Queen of the Conqueror

by Tracy Joanne Borman

  Matilda’s reaction to being upbraided by her husband is not recorded, but it is likely that she vowed not to send any more money to her son—even if she had no intention of keeping this promise. However, the fact that she had so easily escaped punishment seems to have given her confidence, because just a short while later, she was discovered to have “recklessly renewed her offence.”51 In so doing, she had placed both herself and those closest to her in great danger. William was now beside himself with fury that his formerly dutiful wife should betray him so soon after her last transgression. Worse still, she had repeated exactly the same treachery. If he needed any more proof of the superior place his despised son held in her affections, he now had it.

  Matilda’s younger sons, William Rufus and Henry, may have stirred up their father’s anger. They were probably jealous of the obvious favor that their mother showed toward Robert, and the incident at L’Aigle proves that they were capable of spiteful and vindictive scheming. But the duke needed little encouragement. Determined to punish Matilda, he resolved upon humiliating her in front of the entire court. “How very true here and now is the maxim of a certain sage, ‘A faithless wife brings ruin to the state,’ ” he railed. “After this who in this world shall ever find himself a trustworthy helpmate? The wife of my bosom, whom I love as my own soul, whom I have set over my whole kingdom and entrusted with all authority and riches, this wife, I say, supports the enemies who plot against my life, enriches them with my money, zealously arms and succours and strengthens them to my grave peril.”52

  Retaining her composure, Matilda sank to her knees in front of her husband and pleaded for forgiveness—both for herself and for their son. Her words were recorded by one of the leading chroniclers of the time—apparently verbatim:

  O my lord, do not wonder that I love my first-born child with tender affection. By the power of the Most High, if my son Robert were dead and buried seven feet deep in the earth, hid from the eyes of the living, and I could bring him back to life with my own blood, I would shed my life-blood for him and suffer more anguish for his sake than, weak woman that I am, I dare to promise. How do you imagine that I can find any joy in possessing great wealth if I allow my son to be burdened by dire poverty? May I never be guilty of such hardness of heart; all your power gives you no right to demand this of me.53

  This is the only surviving record of the words that Matilda spoke, and it therefore gives us an invaluable insight into her character and state of mind at this time. Even if there are inaccuracies in the account, it still conveys a sense of the fierce love and protectiveness that she felt toward her firstborn son and the desperation with which she pleaded for his life. It portrays her as a woman capable of intense passion, of true and abiding affection.

  On the surface, it was a masterly performance. Matilda had betrayed one of the most feared leaders in western Europe, a man notorious for his ruthlessness and brutality. He could well have sent her into exile—or worse. She judged that a display of humble contrition was unlikely to win him over. A natural bully, William scorned weakness in others and would pursue any who displayed it with the same relentlessness that he showed when hunting down a stag in the woods. Rather, she pleaded the strength of her maternal feelings—something that was both expected and admired in a royal spouse—and used these to justify her otherwise treacherous actions. That she dared to turn the tables on William by accusing him of trying to make her forget her motherly duties constituted a level of bravery that few showed when faced with the mighty Conqueror.

  That Matilda had the audacity to turn herself from accused into accuser is also a measure both of the confidence that she had in her husband’s devotion and of how deftly she thought she could play him. Yet she knew that she had to strike a delicate balance between self-righteous indignation and wifely deference. By delivering her words while kneeling at his feet, she emphasized her position as William’s inferior and supplicant. She had played her role to perfection.

  William’s immediate reaction, however, suggests that she had gravely miscalculated. It seems that until now he had not realized the depth of his wife’s feelings toward their eldest son. Confronted with the strength of her affection for Robert and the contrast with her obviously cooler feelings toward himself, he was consumed by jealousy.

