by Alison Weir
5. Hollister
6. Henry of Huntingdon
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Orderic Vitalis
10. John of Salisbury: Historia Pontificalis
11. Richard of Hexham, cited by Chibnall: The Empress Matilda
12. Richard of Hexham
13. Chibnall: The Empress Matilda
2. “Ravening Wolves”
1. Castor
2. William of Malmesbury
3. Robert of Torigni
4. King: Medieval England
5. Henry of Huntingdon
6. Orderic Vitalis
7. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou; Beem: “Greater by Marriage”
8. Orderic Vitalis
9. Ibid.
10. Robert of Torigni
11. Orderic Vitalis
12. Given-Wilson and Curteis
13. Henry of Huntingdon
14. William of Malmesbury
3. “A Manly Heart in a Woman’s Body”
1. Tanner: “Between Scylla and Charybdis”
2. Geoffrey of Auxerre: “Fragmenta ex tertia vita Sancti Bernardi” and “S. Bernardi Vita Prima”
3. Letter 24 in Appendix II
4. Tanner: “Between Scylla and Charybdis”
5. Gervase of Canterbury
6. Henry of Huntingdon
7. Hilton: Queens Consort; Chibnall: The Empress Matilda
8. Gesta Stephani
9. Some modern sources state that his brother, Baldwin, had therefore died before Stephen’s accession (for example, Burke’s Guide to the Royal Family), on the mistaken assumption that Baldwin was the eldest son.
10. Castor
11. Orderic Vitalis
12. Martindale
13. Crouch: “Between Three Realms.” Some sources give 1137 as the date of Matilda’s death, but it was probably nearer 1141.
14. Stow: A Survey of London; The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate
15. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate. Ralph did not succeed Norman of Kent as prior until 1147, but he was sub-prior for some years before that (Victoria County History: London).
16. Gesta Stephani
17. Ibid.
18. Dark
19. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
20. Dark
21. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
22. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154. The Queen, Bishop Roger and others successfully interceded with the King on behalf of some smiths and a butcher, who came seeking Henry’s aid in favor of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, over disputed land (The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate).
23. He replaced Thomas, her chaplain from around 1142 (Dark).
24. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate
25. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154; Dark; Warren: The Governance of Norman and Angevin England; Green: The Government of England under Henry I; Richardson and Sayles. One of Matilda’s clerks was her countryman Richard of Boulogne, a canon of St. Martin le Grand. William Monk was her steward in Boulogne.
26. Weever
27. Wree
28. Brown: “Elegit domum sibi placabilem”
29. The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate; Truax
30. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154; Stow: A Survey of London
31. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
32. Dark
33. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154; Dark
34. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
35. Ibid.
36. Stow: A Survey of London. The ancient buildings were demolished in 1825 to make way for the building of St. Katharine’s Dock, but the foundation was reestablished at Regent’s Park and still survives today at Limehouse in London’s East End as a charitable retreat.
37. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
38. Davis: “The College of St Martin le Grand and the Anarchy, 1135–1154.” For details of Matilda’s gifts, see Dark.
39. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
40. Ibid.
41. Poulle; Dark
42. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
43. Histoire de la congregation de Savigny; Poulle
44. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
4. “The First Anniversary of My Lord”
1. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Henry I’s tomb and remains were lost when the abbey was dissolved during the Reformation. A cross now marks where the tomb stood before the high altar, and a stone plaque on a ruined wall states that Henry was buried nearby.
2. Reading Abbey Cartularies; Wertheimer
3. Robinson: Arundel Castle. While the keep still stands, the present Arundel Castle was built in the eighteenth century in the bailey, or quadrangle, below it, and extensively restored in 1890.
4. Wertheimer
5. Friend
6. Rigg
7. Reading Abbey Cartularies
8. Hilton: Queens Consort; Wertheimer. Osney Priory had been founded by Henry I’s former mistress, Edith Forne, in 1129. Before 1145, Adeliza issued a charter to two knights who were her tenants at Crowcombe, Somerset, ordering them to attend Bishop Henry at Winchester Cathedral and perform military service for him and for his cathedral, as they used to do for her. It was witnessed by her former chaplain, Simon, Bishop of Worcester, Seffrid, Bishop of Chichester, Herman and Franco of Brussels, her chaplains, and Rainald, her “dapifer” (seneschal) (Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154).
9. Lansdowne MS. 383, British Library; Kauffman; Thompson; A Prayerbook Fit for a Queen?
10. Reading Abbey Cartularies
11. Ibid.; Doran; Hilton: Queens Consort; Wertheimer
12. Cited Rowell
13. William of Newburgh
14. Thompson
15. Ibid.
16. After 1154, Joscelin married Agnes, co-heiress of William de Percy, a grandson of one of the companions of the Conqueror. There is no evidence that he adopted his wife’s surname, as is often claimed, but their son Richard took the name Percy, and through him, Joscelin and Agnes became the ancestors of the Percy earls of Northumberland. The Percy emblem of a blue lion on a gold ground probably derives from the blue lion of Louvain.
