Ancestral Trails 2016 » MATILDA de BOULOGNE (1105-1151)

Personal data MATILDA de BOULOGNE 

• She was born in the year 1105 in Boulogne, Pas-de-Calais, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.

  Attention: Age at marriage (??-??-1120) below 16 years (15).

  Attention: Was younger than 16 years (15) when child (EUSTACHE de BOULOGNE) was born (??-??-1120) .

• Title: Countess of Boulogne, Queen Consort of England
• (Ancestry) : House of Flanders.
• She died on May 3, 1151 in Hedingham Castle, Hedingham Sibley, Essex, she was 46 years old.
• She is buried May 1151 in Faversham Abbey, Berkshire.
• A child of EUSTACHE de BOULOGNE and MARY OF SCOTLAND

Household of MATILDA de BOULOGNE

She is married to STEPHEN de BLOIS.

They got married in the year 1120 at Blois, Loir-et-Cher, Centre, France, she was 15 years old.

Child(ren):

1. Baldwin de BLOIS  1126-1135
2. William de BLOIS  1131-1159
3. Matilda de BLOIS  1134-1140
4. EUSTACHE de BOULOGNE  1120-1153 
5. MARIE de BLOIS  1139-1182 

• The couple has common ancestors.



Notes about MATILDA de BOULOGNE

Matilda I (or Maud) (1105? - 3 May 1152) was suo jure Countess of Boulogne. She was also queen consort of England as the wife of King Stephen. She is not to be confused with the Empress Matilda, her first cousin, with whom she and her husband fought for the English throne in the civil war known as the Anarchy. During this period, Matilda was forced to play an unusually active role for a woman of the period when her husband was captured, and proved herself an effective general who managed to force her cousin to release him. Under the agreement that settled the civil war, her children did not inherit the throne.

She was born in Boulogne, France, the daughter of Eustace III, Count of Boulogne, and his wife Mary, daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret of Scotland. Matilda was first cousin of her husband's rival, Empress Matilda. Through her maternal grandmother, Matilda was descended from the pre-Conquest English kings.

In 1125, Matilda married Stephen of Blois, Count of Mortain, who possessed a large honour in England. When Matilda's father abdicated and retired to a monastery the same year, this was joined with Boulogne and the similarly large English honour Matilda inherited. On Eustace III's death, Matilda and her husband became joint rulers of Boulogne. Two children, a son and a daughter, were born to the countess and count of Boulogne during the reign of King Henry I, who had granted them a residence in London. The son was named Baldwin, after Matilda's uncle, King Baldwin I of Jerusalem. The daughter was named Matilda. Baldwin died in early childhood and the young Matilda is thought to have died during childhood too, although she lived long enough to be espoused to Waleran de Meulan, Earl of Worcester.

Queenship
On the death of Henry I of England in 1135, Stephen rushed to England, taking advantage of Boulogne's control of the closest seaports, and was crowned king, beating his rival, the Empress Matilda. Matilda of Boulogne was heavily pregnant at that time and crossed the Channel after giving birth to a son, Eustace, who would one day succeed her as count of Boulogne. Matilda was crowned queen at Easter, on 22 March 1136.

Matilda was a supporter of the Knights Templar. She founded Cressing Temple in Essex in 1137 and Temple Cowley in Oxford in 1139. Like her predecessor, Matilda of Scotland, she had a close relationship with the Holy Trinity Priory at Aldgate. She took the prior as her confessor and two of her children were buried there.

In the civil war that followed, known as the Anarchy, Matilda proved to be her husband's strongest supporter. When England was invaded in 1138, she called troops from Boulogne and its ally Flanders, and besieged Dover Castle with success and then went north to Durham, where she made a treaty with David I of Scotland in 1139.

After Stephen was captured at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, she rallied the king's partisans, and raised an army with the help of William of Ypres. While the Empress Matilda waited in London to prepare her coronation, Matilda and Stephen's brother Henry of Blois had her chased out of the city. The Empress Matilda went on to besiege Henry of Blois at Winchester. Matilda of Boulogne then commanded her army to attack the besiegers. There was a rout in which the Empress's half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, was captured. The two Matildas then agreed to exchange prisoners and Stephen ruled as king again.

Matilda died of a fever at Hedingham Castle, Essex, England, and is buried at Faversham Abbey, which she and her husband founded.

Stephen and Matilda had three sons:
Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne, married Constance of France, no issue
Baldwin of Boulogne (d. before 1135)
William of Blois, Count of Mortain and Boulogne and Earl of Surrey, married Isabel de Warenne, no issue

They also had two daughters:
Matilda of Boulogne, married Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester, no issue
Marie I, Countess of Boulogne, married Matthew of Alsace, had issue
SOURCE: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_of_Boulogne

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Timeline MATILDA de BOULOGNE

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