomparable woman, in whose lifetime England flourished and, at whose death, Englandās flower was cut off and all its beauty was taken away by her.ā
Pages could be filled with this sort of lavish eulogy, but it must be admitted that Matilda was not entirely uncontroversial. Even William of Malmesbury criticised her habit of giving too generously to strangers, to the detriment of her tenants, and he attributed this to an all too human desire for fame and praise as much as her natural charity.Ā
Matildaās reputation also suffered several decades after her death due to the perceived irregularity of her marriage to Henry I. Since she had spent much of her youth in nunneries, there was some doubt as to whether or not she had taken the veil, and if she had, then her marriage would have been a sinful sham, with corresponding implications for the legitimacy of her children- and therefore the English succession. This issue was debated prior to her marriage and Matilda herself testified that, although her aunt had forcibly compelled her to wear the veil, āto save my body from the raging lust of the Normansā, she had never taken vows and had angrily trampled on the veil in private. Eventually, Bishop Anselm of Canterbury declared in favour of the marriage and personally officiated at Henry and Matildaās wedding.Ā
Nevertheless, decades later in 1139, when Stephen of Blois was fighting Matilda of Scotlandās daughter, the āEmpressā Matilda, for the English throne, a papal hearing was convened at which Stephen publicly claimed that the Empress was illegitimate and that her parentsā marriage had not been valid. In her seminal study of Matilda of Scotlandās career, Lois L. Huneycutt theorises that this posthumous assault on Matildaās reputation may have stymied any chance that she would be canonised, as her mother later was. Nonetheless her image did survive Stephenās reign and her virtues continued to be extolled for centuries after her death, with later chroniclers in England and Scotland alike commemorating her as āGood Queen Maudā.
(A depiction of Henry I and Matilda in an early fourteenth century genealogy of the English kings.Ā Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)
Matildaās contemporary popularity is particularly evident in the reported reaction to her death. On 1st May 1118, after seventeen and a half years as Queen of the English, she died in the palace of Westminster, her chief residence. She was probably only in her late thirties, but the exact cause of her death is unknown. We do know that she was widely mourned, especially by the English clergy.Ā
Setting aside the laudatory eulogies of various twelfth century chroniclers, an account of her funeral obsequies also survives in the so-called Warenne or Hyde chronicle. This chronicle was apparently composed c.1157, but probably drew on older sources and eyewitness accounts, and its description of Matildaās funeral demonstrates the power of the queenās reputation. Although her husband King Henry was apparently absent in Normandy at the time of her death, the Hyde Chronicler states that her funeral was extremely well-attended:
āalmost all of Englandās bishops, nobility, abbots, priors, and indeed the innumerable common masses, assembled for her crowded funeral, and with many tears they attended her burial. At the urging of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, all offered for her soul with utmost devotion an infinite multitude of masses, prayers, alms, and other benefits.ā
The bishop of Salisbury then handed around the metaphorical collection plate in Matildaās memory, and the money poured in. This seems to have been a remarkable piece of fundraising- the Hyde chronicler claimed that the total value of all gifts was enough to pay for 47,000 masses, 9,000 psalters and 80 trentals, and to sustain hundreds of paupers.
Matilda was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the tombs of Edward the Confessor and his wife Queen Edith, and her body was interred on the east side of the altar as the ādaughter of the rising sunā.* Several clerics who had been close to the queen spent thirty days praying and standing vigil beside her grave, where her husband Henry I later established a perpetual tomb light. Matildaās youngest brother David also provided for an annual memorial service to be held in her honour, while the clergy of Exeter cathedral seem to have sung masses to mark the anniversary of her death for a time.Ā
Perhaps unsurprisingly given her personal sanctity, her tomb was reportedly the site of several miracles, although, unlike her mother, Matilda was never officially recognised as a saint. Her body was still a valuable relic however, and soon after her death an unseemly squabble broke out between the monks of Westminster Abbey and the priory of the Holy Trinity in Aldgate. The priory of the Holy Trinity was a house of Augustinian canons, which Matilda had founded in 1108. The canons claimed that the queen had expressed a wish to be buried there, and not in Westminster, and they accused the monks of Westminster of taking possession of her corpse without warrant, and hastily burying her in abbey before anyone could stop them. Eventually the dispute was settled by Henry I who, āwhen he learnt that the last wish of the queen had not been carried out, was exceedingly angry, and gave nothing to the monks who had hoped for a gift.ā The English king showed favour to the canons of Aldgate by granting them a foundation charter, but Matildaās body remained at Westminster, though unfortunately her tomb has since disappeared. The inscription on the tomb apparently changed several times over the years, but the original is supposed to have read (in translation):
āHere lies the distinguished Queen Matilda the Second,
Who surpassed both young and old in her time.
Pattern of morals and beauty of life,
She was for all.ā
Matilda was survived by her two children- William Adelin (whose byname probable derived from the Old English āAethelingā indicating his eligibility to succeed as king), and Matilda, who was first married to the Holy Roman Emperor (thereby gaining the title āEmpressā, which she wore for the rest of her life) and then Geoffrey āPlantagenetā, Count of Anjou. William only outlived his mother by a couple of years, as he perished along with hundreds of others in the disastrous sinking of the White Ship near Barfleur on 25th November 1120. Although Henry I then had his leading vassals swear an oath which recognised his daughter the Empress Matilda as his heir, after his death the kingdom nonetheless descended into civil war when his nephew, Stephen of Blois, claimed the throne.**Ā
The ensuing conflict between Stephen and Matilda, now known as āthe Anarchyā, continued for nearly twenty years until the Empress Matildaās son succeeded Stephen on the throne, becoming Henry II of England and the first monarch of the royal house later called the Plantagenet dynasty. Thus through her grandson, Matilda of Scotland was the ancestor of every subsequent English monarch, as well as a distant ancestor of many Scottish monarchs. Although several twelfth-century chroniclers were particularly concerned with her genealogical importance, as the link between the old pre-Conquest kings of England and their Norman and Angevin successors, Matilda was also an important figure in her own right and her career stands out as a particularly successful example of mediaeval queenship.
(A very grumpy-looking Matilda, Henry I, and their two children William and Matilda as depicted in a late thirteenth century genealogical role.Ā Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)
Extra notes and sources can be found under the cut.
