Pod Insights The Rest Is History Empress Matilda: Civil War and the Fight for the Throne About this episode How did Matilda, princess of England, become Empress of the Holy Roman Empire in 1110? What disbarred her from becoming queen of England after her father's death? And, why did she go to battle for the throne of England, in the brutal civil war known as The Anarchy?
In this new member’s-only mini series, Tom is joined by historian and author Helen Castor, to talk about some of the most impressive queens of medieval Europe.
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2:54 Tom Holland? Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Rest Is History. And welcome to St Bartholomew the Great, which is London's oldest medieval church and a very appropriate setting for what is a new miniseries for club members. As a massive treat, and because on The Rest Is History, we are all heart, we are making this first episode free. If you like it and you would like to see the next two, then you know what you've got to do. It's an appropriate setting because the theme of this miniseries is the real-life Cersei Lannisters, the She-wolves of medieval England. And with me to talk about the She-wolves
3:37 Tom Holland? is the author of a book called She-wolves. It's my dear friend and erstwhile colleague Helen Castor. Helen, welcome to The Rest Is History.
3:47 Speaker 02 Thank you for having me.
3:48 Tom Holland? Before we go to the Middle Ages, should we just look at the century that follows the medieval period, the 16th century? Because there are a lot of queens in the 16th century. And what perspective do all those queens kind of shed on the time that we're going to be talking about today in the series?
4:08 Speaker 02 It's interesting, isn't it, because it goes in two directions. In one sense, we tend to assume, I think, that because there are all these queens in the 16th century...
4:17 Tom Holland? So should we just list them? So Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, Mary Tudor.
4:21 Speaker 02 There's also, there's this extraordinary moment in the 1550s where there seem to be women everywhere.
4:27 Tom Holland? A monstrous regiment.
4:28 Speaker 02 A monstrous regiment of women, although Knox doesn't quite mean that, we'll come to that. Mary of Hungary has been ruling the Netherlands for her brother.
4:36 Tom Holland? Is that all called Mary? It's so confusing.
4:37 Speaker 02 They're all Marys for her brother, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Mary, Queen of Scots, is the Queen of Scotland, living in Paris, while her mother, Mary of Gis, is regent in Scotland for her. Then we have Mary Tudor in England. They're all Marys, they're all Catholic. And in Geneva, John Knox, a fulminating Calvinist.
4:59 Tom Holland? Big beard.
4:59 Speaker 02 Scott with a big beard. Is extremely cross about all this. So he writes the first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women, saying...
5:10 Tom Holland? And the monstrous regiment is not, it's not like a kind of military parade of queens kind of marching, is it?
5:15 Speaker 02 It's easy to see, isn't it, this dreadful battalion of Marys? No, regiment means regiment, rule, and monstrous means unnatural, abominable. So what he's talking about is the monstrous rule of women, which he thinks shouldn't be allowed. His timing is terrible. He publishes this in the summer of 1558. A few months later, Protestant Elizabeth becomes Queen in England. She's not impressed and he's left... He's left saying, "I didn't mean you." But she never forgives him, quite rightly. But we tend to assume that if this argument is going on in the 16th century, that women are beginning to rule, but there's a big pushback, that this must be progress.
5:59 Speaker 02 Because we tend to think of the Middle Ages as sort of benighted. Things were obviously worse then. Less woke in the Middle Ages, but it's not necessarily true. The point being that in the middle of the 16th century, it's really the accident of the hereditary system that's thrown all these women into...
6:18 Tom Holland? Sir Henry VIII's famous inability to father a son until he does and then the son dies and he's just got these two daughters.
6:24 Speaker 02 That's right, but also his great skill at killing anyone else on the family tree who might have a better claim than the Tudors. So he's killed lots of potential male heirs and only been left with these two daughters. But the hereditary principle could have thrown up women at any point in the centuries before. And in fact, it had done back in the 12th century.
6:46 Tom Holland? So should we go to that?
6:48 Speaker 02 Yes.
6:48 Tom Holland? Shall we go and look at Matilda? And I've said that we were in London's oldest parish church and this was originally part of a priory that was founded in the reign of Henry the First by Henry the First Jester and Henry the First is the son of William the Conqueror. So we're going right the way back, you know, a very, very long way. And Matilda is the daughter of Henry the First, isn't she?
7:11 Speaker 02 She is the granddaughter of the Conqueror. And what we need to understand about this moment in English history is that really all bets are off about what the system of succession is going to be. There hasn't actually been yet, by the time we get to Henry the First and Matilda, there hasn't yet been a straightforward succession since the Conqueror. The Conqueror himself was illegitimate, his parents hadn't been married. He does get married and has sons, but he's succeeded by William Rufus, who's his second son, even though his oldest son, Robert Kurthos, as he's known, Robert Shortlegs, Robert Fatlegs, depending how
7:56 Speaker 02 rude you want to get. He's the eldest son, but he's not the one who ends up inheriting.
