“How fares it with the king and my Edward?” asked the dying queen, as her son Edgar entered the room. The young prince was silent, but his sad face spoke more than words.
“I know all—I know all,” sobbed his mother; “but speak the worst.”
“Then your husband and son are both slain!” replied Edgar.
The widowed queen lifted up her hands and eyes to heaven and prayed, and, as the last words were uttered, she died.
Then Maude and Mary were sent back to their aunt Christina to complete their education.
While they were there, the news suddenly burst upon England that William Rufus, the Red King, had been shot by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest, and that his brother Henry intended to be King of England, as Robert the elder brother was away fighting in the Holy Land. Henry said, if the people would only make him king, he would do everything they wished; and, when they at last consented, he pleased them all by marrying Maude, the daughter of good Queen Margaret, and descended from Alfred the Great, whose memory all England loved.
At first Christina the abbess refused to allow her niece to marry the king, and, knowing what a bad man Henry was, Maude refused too. But at last, commanded by her brother Edgar, urged by the people, entreated by the king, she consented. So they were married on November 11th, in 1100, and Archbishop Anselm preached a very celebrated sermon to the crowds who had come to see the royal wedding. Then Maude was crowned Queen of England, to the joy of the people.
She was very kind to the poor and to all around her; every day in Lent she went barefoot, clothed in haircloth, to wash the feet of the poorest people, after the custom of her mother. She had hospitals built, new roads made, and bridges over the rivers.
One day she was riding on horseback through a ford on the river Lea, with her train of attendants. The river was flooded, and the current sweeping along so fast, that they were in danger of perishing, and out of gratitude for her life, Queen Maude caused the first arched bridge ever known in England to be built.
In 1102, a little son was born, and named William, after his grandfather William the Conqueror.