Wife Of The Conqueror, Queen of England | Matilda of Flanders | PART 1
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- Опубликовано: 18 май 2024
- Matilda of Flanders is little remembered alongside her more famous husband, William the Conqueror. But she was a formidable woman in her own right, whose regal ancestry aided her husband and children, whose political knowledge was fundamental to ruling England, and she would prove herself to be every inch the equal to William. This video looks at her early life, how she REALLY married William, and her life as Duchess of Normandy...come back next week for Part 2!
Sources/Related Books:
Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, First Queen of England by Tracy Borman - amzn.to/3VdDvth
Queens of the Conquest: The extraordinary women who changed the course of English history 1066 - 1167 by Alison Weir - amzn.to/3V9bsfA
'Matilda of Flanders' by Elisabeth van Houts (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) - www.oxforddnb.com/display/10....
De Gestis Regum Anglorum by William of Malmesbury - www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...
Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100-1400 by Heather J. Tanner - amzn.to/3QSIxtO
Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900-1200 by Elisabeth van Houts - amzn.to/3wM4t2N
Orderic Vitalis: Life, Works and Interpretations by Various - amzn.to/3WTQliO
The Normans in Europe by Elisabeth van Houts - amzn.to/4bxkvge
Conquests in Eleventh-Century England: 1016, 1066 by Laura Ashe and Emily Ward - amzn.to/4bLOq3R
For my images and footage, thanks to:
Pexels
Pixabay
Wikimedia Commons, especially:
Pradigue
Urban~commonswiki
Nilfanion
Midnightblueowl
Many of my images in this video were made with Midjourney, see if you can spot which ones!
I strive to always credit everyone whose images I use, and try as much as possible to use images freely in the public domain (purchased where not possible) - please let me know if I have missed you so I can give you due credit. 
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Matilda is my 27th great-grandmother. Her son, Henry I of England, married a Matilda, who was the daughter of Malcolm III, King of Scotland. Henry & Matilda had a daughter named Matilda, who married Henry V, King of Germany & later named Holy Roman Emperor. They had no children, and when he died, she was remarried to Geoffrey Plantagenet, known as 'The Handsome', who was 12 years her junior and said to have strawberry-blond hair. Through their son, Henry II of England, began the Plantagenet dynasty which ruled England for the next 300 years.
Matilda is my 24th great-grandmother.
Probably 90% of people with European DNA are descended from William and Matilda, or at least William....
I am glad to hear her story, there aren’t many real biographies of noble women of period. Thank you for bringing Matilda to life. Fascinating story.
That's a terrible shame that there aren't any biographies of matilda of flanders.
The Conqueror's wife and consort was quite the character! Look forward to the rest of this series. 😊
Honestly, I think I would have been a little scared of her and very much in awe had I been alive then. Part 2 is well under way for you guys! 😊
@@HistorysForgottenPeople Yes, very formidable! Look forward to Pt 2. 😅
Is Flanders today a part of France or Netherlands ?
@@user-fg9xz4bz3b Belgium
Women in her time had tricky lives. She seems to have been lucky in both her spouse and her health. I'm looking forward to part 2. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 😊Part 2 is underway right now...
Love these videos
@@HistorysForgottenPeople as anyone done a movie or mini series about them?
Fantastic video about a woman who like most medieval women, even the powerful and influential ones, is too often overlooked by history in favor of her powerful husband. Can't wait for part 2.
Thank you! I'm hard at work on Part 2 right now. ☺It's really surprising how easily overlooked Matilda is, especially as William ensured his own lifetime that she was very publicly seen with him on most things, albeit mostly because of her ancestry.
damn, even a thousand years later were still hearing about her rejection 😔
There is a very well-done novelized version of the story of William the Conqueror (that was the title) by Georgette Heyer, which includes the courtship of William and Mathilda, anyone who enjoys this video would probably enjoy it, as well. Based on extensive historical research and written in the 1950s. Just a really well-written story that reads very naturally. This is a great video, too!
