August 22, 2011 • 23 mins
In 1120, the heir to the throne, three of the king's other children, and many of the kingdom's youths drowned at sea. This left a woman named Matilda as heir. Yet her cousin Stephen seized the prize, triggering 19 years of battle called "The Anarchy."
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina Chocolate Boarding. And just
a few weeks ago we talked about the Bioux Tapestry,
which is, of course the embroidered record of the Norman conquest,
(00:23):
a really great piece of art, but also important if
you're trying to see what the Norman conquest the Battle
of Hastings actually looked like. So the Tapestry, though, leaves
off after the battle is over, right after William the
Conqueror is crowned King of England. But for our story today,
we're gonna pick up right There are really a generation
(00:44):
after when William's son Henry, the first face this sudden
succession crisis after a dynasty ending shipwreck, and from there
a story really collapses into anarchy and battles between queens
and escapes over Frozen River is before a new family
comes into power. You might have heard of them if
you're a regular listener, because we have done episodes on
(01:07):
many of their family members, the Plantagenets, of course. But
just a note before we start, prepare yourself for some
serious name confusion because not only do we have two
kings named Henry and one is that not the case really,
but pretty much every woman in the story is named Matilda,
and I've chosen to leave a lot of the Matilda's out.
Just know that there are more. If you choose to
(01:29):
research this yourself, there will be even more Matilda's free
to find. But starting where we left off with the
biou Tapestry episode, William the Conqueror was pretty well stopped
in terms of sons. He didn't have any sort of
inheritance problem looming, it seemed, but surprisingly, after one son
was gored to death by a boar and another was
(01:51):
imprisoned in this major case of sibling rivalry, it was
the youngest son named Henry who became King of England
and eventually the Duke of Normandy. So a little twist
there early on, and who inherits the throne and that
wasn't too bad. Henry proved to be a tough but
powerful king who enforced peace in his lands. He didn't
always jump to war and expansion, instead preferring to focus
(02:15):
on negotiations and consolidating power where he already had it.
He also had a lot of kids, except most of
them were illegitimate kids. He seriously had about twenty five
a legitimate Matilda too, and his wife was also named Matilda,
and she was a descendant of the old line of
English kings. And he had three legitimate children with her
(02:36):
who lived past childhood, and that was his daughter Adelaide,
who was later called Matilda, who's the one to focus on.
He had a son named William and a son named Richard.
So young William, who was of course the heir to
the throne, seemed like a really promising future king, largely
because he combined the Norman and the Saxon bloodline, so
(02:57):
he was a grandson of the Conqueror through his father,
but he was also a descendant of the ancient line
of kings through his mother. And in eleven nineteen, at
the age of seventeen, his future really started to look
even brighter. He accompanied his father on a successful campaign
through the continent. He helped him to defeat Louis the Six,
who was also known as Louis the Fat, and he
(03:21):
proved to be a very strong and a brave soldier
even at this young age. He was also married during
this trip to the daughter of the Count of Anjou,
hopefully with that alliance eliminating this long term rivalry between
Normandy and Anjou. So in general it was a pretty
successful trip to Normandy for both father and son. But
(03:42):
by November eleven twenty, the royal party was ready to
depart from Normandy from the port of bar Floor and
sail home to England. But dr bar Floor was a
shiny new vessel, the state of the art White Ship,
which had fifty oarsmen and room for more than three
hundred passengers, a really large ship at a time, so
it's naturally offered to the King as a means of
(04:03):
transportation home, except he already has his own travel plans
already worked out, and he suggests that it would make
a nice treat for his son, William instead. So November
twenty William, along with the cream of Norman and English youth,
board the ship. There are three hundred passengers total, including
one hundred forty nights and eighteen noble women, including William's
(04:25):
brother Richard, William's half brother Richard and half sister Matilda
who's the Countess of Persh his cousins, including Stephen of Blois,
who did some barks after about of diarrhea, the nephew
of Emperor Heinrich the Fifth, and many of the young
heirs of the great Norman and English estates, so a
lot of important kids, yeah, I saw one. One source
(04:45):
described them as the bright young people of the age,
just the cream of society. So naturally, with all of
the aristocratic youth on a ship of their own with
none of their parents on board, it's party time, and
William has casks of wine brought on board, and soon
enough both the passengers and the crew are drunk when
(05:07):
they finally set off, though William, in some sort of
youthful competitive behavior with his father, encourages the drunk ships
master to catch up with Henry, the first vessel, even
though Henry hadn't waited along while the youths partied down
their ship. He had gone ahead and and sailed on.
