487 – Stealing a Wife From God

Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 487, Stealing a Wife from God.

This show is ad-free due to member support, and as a way of thanking members for keeping the show independent, I offer members-only content, including extra episodes and rough transcripts, and you can get instant access to all the members' extras by signing up for membership at thebritishhistorypodcast.com for about the price of a latte per month.

And thank you very much to Chris, Susan, and Jason for signing up already.

Edith, the daughter of King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, has appeared from time to time in our story. And by this point, she was about 20 years old.
And many of those years had been weird ones.

And I'm going to do a lightning fast refresher on some of the events that we've covered over the last year, but stick with me here. These details will matter for what's coming next.

So, King Malcolm Canmore had sent Edith to England to be educated when she was a child, and under normal circumstances, that would have probably been a pretty good idea.

But England under the House of Normandy, especially England under Rufus, were not normal circumstances.

And so in 1093, Malcolm decided to head down to Wilton Abbey to pick up his daughter, because not only was he displeased with Rufus, which I think is totally understandable, but he also likely wanted to take advantage of the chaos that Rufus was causing, especially since Northern England had been slowly aligning itself towards Scotland for years.

And so his play here might have been to marry Edith

to Earl Allen the Red, one of the most powerful English lords of the time, or maybe to one of the other powerful men who wanted to secure secure ties to the throne of Scotland and also the surviving line of the House of Wessex by taking Edith's hand in marriage.

And I'm guessing it didn't hurt that Edith wasn't just a dynastic powerhouse, she was also known for being beautiful. And consequently, Edith was one of the most marriageable girls in Britain.

And I say girl because she was 13 years old at this point. Anyway, so King Dad of Scotland figured that Edith's love life might be a solution to some of his political problems.

And so he headed down to Wilton Abbey to pick her up. And then when he arrived, he discovered his daughter was dressed as a nun.

Now, Edith was just supposed to get educated at Wilton Abbey, which would have made her an even more desirable marriage option.

What she wasn't supposed to do is get taken off the market entirely by marrying fing Jesus. So this was a political disaster, and we're told that Malcolm went absolutely berserk.

In a rage, the Scottish king ripped the veil off his daughter's head and stomped on it, presumably while screaming some very ungodly things.

Now, Abbess Christina, who was actually Edith's aunt, thankfully intervened into this situation and explained to Malcolm that his daughter hadn't actually taken any vows or orders, and she wasn't actually a nun.

It was all a disguise, because King Rufus and his boys had recently come to visit the abbey, and everyone knew what Rufus and his boys were like.

So, when the king arrived, the abbess rushed Edith into a private room and had her dressed up as a nun, fearing that if she didn't, she would be raped.

And Abbess Christina's gut reaction here was absolutely correct, because as soon as Rufus and his companions discovered that Edith was wearing a nun's veil, they lost interest and left the abbey.

Now, after hearing all of this, King Malcolm grabbed his daughter and returned to Scotland, which I think is a completely valid choice here. But here's the thing about all of this.

Our sources generally stick with the men in the account, unless there is absolutely no other alternative. These scribes really couldn't be too fussed about the lives of girls and women.

So, we know all about King Malcolm's emotional state in response to this story.

But as far as Edith's experience of very narrowly avoiding sexual assault and then becoming the target of her father's violent rage in the aftermath, well, we're not told about that, but I'm guessing that both situations were traumatic as hell.

Now, as for that betrothal to Earl Allen the Red?

Well, it never happened. Instead, on that same year, Earl Alan decided to elope with Gunnhild, the daughter of King Harold Godwinson.

And, in keeping with the strange way in which medieval scribes write about the affairs of women, we don't know how Edith felt about that either.

But we do know a hell of a lot about how Anselm felt about it. Yeah, not Malcolm, not Edith, not Alan, not even for the most part, Gunnhild.

No,

it was was Archbishop Anselm who became the main character in this failed betrothal and subsequent elopement.

And the situation with Gunnhild will actually have a bearing on our story, so let's do a quick recap of that as well.