Such a beautiful love story. William has chosen her as his wife himself initially because of her good lineage (he was a bastard in the sense that vikings used to have more than a wife during those times and he was a concubine's son) to gain legitimacy, but ended up by madly falling in love with her. Mathilde was a force to reckon with in her own right, and ruled over Normandy in his name while William was consolidating his power in England. The historians of the time describe William as fierce and cruel and yet there are records saying that he was seen crying for the first and last time in public, at his wife's funeral. After her death he gave up worlds affairs and lived in isolation. He died in a few years after her. A political marriage which turned into a love story. I'd like to see a movie made about them.
Sometimes the ‘gems’ in the comment section are well worth searching for! Thank you
It would be an interesting historic love story to watch on screen.
William’s last five years were not like that at all! He remained so belligerent that it killed him.
After her death , William was inconsolable, he restrained from his favourite sport hunting and all the women from his court . Very sad
😢😢
That's true! I think he was very devoted to her, and they were absolutely in love.
@@HistorysForgottenPeople yes absolutely even after a rocky start
Do we know what she looked like?
@@leeannproctor47 she was of short stature compared to her husband , who was 5 foot 10 inches .
@@leeannproctor47
It was said she was around 5 ft and was beautiful. She was also very healthy, at least in the years she bore all those children!
I love history. Especially medieval England. I can barely wait for the next video!!! I'm so excited. 🤓
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 😊I hope you like Part 2 just as much.
@HistorysForgottenPeople I have no doubts that I will enjoy part 2 just as much as part 1. I'm so happy that I found you're channel. I love your content and the especially the illustrations and artwork. I've ALWAYS tried to picture what the people looked like. I know there are contemporary paintings. But they are mostly flat 1 dimensional and hard to imagine it. And quite a few of the kings look alike and hard to tell apart. At least for me. Paintings have come a long way. LOL. Thank you very much for all of your hard work and dedication and effort that goes into a RUclips channel. Please keep them coming.
She was the lioness. And the reason why she agreed to marry him even after he allegedly attacked her. That's because she knew that that was a strong man and in the land surrounded by warriors and everything else. She needed a strong man for her husband and plus she knew that she could control him. So internal strength, internal width and make everybody think that her ideas are their ideas
I have always found this woman interesting!Great video🎉
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 😊 Matilda was such an interesting person, and she's been on my list a LOOONG time - so I thought I'd better get on with her video!
I wonder if she preferred matilda or maud?
In southeast asia we have the Bird's eye chilli or "cili padi" in the local language, known for being a miniature version of the chilli peppers but packing in high levels of spiciness! Over here Matilda would have the nickname "kecil-kecil cili padi" which basically translates to small but formidable like Bird's eye chilli. Watching this truly reminded me of that idiom 🤭
I love that! That's totally my new nickname for her. 😂
Imagine if William just went to the church to meet her and screamed at the top of his lungs that he wanted her and no other, then he just pulled her close to him to declare his love again and maybe wanted hug or something, but pulled her with too much strength and she fell on the mud, then he tried to help her up but she got stuck and it turned into this huge gossip that he dragged her and harmed her 😅
Anyway, for how important she was in English history, she's definitely overlooked. She was a great ally to William and deserves more credit.
Oh my goodness, I love that, haha! This idea that William was actually just a big teddy-bear completely romantically in love with her, but in order to keep up his fearsome reputation elsewhere, his men were all,
"No, he didn't do that! He...er...dragged her into the mud and...and..."
"Beat her up!"
"What the-? Geoffrey, that's a bit much, isn't it?"
"No, look, they're loving it!"
"Ah...yeah, that's exactly how it happened. Yanked down by her pigtails and beaten up. Won her right over."
@@HistorysForgottenPeopleTotally read that in a Monty Python voice…
I wonder if matilda actually wanted to be with william?
Wow, she was spectacular!!
Wait until Part 2 - she was a seriously strong lady!
Can't wait! Didn't know a thing about this amazing lady❤
I know that “Mother of the Conqueror” video is somewhere on the horizon! Love your videos! Thank you
Do you think matilda was a supporter of the conquering of England.
@@leeannproctor47 which Matilda lol
@@leeannproctor47Absolutely: she paid for the building of the fleet’s flagship, the Mora.