But William wants to be the first to arrive in England,
(05:29):
so the white ship takes off way too fast, obviously
with a drunk crew not being manned very well, and
it runs into a rock and capsizes, and William is
quickly rushed to safety by his bodyguard and put aboard
a small rescue ship, but as far as the story goes,
he insists on going back because he hears his half
(05:51):
sister crying for him, and he has the ship rowed
back to the side of the accident, and there are
so many people in the water who are struggling to
not drowned that they pulled the ship down, and almost
everyone aboard the White Ship ends up dying, even though
it's it's right off the shore. Apparently people on land
(06:12):
could hear the cries but thought it was just more
drunken revelry going on. So Henry the first line is
wiped out and this one go. Four kids dead, no
male heirs, and his second marriage bears no children, so
he's left having to support his only remaining legitimate child, Adelaide,
now called Matilda, who he finally names his air Christmas Eve.
(06:36):
So we're gonna backtrack a little for Matilda to to
catch you up with what she's been doing, since she
obviously wasn't their normandy with the rest of her family
when they were sailing aboard the White Ship. She's been busy.
She has been busy since she was a small child.
In fact, she was born in eleven oh two, but
she had spent much of her life in Germany, where
she had been sent at about age seven to the
(06:59):
court of her future husband, who was the Holy Roman
Emperor Heinrich the Fifth. And sometimes he's called Henry the fifth,
but just to eliminate at least one extra Henry from
the story, we're gonna call him Heinrich. So Heinrich was
thirty years Matilda's senior um, and when she first arrived
as a child, he immediately sent home all of her
English attendants and really trained her up to follow German customs.
(07:23):
Some people said that Matilda was more German than she
was English or Norman. But as a teen she impressed
her husband with her level headedness. She seemed like a
really smart girl and and had the makings of a
strong ruler. She even acted as his representative in Italy
for a time when she's only about sixteen or seventeen
years old. So she she was having a successful career
(07:47):
as the wife of the emperor. But they don't have
any children. So when Heinrich dies in May five, he
places the scepter in her hands. And as he said,
she was really popular in Germany, so she's probably interested
in staying there too. She's doing very well, but her
father clearly has other plans for her, and he summons
her back to his court, naming her his heir and
(08:08):
makes his barons swear an oath of allegiance to her.
Part of the deal, though, as kind of a way
to placate the barons with this unconventional arrangement of having
a female air, was a promise by Henry the first
that Matilda wouldn't remarry anyone outside of the land without
the baron's permission, which essentially means, well, she'll marry one
of you guys, which sounds appealing to any baron present, probably,
(08:32):
but that is not Henry's intention at all. He marries
Matilda almost immediately to be very unpopular Jeffrey Plantagenet, who
is the son of the Count of Anjou and Anjou,
as we mentioned earlier, is a long time Norman rival,
so the barons aren't really happy with that aspect of it.
(08:53):
And also Jeffrey is only fifteen years old and he
doesn't really seem to get on very well with Matilda,
so it seems like things are already sort of falling
apart with this new female air and Henry trying to
get the barons behind him. But when the couple has
their first son, also named Henry, in eleven thirty three,
(09:15):
and quickly follow that with two more sons, it seems
like maybe maybe it'll work out. Maybe the crown could
pass to Matilda and then to her son, maybe even
bypass Matilda if the sun gets old enough, something a
little more conventional. So Henry has everyone swear an oath again.
Actually it's the third oath at this point, just for
(09:35):
good measure, to make sure that everyone is on board
with this plan that they have going. Among those swearing
to uphold Matilda's claim was Henry's favorite nephew, Stephen of
Blah and Stephen is an interesting person in his own right.
Through his wife Matilda of Boulogne, Stephen also controlled her lands,
conveniently one of the fastest routes to the Channel and
(09:56):
to England. And this is really a crucial point because
in eleven five Henry dies, Henry the first that is,
and his daughter and air Matilda was not in England
or in Normandy to stake her claim. She wasn't on
jew with her husband, so while she quickly returned to Normandy,
Stephen made a move to England and claimed the throne
for himself. He got there first, essentially, and once he
(10:19):
got there he got popular approval. After all, it seemed
to a lot of people that a usurper was better
than having a woman ruler. And he had some influential
supporters too. He had an ambitious brother who was Bishop
of Winchester, and he had some personal attributes that were
compelling to He was a good soldier, he was very pious.
(10:39):
So Stephen was crowned king on December thirty five. But
after a few years certain flaws in Stephen's ruling ability
started to show. He wasn't very smart politically, and he
lost a lot of his support, including that of Robert,
Earl of Gloucester, who was Henry the first eldest illegitimate sign.
(11:00):
Robert's moved to support his half sister proved to be
pretty vital for Matilda's own cause and really crucial to
her landing in England that finally happened in eleven nine. Yeah,
so she lands in England in eleven thirty nine, and
this starts nineteen summers and winters of war. This period
is often called the anarchy, but it was more like
(11:22):
a civil war. Or a battle for succession the Peterborough Chronicle,
or famously called at the time when Christ and the
Saints Slept. However, it could have been over almost from
the start, almost as soon as it began, since when
Matilda arrived in England, she went to Arndel Castle directly,
which was the home of her stepmother and her stepmother's
new husband, one of Stephen's supporters. So Stephen quickly marches
(11:45):
to the castle, but instead of capturing Matilda, he allows
her to go and meet up with Robert and Bristol.
