the death of this queen. The annals of Margan date this event in the year 1151. There is a charter in Affligham, granted by Henry of Louvaine, on condition that prayers may be said for the welfare of his brother Godfrey, the reigning duke, his sister Aleyda the queen, and Ida the countess of Cleves, and their parents.1

Adelicia must have been about forty-eight years old at the time of her death. She had been married eleven years, or thereabouts, to William de Albini, lord of Buckenham. At his paternal domain of New Buckenham, in Norfolk, a foundation was granted by William de Albini," of the Strong Arm," enjoining that prayers might be said for the departed spirit of his "eximia regina." He survived her long enough to be the happy means of composing, by an amicable treaty, the death-strife which had convulsed England for fifteen years, in consequence of the bloody succession-war between Stephen and the empress Matilda. This great and good man is buried in Wymondham-abbey, near the tomb of his father, the Pincerna of England and Normandy.

By her marriage with Albini, Adelicia became the mother of seven surviving children. William, earl of Arundel, who succeeded to the estates and honours; Reyner, Henry, and Godfrey; Alice, married to the count d'Eu; Olivia, and Agatha. The two latter were buried at Boxgrove, near Arundel. Though Adelicia had so many children by her second marriage, her tender affection for her father's family caused her to send for her younger brother, Josceline of Louvaine, to share in her prosperity and happiness. The munificent earl, her husband, to enable this landless prince to marry advantageously, gave him the fair domain of Petworth, on his wedding Agnes, the heiress of the Percies: "since which," says Camden, "the posterity of that Josceline, who took the name of Percy, have ever possessed it,—a family certainly very ancient and noble, the male representatives of Charlemagne, more direct than the dukes of Guise, who pride themselves on that account. Josceline, in a donation of his which I have seen, uses this title: Josceline of Louvaine, brother to queen Adelicia, castellaine of

Two ducal peers of England are now the representatives of the im perial Carlovingian line; namely, the duke of Norfolk, the heir of queen Adelicia; and the duke of Northumberland, the lineal descendant of her brother Josceline of Louvaine. The two most unfortunate of all the queens of England, Anna Boleyn and Katharine Howard, lineal descendants of Adelicia, by her second marriage with William de

Albini.

were the

A curious tradition exists at Reading, that Henry I. was buried there in a silver coffin, and that the utter demolition of his monument may be attributed to the persevering zeal of the destroyers of the stately abbey,

1 Howard Memorials.

Her portrait.

135

1135.] in their search to discover and appropriate this costly depository. Adelicia's effigy is stated to have been placed at Reading by the side of her husband, Henry I., crowned and veiled, because she had been both queen and professed nun. No copy or vestige of it remains.

The portrait of queen Adelicia has been drawn by Mr. Harding from her beautiful seal, pendant to the charter she gave Reading-abbey. Although she was then the wife of William de Albini, she is represented as queen of England, in regal costume, which in many points varies from that of her predecessors.1

The transparent veil of Matilda of Flanders is superseded by a drapery similar to the haike of the Arabs, hooded over the head and falling by each cheek, tied in front of the throat; then flowing in ample folds over the arms, nearly covers the whole of the person. Adelicia's crown confines this mantle to the head, being fixed over it. The crown is simple: a smooth band of gold with rims, in which circlet three large gems are set; three high points rise from it, each terminated with a trefoil of pearls: a cap of satin or velvet is seen just above the circlet. In her right hand she holds the sceptre of mercy, surmounted with a dove and finished with a trefoil; in her left, the orb of sovereignty, to which, excepting by the especial grace of her royal lord, she could have no right. Her robe or gown is tight to her shape, and elegantly worked in a diamond pattern from the throat to the feet, over which it flows. The figure is whole length, standing; and, as the seal is a pointed oval nearly three inches long, there was space to give character, not only to the costume, but the features, of which the medieval artist has availed himself sufficiently to present the only resemblance extant of Adelicia of Louvaine.

1 See the Illustrated edition of this Work.

MATILDA OF BOULOGNE,

QUEEN OF STEPHEN.

MATILDA of Boulogne, the last of our Anglo-Norman queens, was a princess of the ancient royal line of English monarchs. Her mother. Mary of Scotland, was the second daughter of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret Atheling, and sister to Matilda the Good, the first queen of Henry Beauclerc. Mary of Scotland was educated, with her elder sister, in the royal monasteries of Wilton and Romsey, under the stem tutelage of their aunt Christina; and was, doubtless, like the princess Matilda, compelled to assume the habit of a votaress. Whether the youthful Mary testified the same lively antipathy to the consecrated black veil that was exhibited by her elder sister, no gossiping monastic chronicler has recorded; but she certainly forsook the cloister for the court of England, on Matilda's auspicious nuptials with Henry I., and exchanged the badge of celibacy for the nuptial ring soon afterwards, when her royal brother-in-law gave her in marriage to Eustace, cour of Boulogne. The father of this nobleman was brother-in-law to Edward the Confessor, having married Goda, the widowed countess of Mantes, sister to that monarch; both himself and his son Eustace had been powerful supporters of the Saxon cause. The enterprising spirits of the counts of Boulogne, and the contiguity of their dominions to the English shores, had rendered them troublesome neighbours to William the Conqueror and his sons, till the chivalric spirit of crusading attracted their energies to a loftier object, and converted these pirates of the narrow seas into heroes of the cross, and liberators of the holy city.