As you might recall, Anselm had a fit because Gunnhild had been educated in a nunnery, and so he determined that even though she didn't take any vows, Gunnhild was now basically a nun, and that's because Jesus, quote, desired your beauty, end quote.

And as a consequence, Anselm decided that she should come back to the church and serve him directly.

Now, this is the first time that we see Anselm in the records treating, raised in a nunnery and once put on a veil, as proof that you're basically a nun.

And as far as the surviving sources go, he is only this aggressive about it when the woman in question is a member of an older English royal dynasty, which I find really sus.

Well, upon hearing all of this, Gunnhild was outraged, and she pointed out that she hadn't taken any vows, and, you know, vows are kind of important for this kind of thing. But Anselm disagreed.

He didn't think they mattered at all. After all, regardless of whether or not she said the vows out loud, he knew in her heart she had made the vows.
And who would know her heart better than he did?

After all, he was a man and he was the Archbishop, and she was just a silly little girl who didn't know her place.

Needless to say, Gunnhild was not impressed here, and so Anselm pivoted and began making threats, warning that everyone was going to be against her and that there were going to be dire consequences.

And when that didn't make her come back, her her husband suddenly and mysteriously died.

And Anselm could not have been happier about that. He wrote again to Gunnhild, now freshly widowed, and bragged about how Jesus himself had prevented their wickedness by killing her husband.

And then he told her to not make any plans to marry anyone else in that family because next time they'd both suffer eternal death.

Gunnhild, though, was apparently not one to be intimidated, and so she moved in with Alan's brother, who was also named Alan because noble families are ridiculous.

This one was known as Alan the Black.

And soon after moving in together, whoops, they both died,

just as Anselm said they would.

Good old saintly Saint Anselm.

Well, seven years have passed from that eventful year, and many of the people who Anselm has taken issue with just happen to be dead.

King Rufus, Gunnhild, Alan the Red, Alan the Black, just an impressive body count. I mean, string of tragic coincidences.

And to be clear, none of our sources say that it was Anselm in the conservatory with a candlestick, but the number of conveniently timed deaths here is kind of notable, especially since every time one of Anselm's enemies conveniently dies, the old priest does the religious version of a victory lap.

And now, that priest was King Henry's problem. So it makes perfect sense to me that Henry would want to get on Anselm's good side.

And honestly, that was a pretty good idea with any Archbishop of Canterbury. But in the year 1100, it was among the smartest health choices someone could make.

Probably right up there with stop drinking, which, obviously, no one's gonna do.

So Henry, looking to soothe things over and start on a good foot, invited Anselm back to England pretty much as soon as he was crowned king.

And he wrote to him, quote, I ask you as a father, with all of the people of England, to come as quickly as you can to give your advice to me, your son, and to the people the care of whose souls was committed to you.

Indeed, I entrust myself and the people of the whole kingdom of England to your counsel, and the counsel of those who ought to advise me with you.

And I pray that you not be displeased that I received consecration as king in your absence. For had it been possible, I would have more willingly received it from you than from any other.
End quote.

He goes on, and it was pretty obsequious, and Henry was clearly signaling his willingness to turn over a new page between the crown and Canterbury and undo the policies of Rufus that had angered Anselm so much.

Essentially, Henry was pulling out all the stops to befriend Anselm and soothe any anger that the cantankerous old priest might be feeling over getting replaced at the coronation by the Bishop of London.

But fun fact,

Anselm was already on the road. He'd already left Lyon, and by the time that the letter actually found him, he was on his way to Cluny.

Because Anselm had already heard about the death of Rufus. Actually, if you recall, Edmer claims he kinda sorta heard about it three days before it happened.

which I'm sure is just another coincidence or saintly miracle in the life of Saint Anselm.

But as soon as the Red King was dead, Anselm decided he was going to England regardless of whether or not he was invited.

And he landed at Dover on the 23rd of September, which was actually excellent timing because it gave him six days to shake off the travel and get to Salisbury, where the king was holding a council for Michelmas.

When the big day came, Anselm was welcomed into court with great pomp by King Henry, who once again apologized for not involving the Archbishop in his coronation, explaining how they simply could not risk any delay.

