She got up from the ornately carved family pew where she had been contemplating her next moves, and walked down the aisle of the chapel thinking of the ride she was about to take. Before setting off for her prayers, she had ordered her horse to be brushed and saddled. A brisk ride would work up a nice appetite for supper, although, it now struck her, this new passion for monastic simplicity might mean she’d have to stick to bread and water. No, on second thoughts, there were lots of very well-fed priests, monks and nuns about the place. Even if they denied themselves love, they didn’t seem to stint on food.
As she walked towards the stables, she was dimly aware of a commotion in the distance: a lot of shouting and clattering of hooves. And she thought she heard a voice she recognised, but no, that couldn’t be possible.
When she reached the stable yard, the head groom was waiting for her. ‘Is she ready?’ she asked.
‘Yes, my lady, exactly as you ordered. I will have her brought out immediately.’
A moment later, a stable boy appeared leading a very beautiful, fine-boned palfrey: a horse fit for a princess. ‘Oh, my pretty White Dove,’ Matilda cooed, running to greet her beloved grey mare. She stroked her muzzle. ‘How are you, sweet one? Have all those horrible stallions been beastly to you, hmmm?’
She was helped up into the saddle, where she sat with the relaxed confidence of a woman who’d been riding all her life. Matilda had two brothers, and what she lacked in size and brute strength, she more than made up for in lightness and courage. She would gallop just as fast as them and jump just as high or wide, and she was in the process of planning where she would take White Dove now, for she needed a really good, hard, thrilling ride that would set her heart pumping, when— Mary Mother of God, what was he doing here?
William of Normandy was marching into the stable yard like a man going to war. The head groom went to speak to him and William just shoved him out of the way without even looking at him. His eyes, which were the most piercing shade of lapis lazuli – how had she never noticed that before? – were fixed on Matilda. She felt as if they were burning into her, right down to her very soul, and they seemed to have some kind of sorcery about them, because she simply could not turn her head away and escape his fearsome gaze.
Now he had come up to White Dove and was standing right by Matilda, still looking up at her, not saying anything, and she suddenly understood what it must be like for a man to confront him in battle and have to face this extraordinary physical presence, this sense that he would not be beaten or denied.
Then he reached his arms up and grabbed her, and though she screamed and kicked and punched the air in protest, he lifted her up, right out of the saddle, as easily as if she weighed nothing at all. She found herself standing on the ground, still completely caught in his grasp, and she realised he was getting down and kneeling before her. For a second she thought he was going to vow eternal love, but then he was lifting her again and spinning her, and she realised: no! He can’t be! He’s putting me over his knee!
And then he was spanking her, hard enough to hurt, and she was yelling, more in fury than in pain, and finally William spoke, timing his words to his blows as he snarled, ‘Don’t . . . you . . . ever . . . dare . . . make . . . a fool . . . of me . . . again.’
When he was done, he put her back on her feet, and without a word or a backward glance strode out of the stable yard. Matilda stood in stunned silence for a moment, and then ran after him, screaming, ‘I hate you! I hate you! My father will kill you for this! He’ll go to war! You’ll be nothing, William of Normandy . . . nothing!’
But he continued to walk away as if she did not even exist, and as he remounted his horse and rode back out of the palace gates, Matilda stormed up to her room and threw herself sobbing on to the bed.
When Count Baldwin found out what had happened, he was just as angry as Matilda had promised. He stormed around the palace shouting orders for his barons to be summoned for a special council of war. ‘After all the kindness, all the hospitality I’ve shown to that barbarian, how dare he assault my daughter!’ he raged at Adela. ‘He insulted her, he insulted me, he insulted our family and he insulted Flanders itself! This infamy cannot be allowed to go unpunished!’
To Baldwin’s surprise, Adela did not seem nearly as shocked as he was. She said nothing, and if Baldwin hadn’t known better, he might almost have thought she was amused by the whole affair.
The count spent the remainder of the afternoon drafting an official letter to be sent to the Duke of Normandy demanding a formal apology for his conduct, accompanied by significant restitution for the slanderous damage he had done to Lady Matilda’s good name and the reputation of the House of Flanders.
He was just pressing his official seal into the wax at the bottom of the letter when Adela appeared, accompanied by their daughter, and informed him, ‘Matilda has something she wishes to say to you.’
‘Of course, my dearest. You poor child, what can I do for you?’
‘Father,’ said Matilda, ‘I’ve come to a decision.’
‘Yes, yes, just name what you desire and it will be done.’
‘I want to marry William of Normandy.’
And so an official letter was indeed sent from Bruges to Rouen, addressed to the Duke of Normandy. But it made no demands and its tone was conciliatory in the extreme as it offered him the hand of Matilda of Flanders in marriage.
This was not, of course, the first time that a man had been given the chance to take Matilda as his bride.
But this time the answer was yes.
14
Conteville
Herleva was delighted by the news from Bruges, and even happier when William came to tell her in person about what had happened. She had retired to bed now, and the hair that fanned out around her head as it lay against her pillows had lost the glorious copper glow it had once possessed and become as flimsy and colourless as the rest of her. But she still had her smile, and her laughter had returned, for a peace had come over her, an acceptance of God’s will and a faith that a better life awaited her when her time on earth was done.
