Matilda OF ENGLAND (aft1102-1167)

	Matilda of England, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Germany, Lady of England		Matilda of England, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Germany, Lady of England		Emperor Henry V and Matilda

Name:	Matilda OF ENGLAND 1,2
Sex:	Female
Nickname:	Isabella or Alice
Father:	Henry I OF ENGLAND (1068-1135)
Mother:	Matilda OF SCOTLAND (1080-1118)

Individual Events and Attributes

Birth	btw 1102 and 1104	Winchester or London
crowned (1)	25 Jul 1110 (age 8)	Mainz
crowned (2)	7 Jan 1114 (age 12)	Mainz in Germany at the age of 12 3
Occupation (1)	frm 7 Jan 1114 to 22 May 1125 (age 9-23)	Empress of Germany
Occupation (2)	frm 1114 to 1125 (age 9-23)	Holy Roman Empress
Title (1)		Countess of Anjou
Title (2)	7 Apr 1141 (age 36-39)	Lady of the English
Group/Caste Membership		Norman Dynasty
Marriage Count		2
Death	10 Sep 1167 (age 62-65)	Abbey of Notre Dame des Pres, near Rouen, Normandy
Burial		buried firstly in the Convent of Bonnes at Nouvelles; soon afterwards, her remains were moved to Bec Abbey, Normandy, and later to Rouen Cathedral

Additional Information

crowned (1)	Queen of the Romans at age eight
crowned (2)	She was crowned again with her first husband, Henry V, Emperor of Germany, in 1117, in St Peter's Basilica, Rome, by the Pope. On 7 April, 1141, having deposed and imprisoned King Stephen in pursuance of her claim to the English throne, she assumed the title "Lady of the English", never officially being styled Queen of England. She was deposed in favour of Stephen on 1 November, 1141, having failed to consolidate her position.
Occupation (1)	She was married firsrt to Henry V, Emperor of Germany in 1114. Henry died 22 May, 1125. They did not have children.

Marriage

	Geoffrey Plantagenet		Enamel effigy of Geoffrey Plantagenet funerary plaque made in Verdun between 1145 and 1150 survives in the Tessé museum at Le Mans.		Sculpture of Henry II of England on Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England		Tombs of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in Fontevraud Abbey

	Tomb effigies of Eleanor and Henry II at Fontevraud Abbey		Issue of Eleanor & Henry

Spouse	Geoffrey PLANTAGENET (1113-1151)
Children	Henry II OF ENGLAND (1133-1189)
Marriage	17 Jun 1128 (age 23-26)	Le Mans Cathedral, Anjou

Additional Information

Marriage

She was 26 and he was 14.

Individual Note

Empress Matilda (c. 7 February 1102 – 10 September 1167), also known as Matilda of England or Maude, was the daughter and heir of King Henry I of England. Matilda and her younger brother, William Adelin, were the only legitimate children of King Henry to survive to adulthood. William's early death in the White ship disaster in 1120 made Matilda the last heir from the paternal line of her grandfather William the Conqueror.

 

As a child, Matilda was betrothed to and later married Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, acquiring the title Empress. The couple had no known children. After being widowed for a few years, she was married to Geoffrey count of Anjou, with whom she had three sons, the eldest of whom became King Henry II of England.

 

Matilda was the first female ruler of the Kingdom of England. The length of her effective rule was brief, however — a few months in 1141. She was never crowned and failed to consolidate her rule (legally and politically). For this reason, she is normally excluded from lists of English monarchs, and her rival (and cousin) Stephen of Blois is listed as monarch for the period 1135-1154. Their rivalry for the throne led to years of unrest and civil war in England that have been called The Anarchy. She did secure her inheritance of the Duchy of Normandy — through the military feats of her husband, Geoffrey — and campaigned unstintingly for her oldest son's inheritance, living to see him ascend the throne of England in 1154.

 

Early lifeMatilda was the elder of the two children born to Henry I of England and his wife Matilda of Scotland (also known as Edith) who survived infancy; her younger brother was William Adelin.

