Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England

by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2016

Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England; Credit – Wikipedia

Matilda of Scotland, the first wife of King Henry I of England, was born around 1080 at Dunfermline in Scotland. Christened with the Anglo-Saxon name Edith, she was one of the eight children of King Malcolm III of Scotland and his second wife Saint Margaret of Scotland.  At her christening was her godfather Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, the eldest son of King William I of England (the Conqueror), and her godmother, Matilda of Flanders, the wife of King William I of England (the Conqueror). The infant Matilda pulled at Queen Matilda’s headdress, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be a queen one day. In fact, she would marry Queen Matilda’s son and Robert Curthose’s brother, King Henry I of England.

Matilda’s father is the Malcolm character in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth.  Her mother Saint Margaret of Scotland was born an Anglo-Saxon princess. Margaret’s father was Edward the Exile (also called Edward Ætheling), the son of Edmund Ironside, King of the English, and had the best hereditary claim to the English throne during the reign of the childless Edward the Confessor. In 1057, Edward the Confessor, the childless King of England, discovered that his nephew Edward the Exile, believed to have been killed, was still alive and summoned him to England in 1057 as a potential successor. However, Edward died within two days of his arrival in England and the cause of his death has never been determined. Murder is a possibility, as he had many powerful enemies. His three children, Margaret, her brother Edgar the Ætheling, and her sister Cristina, were then raised in the court of Edward the Confessor, who died in January of 1066.

Saint Margaret of Scotland and King Malcolm III of Scotland depicted on a frieze by the Victorian painter William Hole; Credit – Wikipedia

Following the death of Edward the Confessor’s successor Harold Godwinson, King of England at the Battle of Hastings, Margaret’s brother Edgar the Ætheling, who was the last of the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex, was elected King of England. As William of Normandy’s (King William I of England the Conqueror) position grew stronger, it became evident to those in power that King Edgar should be abandoned and that they should submit to William. In 1068, Edgar, along with his mother Agatha and sisters Margaret and Cristina, fled to Northumbria. Supposedly, Agatha wanted to return to her native Hungary, but their ship was blown off course by a storm and they sought refuge from King Malcolm III of Scotland. Malcolm’s first wife Ingebjorg Finnsdotter died around 1069, and shortly thereafter he married Margaret. Margaret and Malcolm’s children had a strong genetic connection to the Anglo-Saxon kings. Bearing in mind that William the Conqueror’s new dynasty in England was not secure, Margaret and Malcolm gave four of their sons Anglo-Saxon royal names, and named the other two sons after Alexander the Great and the biblical King David.

Matilda’s seven siblings:

Matilda had three half-brothers from her father’s first marriage to Ingibiorg Finnsdottir.

At about the age of six, Matilda, then still called Edith, and her sister Mary were sent to be educated at Romsey Abbey in Hampshire, England where their maternal aunt Cristina was the Abbess. The girls also were educated for a time at Wilton Abbey in Wiltshire, England which had a connection to their ancestors from the House of Wessex.  Both girls learned English, French, and some Latin, and were literate enough to read the Bible. As the daughter of the King of Scots, Matilda had several suitors including William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, and Alan Rufus, 1st Lord of Richmond, and possibly even King William II Rufus of England.

On November 13, 1093, Matilda’s father King Malcolm III of Scotland and her eldest brother Edward were killed at the Battle of Alnwick. Malcolm was succeeded by his eldest son from his first marriage King Donald II of Scotland who was killed in battle in 1094. Thereafter, three brothers of Matilda succeeded to the Scottish throne. Weakened from her constant fasting and austere life, Matilda’s mother Margaret was already ill when her husband and eldest son went off to battle. She died at Dunfermline just three days after her husband and son’s death. Margaret was canonized as a saint in 1250 by Pope Innocent IV.

Sometime in 1093, Matilda left Wilton Abbey. This is known because Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury ordering that Matilda should return to Wilton Abbey. The Archbishop of Canterbury mistakenly thought that Matilda had taken vows as a nun. There is no mention of Matilda in any chronicle from 1093-1100. Her whereabouts during that time period are unknown.

On August 2, 1100, King William II Rufus of England was killed in a hunting accident, and his younger brother succeeded as King Henry I. Henry was about 32 years old and needed a bride, and his choice fell upon Matilda of Scotland, basically motivated for one reason. Through her mother, Matilda would merge the bloodline of the Anglo-Saxon kings with Henry’s Norman bloodline. However, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury still had that problem thinking Matilda had taken vows as a nun, so he called a council of bishops to determine if Matilda and Henry could marry. Matilda testified that her parents had sent her to the abbeys to be educated and that she had never taken vows. Her aunt Cristina, Abbess of Romsey Abbey had insisted she wear a nun’s habit to protect her from unruly Norman lords and unwanted marriages. The council of bishops determined that Matilda had never been a nun and gave their permission for Matilda and King Henry I to marry. Matilda and Henry were married on November 11, 1100, at Westminster Abbey by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. Afterward, she was crowned with the Norman name Matilda in honor of Henry’s deceased mother Matilda of Flanders.

Statues of King Henry I and Matilda of Scotland from the west front of Rochester Cathedral; Credit – Wikipedia

Matilda and Henry had four children, but only two survived childhood. Their son William Ætheling died on November 25, 1120, as he was returning to England from Normandy when his ship hit a submerged rock, capsized, and sank. William Ætheling and many others drowned. See Unofficial Royalty: The Sinking of the White Ship and How It Affected the English Succession. Henry was not faithful to Matilda. He holds the record for the British monarch with the most illegitimate children, 25 or so illegitimate children, but the tragedy of the White Ship left him with only one legitimate child, his daughter Matilda, known as Empress Matilda from her first marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Henry V.

Matilda and Henry’s children:

Matilda accompanied her husband in his travels throughout England and Normandy. She was a patron of music and poetry and commissioned a biography of her mother, The Life of Saint Margaret, attributed to Turgot of Durham.  Influenced by her abbey upbringing and her mother Saint Margaret of Scotland, Matilda was pious and generous to the poor. She built a leper hospital at St. Giles-in-the-Fields in London and founded Holy Trinity Priory at Aldgate in London.  Like her saintly mother, Matilda wore a hair shirt, walked barefoot during Lent, gave food and clothing to the poor, and washed the feet of lepers and poor people.

Matilda died when she was about the age of 38 on May 1, 1118, at the Palace of Westminster in London. The place of her burial is uncertain. One tradition says that she was buried at Winchester Cathedral in the old monastery and that around 1158 Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester had her remains placed in a mortuary chest which is now lost. Another tradition says Matilda was buried in Westminster Abbey at the entrance of the chapter house and then later reburied to the south of Edward the Confessor’s shrine by King Henry III.

After Matilda’s death, her husband King Henry I married Adeliza of Louvain, hoping for sons to prevent a succession crisis, but the marriage remained childless. On Christmas Day of 1226, King Henry I of England gathered his nobles at Westminster where they swore to recognize his daughter Empress Matilda and any future legitimate heir she might have as his successors. That plan did not work out. Henry died on December 1, 1135. Upon hearing of Henry’s death, Stephen of Blois, one of Henry’s nephews, quickly crossed the English Channel from France, seized power, and was crowned King of England on December 22, 1135. This started the terrible civil war between Stephen and Empress Matilda known as The Anarchy.  England did not see peace for 18 years until Empress Matilda’s son acceded to the throne as King Henry II of England in 1153.

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