The exact date of Matilda’s return to Normandy is difficult to determine, but it would have been sometime between the Whitsun Council¹ and the beginning of the northern uprising in the autumn of 1069. She assumed the regency, with Roger de Beaumont and Archbishop John of Rouen (an influential ecclesiastic who mirrored Lanfranc’s role in England) as her advisers. It would prove her longest and most challenging tenure to date.

As usual, one of the most pressing demands upon Matilda’s time as regent was the administration of justice. The cases over which she presided would have varied enormously in nature and complexity. For example, among the many disputes upon which she had previously passed judgment was one that involved the abbey of St.-Martin in Marmoutier, which had been granted an income from customs by William. The new vicomte, Robert Betran, denied all knowledge of the grant and kept the money for himself. One of the monks, Goscelin, was dispatched to England to seek justice from the king in person. Upon hearing the case, William angrily sent the monk back to Normandy so that the queen could deal with it. It was clear that if any Norman sought redress from him rather than Matilda, they would receive short shrift. And indeed Matilda wasted no time in reprimanding Betran and demanded that he restore the funds to the abbey.²

The legal affairs of Normandy were no less demanding during Matilda’s latest regency, and her authority in such matters was stronger than ever before. However, a series of crises meant that she had a good deal less time to devote to them. Although the situation within the duchy itself was stable when she returned there in 1069, trouble was brewing beyond its borders. She had only been back in Normandy a short while when the province of Maine, which William had conquered in 1063, broke out in rebellion. It was led by the powerful nobleman Geoffrey de Mayenne, who gained a huge groundswell of support from inhabitants of the province (known as the Manceaux) who wanted to regain their independence from Normandy. Before long, the capital city, Le Mans, had been lost to the rebels, and Normandy’s hold on the province began to crumble.

Matilda was now faced with a hostile and dangerous neighbor on her duchy’s southwestern border. Worse was to come. Later in 1069, two of William’s bitterest rivals, the king of France and the duke of Brittany, joined forces and launched an attack on Normandy. The duchess sent an urgent request to her husband for military assistance: evidently the troops that she had at her disposal in Normandy had been depleted by the constant need for reinforcements in England. Alarmed, William immediately dispatched the son of his trusted official William fitzOsbern to defend her—presumably with a retinue of men.

Matilda had barely had time to recover from this when word reached her of yet another crisis. This time it was not in Normandy, but her native land of Flanders. On July 16, 1070, Matilda’s brother, Count Baldwin VI, died unexpectedly, leaving his son Arnulf as heir. Because Arnulf was then only about fifteen years old, his mother, Richildis, the countess of Mons and Hainault, was appointed regent. As was so often the case, the accession of a minor sparked unrest. This time it was the nominated heir’s own uncle who rebelled.

Robert the Frisian, as he was known, was Matilda’s brother, and the younger of the two recorded sons born to Baldwin V and Adela. Like his sister’s, his marriage had been arranged for political gain.³ His bride was Gertrude, the countess of Frisia, whose homeland bordered Flanders on the northern side. Residing with her in Frisia, Robert had evidently maintained a close interest in his native land, for he immediately seized the initiative upon his brother’s early death and began rallying support for his own claim to the throne. He found a willing ally in the form of Henry III, the German emperor, who had long been an adversary of the Norman dynasty and was therefore happy to help cause trouble in Matilda’s homeland.⁴

It is interesting to note that one of the chief chroniclers of the age blamed the unrest not upon Robert the Frisian’s overweening ambition but upon the failings of the Flanders regent, Arnulf’s mother, Richildis. According to Malmesbury, “she, with a woman’s ambition, was forming plans beyond her sex,” and had levied an onerous new tax upon her people that incited them to revolt. Robert was merely answering their calls for assistance rather than attempting to seize power for himself.⁵ This account owes more to the misogyny of the author than the truth of what occurred, and it reflects the widespread prejudice against female rule that Matilda was forced to overcome. The fact that there were no disparaging remarks about her own regency suggests that she demonstrated exceptional strength and ability.

Matilda was greatly distressed when she heard of the turmoil caused by her brother’s treachery and immediately wrote to her husband asking for military assistance. William seemed rather reluctant to intervene in what he viewed as a family dispute, but out of respect for his wife, this time he dispatched William fitzOsbern himself⁶—“the bravest of the Normans”—with a small force (according to one account, just ten Norman knights) to assist the young Count Arnulf.⁷ Interestingly, Jumièges—not usually generous in his praise of Matilda—accords her a greater role in the crisis than any of the other sources. He claims that it was she, not William, who sent fitzOsbern to Flanders, and that he was accompanied by “a large army.”⁸ Such power and independence were unmatched by any other consort’s across western Europe.

