Robert of Gloucester, one of the many illegitimate progeny of the oversexed late King Henry, rebelled against Stephen, being, as he was, technically Matilda’s half-brother. His rebellion caused everything to kick off: a civil war in Kent, the re-invasion of Normandy by Geoffrey, and sure David thought why not get in on the action too, and re-invaded the north of England. Stephen must have thought “Suffering Jesus! Am I to be allowed no f
ucking peace?” This was a period of three years during which everyone seemed to want to fight, rebel against or take his crown, and in 1139 Matilda, having failed to convince the Pope to legitimise her claim, decided to take the direct route and just take the throne by force. She landed in the suspiciously-French-sounding Arundel, in West Sussex, in the summer, though in the company not of Geoffrey but of Robert of Gloucester. Seems her hubby had decided “You’re all right, thanks, I’m happy here. But, you know,
bon chance and all that bollocks.” Yeah, he stayed in France.
Seems a bit odd to me that Matilda and Robert only brought 140 men with them (well, it says 140 knights; maybe there were other soldiers?) - when Henry II landed in Ireland his army numbered in the thousands, and 140 men can hardly have been enough to oppose Stephen on his home ground. I expect they were looking for support from the Norman lords in England. Matilda’s mother was there, and she helped them, though Stephen seems to have quickly besieged her castle and taken her prisoner, later letting her go with a firm admonishment not to do it again, possibly missing the raspberry she blew at him behind his back. While he set about pursuing Robert, whom he no doubt considered the more dangerous enemy (what threat, after all, could a mere woman pose to a king and his army?) she settled in Gloucester and began making alliances, and plans. Irked to discover she was not just buggering off to a nunnery or sitting at home doing needlework, Stephen attacked her again, meaning to teach her a proper lesson this time.
However, he was the one who was taught the lesson.
New ally of Matilda, or at least enemy of Stephen, which amounted to the same thing, Ranulf of Chester joined Robert and together they took on Stephen’s forces at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, defeated the king’s forces and took Stephen prisoner, reversing the roles as he was now brought to Matilda’s castle and incarcerated at Bristol. Matilda now began to make plans to have herself declared queen. Naturally, this as always involved bribes, promises, threats and the odd round of excommunications before everyone was happy, and even Stephen shrugged and said “F
uck it, let the bitch have the crown. It’s been nothing but trouble to me since I put it on. Should have stayed in Normandy. They know how to treat a ruler there!”
On APril 7 1141 Matilda was crowned Queen of England, though she assumed the title “Lady of England and Normandy” before she was actually crowned. This never happened though, as she was chased from London (where her coronation was to take place) by supporters loyal to Stephen, while back in la belle France Geoffrey folded his newspaper (yes I know), glanced at the clock (I KNOW!) and stretched and yawned. “Time for another invasion of Normandy, methinks!” he grinned, and set about fitting action to word. His successes then reverberated back through England, as supporters of Stephen began to see which way the wind from across the Channel was blowing, and thought of their own skin. Matilda’s power grew as Stephen’s waned. But if there’s one thing you can say about military alliances, it’s that they are fragile, and fluid. Two things. If there are two things you can say about military alliances, it’s that they are fragile, fluid and likely to change. Three things. If there are three things you can say about military alliances, it’s that they are fragile, fluid and likely to change. And affect the whole balanc of power. Four things. Among the things you can say… you get the idea.
Having made an alliance with Henry of Blois, Stephen’s brother, Matilda fell out with him and she and Robert besieged his castle at Winchester. Stephen’s wife, the other Matilda (also known at this time still as Queen Matilda, to add to the confusion) took her chance and charged in for hubby’s glory, and battle was joined. In what became known as the Rout of Winchester, Matilda was roundly defeated but escaped, leaving Robert to be captured and eventually exchanged for Stephen. Release, Stephen made sure he was re-crowned and so essentially, although never entirely legitimate, Matilda’s reign as Queen of England lasted a mere eight months, making hers one of the shortest reigns in English history, though not
the shortest. It’s said that it was believed (whether true or just anti-Matilda propaganda) that during his imprisonment Stephen had been held in very poor conditions, and that as a result he had become so sick that it was feared he might die. As he hovered on the brink of death, sympathies began to turn back towards him and his following saw a resurgence.
Matilda had made her court in Oxford, and perhaps naively had sent Robert to fetch Geoffrey, hoping her husband would reinforce her relatively small and inexperienced army. Stephen, meanwhile, managed to convince Ranulf of Chester to throw his lot in with him again, and Ranulf deserted Matilda’s cause. This left the Empress with a very small force against Stephen’s more than 1,000, and he easily took the town and besieged Matilda’s castle. Did a lot of besieging in those days, they did: besiege this, besiege that - couldn’t move with a siege going on somewhere. Two months into the siege Robert returned, with about 700 men but no Geoffrey, who had again decided France was where it was at, and bugger his wife, who had never understood him anyway.
As the army besieging the castle got tired and bored, and careless - or possibly helped her, betraying their king, who knows? - Matilda managed to escape from Oxford with four nights, shocking and enraging a chronicler of the time, almost an apologist for Stephen, who fumed
“I have never read of another woman so luckily rescued from so many mortal foes and from the threat of dangers so great: the truth being that she went from the castle of Arundel uninjured through the midst of her enemies; she escaped unscathed from the midst of the Londoners when they were assailing her, and her only, in mighty wrath; then stole away alone, in wondrous fashion, from the rout of Winchester, when almost all her men were cut off; and then, when she left besieged Oxford, she came away safe and sound?”
Like a dark ages Houdini, Matilda was gone again, slipped through the king’s fingers like sand, literally, according to some chroniclers (not the one above) walking on water, though this has been taken to mean the Thames was frozen so she could use it as a path to escape, and wearing a white cloak as camouflage against the whiteness of the recently-fallen snow.
