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