Edith/Matilda of Scotland

Posted on February 24, 2020 by JuliaH

Edith or Matilda of Scotland was the wife of Henry I. The couple had four children but only two survived to adulthood – Matilda and William. It was the death of William that ultimately plunged England into a lengthy and rather bloody civil war.

Edith was born circa 1080 in Dunfermline to Malcolm III and Margaret , grand-daughter of King Edmund Ironside and great niece of Edward the Confessor . Somewhat confusingly since Margaret fled England along with her family at the time of the Norman Conquest it turns out that Edith’s godfather was Robert Curthose, the eldest son of William the Conqueror. William’s queen, Matilda of Flanders was also present at Edith’s baptism as godmother. It’s recorded that little Edith pulled at the royal headdress – this was later seen as a sign that Edith would herself be queen one day. Tyler identifies the fact that Edith’s name identifies her Saxon royal heritage whilst the choice of godparents reflects the political capital of the infant.

When she was about six Edith was sent to England to be educated by the nuns of Romsey Abbey in Wiltshire. The Royal House of Wessex had a tradition of association with the abbey and Edith’s aunt Christina was the abbess there. She had left Scotland in 1086 to become a nun. Edith’s older sister Mary went with her. As well as spending time in Romsey the girls also spent time at Wilton Abbey – again there was a royal connection to the House of Wessex – Edward the Confessor’s wife Edith Godwinson was associated with the nunnery and had retired there after the Conquest. Wilton was regarded as a centre for female learning as well as a centre of spirituality. The nunnery had a nail from the True Cross, bits of the Venerable Bede and St Edith.

The choice of these nunneries perhaps reflects the political heritage of Edith of Dunfermline. The Normans weren’t necessarily secure on the throne and by maintaining their royal behaviours Malcolm III and his wife were leaving a path open to reclaiming the crown as well as arranging good marriages for their daughters.

Unsurprisingly Edith had lots of prospective suitors including the 2^ndearl of Surrey (de Warenne) and Alan Rufus the Lord of Richmond. It is also suggested that William Rufus might have been a candidate for Edith’s hand – it is perhaps one reason why Edith was required to wear a religious habit during her childhood.

Edith’s settled life came to an end on November 13 1093 when her father and one of her brothers was killed at the Battle of Alnwick. Her mother died on the 16^thNovember at Dunfermline where she is buried. Aside from a controversy about whether she was a nun or not History does not know where Edith was between 1093 and 1100.

At some point in 1093 Edith left Wilton and was ordered back there by Anselm the Bishop of Canterbury. He believed that she had taken holy orders – that she was in fact a nun. In 1100 Edith was called upon to testify before a council of bishops that although she had been educated at Romsey and Wilton that she had not taken any vows. She stated that Christina had required her to wear a habit to protect her from unwanted attention from Norman lords. Edith does not appear to have had a good relationship with Christina – she stated that her aunt would often give her a sound slapping and “horrible scolding.” She further added that when she was out of her aunt’s sight she tore off the monastic veil that her aunt made her wear and trampled it in the dust.

In addition to Edith’s testimony there was also the fact that Archbishop Lanfranc had ruled that Saxon women who went into hiding in nunneries in the aftermath of the Conquest could not be deemed as having taken monastic vows when they emerged from their hiding places. Although Edith clearly hadn’t gone into hiding due to ravaging Normans, Christina’s dressing of the girl in a monastic habit was seen as having stemmed from the same root. William of Malmsebury notes that Christina grew old and died at Romsey so perhaps the move to Wilton was partially to get away from an unloved relation – but that is entirely speculation.

On one hand its evident that Edith/Matilda’s bloodline was ample reason for Henry I to marry her but William of Malmsebury states that Henry loved his new bride. Henry I and Edith married on November 11^thin Westminster Abbey. Anselm performed the marriage but before doing so told the entire congregation about Edith potentially being a nun and asked for any objections. The congregation- possibly knowing what was good for it- cried out in Edith’s favour. Afterwards she took the name Matilda – not that it stopped Henry I’s lords mocking him by calling him Godrick and his queen Godiva because of the return to Saxon customs that Henry instituted.

