General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> Princess
Note: Christened Edith, but adopted the name Matilda upon h
er marriage to Henry I. It was thought the Norman barons mi
ght not respect a queen with a Saxon name. The marriage t
o Henry represented the union of the Norman & Saxon royal l
ines.
(Research):Edith - Margaret (Matilda) of Scotland , born i
n 1080 and died in 1118, married Henry I. Beauclerc, King o
f England, son of William I The Conqueror (ruler from 106
6 to 1087) and his wife, Matilda of Flanders, who died in 1
083. See this lineage in the Early French Ancestors in Volu
me I. Matilda was educated at Wilton and Romsey Abbey wher
e she said that her aunt, Christina, forced her to wear a b
lack veil. She threw it on the ground whenever left alone
, in spite of beatings. When her mother died she came to En
gland to Edgar Atheling, her uncle. She was a sister of Kin
g David of Scotland; she was a correspondent of Anselm an
d Hildebert, Bishop of Le Mans, who wrote poetry about her
. She was a symbol of the union of Saxon and Norman. She wa
s Henry's Queen for seventeen years and six months, and die
d in her prime like most of her family. Henry and Matilda h
ad a son and a daughter as follows:
1. William, Duke of Normandy, died in a shipwreck in 1119.
2. Matilda (Maud the Empress) 
In addition to these legitimate births, Henry is reported t
o have had nineteen or twenty illegitimate children, the hi
ghest number of spurious offspring for a King of England t
o have acknowledged. The best known of them all is Robert t
he Consul, Earl of Gloucester, father of Maud, wife of Ranu
lph de Meschines, 2nd Earl of Chester. Another was Reginald
, a natural son from a relationship between Henry I. of Eng
land and his mistress, Elizabeth Beaumont, daughter of Robe
rt de Beaumont, Count of Meulent and Earl of Leicester, (so
n of Roger de Beaumont and his wife, Adelina, Countess of M
eulent) and his wife Elizabeth Vermandois, younger daughte
r of Hugh Magnus, the Great, of France, Count of Vermandois
. Reginald, married Beatrix, daughter of William Fitz Richa
rd, a potent lord in Cornwall. They had a daughter, Matilda
, who married Robert, Count of Meulent, son of Waleran II.
, Count of Meulent, who married Agnes de Montfort. Walera
n II. was a son of the aforementioned Robert Beaumont, an
d his wife, Elizabeth Vermandois. Robert and Matilda had tw
o children: Waleran III. and Mabel de Beaumont, who marrie
d William de Vernon, Earl of Devon, who had three children
: Baldwin, Mary Vernon and Joan. Their descendants are no
t identified.
Henry I. also married (2) Adeliza of Lorraine, daughter o
f Geoffrey Barbatus, Duke of Lorraine and Count of Barbant
. Adeliza of Lorraine, upon the death of Henry I., marrie
d (2) William de Albini . See the continuation of that line
age under the Albini Line in Volume II.