Book description
Matilda of Flanders, queen to William the Conqueror was beautiful,
exquisitely small, clever, with a perfect courtesy trained in the rigid
school of medieval manners. But within lay a root of darkness -
inheritance, perhaps, of Viking ancestors. Twice, at least, in her
lifetime the Viking streak broke through, in vengeance on a faithless
lover, in fury wreaked on a rival of the marriage bed. The marriage,
though fruitful of so many children, was on her side no match of love.
But a passionate loyalty to her husband, an equally passionate ambition,
together with her own sense of justice, gave her the will and the skill
to dissemble her feelings and to make her the praise of Christendom. No
Queen ever wielded so much power as she in the long years she ruled
Normandy; before her no woman in England was ever crowned or was known
as Queen. Hilda Lewis was one of the best-known and best-loved of all
historical novelists, known for her authentic application of period
detail to all her books. She was born in London and lived for much of
her live in Nottingham. She wrote over 20 novels and died
