Pod Insights Gone Medieval Empress Matilda: Queen of the Romans, Ruler of the English About this episode How did an empress become the most dangerous claimant to the English throne?
From the Battle of Lincoln to her legendary escape from Oxford Castle, Matilda was a formidable political actor whose legacy shaped the Plantagenet dynasty.
Dr Eleanor Janega is joined by Professor Elisabeth van Houts to explore Matilda’s imperial upbringing, her contested claim after Henry I’s death, the infamous White Ship disaster, and the brutal civil war known as the Anarchy.
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Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.
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1:50 Eleanor Janega? Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.
2:29 Eleanor Janega? December 1142.
2:33 Eleanor Janega? England is locked in civil war. The country is frozen, not just by winter, but by fear.
2:43 Eleanor Janega? For years, armies have marched across the land. Castles have changed hands. Loyalties have been broken and reformed. And the question of who should wear the crown has torn the kingdom apart.
2:59 Eleanor Janega? Inside Oxford Castle, a woman is trapped.
3:05 Eleanor Janega? Beyond the walls, enemy soldiers wait in the freezing snow. Their orders are simple: keep her there until hunger, cold, or desperation forces her to surrender. The castle is surrounded. The roads are watched. Escape seems impossible.
3:28 Eleanor Janega? But the woman inside is not ready to yield. Her name is Matilda.
3:36 Eleanor Janega? To her supporters, she is the rightful ruler of England. To her enemies, she's arrogant and dangerous: a woman who dares to claim a king's power. She is the daughter of King Henry I, the widow of the Holy Roman Emperor, the mother of a future dynasty, and the woman who has spent years fighting for a crown that was promised to her, then stolen from her.
4:06 Eleanor Janega? And now, in the dead of winter, she's running out of time.
4:12 Eleanor Janega? Oxford Castle is under siege by the forces of King Stephen, her cousin and rival.
4:19 Eleanor Janega? Stephen had seized the throne after Matilda's father died, moving quickly while she was across the Channel. Matilda, however, refused to disappear into the shadows of history. She crossed into England, raised her standard, and fought. And for a moment, she nearly won.
4:41 Eleanor Janega? Stephen had been captured at the Battle of Lincoln. Matilda had entered London. The crown seemed close enough to touch. But politics is a more treacherous battlefield than war. London had turned against her. Her enemies regrouped, and fortunes shifted. And now, she is here. Enclosed behind stoned walls, with Stephen's army closing its grip. Outside, the rivers and surrounding fields lie beneath snow and ice. The night is bitter.
5:23 Eleanor Janega? It's the kind of cold that numbs fingers, silences birds, and makes every breath visible. It's the perfect weather for surrender. Instead, Matilda chooses to escape. According to the story that would echo across centuries, she dresses in white. White cloak, white garments, white against white stone. Not the armor of a warrior. It's something far more useful. Camouflage. Under cover of darkness, she slips out of the castle. One wrong step, one shout from a guard, one crack in the ice, and the game is over.
6:08 Eleanor Janega? She is not merely fleeing a castle. She is carrying a claim, a cause, and the future of her bloodline across the frozen land. With a handful of companions, she moves silently through the winter night. Across snow fields, over ice, past the men who would imprison her. Away from Oxford, towards Wallingford, where safety awaits. By morning, Matilda is gone. Stephen's trap has failed. The woman he meant to corner has vanished into the snow.
6:49 Eleanor Janega? Matilda's escape became one of the defining images of her life. A woman in white crossing a frozen world, hunted but unbroken. It captured something essential about her. Again and again, Matilda was told, no. No, a woman could not rule. No, the oath sworn to her did not matter. No, her ambition was pride. No, her claim should be set aside for a man who moved faster. Again and again, she replied by carrying on. She did not win the crown for herself. She was never crowned Queen of England in the way that she believed she deserved.
7:34 Eleanor Janega? Yet, to measure her life only by that absence is to miss the force of her achievement. Matilda survived betrayal, exile, widowhood, political humiliation, military crisis, and years of civil war. She held together a cause that seemed doomed. She fought not only for herself, but for her son, Henry, who would become Henry II and found one of the most powerful dynasties in English history. So who was this empress who claimed England, challenged a king, and refused to surrender to the limits placed upon her? Was she difficult, ambitious, uncompromising?