And Anselm said it was fine. Henry in response said, great.

Well, let's seal our reconciliation by the traditional method. You do homage to me, and I'll restore you to your position by personally investing you with the symbols of your office.

And Anselm said, yeah,

that's gonna be a no from me, dog. Because you know when someone someone says they're fine, but actually what they mean is you can go f yourself?

That was Anselm. And the old priest told the king that he simply could not agree to an investiture ceremony.
At which point, the court was all, you can't or you won't. And Anselm was like, pick one.

Then the archbishop doubled down and said that actually, he was already an archbishop.

And besides, lay investiture was banned, which must have come as a bit of a shock to Henry, since Rufus had invested Anselm himself.

But Anselm explained that actually his investiture was all fine and good, because it wasn't officially banned until Pope Urban did it on Easter of 1099.

Now, I don't want to get too deep into papal politics here, but at best, this was some very convenient amnesia. I suspect it was just a bald-faced lie.

Because the papacy had been banning lay investiture for a quarter century at this point, and papal letters had been hammering that point home ever since.

And Anselm would have been very aware of this fact. Pope Urban's decree wasn't new or novel.

It was basically one link in a very long chain of papal statements on this issue that, thus far, had been cheerfully ignored by pretty much all of the nobility.

And even if Anselm was just balking at the homage element, that had also been banned by the papacy prior to Anselm's investiture.

And I feel like the best argument he can make here is that when Pope Urban did it, he was at the height of his power thanks to the crusade, and so it was extra super duper banned.

And frankly, the papacy bans a whole bunch of stuff, and the fact that they repeatedly ban the same things doesn't mean it's not banned. It just means that the bans don't always take.

But that is the most optimistic reading I can make of this whole thing.

And honestly, I've seen enough evidence of Anselm's character at this point to be pretty confident that the guy was all too aware of the papal politics surrounding this issue, and he just decided to temporarily forget the prior bans, because if he mentioned them, then his investiture would be invalid, and he'd be out of a job.

And despite all of his assurances that he never even wanted this job in the first place, he clearly wanted this job.

I should also note here that Anselm's biographer and hype man, Edmer, takes great pains to repeatedly remind us that Anselm never wanted conflict with anyone, especially not the king. He wants peace.

And I have no reason to doubt that Anselm did regularly say that to Edmer, as well as the various kings and officials that he was feuding with. And here's the thing with that.

I've read plenty of historians who take him at his word, just boldly asserting every time he sparked a new conflict that Anselm was heartbroken by this, but honestly, he just had no choice.

And come on.

I think most of us know someone who claims that they hate conflict or hate drama, and yet somehow, while most of us manage to avoid it these so-called anti-drama queens end up embroiled in it at every possible opportunity anyway so henry was absolutely stunned and some on their very first meeting was demanding that they completely reorganize the power relationship between the crown and the church and if you think about it it wasn't even a demand the archbishop was asserting that this was already decided and henry needed to catch the f up and know his place.

He was putting the new king in an incredibly difficult position because Adsel wasn't just an archbishop.

He was a religious and political powerhouse who had been in a position of power for almost his entire adult life.

He was also connected enough to be able to couchsurf with fellow archbishops and even the pope during his exile.

And, in religious circles, he was super famous.

Not only because he served as the abbot of one of the most influential religious centers in Europe, the Abbey of Beck, which had actually tripled in attendance during his time there, which meant that there were a lot of people out there who had been trained under Anselm's watch, but also because he was a very influential religious thinker in his own right.

And on top of all of that, it's easy to forget this because Anselm and Rufus had feuded so often, but Anselm had a lot of allies in England, including some of the most powerful and wealthy nobles in the region.

Nobles like Hugh Lupus, who some crazy how was still alive and kicking, as well as Arnulf de Montgomery, Bolem's younger brother, and many others.

You might also remember that Anselm had enough flex that he even had earls coming to his defense when he and Rufus were fighting. Conversely, Henry's hold on power was tenuous at best.

He did have allies in England, granted, but so did his brother Robert, and Robert had the stronger claim.