  Orderic describes how “the stern duke grew pale with anger and, bursting with rage, he commanded one of the queen’s messengers named Samson, a Breton, to be arrested and blinded.” The force of William’s rage suggests that Samson may have been responsible for conveying his mistress’s gold to her son. Fortunately, Matilda had her own network of supporters at court, who succeeded in getting word to the poor man before the terrible sentence could be carried out. Samson fled to refuge in the monastery of St.-Évroult, where “at the queen’s plea he was received by Abbot Mainer, and prudently adopted the monastic way of life to save both body and soul.”54 While there, he met Orderic Vitalis, a fellow resident of the abbey, which is perhaps why the latter was able to recount the scandal in such detail in his Ecclesiastical History.

  Apart from being upbraided in front of the court, Matilda escaped further reprisals. The horrific fate that her servant only narrowly escaped no doubt struck terror into her. It certainly seems to have shocked her into obedience, for there is no further evidence of her supporting Robert against her husband. Malmesbury, surely playing things down, recalls that the “small disagreement” between the couple was soon forgotten and claims that it “occasioned no lessening of their affection as man and wife he [William] himself made clear.”55

  But the atmosphere between the royal couple must have been strained. As Malmesbury himself quoted: “Kingship and love make sorry bedfellows and sort but ill together.”56 On the surface, they soon resumed their accustomed cordiality toward each other, but their relationship would never recover. As a result of Matilda’s betrayal, William would never again trust her to enjoy the full powers of regency. In future, she would be obliged to act alongside her husband or younger sons. Her days as one of the most powerful women in western Europe seemed to be over.

  The stress caused by this rift and consequent demotion seemed to damage Matilda’s health. At around the same time as the debacle with her husband and son, this formerly energetic and robust woman sought a cure for lethargy from “Saint” Adelelme, a former soldier who had begun his religious career at La Chaise-Dieu abbey in southern France. She apparently did so in some secrecy, for the sources indicate only that an anonymous English queen made the request. Edward the Confessor’s queen, Edith, having died in 1075, it could only have been Matilda.

  In the late 1070s, Adelelme had become dissatisfied with the monastic life and had moved to the Spanish court at the invitation of Constance of Burgundy, the wife of Alfonso of León—now emperor of a reunited Spain—to whom Matilda’s daughter had once been betrothed. It was while there that he grew famous for performing miracles. Having heard tales of his amazing feats, Matilda dispatched messengers to him pleading that he might bless some bread and send it to her as a cure for her disease. Adelelme resisted at first but eventually sent the bread that she had requested. As soon as Matilda ate it, so the tale goes, she was cured. In gratitude, she tried to reward the abbot with money, but he refused to accept it. She therefore chose a more fitting gift, and sent him a “precious priestly vestment,” together with £100 toward the cost of the monks’ dormitory—equivalent to around £70,000 today.57

  Left to their own devices, Robert and his followers would probably have languished in exile, frittering away what was left of their money and possessions in a life of excess. But their existence presented an irresistible opportunity for the duke’s enemies to make trouble. The rebels had secured a strategically advantageous base, thanks to Robert of Bellême’s brother-in-law, Hugh de Châteauneuf, who had offered them the use of his castle at Rémalard, just twenty-five miles south of L’Aigle. From here, they—and any supporters they managed to attract—could easily make raids into Normandy. William was qu
ick to retaliate. He bribed Hugh de Châteauneuf’s overlord, Count Rotrou of Mortagne, to support him, and promptly built four fortifications of his own at Rémalard. He also confiscated the estates of his son’s followers and used the revenues from them to swell his forces with mercenaries. The contest was finely balanced. “Now one and now another took up arms either for or against the king. Frenchmen and Bretons, men of Maine and Anjou and other peoples vacillated, not knowing which side they ought to support.”58

  But Robert had another ace up his sleeve. Once more, this was thanks to his mother. He approached King Philip of France, with whom he could claim kinship on the strength of Matilda’s family connections. The French king was at this time enjoying a resurgence of power and was keen to exploit any opportunity to regain the initiative over his rival, William. He therefore lent a sympathetic ear to Robert’s request for assistance. The very fact that the two men entered into negotiations meant that William could now no longer dismiss his eldest son as a powerless fool.

