Note 48 — Chapter V · FAILURE TO GAIN THE ENGLISH CROWN
Reading edition
Ibid., ii, pp. 440-441. For the identification of Alton, see Freeman, William Rufus, ii, p. 408, n. 2. According to Ordericus (iv, p. 113) the armies met “in quadam planicie.”
Wace, with his fondness for chivalrous detail, relates that Robert abandoned his proposed attack upon Winchester because he learned that the queen was then lying there in childbed. Only a villain, he declared, would attack a woman in such plight:
Mais l’on li dist que la reigne, Sa serorge, esteit en gesine, Et il dist que vilains sereit, Qui dame en gesine assaldreit.
Roman de Rou, ii. p. 440. J. H. Ramsay remarks, “but Matilda did not give birth to her child till January or February following.” The Foundations of England (London, 1898), ii, p. 238, n. 9. He gives no reference. Henry and Matilda were married 11 November 1100.