He also had the Duchy of Normandy, and critically, he wasn't clinging to power through a coronation that, even in the light most favorable, was a bit slap dash.

And given how Anselm was behaving, it's pretty clear he was not looking at that coronation favorably.

But in this description of this meeting, I get the feeling that Anselm, after years of exposure to Rufus, had become accustomed to speaking with oaths, who had no grasp of subtlety.

Because after his opening volley, he doubled down and made his position crystal clear, telling the king that if he accepted the papal bans, then everything would be fine, and Henry had no reason to worry.

But if he didn't, well,

then, quote, I cannot see that my remaining in England would be profitable or honorable, end quote.

As in, accept my terms, or I'll go visit your brother Robert, and I'm sure he'd be happy to make a different choice.

If that happened, Henry's argument that he was a reformer, and so all of this was okay,

well that would be gone, And Robert, instead, would be cast as the one seeking to reform England and save it from an ungodly tyrant. This was an absolute disaster.

I mean, even if Anselm didn't switch sides, and instead he just refused to do homage to Henry as king, that would leave the new monarch with about half of his kingdom in a sort of cold war of rebellion, because the church held an absolutely ridiculous amount of land in England.

And with those lands came military service, which was something that Henry was going to be in need of very soon.

In fact, Henry reportedly worried that if the church refused to recognize their duties to the crown, he could lose half of England. That's bad.
But this was Henry. So he had a plan.

I mean, you don't go from ignored third string son to the king of England unless you have plans and cunning ones at that. And so Henry made a counteroffer.

He would restore all of the properties that had been seized from the See of Canterbury. And, you know, as for that papal ban situation?

Well, I feel like it's not as settled as you're implying, Anselm. So how about this? For the time being, I won't make any investitures and you won't make any consecrations.

Instead, we'll both send representatives to the Pope to, quote, have the papal decrees changed back to what was the former practice in the kingdom, end quote.

And suddenly, Anselm was the one in a bind, because he kind of had to agree to these terms. After all, Anselm was taking the position that this really wasn't his beef.
He didn't want a beef at all.

He loved peace. He hated drama.
But he didn't have a choice because because of all the papal decrees, you see. And so he had to obey the pope.

As a consequence, when Henry offered this, he couldn't just say, nah man, I don't want to double check with the pope, just take my word for it. Instead, he kind of had to agree.

Though at the same time, Anselm was pretty sure that the Pope wouldn't agree to backing down on investiture and that kind of stuff.

So at the end of the day, he was fairly certain that this would just cause a minor delay. And in exchange, Anselm would get papal confirmation for everything that he was saying.

But for Henry, he had obtained time, which he could use to focus on solidifying his grip on power without having to worry that Anselm would go to Robert's camp and support his claim on the throne.

Now this is classic Henry. Why give up ground when you could use respectability to stall and then use that breathing room to deal with the real problem.

In this case, his pissed off brother with an army.

Because war was coming. Rumors abounded that Duke Robert was returning from Apulia and he was nearly back in Normandy.

And it was highly unlikely that once Robert reached Rouen, he would just stay there. I mean, you can't just steal a kingdom and expect everyone to be chill about it.

Least of all, the guy who was supposed to inherit that kingdom. So Henry was going to need every available soldier just in case the worst happened.

And that meant he didn't just need to keep Anselm happy. He also had to keep the barons and the English population in general happy.
Or at least not openly rebellious.

But again, this was Henry. And so he had a plan for that, too.

See, it was time to get serious and produce an heir.

Now, close listeners might be thinking that that's a bit odd here because Henry, thanks to being one of England's and Normandy's most notorious poon hounds, had a small army of children out there.

In fact, Henry's lifestyle had resulted in over 20 known children. The trouble, though, was that they were all illegitimate.

And politics and self-preservation demanded that he produce an heir who could actually inherit.

And that meant he needed a wife, and quickly, ideally before Christmas.

And remember, that explosive meeting with Anselm was in late September, so there was a bit of a time crunch here, which brings us back to Edith. You see, Edith was still unmarried.

And she still had all the qualities that made her an attractive match for any power-hungry nobles in in the Isles.