  Robert’s lobbying with the king of France paid off, and in late 1078 Philip granted him the castle of Gerberoy, which was the most powerful fortress on the frontier with southeastern Normandy.59 This provided him with a much stronger base from which to plan his campaign, and he soon amassed a considerable body of support from within his father’s duchy by promising riches that he did not possess to any man who would fight on his behalf. He proceeded to lead his augmented rebel forces on a series of raids across the Norman frontier: “he ravaged in Normandy far and often, burnt townships, killed people, and caused his father much trouble and worry,” recorded one chronicler.60 Robert’s aim was to prove himself a serious contender to his father and thus draw even more supporters to his cause. The tactic was devastatingly effective. “So Normandy was more sorely vexed by her own people than by strangers, and was eaten away by inward sickness.”61

  The duke was characteristically swift to react. He ordered that all the Norman castles close to Gerberoy should be fortified. In the meantime, he opened his own negotiations with King Philip and persuaded him—no doubt with a substantial bribe—to stay out of the quarrel thenceforth. Then, shortly after Christmas 1078 (which he had probably spent with Matilda at Rouen), he gathered his forces and laid siege to his son’s fortress. For three long weeks he battered the castle with siege engines and trebuchets until Robert and his garrison sallied forth and engaged the duke’s army in battle.

  Stoked by fury at his son’s treachery, William—by then in his fifties—fought with more stamina and ferocity than his much younger opponents. His horse was shot from under him, “and he who brought up another for him was straightway shot with a cross-bow.”62 Undeterred, William carried on relentlessly, felling opponent after opponent, until he met his match. In the confused mêlée, he encountered one rebel who fought just as fiercely and unyieldingly as himself. Heavily armored, the two men hurled themselves against each other, slashing with their swords. In the struggle, the duke was struck on the hand and fell back, vanquished. His opponent, the first man ever to triumph over the most feared warrior in Europe, was his own son, Robert.

  According to the early-twelfth-century chronicler John of Worcester, it was only when William cried out that Robert—horror-struck—grasped the identity of his opponent. He promptly ordered his father to mount his horse “and in this way allowed him to leave.”63 This version of events is possible. Both men would have been heavily armored, and this was the age before heraldic devices identified the major players in a battle. But William was so distinctive by his height, girth (he had grown corpulent in recent years), and overall bearing that it seems inconceivable that his eldest son would have failed to recognize him. Moreover, Robert had been trained by his father since his youth and had fought alongside him in many encounters, so he would have been well used to seeing him heavily clad in armor. Given the by now implacable hatred that he felt toward the man who had taunted him since his youth and restricted his powers in adulthood, the more likely conclusion is that Robert knew full well who his opponent was. But why did he refrain from killing him? That he shrank from the final deed was perhaps due to a dawning realization of the enormity of the act. He would have been murdering not just his father, but his duke and king.64

  The Battle of Gerberoy marked a turning point in William’s reign. It was the first defeat he had suffered, either in Normandy or England, since the revolts of Le Mans and York in 1069. The fact that it was inflicted upon him by his own son made it even harder to bear. It is a testament to the humiliation that William felt that all subsequent accounts of the battle were strictly censored. The authors of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for example, went too far. Although claiming, “We do not want, though, to write more here of the harm which he [did] his father,” they evidently went on to do so, because that part of the manuscript was cut away.65 Malmesbury was more tactful, portraying the encounter as an unfortunate blot upon William’s otherwise flawless military career. He admits, though, that the duke’s troops suffered “heavy casualties.”66 Among the wounded was Robert’s younger brother, William Rufus, who had shown his loyalty toward their father by entering the fray on his side. The apparently tight-knit family unit that had once been the envy of Europe had unraveled with alarming speed.

