Gone Medieval - The Anarchy: Disruptive Women

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

The Anarchy is an intriguing and often forgotten period of history. There are fascinating characters and moments of deep political importance to England's development as a state. The involvement of women in the Anarchy is vital to understanding how it played out over almost two decades. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis talks to Sharon Bennett Connolly - author of Women of the Anarchy - in which she demonstrates how certain women were prime movers in a time of conflict and how their strengths, weaknesses and personal ambitions swung the fortunes of civil war one way - and then the other.This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. The anarchy is an intriguing period of England's history for a number of reasons, but it's often a forgotten civil war. There are fascinating characters and moments of deep political importance to England's development as a state. The involvement of women in the story is vital to understanding how The Anarchy played out over almost two decades. And so I'm delighted to welcome Sharon Bennett Connolly back to Gone Medieval to discuss her new book, Women of the Anarchy, which draws the

role of women from out of the shadows of history. Welcome back to Gone Medieval, Sharon. Thank you. Nice to be here. Lovely to have you back. Always a pleasure. My first question is a slightly facetious question. How many Matildas is too many Matildas, because everybody's called Matilda? It's 12. I actually look at in the index and there's 12 separate Matildas and I think there's a couple more who aren't in the index who just get a mention once. But yeah, everybody is called

Matilda. It's really annoying because it's very hard to distinguish between them. Particularly I guess when the two main protagonists of the story, the two principal women of the anarchy are both called Matilda as well. How do you differentiate between them in the book? The thing is you've got

Empress Matilda and Matilda of Beloyne. Empress Matilda was the one whose throne was stolen by Stephen of What, controversial call already? No, he didn't. It wasn't his throne. It was hers. And he promised that she could have it, that he changed his mind. Yes, he stole Empress Matilda's throne, and he was married to Matilda of Bologne. The way I distinguished was she was the Empress, and Matilda of Beloit.

So if I had to refer to them, it was Empress Matilda or Queen Matilda, usually using the longer attribution. A lot of people, especially novelists, go with Empress Maud. And I didn't like that, because she didn't use it in her. her lifetime. It seems to have been something like the Victorians chose to distinguish, and I don't see why Empress Matilda should lose her actual name just to distinguish between the two of them. So I went with Empress Matilda and Queen Matilda. Yeah, I confess I'm not a fan of Empress Maud either or calling her Maud. Like you say, it's not a name she would have recognised, and she probably have slapped her in the face for

calling her something like that. So I think Empress Matilda and Queen Matilda is a perfectly good way to differentiate. She's already had her crown stolen from her. So what? Now they're going to steal her name as well. No, not happening. And to be fair, there was another way you could distinguish if you read the Jester Stefani, the chronicle that is very pro-King Stephen. They never refer to her as Empress Matilda.

They always call her the Countess of Jean-Gu. That was more an insult and to belittle her rather than to actually give her a due credit. I wasn't going to go with that. Yeah, and again, a title that she deliberately refused to use in her lifetime, she refused to be referred to as the Countess of Anjouye, so again, you'd be taking something away from Empress Matilda by using that title. Exactly, and it's horrible they did it actually,

because if a Queen Dowager remains a Queen, an Empress Dowager should remain an Empress, but they were trying not to give her the regal dignity. They called her the Countess because she was married to a count as her second marriage, rather than Empress, which was the title she got in her first marriage. She should have been Empress, but they were trying to belittle her and reduce her status, which was. which wasn't nice.

Sounds so unlike history through the centuries, doesn't it, to try and demean the role of women. I don't know if there's a brief answer to this, and maybe we don't need a brief answer to it, but how do Empress Matilda and Queen Matilda end up on opposing sides? How are they on opposite sides of a contested succession? It's funny, isn't it?

