as a more suitable shrine for the relics of their illustrious progenitor,from whom, be it remembered, Henry, as well as his Saxon queen, was descended, through the marriage of Elstrith, the daughter of Alfred, with an earl of Flanders, his maternal ancestor. Here, too, the bones of Edward the Elder and his queen, the immediate ancestors of Matilda, were at the same time translated. The following year Henry was again in Normandy, where he entered into an amicable treaty with one of his most troublesome enemies, Fulk, earl of Anjou, by a matrimonial alliance between his heir, prince William, and Alice, the daughter of that earl.

The education of Matilda's eldest daughter being considered as completed in 1114, the marriage was fully solemnized between her and the emperor Henry V. The young empress was then only in her twelfth year. Notwithstanding this great disparity in age, it appears that the youthful bride enjoyed a reasonable share of happiness with her mature consort, by whom she was treated with the greatest indulgence, while her great beauty and majestic carriage won the hearts of the German princes, and obtained for her unbounded popularity.

Matilda's eldest son, prince William (or the Atheling, as he was styled by the English), was, in the year 1115, conducted by the king his father with great pomp into Normandy, where he was presented to the states as the heir of the duchy, and fealty was sworn to him by the barons and freemen. This prince was then only twelve years old. He returned with his royal father to England in July, and the following year Henry summoned that memorable parliament, mentioned by Holinshed as "the first held since the Norman conquest," to meet at Salisbury, and there appointed the young prince as his successor, William of Malmesbury says, "Every freeman of England and Normandy, of whatsoever degree, or to whatsoever lord his vassal service was due, was made to perform homage, and swear fealty to William, son of king Henry and queen Matilda." The Easter festival was kept this year by the royal family at Odiham-castle, in Hampshire.

Matilda passed the Christmas festival of the same year, in the company of her royal husband, at the Abbey of St. Alban's.1 They were the guests of abbot Richard, who had then brought to a happy conclusion the building of that magnificent fabric. He invited the queen, who was one of its benefactresses, the king, and the archbishop of Rouen, and many prelates and nobles, to assist at the consecration of the abbey, which took place Christmas-day, 1115. The royal pair, with their suite of nobles and ladies, were lodged in the abbey, and entertained from December 25th to January 6th. The queen, sanctioned by Henry, gave, by charter, two manors to St. Alban's. The existence of a portrait of queen Matilda is certainly owing to this visit; for in a rich illuminated volume, called the Golden Book of St. Alban's (now in

1 Newcome's St. Alban's, pp. 52, 93.

1113.]

Matilda's portrait and costume.

105

the British Museum), may be seen a miniature of the royal benefactress. The queen is attired in the royal mantle of scarlet, lined with white fur; it covers the knees, and is very long. The mantle is square to the bust. A cordon of scarlet and gold, with a large tassel, passes through two gold knobs: she holds the cordon in her left hand. She wears a tight kirtle of dark blue, buttoned down the front with gold. Her sleeves fit close to the arms, and are scarlet like the mantle. A white veil is arranged in a square form on the brow, and is surmounted by a gold crown, formed of three large trefoils, and gold oreillettes appear beneath the veil on each side of the cheeks. The veil flows behind her shoulders with lappets. Matilda is very fair in complexion: she has a long throat, and elegant form of tall proportions. She displays with her right hand the charter she gave the abbey, from which hangs a very large red seal, whereon, without doubt, was impressed her effigy in grand relief. She sits on a carved stone bench, on which is a scarlet cushion figured with gold leaves. This cushion is in the form of a wool-pack, but has four tassels of gold and scarlet. A piece of figured cloth is hung at the back of her seat. There are no armorial bearings, -one proof of the authenticity of the portrait. "Queen Matildis gave us Bellwick and Lilleburn," is the notation appended by the monks of St. Alban's to this portrait.

About this period, the stately new palace at Woodstock being completed, and the noble park, reckoned the finest at that time in England, having been walled round, Henry stocked it with a curious menagerie of wild beasts, the first zoological collection ever seen in this country. It is described in very quaint terms by Stowe, who says, "The king craved from other kings lions, leopards, lynxes, and camels, and other curious beasts, of which England hath none. Among others, there was a strange animal called a stryx, or porcupine, sent him by William of Montpelier; which beast," says the worthy chronicler, "is, among the Africans, counted as a kind of hedgehog, covered with pricking bristles, which they shoot out naturally on the dogs that pursue them.

