Page:The Queens of England.djvu/16

6 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. to all who asked him. Before the ceremony of coronation, Matilda was served by her Norman nobility ; bnt afterwards by her new English subjects, who, as has been said, were won by her prepossessing exterior. Nevertheless, the title of Queen, which she had assumed and which conveyed to their minds only an idea of sovereignty, was displeasing to the English, the wives of whose kings had hitherto been styled merely lady; and Matilda was spoken of as "the strange woman," who had assumed a title of authority to which she had no right. Yet, although the office of champion was instituted on the occasion of this coronation, and the champion challenged three times to single combat any one who should deny that William and Matilda were King and Queen of England, yet no one did it, and Matilda maintained by their consent, as it might appear, the title of Queen. Toward the end of the same year she gave birth to her fourth son, Henry, at Selby, in York- shire. We are now, however, constrained to notice a dark shade on the hitherto fair character of Matilda. It will be remem- bered that one of the impediments to the smooth course of William's wooing was the love which Matilda bore to Brihtric, a young Saxon nobleman, who, singularly enough, treated her preference with disdain. This slighted love must have rankled deeply in the soul of Matilda, and perhaps even William owed him a grudge for the tedious courtship which he had caused him. Be that as it might, twenty years afterward, and after fourteen years of singularly happy married life, when, on the conquest of England, William rewarded his Norman lords and followers with the lands of the Saxon nobles, he bestowed the possessions of Brihtric, which lay in Gloucestershire, on his queen by her own desire. Nor did this satisfy her passion for vengeance ; she punished the town of Gloucester by the forfeiture of its charter and civic liberties, because it had belonged to the unfortunate Saxon lord, while she had him conveyed to the city of Winchester, where he died in prison and was privately buried. Another story is related of Matilda's vengeance, which is in no way incredible, either as regards the character of the woman, or of the age. It appears that the news reached her in Normandy of certain attentions which her husband was paying in his new kingdom to the beautiful daughter of one of the canons of Canterbury ; she therefore caused the young lady to be put to death in a most cruel