8:19 Eleanor Janega? Or was she exactly what the moment demanded? Royal, relentless, and utterly convinced of her right? Today, to find out more about the life of Empress Matilda, I'm delighted to be joined by Elizabeth Van Houts, the Emeratus Honorary Professor of Medieval European History in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge. Her new book, Empress Matilda: Queen of the Romans, Ruler of the English, explores the remarkable life of medieval England's only queen regent.
9:00 Eleanor Janega? Elizabeth, welcome to Gone Medieval.
9:02 Speaker 04 Thank you very much. Delighted to be on.
9:05 Eleanor Janega? I'm so happy that you're here, in particular because we're going to talk about one of, I think, the most enigmatic people in medieval history. She's a tricky one, isn't she? Because there's so much politics going in. I think possibly the best place to begin is sort of 1127 or so. So how would you say the dependence of Norman magnates on royal favor make it easier for Henry I to push through the idea that his daughter will succeed?
9:38 Speaker 04 Well, that's certainly a very good point. From my perspective, there is absolutely no evidence that any of them objected, given that Henry's younger son, who originally was supposed to be the heir, had died. If he wanted to continue his dynasty, he only had one legitimate child, and that was Matilda. And having reacquainted himself with his daughter for the previous year after she came back from Germany, he cannot but have been deeply impressed with her knowledge, the way she presented herself,
10:18 Speaker 04 that both he and his aristocracy realized she could be a very plausible candidate for the throne.
10:28 Eleanor Janega? I think this is a really interesting point because there is a tendency, I think, to believe that for everyone in the medieval period, succession for women was just completely impossible. And obviously, it's not necessarily preferred, but it is something that happens. Certainly, we see it happen in other cases, perhaps not at a royal level. But I think also fundamentally, this is a fairly steady pair of hands. It's not as though Matilda doesn't understand how to govern, for example.
11:01 Speaker 04 That's absolutely true. And what not very many people know, of course, is The early history of Empress Matilda. And between the moment she married her first husband, Emperor Henry V of Germany and Northern Italy, and the moment she returned to her father, that she was deeply involved in his government, that she acted on various occasions as his regent. And that meant, of course, that she replaced him temporarily because he was unavailable. That had been common for German queen consorts, but only when they had children.
11:44 Speaker 04 And it's very unusual that Matilda and Henry didn't have children and that nevertheless he relied on her to stand in for him. And that means that also his court trusted her. And again, the press of Matilda in the empire is very, very positive. And of course, that then causes Matilda to become more confident. And it's certainly true that towards the end of her husband's life, we find her much more involved in the government of the empire than in the years before that.
12:25 Speaker 04 But collectively during the periods of her active life in the empire, she acquired an enormous amount of expertise in what it meant to be either helping her husband or to act in his place as a regent.
12:43 Eleanor Janega? If you are a sort of right-thinking individual who primarily cares about what is happening with the government, this is great news, right? And despite the fact that Matilda has this really excellent pedigree and she's got this really excellent training fundamentally, she does also have a half-brother who is on the scene as well. Is there a particular reason that we think Henry I may have been choosing to support his daughter over her half-brother?
13:12 Speaker 04 Yes, and I'm absolutely in no doubt that Matilda was preferred because she had both the Norman pedigree and the English Vexex pedigree that went back to Edward the Confessor and the kings before the Norman conquest. Whereas her half-brother, who was extremely capable, and Matilda would never have been able to do anything in her career if she hadn't had the support of Robert of Gloucester. But Robert of Gloucester had been born from a liaison of her father and a Norman woman. So Robert had only the Norman heritage.
13:53 Speaker 04 He didn't have this anchoring into the old English royal family. And I think that was absolutely crucial. And that is why so many people make a great deal of Matilda's English heritage through her mother. And the fact that her mother was very well educated and she was educated, they had the same name because Edith was renamed Matilda upon her marriage with Henry. Yeah, Henry, the first of this fact that you have mother and daughter who both called Matilda, who both very skillful rulers, is something that also helped set up Empress
14:36 Speaker 04 Matilda as a very viable candidate.
14:40 Eleanor Janega? Do you think that it's possible that the fact that Matilda does embody this sort of dual Norman and English heritage, does that actually act as a deterrent for some people who would be supporting her? There's a fair intensity of opposition against her as well. And is it down to this sort of Englishness? Do the Normans not want to see that to an extent?
