She Wolves (9 page)

Emma, on the other hand, arrived in England in triumph as the mother of the new king and quickly took up a position as Harthacnut’s closest advisor. Perhaps remembering her earlier vulnerability when none of her sons were present in England, she also persuaded Harthacnut to invite his half-brother, Edward, to return to England to share his brother’s rule:

This was the point at which Emma’s
Encomium
ends and it was the image of a victorious queen mother that she wanted to present to the world, particularly perhaps to her rival Aelfgifu of Northampton. Whilst she was the victor in the power struggle with Aelfgifu, this was not the end of her story, however. After ruling for only two years, Harthacnut also died, leaving the throne to his half-brother, Edward the Confessor. Emma must have been pleased that the succession had been secured for her last remaining son but she did not have the same good relationship with Edward that she had enjoyed with Harthacnut. In 1043, only a short time after Edward’s coronation, Emma was forcibly deprived of her lands and treasures on the orders of the new king and retired from her place at court.
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For the rest of her life, Emma was always treated with the respect due to her as the king’s mother, but she was denied any political role and she died, almost unnoticed, on 6 March 1052.
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It was not for a quiet retirement that either Aelfgifu or Emma had fought following the death of Cnut and, in their old age, they may both have reflected on the futility of their struggle on behalf of their sons. Both women were determined to secure the lucrative role of queen mother for themselves and both, ultimately, suffered for their attempts. It is difficult to see either as entirely blameworthy, however, and Cnut, through his failure to regulate his unorthodox marital inclinations must ultimately bear much of the blame. It was only natural that both his wives would want to see their own son on the throne and clear that, without effective provision made for all his sons, his wives would compete. Both Emma of Normandy and Aelfgifu of Northampton are remembered as notorious for their political actions and the underhand methods that they both employed; for both, these actions were ultimately futile.

If there is doubt about the recognition Anglo-Saxons gave to the role of queen, there is no such ambiguity regarding post-conquest society. The period between the eleventh century and the end of the fourteenth saw the emergence of queenship as a major political role and the period included some exceptionally powerful queens. The period is also remembered for some of the most notorious queens that England has ever known and, once again, it is the church chroniclers and other male writers who claim to provide evidence for their wicked behaviour. There is no doubt that conditions following the Norman conquest helped to cultivate powerful and political queens who were viewed with suspicion and often hostility by many of their male contemporaries.

The Norman conquest had a profound effect on the role of the queen in England. Previously, kings tended to look for their wives amongst their own nobility, selecting their spouses from the families of the powerful men at court. The Norman conquest saw a move away from this and introduced an international flavour to queenship that had only previously been seen with women such as Judith of France and Emma of Normandy. Right up until the mid-fifteenth century, the English crown retained continental possessions separate from their lands in England and this meant that their rule was never entirely centred on England. This interest in continental affairs was reflected in the policies of these kings, in the selection of their wives and the lives that these women were expected to lead.

Post-conquest kings’ wives were generally selected as part of a deliberate policy to either protect or extend continental lands. Examples include Matilda of Boulogne who brought her rich county of Boulogne to King Stephen, and Eleanor of Aquitaine who could offer Henry II Aquitaine.
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Isabella of Angouleme, the second wife of King John, also brought her husband the country of Angouleme, so strategically important that John was forced to act to acquire her lands so that they did not fall into the hands of a rival. Not all queens brought lands with them however: Eleanor of Provence brought her husband little in the way of material benefit. However through marrying Henry III did neutralise any political advantage that his rival, the King of France, had gained from marrying Eleanor’s sister, ensuring support for English interests on the continent. Similarly, Eleanor of Castile and Isabella of France were selected as brides in an attempt to ensure the protection of Gascony, and Berengaria of Navarre, the wife of Richard I, was chosen to win the support of her brother for her husband’s rule in the province.
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Post-conquest queens were therefore chosen from across Europe rather than from the English nobility due to the advantage it gave their husbands in continental affairs. Just how marked a change this was is clear from the fact that, of all the queens who reigned between the Norman conquest and the late fourteenth century, only one was of English birth. John’s first wife, Isabella of Gloucester was an English heiress and selected for her wealth rather than any political advantage she might bring.
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However, she is certainly an exception and her marriage occurred whilst John was still a younger son with little chance of a throne. Almost as soon as John had secured the crown for himself in 1199, he began looking around for another wife and, soon after her husband’s coronation, Isabella of Gloucester had been divorced in favour of the more politically glamorous Isabella of Angouleme.
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The foreign nature of most queens in this period did however also have an effect on their reputations; Eleanor of Provence for example was often unfairly criticised and censured for her non-English birth.

