Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/73

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Two original portraits of her exist in the church of St. Blasius at Brunswick; one, a picture representing her marriage, painted early in the thirteenth century; the other, a recumbent figure carved in stone upon her tomb. Both are engraved in Leibnitz's ‘Origines Guelficæ’ (vol. iii. pl. iii. and xiv.). She seems to have been tall and handsome. The troubadour Bertrand de Born wrote two love-songs in which he celebrates her under the name of Elena (Raynouard, Poésies des Troubadours, iii. 135, 137, v. 81; Clédat, Bert. de Born, pp. 79, 81). Her husband returned to Brunswick after Frederic's death, and dying there in 1195 was buried at her right hand, ‘choosing to sleep beside her in death as in life’ (Ann. Stederburg, Pertz, xvi. 231). His people revered her as ‘a most religious woman, whose memory is of note before God and man, whose good works and sweet disposition enhanced the lustre of the long royal line whence she sprang; a woman of profound piety, of wondrous sympathy for the afflicted, of much almsgiving and many prayers’ (Arn. Lubeck, Pertz, xxi. 116). Her eldest child, Richenza, is said by some writers to have married Waldemar II, king of Denmark; but it is clear that this is a mistake (see Scheid's note in Orig. Guelf. iii. 172), and that Richenza is identical with the daughter whom the English chroniclers call Matilda, who was left in Normandy with her grandparents in 1185, returned to England with them in 1186 (Gesta Hen. i. 345), was married, first, in 1189, to Geoffrey of Perche (ib. ii. 73), and secondly, between 1200 and 1205, to Ingelram III of Coucy, and died before 1210 (Leibnitz, Orig. Guelf. iii. 174–5, 583–5). The eldest son, Henry, assumed the title of Duke of Saxony on his father's death, became count palatine of the Rhine in 1196, and died in 1227, leaving only two daughters. His brother Otto, nominated by his uncle Richard I as Earl of York in 1190, and Count of Poitou in 1196, was chosen emperor in 1198, crowned at Rome in 1209, and died childless in 1218. Lothar died in 1190. The boy born at Argentan in 1182 is never heard of again; doubtless he died in infancy. Matilda's youngest child, the English-born William ‘of Winchester,’ died in 1213, leaving by his wife, Helen, daughter of Waldemar I of Denmark, a son named Otto, who became sole heir male of the family on the death of his uncle Henry in 1227, and from whom sprang the ducal house of Brunswick and Luneburg, and the present royal house of England.

[The original authorities are given above. Ralph de Diceto, Gervase of Canterbury, the Gesta Henrici, Roger of Howden, and Robert of Torigni (Chronicles of Stephen, &c., vol. iv.) are in the Rolls Series; the German chronicles referred to are in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, vols. xvi. and xxi. The modern works consulted are Mrs. Everett Green's Princesses of England, vol. i.; the Origines Guelficæ, compiled by Leibnitz and edited by Scheid; and L'Art de vérifier les Dates, vol. xvi.]

K. N.

MATON, ROBERT (1607–1653?), divine, was the second son of William Maton of North Tidworth, Wiltshire, and his wife Thomazin, daughter of William Hayter of Langford. He was born in 1607, probably at North Tidworth, but the registers previous to 1700 have been destroyed. He entered as a commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, in Michaelmas term 1623, aged about sixteen, matriculated 3 Nov. 1626, proceeded B.A. 25 Oct. 1627, and M.A. 10 June 1630 (Gardiner). Taking holy orders he was presented to a living, but in what county is uncertain. Wood (Athenæ Oxon.) says that he was always at heart a ‘millenary,’ but that he never made public his views until the rebellion, in which he saw a possibility of their fulfilment. He published in 1642 ‘Israel's Redemption, or the Propheticall History of our Saviour's Kingdom on Earth,’ &c., and ‘Gog and Magog, or the Battle of the Great Day of God Almightie,’ London, 1642; 2nd edit. 1646. The former work led him into some controversy, and in 1644 a reply, entitled ‘Chiliasto Mastix, or the Prophecies … vindicated from the Misinterpretations of the Millenaries, and specially of Mr. Maton,’ &c., was published at Rotterdam by Alexander Petrie, minister of the Scots church there. Maton remained an ardent believer in the literal meaning of scriptural prophecy, and in 1646 he published, in reply to Petrie, ‘Israel's Redemption Redeemed, or the Jewes generall and miraculous Conversion to the Faith of the Gospel, and Returne into their owne Land; and our Saviour's Personall Reigne on Earth cleerly proved.’ He endeavours here to show the ‘proper sense of the plagues contained under the Trumpets and Vialls.’ Wood wrongly says (ib. iii. 409) that Petrie wrote a second reply. Maton's book was republished (London, 1652) under a new title, ‘Christ's Personall Reigne on Earth One Thousand Yeares. … The Manner, Beginning, and Continuation of His Reigne clearly proved by many plain Texts of Scripture,’ &c. It was again republished as ‘A Treatise of the Fifth Monarchy’ (1655), with a portrait of Maton by Cross (Granger). Though not apparently openly connected with the Fifth-monarchy men, Maton was doubtless in sympathy with them. Of his death we have no record.