8:02 Tom Holland? Well, he inherits England, doesn't he? And Robert inherits Normandy.
8:05 Speaker 02 In theory.
8:06 Tom Holland? So this is a complication.
8:07 Speaker 02 In theory, you're absolutely right. We're dealing not only with a new system in England, but a new political entity, the Anglo Norman realm, which is two different parts. It's the Duchy of Normandy and the Kingdom of England. William tries to split them up. He's already promised Normandy to his oldest son, who he's gone off since doing that. But he really wants Rufus to inherit and Rufus fights Robert and gets the whole lot. But in The New Forest, August 1100, an arrow goes astray, William Rufus gets speared in the heart. Robert, the older brother, is still alive, but Henry, the younger brother, is the one who's there, seizes his moment.
8:52 Speaker 02 He jumps on his horse, looking at the prone body of his brother, shot by an arrow in The New Forest, and rushes to Westminster to get himself crowned, and rushes to Winchester to take control of the royal treasury. So he's king by a coup, really, rather than by, I'm the eldest, I should inherit.
9:14 Tom Holland? Can I ask, because you say he's crowned, but he's also anointed, and there's a kind of, dare I say, sacral dimension to that, that once he's been anointed, I mean, you can't really wash off the balm.
9:27 Speaker 02 That's it, and that's what makes a king at this point. It is, as you say, it's a quasi-sacrament. Kingship takes effect in that holy moment. We tend to say crowned, but you're quite right to point at the moment when the holy oil touches the head, the breast. That is when a king becomes a king.
9:49 Tom Holland? And Henry is incredibly able, and he marries into the old Anglo-Saxon royal dynasty, so he has gained himself legitimacy in that way.
9:59 Speaker 02 He has legitimacy in all sorts of ways. He's also very keen to point out that he was born in the purple, that is, he was born after William the Conqueror became King of England. He's married Matilda of Scotland, the daughter of Saint Margaret of Scotland, who's descended from the Anglo-Saxon royal house.
10:16 Tom Holland? You've got a saint as your mother-in-law, I mean, that's pretty good, isn't it?
10:19 Speaker 02 It is.
10:19 Tom Holland? So he's a very able king, and he does what kings are meant to do, which is to father children, and in particular, a son. So just tell us about his children.
10:30 Speaker 02 Henry is an interesting character. He has many, many, many children. He has at least 20 illegitimate children, although one of his fans among the chroniclers says with a completely straight face that this was not a question of lust, this was a question of, I can't remember. Quite what it was a question of, but clearly it wasn't.
10:50 Tom Holland? Something holy.
10:50 Speaker 02 Something very holy and kingly. But he only has two legitimate children. He has a son, William, and a daughter, Matilda, and he's got big plans for both of them.
10:59 Tom Holland? So William is called William Atheling, and Atheling is the old English word for someone who is worthy to succeed to the throne. And it's, it's, it's a purely masculine signifier.
11:10 Speaker 02 It is.
11:10 Tom Holland? There isn't a female equivalent.
11:13 Speaker 02 There is not, and you can see why when you look at the great seal of the new Norman kings of England, because the two central roles of kingship are depicted there. On one side, you have a king sitting on a throne with the symbols of kingship, an orb, sometimes a sword, sometimes a sceptre. This is a king as lawgiver, as judge. And on the other side, you have a king in armour on a horse with a sword in his hand, king as warrior. Those are the two central functions, and neither of them is something that a woman can do.
11:46 Tom Holland? So let's come to, so, so we've got the Atheling, William. Let's come to Matilda, the daughter. So what role does Henry see her fulfilling?
11:56 Speaker 02 A huge dynastic role, because he secures for her the grandest possible husband in Europe. At the age of eight, she is sent off to Germany to marry the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V.
12:11 Tom Holland? So she becomes empress.
12:12 Speaker 02 She does. She is not actually eventually crowned by the Pope, but she is crowned in St Peter's in Rome by a bishop.
12:22 Tom Holland? I mean, that's good enough, isn't it?
12:23 Speaker 02 It's good enough for her.
12:24 Tom Holland? She calls herself empress for the rest of her life.
12:26 Speaker 02 She's married to the emperor. She has been crowned in St Peter's. I mean, this is an extraordinary destiny. If you imagine being an eight-year-old girl, sent off across Europe to a country where you don't speak the language, you're marrying a man sixteen years older than you.
12:43 Tom Holland? It's a big ask.