She was the daughter of King Malcolm's Cambore of Scotland, which meant she was politically connected, and that would help form bonds with England's closest potential rival.

But even more importantly for Henry, she was also the daughter of Queen Margaret of Wessex, making her one of the last members of the House of Wessex with any degree of power.

And one of the pitches that Henry was making in support of his reign was that he was restoring things to how they were under the last king who was a member of that dynasty, Edward the Confessor.

And so a marriage to Edith would help him underscore that point.

On top of all of this, she was also, quote, born in the purple, end quote, meaning that when she was born, both of her parents were king and queen.

And since that was one of the other ways that Henry was making his argument that actually he was the rightful heir of England, despite being the youngest son.

Well, doubling down on the born-in-the-purple argument and highlighting that both Henry and his new queen were born in the purple and thus super legitimate, well, it was pretty politically wise.

But that's only one part of the legitimacy argument, and that part is contingent on the belief that the House of Normandy had a valid claim to England at all.

If, however, you were opposed to the House of Normandy, or if you were an Englishman who remained loyal to the ancient line of English kings, well, in that case, Edith was one of the most legitimate claimants to the English throne anywhere.

Honestly, the only person with a stronger dynastic claim than Edith and her siblings was Edgar the Athling, and given how many times he had abandoned that claim, even that was in question.

And so here we have Henry with a legitimacy problem in a time when he absolutely could not afford to have one. And Edith very much looked like the solution to his problems.

Even better, she was relatively close. And so, unlike the brides in France, Germany, and elsewhere, this marriage could be proposed and arranged relatively quickly.

And speed of action was very much of interest to Henry at this point in his life. With Robert expected to be back in Normandy any day now, he didn't have the luxury of time.

In fact, we're told specifically that Henry was anxious that, with the return of Robert, quote, the nobility should be induced to repent their choice, end quote.

Meaning, they'd switch sides and join Robert.

And beyond all of the politics, Malmsbury tells us that Henry and Edith had known each other for quite some time, and that Henry was quite attached to her.

Now, I don't have a lot of details on how they knew each other or what the nature of those meetings were, but apparently, these two went back a ways. There's also the matter of her appearance.

Now, this is always a weird one to talk about, because in our modern day, women are constantly observed and commented on.

Whereas, while people certainly do notice men's appearance, few think they have the place to actually comment on it, which is why most dudes have at least one piece of clothing that's well past wearable, and they still wear it in public, public on purpose.

But interestingly, this dichotomy was less of an issue in our medieval sources.

Our scribes comment on both men and women in court, and so in a weird way, we have something approaching equality on this issue, but I suspect it isn't due to anything high-minded, but instead it's because our scribes are just catty as hell and enjoyed spilling tea.

But thanks to that, we do have some information about what Edith looked like. And according to the sources, she was a stone-cold hottie.

And Bishop Marbod even goes one step further, telling us that, unlike most noble women of the era, Edith refused to bind her breasts and tended to forego makeup. And he praised both highly.

Now, Marbaud couched it all in churchy terms, but what he was telling us was that Edith was naturally pretty. And either for comfort or for personal preference, she didn't hide her curves.

And apparently, Henry was all about it. Though I should note, there is one exception to this assessment of Edith's beauty.
Malmsbury.

Despite being our main fashionista in almost all other matters, On the subject of Edith, Malmsbury simply assures us that she was not, quote, despicable in point of beauty, end quote.

Or, in another translation, she wasn't bad looking. Either way, considering how often this guy liked to comment on the appearance of others, this feels a bit like damning with faint praise.

I mean, it was Malmsbury who had such a practiced eye that he was the one who told us that the men of Rufus's court were so simfully sexy that they inspired impure thoughts in others.

But I guess Edith, for whatever reason, didn't do it for him.

Anyway, so all of these factors, the political, the military, the dynastic, the interpersonal, and the superficial, all of them drove Henry to, as one of our sources says, tirelessly work to secure this marriage to Edith.

And typically, when we talk about noble marriage proposals during this period, we only speak about the politics of the arrangement, and, more specifically, the politics as they related to the men involved in this proposal.

