Matilda of Boulogne, queen of England
Overview
Biography
(See also Genealogical Table(s): 2.3, 2.4.2.)Matilda, queen of king Stephen, was the daughter of Eustace III of Boulogne and Mary, a princess of Scotland. She was first cousin through her mother to empress Matilda; the empress was the major rival for the throne of England of Matilda of Boulogne’s husband Stephen. Matilda herself had an English lineage: her mother was the daughter of Margaret, a niece of Edgar Atheling, and Malcolm Canmore, king of Scots. Queen Matilda was, in the words of Marjorie Chibnall, “a woman as resolute and indomitable as the empress herself.”(1) She played a role in the struggle for succession: she represented the king at a meeting of the two sides in 1140; and when Stephen was captured by the empress, his queen kept the English resistance to the Angevins alive, and took his place as a hostage when he was freed. Orderic Vitalis reports that she besieged Dover with a strong force by land and sent to her people in Boulogne to blockade it by sea (13.37). Matilda and Stephen had three children, Eustace, who died in 1153, William, count of Boulogne, who died in 1159, and Marie, countess of Boulogne from 1159.(2) Queen Matilda died in 1152, Stephen in 1154.
Letters to Matilda of Boulogne, queen of England
A letter from Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot (1130-1137)A letter from Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot (c.1140?)
A letter from Eugene III, pope (1147)