12:44 Speaker 02 It's a huge ask, and she makes a tremendous success of it. She is known in Germany thereafter as the good Matilda. By the age of sixteen, she has the confidence of her husband to such an extent that he leaves her behind in Italy as his regent when he is called back to Germany. She is extraordinarily able, and she takes on this job.
13:09 Speaker 02 To which she's been sent when she's a child with such aplomb and such ability.
13:14 Tom Holland? So what that suggests is that although queens aren't expected to fight or to deliver judgment, they do definitely have a role to play.
13:23 Speaker 02 They do. They can represent the men to whom they are related, to whom they are supposed to be a supplemental figure. And I mean supplemental in two ways. That is, they must acknowledge male authority, but they can supplement it. They can represent it when it is unquestionable that they have the right to do so. So Matilda, as the emperor's wife, can represent him when he's not there. But they must do so in a way that accords with what it is to be a good woman.
14:04 Tom Holland? So I've said we're in St Bartholomew the Great. This is the place where the Virgin Mary made her only recorded appearance in London. And I'm wondering, does the model of the Virgin in medieval Europe, the Virgin, you know, you can pray to the Virgin to intercede with her son, Christ. Is there an element of that that influences the role of the Queen, that she can intercede for people with her husband, the King?
14:28 Speaker 02 Certainly. She must be a peacemaker, an intercessor. She can represent his authority and impose his authority, but she must never challenge it. Because as St Paul tells us in the first letter to the Corinthians, Christ is the head of man, man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ. So there is an order of creation here in which women must acknowledge male authority and, as the Virgin does, can can intercede, can make peace, but challenge must not step outside that that virtuous role. A good woman wouldn't
15:12 Speaker 02 step outside that role, and therefore a woman who does step outside that role cannot be good.
15:17 Tom Holland? Yeah. So Henry I, he's in England, he's looking very proudly at his two children. He's got William Atheling, you know, he's great, he's going to be a great king. He's got Matilda, who's often in the empire, doing her thing, you know, paving like a queen should. All looks splendid. And then there's a disaster, isn't it? And it involves. We've been doing the Lusitania, we've done the Titanic, this is another ship that sinks, and this is called the White Ship.
15:43 Speaker 02 We're in November 1120. Henry and his son William Atheling are crossing from Normandy, or are about to cross from Normandy to England. This is a crossing that they do regularly. You have to do it if you're ruling both Normandy and England. Compared to Matilda, who's been crossing the Alps to get from Germany to Italy. One modern historian says that crossing the Channel really was a matter of complete convenience compared to crossing the Alps in the Middle Ages. But something's gone wrong with the plan on this particular dark night in November, and it's the fact that William Atheling, all his friends and everyone on board the
16:26 Speaker 02 ship he's travelling in, is roaring drunk.
16:29 Tom Holland? Yeah, it's just a kind of massive stag do.
16:31 Speaker 02 It is.
16:32 Tom Holland? Lads on tour.
16:33 Speaker 02 Exactly.
16:33 Tom Holland? They crash into a rock or whatever.
16:35 Speaker 02 And they decide they're going to race the king's ship, and they don't see the rock in Barfleur Harbour. The ship goes down with all hands, except, we're told, a butcher from Rouen, who has got on board to try and get the aristocrats to pay the debts they owe him. And because he's wearing sheepskin, not silks and furs, he manages to cling on to a spar to tell someone what's happened.
16:58 Tom Holland? So this is terrible news for Henry, because
17:01 Speaker 02 Awful news.
17:01 Tom Holland? Who's going to succeed him?
17:02 Speaker 02 All he's got left of his legitimate children, he has all these illegitimate children, but by now, we're in, we're a couple of decades into the 12th century, and the church is beginning to get quite fierce.
17:13 Tom Holland? Because William the Conqueror was a bastard, you said.
17:15 Speaker 02 Exactly.
17:15 Tom Holland? But things have moved on.
17:17 Speaker 02 Things have moved on, two things have moved on particularly. The church is beginning to get quite fierce about the sacrament of marriage and cracking down on the idea of legitimate birth. But the other is that Henry I is a classic poacher-turned-gamekeeper. Don't do as I did, do as I say. And what he says is that his bloodline, his legitimate bloodline, must succeed. But the problem he's left with is, he's only got a daughter left.
17:47 Tom Holland? How does he try and finesse things so that his daughter can succeed him?
17:50 Speaker 02 It's a multi-pronged plan. The first is, he gets married again immediately. He's a widower by this stage, but he marries a very young woman called Adelisa of Vlaven.
17:59 Tom Holland? I bet he does.
