Everything about Empress Matilda totally explained
Empress Matilda (sometimes
Maud or
Maude; later
Countess of Anjou and
Lady of the English;
7 February 1102 –
10 September 1167) was the daughter and dispossessed
heir of
Henry I of England. She was married to
Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, and then to
Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, by whom she became the mother of
Henry II of England.
Matilda was the first female ruler, although uncrowned and for a brief time, of the
Kingdom of England. Her failure to secure that rule meant that her temporary and disputed period of reign in 1141 was extremely brief. She is often excluded from lists of English monarchs and even the official British monarchy website excludes her, listing
Stephen of England as king from 1135-1154.
As many of her contemporaries or near contemporaries were also called
Matilda in Latin texts, she's sometimes called
Maude to distinguish her. This is merely a modernised spelling of the Norman-French form of her name, Mahaut.
Holy Roman Empress
Matilda was born on 7 February 1102 to
Henry I of England and his wife
Matilda of Scotland. Her maternal grandparents were
Malcolm III of Scotland and
Saint Margaret of Scotland.
Margaret was a daughter of
Edward the Exile and granddaughter of
Edmund II of England.
Her birth is generally said to have taken place at
Winchester, though recent research by the late John Fletcher (1990) suggests it may have occurred at the royal palace at
Sutton Courtenay in
Berkshire (now
Oxfordshire).
When she was seven years old, Matilda was
betrothed to
Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, and was sent to the
Holy Roman Empire in 1111 to begin her training as his
consort. Matilda and Henry were married at
Worms on
January 7,
1114 in a splendid ceremony. In March 1116 Matilda and Henry visited
Rome and
Tuscany, and she acted as
Regent in his absence.
When Henry died in 1125, he left Matilda a childless widow of twenty-three. The Imperial couple allegedly had no surviving offspring. Hermann of Tournai states that Maud bore a child that lived only a short while. Matilda's brother,
William Adelin, had perished several years before in the wreck of the
White Ship, leaving Matilda the only legitimate heir to the
English throne.
Despite being known most popularly by the title of "
Empress" due to her first marriage, Matilda's right to the title was dubious. She was never crowned Holy Roman Empress by a legitimate
Pope (generally recognised as required to claim the title), only as
German Queen by her husband's Bishops and formally her correct title was "Queen of the Romans". However, "Empress" was arguably an appropriate courtesy title for the wife of an Emperor who had been crowned by the Pope, and indeed, in later years she encouraged chroniclers to believe that the Pope had crowned her.
Second marriage to Geoffrey of Anjou
Matilda returned to
England, where her father named her his heir with the agreement of the Anglo-Norman barons, who swore (in 1127) to accept her as ruler if Henry I'd no son, and arranged another marriage for her. On
June 17,
1128, she was married again, at
Le Mans in
Anjou, to
Geoffrey of Anjou, who was eleven years her junior. He was nicknamed "
Plantagenet" from the
broom flower (
planta genista) which he took as his emblem, hence the name of the line of English kings descended from him. He was at this time
Count of Maine and heir to his father
Fulk V of Anjou.
The marriage wasn't a happy one, and Matilda separated from him and returned to her father. She returned to Geoffrey in 1131, and they were reconciled. They produced three sons, the eldest of whom,
Henry, was born on
March 5,
1133. The birth of her second son,
Geoffrey, Count of Nantes, in
1134, was difficult and Matilda nearly died in childbirth. Her third son, born in
1136, was
William, Count of Poitou. Her father
King Henry came to visit and took "great delight" in his grandsons. King Henry and Geoffrey quarreled, and so when her father died on
December 1,
1135 in
Normandy, Matilda was with Geoffrey in
Anjou.
Struggle for throne of England
On the death of her father, Henry I, in 1135, Matilda expected to succeed to the throne of
England, but her cousin,
Stephen of Blois, a nephew of Henry I, usurped the throne with the support of most of the barons, breaking the oath he'd previously made to defend her rights. An immediate reason for this was that Stephen was in England, whilst Matilda was in Anjou. The
civil war which followed was bitter and prolonged, with neither side gaining the ascendancy for long, but it wasn't until 1139 that Matilda could command the military strength necessary to challenge Stephen within his own realm, including battles at
Beverston Castle and other sites. Stephen's wife, the Countess of Boulogne who was also named
Matilda, was the Empress's maternal cousin. During the war, Matilda's most loyal and capable supporter was her half-brother,
Robert of Gloucester.
