Empress Matilda: Civil War and the Fight for the Throne

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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 mini series 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.

Thank you for having me.

Before we go to the Middle Ages, should we just look at the century that follows the medieval period, the sixteenth 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?

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 sixteenth century which

Let's list them. So um Elizabeth the First, Mary Queen of Scots.

Mary Tudor. Also there's this extraordinary moment in the fifteen fifties where there seem to be women everywhere.

Monstrous regiment.

A monstrous regiment of women, although Knox doesn't quite mean that, we'll we'll come to that. Mary of Hungary has been ruling the Netherlands for her All Mary's for her brother, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth, Mary Queen of Scots. Is the Queen of Scotland living in Paris while her mother Mary of Guise is Regent in Scotland for her, then we have Mary Tudor in England.

Monstrous regiment is not it's not like a kind of military parade of

It's easy.

Kind of watching it.

It's easy to see, isn't it? This dreadful battalion of Mary's No. Regiment means regimen, 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 r he publishes this in the summer of fifteen fifty-eight. A few months later, Protestant Elizabeth becomes Queen in England. She's not impressed and he's like.

She gave sympathy.

She 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 sixteenth century that women are beginning to rule but there's a big pushback. That this must be progress, because we tend to think of the Middle Ages as sort of benighted. Things were obviously

Henry the Eighth's famous inability to father a son until he does and then the son dies and he's just got these two daughters.

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 twelfth century.

So should we go to that? Yes. 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 I, isn't she?

She is the granddaughter of the conqueror.

He inherits England, doesn't he? And Robert inherits Normandy. This is a complication.

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.

Can I can I ask is

That's it, and that's what makes a king at this point. It is as you say, it's 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.

Henry is incredibly able and he uh marries into the old Anglo Saxon royal dynasty, so he has gained himself legitimacy in that way.

He has legitimacy in all sorts of ways. He also 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 Oh of Saint Margaret of Scotland, who's descended from the Anglo Saxon house.

You've got a saint as your mother in law. I mean that's pretty good, isn't it? It is. 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 talk us tell us about his children.

Henry is an interesting character. He has many, many, many children. He has at least twenty 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 um I can't remember quite what it was a question of, but clearly it was 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.

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 a it's a purely masculine signifier. female equivalent.

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.

So let's come to uh so so we've got um the atheling, William. Let's come to Matilda, the daughter. So what role does Henry see her fulfilling?

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.

So she becomes empress.

She does. She is not actually eventually crowned by the Pope, but she is crowned in Saint Peter's in Rome. By a bishop.

Well that's good enough, isn't it? Yeah.

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.

It's a big ask.

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. To which she's been sent when she's a child with such a plum and such ability.

Mae'r hyn sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n.

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

So I've said we're in Saint 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?

Certainly. She uh 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, um 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.

Yeah. So Henry the First, 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 gonna be a great king. Uh he's got Matilda who's off in the empire, doing her thing, you know, behaving like a a queen should, all looks splendid. And then there's a disaster, isn't it? And it it involves um Uh we've been doing the Lusitania, we've done the Titanic, this is another ship that sinks, and this is called the White Ship.

We're in November eleven twenty. Henry and his son William Atling 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. And compared to Matilda who's been crossing the Alps to get from Germany to Italy, one modern historian says that

Yeah, it's just it's got a massive stag thing.

It is

Ads on tour. Exactly.

And they decide they're going to race the king's ship and they don't see the rock in Barfler 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 spa to tell someone what's happened.

So this is terrible news for Henry because who's going to succeed him?

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 twelfth century and the church is beginning to get quite fierce.

William the Conqueror was a bastard, you said. Exactly. But t things have moved on.

Things have moved on, two things have moved on, particularly the church um 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 the First 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.

How does he try and finesse things so that his daughter can succeed him?

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 Ruvan. She does. And 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

So she can now come back.

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 w you know an abomination against nature.

There's no kind of rule that says that uh a woman can't

There are no rules at all. 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.

And is there someone suitable to marry, perhaps from the

It turns out there is. Anjou, 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.

And there's something to do with a sprig of

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.

So Matilda is married to to to to this guy.

Very unhappily.

Um but they have

Good night. Bye.

They clearly have children.

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? But she has a She does.

So little baby Henry Plantagenet.

Henry Plantage.

Hearing more of him today and in our next episode.

We may indeed.

So that's the state of play when Henry the First dies.

He dies very suddenly. Because he's a He has a surfeit of lampreys.

This is an occupational hazard of being a medieval king, is that you you have surfits and die on

You you do. I mean you'd have to pay me to have even one lamprey, I think, let alone a surfeit of them. But they're 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 bulliver man, so this is a shock. He's been bestriding the Anglo Norman realm for more than a year.

He seems a terrifying man.

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.

ready to be anointed

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.

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. 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. Yeah. So all in all

It's all tricky. So I suppose in in a situation like that where the the pregnant queen um is not in England.

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. 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 I's nephew, Theobald of Blois. One of their number might be a good idea.