Unbounded hospitality was one of the social virtues of his peaceful reign, especially at this peculiar era, when the benignant example of the

1 The Golden Book of St. Alban's is a Bort of conventual album, in which were entered the portraits of all the benefactors of the abbey, together with an abstract of

their donations.

Five different artists, of

Various degrees of merit, may be traced in

this collection.

Some of the miniatures

are exquisitely designed and coloured, others are barbarous and puerile in their execution; some of the portraits are represented

holding well-filled purses, others displaying the charters, with large pendant seals, which secured broad lands to church and poor.

2 The following verses, from an ancient MS., quoted by Collins, were inscribed by Sir William Fitz-William, the lord of Sprotborough, on an ancient cross, which was demolished at the Reformation:

"Whoso is hungry, and lists well to eat,
Let him come to Sprotborough to his meat;
And for a night and a day

His horse shall have both corn and hay,

And no one shall ask him, when he goeth away?"

good queen had, for a period of nearly seventeen years, produced the happiest effect in softening the manners of the haughty and powerful chieftains who were at that time the magnates of the land. The Norman families, at this period, were beginning to practise some of the peaceful pursuits of the Anglo-Saxons, and ladies of high rank considered it no infringement on the dignity of their station to attend to the profitable concerns of the poultry-yard and the dairy. The countess Constance of Chester, though the wife of Hugh Lupus, the king's first cousin, kept a herd of kine, and made good Cheshire cheeses, three which she presented to the archbishop of Canterbury. Giraldus Cambriensis bears honourable testimony to the excellence of the produce of the "cheese-shire" in that day.

2

A fresh revolt in Normandy1 deprived Matilda of the society of her husband and son in 1117. The king, according to Eadmer, returned and spent Christmas with her, as she was at that time in a declining state of health; leaving Prince William with his Norman baronage, as a pledge for his return. His sojourn was, of necessity, very brief. He was compelled by the distracted state of affairs in Normandy to rejoin his army there,-Matilda never saw either her husband or her son again.

Resigned and perfect in all the duties of her high calling, the dying queen remained, during this trying season, in her palace at Westminster, lonely though surrounded with all the splendour of royalty; enduring with patience the separation from her beloved consort and children, and affording, to the last hour of her life, a beautiful example of piety and self-denial. She expired on the 1st of May, 1118,5 passionately lamented by every class of the people, to whom her virtues and wisdom had rendered her inexpressibly dear.

King Henry was much afflicted when the intelligence of Matilda's death reached him, amidst the turmoil of battle and siege in Normandy. Piers of Langtoft alludes to the grief felt by the royal widower, at the loss of his amiable consort, in terms of the most homely simplicity:

"Now is the king sorry, her death doth him gram," [grieve.]

Hardyng's rhyming Chronicle produces the following quaint stanzas on the death of Matilda, and the sorrow of king Henry for her loss:

"The year of Christ a thousand was full clear,

One hundred eke, and therewithal eighteen,

When good queen Maud was dead and laid on bier,

At Westminster buryed, as well was seen;

For heaviness of which the king, I ween,

To Normandy then went with his son."

The same chronicler gives us another stanza on the death of Henry,

118.]

Death and epitaph of Queen Matilda.

107

a which he, in yet more positive terms, speaks of the conjugal affection which united the Norman sovereign to his Saxon queen :

"Of Christe's date was there a thousand year,
One hundred also, and nine and thirty mo,
Buried at Redynge, as well it doth appear,
In the abbye, which there he founded so,
Of monkes black, whenever they ride or go,
They pray for him and queen Maude his wife
Who either other loved withouten strife."

Another chronicler says, "Nothing happened to trouble the king, save the death of his queen Matilda, the very mirror of piety, humility, and princely bounty."

