Foulques IV., le Réchin, was a scholar, and wrote a Latin history of Anjou, of which, however, only a fragment is preserved. He was as wicked as most of the race, fierce, violent, and voluptuous. He was no longer a young man, and had been twice married and once divorced (one tradition says that he was the husband of the demon-countess), when, in 1089, he cast his eyes on the beautiful young Bertrade, daughter of the Count de Montfort, and promised Duke Robert of Normandy to make over to him the county of Maine, if he would use his influence with her parents to obtain her for him.
The Count de Montfort would not give up his daughter to the wicked old Angevin, till Robert, in his usual weak, good-natured fashion, had yielded up a number of his own frontier castles as her purchase. Foulques did indeed put Maine into his hands; but he did not keep it long, for Helie de la Flèche set up his claim, and maintained it as we have seen. Nor did Foulques gain much by his bargain; for Bertrade had no perfection but her beauty, and, in the fourth year of her marriage, abandoned him and her infant son, and went to the court of Philippe I. of France, who had lately grown weary of his queen Bertha, the mother of his four children, and had shut her up in the castle of Montreuil.
Philippe found some pretext for declaring that his first marriage and Bertrade’s were both null and void; but not one French bishop could be found to solemnize the disgraceful union he desired. He was obliged to look beyond his own dominion, and it is said that it was the brother of the Conqueror, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who consented to pronounce a blessing over their marriage.
They were not, however, allowed to sin unmolested. Bertrade’s husband made war on them on one side, Bertha’s brother on the other. Philippe’s son Louis fled to the protection of the English; and the Pope laid them under excommunication. For nine years, however, they persisted in their crime; but at last they made a show of penitence; the King pretended to renounce Bertrade, and they were absolved.
Bertrade had forsaken her child; but she was very anxious that he should succeed his father, instead of his elder brother Geoffrey, a high-spirited youth, whom the peasantry of Anjou regarded as their friend and protector. She contrived to sow dissension between him and his father, and at last caused him to be assassinated.
Then she chose to come to Angers to see her son heir of Anjou, and actually brought the King with her; made Philippe and her husband behave in the most friendly manner, eat at the same table, sleep on the same couch; and Foulques was even base enough to sit on a footstool at the feet of this woman, who could scarcely have been better than the witch-lady herself.
After the death of Philippe she returned to Anjou, and went into the Abbey of Fontevraud, where she practised such rigorous penances that her health sank under them.
Her son, Foulques V., succeeded to the county in 1109, and was a much better man than could have been expected from the son of such parents. His wife was Sybil, daughter of Helie de la Flèche, an excellent, gentle, and pious lady, whom he loved devotedly.
His eldest daughter, the Alix, or noble maid of Anjou, whose name seems to have been Matilda, was betrothed to William the Etheling, son of Henry I., in order to detach her father from the cause of the unfortunate William Clito of Normandy.
Their marriage took place in the autumn of 1120, when the bridegroom was seventeen and the bride twelve. It was celebrated with great splendor, and all the Norman barons did homage to young William as their future Duke. Afterward the English court repaired to Barfleur, there to embark for their own island; but there was considerable delay in collecting shipping enough for so numerous a party, and it was not possible to set sail till the 25th of November. Just as the King was about to embark, a mariner, named Thomas Fitzstephen, addressed him, with the offering of a golden mark, saying that his father had had the honor of carrying King William to the conquest of England, and entreating that his beautiful new vessel, the Blanche Nef, or White Ship, with fifty good oarsmen, might transport the present King.