queens consort england's medieval queens

(7)Īfter the death of Matilda's brother, William, King Henry I married Adeliza of Louvain in the hope of obtaining another male heir. (6) Henry of Huntingdon agrees and wrote about her 'masculine firmness'. Her biographer, Arnulf of Lisieux, claims that Matilda was 'a woman who had nothing of the woman in her'. As a childless widow she had no further duties in Germany and went to live with her father in Normandy. William was put into a small boat and would have escaped had he not turned back on hearing an appeal for help from his bastard sister, whereupon the boat was overloaded by others seeking safety, and sank.' (5) Matilda marries Geoffrey Plantagent But the inebriated crew and passengers were in no fit condition for a night voyage, and the ship was rowed onto a rock outside the harbour of Barfleur. 'Henry sailed first, having turned down the offer of a new ship - the White Ship - from Thomas Fitzstephen. In November 1120 Henry and William returned from Normandy by boat. When he was ten years old, he began to attest royal documents and became the instrument of his father's diplomacy and was 'trained for the succession with fond hope and immense care'. Henry only legitimate son, William, was granted the title the Duke of Normandy and was groomed to become the next king of England. She proved to be a loyal and able queen consort, who carried out the onerous duties of her office with dignity'. 'The hopes that she would become the mother of an heir to the empire were disappointed no children survived from this marriage, though one chronicler stated not implausibly that she gave birth to one child who did not live. The following year she left for Germany, to be educated at the court of her betrothed in Mainz. When she was seven-years-old, King Henry arranged for Matilda to marry the 25 year-old German king, Heinrich V.

According to William of Malmesbury, Henry was very much in love with his new wife. Henry acknowledged being the father of more than twenty bastards but was determined to have an legitimate heir. Matilda, the daughter of Henry I and Matilda of Scotland, was born at Sutton Courtenay on 7th February, 1102.

Queens consort england's medieval queens