His mother’s serenity made it easier for William to relax and tell his story. ‘Anyway, I got to Bruges and rode right into the palace, and to tell you truth I had no idea what I was going to do or say. I just wanted to give Matilda a piece of my mind. So I asked where she was and one of the servants said she was about to go out for a ride and I should try the stables. Well, I rode into the yard and jumped down off Bloodfang’s back, and there she was, sitting on this grey mare, a real girl’s horse, but a pretty little thing, and she looked . . . Christ, she just looked so incredibly beautiful.’ William stopped for a second with a look of surprise on his face. ‘You know, it’s funny, I’ve not said that before. In fact, I haven’t even thought it, really, but it’s true. She looked so gorgeous and pleased with herself that this feeling – I can’t explain it – came over me and I just had to do something, anything, you know, to her. So I grabbed her and pulled her off her horse and . . .’ He burst out laughing. ‘I’m sorry, it was wrong, I know. I mean, you can’t treat the daughter of a count that way, but I put her over my knee and spanked her.’
‘William!’ exclaimed Herleva, trying to sound cross but failing hopelessly.
‘I’m sorry, Mama, but I didn’t know what else to do. And Matilda was kicking and punching and screaming blue murder and I was saying I wouldn’t let her make a fool of me ever again, and then I finished and didn’t know what to do next so I just got back on Bloodfang and rode off. You were right about her having spirit. She didn’t just lie there like most girls would, weeping and feeling sorry for herself. She came running after me, waving her fist, cursing me and threatening me with war.’ He burst out laughing. ‘The crazy little minx actually declared war on me!’ He stopped and looked at Herleva, who was lying very quietly with an expression he could not quite read. ‘What
is it?’ he asked. ‘Did I say something wrong?’
‘No, William, you absolutely did not. I was just thinking how wonderful and mysterious love is. Just look at the two of you, neither one the slightest bit interested in the other. Then she rejects you, and you can’t bear it. And you treat her quite abominably—’
‘I know! That’s what I don’t understand. Why did she suddenly decide she wanted me after I’d done that?’
‘Because she saw how much you wanted her. She knew that she’d awoken feelings in you that no other woman had. Is it good for a man to hit a woman? No, absolutely not, and don’t you ever dare do it again.’
‘No, Mama, I won’t,’ William promised, as if he were still her little boy.
‘But is it thrilling for a woman to know that she has driven a man so wild that he simply can’t control himself? Yes . . . oh yes, it is. I remember the first time I saw your father, looking so handsome, so impossibly far removed from a girl like me . . . and I made him, the son of a duke, turn his horse and gallop back towards me. And he didn’t know what to say, or what to do, either . . . It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my life.’
‘But he didn’t spank you.’
‘No, he did not! But he did more or less order me to present myself that evening, and we both understood why.’
‘And you went.’
‘Yes, and for the same reason that Matilda said she would marry you. I knew I had met my man.’
Herleva was exhausted by their conversation. But the next day, when she and William were talking again, she said, ‘I’m sorry that I won’t be here to see you and Matilda together, to hold my grandchildren and watch them grow.’
William did not protest that of course she would. He too had come to accept that his mother would soon be gone. ‘I’ll tell them all about you,’ he said. ‘How wonderful you were and what an extraordinary life you led.’
‘Thank you, my darling. But please don’t be sad. My spirit will always be with you, watching over you, and your family. Mine and your father’s. We’ll be together again, I know we will.’
‘Have you loved him all this time?’ William asked.
‘Every hour of every day.’
‘But what about Herluin? You must have loved him a little, surely.’
‘I loved him very much, but in a different way. He’s a fine man and as good and kind a husband as any woman could have. He gave me my two lovely boys . . . promise you’ll look after them.’
‘Of course! Odo and Robert are my brothers. I’ll look after them, and Herluin too. He has never once let you or me or Papa down.’
‘Could you get him for me now, please, and tell the boys to come too? And William, my darling, I think you should also fetch the priest.’
Postscript:
A Visitor From England
Rouen, June 1051
Herleva was not the only person in Normandy to appreciate the dynastic significance of William finding a bride. For Mauger and Talou, the news was as bitter as it had been sweet for her. They knew at once that if William produced an heir, and lived long enough to see him reach maturity, their hopes of controlling Normandy and even seizing the dukedom itself were gone for good. Mauger therefore asked Pope Leo IX to forbid the marriage, claiming that William and Matilda were too closely related to wed, through her mother’s marriage to William’s uncle Richard, and her grandfather’s marriage to William’s aunt Eleanor.
William was painfully aware that a generation earlier, the previous Archbishop of Rouen, his great-uncle Robert, had forbidden his mother and father to wed, and had been powerful and ruthless enough to force the issue in his favour. In the process, he had condemned William to a lifetime of illegitimacy and an emotional scar, caused by the pain of his parents’ break-up, that had never healed. But Archbishop Robert was a far tougher, wilier politician than Mauger, and William a far harder man than his father.