And for anyone doubting whether Edith/Matilda was legally able to marry, the fact that a healthy baby daughter, the future Empress Matilda, was born in February 1102 followed by a boy called William in September 1103 put an end to those niggling concerns that Henry might have married a nun – would God have blessed a marriage if it was invalid?

Honeycutt, Lois L. (2005) Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship

“Edith Becomes Matilda.” England in Europe: English Royal Women and Literary Patronage, C.1000–C.1150, by ELIZABETH M. TYLER, University of Toronto Press, Toronto; Buffalo; London, 2017, pp. 302–353. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1whm96v.14. Accessed 24 Feb. 2020.

The coronation of Henry I

Posted on August 5, 2018 by JuliaH

henry iii Upon the death of William Rufus, Henry hastened to Winchester where the royal treasury happened to be located. Henry was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and he had inherited no land from his father although under the terms of the Conqueror’s will he had been left money.

Under normal circumstances it would have been William and Henry’s older brother who inherited England. Robert Curthose inherited Normandy from William the Conqueror and after some nastiness with William eventually came to terms with his younger sibling and took himself off on crusade. When William died in the New Forest Robert was on his way home from the Holy Land.

Henry on the other hand was in England and able to seize the opportunity that presented itself. Having taken control of the treasury he then ensured that some barons elected him as their king in a nod to the Anglo-Saxon practice of the Witan electing kings and arranged for his coronation to take place as soon as possible. This took place in Westminster on 5th August 1100.

Henry I’s Coronation Charter is the earliest one to survive. It is thought that the charter was part of the process by which a king came to the throne in Anglo-Saxon times. The new king would essentially say to his barons this is what I’m giving you in return for your support of me. More than one copy of the charter exists suggesting that is was circulated in the shires. Basically he condemns William Rufus’ rule “the kingdom has been oppressed by unjust exactions” and then claims that by becoming king Henry has brought peace to the English Nation. It is said that Henry I’s Coronation Charter is the basis for Magna Carta. The charter is also called the Charter of Liberties in some sources.

Henry promises that he will not take property that belongs to the Church. He also says that whilst he expects his barons to consult the monarch in the matter of their daughters’ marriages that he will not exact a tax for them being allowed to marry. He also explains that if a baron dies with underage heirs that Henry will determine who those heirs will marry but that he will consult with the rest of his barons in the matter. He also recognises that widows shouldn’t be required to remarry without their consent in the matter.

As well as dealing with feudal matters and wardship Henry also tackles the royal mint. He makes it clear that it is the king who mints the coinage – no one else is permitted to do so. He also makes sure that all the royal forests used by William the Conqueror remain in his own hands. This is a rather clever wheeze of ensuring that if anything had been given away or sold by either William the Conqueror or William Rufus it now returned to the Crown – an veritable example of “having your cake and eating it.”

Essentially the charter places Henry and his successors under the rule of law. Henry was aware that there had been recent rebellion and resentment of William Rufus. There was also the small matter of the difficult relationship with the Church. At a stroke Henry sets the clock back to zero and in so doing gives the barons president for Magna Carta and in turn for the Provisions of Oxford which Henry III was forced to accept by Simon de Montfort in 1264 and which Edward I was prudent enough to adapt in the Statute of Westminster. It is perhaps not surprising then that Henry’s by-name is Beauclerk – or good scholar.

