1127 Oath of Allegiance to Empress Matilda

1127 Oath of Allegiance to Empress Matilda is in 1100-1129 Henry I and the White Ship.

Florence of Worcester Continuation. 1127. Fealty sworn to the empress Matilda. As soon as the feast days [of Christmas] were over, the king (age 59) went to London, attended by all the men of rank in the realm who had flocked to his court, and there, by the king's command, William (age 57), the archbishop and legate of the see of Rome, and all the other bishops of England, and the nobles of the land, swore fealty to the king's daughter (age 24); engaging to defend her right to the crown of England, if she should survive her father, against all opposers, unless he should yet before his death beget a son in lawful wedlock, to become his successor. On the death of the emperor Henry, who had lived in marriage with her many years, without leaving children, she had returned to her father's court, where she was surrounded with all the honours becoming her station. The king, therefore, having lost his son William in the manner already described, and there being as yet no other direct heir to the kingdom, for that reason made over the right to the crown to his daughter, under the provisoe just mentioned.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 1127. This year held the King Henry (age 59) his court at Christmas in Windsor. There was David the king of the Scots (age 43), and all the head men that were in England, learned and lewd. And there he engaged the archbishops, and bishops, and abbots, and earls, and all the thanes that were there, to swear England and Normandy [Map] after his day into the hands of his daughter Athelicia (age 24), who was formerly the wife of the Emperor of Saxony. Afterwards he sent her to Normandy; and with her went her brother Robert, Earl of Glocester (age 28), and Brian, son of the Earl Alan Fergan (age 27);154 and he let her wed the son (age 13) of the Earl of Anjou (age 38), whose name was Geoffry Martel (age 13). All the French and English, however, disapproved of this; but the king (age 59) did it for to have the alliance of the Earl of Anjou (age 38), and for to have help against his nephew William (age 24).

Note 154. See an account of him in "Ord. Vit." 544. Conan, another son of this Alan, Earl of Brittany, married a daughter of Henry I.