I mean you ca I mean all due respect to um to Theo, our Ursaw producer, but you can't have someone called Theo as King of England.

can you?

That is a rule, I think.

But Theobald has a younger brother called Stephen, who's married to the heiress de 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.

So the sacred oil has seeped into his skin and he is now impregnated.

He is impregnated.

Kind of sacramental oil.

With kingship. Yeah. 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.

And I suppose some of them have a kind of personal loyalty to Henry and therefore to his daughter too.

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.

I suppose one one solution might be 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 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.

They do. They need uh a king, uh 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 um Frontiers uh 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

Okay, going. So this is a real problem then. I mean what happens? How do they resolve this problem?

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.

Such bad timing.

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.

So is this a reflection of the fact that we haven't really talked about Matilda's character up up till now? Is she a very kind of obdurate woman, a determined woman, someone who's not prepared to let this

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 She's had to marry this plantagenate 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.

Certainly not calling her the Empress.

Exactly. Whereas William of Marmesbury, who's much more sympathetic, his hero is Robert of Gloucester, her half brother. So we get glimpses of Matilda round the edges, but every glimpse we get shows us how tough she is.

Right, so you can judge her by her actions. And her actions essentially are to to aim not just to secure Normandy, but to claim the throne of England.

By eleven thirty nine, 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 gonna struggle to get all the barons to follow him. But Matilda in eleven thirty nine does the key thing. She gets herself to England because that's where she's gonna stay.

So how does she get a foothold there?

It's a brave mood.

So we mean we can say she's brave as well.

We can say she's very brave. She and Robert of Gloucester, her half brother, take ship for England and they land.

Don't hit a rock.

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'cause they've only got a small bodyguard with them. But Arundel Castle is held by Matilda's widowed stepmother, Adeleza of Louvain, 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.

So there's a kind of hint of chivalry there.

Absolutely. Stephen i 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.

A little bit like in the series we did on nineteen seventies Britain, Harold Wilson wondering how he was going to deal with Margaret Thatcher at Prime Minister's question time.

You know, that's a very good thing. That's not a bad analogy. And one of the criticisms that is levelled at Steven is that he's too nice. He struggles to land the killer blow. He's good at decisive action.

The throne.

He's no he's good at that kind of decisive action. But when it comes to the iron fist. Killing women, even capturing and killing some of his male opponents, the killer blood.

Okay. Sometimes the lesson of history. Don't be weak if you're a medieval king. Exactly. Um 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 It rages and rages. Um 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 um the barons would steal wayfarers

I I am 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.

Of course.

Because 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 it to you? So this is why anarchy is terrifying.

That's bad. And the other famous thing that happens in the anarchy is um people rushing around in snow wearing um night dresses. So what's going on with that?

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 i this is to do with the key really the the pivotal part of the anarchy, because it is nineteen years of of

slugging at each other.

Chaotic civil war. But the pivotal point is 1140, 1141. So it comes pretty quickly after Matilda has arrived in England. 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. 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 in the battlefield. She can't fight, but also she might get captured.

So quid Matilda's quids in.

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.

And so that happens and what is what is the impact of that on her legitimacy?

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 eleven forty-one, suddenly, and you'll be amazed to hear this, both medieval chronic chroniclers and modern historians

So she's behaving like a king.

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.

She's not having any of that. What happened so why did she not get anointed?

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, she has to flee again.

Just find any old bishop and you know, i I mean any cathedral would do, just get or abbey and just get anointed.

But the difficulty is Any old bishop, will that do really? I mean

That was better than nothing.

Yeah, I'd I'd if you and I had been there, Tom, she might have had some better better advice. But

Great shame.

Part of the problem is even getting to a cathedral because The white cloak and the nighty in the snow is Oxford in the winter of eleven forty two. 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.

Okay, so nineteen years of anarchy to cut to the chase. 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.

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 eleven forties 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.

Although he's young still, he is proving himself to be a very formidable ruler by this point in Normandy, isn't he?

He is. He b he's recognized his father has managed more or less to conquer Normandy in the name of his wife and his son. In eleven fifty at which point Henry is what are we talking, sixteen seventeen, he is recognized 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.

And so there is scope there for a deal.

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 eleven fifty three at the Treaty of Winchester.

So Henry II we will be coming to in our next episode 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

stays in Normandy. In a sense she's in retirement. In a sense, she's taken up a very much approved role now of um 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 a

So she's a kind of matriarchal figure.

She's a matriarchal figure. Sh he doesn't always take her advice. When she warns against making Thomas Beckett Archbishop of Canterbury, he doesn't listen to her.

Should have listened to mummy.

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.

Okay, so she is uh defined by her male relations. And just before we end, can I ask serve as a kind of object lesson to future generations? Is her attempt to make herself a kind of regnant queen um recollected? Uh or is that not influential on how people come to think about the um possibility of a female monarch

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.

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 will. So I hope you enjoyed um this first episode of our new super soar away miniseries. 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 the rest is history.com. Sign up there for this and a host of sensational other benefits.