#PLEASEEEE ASK ME ABOUT YE OLDE ROYAL WOMEN

[ayphyx]

who is matilda of flanders and also where is flanders

Holy shit someone actually asked me about Matilda of Flanders

Flanders is a region in modern day Belgium

Matilda of Flanders was the wife of William the conqueror aka William the bastard aka the first Norman king of England which makes Matilda the first Norman-Flemish queen of England + the Duchess of Flanders.

Matilda was born into a pretty prestigious family around 1031-1032. Her father was Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Adéle of France (who was the daughter of Robert II of France). So she’s of pretty high birth, especially comparing her to her husband who was a bastard. She was also considered to be both intelligent and beautiful.

There’s also a pretty dramatic tale about how she was wooed by William. One version of the story goes like this: William proposes to Matilda around 1051 to form an alliance but Matilda refuses because he is of lower birth. This enrages William so much that he pursues her all the way to Bruges and, when she’s leaving church, grabs her by her braids and throws her down into the mud (some versions says that he beat her in her own home). After recovering from this attack, she decided that she was going to marry William and nobody else.

So uh, really lovely and romantic.

But in reality, she and William had a pretty good marriage and they both genuinely liked each other. When they asked the pope to approve of their marriage, the pope refused on the grounds of consanguinity as they were 3rd cousins once removed but they decided to ignore the pope and got married anyways around 1051-1052 (and both got excommunicated from the church for a while until 1059). She was 19-20 and he was 23-24. (There’s this belief that, in the medieval era, women were married extremely young, and while there are some exceptions, it was not the case for all marriages.)

Matilda had 2 kids by the time William invaded England for the crown in the 1060s. Matilda was extremely important as she acted as regent in Williams absence from the English court and was William’s regent in Normandy during his invasion of England. She held this role 6 times over the course of 10 years. She was a pretty competent ruler as well. She was also interested in the education of her 10 children who were well educated for the time, even in comparison to other royal children.

She died in Normandy at age 52 on Nov. 2, 1083.

Bonus fact: There were rumors and report of Matilda having a crush on a wealthy English noble named Brihtric Mau when she was around 15-18 years old. She was so enamored with him that she sent him a messenger asking for his hand in marriage (A woman proposing in the medieval era??? How scandalous!!). He refused her proposal though and she was quite embarrassed although 20 years later when William conquered England, Matilda claimed one of Mau’s manors and deprived Gloucester which significantly reduced his income. William also threw Mau in prison for some reason, some ppl believe that Matilda convinced William to do so. 2 days after his arrest, Mau was found dead. Some ppl think that it was Matilda who ordered his murder.

She was also short. Around 5’0 while William was 5’10.

Ok yapping over i got hyperfixated on her in middle school and it was so fun to do all this research again! Tysm for asking!!