Either the groom or the bride's male family members. And that's because, generally, that's how our sources talk about it.

Again, the desires of women, even the lives of women in general, tend to be treated as an afterthought or as an outright frivolous thing by many of our sources.

However, in this situation, we actually do have a view into Edith's perspective. And when the proposal was delivered, Edith was quite positive about it.

And when you look at her situation, you can see why.

First of all, this connection with Henry appears to have been genuine, and it wasn't one-sided.

Our sources are either silent on the issue of feelings, or they generally agree that the two of them were into each other.

And Edmer actually goes so far as to write that they were in love, which is not something that you usually see in the record. So that's nice.

But Edith wasn't just a starry-eyed bride to be. She was a princess and a shrewd political operative in her own right.

As such, there were also political factors in play, and those appealed to her too.

First, there was the obvious social and economic advantage of marrying a king.

If you wanted to go up the social ladder, and in 12th century Europe, you really should want that, then I can think of few things that would be more effective than marrying a monarch.

On top of that, she was proud that she traced her lineage to the House of Wessex through her mother. And it had been 34 years since the conquest.

And given how thoroughly her uncle Edgar had bungled his various attempts at regaining the throne, it's highly unlikely that the House of Wessex would ever take the throne back through military force.

So this marriage was probably their best hope at ever having a member of their dynasty on the throne again. And that's a big deal.

Finally, being a 20-year-old royal woman who's still unmarried doesn't mean that you're free and independent.

It means you're in a socially precarious position, and you're likely to be seen as a burden and are largely at the mercy of the men in your family, who might decide to dump you in a convent, marry you off in a hurry, or use you as a bargaining chip.

So, for many reasons, both Henry and Edith wanted this marriage, which again is nice.

Unfortunately though, there was someone who didn't want this marriage. Can you guess who it was?

Yep,

Anselm.

You show me a woman from a defunct English royal line, and I'll show you someone that Anselm was absolutely convinced should never marry. I mean, someone who made a vow in her heart to God.

Because Anselm was at it again. You see, it turned out that, like with Gunnhild, Anselm was absolutely convinced that in her heart, Edith had promised herself to God.

And he had been harassing her on this issue for years.

That's right, the Archbishop of Canterbury, despite being the man tasked with overseeing the soul of King Rufus, which I think we can agree, needed a lot of oversight, as well as all the souls in the whole frigging kingdom, took time out of his busy day to keep tabs on Edith and presumably read her mind.

And he had been doing this since at least 1094,

meaning when Edith was just 14 years old. And we know this because we have one of his letters.

You see, shortly after that whole situation at the Abbey with Rufus and Malcolm, the Archbishop heard about it and just went through the roof.

Not over what the fellas did. Oh no, like, that was just Rufus being Rufus.

No, it was because one of Anselm's little birds had spotted Edith wearing secular clothing after she had been disguised as a nun.

And, well, Anselm knew what was in Edith's heart. And so she was a nun.

And we know this because he wrote to Bishop Osmond of Salisbury and raged about how, quote, the devil caused her to cast off the veil of religion and causes to persist shamelessly in wearing secular clothing, end quote.

He then went on to tell the bishop that he needed to get involved personally and get this girl back in a nunnery. And, you know, never mind about the circumstances of how that outfit was put on her.

Never mind that Edith reported that Abbess Christina shouted at her and beat her savagely when she even tried to remove it, thus indicating it was forced upon her.

Never mind that she was clearly not intended for religious order, given the way her father reacted to the disguise, and the fact that it was her aunt who came up with the idea and immediately explained that it was all just a ruse.

No, never mind any of that. None of that matters.
What matters is that for a time, Edith wore what she described as quote, a little black hood, end quote.

And so to Anselm, she was a nun and needed to deal with it vows schmaus

now obviously Archbishop Anselm and Bishop Osmond had failed at forcing Edith to become a nun though if I had to guess I would say that Anselm was probably the reason why now that Edith was 20 she was still unmarried despite being apparently incredibly eligible by medieval noble standards

but things had changed because now King Henry wanted to marry her, which meant this was probably her best chance to get out of this whole, no, no, I can see into your heart and you're married to Jesus thing.

