"Matilda was extremely well-connected, daughter of the Earl of Flanders and counting amongst her ancestors highly-born people of French, English, German and even some Norman blood, a fact which caused a little trouble when William chose her for his wife. She was well-educated and said to be beautiful-though modern research shows that she escaped being a dwarf only by an inch or two. Her father had no wish to see her married to William, who was a bastard and whose claim to the Dukedom of Normandy was dubious in the extreme. Moreover, they were cousins and the Church disapproved of consanguineous marriages.

Married they were and the Pope showed his displeasure at this marriage of cousins by excommunicating them both. then he relented - with conditions. both were to erect a religious house. William built St. Stephen’s Abbey for monks; Matilda built the Abbaye-aux-Dames at Caen for nuns. Matilda first set foot in England in April 1068 and was crowned at Winchester on Whit Sunday of that year. She was the first real Queen of England. She died in Normandy when she was fifty-one, and William who was in England hastened to her bedside. After her death he was so grieved that, much as he loved hunting, he forswore it."
 

Matilda of Scotland, wife of Henry I, also called Good Queen Maud, was greatly loved by her subjects. She was of royal lineage herself, descended from Alfred the Great. Some records say that Matilda lies buried in Westminster Abbey, near to her uncle, Edward the Confessor; but the monks at Reading claimed that she was buried in their Abbey; Winchester is named as her burial place too. The confusion probably arose because so many memorials were erected to her memory.
 

Eleanor of Aquitaine , 1122–1204, queen consort first of LOUIS VII of France and then of HENRY II of England; daughter of William X, duke of Aquitaine. Her marriage to Louis was annulled in 1152 and shortly thereafter she married Henry, then duke of Normandy, uniting her vast possessions with his. Two of her sons—RICHARD I and JOHN—became kings of England. Henry's many infidelities caused her to establish her own court (1170) at Poitiers, which became the scene of much artistic activity. She supported her sons in their unsuccessful revolt (1173) against Henry and was confined by Henry until 1185. In 1189 she helped Richard secure the throne.
 

John I, 1167–1216, king of England (1199–1216); youngest son of HENRY II. After his brother RICHARD I left on the Third CRUSADE, John conspired unsuccessfully with PHILIP II of France to supplant Richard as king. On Richard's death, John ascended the throne to the exclusion of his nephew ARTHUR I of Brittany, who, with the aid of Philip II, began a revolt in France. Although Arthur was captured (1202), John lost many of his French possessions to Philip. John's refusal to accept a new archbishop of Canterbury led to his excommunication (1209). To regain papal favor, he surrendered (1213) his kingdom to Pope INNOCENT III, and received it back as a papal fief. In England his abuse of feudal custom in raising money aroused intense opposition from the barons. They rebelled in 1215 and compelled John to set his seal to the MAGNA CARTA. He was succeeded by his son HENRY III.

Isabella of Angouleme, Queen to John, after his death married Hugh de Lusignan to whom she had been betrothed prior to her marriage to John. She was accused of being the instigator of a plot to poison the King of France, Louis IX. She fled to the abbey of Fontevrault and there took refuge in a ‘secret chamber’. She died, still in hiding, two years later, and was buried, by her own request, in the open cemetery of Fontevrault. She was about sixty. Years later, Isabella’s son Henry III made a visit to Fontevrault and was shocked to see his mother lying n such a humble grave. He had her body moved, to lie inside the Abbey church, alongside Henry II, and Eleanor, and Richard I. Her effigy lies there still.
 

Eleanor of Provence was one of the most hated of the Queens of England, always regarded as a foreigner at a time when the English were becoming aware of themselves as one people. Eleanor is said to have been beautiful and, in a literary way if in no other, she was clever - she was producing poetry in the romantic, Provencal style while she was still very young. It was in fact one of her poems which led to her becoming Queen of England. She wrote a poem about an ancient, half-mythical hero of Cornwall, and sent it, as a compliment, to Henry’s younger brother, Richard of Cornwall, who appreciated such things. Henry appreciated them too. Knowing this and seeing his brother aged twenty-nine, with five abortive attempts to find a bride behind him, Richard commended Eleanor to Henry. Politically it was a good choice, in keeping with the deluded belief of the day - that blood kinship made for happy relationship in other spheres; Eleanor’s elder sister was Queen of France.
 

Eleanora of Castile, though she lived in troubled times, was a woman who had a happy life. It could have been otherwise, for hers was an arranged marriage, and took place when she was only ten. Edward, Prince of Wales was fifteen. Her brother, the King of Castile had insisted upon marriage, for English princes were rather apt to slide out of betrothals. Astrologers had issued their verdict and predicted that all would be well if Edward and his mother reached burgos, in Castile, on 5 August 1254; not a day earlier, not a day later. By careful timing of their journey Queen Eleanor and Prince Edward arrived at their destination at exactly the right date and the young couple were married. Eleanora bare Edward I eight children. She died in 1290 while enroute to Scotland. She was buriend in Westminster. Edward arranged for Masses and dirges and for two wax tapers to burn for ever by her tomb. They burned until the Reformation, three hundred years later.
 

Isabella of France [1292-1358] was called Isabella the Fair, until the more interesting name of She-Wolf of France was bestowed upon her. She at one time had the title of ‘The Liberator’, the one sho had saved England from a weak and disastrous rule and put a strong king (Edward III) on the throne; however, she died in disgrace. She had an affair with Roger Mortimer. Edward III was Edward I’s grandson, much like him in appearance and character. He took action against Roger Mortimer, had him arreted and hanged. Then he issued a proclamation designed to clear his mother’s name. Some chroniclers believe that during the last years of her life, she was intermittently deranged. When she died, her son, keeping up appearances, had her body brought to London, to lie in the Grey Friars’ church. And he ordered that London’s filthy streets should be leaned in honour of the occasion. Isabella’s brother had died leaving no direct heir, and Edward III claimed, through his mother, the throne of France. The Hundred Years War began.
 

There were many constitutional developments in Edward's long reign. The most important of these was the emergence of Commons as a distinct and powerful group in PARLIAMENT. The king's constant need for money for his wars enabled Commons to assert its power to consent to all lay taxation. The Black Death decimated the population, producing a labor shortage that enabled the lower classes to demand higher wages and social advancement. Edward quarreled with the church, and the resulting religious unrest found a spokesman in John WYCLIF. There was rivalry between a court party headed by Edward's son JOHN OF GAUNT and the parliamentary party, headed by the Black Prince. Edward was succeeded by RICHARD II.

Philippa of Hainault [1314-1369] was young when she came to england to marry Edward III, not yet in control; her wedding was magnificent, but her coronation, in 1330, was not conspicuously glorious. Three months later, she was amother; her first child, Edward, later renowned as the Black Prince. When she died, at Windsor, one of her favourite residences, Edward III was holding her hand. she had borne and reared many children - perhaps too many for England’s good, for it was between the descendants of her sons, Edward, the Blanck Prince and John of Gaunt that civil war was to arise. She died in 1369 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. About Philippa, during her life-time there had been no breth of scandal; in fact a chronicler recording her death spoke of her as the most courteous, liberal and noble lady. As such she had lived, as such she was buried.