Matilda is a happy girl, not only because she's rich, but because
her father is the Count of Flanders, and her maternal grandfather is the former king of France.
Her father dotes on her and grants almost anything she asks for. Even if she asked him to pluck a star from the sky, he would...
Of course, Matilda would never make such an outrageous request.
She knows that stars are balls floating in space, and that the ground beneath her feet is the Earth...
Though she doesn't know why she knows these things. Perhaps it's a gift from God. It seems she was born knowing a lot, but she's never told anyone.
One day, she accompanies her father to court to meet the king and sees a fifteen-year-old boy.
She overhears court gossip. To his face, people call him the Duke of Normandy, but behind his back, they call him “William the Bastard.”
When the boy is knighted, thirteen-year-old Matilda is among those watching. She sees a light of vengeance in the eyes of the boy named William and shudders.
From the age of eighteen to twenty-two, Matilda has only one answer to William's marriage proposals: “No.” She really doesn't like him, and she already has a lover.
Who could have guessed that the man would keep proposing despite her rejection?
Matilda truly doesn't understand why he's so fixated on her when they barely know each other!
He grabs her long braid in the middle of the street, pulls her off her horse, then catches her.
“Marry me!” he roars, furious and out of patience.
She clutches her head, her scalp aching from his grip. “Never!”
Then he throws her into a muddy ditch by the roadside, ruining her favorite outfit.
Matilda responds to softness, not force.
When he's tough with her, she gets tougher.
But in the end, she gives in, because she's afraid that if she refuses him again, he'll really draw his sword.
What a barbaric Norman!
On her wedding day, she's utterly heartbroken, crying her eyes out and terrified he'll abuse her.
But after they marry, he seems like a different person, obeying her in everything. His only flaw is that he likes to get handsy with her.
One day, as he lies in bed talking to her about his plans to cross the sea, Matilda realizes that the man she married is none other than
the instigator of a thousand-year conflict between England and France, the king of England, William the Conqueror!
Without hesitation, she spends a fortune on ships. Build them! Build the biggest ones! And more if that's not enough!
He wraps her in a bear hug and buries his face against her neck and shoulder. “Thanks, honey!”
Theme: Lead England onto the grand stage of Europe
