Matilda, Empress

b. 1102; d. 1167

The daughter of Henry I, Matilda was betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V at the age of eight, the ceremony taking place in 1114. Henry died in 1125 and Matilda returned to England from Germany. In 1127 her father appointed her as his successor to the English throne. She married for the second time in the following year, to Geoffrey of Anjou, then a boy of 14 many years her junior. They were to have three sons, the first of whom, Henry, was born in 1133.

On her father's death in December 1135, Matilda was challenged for the English throne by Stephen of Blois, Henry I's nephew, and it was he who was crowned. Matilda bided her time before confronting Stephen directly but in 1138 her half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, declared his support for her cause and a civil war, often called 'the anarchy' began. Matilda herself landed in England in 1139 to lead her followers.

The war was prolonged and disruptive to everyday life but the encounters between the rival forces were relatively small in scale and marked by set-piece sieges. The most dramatic events occurred during 1141 when, at the battle of Lincoln where Stephen was besieging the castle, Robert of Gloucester defeated the attacking forces and captured and imprisoned Stephen. Matilda was proclaimed queen at Winchester a month later. Her position was undermined, however, when Robert was himself taken prisoner by Stephen's supporters and she was forced to exchange Stephen for Robert.

Her fortunes never recovered; a virtual stalemate ensued to which Matilda's arrogant manner and Stephen's lack of leadership only contributed, and after the death of Robert in 1147 she abandoned her attempt to win the crown. But, even from Normandy, which her husband Geoffrey of Anjou had seized from Stephen, she was politically active in English affairs; keen that her son Henry should succeed Stephen. This was finally agreed in 1153 by the Treaty of Winchester (sometimes known as the Treaty Wallingford), but only after Stephen's own son Eustace had died.

Henry II became king in the following year and he often turned to Matilda for counsel. The inscription on her tomb, which no longer exists, went thus: 'Here lies Henry's daughter, wife and mother; great by birth, greater by marriage, but greatest by motherhood'.

© Historybookshop.com