15:07 Speaker 04 I don't think that there is a very strong Norman antagonism against Matilda on the basis of her English heritage. After all, there were quite a substantial number of Norman aristocrats who had married English women for precisely the same reason that their children then would draw from both traditions. Where Matilda's enemies come from is from the moment Stephen becomes king and then Matilda challenges his rule and comes to England.
15:44 Speaker 04 That is the moment that we begin to see a split in the Anglo Norman aristocracy, whereby some say, since Stephen now is king, we'd better stick with him. And others say, well, actually, we have sworn oath to Matilda in the presence of our father twice. You cannot ignore an oath like that because any oath that is broken is seen as defying God. So once Matilda starts challenging Stephen, there is quite a bit of unease amongst the aristocracy.
16:22 Eleanor Janega? It's a very interesting situation because on the one hand, yes, she does have to press the point that she is meant to be the inheritor of the crown here because Stephen just sort of gets in there first. But I tend to come down on the side of the idea that, well, what Stephen manages to do here and the reason why he has any sort of support is due to the fact that he just gets crowned first. Really, it's more of a race than it is a number of people who are saying, oh, I'm not happy with a woman inheriting. Because, let's be honest, there are women who inherit all over the continent. There is a legal mechanism
17:02 Eleanor Janega? by which daughters can inherit. It's just that Stephen seems to wish to ignore that.
17:08 Speaker 04 It's very interesting that you say that because female succession is very common in the Middle Ages and someone once looked at the female succession rate and at aristocratic level, it's about a quarter of the families in the 11th and 12th century descend in the female line. And that usually that means is that on the death of a duke or a count in the absence of sons, it's a daughter who succeeds. And then the daughter usually is married and then it's the husband of the daughter who is the public face of the government. And as is usually in a patriarchy, it's the man then who becomes the military supremo.
17:56 Speaker 04 What is very interesting in Matilda's case is that although she marries for a second time a man chosen for her by her father, Geoffrey of Anjou, who is 11 years younger, when they marry, it's a complete mismatch. And within a few months of the marriage, she goes back to her father. It's not entirely sure. Some people say that he pushed her out, some say that she actually left, and I think it is probably a combination of the two, because if a marriage doesn't work, it's two people who are at fault. But Matilda goes back to her father, and for two years, she stays at her father's court and makes connections.
18:40 Speaker 04 She's networking. She is dealing with the nobility who have chose her as her father's successor. But then that same nobility then gets very uneasy, because if she is chosen to continue the dynasty, oh, she has to produce children. She's legally married, so she has to go back to her husband. So finally, after two years, they persuade her to go back to her husband. And those two years then turn out to have made a big difference. You know, obviously, a boy of 15 is not the same as a boy of 17. And there is a reconciliation between the couple. They jump into bed, and within five years, they produce three sons.
19:25 Speaker 04 So the succession then, from their perspective, is guaranteed. However, during the time that Matilda is supposedly reconciled with her husband, there is potentially a hiatus in Normandy, where some people may start thinking, well, do we really want Matilda as Henry's successor? And it is possible that Stephen, during that period, realises that here is an opportunity as another grand child of William the Conqueror, that he might have a go at the throne.
20:08 Speaker 04 But as far as Matilda is concerned, and Henry's closest advisers...
20:15 Speaker 04 The money is on Matilda. And there is absolutely no evidence that there is a huge sway of support for Stephen. Then then, Henry the First dies in early December, eleven thirty five. Stephen, as a result of his marriage to Matilda of Boulogne, is Count of Boulogne, a day's sailing trip from London. Whereas Matilda is based in Anjou, thirty three or four days' travel to London. And it is Stephen who then immediately seizes the opportunity to go to London and persuade the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown him king. And the Archbishop of Canterbury is very reluctant.
21:01 Eleanor Janega? Yeah, I suppose I realise we haven't really talked about why this entire situation became necessary in the first place. Because, you know, Matilda's married off at twelve into the the Holy Roman Empire. There is no real reason to understand that she ought to be her father's successor. Were it not, of course, for the White Ship disaster? Can you tell us what the White Ship disaster was and then why this brings Matilda to the fore?
21:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, so Matilda was the eldest of two legitimate children of Henry the First and his wife, Eda Matilda. And all along, it was absolutely accepted that Matilda, being the eldest daughter, was going to be married off, probably abroad, and that her younger brother, only twenty months younger than her, would be their father's successor. So, as you say, Matilda was sent at the age of eight to Germany. She then was educated and prepared for marriage with Henry the Fifth. And Matilda stayed in Germany
22:08 Speaker 04 and would never ever have any reason that she would go back to England. She was completely Germanised almost, you know, she spoke German fluidly. She had an education there, she expected to have children. In Normandy in England, it was a younger brother who was accepted not only in Normandy and England as his father's successor, but also by the King of France, the overlord of the Duke of Normandy. Until in November eleven twenty, Henry and William, that was the name of the Matilda's
22:48 Speaker 04 younger brother, were both in Normandy and were going to travel back to England. There was a large group of courtiers surrounding them. They decided to travel in two ships. Henry the First with Stephen of Boulogne went and crossed to England. And a little bit later, William with some younger fellows chose to board the white ship. And the story goes that the crew of the ship was drunk. It was a very rowdy group of aristocrats who boarded the ship.
23:29 Speaker 04 And on the way out, the ship did not follow the correct course and the ship broke up against a rock and sunk. And with the ship, two hundred people perished. And apart from William Adeline, two of his half siblings were also drowned in the disaster. So the news of this disaster immediately was conveyed to King Henry, who burst into tears and obviously was heartbroken because all the planning for the future had gone haywire. You know, there's always in these dynastic families, there is the personal grief, but
24:12 Speaker 04 there is also the collapse of the succession plans.
24:18 Speaker 04 What then happened in England was that within a few months, Henry I remarried. Because his wife, I should say, the mother of Matilda and William Adeline had died in 1118. Henry I realised that only by remarrying could he hope for another legitimate son. And he married a young woman from the Netherlands, Adelisa of Louvain. And what we know in hindsight is that second marriage of Henry I never produced any children.
24:56 Speaker 04 So what is ironical is that once Matilda returned to England, called back by her father. You have two women at Henry I court who have experience as Queen's concierge, who are childless. You know, Matilda herself had no children in Germany and the result was the collapse of the Salian line. And in England, her stepmother Adelisa of Louvain had been trying to get pregnant, never became pregnant. You know, she was married to Henry for 14 years and the marriage remained barren.
25:37 Speaker 04 So the pressure on both of them must have been enormous to know that it was, in a sense, their fault.
25:46 Eleanor Janega? Well, it's interesting because there are so many different forms of personal trauma that lead up to this point. Because, you know, obviously, I think it seems pretty clear from Matilda's standpoint. You know, the way she she absolutely guards this title as Empress. Every document you ever see of hers, it always says Imperatrix Matilda, you know, and she seems very. Attached to that, you know, I think had she had children, sons, anything, she would have been happily back in the Holy Roman Empire doing that. And so there is this truncation, there is this loss of what might have been there. And then this is compounded with the loss of William Adeline as well.
26:29 Eleanor Janega? And I do think it's interesting watching how many plans have to shift as a result of this, because, you know, as you say, Henry the First, it's not as though this was his first option either. And he does seem aware that there might be some opposition to this, which is why he has to have everybody swear these oaths to Matilda, right? You know, if you expect an easy succession for your daughter, you don't make the nobility do two oaths, right?
27:00 Speaker 04 Well, I mean, I should say that it was a tradition in Normandy, certainly amongst dukes, that during the lifetime of a duke, he would gather his nobility and have them swear an oath to whichever son he chose to be your successor, usually the eldest son. So there was definitely a Norman tradition to have these oath swearing ceremonies. In terms of the succession then of William the Conqueror and his sons, William Rufus, king after William the Conqueror, he had no children.
27:43 Speaker 04 He hadn't really thought about his succession before he died. So then it was his younger brother, who there was a struggle between two of his brothers. But it was the younger Henry the First who won, because again, he was in England when his brother died and got himself accepted as the new king. But Henry, with regard to Matilda, might have been harking back a little bit to this Norman tradition of having oath swearing ceremonies to bind the aristocracy during his lifetime to go with the heir he had designated.
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29:31 Eleanor Janega? We also see some quick scrabbling on the part of Matilda in order to arrange an advantageous marriage for herself at this point in time. You know, Stephen is making smart decisions in terms of who he marries. But Matilda becomes betrothed to Geoffrey of Anjou. Is there a particular reason why an anguine marriage is particularly attractive for Matilda? Or does this also introduce problems that can play out in politics later?