18:00 Speaker 02 And it takes her with him everywhere, so his Plan A is, he's going to have more sons. Doesn't actually happen, but that's his plan A. Plan B is his daughter, uh, Matilda is going to be his safety net. And particularly after eleven twenty five, because five years of this second marriage, no baby sons have appeared yet. But Matilda's husband, the Holy Roman Emperor, dies. He dies very young, and he and Matilda have not had any children.
18:32 Tom Holland? So she can now come back?
18:33 Speaker 02 She can now come back. She is summoned back immediately. And Henry has two plans for her. The first is that all of his nobles must immediately swear allegiance to Matilda as his heir, which, and this is the interesting thing, Henry VIII could have taken note of this, they immediately line up to do. Nobody says, nobody puts on a big beard and says, like John Knox, it is an atrocious idea that, you know, an abomination against nature.
19:02 Tom Holland? Right, so it's not, it's, it's, there's no kind of rule that says that a woman can't succeed?
19:06 Speaker 02 There are no rules at all.
19:07 Tom Holland? No, so it's up for grabs.
19:08 Speaker 02 The conqueror has been succeeded by his two younger sons while his oldest son is still alive. The conqueror was bastard born. Rules are not really there at all, let alone set in stone in this world. So Henry is creating rules around him. He gets all his nobles to line up and swear allegiance to Matilda. And the only argument that breaks out is about who should have the honour of swearing first. There's an argument between his illegitimate son, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and his favourite nephew, Stephen, Count of Mortain, about who's going to have the honour of kneeling to swear allegiance to Matilda. So, so far,
19:49 Speaker 02 so good. Henry's still hoping to have more sons. His nobles have sworn allegiance to Matilda. And his Plan C, or perhaps could become a Plan B, is that he's going to marry Matilda off again, and perhaps she can have sons, so that he could be succeeded by a grandson.
20:07 Tom Holland? And is there someone suitable to marry, perhaps from the French House Doctrine?
20:11 Speaker 02 It turns out there is. Enjoue, which is Normandy's Next door neighbour, historic adversary and rival, but there is a young heir to the county of Anjou called Geoffrey. So, poor old Matilda, having been married off at eight to a twenty four year old, she's now twenty six, being married off to a fifteen year old, the heir to the county of Anjou, Geoffrey.
20:36 Tom Holland? And there's something to do with a sprig of?
20:39 Speaker 02 Yes, the badge of the House of Anjou, the Plantagenista. If you're looking for the beginnings of the Plantagenets, we might be getting it here.
20:48 Tom Holland? So there's a little clue there as to what might be. So Matilda is married to this guy.
20:52 Speaker 02 Very unhappily.
20:54 Tom Holland? Um, but they have, you know, they clearly have children.
20:58 Speaker 02 They do the job in the end. I mean, Matilda kicks up a fuss. She gets married to him, but within a year she's back with her dad saying, Dad, do I really have to do this?
21:07 Tom Holland? But she has a little baby boy and she calls him Henry.
21:09 Speaker 02 She does. A little red headed.
21:11 Tom Holland? So little baby Henry Plantagenet.
21:13 Speaker 02 Baby Henry Plantagenet.
21:14 Tom Holland? And we may be hearing more of him today and in our next episode.
21:17 Speaker 02 We may. We may indeed.
21:19 Tom Holland? So that's the state of play when Henry the First dies.
21:23 Speaker 02 It is. He dies.
21:24 Tom Holland? What happens then?
21:25 Speaker 02 He dies very suddenly because he's.
21:27 Tom Holland? He has a surfeit, doesn't he?
21:29 Speaker 02 He has a surfeit of lampreys.
21:31 Tom Holland? Because this is an occupational hazard of being a medieval king, is that you you have surfeits and die unexpectedly.
21:36 Speaker 02 You do. I mean, you'd have to pay me to have even one lamprey, I think, let alone a surfeit of them. But the horrible eel like fish. But anyway, yes, he he suddenly takes ill and dies in December eleven thirty five. He is in his sixties, but he's a bull of a man. So this is a shock. He's been bestriding the Anglo Norman realm for more than three decades.
21:58 Tom Holland? He seems a terrifying man.
21:58 Speaker 02 He really, really was, I think. But Matilda, to whom the nobles of England and Normandy have sworn allegiance more than once by this stage, is, I mean, I think often the chroniclers and modern historians don't take so seriously the reality of female experience. We're so used to thinking about warfare, the dangers of warfare and so on. But the problem for Matilda in December. Eleven thirty five is, she's had little baby Henry in eleven thirty three. She then had little baby Geoffrey in eleven thirty four and nearly died having him. I mean, really seriously nearly died. In the autumn of eleven thirty five, she's pregnant again.