Seems like a pretty chivalrous move, right it does, But
it's one that Stephen felt like he really had to
make because at this point Matilda had an out and
out declared herself as somebody who was trying to get
back her birthright. He felt like if she hadn't declared
(12:08):
that he didn't really have a right to take her prisoner.
But it turns out to be a bad move on
Steven's part. It does because by one the tides turn
again and Stephen himself is captured in battle at the
Battle of Lincoln in February, and Matilda is not so
nice to him. He has put in leg Irons and
detained in Bristol. And so with the king in her pocket,
(12:29):
Matilda is now at this point ready to call herself queen. Yeah,
and and it seems like she really is all lined
up to become queen. A clerical counsel at Winchester elects
her quote Lady of English in April. That's a good
first step. She starts planning her coronation at Westminster. But
she's a bit overconfident because even though she has really
(12:52):
strong Western allegiance, the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't recognize her.
Even the Pope doesn't recognize her. Plus her people skill
seemed to be just about as bad as Stevens. She
really went around making a lot of enemies leading up
to her coronation. She took her title before she was crowned.
She started confiscating lands and honors. She didn't hear appeals
(13:13):
from Steven's wife, from his brother, from his children, and
she rejected petitions to from the citizens of London for
a return to King Edward's laws and instead tax Making
enemies with the citizens of London not usually a good idea,
But what you'll find in sources most often is that
Matilda offended the barons with her haughtiness, and that word
(13:37):
is really used in almost every single source. You see
it over and over and over again. And if you
think about it, she's been an empress since she was
under ten, so she probably was pretty haughty. But it
makes you think too, a little bit about how that
word is applied to a queen versus Stephen. I mean,
(13:57):
he's just coming and taken this threat, and that's pretty haughty,
and in its own that's true. But Matilda isn't crowned yet,
and she had other problems too, besides just her attitude
that people didn't like. Stephen's wife. Matilda of Boulogne wasn't
about to let her own son's claims turn to dust
just because her husband was imprisoned. So before Empress Matilda
could even be crowned, the other Matilda raises an army
(14:20):
and threatened the city of London with it Matilda versus Matilda.
But the people of London, they don't want to play
at all. They also rose up against their almost Queen
Matilda and drove her from town, so things really got
worse for Empress Matilda from there. While attacking Winchester, Matilda's
brother Robert was captured, and when she retreated to Western England,
(14:42):
she was so tired that she had to be carried
on a leader, which led to this crazy story about
her being carried in a coffin or on some sort
of funeral palette, which is not true. She was just exhausted,
and eventually, because Robert was captured, she had to give
up her main prize, King Stephen, in exchange for him.
(15:05):
And this prisoner exchange was really just that it didn't
put an end. It wasn't any kind of treaty, it
wasn't any kind of truth. Both parties were free to
go on fighting. They each just had probably their most
powerful players back, and by eleven forty two of freed
and strengthened Stephen attacks Matilda and Oxford Castle, and this
(15:26):
time he is not letting her go. No chivalry. Here. Matilda,
dressed in white and escorted by some of her most
trusted nights, escapes during the night over the frozen Thames
and through the snowy camp of Stephen. By the time
the siege falls, they realized that she's gone. That's probably
the most romantic story associated with Matilda and daring story too,
(15:46):
but the game was really up. By then, Matilda retreated
to her stronghold for a time she minted her own coins.
Even so, she was still trying to hang in there.
But Robert's death in eleven seven meant that her battle
with Stephen was essentially over. But Matilda's son, Henry, was
almost grown by this point was ready to assert his
(16:06):
own claim, so he made a few expeditions to England,
making allies making friends eleven seven and again in eleven
forty nine. He allied himself with Scotland while he was
at it, and then in eleven fifty three he reappeared
to finally fight with Stephen's army. Later that year, the
two armies met again at Wallingford Castle, but this time
(16:31):
something really extraordinary and really out of the blue happen. Yeah,
the armies refused to fight. Since the late eleven forties,
English magnets had started negotiating on how to end this
drawn out battle for succession, they were over it, yeah, exactly.
By eleven fifty three, they had clearly had enough, and
they forced Stephen and Henry to come to an arrangement.