30:04 Speaker 04 Well, the fact that Matilda is married off to Geoffrey was entirely her father's doing. She probably would have discussed with her father. She realised that, obviously, as the heir and successor, she had to marry. But all the indications are that it was her father and Geoffrey's father who, between them, decided that Matilda should marry Geoffrey.
30:30 Speaker 04 Matilda was a poet, coming from a situation where she was the Queen Consort in Germany, an empress because her husband was an emperor, to then being married off to a man eleven years younger than her, who was the son of a count and not even a count himself, in a world in which hierarchy and status was absolutely normal and accepted fact of life, to be presented with a marriage that was several ranks below where she was as empress. She absolutely hated it. That contributed to the fact that
31:14 Speaker 04 once the marriage had taken place, it collapsed and Matilda went back to her father. Now, once the couple then are reconciled, they work extremely well together. And when Matilda decides, or the couple decides, that Matilda would challenge Stephen after he had been crowned king, Geoffrey went out of his way to help his wife. And I think that right from the word go, they decided that Geoffrey would concentrate on reconquering Normandy from Stephen and pay attention to both Anjou and Normandy,
31:59 Speaker 04 and that Matilda would go to England and try and persuade Stephen to hand over the crown to her. And during the nine years that Matilda spends in England, there is good evidence that she and her husband keep in very close touch to see how the situation in Normandy improves. Geoffrey is very successful and by eleven forty-four has reconquered Normandy. Whereas, interestingly, in England, the situation isn't as favorable to Matilda in the long term.
32:40 Speaker 04 And after nine years, the couple then decide that probably it would be best for Matilda to withdraw from England.
32:51 Speaker 04 Which she does at the moment that their eldest son Henry is fifteen. And fifteen is the nominal age of adulthood. It was a gamble, Matilda withdrawing from England. But they must have decided that it was probably best for Matilda to be in Normandy and help prepare Henry to ultimately challenge Stephen in England. That is what happened and the gamble paid off. Ultimately, Matilda supports her son. Geoffrey dies in eleven fifty one. Henry becomes Count of Anjou. He becomes also Duke of Normandy.
33:36 Speaker 04 And his mother is acting as regent for him on occasion. Henry then marries Eleanor of Aquitaine. And his prestige in France rises enormously. And after the marriage of Henry and Eleanor, there is then a moment in eleven fifty three that Matilda, Henry and Eleanor decide that it's now time for Henry to cross to England for a last push and try and persuade the aristocracy to back him instead of Stephen. And that is what happens.
34:15 Speaker 04 And after twenty years of civil war, the aristocracy is then ready to give up this stalemate. And they then are must decide to support Henry as the younger pretender to the throne. One of the considerations was that most of the Norman aristocracy had lands on both sides of the channel. The argument after Henry, the first death was that they would all go with Stephen. Because if Stephen was King of England, it would also be best that he would become Duke of Normandy. Because having lands on both sides of the channel, it's better to have one ruler than two rulers.
34:57 Speaker 04 In eleven fifty three, the same argument applies but the other way around, that the war-bury soldiers realise that it is better for the future of their states to all back one candidate. And they then go with Henry. And Stephen somehow agrees with that. By then Stephen had lost his wife, Matilda Bulloin. He had lost his eldest son. And it seems that he had really lost the energy to continue. You know, he would stay as king, but he was happy to then agree that Henry Fitzempress would succeed him.
35:41 Speaker 04 What then happens when Henry becomes King of England? That he not only is King of England, but he is, by right of his life, Duke of Aquitaine, he's Count of Anjou, he's Duke of Normandy, he's Count of Poitou. The whole of the west part of France is under his command. And he has assembled this realm that is often referred to as the Angevin Empire. It's huge. When you ask me what is the result of this Angevin marriage? The Angevin marriage leads to Anjou, Normandy and England to become one realm. And then as a result of the marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine,
36:27 Speaker 04 Aquitaine and Poitou join that conglomeration of territories and it is huge.