22:43 Speaker 02 She's in the very early stages of pregnancy. And another occupational hazard for medieval women, her husband and her father have fallen out. So she's in Anjou with her husband in the very early stages of pregnancy. She is not in the right place at the right time. And she's going to struggle to get there because she's pregnant, she's not been well. She gets a certain way, she gets into Normandy, just into Normandy. But that's still a long way from the coronation chair.
23:15 Tom Holland? And I suppose to apply the masculine perspective, a woman never looks, from the male point of view, less suited to playing the masculine role of a king than when she's pregnant.
23:26 Speaker 02 That's exactly it. And married, of course, to the Count of Anjou, who the Anglo Norman baronage are used to thinking of as an enemy.
23:35 Tom Holland? Yeah.
23:36 Speaker 02 So all in all.
23:37 Tom Holland? So it's all tricky. So I suppose in a situation like that, where the pregnant queen is not in England, there are opportunities for someone to do a Henry the First and rush off and go to England and get yourself anointed and become the king in situ. And is that what happens?
23:57 Speaker 02 One man among the Anglo Norman barons has been paying very close attention to the lessons of history, which I know is what we all think everyone ought to be doing all the time. The rest of the barons are accompanying Henry's body very slowly back from Normandy to England. And they're having meetings about who could become king, because obviously we don't really want the pregnant woman. And they come up with this idea that Henry the First nephew, Theobald of Blois, one of their number, might be a good idea.
24:28 Tom Holland? I mean, all due respect to Theo, our erstwhile producer, but you can't have someone called Theo as king.
24:35 Speaker 02 You can't, can you?
24:36 Tom Holland? That is a rule, I think.
24:38 Speaker 02 But Theobald has a younger brother called Stephen, who's married to the heiress to Boulogne, which is very handy for getting to England. He has paid attention to what his uncle did when he became king. He jumps on his horse, gets to the coast, gets on a ship, jumps back on a horse, gets himself to Winchester, takes control of the royal treasury and then has himself crowned and anointed before anyone else knows what's happening.
25:03 Tom Holland? So the sacred oil has seeped into his skin and he is now impregnated.
25:08 Speaker 02 He is impregnated.
25:09 Tom Holland? Kind of sacramental oil.
25:11 Speaker 02 With kingship.
25:12 Tom Holland? Yeah.
25:13 Speaker 02 And so at this point, you have two different kinds of royal legitimacy standing in opposition to one another. Because you have the hereditary principle vested in Matilda. She's been named his heir by the previous king and all the barons have sworn allegiance to her.
25:32 Tom Holland? And I suppose some of them have a kind of personal loyalty to Henry and therefore to his daughter too.
25:35 Speaker 02 Absolutely, they do. Even though she's this weaker vessel, she's the wrong sex. But yes, Henry has designated her his heir and she does have sons. So the bloodline will continue through Matilda. But on the other hand, you have Stephen, who isn't even the oldest son in his own family. His older brother is still alive, but he has been crowned and anointed. He now is a king, whether you like it or not.
26:02 Tom Holland? So I suppose one one solution might be that that she stays in Normandy and becomes the kind of the Duchess of Normandy or whatever. And Stephen stays in England, but that's not really possible, is it? Because all the the the barons and so like, they have they have lands in both Normandy and England. And so they do need someone who can kind of preside over both realms.
26:21 Speaker 02 They do. They need a a king, a duke in Normandy. But they need someone who can provide them with order, with justice, leadership in war. We also have to remember this is a time when. Frontiers between states are exactly that, they're frontiers. If you are not defending your frontiers, someone else is going to pour over them with their army. So the idea that you could just leave your lands in Normandy for someone else to look after is not viable.
26:51 Tom Holland? So this is a real problem then. I mean, what happens? How do they resolve this problem?
26:57 Speaker 02 Initially, it looks as though Stephen has won. That kind of decisive seizing the moment. And the fact that he he's not only been anointed as a king, but he looks like he can do the job. He is a man, he can lead in war, he can offer justice. This is what the chroniclers tell us at this point. He takes the throne because he can bring peace, he can bring justice. He fits the job. And so for the first year or so, it looks as though there's a sort of virtuous circle operating in his favour. Poor old Matilda is off in a castle in the south of Normandy, having given birth to her third son.
27:37 Tom Holland? Such bad timing.
27:38 Speaker 02 Such bad timing, but her husband is trying to push into Normandy to try and stake her claim there. But it looks as though England is lost. Even Robert Earl of Gloucester, Matilda's illegitimate half-brother, who's held out for a while, trying to resist the idea that Stephen is this irresistible force. He gives in at Easter eleven thirty six. And it looks as though Stephen's got it all, but it's not long before it starts going wrong.