 

Her maternal grandparents were Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret of Scotland. Margaret was daughter of Edward the Exile and granddaughter of Edmund II of England. Most historians believe Matilda was born in Winchester, but one, John M. Fletcher, argues for the possibility of the royal palace at Sutton (now Sutton Courtenay) in Berkshire. Her paternal grandparents were William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders.

 

[edit] Marriages

When she was seven years old, Matilda was betrothed to the 23 years old Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor; at eight, she was sent to the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) to begin training for the life of an empress consort. The eight-year-old Matilda was crowned Queen of the Romans in Mainz on 25 July 1110.[1][2] Aged 12, Matilda was made a child bride as the royal couple were married at Mainz on 7 January 1114. Matilda accompanied Henry on tours to Rome and Tuscany. Matilda later acted as regent, mainly in Italy, in his absence.[3] Emperor Henry died on 23 May 1125. The imperial couple had no surviving offspring, but Herman of Tournai states that Matilda bore a son who lived only a short while.

 

Matilda returned to England. Henry I then arranged a second marriage for Matilda, to ensure peace between Normandy and Anjou. On 17 June 1128, Matilda, then 26, was married to Geoffrey of Anjou, then 14. He was also Count of Maine and heir apparent to (his father) the Count of Anjou — whose title he soon acquired, making Matilda Countess of Anjou. It was a title she rarely used. Geoffrey called himself "Plantagenet" from the broom flower (planta genista) he adopted as his personal emblem. Plantagenet became the dynastic name of the powerful line of English kings descended from Matilda and Geoffrey.

 

Matilda's marriage with Geoffrey was troubled, with frequent long separations, but they had three sons. The eldest, Henry, was born on 5 March 1133. In 1134, she almost died in childbirth, following the birth of Geoffrey, Count of Nantes. A third son, William X, Count of Poitou, was born in 1136. She survived her second husband, who died in Sept. 1151.

 

[edit] Struggle for the throne of England

In 1120, her brother William Adelin drowned in the disastrous wreck of the White Ship, making Matilda the only surviving legitimate child of her father King Henry. Her cousin Stephen of Blois was, like her, a grandchild of William (the Conqueror) of Normandy; but her paternal line meant she was senior to Stephen in the line of succession.

 

After Matilda returned to England, Henry named her as his heir to the English throne and Duchy of Normandy. Henry saw to it that the Anglo-Norman barons, including Stephen, twice swore to accept Matilda as ruler if Henry died without a male heir of his body.

 

When her father died in Normandy, on 1 December 1135, Matilda was with Geoffrey in Anjou, and, crucially, too far away from events rapidly unfolding in England and Normandy. She and Geoffrey were also at odds with her father over border castles. Stephen of Blois rushed to England upon learning of Henry's death and moved quickly to seize the crown from the appointed heir. He was supported by most of the barons and his brother, Henry, bishop of Winchester, breaking his oath to defend her rights. Matilda, however, contested Stephen in both realms. She and her husband Geoffrey entered Normandy and began military campaigns to claim her inheritance there. Progress was uneven at first, but she persevered. In Normandy, Geoffrey secured all fiefdoms west and south of the Seine by 1143; in January 1144, he crossed the Seine and took Rouen without resistance. He assumed the title Duke of Normandy, and Matilda became Duchess of Normandy. Geoffrey and Matilda held the duchy conjointly until 1149, then ceded it to their son, Henry, which event was soon ratified by King Louis VII of France. It was not until 1139, however, that Matilda commanded the military strength necessary to challenge Stephen within England.

 

During the war, Matilda's most loyal and capable supporter was her illegitimate half-brother, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester.

 

Matilda's greatest triumph came in February 1141, when her forces defeated and captured King Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln. He was made a prisoner and effectively deposed. Her advantage lasted only a few months. When she arrived in London, the city was ready to welcome her and support her coronation. She used the title of Lady of the English and planned to assume the title of queen upon coronation (the custom which was followed by her grandsons, Richard and John).[4] However, she refused the citizens' request to halve their taxes and, because of her own arrogance,[4] they closed the city gates to her and reignited the civil war on 24 June 1141.