5. “Unable to Break Through”
1. Dark; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
2. Crouch: The Reign of King Stephen
3. John of Forde
4. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
5. Castor
6. Richard of Hexham
7. Gesta Stephani
8. “Chronicae Sancti Albini Andegauensis”
9. Robert of Torigni; Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae sub Regibus Angliae; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154. In later life, before 1158, Drogo took vows and joined this community.
10. Orderic Vitalis
11. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Dark
15. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
16. Henry of Huntingdon
17. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
18. Orderic Vitalis
19. Bouvet
20. Chibnall: The Empress Matilda
21. Strickland
22. Dugdale; Roberts: The Mowbray Legacy
23. The office was associated with the manor of Kenninghall, Norfolk, which was granted by Henry I to the elder Albini and later inherited by the dukes of Norfolk.
6. “Ties of Kinship”
1. William of Malmesbury
2. Orderic Vitalis; William of Malmesbury; Robert of Torigni; Henry of Huntingdon
3. Dark; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154; English Episcopal Acta 28: Canterbury 1070–1136
4. John of Worcester
5. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
6. Ibid.
7. Richard of Hexham; John o
f Hexham; Orderic Vitalis; Henry of Huntingdon; Gesta Stephani
8. Orderic Vitalis
9. William of Malmesbury
10. Foliot
11. William of Malmesbury
12. John of Worcester
13. Bradbury: Stephen and Matilda
14. William of Malmesbury
15. Henry of Huntingdon; William of Newburgh; Orderic Vitalis; Robert of Torigni
16. The original fortress was destroyed by the English during the Hundred Years War. The present building dates from the fourteenth century and later periods.
17. Orderic Vitalis
18. Recueil des Actes de Henry II; Chibnall: The Empress Matilda; Chibnall: “The Empress Matilda and Her Sons”
19. Chibnall: “The Empress Matilda and Her Sons”
20. Gesta Stephani
21. Henry of Huntingdon
22. Richard of Hexham
7. “Feminine Shrewdness”
1. He was the son of William, a bastard son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne.
2. Orderic Vitalis; Henry of Huntingdon; John of Worcester
3. Henry of Huntingdon
4. Orderic Vitalis
5. Richard of Hexham
6. John of Hexham
7. Richard of Hexham
8. Ibid.
9. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
10. Henry of Huntingdon
11. Davis: Henry of Blois
12. Robert of Torigni; Henry of Huntingdon
13. The Chronicle of Battle Abbey
14. Gervase of Canterbury
15. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154; Victoria County History: Oxford; English Episcopal Acta 28: Canterbury 1070–1136
16. Richard of Hexham
17. Cited Hilton: Queens Consort
18. John of Hexham
19. Richard of Hexham
20. Ibid.
8. “Touch Not Mine Anointed”
1. Chibnall: The Empress Matilda
2. Foliot
3. John of Salisbury: Historia Pontificalis
4. Ibid.; William of Malmesbury
5. John of Salisbury: Historia Pontificalis
6. Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland
7. Henry of Huntingdon. What little remains of it is on private land and not accessible to the public.
8. Gesta Stephani
9. William of Malmesbury
10. Henry of Huntingdon
11. Gervase of Canterbury; William of Malmesbury
12. William of Malmesbury
13. Gesta Stephani
14. William of Malmesbury
9. “His Extraordinary Queen”
1. According to Henry Howard’s Indications of Memorials, they wed in 1138.
2. The only remains of Albini’s original castle at Buckenham are a large rectangular earthwork and traces of the curtain wall.
3. Stansted Park now occupies the site.
4. Goodall
5. Norton: England’s Queens
6. Cited Robinson: Arundel Castle: The Seat of the Duke of Norfolk
7. It was among the small, impoverished religious houses dissolved by Cardinal Wolsey in 1524–25, before the Reformation. Nothing survives of Adeliza’s original foundation. Only part of a square thirteenth-century tower remains, incorporated into a farmhouse.
8. Reading Abbey Cartularies; The Early Charters of the Augustinian Canons of Waltham Abbey
9. Doran
10. Thompson. Some of her charters were witnessed by her countryman Rothardus, who appears to have left the service of Godfrey of Louvain, Bishop of Bath, after the Bishop’s death in August 1135, and returned to Adeliza’s service.