Herleva?
@@zoetropo1 ah! just making sure… there were SO many Matilda’s! lol I would think she would have been a supporter of that, yes. I think glory and honor were so important to people of that period that she would have not only supported it, but probably believed it was necessary. To be fair, I’m just spitballing - I’m still working on learning that part of Norman British history
Thank you for this beautiful video on Matilda of Flanders. Love to know more about remarkable female historical figures and their challenges they faced in medieval times, can't wait for part 2. Excellent work as always ❤👑
Matilda seemed unusually powerful for a married woman in my opinion.
My XXXXX great grandmother, this exploration is appreciated.
Loving this !!! Can’t wait for part 2
Matilda of Flanders was one of my 24th Great Grandmothers - Thank you for your post on her 🌹
It seems you may be a distant cousin to our family. Do you have any Dudley's or Suttons, Grey or Neville or Beaufort in your ancestry?
Any Granvilles in your tree?
@@staceylseal do you have a first name for the Granville you are referring to and a time period please?
@@henryruggles7523 John Henry Granville born in 1911. Supposedly. His date of birth is in question because he changed it to join the service. He was born at Hampton Court. I don't know if that's true because I don't have a birth certificate for him.
Georgette Heyer write a great historical novel, well researched, called "The Conquerer". I recommend it.
Thanks.
Really enjoyed hearing about a piece of history of which I knew very little.
i have recently been learning about the women in my ancestoral line. thank you for this one.
Mothers as a moral compass, what a concept.
William did not beat Matilda to within an inch of her life, and that made her want to marry him . That is a fantasy written by a male person .
Aww did you get triggered and get your panties twisted over the story?😂😂😂 He certainly could have beat her ass as this isn’t some female made movie with her fantasy of a girl boss that can kick ass
I'm curious why it was even included it is obviously not true
They must be a singular spectacle to see, he very tall, illiterate and bossy, She very short, cultivated and kind. And however One of the most formidable couple in history, the Conqueror would have been that without her...
Thank You. I really appreciate and enjoyed your video. History is fascinating and we can learn a great deal from it.
I think Mathilda is a beautiful name indeed.
Mathilde was great great great great great grand daughter of Alfred .
Loved this! ❤
The medieval dress code for Flanders the Flanders sweater😂
There was another very famous Mathilda who lived exactly at this time and that was Mathilda of Canossa who ruled huge sections of northern Italy - this Mathilda is reputed to have personally led armies into battle!
The Register of the Honour of Richmond thanks Matilda for persuading King William to grant Earl Edwin’s Yorkshire lands to Alan Rufus, the Breton who was the commander of the royal cavalry.
May I suggest a video on Beatrice of Burgundy, second Wife of Friedrich Der Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor.
A formidable woman, contemporaneous to Eleanor of Aquitaine. She had descendants through two sons.
Formidable and short!
Definitely formidable, but she was a normal height for her time!
Thanks!
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed the video, this one has been a long time in coming! 😊
We can't even begin to know what life in those times were like, though I, as a big history buff, have been trying for decades! Except for William I & the Norman Conquest of England, I'm rather weak on this period, especially the noblewomen. Yes, I know most people wouldn't trade their lives in modern times to live in a long-ago age like that of Matilda but I'm one of the few who would! There are many other epochs I'd love to have lived in as well, or at least travel back in time for as long as I choose, as I find the modern world extremely boring. I've long been fascinated by the Middle Ages but I think if I could choose, it would have to be the earliest of the medieval period, the so-called Dark Ages, which I believe were, in fact, very dark & dangerous indeed. The thought of experiencing a Viking raid thrills me no end! To spend time in one of the earliest Benedictine monasteries would be fascinating, too. What I'd love most, however, is to return to Dark Age England, that period when the Romans prepared to leave & then did so! Wow, simply fantastic to learn exactly what it was like. The Roman Empire fascinates me as much as the Middle Ages, especially the former's long decline as it morphed ever-so-gradually into the earliest centuries of the Dark Ages. If I could have only one wish as my heavenly reward, I think, for me, it would have to be the granting of my desire to see what some of those emperors really were like!