(16:52):
Stephen will rule the rest of his life, but passed
the throne to Henry, and this was all made a
lot easier when Steven's eldest son used to dies that
same year, so there's really no competition for Henry at
that point. Stephen himself died only one year later, leaving
Henry the second to rule for thirty five years. He
of course married Eleanor of Aquitaine, and founded the Plantagenet
(17:13):
family that ruled for more than three hundred years. Matilda
live for a few more years herself, though, into her sixties,
and even though she was pretty unpopular back in England,
she was very popular in Normandy as the mother of
the king. She's credited as helping to balance Henry the
seconds temper in those early years of his rule. Even
(17:33):
though the English, because of their dislike for Matilda, were
still a little suspicious of this influence. They didn't exactly
like the idea of Matilda pulling a few strings with
their kings. Still, and another interesting fact that we've got
to mention about Matilda she was exhumed, and she was
in fact exhumed so many times that to go through
(17:54):
the list would maybe be a little bit boring. I
mean to give you, I can't imagine an exhamation being boring. Well,
I don't know. She was buried and reburied about every
two hundred years, if you Okay, maybe that's kind of boring.
And I didn't really do much. They just moved her
to different locations around her church would be destroyed or
something would be sacked. And the most recent exclamation happened
(18:16):
in eighteen forty six when she was finally relocated to
the cathedral of Rouma, which is originally where her father
had wanted her to be buried. She had chosen a
smaller location, so I guess everything comes full circle in
the end. Her epitaph reads quote, here lies Henry's daughter,
wife and mother, great by birth, greater by marriage, but
(18:39):
greatest by motherhood. And this is kind of an important
note that we end on right here, because Matilda and
the anarchy, they certainly damaged the idea of queenship in England.
I mean this informed the whole Tutor crisis. It really did.
Of course, now we know that Elizabeth was going to
be the Great Tutor Queen, and after her we have
Victoria too, and that sort of changes our perception. But
(19:02):
at this time and during Tudor times, clearly the idea
of having another woman queen was really frightening another woman ruler,
I should say, um, And we've talked about some of
the English consorts before, which also helped add to this
idea that a queen was a really bad thing for England.
But Matilda does get a lot of responsibility for for
(19:26):
that reputation, although it's interesting if you think about it,
because she couldn't be entirely dismissed or written off as
some sort of queen devil by historians because she was
the mother of the king and future kings were descended
from him, and therefore also from Matilda was through her
claim that the kings had their claim to the throne.
(19:48):
There's actually a new book out too about some of
those women queens in England called She Wolves by Helen Castor,
and I read a review of it and an interview
with the author in History Today where they even had
a book club upgoing. So I know English queens are
a favorite of our listeners, and it must be a
favorite topic in general too for a lot of people
(20:08):
holds a lot of fascination. But that's all we have
today on this particular queen or would be queen. And
now we're going to go to listener mail. So we
have two emails today on the Ballet Roots episode, and
the first one is from Matt in Cambridge, Ontario, and
he wrote that he wanted to add a little tidbit
(20:29):
to the Right of Spring Riot podcast, and he said,
I once read an article about the riot and I
thought it was interesting how well it was so violently
protested in its day and has since proved its worth
and made its way into the annals of music history.
This is exemplified by its inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records.
There are two gold records on the Voyager spacecraft that
(20:52):
were launched out into the Cosmos in nineteen seventy seven
in hopes of making contact with intelligent life. The records
contained greetings in fifty five languages, samples of natural sounds
like animals, wind, rushing water, and ninety minutes of music
including Bach, Mozart and Chuck Berry, and of course the
Right of Spring. So I thought that was interesting. I've
(21:14):
heard about the Voyager Golden Records, but I hadn't realized
that the Rightest Spring was included on them. So our
next email is from Justin and he was also writing
about the ballet. He lives in Sydney, Australia, and said
that there's an interesting Australian connection with the ballet. Said
when our National Gallery was being commissioned and works were
(21:37):
being thought to fill it in the late sixties and
early seventies, a whole set of ballet routs costumes was purchased.
Even more amazing was the fact that when they arrived
they were immediately put into storage without even being looked
at or properly cataloged. Conserved. Fast forward to and these
great pieces were unearthed, and when the full extent of
(21:58):
the collection was realized, a major exhibition was planned and organized.
The thing that I found most amazing about these particular
costumes is that when they were packed away into their
trunks for storage, they had literally just come off the dancers,
and when they were examined, we're shown to have makeup,
smudges and dirt from the last performance still on them.
And um I checked. I checked out the National Gallery
(22:22):
site to take a look at this exhibition. It's really cool.