A change in how queens were selected was not the only change that the Norman conquest brought to the office of queenship. Another consequence of the new interest in continental affairs was that queens were expected to play a more active political role in representing the royal family whilst the king was in another part of his empire. When William the Conqueror left Normandy for his invasion of England, his wife Matilda of Flanders remained as co-regent of Normandy with Roger of Montgomery.
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Matilda obviously did a good job and, in 1069, she was sent back to Normandy from England. Orderic Vitalis described how ‘King William sent his beloved wife Matilda back to Normandy so that she might give up her time to religious devotions in peace, away from the English tumults and together with the boy Robert could keep the Duchy secure’.
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It seems probable that Matilda’s return to Normandy was due more to the need for a member of the ducal family to keep an eye on William’s affairs there than to Matilda’s desire for religious devotions and, throughout her time as Duchess of Normandy and Queen of England, she spent time as regent in both countries.

Matilda of Flander’s daughter-in-law, Matilda of Scotland, was also expected to play the role of regent in England during the frequent absences of her husband, Henry I. She had, in fact, been ruling England capably for two years as regent when she died in 1118 and her rule was probably used as a model of what a queen could be by her daughter, the Empress Matilda.
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Eleanor of Aquitaine, the wife of Henry II, was also frequently left as regent in England whilst Henry visited his continental domains and she took on the role capably following the accession of her son, Richard I. It is clear, therefore, that many post-conquest queens were actively encouraged to take on political roles whilst their husbands were absent and it was only with the decline of the continental empire that this aspect of queenship declined. Even after the disasters of John’s reign, however, and the loss of most of the continental possessions, queens were still called upon to act as regents from time to time when their husbands were abroad. For example, Eleanor of Provence acted as regent whilst her husband, Henry III, was campaigning in Gascony. Allowing the queen to rule as regent in her husband’s absence greatly increased the responsibility given to the king’s wife compared to that of the Anglo-Saxon period. However, in many respects the role was still essentially the same and queens were expected to behave in similar ways to their Anglo-Saxon predecessors.

William I presented himself as an English king and heir to Edward the Confessor following his victory at Hastings. Accordingly his wife, Matilda of Flanders, was presented as an English queen and heir to the Confessor’s wife, Edith Godwine. Matilda would have based many of her ideas of queenship on her immediate predecessors in England and she would have understood, like her predecessors, what made a good or notorious queen.

In spite of their increased political role, post-conquest queens were still expected, first and foremost, to produce an heir. Failure to produce a son could have disastrous consequences for a queen in a still heavily male-dominated society. It seems unlikely that the childless Isabella of Gloucester, for example, would have been divorced if she had borne King John a son and heir. Eleanor of Provence was also under pressure to produce an heir after several years of barren marriage and there were rumours across England that she was infertile. This must have been discomfiting for the young queen who was still only in her late teens and it must have been with relief that she finally provided Henry III with a son. Queens in the post-conquest period would have known, like Anglo-Saxon queens such as Edith Godwine, that childlessness had the power to marginalise a queen and even strip them of that role. It is unlikely that Berengaria of Navarre, queen of Richard I, for example, would have lived a life of such great obscurity had she been mother to her husband’s heir. The importance of Matilda of Scotland was diminished posthumously with the death of her only son two years after her own death. Queens were always expected to be mothers; to produce healthy sons was a prerequisite for being a good queen. In the eyes of their contemporaries, particularly the male chroniclers, it was always the queen’s fault if no heir was born and it was always the queen, never the king, who was criticised for that failure.

