WHAT IF... EMPRESS MATILDA HAD DEFEATED KING STEPHEN?
In the 1130s, England descended into civil war as two rival cousins vied for the throne. Spencer Mizen asks historian Matt Lewis whether the struggle – known as the Anarchy – could have unfolded differently
Spencer Mizen asks historian Matt Lewis
King Henry I was, in many historians’ estimation, an accomplished ruler. He cemented his father, William I’s, conquest of the kingdom of England, successfully fought oa series of rebellions across the Channel in Normandy, and burnished England’s reputation among the kingdoms of Europe.
Yet, for all his undoubted qualities, Henry made a complete mess of the succession to his throne. And so, when the ageing king died in 1135, England was pitched into civil war. at conflict is now better known as the Anarchy, a word that conjures images of turbulence and chaos. And so it proved, as the two contenders for Henry’s crown – his daughter and nominated heir, Matilda; and Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror – embarked on a bitter battle for power.
IN CONTEXT
When Prince William Adelin drowned in the English Channel in 1120, Henry I lost his only legitimate son and heir. Fifteen years later, when the king breathed his last, this hole in England’s line of succession came home to roost. Henry’s daughter Matilda and her cousin Stephen of Blois both staked their claim to the throne, plunging the nation into the Anarchy.
This long civil war is remembered as one of the darkest periods of England’s Middle Ages – famously described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as one in which “Christ and his saints slept”. The reality may not have been quite as bleak as that but there’s little doubt that this was a period of significant turmoil, with Matilda’s forces dominating southwest England, King David of Scotland occupying the north of England, Stephen presiding over the rest, and a series of bloody flashpoints where their territories met.
In the end, a combination of misogyny and tactical missteps scuppered Matilda’s bid to oust Stephen from the throne, but in 1153 her son Henry (later Henry II) secured an agreement that he would inherit the throne upon Stephen’s death. Matilda would never become England’s first queen regnant but, in the figure of Henry, she had achieved a victory of sorts.