Royal Weddings: Queen Edith, a very useful bride

Edith Dunkeld isn't exactly the most romantic name a royal bride has ever had but this Scottish princess who said 'I do' in Westminster Abbey in 1100 hadn't turned up for love. She was a practical and rather ambitious young woman who was well aware, as she became that famous church's first royal bride, that her union with Henry, King of England, would do both of their dynasties quite a lot of favours.

Edith Dunkeld, Westminster Abbey's first royal bride

The wedding took place on November 11th 1100, three short months after Henry had taken the crown of England. He was an unexpected king. Born in England about two years after his father, William, had conquered the country he was a youngest son with a bevy of big brothers ahead of him in the race for a crown. However, by the start of 1100 the sibling who now ruled England was hugely unpopular with nobles and population alike and when this king, William II, went hunting one August morning he had an unexplained accident just as Henry was in the perfect position to snatch the empty throne. And almost as soon as he had become king, Henry realised he needed a bride to shore up his power.

 A later, romanticized imagining of Edith Matilda

Step forward Edith Dunkeld. She was the daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland and his queen, Margaret. Her parents were both dead and her brother, Edgar, was now Scottish king. But it was her maternal lineage that was really the most useful thing to Henry. For Queen Margaret was descended from the House of Wessex who had helped unify England and who had lost their power in the Norman Conquest. By marrying a member of that dynasty, Henry could help pacify parts of the population who were still far from happy with the House of Norman which was less than thirty five years into its rule of England. Furthermore, Margaret had been praised for her holiness and devotion throughout her life and would eventually be made a saint. Edith was a very useful bride indeed.

Henry I, King of England, needed a popular bride to shore up his rule and he found one in Edith of Scotland who became his consort on November 11th 1100

Marriage in this part of the Middle Ages was as much about joining families and properties as it was about a union between two individuals and while Edith brought little land with her she did bring a family tree that was worth its weight in gold. And if any sign were needed that this was a marriage of ambition, the bride's first action as queen showed how determined the couple were that their union would bolster the monarchy. Edith took the Norman name, Matilda, thus giving Henry a bride with Wessex blood and a dynastic name from his own family.

Edith changed her name to Matilda once she was Queen of England

It wasn't all plain sailing. Edith Matilda had spent some time before her marriage in the convent headed by her maternal aunt, Christina, and before being accepted as a royal bride she had to prove she had never been a nun. Christina swore that Edith had only been in the convent to be educated and that she had been veiled to keep her safe from Norman lords. And while Edith's Anglo-Saxon heritage was handy, some of the more arch members of high society mocked her for it and nicknamed her and her husband 'Godfric and Godiva' in reference to their public promotion of a more 'English' way of life.

Westminster Abbey was the setting for the first Royal Wedding of the post Conquest monarchy

(photo credit "Westminster abbey west" by Image by ChrisO. - english Wiki -. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.) 

It didn't matter to these two. Henry started building up an administration that would turn him from a younger brother with his eye on the big prize into a widely admired king. Edith would provide an heir, William, and a spare, Matilda, who would go on to be one of the most famous women in medieval Europe. The new queen loved art and religion and followed, in fact redefined, the pattern of a Middle Ages consort and when she died, in 1118, she was mourned by her husband and her people.

Edith Matilda, Queen of England

The first royal bride of Westminster Abbey could have taught modern royals a thing or two about public image and the fact that her own reputation remains so good so many centuries after her life shows how successful she was at this. The next part of the series will look at what her marriage at the Abbey might really have been like - it was, after all, modern England's first royal wedding.