The Origin of a Male Dominated Royal Line.
My Speech: Faded from our History: Empress Matilda.
Have you ever heard of an Empress Matilda? No! Well, here’s were you can, or rather can’t, learn about her:
She has two plays about her, she features in two TV series and two films, there are zero documentaries on her on the iPlayer, many historical magazines disregard her on the topic of Queens (even her mother is mentioned more than her), and most monarch timelines neglect to mention her, even if they mention Lady Jane Grey or the Princes in the Tower, who ruled for less time than her and were never officially crowned.
Given the facts I have just told you, most would conclude that what I am about to talk about is quite uneventful and that it would be best to just tune out. The contrary is true, Matilda’s life was full of daring and not only affected her subjects at the time but shaped the monarchy from her death onwards, therefore affecting everyone that lived from her birth till now. The question I am therefore posing is: why is she never mentioned?
Matilda’s life starts on the 7th February 1102. She is the firstborn of her parents, Matilda of Scotland and King Henry the first of England. She is her father’s heir. Yes, you heard me, three generations from William the Conqueror and a woman is placed first in line to the throne.
In these early stages of the modern monarchy the rules of succession where not established yet. This placed the monarchy in a precarious situation, especially when Matilda’s younger brother, William, died in a shipwreck leaving no male heirs. Her father turns to France for advice.
Some parts of France had started to entertain the belief of male primogeniture and patrilineal inheritance, where the eldest male inherits everything. While the King of France was still appointing whomever he pleased as his heir.
Due to Matilda’s husband, Holy Roman Emperor Henry the 5th, King Henry the first hesitated to crown Matilda. If she became Queen then he would be King and rule over England. In hesitating he started to feed the greedy fire in her cousin Stephan. A mistake that will throw England into jeopardy for the next 19 years.
In 1125, Matilda is widowed and her father spares no time in announcing her as heir, while Stephan is to inherit Normandy. This of course doesn’t go down well in Stephan’s books. In this patriarchal society Stephan feels he is entitled to the throne and obviously he can take it from a feeble-minded, over emotional, and weak girl!
King Henry the first dies in 1135 and Stephan gets to work quickly on turning the country against Matilda. She soon gains a reputation for being a proud prima-donna. A reputation she still has today. Her husbands, Geoffrey the 5ths, negative reputation (despite the late King choosing him) doesn’t help. This resentment gives Stephan the opportunity (even encourages him) to claim that Matilda’s late father changed his mind on his death bed and acknowledged that a female couldn’t possibly rule over a country. The powerful male Barons obviously back him with this. Surely, they would meet no opposition!
What they forgot to calculate is that Matilda is a strong, stubborn woman who knows what she is worthy of. She still had many loyal subjects who were willing to fight for her. So of course she refused to sit back quietly and accept defeat!
In 1141, the Battle of Lincoln marks the start of the civil war that will become known as “The Anarchy”. During this war people suffered from a lack of law and order. Everyone was free to kill whom they pleased, steel what they wanted, and people scrambled to make a name of violence for themselves so that they should not fear the consequences of the Anarchy. Society had descended into, well an anarchy.
Stephan looses Lincoln and is captured by Matilda leaving the Barons to speculate on how a woman could win and conclude that she was too “unladylike”.
While Stephan rotted away in jail, his wife -who also goes by the name of Matilda- got to work in capturing Matilda’s half-brother, the Earl of Gloucester and demanding an exchange of prisoners. Unlike how Stephan would have you believe Matilda was selfless enough to give up her security on the throne and in life to save her half-brother, the living proof that her father wasn’t loyal to her mother.
So the civil war restarts.
In 1141, Matilda is trapped in the town of Devizes surrounded by enemy forces circling her, waiting for the kill.
In a stroke of genius, Matilda fakes her death. She is dressed in grave clothes and tied to a stretcher. Then she is carried away to Gloucester in safety and plans the reattack.
In 1142, she was captured once again though this time in Oxford Castle and once again she escapes. Just before the food runs out, she is lowered from the castle on a rope and escapes over the snow covered landscape in a white cloak.
The next attack is launched from France by her, 14 year old, son Henry and though he lost, he went on to become the next King in 1154.
Not only did Matilda impact her sons life but her trouble on the throne secured male primogeniture as the rule for succession. As early as 1189 a male, Richard the Lionheart, was placed above an older female, another Matilda (it was a popular name). Such was the fate of many Princesses. Most notably Elizabeth of York who (despite being the eldest child) lost the throne to 4 men with less claim to it than her. Her own husband denied to crown her alongside him, even though she was the reason that he got to the throne.
Who could forget her son, the notorious King Henry the Eight?! Why did he want a son so badly? Matilda had been so unstable on the throne that he feared that the sacred Tudor line would fall.
Her impact was not limited to women not inheriting the throne and the obsession with male heirs but also made the reigns of Queens such as Mary the first, Elizabeth the first and Victoria (to name a few) hard. They struggled with a lack of respect from those who were meant to complete their every command. To understand them, you have to understand her!
So why is she never mentioned in school? 56.25% of the course is modern history, with only 6.25% being medieval history. The curriculum favours modern history, reducing the medieval period to the Battle of Hastings and the Plague. This leads to a lack of understanding on the topics we do learn about. So, as she had such a monumental impact on history, I feel she deserves a greater mention when the topic of history arises. After hearing about her life, wouldn’t you say it was worth hearing about?
All of this is being hidden from us. Concealed behind heaps of less impactful and important Kings. We suffer from a grievous misrepresentation of history. Why?, because in the end it was the sexist imbeciles who wrote the history books. Let me leave you with a question: should we allow these prejudices to reign over us or break free from these restraints and understand our true history?
You can tell that I’m passionate about this topic as it sounds like an angry rant. I hope you were able to learn something and/or enjoy this speech. The statistics for the GCSE History course are based on the options that my school took. This was my GCSE English speech. Thank you so much for reading this. Goodbye,
Fern-Leta Mowots.
