General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> Of England
1  BIRT
2  DATE 1102
2  SOUR S1090
2  SOUR S1108
Royal Abbey, Reading??
http://www.3angelz.com/d0003/g0000070.html#I4941...........
.......................................Matilda 1102-67, que
en of England, daughter of HENRY I. In 1114 she married Hol
y Roman Emperor HENRY V. After his deathshe married (1128
) Geoffrey IV of Anjou. At her father's death(1135) her cou
sin STEPHEN seized the English throne. In 1139Matilda and h
er half brother Robert, earl of Gloucester,challenged Steph
en, and she was elected Lady of the English in1141. Unabl
e to establish her rule, she withdrew her claim in1148 in f
avor of her son Henry (later HENRY II).
WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, WINCHESTER,HAMPSHIRE.................
...............Winchester Cathedral is the second longest i
n Europ after St.Peter's in Rome, a fact one would readil
y dispute based onexternal assessment alone, as the buildin
g somhow fails to cratean impression of great length.  As s
oon as one enters thesoaring, fourteenth-century.  Perpendi
cular nave, however, suchdoubts are dispelled and the churc
h seems to stretch to infinitybeyond the choir screen, cert
ainly appearing even longer thanits actual 556 feet. Work o
n the present church began in 1079under the direction of Bi
shop Walkelin to replace the huge Saxonfoundation of Old Mi
nster that housed the relics of St. Swithun,a ninth-centur
y bishop whose name is forever associated with wetEnglish s
ummers.  A shrine was eventually erected to Swithun inthe n
ew church, and became an important place of pilgrimage; for
a time, ony Thomas a Becket's shrine in Canterbury was more
visited. Romanesque architecture from that firest phase ofr
econstruction survives intact in both north and south trans
eptsand also in the crypt, which is no prone to flooding i
n winter.Problems with Winchester's raised water table ha
d seriouslythreatened the cathedral's very survival at th
e turn of thecentury when it was discovered that the origin
al timberfoundations were disintegrating and causing strutu
ralinstability.  The cathedral's saviour is generally ackno
wledgedas William Walker, a deep-sea diver who spent five y
ears workingin up to 20 feet of water underpinning the wall
s by replacingrotten timbers and layers of soggy peat wit
h countless bags ofdement. Winchester was once capital of W
essex and then of allEngland during the reign of Alfred th
e Great, a status itretained until well after the Norman Co
nquest when it wasgradually eclipsed by London.  One of th
e most lavish royalevents to have taken place in the cathed
ral was thepost-Dissolution wedding of Mary Tudor to Phili
p of Spain in1554, ironically the same person who, as Kin
g of Spain, wouldlater be sending his Armada to interrupt S
ir Francis Drake'sgame of bowlsin Plymouth. Several of th
e Saxon kings who wererowned and buried here are reprsente
d by their coloufullyinscribed mortuary chests.  These lin
e the presytery, which isdominated by the massive, fifteent
h-century stone screen whosemany delicately carved niches a
re filled with quite superbemodern replicas of the origina
l saints' statues that weredesecrated and smashed during th
e Reformation. The Winchester'swindows were once adorned b
y sumptuous displays of painted glassis evident from thos
e fragments that survived the vandalisminflicted ont he chu
rch by Cromwell's Parliamentarian troopsduring the Civil Wa
r.  The confusing, coloured patchwork of thenave's west win
dow was created from shards and segments rescuedfrom the sh
attered original.
1  BIRT
2  DATE 1102
2  SOUR S1090
2  SOUR S1108
Royal Abbey, Reading??
http://www.3angelz.com/d0003/g0000070.html#I4941...........
.......................................Matilda 1102-67, que
en of England, daughter of HENRY I. In 1114 she married Hol
y Roman Emperor HENRY V. After his deathshe married (1128
) Geoffrey IV of Anjou. At her father's death(1135) her cou