“Sic igitur nuptiæ magnifice, ut decuit, celebrabantur, et tanto ardentius exarsit rex in ipsius amorem, quanto scelestius adamavit. Secundum illud poeticum
“Nitimur in vetitum semper.”
Peccato igitur exigente, facta est commotio subito in regno.”
From this point Matthew goes on copying Roger of Wendover’s account of Robert’s invasion, but putting in bits of colouring of his own. When Henry sends his fleet to meet that of Robert, we are told that he does it “conscientiam habens multipliciter cauteriatam.” And when some of the sailors (see [p. 404])—who are enlarged by Robert of Wendover into “pars major exercitus”—go over to Robert, the reason for their so doing is said to be “quia rex jam tyrannizaverat.”
There is something very strange in this echo at so late a time of objections which one would have thought that both common sense and the authority of Anselm would have set aside for ever. Was there any lurking wish in the thirteenth century to weaken the title of the Angevin kings, even on so stale a ground as the doubtful validity of the marriage of so distant an ancestress? We must remember that something of the kind really happened in Scotland long after. The right of the Stewarts was murmured against at a very late time on the ground of the doubtful marriage of Robert the Second. And we have seen that in an intermediate time, during the reign of Stephen, the validity of the elder Matilda’s marriage, and the consequent legitimacy of the younger Matilda, were called in question by Stephen’s supporters in arguments before the papal court. See N. C. vol. v. p. 857.
There is something singular in the way in which the marriage is entered in the Winchester Annals (1100), among a crowd of other facts not put in exact chronological order; “Matildis, Malcolmi regis filia Scotiæ, de monacha Wiltoniæ non tamen professa, regina Angliæ facta est.” One almost thinks of the wild story about Eadgyth of Wilton which I have spoken of in N. C. vol. i. p. 267. But the words have a parallel in the language of the Brut (1098, that is 1110), which, after the account of Henry’s election, adds,
“And immediately he took for his wife Mahalt, daughter of Malcolm, king of Prydyn, by Queen Margaret her mother [‘Vahalt uerch y Moel Cólóm, brenhin Prydein’—another manuscript more reasonably has ‘y Pictieit’—‘o Vargaret urenhines y mam’]. And she, by his marrying her, was raised to the rank of queen; for William Rufus [Gúilim Goch] his brother, in his lifetime, had consorted with concubines, and on that account had died without an heir.” Cf. [p. 503.]
I have said, what is perfectly true, that Orderic is the only writer who directly mentions that Matilda had once borne the name of Eadgyth. But I think that I have lighted on a most curious trace of the fact in a later writer. Peter Langtoft (i. 448) mentions the return of Robert, and adds;
“La femme le duk Robert fu en proteccioun
Le counte de Cornewaylle, fillye [fu] Charloun