Henry marries Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm…
November 1100 CE
Henry marries Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, on November 11, 1100.
Henry is now around thirty-one years old, but late marriages for noblemen are not unusual in the eleventh century.
The pair had probably first met earlier the previous decade, possibly being introduced through Bishop Osmund of Salisbury.
Historian Warren Hollister argues that Henry and Matilda were emotionally close, but their union was also certainly politically motivated.
Matilda had originally been named Edith, an Anglo-Saxon name, and is a member of the West Saxon royal family, being the niece of Edgar the Ætheling, the great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and a descendent of Alfred the Great.
For Henry, marrying Matilda gives his reign increased legitimacy, and for Matilda, an ambitious woman, it is an opportunity for high status and power in England.
Matilda has been educated in a sequence of convents, however, and may well have taken the vows to formally become a nun, which form an obstacle to the marriage progressing.
She does not wish to be a nun and appeals to Anselm for permission to marry Henry, and the Archbishop establishes a council at Lambeth Palace to judge the issue.
Despite some dissenting voices, the council concludes that although Matilda had lived in a convent, she had not actually become a nun and is therefore free to marry, a judgment that Anselm then affirms, allowing the marriage to proceed.
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