You can go there and look at images of the
costumes and I love costumes anyway, so it was pretty
fun for me. I definitely recommend that for anyone who
enjoyed that episode and wants to see some pictures related
to it. So where is the actual exhibition. It's at
(22:42):
the National Gallery in Australia and their website is m
g A dot gov dot au. If you want to look,
you've got a search from there for the exhibition. It's
easy to find. So if you want to send us
any cool links like that, any good suggestions for podcast
topics or comments on episodes we've already done, please feel
(23:03):
free to email us at History podcast at how stuff
works dot com. We're also on Twitter at mist in
history and you can find us on Facebook. And if
you just want to learn a little bit more about
how Royalty works, we have an article by that name
on our website. You can look it up by visiting
our homepage, which is at www dot how stuff works
dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
(23:29):
Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it
today on iTunes
Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina Chocolate Boarding. And just
a few weeks ago we talked about the Bioux Tapestry,
which is, of course the embroidered record of the Norman conquest,
(00:23):
a really great piece of art, but also important if
you're trying to see what the Norman conquest the Battle
of Hastings actually looked like. So the Tapestry, though, leaves
off after the battle is over, right after William the
Conqueror is crowned King of England. But for our story today,
we're gonna pick up right There are really a generation
(00:44):
after when William's son Henry, the first face this sudden
succession crisis after a dynasty ending shipwreck, and from there
a story really collapses into anarchy and battles between queens
and escapes over Frozen River is before a new family
comes into power. You might have heard of them if
you're a regular listener, because we have done episodes on
(01:07):
many of their family members, the Plantagenets, of course. But
just a note before we start, prepare yourself for some
serious name confusion because not only do we have two
kings named Henry and one is that not the case really,
but pretty much every woman in the story is named Matilda,
and I've chosen to leave a lot of the Matilda's out.
Just know that there are more. If you choose to
(01:29):
research this yourself, there will be even more Matilda's free
to find. But starting where we left off with the
biou Tapestry episode, William the Conqueror was pretty well stopped
in terms of sons. He didn't have any sort of
inheritance problem looming, it seemed, but surprisingly, after one son
was gored to death by a boar and another was
(01:51):
imprisoned in this major case of sibling rivalry, it was
the youngest son named Henry who became King of England
and eventually the Duke of Normandy. So a little twist
there early on, and who inherits the throne and that
wasn't too bad. Henry proved to be a tough but
powerful king who enforced peace in his lands. He didn't
always jump to war and expansion, instead preferring to focus
(02:15):
on negotiations and consolidating power where he already had it.
He also had a lot of kids, except most of
them were illegitimate kids. He seriously had about twenty five
a legitimate Matilda too, and his wife was also named Matilda,
and she was a descendant of the old line of
English kings. And he had three legitimate children with her
(02:36):
who lived past childhood, and that was his daughter Adelaide,
who was later called Matilda, who's the one to focus on.
He had a son named William and a son named Richard.
So young William, who was of course the heir to
the throne, seemed like a really promising future king, largely
because he combined the Norman and the Saxon bloodline, so
(02:57):
he was a grandson of the Conqueror through his father,
but he was also a descendant of the ancient line
of kings through his mother. And in eleven nineteen, at
the age of seventeen, his future really started to look
even brighter. He accompanied his father on a successful campaign
through the continent. He helped him to defeat Louis the Six,
who was also known as Louis the Fat, and he
(03:21):
proved to be a very strong and a brave soldier
even at this young age. He was also married during
this trip to the daughter of the Count of Anjou,
hopefully with that alliance eliminating this long term rivalry between
Normandy and Anjou. So in general it was a pretty
successful trip to Normandy for both father and son. But
(03:42):
by November eleven twenty, the royal party was ready to
depart from Normandy from the port of bar Floor and
sail home to England. But dr bar Floor was a
shiny new vessel, the state of the art White Ship,
which had fifty oarsmen and room for more than three
hundred passengers, a really large ship at a time, so
it's naturally offered to the King as a means of
(04:03):
transportation home, except he already has his own travel plans
already worked out, and he suggests that it would make
a nice treat for his son, William instead. So November
twenty William, along with the cream of Norman and English youth,
board the ship. There are three hundred passengers total, including
one hundred forty nights and eighteen noble women, including William's
(04:25):
brother Richard, William's half brother Richard and half sister Matilda
who's the Countess of Persh his cousins, including Stephen of Blois,
who did some barks after about of diarrhea, the nephew
of Emperor Heinrich the Fifth, and many of the young
heirs of the great Norman and English estates, so a
lot of important kids, yeah, I saw one. One source
(04:45):
described them as the bright young people of the age,
just the cream of society. So naturally, with all of
the aristocratic youth on a ship of their own with
none of their parents on board, it's party time, and
William has casks of wine brought on board, and soon
enough both the passengers and the crew are drunk when
(05:07):
they finally set off, though William, in some sort of
youthful competitive behavior with his father, encourages the drunk ships
master to catch up with Henry, the first vessel, even
though Henry hadn't waited along while the youths partied down
their ship. He had gone ahead and and sailed on.
But William wants to be the first to arrive in England,
(05:29):
so the white ship takes off way too fast, obviously
with a drunk crew not being manned very well, and
it runs into a rock and capsizes, and William is
quickly rushed to safety by his bodyguard and put aboard
a small rescue ship, but as far as the story goes,
he insists on going back because he hears his half
(05:51):
sister crying for him, and he has the ship rowed
back to the side of the accident, and there are
so many people in the water who are struggling to
not drowned that they pulled the ship down, and almost
everyone aboard the White Ship ends up dying, even though
it's it's right off the shore. Apparently people on land
(06:12):
could hear the cries but thought it was just more
drunken revelry going on. So Henry the first line is
wiped out and this one go. Four kids dead, no
male heirs, and his second marriage bears no children, so
he's left having to support his only remaining legitimate child, Adelaide,
now called Matilda, who he finally names his air Christmas Eve.