Unfortunately, most of us would have born as serfs.
@@lesaeckert4538 For me, it might be worth it!
I remember reading a book about Matilda of Flanders in the early 90s..i can't remember the title.
Isn't there any movies or mini series about her and William?
Was it 'Wife of the Conqueror ' or something like that?
I heard matilda of Flanders was a formidable woman.
oooh how much I missed earlier Medieval History🙏🙏
I’ve real mixed feelings about Matilda. On the one hand, she is admirable and was a great supporter to William, which brings me to what puts me on the fence about her- William👹 I haven’t finished the video yet (it’s been 5 minutes lol), but from the little I know (or think I know) about her she didn’t oppose the harrying of the North and even accompanied him (again, this may well not be true). Ik a Queen’s duty was to support her husband, but when his desire was so violent, some goodness could be expected🥲
They did love, or, at least liked each other quite a lot, so I think she could have tried to soften his ideas without much fear of being mistreated.
Still, she is admirable, and her story is gonna be great to hear!!🙏
Have a nice week :))
Hi friend ! Who is your favorite king before William the Conqueror ?
@@DarthDread-oh2neHello :) It’s my fav English monarch, Alfred the Great! What about you?
🤔 you can’t go 😑 with Alfred the great.😊
@@DarthDread-oh2ne ooh why not🥲? He may not have ruled over the whole of modern England but he started it, and I believe that, had he lived longer, he would’ve seen it- maybe not finished but close-.
You're not wrong, there may be a VERY different view of her in the next video! You know how I feel about the harrying of the North LOL. But I think she was a very strong person, brought up in her time with those expectations, and there were maybe times when she didn't want to go against William. Certainly not perfect, that's for sure! But still admirable.
Wonderful video.
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! 😊
I couldn't have agreed more.
Hi, awesome live history video I enjoyed it. How are you and Mallard your cat doing? How is the weather where you are? I'm doing well and so is my cat Benjamin. We both enjoy watching your live history videos. We have beautiful warm weather in Ontario Canada. In the next video in the future could you do King Stephen the first he was King of England in the 11 hundreds. Have a great day see you next video. HAPPY VICTORIA DAY WEEKEND TO YOU. 😊
Hi Michelle, we're good! Glad to hear you and Benjamin are doing well. 😊 Our weather's cooled a little again, so hopefully we get some of your warmer weather soon! I might do something on King Stephen - there's a little bit about him in my Empress Matilda videos as well, thought obviously not just on him.
❤❤❤!!
❤❤❤❤❤amen
Not everyone can claim relationship to famous figures, but others actually are related to famous figures in history. As such, there are good and bad points to this imo.
Oh but it makes history so much more meaningful when they’re your ancestors 😅
Not surprising re Mathilda. Women like bad boys. William the Bastard was odds on! (Beauty and the Beast!)
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
They were really short in ancient times. The young today are a foot or 2 foot taller thanmy age group…
Just goes to show the old adage "Behind every great dictator there is an even bigger Karen" 😂😂😂😂
For the question, from the Historical people you’ve studied, who is the one you like the most? Those who are genuinely so good you find yourself awestruck by what they did. You can cheat here lol (I myself have like 5). (also I can’t be 100% sure if I’ve ever asked you this but I don’t recall it, so, hope I’m not repeating myself😭).
For me it’s Katherine of Aragon, Emma of Normandy (as I once heard say, Emma was for Emma, which doesn’t score her that high in the kindness score, but her achievements were out of this world imo and hers is a story I’m always itching to tell), Alfred the Great and Belisarius.
