| Notes |
- In 1165 Rainald of Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne, arrived at the
court of King Henry II at Rouen, to negotiate a German match for
Matilda. There was conflict during the negotiations, however, when
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester refused to greet the
archbishop, alleging him to be a schismatic and a supporter of the
anti-pope, Victor IV. The original plan to match a daughter of Henry
II with a son of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor was abandoned, and
instead Matilda left England in September 1167 to marry Henry the
Lion.
At the time of their marriage, Henry the Lion was one of the most
powerful allies of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. Matilda governed
her husband's vast estates during his absence in the Holy Land from
1172 to 1173. In 1174, Henry the Lion became involved in a conflict
with the Emperor Frederick, and Henry and Matilda were forced to flee
Germany and take refuge in Normandy at her father's court in 1182.
During this time at the royal court at Argentan, Matilda became
acquainted with the troubador Bertran de Born, who, calling her
"Elena" or "Lana", made her the object of his desire in two of his
poems of "courtly love".
Matilda, her husband, and their family remained in Normandy under
the protection and support of King Henry until 1185, when they were
able to return to Saxony. When her father Henry II died in 1189,
Matilda survived him by only one week.
The Brunswick Cathedral, in the City of Braunschweig (Brunswick),
Germany, is a large church dedicated to St. Blaise and was built by
Henry the Lion from 1173 to 1195. While commonly called a cathedral,
it is not actually one.
Henry and his consort Matilda are both buried in the cathedral. The
limestone statues on the tomb in the nave are an idealised
representation made a generation after their death, between 1230 and
1240.
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1156 - 1189 (33 years)