History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 62

MEDIEVAL LINKS BETWEEN FLANDERS AND SCOTLAND
By Margaret Hilton
The army which William the Conqueror ferried across the Channel in 1066, to wrest
the English crown from King Harold, contained many men who were not Norman.
William was married to Matilda the eldest daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders
and William’s continental allies were Flemish. The prosperity of Flanders had caused
a number of the ancient “comtés” around her perimeter to attach themselves to the
new power. Among them were Hainaut, Mons, Leuven, Aalst/Gent and Guines.
Boulogne, with its own subsidiary “comtés” of Lens, Hesdin and St Pol, was also allied
to Flanders, as was Ponthieu, away on the Norman border. All were linked by close
personal ties to the comital family of the Baldwins. All regarded themselves, and were
regarded by others, as Flemish. All were ruled in 1066 by men directly descended
from Charlemagne.
The Flemings had the right wing of the Norman battle formation at Hastings, under
their liege lord, the man whose banner they had followed there, Eustace II, Count of
Boulogne. Whereas the Normans had no arms— bearing tradition at the time,
Flanders had inherited all the armorial panoplies of Charlemagne and indeed the
Bayeux Tapestry shows the banners of Boulogne, Senlis, St Pol, Aalst, Hesdin, all of
them heraldic devices used in 11th-century Flanders descended directly from
Charlemagne.

William the Conqueror made vast rewards to his Flemish followers. They were given
many manors in England and his protégés were also, most of them, his wife’s
kinsmen. He had arranged a marriage between his niece Judith, daughter of his sister
Adèle and Count Lambert of Lens (a “comté” lying between Bethune and Douai), and
the last English nobleman, Waltheof, only surviving son and heir of the mighty Siward,
Earl of Northumbria. After Waltheof’s execution, Judith’s elder daughter, Maud was
made the heiress of her father’s immense Midlands possessions and these were
passed to Maud’s husband, Simon de Senlis, a cadet of the great house of
Vermandois (the house of Vermandois was sprung from Charlemagne’s second son
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