William’s reluctance may have been due in part to the fact that the situation in England was once more volatile and he could ill afford the loss of men and munitions. The latest threat of rebellion came from Edwin of Mercia, who together with his brother Morcar had posed a constant danger to William’s regime ever since his victory at Hastings. Edwin had been betrothed to William’s eldest daughter in 1067, but the king refused to set a date for the wedding and four years later he reneged on the deal altogether. Orderic blamed the king’s change of mind on his “listening to the dishonest counsels of his envious and greedy Norman followers,” after which he “withheld the maiden from the noble youth.”⁹ During the rebellion, which took place in 1071, Edwin was treacherously killed by his own men. They subsequently made their way to court and presented the earl’s severed head to William, thinking it would please the king. But the latter was so horrified upon seeing the grisly spectacle that he was moved to tears. Adeliza was said to be devastated upon hearing that yet another engagement had come to nothing. She eschewed all further talk of marriage and entered a nunnery. It is to be hoped that she was not driven to do so by witnessing the sight that had so shocked her battle-worn father.¹⁰

Meanwhile, William fitzOsbern had journeyed to Flanders “gaily as if to a tournament.”¹¹ He apparently did not take the crisis there as seriously as Matilda did. But help came from another quarter, too. There is little record of Matilda’s mother, Adela, since she attended her daughter’s wedding at Eu around 1050 and spent some time in the Norman court during her grandson Robert’s infancy. If the two women had met or corresponded since then, the evidence has been lost. But this does not necessarily mean that they had not been in contact: the letters of medieval women—even those of high standing—were often lost or destroyed, being considered of no importance next to the deeds of their male counterparts. Adela certainly shared her daughter’s horror at the events that were unfolding in Flanders. Even though Robert the Frisian was her son, she abhorred his attempts to overturn the rightful succession and was determined to stop him. Calling upon her family connections, she urged King Philip of France to intervene.

The young French king seemed to hold his aunt in some esteem, for he consented to her request and duly sent troops to Arnulf’s aid. However, this was not enough to counter a surprise attack by Robert’s forces at Cassel on February 22, 1071. Among the Frisian’s troops was Gerbod, the earl of Chester, the man inaccurately described as a son of Matilda by her alleged first marriage. Evidently he considered his loyalty to Robert greater than that to either Arnulf or King William. It was he who struck the killer blow in an encounter with the young Arnulf. William fitzOsbern was also slain in the battle. Matilda’s brother won the day and seized control of the principality.

With his forces tied up in England, William had no choice but to accept Robert as the count of Flanders. The French king, too, now washed his hands of the affair. Matilda herself was deeply affected by these recent events, and she would have drawn scant comfort from the fact that her mother had apparently managed to gain a foothold in Robert’s court. According to Orderic Vitalis, she was “overwhelmed with grief at … the cruelty of her brother, who had brought about the ruin of another brother, a dear nephew, and many friends.”¹² Although Robert had made a concession by granting their younger nephew, Baldwin, the territory of Hainault, which had been annexed to Flanders upon the accession of Baldwin VI and Richildis, this did little to offset her bitterness at the treachery of his actions.

As we know, Matilda had always been proud of her heritage, but her brother’s usurpation had put a stain on the family name. Moreover, it had destroyed the alliance between Flanders and Normandy. Orderic Vitalis describes the “mutual and lasting hostility” that “arose between the Normans and Flemings, partly because of the slaying of the queen’s brother [nephew] and other kinsfolk, but chiefly because of the fate of Earl William fitzOsbern.”¹³ Thus when Richildis and her surviving son, Baldwin, withdrew to Hainault and attempted to drum up support for recapturing Flanders, William and Matilda both supported their quest.

For his part, Robert the Frisian was openly hostile to Normandy, and as count, he would prove a thorn in William’s side for many years to come. He married his daughter Adela to King Cnut of Denmark, one of William’s most powerful opponents, and would later assist him in an attempted invasion of England.¹⁴ In the meantime, he made Flanders a refuge for English opponents of William’s regime. They included Edgar the Aetheling, who arrived there in 1072. Robert had also formed a dangerous alliance with William’s archenemies closer to home. Principal among these was King Philip of France, whose friendship was soon “easily won.”¹⁵ To seal their newfound alliance, Philip married Robert’s stepdaughter, Bertha of Holland. Matilda’s brother further strengthened his connections with Normandy’s hostile neighbors by courting the goodwill of Geoffrey Martel, the count of Anjou, and Conan, the duke of Brittany. According to Orderic Vitalis, the three men “hatched many plots” against William, “but though they hoped for great gain and laid cunning traps they never secured what they desired.”¹⁶

Although the end result was not as she might have wished, the fact that Matilda had been so determined to use her position as regent of Normandy to try to resolve the political turmoil in her native Flanders hints at a strong sense of justice, as well as tenacity and resourcefulness. These were qualities that would increasingly come to the fore during the years that followed. Moreover, during the next few years, Matilda would consistently urge her husband to go on the offensive against her usurper brother, which is perhaps testament to another of her defining qualities: ambition. As Robert’s sister—and possibly the oldest of all Baldwin V’s children—she had a strong claim to the principality, and she was surely keen to govern Flanders herself. Her esteemed position as duchess of Normandy and queen of England served to strengthen this claim still further. But there was little she could do without her husband’s military might. No matter how much William might have wished to satisfy his wife’s wishes, his forces were fully engaged in England and Normandy, and he rightly judged that an attempt upon Flanders would overstretch his resources.

However, Matilda’s ambitious side would become increasingly apparent in the future, and she would grow ever more independent from her husband as her confidence in her own abilities grew. This latter development would have devastating consequences for both her marriage and the Norman dynasty as a whole.