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Empress Matilda and the Fight for England's Throne

When Henry I died in 1135 there was a fight for the English throne, for which there were three possible candidates.

Matilda was born around the 7th of February in 1102 and was the rightful heir to the throne as Henry I’s legitimate daughter. She was the only surviving child of Henry I after the death of his son William, and Henry supported her claim to the throne by nominating her as his heir and making his nobles swear an oath to uphold her right to the throne. Matilda did not want to rule on behalf of a husband or son; in the words of Charles Beem she wanted “to be a king, in the sense that her ultimate goal was to solely possess an estate and office that had previously been occupied by men”.

The other contenders for the throne were Theobald of Blois, Matilda’s eldest cousin, and his younger brother Stephen. Stephen had been one of those to swear an oath to support Matilda, but when news of Henry I’s death reached him in France he immediately travelled to England to claim its throne, reasoning that Henry had been wrong to ask them to take an oath in the first place. Stephen had the support of his brothers; he paid Theobald off in lands and titles, and his younger brother Henry’s position as Bishop of Winchester meant that he had the support of the church behind him. Furthermore, the mere fact that he was a male meant that England was more likely to proclaim Stephen as its king over Matilda. At the beginning of his rule Stephen attempted to solidify his place as king, but he faced various opponents from both within England and from both of its neighbouring countries.

England fell into anarchy, as civil war erupted over Stephen’s succession from 1138 to 1153. One half of England fought for Stephen, while the other was led by Matilda’s half-brother Robert of Gloucester. Both Stephen and Matilda were captured on various occasions during the civil war, with Matilda making some daring escapes; from Devizes she was tied to a bier disguised as a corpse, and when held in Oxford Castle in 1142 she was lowered from the castle by a rope. With both sides having powerful allies, the civil war seemed to constantly pivot between Stephen and Matilda, and it became clear that they had to come to a compromise to put an end to it.


In 1153 the civil war ended with the Treaty of Westminster, which stated that Stephen could finish his reign on England’s throne. However, upon Stephen’s death, he would be succeeded by Henry of Anjou, Matilda’s son. Henry would not have to wait for long; Stephen died in 1154, making Henry the first king in the Plantagenet line.

Upon Matilda’s death in 1167, her original tomb was decorated with the epitaph "Here lies Henry’s daughter, wife and mother, great by birth, greater by marriage, but greatest by motherhood”. However, Matilda should be remembered for more than just her connections to the men around her. She should be known for her bravery, fierce personality and remarkable resistance to the male-dominated society of medieval England. 


Further Reading:

Beem, Charles, Levin, Carole; Bucholz, R. O. (eds.). Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England. University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Bradbury, Jim. Stephen and Matilda: the Civil War of 1139–53. The History Press, 2009.

Chibnall, Marjorie. The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English. Basil Blackwell, 1991.

Johnson, B. ‘Queen Matilda, Empress Maud and the Civil War with King Stephen.’ Historic UK. Available at: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Empress-Maud/ [Accessed 8 February 2022].

Mackenzie, S. ‘Badass Women of History - Empress Matilda.’ Steemit.com. Available at: https://steemit.com/history/@stephmckenzie/badass-women-of-history-empress-matilda [Accessed 8 February 2022].

Stringer, Keith J. The Reign of Stephen: Kingship, Warfare and Government in Twelfth-Century England. Routledge, 1993.

Tolhurst, Fiona. Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.