Brendan, written around 1106–1118. She also commissioned the monk Thurgot of Durham, to write a biography of her mother, Saint Margaret. Issue While Henry had numerous illegitimate children by various mistresses, he and Matilda had two children who reached adulthood: Matilda (7 February 1102 – 10 September 1167) William Adelin (5 August 1103 – 25 November 1120) The couple may have also had a stillborn child in July 1101. Some historians, such as Chibnall, have claimed that there was no pregnancy before the one with Empress Matilda "as it allows no time for a normal second pregnancy". Through Matilda, the post-Norman conquest English monarchs were related to the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex monarchs. Death On 1 May 1118, Matilda died at Westminster Palace. Allegedly, three of her Anglo-Saxon ladies-in-waiting were so distraught by the Queen's death that they immediately became nuns. She would have liked to have been buried at Holy Trinity, Aldgate, but King Henry asked for her to be buried at Westminster Abbey near Edward the Confessor. The inscription on her tomb reads: "Here lies the renowned queen Matilda the second, excelling both young and old of her day. She was for everyone the benchmark of morals and the ornament of life." The death of Matilda's son, William Adelin, in the disaster of the White Ship (November 1120) and her widower's failure to produce a legitimate son from his second marriage led to the succession crisis and, as a consequence, a long civil war. During his reign, Stephen of Blois insisted that Queen Matilda had in fact been a nun and that her daughter, Empress Matilda, was therefore not a legitimate successor to the English throne. Queen Matilda's reputation considerably improved throughout the reign of her grandson Henry II, but she was remembered to a continuously lesser extent between the late 13th and 14th centuries. Notes References Sources External links Medieval Women: The Life Of St Margaret, Queen Of Scotland By Turgot, Bishop of St Andrews Ed. William Forbes-Leith, S.J. Third Edition. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1896 . Retrieved 14 March 2011. |- |- 1080s births 1118 deaths People from Dunfermline 11th-century Scottish people 11th-century Scottish women 12th-century Scottish people 12th-century Scottish women 12th-century English monarchs 12th-century English women Daughters of kings House of Dunkeld Scottish princesses Henry I of England Anglo-Normans Anglo-Norman women English royal consorts Duchesses of Normandy 12th-century women rulers Scottish patrons of the arts English