(06:36):
So we're gonna backtrack a little for Matilda to to
catch you up with what she's been doing, since she
obviously wasn't their normandy with the rest of her family
when they were sailing aboard the White Ship. She's been busy.
She has been busy since she was a small child.
In fact, she was born in eleven oh two, but
she had spent much of her life in Germany, where
she had been sent at about age seven to the
(06:59):
court of her future husband, who was the Holy Roman
Emperor Heinrich the Fifth. And sometimes he's called Henry the fifth,
but just to eliminate at least one extra Henry from
the story, we're gonna call him Heinrich. So Heinrich was
thirty years Matilda's senior um, and when she first arrived
as a child, he immediately sent home all of her
English attendants and really trained her up to follow German customs.
(07:23):
Some people said that Matilda was more German than she
was English or Norman. But as a teen she impressed
her husband with her level headedness. She seemed like a
really smart girl and and had the makings of a
strong ruler. She even acted as his representative in Italy
for a time when she's only about sixteen or seventeen
years old. So she she was having a successful career
(07:47):
as the wife of the emperor. But they don't have
any children. So when Heinrich dies in May five, he
places the scepter in her hands. And as he said,
she was really popular in Germany, so she's probably interested
in staying there too. She's doing very well, but her
father clearly has other plans for her, and he summons
her back to his court, naming her his heir and
(08:08):
makes his barons swear an oath of allegiance to her.
Part of the deal, though, as kind of a way
to placate the barons with this unconventional arrangement of having
a female air, was a promise by Henry the first
that Matilda wouldn't remarry anyone outside of the land without
the baron's permission, which essentially means, well, she'll marry one
of you guys, which sounds appealing to any baron present, probably,
(08:32):
but that is not Henry's intention at all. He marries
Matilda almost immediately to be very unpopular Jeffrey Plantagenet, who
is the son of the Count of Anjou and Anjou,
as we mentioned earlier, is a long time Norman rival,
so the barons aren't really happy with that aspect of it.
(08:53):
And also Jeffrey is only fifteen years old and he
doesn't really seem to get on very well with Matilda,
so it seems like things are already sort of falling
apart with this new female air and Henry trying to
get the barons behind him. But when the couple has
their first son, also named Henry, in eleven thirty three,
(09:15):
and quickly follow that with two more sons, it seems
like maybe maybe it'll work out. Maybe the crown could
pass to Matilda and then to her son, maybe even
bypass Matilda if the sun gets old enough, something a
little more conventional. So Henry has everyone swear an oath again.
Actually it's the third oath at this point, just for
(09:35):
good measure, to make sure that everyone is on board
with this plan that they have going. Among those swearing
to uphold Matilda's claim was Henry's favorite nephew, Stephen of
Blah and Stephen is an interesting person in his own right.
Through his wife Matilda of Boulogne, Stephen also controlled her lands,
conveniently one of the fastest routes to the Channel and
(09:56):
to England. And this is really a crucial point because
in eleven five Henry dies, Henry the first that is,
and his daughter and air Matilda was not in England
or in Normandy to stake her claim. She wasn't on
jew with her husband, so while she quickly returned to Normandy,
Stephen made a move to England and claimed the throne
for himself. He got there first, essentially, and once he
(10:19):
got there he got popular approval. After all, it seemed
to a lot of people that a usurper was better
than having a woman ruler. And he had some influential
supporters too. He had an ambitious brother who was Bishop
of Winchester, and he had some personal attributes that were
compelling to He was a good soldier, he was very pious.
(10:39):
So Stephen was crowned king on December thirty five. But
after a few years certain flaws in Stephen's ruling ability
started to show. He wasn't very smart politically, and he
lost a lot of his support, including that of Robert,
Earl of Gloucester, who was Henry the first eldest illegitimate sign.
(11:00):
Robert's moved to support his half sister proved to be
pretty vital for Matilda's own cause and really crucial to
her landing in England that finally happened in eleven nine. Yeah,
so she lands in England in eleven thirty nine, and
this starts nineteen summers and winters of war. This period
is often called the anarchy, but it was more like
(11:22):
a civil war. Or a battle for succession the Peterborough Chronicle,
or famously called at the time when Christ and the
Saints Slept. However, it could have been over almost from
the start, almost as soon as it began, since when
Matilda arrived in England, she went to Arndel Castle directly,
which was the home of her stepmother and her stepmother's
new husband, one of Stephen's supporters. So Stephen quickly marches
(11:45):
to the castle, but instead of capturing Matilda, he allows
her to go and meet up with Robert and Bristol.