36:33 Eleanor Janega? I do think that if you are one of the nobles, you're looking at the better part of a decade of unrest and uncertainty, at the very least, when you have both Stephen and Matilda vying back and forth. And if you have an individual like the Henry Fitzempress come on the scene and you know he has this incredible amount of land, that means he has an incredible amount of money. It would be very difficult to fight that. And I do think, though, that what is quite interesting in your book is you talk a lot about this, you know, in this period of, you know, what we term the anarchy now from
37:15 Eleanor Janega? about 1139 to 1148, not necessarily as a time of extreme turbulence. Of course, there is political upheaval, there is the back and forth, but we do see more kind of a regional rule that is settled. What can you tell us about that? Because I really do think this is a very important point and challenges the idea that if there isn't one strong centralized authority, the kingdom will necessarily fall.
37:47 Speaker 04 That's a very good point you make because during this period, up until that is in England, the country is ruled by two people, Stephen in the east and Matilda in the west. They both collect taxes. They both act as military commanders of their army with the one difference that in Matilda's case, the actual warfare is being executed by her half-brother, Robert of Loster. But we know of court cases that Matilda presides over. Stephen presides over court cases in the other part of England.
38:28 Speaker 04 There is a collapse of centralized government, but there are too many centralized governments, one in the east and one in the west. Now, what the result of that is, not so much under Matilda's control in the west, but under Stephen's control in the east, is that you find that the nobility
38:52 Speaker 04 Is acting much more independently from the ruler than was normally the case. And that the nobility also begins to encroach on royal prerogatives. So for instance, in England, the royal prerogative of coinage was extremely important. Only the king was allowed to issue coins or delegate to others who could produce coins with his image. What you find during anarchy is that particularly in Stephen's part of the world, the nobility begins to issue their own coinage. This also happens a little bit in Matilda's area,
39:34 Speaker 04 but not nearly on the scale as in Stephen's part of the country. So you see a sort of collapse in certain parts of governments, of the royal power. But on the other hand, in Matilda's part of the country, what you see is that a woman can rule. Because in the southwest, people had accepted allegiance to Matilda and they supported her. And it is really quite striking how it was possible that so many men and women would choose her side in the battle. Because if that hadn't been the case, you know, Matilda shouldn't have had the chance.
40:18 Speaker 04 But her followers were a very loyal bunch. And that says something about her capacity to create loyalty and friendship with a large group of people. And that's of course what we know about her in Germany and northern Italy. She did exactly the same. So her character, which very often is seen as arrogant and negative, only on the basis of one very hostile chronicler, really doesn't justice to the person she really was.
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42:11 Speaker 05 And guess what? We're also now on YouTube. After Dark, a podcast from History Hit.
42:33 Eleanor Janega? Can we talk a little bit about that particular characterization as well? One of the things that you do a great job of arguing in the book is against this idea of Matilda losing London, as it were, because she is personally difficult and personally challenging. And, you know, she's asking for too much money. She's asking for too many gifts. What would you posit is the actual alternative explanation for this episode? And what it says, I suppose, about what Londoners expect as a political community from their rulers?
43:12 Speaker 04 Yes, that goes really to the heart of the story of Matilda. The fact that in London, the final negotiations with the Londoners collapse is, in my opinion, not the result of Matilda not being a good negotiator or a difficult character in those situations. I'm very much of the opinion that what ultimately scuppers Matilda's coronation is that during these final negotiations, the problem of having a crowned, consecrated monarch imprisoned with his family free to do whatever they like.
43:57 Speaker 04 And being faced with a monarch who has been acclaimed monarch, a woman, simply was too difficult a problem to solve in the minds of an aristocracy that was used to one ruler. Now, what we have to understand is that for Matilda, this was less of a problem because coming from the empire, it was relatively common in the empire that if you had elected a king and the king was deemed not to do his job properly, you could elect an anti-king. In the same way as popes were elected.
44:42 Speaker 04 And if one faction didn't like the pope, they could elect an anti-pope. So the political possibility of an alternative candidate was something that was available on the continent.
44:58 Speaker 04 But was never explored in England. And in England, it simply didn't work. And the negotiations, as far as Matilda was concerned, were still ongoing. The Londoners said, when they last met Matilda, okay, we think about it next time. We come with an alternative proposal. At that moment, it so happened that King Stephen's wife, Matilda, with an army, had arrived at London and put pressure on the Londoners not to give in to Matilda. And that is the moment that the Londoner erupts in violence.