Henry I would reign for thirty-five years. He set about bringing unity to his kingdom not only with his barons but also with his Saxon commoners by marrying Edith of Scotland, the daughter of St Margaret of Scotland (i.e. niece of Edgar the Aethling and granddaughter of Edmund the Exile, the son of King Edmund Ironside, who arrived back in England on the invitation of Edward the Confessor only to die in unexpected circumstances.) Edith was too Saxon a sounding name so it was promptly changed to Matilda but it was said of Henry that his court was too Saxon. Certainly his son William who was born in 1103 was called the Atheling in an attempt to weave two cultures together. So we can also see movement of a wise king towards the unification of his people. Of course it wasn’t as straight forward as all that not least because William was his only legitimate male heir and he was drowned in 1120 when the White Ship sank.

After the death of his son, Henry remarried to Adela of Louvain who I have posted about before.

It was just as well that Henry had been so conciliatory to his barons and the wider population because in 1101 big brother Robert did invade England. But, possession is nine tenths of the law and Henry gave him his properties in Normandy as well as an annuity to go away and leave England alone. In 1106 Henry took advantage of the political turmoil in Normandy and beat Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai – no more annuities and an entire duchy to add to the list of things that Henry owned although Robert’s son William Clito was unhappy about the outcome for obvious reasons. Henry drew the line at killing his older brother but Robert would remain a prisoner for the rest of his life.

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/coronation-charter-of-henry-i

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/prh3/MDVL%202130/Texts/1100charter.pdf

St Margaret of Scotland

Posted on July 25, 2014 by JuliaH

Margaret, the sister of Edgar the Atheling, was the child of Edward the Exile and Agatha, a German princess. She was born in Hungary in 1046. When Edward the Confessor took the throne he invited the last of the Royal House of Wessex to return from their exile. Edward, Agatha and their children – Edgar, Margaret and Christina cam back to England but Edward died in suspicious circumstances shortly after their arrival.

Edgar submitted to William the Conqueror but became involved in a rebellion in 1068. His family fled England. They initially, possibly, intended to return to Hungary but bad weather drove their vessel to Scotland where Margaret married the King, Malcolm Canmore at Dunfermline Abbey in 1069. Incidentally Canmore translates according to Alison Weir as ‘big head.’

The widowed king who was aged about forty loved his young Saxon bride and trusted her advice. Queen Margaret became known not only for her piety but also for her learning. Malcolm could not read but such was his love for his wife that he would send her books to be ornamented with covers of gold. She wielded so much power that she changed the way that the Scottish court behaved and dressed. She bought the sophisticated continental behaviour of her childhood to Canmore’s court which included closer links with the Roman Catholic church. During this time Mass was said in Latin in Scotland rather than Gaelic. She was also the patron of Benedictine monks who arrived on Scottish shores for the first time. Malcolm allow this wife to support the church and to guide the policies as to its practice. She supported monks, hermits and spent much of her time and money providing charity to the poor and to orphaned children.

Inevitably relations with William of England were difficult. Malcolm took advantage of the difficulties that William faced in his early years to extend the border of Scotland south so that it included most of Cumberland. Malcolm was killed at the Battle of Alnwick along with Margaret’s eldest son Edward in 1093. She died three days after receiving the news of her bereavement in Edinburgh Castle which was being besieged by Malcolm’s brother Donald Bane on 16th November. Margaret’s remaining sons escaped from the castle in a thick mist along with the body of their mother which they carried to Dunfermline Abbey where it was buried as she had wished. It was she who’d commissioned the ferry that crossed the Firth of Forth taking pilgrims to the abbey.

Margaret bore Malcolm Canmore eight children including Edward. Her daughter Edith married one of William the Conqueror’s sons (King Henry I) and took on the Norman name Matilda. Her other daughter Mary married the Count of Boulogne and her daughter (Margaret’s granddaughter married King Stephen becoming yet another Queen Matilda.) One son, Ethelred, became the Abbot of Dunkeld while four more sons became kings of Scotland in their turn – Edmund, Edgar, Alexander I and David I.

For further information including St Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle the Freelance History Writer http://thefreelancehistorywriter.com has a great entry about the life and times of a Saxon Princess who became a queen and a saint.