Matilda's greatest triumph came in April 1141, when her forces defeated and captured King Stephen at the
Battle of Lincoln (1141). He was made a prisoner and effectively deposed. Although she now controlled the kingdom, Matilda never styled herself Queen but took the title "Lady of the English", possibly modeled on the Anglo-Saxon practice of naming female rulers "Lady of the..." such as King Alfred the Great's daughter
Ethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians. Also the term Queen in Anglo-Saxon (cwen) had the connotation of wife, not a female ruler, so the distinction was necessary.
Her advantage lasted only a few months. When she marched on
London, the city was ready to welcome her and support a coronation. However, she refused the citizens' request to have their taxes halved. On 24 June 1141, she found the gates of London shut and the civil war reignited. By November, Stephen was free, having been exchanged for the captured
Robert of Gloucester, Matilda's half-brother, and a year later, the tables were turned when Matilda was besieged at
Oxford but escaped to
Wallingford, supposedly by fleeing across the snow-covered land in a white cape. In 1141 she'd escaped
Devizes in a similarly clever manner, by disguising herself as a corpse and being carried out for burial. In 1148, Matilda was finally forced to return to
France, following the death of
Robert of Gloucester.
Later life
All hope wasn't lost. Matilda's son, (
Henry), was showing signs of becoming a successful leader. Although the civil war had been decided in Stephen's favour, his reign was troubled. In 1153, the death of his son Eustace, combined with the arrival of a military expedition led by Henry, led him to acknowledge the latter as his heir by the
Treaty of Wallingford.
Matilda retired to
Rouen in
Normandy during her last years, where she maintained her own court and presided over the government of the
duchy in the absence of Henry. She intervened in the quarrels between her eldest son Henry and her second son Geoffrey, but peace between the brothers was brief. Geoffrey rebelled against Henry twice before his sudden death in 1158. Relations between Henry and his youngest brother,
William, were more cordial, and William was given vast estates in England.
Archbishop Thomas Becket refused to allow William to marry the Countess of Surrey and the young man fled to Matilda's court at Rouen. William, who was his mother's favourite child, died there in January 1164, reportedly of disappointment and sorrow. She attempted to mediate in the quarrel between her son Henry and Becket, but was unsuccessful.
Despite her tenure as "Lady of the English", Matilda was never loved by the people of her native land, who found her too foreign and haughty. The citizens of London were particularly aggrieved by her financial demands. She spoke three languages:
French,
German, and
Latin. Although she gave up hope of being crowned Queen in 1141, her name always preceded that of her son Henry, even after he became king. Matilda died at in Notre Dame de Prés near Rouen and was buried in the Abbey church of Bec-Hellouin. Her body was transferred to the Cathedral of Rouen in 1847; her
epitaph reads: "
Great by Birth, Greater by Marriage, Greatest in her Offspring: Here lies Matilda, the daughter, wife, and mother of Henry."
Historical fiction
The civil war between supporters of Stephen and the supporters of Matilda has proven popular as a subject in historical fiction. Novels dealing with it include:
- Graham Shelby, The Villains of the Piece, (1972) (published in the US as The Oath and the Sword);
- The Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters, and the TV series made from them starring Sir Derek Jacobi as that rare Benedictine;
- Jean Plaidy, Passionate Enemies, the third book of her Norman Trilogy;
- Sharon Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept tells the story of the civil war;
- Haley Elizabeth Garwood, 'The Forgotten Queen
' (1997, IBSN 0-9659721-9-4);
- Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth;
- Ellen Jones, The Fatal Crown(highly inaccurately, in romance novel-style).
Indeed, some romance-type historical novels go so far as to posit a love-affair between Matilda and Stephen.
The Janna Mysteries- Felicity Pullman Set during the civil war between Stephen and Matilda
Matilda has been played on screen by
Martita Hunt in the film adaptation of
Jean Anouilh's play
Becket (1964) and by
Brenda Bruce in the
BBC TV series
The Devil's Crown (1978).
Ancestors
Sources
Gervase of Canterbury
Robert of Torigny
Roger of Hoveden
Gesta Stephani
Walter Map
Bradbury, J. (1996) Stephen and Matilda: the Civil War of 1139-1153, Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0-7509-0612-X
Chibnall,Marjorie (1991) The Empress Matilda:Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English
Fletcher, John (1990) Sutton Courtenay: The History of a Thameside Village
Pain, Nesta (1978) Empress Matilda: Uncrowned Queen of England
Parsons, John Carmi. Medieval Mothering (New Middle Ages), sub. Marjorie Chibnall, "Empress Matilda and Her Sons"
Gardener J and Wenborn W the History Today Companion to British HistoryFurther Information
Get more info on 'Empress Matilda'.
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