Matilda of England was an English princess in the 12th century. A member of the newly established Norman dynasty, she was the daughter of King Henry I of England and a granddaughter of the infamous William the Conqueror, who took the English crown from the Saxons in 1066. Born in 1102, her parents were King Henry I and Matilda of Scotland, a Scottish princess. She had one legitimate brother who lived past childhood, and several acknowledged illegitimate siblings through her dad.
When Matilda was born, she was already a valuable political asset to her family and England. Her father betrothed her to Henry V, the Holy Roman Emperor when she was just five years old. Her father hoped the marriage would create an alliance between the Holy Roman Empire and England. At only twelve years old, she was sent to Germany to wed Henry V, who was twenty-four years old at the time.
Matilda’s new husband did not treat her well, and the marriage was not a happy one. However, the union did serve to strengthen the relationship between England and the Holy Roman Empire, and it also gave Matilda a valuable education in courtly life and politics. Unfortunately for her husband, but fortunately for Matilda, her husband crossed to the other side when Matilda was twenty-three years old. She was still young and beautiful enough to be a prize wife for a foreign ruler, and her father intended to take every bit of advantage of that.
Matilda was summoned home to England. As the king’s only other legitimate heir, Prince William had been killed in a shipwreck in the English Channel in 1120, one that took many other young nobles of the kingdom to the other side, Matilda’s father began to groom her as a possible heir. The English people were not too keen on the possibility of a female ruler. Though there was not a law against a woman inheriting the throne in England, as there was in other European countries of the time, it had not been done before in England.
To appease his subjects, Henry betrothed Matilda to Geoffrey of Anjou, a powerful nobleman from France. The couple was married in 1128, three years after Matilda’s return to England, when she was twenty-six years old.
Matilda and Geoffrey had three sons together, including one named Henry, who would later become King Henry II of England. However, their marriage was also not a happy one, and Geoffrey spent much of his time away from his family, fighting wars and building his own power base. Still, they stayed together as a couple and later became a united front in a time in England that would later be called The Anarchy.
Matilda’s father crossed to the other side in 1135. Legally, she was the heir. Before he crossed, Henry even secured the promise of his top nobles that they would support Matilda, his only living legitimate child, as their queen. Henry got them to swear an oath of allegiance to her. The nobles agreed to it and took the oath. It should have been easy for Matilda to assume the English throne.
Unfortunately, Matilda was in France with her husband and sons when her father crossed. This left an opportunity for her cousin Stephen to take the throne. Stephen was the son of the late king’s sister. Though not technically in the line of succession, he was a member of the royal family and, more importantly, a male. Despite the throne rightfully belonging to Matilda, most of the nobles who previously promised to support her did not, and Stephen was able to take the throne with their blessing.
However, Matilda was not prepared to give up her claim to the throne without a fight. In 1139, she launched a military campaign to try to claim the throne that rightfully and lawfully belonged to her. The conflict that followed, known as The Anarchy, would last for nearly 20 years.
Matilda had a number of early successes, including winning the support of many of the Welsh and Scottish nobles. Her forces were even able to capture Stephen in 1141. Matilda took the throne, but her attempts to be crowned Queen in Westminster Abbey were met with opposition by the English people, who crowded around the Abbey to voice their displeasure at a woman being on England’s throne.
Matilda was forced to retreat from London and was thus never actually crowned queen. Instead, she was referred to as the “Lady of the English” for her brief time on the throne. There would be no other Queen Regnant for another four hundred years when Lady Jane Grey was briefly on the throne (and also uncrowned due to the English people not supporting her claim to the crown).
Matilda’s half-brother Robert, an illegitimate son of her father’s and a staunch supporter of Matilda, was captured later in 1141. Matilda agreed to exchange the captive Stephen for Robert. After that, Matilda was briefly cornered at Oxford Castle by Stephen’s troops and was forced to wear white as camouflage to cross the frozen Isis River in Abingdon to escape. The battle between the cousins became a stalemate at this point, as Matilda still controlled much of the southwest of England, Stephen controlled the southeast and Midlands, and the rest of England was in the hands of local, independent nobles.
It was not until 1153 that peace between the cousins was reached. Stephen agreed to name Matilda’s eldest son Henry as his heir, bypassing his own son and heir, Eustace. Eustace was already Count of Boulogne and crossed to the other side the year before Stephen, making it a bit of a moot point at that time. Stephen’s other sons inherited Boulogne, and his daughters married foreign nobles.
Matilda crossed to the other side in 1167, having never officially been crowned queen of England. However, she saw her son Henry crowned as King Henry II after Stephen’s crossing in 1154. He became the first of the Angevin kings. This branch of the royals later became known as the Plantagenets, and they ruled England for the next three centuries until the ascension of the Tudors in 1485. Matilda, though not officially a queen, left a vibrant and successful legacy to England in the form of her many distinguished descendants.
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