Fertility was, of course, not the only requirement of a good queen. As in the pre-conquest era, post-conquest queens were expected to be god-fearing and the most famous ‘good’ queens of the period are remembered as deeply pious. There were no saintly queens in the post-conquest period but, certainly, Matilda of Scotland was venerated to a near-saintly level for centuries after her death. She is also described in the sources in similar terms to those used for her saintly predecessors, St Aelfgifu and St Wulfthryth. Whilst St Wulfthryth retired from the world to avoid the repetition of the sexual act following the birth of her daughter, Matilda of Scotland appears to have found an equally successful deterrent. According to William of Malmesbury, ‘the bearing of two children, one of either sex, left her content, and for the future she ceased either to have offspring or desire them, satisfied, when the king was busy elsewhere, to bid the court goodbye herself, and spent many years at Westminster’.
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This implies that Matilda also chose to shun sexual relations with her husband in favour of a religious life. However, there were rumours that the real reason behind the couple’s lack of further children after the birth of their heir was that Henry I was disgusted by his wife’s kisses on the sores of lepers as part of her religious devotions and shunned her bed for fear of catching some contagion.
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Regardless of the underlying reality, Matilda of Scotland is remembered as a good queen in a similar way to her Anglo-Saxon predecessors, that is for her religious devotions. Piety was always a very important aspect of the role of queen and every female monarch in the period between the Norman conquest and the end of the fourteenth century is remembered as a patron of the Church.

Clearly, therefore, much of what had been expected of an Anglo-Saxon queen was still the case for the post-conquest period and any who failed to live up to this model ran the risk of being labelled as a bad or notorious queen. Queens were still not expected to have political ambitions of their own and any political activity carried out by her was to be for the benefit of a male family member rather than herself. This unwritten rule caused trouble for a number of post-conquest queens who, perhaps bolstered by the greater political role they were offered, sought to extend their power even further. The Empress Matilda is a prime example of this. As a Queen Regnant she was in the unfortunate position of trying to assert her own rights without a male relative to hide behind. She can be contrasted effectively with her contemporary, Matilda of Boulogne, who, whilst also militarily and politically active, escaped much of the reprehension directed at the Empress.
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The difference lies in the fact that Matilda of Boulogne always acted in the name of her husband and son whilst the Empress was forced, by necessity, to act for herself. As a consequence, the Empress Matilda is remembered as greedy and arrogant whilst Matilda of Boulogne is a selfless individual who fought on behalf of her family. To their contemporaries, a woman’s place was as a quiet supporter of her male kin and Empress Matilda, by virtue of her position as heir to the throne could never achieve this. By failing to live up to the ideals of queenship, however unattainable, Empress Matilda’s reputation paid the price and she will be forever notorious. To modern eyes however she appears courageous in fighting for her rights when the odds were heavily stacked against her.

As with the Anglo-Saxon period, the post-conquest period produced a number of notorious queens and this was due to their perceived failure to live up to contemporary, male ideals of queenship. Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of Angouleme, Eleanor of Provence, Eleanor of Castile and Isabella of France are all remembered as selfish and greedy women, often eager for power at the expense of their husbands. The period certainly produced the first queens to rebel against their husbands and it saw the murder of one king at the hands of his wife. However both Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of France, who are known to have rebelled against their husbands, went through difficult times and their actions now seem understandable, even if they were not to the chroniclers. Eleanor of Aquitaine had been the greatest heiress in Europe and by the time of her rebellion she had endured over a decade of infidelity and indifference from her husband, Henry II. Isabella of France was unfortunate enough to be married as a child to the homosexual Edward II who also flaunted his male lovers at her expense during their marriage. Is it therefore surprising that Eleanor, a great heiress in her own right, and Isabella, the daughter of the most powerful ruler in Europe, were not content to simply ignore this behaviour? It is certainly true that many queens of the period would not have taken this action but both had their reasons which would have been socially acceptable if they had been men. Most of the notorious queens in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries were also very political and it was this political activity that terrified their contemporaries and caused them to attack their reputations. For all the changes that the conquest brought to queenship, the expected role of women still remained woefully stagnant.