Seems like a pretty chivalrous move, right it does, But
it's one that Stephen felt like he really had to
make because at this point Matilda had an out and
out declared herself as somebody who was trying to get
back her birthright. He felt like if she hadn't declared
(12:08):
that he didn't really have a right to take her prisoner.
But it turns out to be a bad move on
Steven's part. It does because by one the tides turn
again and Stephen himself is captured in battle at the
Battle of Lincoln in February, and Matilda is not so
nice to him. He has put in leg Irons and
detained in Bristol. And so with the king in her pocket,
(12:29):
Matilda is now at this point ready to call herself queen. Yeah,
and and it seems like she really is all lined
up to become queen. A clerical counsel at Winchester elects
her quote Lady of English in April. That's a good
first step. She starts planning her coronation at Westminster. But
she's a bit overconfident because even though she has really
(12:52):
strong Western allegiance, the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't recognize her.
Even the Pope doesn't recognize her. Plus her people skill
seemed to be just about as bad as Stevens. She
really went around making a lot of enemies leading up
to her coronation. She took her title before she was crowned.
She started confiscating lands and honors. She didn't hear appeals
(13:13):
from Steven's wife, from his brother, from his children, and
she rejected petitions to from the citizens of London for
a return to King Edward's laws and instead tax Making
enemies with the citizens of London not usually a good idea,
But what you'll find in sources most often is that
Matilda offended the barons with her haughtiness, and that word
(13:37):
is really used in almost every single source. You see
it over and over and over again. And if you
think about it, she's been an empress since she was
under ten, so she probably was pretty haughty. But it
makes you think too, a little bit about how that
word is applied to a queen versus Stephen. I mean,
(13:57):
he's just coming and taken this threat, and that's pretty haughty,
and in its own that's true. But Matilda isn't crowned yet,
and she had other problems too, besides just her attitude
that people didn't like. Stephen's wife. Matilda of Boulogne wasn't
about to let her own son's claims turn to dust
just because her husband was imprisoned. So before Empress Matilda
could even be crowned, the other Matilda raises an army
(14:20):
and threatened the city of London with it Matilda versus Matilda.
But the people of London, they don't want to play
at all. They also rose up against their almost Queen
Matilda and drove her from town, so things really got
worse for Empress Matilda from there. While attacking Winchester, Matilda's
brother Robert was captured, and when she retreated to Western England,
(14:42):
she was so tired that she had to be carried
on a leader, which led to this crazy story about
her being carried in a coffin or on some sort
of funeral palette, which is not true. She was just exhausted,
and eventually, because Robert was captured, she had to give
up her main prize, King Stephen, in exchange for him.
(15:05):
And this prisoner exchange was really just that it didn't
put an end. It wasn't any kind of treaty, it
wasn't any kind of truth. Both parties were free to
go on fighting. They each just had probably their most
powerful players back, and by eleven forty two of freed
and strengthened Stephen attacks Matilda and Oxford Castle, and this
(15:26):
time he is not letting her go. No chivalry. Here. Matilda,
dressed in white and escorted by some of her most
trusted nights, escapes during the night over the frozen Thames
and through the snowy camp of Stephen. By the time
the siege falls, they realized that she's gone. That's probably
the most romantic story associated with Matilda and daring story too,
(15:46):
but the game was really up. By then, Matilda retreated
to her stronghold for a time she minted her own coins.
Even so, she was still trying to hang in there.
But Robert's death in eleven seven meant that her battle
with Stephen was essentially over. But Matilda's son, Henry, was
almost grown by this point was ready to assert his
(16:06):
own claim, so he made a few expeditions to England,
making allies making friends eleven seven and again in eleven
forty nine. He allied himself with Scotland while he was
at it, and then in eleven fifty three he reappeared
to finally fight with Stephen's army. Later that year, the
two armies met again at Wallingford Castle, but this time
(16:31):
something really extraordinary and really out of the blue happen. Yeah,
the armies refused to fight. Since the late eleven forties,
English magnets had started negotiating on how to end this
drawn out battle for succession, they were over it, yeah, exactly.
By eleven fifty three, they had clearly had enough, and
they forced Stephen and Henry to come to an arrangement.
(16:52):
Stephen will rule the rest of his life, but passed
the throne to Henry, and this was all made a
lot easier when Steven's eldest son used to dies that
same year, so there's really no competition for Henry at
that point. Stephen himself died only one year later, leaving
Henry the second to rule for thirty five years. He
of course married Eleanor of Aquitaine, and founded the Plantagenet
(17:13):
family that ruled for more than three hundred years. Matilda
live for a few more years herself, though, into her sixties,
and even though she was pretty unpopular back in England,
she was very popular in Normandy as the mother of
the king. She's credited as helping to balance Henry the
seconds temper in those early years of his rule. Even
(17:33):
though the English, because of their dislike for Matilda, were
still a little suspicious of this influence. They didn't exactly
like the idea of Matilda pulling a few strings with
their kings. Still, and another interesting fact that we've got
to mention about Matilda she was exhumed, and she was
in fact exhumed so many times that to go through
(17:54):
the list would maybe be a little bit boring. I
mean to give you, I can't imagine an exhamation being boring. Well,
I don't know. She was buried and reburied about every
two hundred years, if you Okay, maybe that's kind of boring.