Having slipped through her enemy’s fingers, Matilda made Wiltshire her new capital, at the castle at Devizes which had been confiscated by Stephen previously. Pulling in those old reliables, the fractious Fleming mercenaries, she set about securing the county under her rule. With Robert at her side again and the support of various nobles whose land Stephen had snaffled, she built up a sizeable court and settled down to wait the King out. Stalemate, or as we might say today, Mexican standoff. In England, obviously. Not Mexico. Which wasn’t even discovered at this point. But you get the idea. She then decided to play Stephen at his own game, and besieged him in Wilton Castle in Herefordshire. This led to a battle as Stephen, knowing how serious a siege can be - he had done his share of besieging, after all - decided f
uck this waiting around, I’m going for it, and out he broke. In the ensuing Battle of Wilton he was defeated, his castle burned, but he managed to become a dot on the horizon. One for Matilda and her forces. Girl power!
Things began to go slightly to sh
it for the king, as East Anglia rose up, followed by the yo-yo earl of Chester, Ranulf, who, like most nobles, didn’t really care too much about promises or treaties or agreements, and went where the wind was blowing. At the moment, it was blowing slightly in Matilda’s direction, so he headed that way. Stephen now had close to a full-blown rebellion on his hands, while in France Geoffrey hadn’t been idle, recognised by the end of the year as Duke of Normandy by the king, Louis VII. Despite this, things weren’t all sweetness and light for the Empress either.
One of her best military commanders, Miles of Gloucester (no, not Miles TO Gloucester, though if he had been Miles II that would have been funny… okay, okay, I’ll get on with it) fell victim to one of the most popular deaths for young virile men in 12th century England, the hunt. Whether he was done in or it was really an accident I don’t know, but there’s probably a reason men about to be married did not go on a stag. Anyway, his loss weakened Matilda’s position, and then Stephen defeated Geoffrey (no, another one) of Mandeville, who had kicked off the East Anglian trouble, and sued for terms. Neither were prepared to compromise, and so the stalemate continued. But it wouldn’t remain so for long.
Over a period from 1145 to 1151, Matilda lost many of her commanders to the Second Crusade, as they answered God’s call to knock some good old European blood-and-guts sense into those damned heretics, Robert died - peacefully, it says, which surprises me, and probably surprised him - and Brian Fitz Count, another of her big supporters, decided he also wanted to die a non-violent death, and entered a monastery. They threw him out, probably silently, but he re-entered, and when he was eventually able to explain to him that he didn’t in fact want to burn their abbey down, but join up, be a brother, be a monk, they said (silently; probably signed) sure dude, why not? God needs all the monks he can get. Unfortunately God called this new monk home sooner than he had expected, and the life of Brian (sorry) came to an end in 1151.
During this time, Matilda’s son decided it might be a good idea to pop over the Channel, picking up some duty-free on the way no doubt, and visit mummy. The army he brought with him though seemed put out when he explained he couldn’t pay them, and when mum refused to come up with the readies (“I only gave you sixteen thousand florins last week, son! That was supposed to last you all winter! You think I’m fu
cking made of money, do you?”) they ended up getting paid by, of all people, Stephen, who probably thought well if I pay these guys they can hardly fight against me, now can they? He was of course right, and off they all buggered back to France, to his relief. Matilda followed them the next year, 1148, possibly at least in part due to her need to talk to the Pope about demanding his castle at Devizes back. “Oi! That belongs to the Bishop of Salisbury!” Pope Eugene II had thundered when he found out she was squatting in it. “Clear off, or I’ll excommunicate you into the next century!” Hmm. Careful with that axe, Eugene!
“F
uck England into a hole!” thought Matilda, setting up her new court at Rouen, and when Geoffrey died in 1151, Henry, their son, legged it back across to England to claim his throne, an army at his back to explain in detail the thinking behind his legitimacy. He failed, but in the end Stephen adopted him as his son, and also his successor, so when Stephen died only a year later, Henry achieved what his mother could not, and became King of England. How proud his mum must have been.
As for her, she stayed in Normandy but did poke her nose into the new King Henry II’s affairs, helping him to sort out his kingdom. And that relic, the Hand of St. James? Well, you might possibly have thought she had taken it as a handy backscratcher, and maybe she did, who knows? But it ended up in the Abbey of Reading, despite attempts by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I, to get it returned to Germany. He was bought off instead with, um, a big tent. Yeah. If you have a choice between a supposedly priceless and powerful relic of a saint, and a marquee, go for the tent every time.
Matilda became a very valued advisor to her son and his court, and brokered many tricky deals and arrangements, and though she counselled against Henry’s invading Ireland, he went ahead and did it anyway after her death, setting in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to centuries of bloodshed, strife, death and really bad feeling between the English and us. See my History of Ireland journal, obviously, for more. Matilda died in 1167, and was buried at Rouen, though through the depredations , three hundred years later, of the people she had tried to rule, her bones got scattered and though re-located in 1684, Napoleon made sure they were messed up again in the eighteenth century until finally they were again re-interred at Rouen in 1846, seven hundred years after her death.
Although never officially crowned nor recognised, even today, as a queen of England, Matilda still took on the most powerful man of the time, the King, Stephen, and several times thwarted him, either evading capture herself, or indeed having him captured, and fought him to a standstill. Though she technically never really gave in - the war between her and Stephen sort of ground naturally to a halt, for the reasons stated above - she never sat on the English throne and is today only considered a footnote in the history of English monarchs. Nevertheless, considering the time, and the huge disadvantages of being a woman, and the enemies she faced both within and without her own power structure, immense credit must be given to her as surely one of the most powerful, and successful, women in twelfth-century England.