28:07 Tom Holland? So is this a reflection of the fact that we haven't really talked about Matilda's character up till now? Is she a very kind of obdurate woman, a determined woman, someone who's not prepared to let this?
28:17 Speaker 02 Matilda is not going to let her inheritance go. She won't let it go for her own sake. She is the daughter of Henry the First, after all. But she is the mother of sons, she's had to marry.
28:29 Tom Holland? Little red face.
28:30 Speaker 02 She's had to marry this plantagenet youngster that she didn't want to have anything to do with. But she's done it in order to get these sons, and she is not going to let their inheritance go. It's quite hard to get a sense of the detail of Matilda's character with all these women. The chroniclers don't really give us-
28:48 Tom Holland? She's clearly tough, isn't she?
28:50 Speaker 02 -thumbnail sketches in the same way. She is very, very tough. Even though, I mean, it's really interesting, if you read the chronicles, they're almost trying not to mention her. There are two chronicles at this point, the Gestus Stefani, which is the deeds of Stephen, so we know who the hero is there, he tries not to mention her. He says the Countess of Anjou, or the Earl of Gloucester's sister. He doesn't really want to let her on stage.
29:15 Tom Holland? Certainly not calling her the Empress.
29:16 Speaker 02 Exactly. Whereas William of Malmesbury, who's much more sympathetic, his hero is Robert of Gloucester, her half-brother. So we get glimpses of Matilda around the edges, but every glimpse we get shows us how tough she is.
29:29 Tom Holland? Right, so you can judge her by her actions, and her actions essentially are to aim not just to secure Normandy, but to claim the throne of England.
29:39 Speaker 02 By 1139, so we are four years into Stephen's reign now, it is clear that Stephen is struggling to get any kind of foothold in Normandy. Matilda and Geoffrey are doing well there, and that's going to be a structural problem for him, because if he can only claim half the Anglo-Norman realm, he's going to struggle to get all the barons to follow him. But Matilda, in 1139, does the key thing. She gets herself to England, because that's where she's going to stay.
30:08 Tom Holland? So how does she get a foothold there?
30:10 Speaker 02 It's a brave move.
30:12 Tom Holland? So we can say she's brave as well as tough?
30:14 Speaker 02 We can say she's very brave. She and Robert of Gloucester, her half-brother, take ship for England and they land-
30:21 Tom Holland? They don't hit a rock.
30:22 Speaker 02 They don't hit a rock. First victory, she's done better than her brother already. She lands at Arundel in Sussex, and this is very canny, because they've only got a small bodyguard with them.
30:36 Speaker 02 But Arundel Castle is held by Matilda's widowed stepmother, Adelisa of Luvan, who's the same age as her, this young woman that her father had married after her brother died. Adelisa's remarried, but Matilda and Adelisa do know each other of old. They seem to have a lot of respect for each other, and Adelisa lets Matilda into the castle. Robert of Gloucester spirits himself away to his stronghold in Bristol. But Stephen has now got a problem. Matilda's in the country, she's in a castle with the ex-queen, the Queen Dowager. Is he going to besiege them? Is he going to try to capture them? What's that going to look like? Here's a moment where being a woman can actually help you.
31:20 Speaker 02 If she was a man, then all bets are off, it's war. But she's a woman, is Stephen really going to besiege?
31:26 Tom Holland? There's a kind of hint of chivalry there.
31:28 Speaker 02 Chivalry, absolutely. Stephen is not going to do his image as king any good if he is seen to be treating two royal women without due deference, without due respect.
31:43 Tom Holland? So it's a little bit like in the series we did on 1970s Britain, Harold Wilson wondering how he was going to deal with Margaret Thatcher at Prime Minister's Question Time.
31:54 Speaker 02 Do you know, that's not a...
31:55 Tom Holland? In a very vague kind of way.
31:56 Speaker 02 That's not a bad analogy. And one of the criticisms that is levelled at Stephen is that he's too nice. He struggles to land the killer blow, he's good at decisive action, but...
32:06 Tom Holland? I mean, he's next to the throne, I mean, he's not that nice.
32:08 Speaker 02 No, he's good at that kind of decisive action, but when it comes to the iron fist...
32:13 Tom Holland? To capturing and killing women.
32:14 Speaker 02 Capturing, killing women, even capturing and killing some of his male opponents, the killer blow sometimes loses him.
32:20 Tom Holland? So this is the lesson of history, don't be weak if you're a medieval king.
32:25 Speaker 02 Exactly.
32:26 Tom Holland? So essentially, the consequence of this is that civil war breaks out, and this is what comes to be called the Anarchy, the time when Christ and his saints slept. And...
