WOMAN IN ART
together at St. Albans, where a portrait of the Queen was painted, a copy of which is in the British Museum. It confirms the reputation of that remarkable queen for a mild and amiable beauty.
There is also a statue of her in the Cathedral of Rochester, forming the pilaster of the West door. A statue of Henry forms the other.
Matilda died in 1118.
England had more than fifty queens, between the reign of Henry and Matilda and that of Queen Victoria, who according to their characters influenced the political and moral status of the nation for weal or woe, for nearly eight hundred years. Among these queens Flanders furnished a number who greatly augmented the stability of the Island Kingdom as a power. William I, while still a Norman Prince, wooed, waited, and finally won the hand of Matilda of Flanders, whose son in time became Henry I. Both Matildas became literally a power behind the throne.
Some three hundred years later Edward III and Philippa of Hainault were betrothed as young children, as was the fashion of royalty in those days, and married some years later. Edward's reign was warlike in the extreme. He was brought up to wars by his infamous mother who murdered her husband. There seems but one redeeming feature in the reign of Edward III; that is the moral and economic efforts of his Queen Philippa and her influence on the whole country. While on the war-path in various directions, Edward left his Queen as regent of the realm. She augmented the Plantagenet dynasty to the extent of eleven heirs. Furthermore she invited John Kempe of Flanders, a cloth weaver of wool, "to come to England with the servants and apprentices of his mystery, and with his goods and chattles, and with any dyers and fullers who may be inclined willingly to accompany him beyond the seas, and increase their mysteries in the kingdom of England; they shall have letters of protection, and assistance in their settlement."
In that same year (1331) the Countess of Hainault visited her royal daughter and by her presence assisted in establishing those Flemish artists in England.
Philippa also established the grand tournament and jousts, which in reality practiced the young men in the military tactics of their day, though it was done as field sports, augmenting the army of the king with men who had some idea of what was expected of them.
While the king and his son were fighting in France, the Scots overstepped
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