So Edith was all for it, but she also realized that Anselm was probably gonna throw an absolute fit. So she decided to reach out to the old man and see if she could get him to back off.

She told him about the circumstances at the abbey. She told him about how her aunt had made her wear that little black hood for fear of getting assaulted.

She told him about how she didn't take any vows. She told him about how her father threw a fit over it.
And then she strongly denied any claim that she was a nun.

And thus, she should be allowed to marry King Henry.

Now this really put Anselm in a bind. Because the Archbishop had only just returned to England and he was already creating waves.

And conversely, the king was on record as being conciliatory and supportive, going so far as to restore a bunch of properties to the See of Canterbury.

Which meant Anselm was in a whole new world here. With Rufus, both of them were being aggressive.
And so it was a bit of an open question as to who was actually causing the problem.

But here?

With Henry?

Honestly, the worst that anyone could say about how Henry was handling Anselm was that he wanted to just double-check with the Pope that this decree was what he really wanted, which was directly in line with what Anselm was asserting.

So, right from his very first meeting with this new Pope, it was Anselm who looked like the aggressor.

And if his next public act was to tell the king that he couldn't get married because something, something clothing matters more than vows, well, just about everyone would realize what he was up to here.

There is also the fact that Henry was a cunning, intelligent, and incredibly dangerous man with a tremendous amount of power and a near monopoly on state violence.

So if Anselm pushed his luck, who knows what might happen next?

Because this king had a reputation for pushing back, and his pushes were deadly.

Do you remember when Henry pushed a guy out of a window in a tower? And then he just strolled back downstairs like it was no big deal? He didn't even try and hide what he did there.

Instead, he was just like, yeah, I did it, and I do it again.

The fact was, Henry's enemies tended to be just as unlucky as Anselm's.

No, thank you.

So, for the second time this year, Anselm found himself outmaneuvered by the crown.

And it's actually even worse than that. Because Anselm really didn't have a leg to stand on here.

I know he sounded confident and authoritative in those letters, but that was back when he was an archbishop pushing around a young woman.

But now he was going head to head with a king, and his religious theory would be analyzed by scholars, nobles, and his fellow churchmen.

And his theory of if it walks like a duck was certainly novel, but it also didn't hold up to scrutiny at all.

In fact, you don't even have to look all that far to realize how much butt-kissed this thing was.

Anselm's direct predecessor, Archbishop Landfrank, spoke about this issue specifically and said that cloistered women, quote, who have been neither professed nor presented at the altar, end quote, aren't nuns.

He also added that if someone enters a convent due to fear of assault by the French rather than a desire for a religious life, then they should be allowed to leave.

That is about as clear as you could possibly ask for. And there are no exceptions for, well, I mean, Jesus thinks she's hot, so deep down, I bet she really wanted to be a nun.

And Anselm definitely knew this, because despite talking really tough in those letters to Edith and Gunnhild, suddenly the Archbishop developed amnesia. Now he wasn't sure if Edith had taken any vows.

So he sent a couple envoys to find out. And, you know, actually, now that he thought about it, well, this wasn't even that big of a deal anyway.

You know what? I don't even think you really need me to be involved here, guys. Let's just have a council of magnates, bishops, and abbots.

They can get together at Lambeth Palace, and they can sort this out. I'll just, you know, sit in, but for the most part, why don't you guys work this out amongst yourselves?

And here's where it gets particularly suspicious.

You see, Anselm habitually recorded and collected his correspondence, presumably so that his thoughts and statements could be looked at by people in the future, sort of like a medieval religious version of legal precedent.

And I'm very thankful that he did that.

But historian Walter Froelich did an exhaustive survey of both the letters and when they were recorded. And it turned out, Anselm didn't save all his letters in his collections.

In fact, Froelich argues that there's clear indication that Anselm was carefully selecting which letters would be saved and which wouldn't.

And other historians outright state that the goal here may have been to craft a specific narrative and a record of Anselm's political and moral views. And guess what?