32:40 Tom Holland? It rages and rages. And this was always my favourite period when I was a child in studying medieval history, because it's where the terrible tortures come in, because the the barons would steal wayfarers and they would put knotted ropes around their heads and slowly tighten them until they handed over their money. Or they would put cages with rats on the stomach and the rats would gnaw through the stomach until again until they revealed where their money was. And so this for me as a child was the single most interesting thing about the anarchy.
33:13 Speaker 02 You were doing horrible histories before horrible histories existed.
33:16 Tom Holland? Absolutely. But I I'm suspecting that you are going to have a slightly different perspective on this and that there are actually more interesting things to say about the anarchy than the rats on the stomach.
33:25 Speaker 02 I I'm not sure there are more interesting things, in a way, on a par with the rats. And actually, it's a really good point, because it shows us why you need a king.
33:34 Tom Holland? Of course, yeah.
33:35 Speaker 02 Because often.
33:36 Tom Holland? People going around putting rats on people's stomachs.
33:38 Speaker 02 Exactly. And that's what the barons will do if left to their own devices. And they will do it not just because they are aiming for power by any means necessary, but they're also trying to defend themselves. This is always the problem. If you're a medieval baron, yes, you can go around putting rats on people's stomachs. But if a bigger baron comes along, what's he going to do to you? So this is why anarchy is terrifying.
34:03 Tom Holland? So that's bad. And the other famous thing that happens in the anarchy is people rushing around in snow, wearing night dresses. So what's going on with that?
34:11 Speaker 02 We will get to that, because that's one, again, one of Matilda's very bravest moments. Even her enemies grudgingly admit that she's brave at that point. But this is to do with the key, really, the pivotal part of the anarchy, because it is nineteen years of of
34:29 Tom Holland? Slugging at each other.
34:30 Speaker 02 Chaotic civil war. But the pivotal point is eleven forty, eleven forty one. So it comes pretty quickly after Matilda has arrived in England.
34:41 Speaker 02 Robert of Gloucester by now is her champion, he's her general, she can't fight in a battle. But Robert of Gloucester is going to lead her armies.
34:50 Tom Holland? There's never any thought of that, that she could ride out in the kind of, you know, Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury style in armour.
34:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, but even Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury, the armada isn't here yet. I mean, yes, she can do the figurehead bit, but you don't want her on the battlefield. She can't fight, but also she might get captured. And so, again, being female does have its advantages in some ways. Because what happens winter of 1140, 1141, is that there is a siege at Lincoln. King Stephen is besieging Lincoln Castle. He's surprised by the army of Robert of Gloucester. A battle ensues in February 1141, and he is captured. Now, up till this point, the fact that he's been anointed, that impregnated with kingship,
35:36 Speaker 02 has been the ace in his hand. But once he's a prisoner, suddenly the balance has shifted.
35:43 Tom Holland? So Matilda's quids then.
35:44 Speaker 02 God is not with Stephen anymore. This is Matilda's moment. She is going to step forward and become queen. And so she advances to Westminster to prepare for her coronation, the point at which her queenship will take effect.
36:00 Tom Holland? And so that happens, and what is the impact of that on her legitimacy?
36:05 Speaker 02 It doesn't happen. That's the big problem. The big, biggest pivotal moment in the whole story is that once she has reached Westminster in 1141, suddenly, and you'll be amazed to hear this, both medieval chroniclers and modern historians say, "Ah, yes, but a previously undetected character flaw starts letting her down." It turns out, in fact, one of the chroniclers says, puts it very well, the guest of Stefani says, "She at once put on an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex, and began to walk and speak and do all things more stiffly and more haughtily than she had been wont."
36:51 Tom Holland? So she's behaving like a king.
36:52 Speaker 02 She is behaving like a king. What else is she supposed to do? She's supposed to take command. Her father was the lion of justice, inflexible in his authority. But the man who thinks he's putting her on the throne, which is Stephen's younger brother, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, thinks he's going to be the power behind the throne. He thinks Matilda should be doing exactly what he tells her to.
37:17 Tom Holland? She's not having any of that.
37:17 Speaker 02 She is not having any of that.
37:19 Tom Holland? So why does she not get anointed?
37:21 Speaker 02 Because at the point where she is waiting for her coronation, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the one who's got her to that point, he thinks, and the Londoners both decide we're not happy with this. The Londoners pour out of the city, drive Matilda away from Westminster.
37:41 Tom Holland? Oh, terrible.
37:41 Speaker 02 She has to flee again.
37:43 Tom Holland? Her moment passes.