Honourable mention to Amélie of Orléans, I just didn’t include her bc I haven’t studied her enough to know for sure :)
LOL No worries, I wonder if I'm repeating myself all the time in my answers, so apologies if I do! 😂 My absolute favourite person of all history is Empress Matilda. I'm sure she did do bad stuff (we're all human) but her good stuff outweighs any not-so-good-things, and there's a lot of propaganda around her, and to be honest, my personality is very similar in being stubborn and very 'mama bear' as well. I would definitely kick off a 19-year-civil war for my crown, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing! 😂😂😂
I also agree with you on Katherine of Aragon, and since studying her more closely, Anna of Cleves! Anna just seems like an all-round kind, clever, funny woman AND she liked to cook. I really like George III as well - I think he was overall a good king, and the fact he was such a family person is amazing considering his father and grandfather. I think you can tell I'm basically a sucker for anyone who is nice to their loved ones, haha! I also like Arthur (or Artie) Moore - I don't want to say too much as I've got a video planned in a few weeks for him, but basically he was a real inventor-type person who started from nothing in a small town in Wales, and ended up working for Marconi. 😊
Can't find part 2!
I think it comes out next Sunday May 26¡
This one has only just come out - Part 2 is out next Sunday! 😊
Can't all of us with European ancestry claim descent from the Emperor Charlemagne?
Possibly! I think I read somewhere that if you look hard enough everyone with European ancestry is somehow related to William the Conqueror as well, but my family tree only ever has poor farmers on it, haha!
Yes. Most Europeans, especially western and central, can claim 'Charlemagne, King of the Franks' as our closest royal ancestor. Those of Englishman descent can claim either 'Edward [Plantagenêt] I' or 'Edward [Plantagenêt] III.'
@@HistorysForgottenPeople William descends from Charlemagne once by Pepin & Bernard. Matilda has four descents via Louis 'The Pious' and once from Alfred 'The Great'. All living Europeans are Charlemagne descendants several dozens to hundreds of times.
Source: Royal Ancestry, Douglas Richardson, Vol. V, pp. 481-504.
100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion) humans are estimated to have lived in the last 60,000 years. We accrue ancestors in a geometric progression by a factor of two : 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64... and Charlemagne is about 42 generations distant which, by simple addition, would give us 2,199,023,255,552 (two trillion+) ancestors.
Humans Are All More Closely Related Than We Commonly Think
Scientific American, Scott Hershberger, October 2, 2020
😂😂Yes, I was pretty proud when I found out I was descended from him; but then I learned that you can basically pick up a random rock and throw it, and there’d be a high probability of you hitting a descendant of Charlemagne.😢 😂😂
This is what I have heard. It would be fantastic to have his dna uploaded to a genetic genealogy database that deals with historical people. These sites exist, they are not very popular, and often times, students make databases related to archaic dna, on sites like gedmatch. Obviously genealogy isa hobby of mine.
So you have me thinking, i am gonna go and look to see if we have Charlemagne's DNA anywhereto compare with!
How can someone who can read not be able to write? I don't understand. If anyone knows please educate me.
They are different skills. If you don’t practice the skill of writing, or the materials are too expensive to provide to everyone in the family, it’s not a surprise she and many others only learned to read.
In the same vein, listening and speaking a language are also two different skills. That’s why some children of immigrants born in a new land can grow up able to understand their parents’ language, but not being comfortable speaking more than a few words.
This is also why, when formally leaning a new language, there are four different skill areas that need to be both taught and assessed: written comprehension (reading), written production (writing), oral production (speaking) and oral comprehension (listening).
I studied French diligently for about five years from 2014 till 2019. French has many silent letters. I found that I could read, write, speak it in that order. I wasn’t adult and so I did not have the benefit of children hearing and speaking the language first. I am actually surprised that I can look at a word and determine if it is French in origin.
I've heard she got revenge on an English Noble that refused to marry her before she married William
Like deployed 👍
Matilda of Flanders was descended from Alfred the Great, and from Charlemagne. So why did England rebel against William? They should have thanked God they would have a Wessex king when he was dead.
Glad to know you are going to cover "harrying of the North" in the next video. Genocide. Nobles are not so noble after all. Is Matilda nothing more than a gansters moll? It would not be a nice time to be alive if you diagreed with William or Matilda.
Yep. I bet she was definitely the scary one - PROBABLY DID NOT LOOK LIKE THE INGENUE on your RUclips clickbait intro🤦
Matilda was not the first Norman Queen of England. Emma of Normandy was. Getting simple facts like this wrong means the show loses all credibility and I just stop watching.