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m I., England would never have had the brilliant and versatile Elizabeth or the wise and womanly Victoria to number among the great examples of high worth which make the list of England's notable women one of the chief glories of her history. As the manners of the court affect the standard of the nation, that the tone of the times was not lower in an age of turbulence, when moral standards were debased, must be to some extent accredited to the example of the queen. When Matilda died, the country was still rent by fierce hatreds and passionate outbursts; the unplacated Saxon had been little influenced by her. It was reserved for another Matilda, the wife of Henry I., to aid in healing the breach, and, by uniting the discordant elements, put the country in a position for the development of those arts of civilization which only can flourish in an atmosphere of peace. When Matilda, then a _religieuse_, was adjudged by the Church authorities not to have taken the veil, or to have assumed the vows that would have severed her from the world and committed her to a life of virginity, she reluctantly heeded the clamor of the Saxon element of the people, and yielded to the importunities of Henry to become his wife and the country's queen. So was secured to the land a queen in whose veins ran Saxon blood and who had received an Anglo-Saxon education. Through her influence, many salutary laws were enacted to relieve the disabilities of the people. The wives and daughters of the Saxons were secured from insult; the poor and honest trader was assured equity in his business transactions, and other matters of equal import owed their enactment to the kindly disposed queen. In this manner were allayed animosities which had continued to smoulder under a sense of repeated injustices, and with the growth of mutual confidence there came about an identity of aspiration and effort on the part of the two elements of the population. Intermarriage facilitated this happy tendency, and the perseverance of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, modified indeed by Norman admixture, did much for its furtherance. Thus, the two peoples gradually fused into one nation. That Matilda did much to secure this desirable end entitles her to be regarded as the mother of reconciliation. The Norman ladies of rank came under the influence of the queen, and it was not uncommon to find them, like the Anglo-Saxon ladies, engaged in the profitable concerns of the poultry yard and
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