to invade England, she presented him with a ship for his own use, called the Mora, and had placed on the prow a golden image of a boy, with his right hand pointing towards England, and his left holding an ivory horn to his lips (Brevis Relatio, p. 22).
During William's absence on the invasion of England, Matilda ruled Normandy successfully, being assisted by a council, at the head of which was Roger de Beaumont [see under Beaumont, Robert de, d. 1118]. Her regency ended with the return of William to Normandy in March 1067, and was resumed in conjunction with her eldest son, Robert, on her husband's departure in the following December. Early the next year William sent men of high rank to conduct her to England, whither she came accompanied by a large number of nobles and ladies, and bringing as the chief of her chaplains Guy, bishop of Amiens, who had already written his poem on William's victory (Orderic, p. 510). At Whitsuntide, 11 May, she was crowned and anointed queen by Aldred [q. v.], archbishop of York, at Westminster (ib.; A.-S. Chronicle an. 1067, Worcester version). Later in the year she bore her fourth son, Henry, afterwards Henry I [q. v.], it is said at Selby in Yorkshire. She appears to have resided much in Normandy, and to have been occupied in the affairs of the duchy. In 1070 she and her son Robert joined in requesting Lanfranc to accept the archbishopric of Canterbury. William FitzOsbern was in December sent over from England by the king to help Matilda in the regency of Normandy; he marched at the queen's desire to uphold the cause of her brother's widow and son in Flanders against Robert the Frisian (William of Jumièges, viii. 14). Matilda was deeply afflicted by the death of her brother and nephew and by the troubles that war brought upon her native land (Orderic, p. 527). When her son Robert was in exile, having quarrelled with his father in 1079, she sent him large quantities of gold and silver and other valuable things without her husband's knowledge, for she was very rich. William found it out and reproached her, but she pleaded her love for her son. William ordered that the messenger whom she employed in the business should be blinded, but, warned by the queen's friends, the man escaped to the monastery of St. Evroul, where at the queen's request the abbot received him (ib. p. 571). About this time she sent gifts to a famous hermit in Germany who was held to be a prophet, requesting him to pray for her husband and Robert and tell her what should befall them, which he did (ib.) On the death of her kinsman the holy Simon de Valois, count of Crepy, at Rome in 1082, she sent gifts to adorn his tomb (‘Mabillon,’ Acta Sanctorum, viii. 374); and at this time rendered some help to William, bishop of Durham, in his scheme for substituting monks for canons in his church (Hist. Dunelm. Eccl. iv. c. 2). She died in Normandy on 3 Nov. 1083, after an illness of some length, and was buried in her church at Caen. Her tomb was richly adorned, and bore an epitaph, recorded by Orderic (p. 648); it was restored in 1819, and is in the middle of the choir.
Matilda was handsome in person and noble in disposition (William of Jumièges, vii. c. 21), of great ability, a faithful and helpful wife, and an affectionate mother; she was religious and liberal to the poor, and was followed to the grave by many whom she had befriended. Her husband felt her death keenly, and is said to have mourned for her the rest of his life (William of Malmesbury, iii. 273, who records, without believing it, a foolish story, that William having been unfaithful to her, she had his mistress hamstrung, and was for so doing beaten to death with a bridle). She bore her husband four sons—Robert, who succeeded his father in the duchy; Richard, who met his death while hunting in the New Forest; and William and Henry, who both became kings—and five, or perhaps six, daughters: Cecilia, dedicated as a nun in childhood in her mother's church at Caen in 1066, professed in 1075, became abbess in 1113, and died in 1127; Constance, married to Alan of Brittany in 1086, and died in 1090; Adelaide, probably betrothed to Earl Harold, and died in youth; Adela, married to Stephen of Blois in 1080, and died in 1137; perhaps an Agatha, possibly promised to Edwin, earl of Mercia, and betrothed to Alfonso of Spain, who died unmarried, with a character for sanctity; and a Matilda (see on Matilda's children, Norman Conquest, iii. 666 sqq. with full references). She made her son Henry her heir in England (Orderic, p. 510; Freeman, William Rufus, i. 195), and bequeathed her crown and other ornaments of state to her church at Caen. Besides her abbey there, she founded the abbey of St. Mary de Pré at Rouen (Monasticon, vi. 1106), and gave rich gifts to Cluny (Cluny Charters, ii. 72) and St. Evroul (Orderic, p. 603). At Abingdon, however, she appears as a spoiler; she probably robbed the English abbey in order to enrich a Norman house with its treasures (Historia de Abingdon, i. 485, 491).
