General Notes

For many years it was assumed that Gundred, who married William deWarrene, was a daughter of William I and Matilda (as indicated in ThePlantagenet Ancestry).  However it is now known that Gundred was adaughter of Gherbod the Fleming (as indicated in Ancestral Roots).  Thefollowing information strongly suggests that Gundred's mother was Matilda(thus the mistaken notion that she was daughter of William I).

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copied from Bill Crawford's ancestry: crawfolk data base on World ConnectProject, rootsweb.com
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Had Matilda of Flanders as many husbands as Adelaide, Countess ofPonthieu, and, like her, issue by each? What was the real cause of theinhibition of her marriage with William, Duke of Normandy, — its delayfor six years? What truth is there in the story of her unreturnedaffection for the Angio-Saxon Brihtric Meaw, and of her vindictiveconduct to him after she became Queen of England? I have hesitated tobelieve in the popular tradition that Duke William grossly assaulted thedaughter of Baldwin in the street or in her own chamber, not that I haveany doubt about his being capable of such an outrage, but because he wastoo politic to commit it, and she was not the woman to have forgiven it,assuming that the offence was the simple refusal of his hand on theground of his illegitimacy. It is obvious, however, that the early lifeof Matilda is involved in mystery, and it is highly probable that aclearer insight into it would enable us to account for much which we nowreject as legend, or fail to reconcile with acknowledged facts. If therebe any foundation for the story of William's brutality, the outburst ofungovernable fury might have been due to a much greater provocation thanhas been assigned for it. Brihtric, the son of Algar or Alfar, sumamedMeaw (Snow), from the extreme fairness of his complexion, an Anglo-SaxonThegn, possessor of large domains in England, had been sent on an embassyfrom King Edward the Confessor to the Connt of Flanders. Matilda, we aretold, fell desperately in love with him, and offered herself to him inmarriage! Either disgusted by her forwardness, or preferring another, hedeclined the flattering proposal. "Hell hath no fury like a womanfoiled," and she kept her wrath warm till she was in a position to ruinthe man she had so passionately loved. She had no sooner become the Queenof England than she induced William to confiscate, on some pretence, allBrihtric's estates, and obtained the greater proportion for herself. Theunfortunate Thegn was arrested at his house at Hanley, in Worcestershire,on the very day Saint Wulfstan had consecrated a chapel of his building,dragged to Winchester, and died in a dungeon! The truth of this story issupported by the impartial evidence of Domesday, in which Hanley and theprincipal manors held by Brihtric in the time of King Edward are recordedas the possessions of Queen Matilda, and the remainder passed to FitzHamon.

After her hand had been rejected by the noble Saxon, it is presumed shebecame the wife of a Fleming, named Gherbod, who appears to have held thehereditary office of Advocate of the Abbey of Saint Bertin, in St. Omers,and by whom she had at least two children, viz., Gherbod, to whom Williamgave the earldom of Chester, and Gundred, "the sister of Gherbod," andwife of William de Warren. Was this a clandestine or an informalmarriage, which, as it has never been acknowledged by any chronicler,contemporary or other, might have been unknown to the Duke of Normandy,when he proposed to one whom he believed to be the maiden daughter of theCount of Flanders, and the corporal chastisement inflicted, howeverunworthy of a man, passed over, sub silentio, for prudential reasons, bythe parties wlio had been guilty of a disgraceful suppression of facts?The subsequent marriage under such circumstances will awaken no surprisein any one who has studied the character of William. Utterlyunscrupulous, destitute of every generous, noble, or delicate feeling,every action of his life was dictated by POLICY alone. An alliance withthe Count of Flanders might be considered by the crafty schemersufficiently advantageous to warrant his overlooking any objectionableantecedents in the conduct of a granddaughter of a king of France, hisfirst discovery of which had provoked his savage nature into a momentaryebullition of fury. Her being the mother of two children was a point inher favour with a man whose sole motive for marrying was the perpetuationof a dynasty, and the fair prospect of legitimate issue, in whose veinsthe blood of the Capets should enrich that of the Furrier of Falaise,would overcome any hesitation at espousing the widow of an Advocate ofSt. Bertin. On the other hand, Count Baldwin would be too happy toembrace the opportunity of reinstating his daughter in a positionbefitting her birth, and, as well as the lady herself, gladly condonepast insults for future advantages and the hope of smothering, in thesplendour of a ducal wedding, the awkward whispers of scandal.

I have said thus much simply to show the view that may be taken of thesemysterious circumstances, in opposition to the rose-colouredrepresentations of some modern historians, who, upon no strongerevidence, elevate the Conqueror into a model husband, and describeMatilda as the perfection of womankind.

Queen of England and  Countess of Flanders
Source: Charles Homer Hoskins, The Normans in European History, 1915, p 61"And so an important part of Norman history has to treat of the struggles with the duchy's neighbors, Flanders on the north, the royal domain on the east, Maine and Anjou to the southward, and Brittany on the west. Fortunately for Normandy, the Bretons were but loosely organized, while the Flemings, compacted into one of the strongest of the French fiefs, were generally friendly, and the friendship was in this period cemented by William's marriage to Matilda, daughter of the count of Flanders, one of the few princely marriages of the time which was founded upon affection and observed with fidelity."