by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2016
Matilda of Flanders, wife of King William I of England (the Conqueror), was born around 1031 in the County of Flanders. Today the lands of the County of Flanders include parts of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Matilda was the middle child and the only daughter of the three children of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders and Adela of France, the daughter of King Robert II of France.
Matilda had one older brother and one younger brother:
- Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders (c. 1030–1070), married Richilde, Countess of Mons and Hainaut, had issue
- Robert I, Count of Flanders (c. 1035–1093), married Gertrude of Saxony, had issue
Matilda was a direct descendant of the famous Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great, King of Wessex. Alfred’s youngest child Ælfthryth married Baldwin II, Count of Flanders. This line of ancestry from Alfred the Great through the Counts of Flanders to Matilda was appealing to William II, Duke of Normandy since he was eight years old. William’s childless first cousin once removed, Edward the Confessor, sat upon the throne of England. In 1151, William visited Edward the Confessor, King of England (also a direct descendant of Alfred the Great) and apparently Edward named William as his successor. Despite there being other claimants to the English throne, William was now ambitious to be the heir, and marrying Matilda could only help his cause.
In 1051 or 1052, William married Matilda of Flanders, without the approval of the Pope. Finally, in 1059 papal approval was received, but both William and Matilda were required to found an abbey in Caen as penance: the Abbaye-aux-Hommes (St. Stephen’s) and the Abbaye-aux-Dames (Holy Trinity). William and Matilda were devoted to each other and there is no evidence that William had illegitimate children.
William and Matilda had four sons and at least five daughters. Despite her royal duties, Matilda oversaw the upbringing of her children, and all were known for being well-educated. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at the Abbaye-aux-Dames (Holy Trinity) in Caen. For her sons, she secured Lanfranc, later Archbishop of Canterbury as their teacher.
William and Matilda had four sons and at least six daughters. The birth order of the boys is clear, but that of the girls is not. The list below is not in birth order. It lists the sons first in their birth order and then his daughters in their probable birth order.
- Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy (1051-1054 – 1134), married Sybil of Conversano, had one son
- Richard of Normandy (circa 1054 – circa 1070), died in a hunting accident in the New Forest
- William II Rufus, King of England (1056-1060 – 1100), unmarried, killed in the New Forest
- Henry I, King of England (1068 – 1135), married (1) Matilda of Scotland, had one son and one daughter (2) Adeliza of Louvain, no children
- Agatha of Normandy died before 1074, unmarried
- Adeliza of Normandy (circa 1055 – before 1113), probably a nun at the Abbey of St Léger in Préaux, Duchy of Normandy
- Cecilia of Normandy (circa 1056 – 1127), Abbess of Holy Trinity in Caen
- Matilda of Normandy (circa 1061 – c. 1086)
- Constance of Normandy (1057-1061 – 1090, married Alan IV, Duke of Brittany, no issue
- Adela of Normandy (circa 1067 – 1137), married Stephen II, Count of Blois, had ten children including King Stephen of England
In January 1066, Edward the Confessor died and Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, the most powerful person in England after the king, was named King of England by the Witan, the king’s council. When William heard that Harold Godwinson had been crowned King of England, he began careful preparations for an invasion of England. During the summer of 1066, he assembled an army and an invasion fleet. When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship using her own funds, and gave it to him. This ship, the Mora, became William’s flagship. William and his fleet left Normandy for England on September 27, 1066. Matilda was appointed regent of Normandy in William’s absence, a position she often held when William was in England after he became king.
Harold Godwinson, King Harold II of England, was defeated and killed at the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. On Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned King William I of England at Westminster Abbey. In March 1067, William returned to Normandy and remained there until early December 1067. During the last days in December, Matilda and William’s last child, the future King Henry I of England, must have been conceived. The pregnant Matilda left Normandy for England in the spring of 1068. She was crowned Queen of England on May 11, 1068, at Westminster Abbey.
Later in 1068, Matilda accompanied William on a military campaign to subdue unrest in northern England. Her only child to be born in England, the future King Henry I, was born probably in September 1068 in Selby, Yorkshire, England. Most of Matilda’s time was spent in Normandy where she took care of affairs of the duchy and the abbeys she had founded. In 1080, she was the godmother of Edith of Scotland, the daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret of Scotland. The infant Edith pulled at Matilda’s headdress, which was seen as an omen that she would be a queen one day. Years later, with her name changed from the Anglo-Saxon Edith to the Norman Matilda upon her marriage, that infant became the first wife of Queen Matilda’s son King Henry I of England.
In 1083, Matilda became ill. William rushed from England to Normandy to be at her bedside. She died in Caen, Normandy on November 2, 1083, at the age of about 52. Matilda was buried at the Abbaye-aux-Dames (Holy Trinity) in Caen founded by Matilda and William at the time of their marriage. Her grave is at the back of the church under the original black stone inscribed with her epitaph.
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