Matilda "Maud" Fitzroy (c. 1080/1100 – 25 November 1120), Countess of Perche, was among several members of the English royal family who died in the wreck of the White Ship off Barfleur.
Life
Matilda, or Maud, was an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I of England by a mistress identified only as Edith.Her mother Edith held lands in Devon as late as 1130 and so survived her daughter. See Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol XI (1949), p. 112 note (a).Cokayne, George E., The Complete Peerage; or, A History of the House of Lords and all its Members from the Earliest Times, Vol. XI, Ed. Geoffrey H. White (London: St. Catherine Press, 1949), p. 112 Nothing is known of her mother's family. Her father was the youngest son of William the Conqueror and his wife Matilda of Flanders.Hollister, C. Warren, Henry I (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 1
During the High Middle Ages, illegitimate children were not always acknowledged by their fathers (and so many remained unknown) but Henry I recognised at least 20 of his illegitimate children, including Maud.Sheppard, Jr., Walter Lee, "Royal Bye-Blows, The Illegitimate Children of the English Kings From William I to Edward III", New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 119 (April 1965), pp. 94–95 She was identified as his daughter by Orderic Vitalis, who added that the king built up her husband's power by greatly augmenting his estates and wealth in England.Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Trans. Thomas Forester, Vol, IV (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1856), p. 111 Her father gave her lands in Wiltshire as her dowry.Keats-Rohan, K. S. B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066–1166, Volume II: Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum (UK & Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2002), p. 236
In 1103, Matilda married Rotrou III, Count of Perche, as his second wife.Schwennicke, Detlev, Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band II (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1984), Tafel 82 She married at the same time as her half-sister Juliane de Fontevrault.Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Trans. Thomas Forester, Vol, III ( London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), p. 345 Rotrou was a direct vassal of King Henry in England, where he held fiefs jure uxoris, in right of his wife. He also was given the de Bellelme fief in Normandy at the forfeiture of Robert de Belleme.
White Ship
In the wreck of the White Ship, the evening of 25 November 1120, William of Malmesbury noted the fate of the countess:
Family
Matilda and Rotrou had two daughters: Sheppard, Jr., Walter Lee, "Royal Bye-Blows, The Illegitimate Children of the English Kings From William I to Edward III", New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 119 (April 1965), p. 96 Philippa, married Elias II, Count of Maine and had issue Felicia
Notes
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