And I didn't really do much. They just moved her
to different locations around her church would be destroyed or
something would be sacked. And the most recent exclamation happened
(18:16):
in eighteen forty six when she was finally relocated to
the cathedral of Rouma, which is originally where her father
had wanted her to be buried. She had chosen a
smaller location, so I guess everything comes full circle in
the end. Her epitaph reads quote, here lies Henry's daughter,
wife and mother, great by birth, greater by marriage, but
(18:39):
greatest by motherhood. And this is kind of an important
note that we end on right here, because Matilda and
the anarchy, they certainly damaged the idea of queenship in England.
I mean this informed the whole Tutor crisis. It really did.
Of course, now we know that Elizabeth was going to
be the Great Tutor Queen, and after her we have
Victoria too, and that sort of changes our perception. But
(19:02):
at this time and during Tudor times, clearly the idea
of having another woman queen was really frightening another woman ruler,
I should say, um, And we've talked about some of
the English consorts before, which also helped add to this
idea that a queen was a really bad thing for England.
But Matilda does get a lot of responsibility for for
(19:26):
that reputation, although it's interesting if you think about it,
because she couldn't be entirely dismissed or written off as
some sort of queen devil by historians because she was
the mother of the king and future kings were descended
from him, and therefore also from Matilda was through her
claim that the kings had their claim to the throne.
(19:48):
There's actually a new book out too about some of
those women queens in England called She Wolves by Helen Castor,
and I read a review of it and an interview
with the author in History Today where they even had
a book club upgoing. So I know English queens are
a favorite of our listeners, and it must be a
favorite topic in general too for a lot of people
(20:08):
holds a lot of fascination. But that's all we have
today on this particular queen or would be queen. And
now we're going to go to listener mail. So we
have two emails today on the Ballet Roots episode, and
the first one is from Matt in Cambridge, Ontario, and
he wrote that he wanted to add a little tidbit
(20:29):
to the Right of Spring Riot podcast, and he said,
I once read an article about the riot and I
thought it was interesting how well it was so violently
protested in its day and has since proved its worth
and made its way into the annals of music history.
This is exemplified by its inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records.
There are two gold records on the Voyager spacecraft that
(20:52):
were launched out into the Cosmos in nineteen seventy seven
in hopes of making contact with intelligent life. The records
contained greetings in fifty five languages, samples of natural sounds
like animals, wind, rushing water, and ninety minutes of music
including Bach, Mozart and Chuck Berry, and of course the
Right of Spring. So I thought that was interesting. I've
(21:14):
heard about the Voyager Golden Records, but I hadn't realized
that the Rightest Spring was included on them. So our
next email is from Justin and he was also writing
about the ballet. He lives in Sydney, Australia, and said
that there's an interesting Australian connection with the ballet. Said
when our National Gallery was being commissioned and works were
(21:37):
being thought to fill it in the late sixties and
early seventies, a whole set of ballet routs costumes was purchased.
Even more amazing was the fact that when they arrived
they were immediately put into storage without even being looked
at or properly cataloged. Conserved. Fast forward to and these
great pieces were unearthed, and when the full extent of
(21:58):
the collection was realized, a major exhibition was planned and organized.
The thing that I found most amazing about these particular
costumes is that when they were packed away into their
trunks for storage, they had literally just come off the dancers,
and when they were examined, we're shown to have makeup,
smudges and dirt from the last performance still on them.
And um I checked. I checked out the National Gallery
(22:22):
site to take a look at this exhibition. It's really cool.
You can go there and look at images of the
costumes and I love costumes anyway, so it was pretty
fun for me. I definitely recommend that for anyone who
enjoyed that episode and wants to see some pictures related
to it. So where is the actual exhibition. It's at
(22:42):
the National Gallery in Australia and their website is m
g A dot gov dot au. If you want to look,
you've got a search from there for the exhibition. It's
easy to find. So if you want to send us
any cool links like that, any good suggestions for podcast
topics or comments on episodes we've already done, please feel
(23:03):
free to email us at History podcast at how stuff
works dot com. We're also on Twitter at mist in
history and you can find us on Facebook. And if
you just want to learn a little bit more about
how Royalty works, we have an article by that name
on our website. You can look it up by visiting
our homepage, which is at www dot how stuff works
dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
(23:29):
Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it
today on iTunes
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.