45:39 Speaker 04 And Matilda realizes that she has to get out of London because she doesn't have the military might to resist and rebellions London. So Matilda, very sensibly, withdraws from London and regroups with a very substantial group of followers. But in retrospect, we know that that was the end of her campaign to become queen. But I'm absolutely convinced that it is less to do with Matilda as a person and more to do with the structural problem that England had never faced two rulers at the same time.
46:13 Eleanor Janega? As you say, we do now know this to be the end of Matilda's campaign for the actual throne. But still, we certainly see that she is incredibly involved in English government. For example, you know, during the Beckett crisis, she's a mediator within that. She's also super involved in ecclesiastical politics generally. And she's also this huge patroness of the arts and literature as well. So she actually comes out incredibly strongly in terms of cultural memory. But I'm just wondering what you think this says about the ability to wield power even
46:58 Eleanor Janega? sans coronation?
47:00 Speaker 04 Well, Matilda certainly acted as uncrowned Queen Reckon for nine months in the whole of England. She then continued to act as uncrowned Queen Reckon during the remaining eight years that she was in the southwest of England. Than during the last twenty years of her life and she's back in Normandy. She certainly is a very active and wealthy patron for monasteries and churches. We know a little bit less about her patronage in terms of stained glass
47:44 Speaker 04 or paintings or other works of art. But she definitely is far more generous than, for instance, Eleanor Aquitaine ever was. And part of her generosity can be explained by the enormous wealth that she had brought back with her from Germany. We know this because upon her death, she bequitted this wealth to the monastery of Beck, where she was buried. And the monks of Beck made a list of all the gifts she made to the monastery. It is a very early example of an inventory of wealth from an elite woman.
48:28 Speaker 04 But we can sort of reconstruct the enormous wealth she brought back with her from Germany that allowed her to be so generous to those around her.
48:41 Eleanor Janega? I find this such an interesting point as well because it is this generosity which allows us to see a different side of Matilda that the quite negative sources we find often from an English standpoint belie. You know, we can see from other people's perspective, she's a wonderful woman, a great ruler, very interested in the arts and very interested in really in geosity. You know, of course, these are also biased accounts. But also ultimately, that's what we expect from a queen. The things that queens are meant to do are these social and artistic endeavors.
49:25 Eleanor Janega? And she does that as well as everything else.
49:27 Speaker 04 Absolutely. What I think is important, that when she came from Germany with this massive amount of wealth, she also came with a title of empress. She was never formally crowned by a pope as empress, but the imperial title was a courtesy title that she could use because her husband had been an emperor. So the combination of her imperial legacy with the amount of wealth must have made an enormous oppression in both in Normandy and in England and in Anjou.
50:04 Speaker 04 And for one reason or another, this imperial title is something that she kept and then emphasised from the moment she launched her campaign to become Queen Reckon of England. And that imperial title acted as both a psychological and a public support for herself to be taken seriously. This was not Matilda having a visitor's card with Empress Matilda and everyone else ignoring it. No, this was everyone else accepting that the way to approach Matilda was to acknowledge her imperial title.
50:49 Speaker 04 I don't think it was necessarily a PR action, but I think her whole imperial upbringing in Germany was so much part of her identity that if people accepted her, they had to accept her with that legacy, with that aspect of her life. I have often thought when I was writing the book, can I think of a modern equivalent? You know, how to explain to readers what this might have meant for her? And I haven't really been able to come up with a modern equivalent, but all I can say
51:27 Speaker 04 is that this was so absolutely integral to the way she was the person she was, that nobody could get past that. And people accepted it. And I remember one of her previous biographers, Marjorie Chippnell, at one point in her biography said that for modern scholars and modern readers, the fact that she had the title Empress at least make her stand out amongst all the other women who were called Matilda.
51:57 Eleanor Janega? Absolutely, you know, as you say, she's likely not doing it for the purposes of PR, but ultimately she certainly won that PR battle when we refer to her now, eight hundred years later. We're talking about The Empress Matilda fundamentally.
52:15 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
52:17 Eleanor Janega? Well, Elizabeth, I wish that I could talk to you for another three hours about this, but I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone who is interested in The Empress Matilda. And thank you so, so much for coming to speak with us today.
52:32 Speaker 04 Thank you very much for having me.
52:34 Eleanor Janega? My thanks again to Professor Elizabeth von Hauss and my thanks to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent series with our own Matt, The Rise of the Plantagenets, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.
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