1

Matilda was buried on St. Philip's-day in Westminster-abbey, on the right side of her royal uncle, Edward the Confessor. Great disputes, however, have existed as to the place of her interment, which has been contested with almost as much zeal as was displayed by the seven cities of Greece, in claiming the honour of having given birth to Homer. The monks of Reading averred that their royal patroness was buried in her own stately abbey there, where her illustrious consort was afterwards interred. Piers of Langtoft insists that she was buried in St. Paul's cathedral, and that her epitaph was placed in Westminsterabbey.

"At London, in St. Paul's, in tomb she is laid,
Christ, then, of her soul have mercie ;

If any one will witten [know] of her storie,
At Westminster it is written readily."

Tyrrell declares that she was buried at Winchester, but that tablets to her memory were set up in many churches, an honour which she shares with queen Elizabeth. The following passage from Weever testifies that the mortal remains of Matilda," the good queen," repose near the relics of her royal uncle, Edward the Confessor, in the solemn temple which had been completed under her careful superintendence. "Here lieth in Westminster-abbey, without any tomb, Matilda or Maud, daughter of Malcolm Canmore, king of Scots, and wife of Henry I. of England, who brought to him children, William, Richard, wife to Henry, the fifth emperor. She died the first day of May, 1118."4 and Mary, who perished by shipwreck, and likewise Maude, who was She had an excellent epitaph made to her commendation, whereof four lines only remain.

Henry of Huntingdon, the chronicler, no mean poet, was the author of those Latin lines, of which the following is a

faithful version:

"Prosperity could not inflate her mind,
Lowly in greatness, as in ills resigned:
Beauty deceived not, nor did crowns efface
Her best adornment, women's modest grace."

William of Malmesbury, speaking of the death of Matilda of Scotland,

1 Fl. of Worc.

2 Pennant's London. R. of Glouces.

grave was in the vestry of the abbey.

3 According to Stowe, her 4 Weever's Funeral Monuments.

says, "She was snatched away from her country, to the great loss of th people, but to her own advantage; for her funeral being splendidl solemnized at Westminster, she entered into her rest, and her spir manifested, by no trifling indications, that she was a resident in heaven. Some attempts, we suppose, therefore, must have been made by th monks of Westminster to establish for this great and good queen a de ceptive posthumous fame, by the testimony of miracles performed at he tomb, or pretended revelations from her spirit to her contemporaries i the flesh. Our marvellous chronicler, however, confines himself to th above significant hints, and takes his leave of Matilda in these words "She died willingly, leaving the throne after a reign of seventeen year and six months, experiencing the fate of her family, who all died in the flower of their age."

Many curious remains still exist of the old palace in Westminster where Matilda kept state as queen, and ended her life. This venerable abode of our early sovereigns was originally built by Canute, and, being devastated by fire, was rebuilt by Edward the Confessor with such enduring solidity, that antiquaries still point out different portions which were indubitably the work of the royal Saxon, and must have formed part of the residence of his niece. Part of the old palace of Westminster is still to be seen in the buildings near Cotton-garden, and the lancetshaped windows about Old Palace-yard.1 Cotton-garden was the private garden of the ancient palace, and therefore belonged especially to queen Matilda.

The house of lords was an antique oblong room; originally the hall of state of Matilda's palace, called the white-hall, but without any refer ence to the vast palace of Whitehall, to which the seat of English royalty was transferred in the reign of Henry VIII. As the Painted-chamber is well known to have been the bedchamber of Edward the Confessor, and the apartment in which he expired, there can be no doubt but that it was the state bedchamber of his niece. A curious room in Cottonhouse was the private oratory of the Confessor, and was assuredly used by Matilda for the same purpose; while at the south end of the court of Requests are to be seen two mighty arches, the zig-zag work of which ranks its architecture among the most ancient existing in our country. This was once a deserted state-chamber of the royal Saxon palace.

There is a statue of Matilda in Rochester cathedral, which forms the pilaster to the west door; that of king Henry, her husband, forms another. The hair of the queen depends over either shoulder, in two long plaits, below the knees. Her garments are long and flowing, and she holds an open scroll of parchment in her hand. Her features are defaced, and indeed so completely broken away, that no idea of what manner of countenance she had can be gathered from the remains.