 

By November, Stephen was free (exchanged for the captured Robert of Gloucester) and a year later, the tables were turned when Matilda was besieged at Oxford but escaped to Wallingford, supposedly by fleeing across snow-covered land in a white cape. In 1141, she escaped Devizes in a similar manner, by disguising herself as a corpse and being carried out for burial.

 

In 1148, Matilda and Henry returned to Normandy, following the death of Robert of Gloucester, and the reconquest of Normandy by Geoffrey. Upon their arrival, Geoffrey turned Normandy over to Henry and retired to Anjou.

 

[edit] Later lifeMatilda's first son, Henry, was showing signs of becoming a successful leader. It was 1147 when Henry, aged 14, had accompanied Matilda on an invasion of England. It soon failed due to lack of preparation but it made him determined that England was his mother's right, and so his own. He returned to England again between 1149 and 1150. On 22 May 1149 he was knighted by King David I of Scotland, his great uncle, at Carlisle.[5] Although the civil war had been decided in Stephen's favour, his reign was troubled. In 1153, the death of Stephen's son Eustace, combined with the arrival of a military expedition led by Henry, led him to acknowledge the latter as his heir by the Treaty of Wallingford.

 

Matilda retired to Rouen in Normandy during her last years, where she maintained her own court and presided over the government of the duchy in the absence of Henry. She intervened in the quarrels between her eldest son Henry and her second son Geoffrey, Count of Nantes, but peace between the brothers was brief. Geoffrey rebelled against Henry twice before his sudden death in 1158. Relations between Henry and his youngest brother, William X, Count of Poitou, were more cordial, and William was given vast estates in England. Archbishop Thomas Becket refused to allow William to marry the Countess of Surrey and the young man fled to Matilda's court at Rouen. William, who was his mother's favourite child, died there in January 1164, reportedly of disappointment and sorrow. She attempted to mediate in the quarrel between her son Henry and Becket, but was unsuccessful.

 

Although she gave up hope of being crowned in 1141, her name always preceded that of her son Henry, even after he became king. Matilda died at Notre Dame du Pré near Rouen in 1167 and was buried in the Abbey of Bec-Hellouin, Normandy. Her body was transferred to Rouen Cathedral in 1847; her epitaph reads: "Great by Birth, Greater by Marriage, Greatest in her Offspring: Here lies Matilda, the daughter, wife, and mother of Henry."

 

NOTES:

1 "Matilda (1102-1167)", DNB

2 Chibnall, Marjorie The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English p. 24

3 Chibnall, Marjorie The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English pgs. 33-34, 46

4 a b Lyon, Ann (2003). Constitutional history of the UK. Routledge Cavendish. ISBN 1859417469. http://books.google.com/books?id=yiqrD_b_EGkC&pg=PA30&dq=%22lady+of+the+English%22+uncrowned&lr=#v=onepage&q=%22lady%20of%20the%20English%22%20uncrowned&f=false. Retrieved 2009-09-19.

5 Harvey. The Plantagenets. pp. 50.

 

SOURCES:

Bradbury, J. (1996) Stephen and Matilda: the Civil War of 1139-1153, Sutton Publishing, ISBN 075090612X

Chibnall,Marjorie (1991) The Empress Matilda:Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English

Fletcher, John (1990) Sutton Courtenay: The History of a Thameside Village

Gardener J and Wenborn W the History Today Companion to British History

Pain, Nesta (1978) Empress Matilda: Uncrowned Queen of England

Parsons, John Carmi. Medieval Mothering (New Middle Ages), sub. Marjorie Chibnall, "Empress Matilda and Her Sons"⁴

Sources

1	Weir, Alison, "Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy" (Vintage, 2008). p 59 - 60.

2	Weis, Frederick Lewis & Sheppard, Walter Lee, Jr, "Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals". p 2, 1-23.

3	Weir, Alison, "Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy" (Vintage, 2008). p 59.

4	"Wikipedia". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Matilda.