37:43 Speaker 02 Her moment passes. And not only that, but then at Winchester, another battle happens or another skirmish happens where Robert of Gloucester is taken prisoner. At that point, you've got to do a prisoner swap because she can't do without her brother to lead her troops. Robert for Stephen, Stephen's back in play, the whole thing starts off again.
38:03 Tom Holland? Couldn't she just find any old bishop? And, you know, I mean, any cathedral would do, just get rabbi and just get anointed.
38:08 Speaker 02 You'd think, wouldn't you? But the difficulty is, any old bishop, will that do really?
38:15 Tom Holland? Well, it's better than nothing.
38:17 Speaker 02 Yeah. If you and I had been there, Tom, she might have had some better, better advice. But
38:22 Tom Holland? Great shame.
38:23 Speaker 02 Part of the problem is even getting to a cathedral because the white cloak and the nightie in the snow is Oxford in the winter of 1142. She's under siege in Oxford and she manages to slip out through the snow, across the frozen river, seven miles in the snow, wearing a white cloak for camouflage. She is brave physically as well as in every other way, but she just can't. Stephen won't land the killer blow and she can't.
38:51 Tom Holland? Okay, so nineteen years of anarchy to cut to the chase.
38:56 Tom Holland? How does this anarchy end and what does it mean for Stephen, for Matilda and for, well, no longer little baby Henry Plantagenet? I mean, he's kind of grown up by now.
39:05 Speaker 02 What we're looking at is Matilda's judgment here. Yes, she was indomitable, but no, she wasn't inflexibly arrogant because by the late 1140s, she sees there's no way through for her. She is not going to be able to unite the Anglo-Norman barons around female leadership, but she has handily provided someone who might represent the future, and that is her son Henry.
39:37 Tom Holland? Although he's young still, he is proving himself to be a very formidable ruler by this point in Normandy, isn't he?
39:45 Speaker 02 He is. He is recognised. His father has managed more or less to conquer Normandy in the name of his wife and his son. And 1150, at which point Henry is, what are we talking, 16, 17? He is recognised as Duke of Normandy. He then comes to England. And by this stage, it's clear that even the people who still support Stephen as king are beginning to talk about Henry as the lawful heir.
40:11 Tom Holland? And so there is scope there for a deal?
40:13 Speaker 02 The deal is Stephen will continue to rule, but when Stephen dies, Henry, Matilda's son, will inherit. The grandson of Henry I will become Henry II. And that is the deal that's done in 1153 at the Treaty of Winchester.
40:31 Tom Holland? So Henry II, we will be coming to in our next episode.
40:34 Speaker 02 We will.
40:35 Tom Holland? Because, of course, he has a very famous and feisty wife in the form of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and we'll be talking about her. But before we, before we end, Stephen dies, Henry succeeds him to become Henry II of England.
40:51 Tom Holland? What happens to Matilda?
40:53 Speaker 02 Matilda stays in Normandy. In a sense, she's in retirement. In a sense, she's taken up a very much approved role now of spending a lot of her time at an abbey, of which she's a particular patron. But she is the elder stateswoman of her son's regime. He looks to her for advice.
41:14 Tom Holland? So she's a kind of matriarchal figure?
41:15 Speaker 02 She's a matriarchal figure. He doesn't always take her advice. When she warns against making Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, he doesn't listen to her.
41:24 Tom Holland? Should listen to mommy.
41:25 Speaker 02 But she is this fount of wisdom, but in such a way, in such an acceptably female way, that if you go to Rouen Cathedral, where her remains ended up in the end, there is an epitaph to her carved into the wall. And what this epitaph says is, great by birth, greater by marriage, greatest in her offspring, here lies the daughter, wife and mother of Henry.
41:57 Tom Holland? Okay, so she is defined by her male relations. And just before we end, can I ask, does she serve as a kind of object lesson to future generations? Is her attempt to make herself a kind of regnant queen recollected? Or is that not influential on how people come to think about the possibility of a female monarch?
42:22 Speaker 02 It certainly is remembered, but it faces in two directions, her example. Because in one sense, it is clear that a woman can transmit the right to inherit the crown of England. Her son has become king. She's the daughter of a king and she's the mother of a king. So claims through women operate in England and all future kings are descended from her. But her attempt to claim the throne for herself resulted in nineteen years when Christ and his saints slept. So the example it gives of female rule is a deeply...
43:01 Speaker 02 Alarming and worrying one.
43:03 Tom Holland? Okay, so thank you Helen and we will be back next time, as I said, with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the wife of Henry the Second, Matilda's son, and she will be our second she-wolf. So I hope you enjoyed this first episode of our new super Sore Away mini-series and if you would like to see the rest, and you're not a member of the Rest is History Club, you can go to restishistory.com, sign up there for this and a host of sensational other benefits.
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