11. Cotton Titus MS. C viii, British Library
12. The Chartulary of Boxgrove Priory
10. “A Desert Full of Wild Beasts”
1. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou
2. Wace
3. William of Malmesbury
4. Ibid.
5. Orderic Vitalis
6. Hilton: Queens Consort
7. Thompson
8. Victoria County History: Essex
9. William of Malmesbury
10. Gesta Stephani
11. William of Malmesbury
12. Given-Wilson and Curteis
13. Gesta Stephani
14. Ibid.
15. Davis: “Henry of Blois and Brian Fitz Count”
16. Ibid.; Foliot; Chibnall: The Empress Matilda
11. “Treacherous Advice”
1. Gesta Stephani
2. In the nineteenth century, the bed she had purportedly slept in was shown to visitors (Robinson: Arundel Castle: The Seat of the Duke of Norfolk).
3. Robinson: Arundel Castle: The Seat of the Duke of Norfolk
4. Gesta Stephani
5. John of Worcester
6. Gervase of Canterbury
7. Gesta Stephani
8. Gervase of Canterbury
9. Gesta Stephani. The hostile anonymous author of the Gesta Stephani always referred to Maud disparagingly as the Countess of Anjou, or King Henry’s daughter, or even the Earl of Gloucester’s sister; when quoting from his chronicle, I have substituted “the Empress” for “the Countess” to avoid confusion.
10. Gesta Stephani
11. Henry of Huntingdon
12. William of Malmesbury
13. Henry of Huntingdon
14. John of Worcester
15. William of Malmesbury
16. Ibid.
17. John of Worcester
18. Orderic Vitalis
12. “May Your Imperial Dignity Thrive”
1. Gesta Stephani
2. Robert of Gloucester
3. William of Worcester
4. Gesta Stephani
5. John of Worcester
6. William of Malmesbury
7. Starkey
8. Gesta Stephani; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
9. Gloucester became a royal castle in 1155, but in the late fifteenth century it was turned into the town jail. The keep was demolished in 1787, and a new jail built on the site. The castle site was the subject of an archaeological dig in 2015.
10. Gesta Stephani
11. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
12. Gesta Stephani
13. John of Worcester
14. William of Malmesbury
15. John of Worcester
16. Shortly before Queen Matilda’s death in 1118, Bishop Roger of Salisbury had expelled Abbot Eadwulf and himself taken over the jurisdiction of the abbey (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). In 1139, King Stephen had commanded the election of John of Malmesbury as abbot.
17. William of Malmesbury
13. “Christ and His Saints Slept”
1. William of Malmesbury
2. Gesta Stephani
3. Gervase of Canterbury
4. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
5. William of Newburgh
6. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
7. Henry of Huntingdon
8. William of Malmesbury
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
12. Cited Starkey
13. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
14. Ibid. This account is corroborated by others written by William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and Aelred of Rievaulx.
15. William of Malmesbury
16. Annales Monastici
17. William of Malmesbury
18. Gesta Stephani
19. Cited Starkey
20. King: “The Memory of Brian FitzCount”
14. “Hunger-Starved Wolves”
1. Hilton: Queens Consort; Crouch: The Normans
2. Gesta Stephani
3. He was the bastard son of Philip of Loo, grandson of Robert the Frisian, Count of Flanders.
4. Henry of Huntingdon
5. John of Worcester
6. William of Newburgh
7. John of Worcester
8. Gervase of Canterbury
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9. John of Hexham
10. William of Malmesbury
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. King: Medieval England
14. William of Malmesbury
15. Letter 25 in Appendix II
16. William FitzHerbert was restored to the see of York in 1153, on Murdac’s death, and retained it until he died in 1154.
15. “Shaken with Amazement”
1. William of Malmesbury
2. Henry of Huntingdon
3. John of Worcester
4. William of Malmesbury; Gesta Stephani
5. Gesta Stephani
6. William of Malmesbury
7. Gesta Stephani
8. Davis: “The Authorship of the Gesta Stephani”
9. Crouch: The Normans
10. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154
11. William of Malmesbury
12. Henry of Huntingdon, who, like Robert of Torigni, gives her expulsion from London as the reason why she had Stephen chained, but there are several references to his being in chains before then.
13. William of Malmesbury
16. “Dragged by Different Hooks”
1. William of Newburgh
2. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
3. Orderic Vitalis
4. Dark
5. Henry of Huntingdon
6. John of Hexham
7. Dark
8. Gervase of Canterbury
9. Gesta Stephani
10. King: Medieval England
11. William of Malmesbury
12. Gesta Stephani
13. Davis: “Henry of Blois and Brian Fitz Count”
14. Gesta Stephani
15. William of Malmesbury
16. Gesta Stephani
17. William of Malmesbury
18. Gesta Stephani; Davis: Henry of Blois
19. William of Malmesbury
20. Gervase of Canterbury
21. William of Malmesbury
22. Gervase of Canterbury
23. Gesta Stephani
24. Gervase of Canterbury
25. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154