  In the immediate aftermath of the battle, William retreated to Rouen, while Robert again fled into exile—possibly to his mother’s homeland of Flanders. Even though he had won a significant victory over his father, the mighty duke was far from vanquished, and Robert knew that he would be thirsting for his blood. Matilda was deeply distressed by what had happened. If she allowed herself to rejoice secretly at her beloved son’s victory over her husband, her joy was overshadowed by the sorrow that she felt at his continued exile. She was also terrified of what the future might hold for him: William, if he were to capture his son, would be fully justified in putting him to death. His reaction to the pleas of his counsels to restore peace suggests that he was quite prepared to do so. “Which of my ancestors from the time of Rollo ever had to endure such hostility from any child of his as I do?” he demanded angrily. “He would not hesitate, if he could, to stir up the whole human race against me and slay me and you as well. According to divine law, given to us through Moses, he is deserving of death.”67

  Orderic claims that after failing to persuade her husband to relent toward Robert, Matilda fretted desperately and resorted to increasingly odd measures to gain reassurance. For instance, shortly after the Battle of Gerberoy, it was rumored that she sent gifts via her messengers to a famous hermit in Germany, held to be a prophet, imploring him to pray for her husband and son and asking him what should befall them.

  The hermit whom Matilda had consulted “received the messengers of this great lady courteously” and requested three days to prepare his reply. When the stated time had elapsed, he sent for the men and told them of a troubling vision he had had that augured ill for the future of Normandy. He had seen a meadow, “fairly decked with grass and flowers,” in which a “highly-mettled horse” was grazing. All around stood a great herd of cattle, longing to feed from the same meadow, but they were driven off by the horse. However, “the brave and stately steed suddenly fell down dead” and the herd at once rushed in and “greedily devoured its former beauty without fear of the defender.” The hermit explained that the meadow signified Normandy and the grass its people, “who enjoy peace and abundance of goods in it.” The horse represented William, and the greedy cattle were the French, Bretons, Angevins, Flemings, “and other frontier peoples, who are jealous of the prosperity of Normandy, and are eager to seize some of its riches as wolves their prey.” The hermit foretold that after William’s death, Robert would succeed to the duchy, whereupon “enemies from all sides” would invade the land and devour its riches, and “disregarding its foolish ruler” would “trample all Normandy contemptuously under foot.”

  The fate that the hermit predicted for Robert must have grieved his mother sorely. He claimed that the young man would �
�give himself up to lust and indolence” and would plunder the wealth of the church in order to distribute it among his lecherous followers. “In Robert’s duchy catamites68 and effeminates will govern, and under their rule vice and wretchedness will abound … Towns and villages will be burned … and many thousands of men will be destroyed by fire and sword.” In conclusion, he told Matilda’s messengers that under her son’s leadership, Normandy, “who once so proudly lorded it over her conquered neighbours will now, under a foolish and idle duke, be despised, and will long and wretchedly lie at the mercy of the swords of her neighbours. The weak duke will enjoy no more than an empty title, and a swarm of nobodies will dominate both him and the captive duchy, bringing ruin to many.” The hermit ended by offering Matilda the cold comfort that she herself would not live to see the evils that would befall Normandy, for she would die before her husband. She would therefore be spared “the misfortunes of your son,” which would lead to “the desecration of your beloved land.”69

  The existence of the prophet is at best dubious. It is more likely that the whole tale and the reported vision was a means by which Orderic, with hindsight, was able to vent his disapproval of Robert’s failings and of the disaster that his later rule would prove to be. None of the other sources refer to Matilda’s exchange with the hermit, and it seems unlikely that a woman renowned for her shrewdness and wisdom would resort to such a whimsical strategy. But while the details of the prophecy may owe more to Orderic’s poetic license than to reality, it is possible that Matilda did seek the help of mystics during what was arguably the greatest crisis of her life. This was, of course, an age dominated by superstition, and Matilda was by no means immune to it, as had been proved on various occasions in the past—notably when her husband was preparing to invade England. Fortune telling—or divination—was widely used by people at all levels of society who were anxious to perceive, and thus avoid, potential harm to either themselves or a loved one.