Anselm's letter to the Bishop of Salisbury about Edith and his letter to Gunnhild about how he knew her heart and Jesus desired her beauty.

Well, curiously, he just happened to leave those letters out of his collection.

And whether it was because he thought that bullying young women on a nonsense bad faith religious theory was a bad look, or whether he thought that having a record like this probably wasn't gonna serve him all that well under King Henry isn't known.

But I do think it's a fair guess that given Anselm's attention to detail, this omission wasn't an accident.

Anyway, so the council was gathered at Lambeth, and Edith showed up and offered to prove the truth of her words by oath or any other method the council might wish.

Then witnesses came forward and spoke on behalf of Edith. And then the envoys returned from Wilton and disclosed that they had determined that Edith hadn't taken any vows.

And then Lanfrank's letter to Bishop Gundulf, where he discussed pretty much this exact issue, was produced to the council. It was an absolute rock-solid case that they were putting forward.

And in the face of it, Anselm was all,

you know what? I... I gotta take a call, so why don't you guys come to a decision and I'll

just I'll just be elsewhere because I, you know, I really don't have a dog in this fight and then he just

off now naturally the council pretty quickly determined that this whole thing was ridiculous and that the marriage could go forward and then Anselm returned heard the finding and like anyone who didn't have a dog in the fight suddenly took issue with it He said that he would respect the finding of the council, but as for performing the wedding,

man, I don't know, that's a tough one. I mean, no one denies that she wore the veil.
And honestly, can't King Henry just find someone more suitable?

There are plenty of daughters of kings and counts out there, and not all of them have worn veils. So can you just do that?

It's absolutely incredible to me how certain people manage to be both chicken shit and socially aggressive at the same time.

And I'm guessing that after he did this weird little, nah, I'm not going to marry them thing, the the mood in the room turned dark.

Possibly downright murderous, because Anselm quickly reversed course, and he decided that actually, you know what, screw it, I will do the wedding for you.

And while I'm guessing that the couple would have preferred literally anyone else to do it, the fact of the matter was that Anselm controlled one of the major levers of legitimacy, and the crown needed that lever.

So, on Sunday, November 11th, 1100, Anselm stood in front of the doors of Westminster with the royal couple.

And he told the assembled crowd that the situation had been fully investigated, and Edith was good to go on this whole marriage thing.

But if anyone had any new information or any objections, then they should say so.

Now, this wasn't normal. Usually prior to marriage, the priest doesn't say, look, look, the jury acquitted the bride.
There's nothing I can do about that.

But if any of you have any evidence, you know, new evidence that we can present, any evidence at all, well, then please bring it forward. Usually weddings don't go like that.

And I'm guessing that rather than a loving, serene expression, the bridegroom was suddenly looking like he very much wanted to take the Archbishop hunting in the new forest.

But if Anselm was hoping for a last-minute savior from the crowd, he was sorely disappointed. Because the crowd, like me, loved a good wedding.
And so they were all, nah, I'm happy if they're happy.

Let's do this.

And so the wedding was performed and Henry and Matilda were married. I mean, technically, Henry married Edith, but Edith is a kind of English name.

And, you know, it's a bit hard to say with a French accent. So at some point, it was decided that Matilda was a much better name for her.
And so she was renamed.

Now, it is genuinely unclear when that name change happened, but the takeaway here is that life as a medieval woman sounds awesome.

Anyway, so now that they were married, Henry and Matilda weren't going to take any chances with Anselm, nor any of the other rivals who were out there.

So they weren't waiting around for the coronation. Instead, this coronation was going to be performed immediately, right after the wedding.
No ifs, ands, or buts.

And then, once Matilda ritually prostrated herself, and was ritually basted with oils and spices, and then ritually held a whole bunch of accessories, Anselm crowned her.

And so in the end, she was proven right.

She was never Sister Edith.

She was Queen Matilda.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can reach me at the BritishHistoryPodcast at gmail.com.

You can also join us on social media, and you can find links to all the sites in the communities section of thebritishhistorypodcast.com. Thanks for listening.