The duke refused to give way. He knew he had right on his side, for there was no blood link whatsoever between him and Matilda. When the Pope came to the Council of Rheims in 1049, William sent a strong contingent of loyal bishops, including his half-brother Odo, whom he’d named Bishop of Bayeux, to lobby against the ban. Then he married Matilda and dared the Church to do its worst.
In June 1051, when Matilda was pregnant with their first child, and William was just hearing the first stirrings of trouble on the border between Normandy and the county of Maine, an eminent visitor from England arrived in Rouen. Robert Champart, once the abbot of Jumièges and then – thanks to the patronage of his friend King Edward – Bishop of London, had now been promoted to the archbishopric of Canterbury. He was on his way to Rome to receive his pallium – the woollen band worn around the neck to denote rank – from Pope Leo. But first he requested a private audience with the Duke of Normandy.
William was now twenty-three years old, still very much a young man, yet blessed, or perhaps burdened, with the political and military experience of one a decade older, or more. He still, however, possessed the impatience of youth, so he wasted little time on pleasantries before launching into an impassioned defence of his right to be married to Matilda.
‘So you see,’ he concluded, ‘there’s no justification at all for saying that Matilda and I are too closely related. And our union must be acceptable in God’s sight because He has ensured that we love one another with all our hearts, and He has blessed us with a child.’
‘The baby is not yet born,’ Champart murmured. ‘One must not take Our Lord’s will for granted in these matters.’
‘Matilda will have a healthy baby and it will be a son, I know it,’ William insisted, giving Champart his first sight of the force of the duke’s convictions. ‘In any event, Archbishop, it would mean a very great deal to me if you could feel able to express your approval of our union. Will you be attending evensong at the cathedral today?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then I will bring Matilda to the service, and you will see for yourself that she is as fine a wife as any man could hope for, and that the love between us is true.’
‘I have no doubt of that,’ said Champart. ‘For myself, I am minded to agree with you that these attempts to prevent your marriage from happening and then to declare it invalid have little merit. And of course, your cousin King Edward has nothing but good wishes towards you and would naturally seek to increase your happiness.’
‘I thank him for that. I hope he is well.’
‘Oh yes, very well, though I know he will be grateful for your good wishes. But to return to the question of your marriage, I can foresee one minor problem.’
‘How so?’ asked William, with a slightly nervous edge to his voice, since he had thought that Champart’s position was settled in his favour.
‘As you are doubtless aware, your father-in-law Count Baldwin has agreed to the betrothal of his half-sister, Judith, to Tostig, son of Earl Godwin.’
‘Yes, I know about that,’ said William. ‘But why should that be a concern? Surely Godwin is the king’s most senior and loyal retainer. He is the king’s father-in-law, after all.’
Champart cast a shrewd look at William, as if trying to decide whether the duke was really as naive as he sounded, or simply pretending to be so for his own purposes. He decided on balance to treat the remark as an innocent one and answer accordingly.
‘As you say, Duke William, the earl and the king are bound by many ties, and of course Her Majesty the Queen, being blessed with the naturally gentle and peace-loving qualities of her sex, and being both a dutiful wife and an equally loyal daughter, does all she can to encourage the best possible relations between the two. Sadly, however,’ and here the archbishop gave a heartfelt sigh, ‘the earl acts in ways that make His Majesty the king uneasy about his subject’s true intentions. You see, Godwin and his sons control the land from the very west of Eng
land right along the south coast to Kent and then around into Essex and East Anglia. The king would only be human to find this encirclement somewhat suffocating.’
‘His other earls can’t be happy about it either. No one likes to see one family becoming much more powerful than all the others.’
‘How very true. Your Grace has hit upon the precise balance that exists at the moment. His Majesty is not, as yet, in a position to rid himself of the Godwins,’ Champart gave a wry half-smile, ‘though who knows how events may unfold.’
‘I only ever know by making them unfold in the way I wish,’ William said.
‘And do they always do so?’
William laughed. ‘No, they don’t, damn them.’ He held up a hand of apology. ‘Excuse me, Archbishop, I should not blaspheme in your presence.’
‘Forgiven, my son. But there is a matter arising out of King Edward’s present situation that I wish to raise with you. Sadly, though Queen Edith is an ideal of womanly virtue in many respects, she has not been able to furnish King Edward with an heir.’
‘Then he’d better find another wife who can.’
Champart frowned thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I can see that might be a possibility for another monarch, one who puts his dynastic responsibilities ahead of his duty to God. But King Edward is a very holy, one might almost say saintly, man. I cannot imagine him divorcing the wife to whom he has pledged himself for life. Nor, were he to be widowed, which God forbid, would he ever take another bride. His grief, and the depth of his mourning, would simply be too great.’
William thought about his cousin Edward. It had been several years since he had last set eyes on him, but the thought of him being plunged into grief on anyone else’s account seemed improbable. He had not mourned his brother Alfred’s death. Why would he mourn a barren wife?
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