Godfrey of Boulogne, the hero of Tasso's Gierusalemme Liberata, and his brother Baldwin, who successively wore the crown of Jerusalem, were the uncles of Matilda, Stephen's queen. Her father, Eustace, count of Boulogne, was also a distinguished crusader. He must have been a mature husband for Mary of Scotland, since he was the companion in arms of Robert of Normandy, and her uncle, Edgar Atheling. Matilda, or, as she is sometimes called for brevity, Maud of Boulogne, was their sole offspring, and the heiress of this illustrious house.

1114.]

Married to Stephen.

137

There is every reason to believe Matilda was educated in the abbey of Bermondsey, to which the countess of Boulogne, her mother, was a munificent benefactress. The countess died in that abbey while on a visit to England in the year 1115, and was buried there. We gather from the Latin verses on her tomb, that she was a lady of very noble qualities, and that her death was painful and unexpected.1 Young as Matilda was, she was certainly espoused to Stephen de Blois before her mother's decease; for the charter by which the countess of Boulogne, in the year 1114, grants to the Cluniac monks of Bermondsey her manor of Kynewardstone, is, in the year she died, confirmed by Eustace her husband, and Stephen her son-in-law. Stephen, the third son of a vassal peer of France, obtained this great match through the favour of his royal uncle Henry I. He inherited from the royal Adela, his mother, the splendid talents, fine person, and enterprising spirit of the mighty Norman line of sovereigns. A very tender friendship had subsisted between Adela, countess of Blois, and her brother, Henry Beauclerc, who at different periods of his life had been under important obligations to her; and when Adela sent her landless boy to seek his fortunes at the court of England, Henry returned the friendly offices he had received from this faithful sister, by lavishing wealth and honour

an her son.

Stephen was knighted by his uncle, king Henry, previous to the battle of Tinchebray, where he took the count of Mortagne prisoner, and received the investiture of his lands. "When Stephen was but an earl," says William of Malmesbury, "he gained the affections of the people, to a degree that can scarcely be imagined, by the affability of his manners, and the wit and pleasantry of his conversation, condescending to chat and joke with persons in the humblest stations as well as with the nobles, who delighted in his company, and attached themselves to his cause from personal regard."4

Stephen was count of Boulogne in Matilda's right. The London residence of Stephen and Matilda was Tower-Royal, a palace built by king Henry, and presented by him to his favoured nephew on the occasion of his wedding the niece of his queen, Matilda Atheling. The spot to which this regal-sounding name is still appended, is a close lane between Cheapside and Watling-street. Tower-Royal was a fortress of prodigious strength; for more than once, when the Tower of London itself fell into the hands of the rebels, this embattled palace of Stephen remained in security. 5

It is a remarkable fact, that Stephen had embarked on board the Blanche Nef' with his royal cousin, William the Atheling, and the rest of her fated crew; but with two knights of his train, and a few others

Annales Abbate de Bermondsey.

2 Ibid. 3 Ord. Vit. • Wm. of Malms. Ord. Vit. 5 Stowe. Pennant's London.

who prudently followed his example, he left the vessel, with the remark that "she was too much crowded with foolish, headstrong young people."1 After the death of prince William, Stephen's influence with his royal uncle became unbounded, and he was his constant companion all his voyages to Normandy.

There are evidences of conjugal infidelity on the part of Stephen, about this period, proving that Matilda's cup of happiness was not without some alloy of bitterness. How far her peace was affected by the scandalous reports of the passion which her haughty cousin, the empress Matilda, the acknowledged heiress of England and Normandy, was said to cherish for her aspiring husband, we cannot presume to say; but there was an angel-like spirit in the princess which supported her under every trial, and rendered her a beautiful example to every royal female in the married state.

Two children, a son and a daughter, were born to the young earl and countess of Boulogne, during king Henry's reign. The boy was named Baldwin, after Matilda's uncle, the king of Jerusalem,—a Saxon name, withal, and therefore likely to sound pleasantly to the ears of the English, who, no doubt, looked with complacency on the infant heir of Boulogne, as the son of a princess of the royal Atheling blood, born among them, and educated by his amiable mother to speak their language and venerate their ancient laws. Prince Baldwin, however, died in early childhood, and was interred in the priory of the Holy Trinity, without Aldgate, founded by his royal aunt, Matilda of Scotland. The second child of Stephen and Matilda, a daughter, named Maud, bon also in the reign of Henry I., died young, and was buried in the same church. Some historians aver that Maud survived long enough to be espoused to the earl of Milan. So dear was the memory of these he? buried hopes to the heart of Matilda, that after she became queen of England, and her loss was supplied by the birth of another son and daughter, she continued to lament for them; and the church and hospital of St. Katherine, by the Tower, were founded and endowed by her, that prayers might be perpetually said by the pious sisterhood for the repose of the souls of her first-born children.

In the latter days of king Henry, while Stephen was engaged in stealing the hearts of the men of England, after the fashion of Absalom, the mild virtues of his amiable consort recalled to their remembrance her royal aunt and namesake, Henry's first queen, and inspired them with a trembling hope of seeing her place filled eventually by a princess so much more resembling her than the haughty wife of Geoffrey of Anjou. "The Norman woman looked upon her mother's people with scorn, and from her they had nothing to expect but the iron yoke which her grandfather, the Conqueror, had laid upon their necks, with, perhaps,

1 Ord. Vit.