Read Online She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor - Free Book Online Page A

admirable’.
    In part, of course, this arm’s-length treatment of Matilda’s character stems from the fact that she was an unknown quantity in England when she crossed the Channel at her father’s side in September 1126 for the first time in more than sixteen years. She was English-born, probably in February 1102 at Sutton Courtenay,a manor house near the ancient town and abbey of Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and seems to have lived in England for the first eight years of her life, although reliable information about her upbringing is almost entirely lacking. We know that her intelligent, capable mother rarely accompanied the king to Normandy, instead spending most of her time at the royal palace of Westminster, a mile and a half westwards along the Thames from London’s city walls, where Matilda’s flamboyant uncle, William Rufus, had built the largest great hall England had ever seen to house his marble throne. We cannot take it for granted that Matilda lived at Westminster with her mother – royal children rarely spent all or even most of their time in close proximity to their parents – but it seems likely that the queen’s cultured household, with its profound religious sensibility, provided the defining context for Matilda’s education.
    Matilda’s mother tongue, like that of her parents and her peers, was Norman French, but she learned to read in Latin, the language of the Church, of international diplomacy, and of literate culture in England after the Conquest had obliterated Old English literary traditions. We might also hope, for her sake, that she was well prepared for her future as a royal bride, since it was a role she was expected to take up, in public at least, when she was no more than a child.
    She was only six years old when the most eminent king in western Europe, Heinrich V of Germany, sought her hand in marriage. The kingdom of Germany was an agglomeration of states under the rule of a monarch chosen by a select group of the most powerful German noblemen and archbishops (albeit that, as in England, the hereditary principle proved hard to resist, so that Heinrich was the fourth heir of the Salian dynasty in direct succession to wear this supposedly elective crown). The German ruler was known not only as Rex Teutonicorum – king of the Germans – but also as Rex Romanorum – king of the Romans – in recognition of the fact that his power extended over what remained of the Western Roman Empire after its split from the Byzantine East,lands which included not only Germany but northern Italy, Burgundy, Austria and Bohemia. And the man who was elected king of the Romans could claim the right to be crowned by the pope in a ceremony which would elevate him from a mere king to the status of emperor, a title conferring on its holder a unique authority within western Christendom.
    For Matilda’s father, King Henry, whose family had held the crown of England for less than fifty years and whose own controversial claim to the throne was not yet established beyond all challenge, this alliance with a monarch who would follow in Charlemagne’s footsteps as ruler of the Western Roman Empire was an enticing prospect – one for which he was more than prepared to send his small daughter overseas, and with her a large amount of money. And it was England’s wealth that made the match so appealing for Heinrich, whose authority over lands stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic was not matched by his cashflow. The deal was done in the summer of 1109:seven-year-old Matilda was betrothed to the German king by proxy at a magnificent meeting of her father’s court, and it was agreed that, along with the hand of his child-bride, Heinrich would receive ten thousand silver marks, the same immense amount for which Robert Curthose had pawned the duchy of Normandy to William Rufus just thirteen years before.
    Matilda had only a few months left to enjoy the familiarity of life in England. She had just passed her eighth