Because they are actually, you do a lot of the wars of the roses stuff, and that is often referred to as the Cousins War. But if you look at the Anarchy, God, that was so much more a Cousins War. Empress Matilda was the first cousin of King Stephen because her dad and his mum were brother and sister but Empress Matilda and Queen Matilda

were also first cousins because their mum's were sisters so you've got this situation where Empress Matilda is the rightful claimant to the throne sticking with that controversial life You've got me on that one now Matt and Stephen is married to Queen Matilda to Matilda of Boulogne, who is the Empress's cousin. Now, the marriage seems to have been brought about by Henry I do think that in the early

1120s, after the white ship disaster, and whilst the Empress was still in Germany, I think he was probably grooming Stephen for the throat. And he gave Stephen a very valuable marriage prize. Matilda of Boulogne was a only child, sole heiress of the count of Boulogne. And Boulogne, of course, is right on the French coast, straight opposite England and has a pretty impressive merchant fleet so it was a great prize for Stephen

he got money, land and the ability to invade England whenever he felt like it by marrying Matilda of the loin so that's how they ended up on the opposing sides she was married to Stephen Empress Matilda was going to be her enemy no matter what unfortunately once Stephen decided he wanted the throne

but I do think that if it wasn't for Queen Matilda Stephen wouldn't have been able to claim the throne as easily because it was her resources from the county of Boulogne that made it possible for him to invade England and claim the Crowns so quickly. I think the connection to Matilda of Boulogne also makes him appealing to London because he has access to trade markets

that they want access to and which if you turn him down, perhaps you're jeopardising access to that. So she does give him a little sweetener to the deal when he wants to be Crown King of England too because he's saying, you know, I can open the gateway to Boulogne for you all. Yeah. And Boulogne held considerable lands in England as well. She had interests everywhere.

It was a nice little network for Stephen to become involved in and to be able to use to great advantage. And it always strikes me as well when you get King David in Scotland saying, you know, he's coming to defend his niece, meaning Empress Matilda, forgetting that Queen Matilda is also his niece. Yes. You get this weird thing that people are pulling on family connections, whenever it suits them and sort of ignoring the ones that don't suit them at the moment.

Yes, it's true. But then again, Empress Matilda was the rightful heir, and David had sworn in front of Henry I, that he would uphold her right to the succession. Just like Stephen had sworn that he would uphold her right to the succession, but Stephen changed his mind. Whereas David, and also it was in David's interests to guarantee the continued unrest in England.

And it was very favourable to him to have Empress Matilda continuing to fight Stephen because then he couldn't look to the borders where David kept popping over and doing a few raids and then running back before Stephen even noticed. So the Scots do like to stir up English unrest and vice versa, to be fair. What do we know then about Empress Matilda? If we think about the Empress first, what do we know about her preparations for power?

What does her upbringing give her, how does it equest, her for the events of the anarchy? I think she would have been very well equipped. She'd been sent over to Germany when she was eight or nine to be the wife of Emperor Henry. And she'd been well educated over there. She continued her education until she was old enough to marry at the age of 12. She had acted as regent in Henry's absences. When he was on campaign, she'd signed charters.

She presided over an imperial court. She was well prepared to become England's Queen Regnant and I don't think she'd have done a bad job of it except for there is this problem as far as men were concerned and you do have this story I think it's the Justice Devarni as always that highlights it in particular where they complain that when King David and the Empress's half-brother Robert of Gloucester enter the room she fails to stand

And you think, oh, David is a king, so maybe she should have stood, but she was socially David's superior. Her father wouldn't have stood when King David entered a room. But because she is a woman, she was expected to, even though she was the senior ruler in the room. Matilda wasn't very well set to the sensibilities of men. I don't think she was bothered so much about what men thought, so much as she was the ruler.

she was in charge and she should have had the dignity and the obeisance of everybody else in the room. And do you think she's reflecting there an attitude from the Holy Roman Empire, from a slightly Germanic approach to the role of a queen? Or was she trying to reflect the fact that actually she's not going to be a queen, she's going to be, in effect, a female king? I don't think it was the Holy Roman Empire so much as the fact that she was emulating her father. He was omnipotent king. She was doing exactly the same.

What her father did, she would do it his way. So there was no confusion as to who was in charge. So yeah, I think in those days also, the example is Poland, isn't it? They didn't have the word for a female ruler. So even their queens were called kings. And I think that's the thing. She was going to be the king in every sense, except she was a woman. She acted like that.

And her detractors made sure everybody knew that she. She wasn't supposed to act like that. So unwomanly. Yes. Why do you think so many seem unwilling to accept her as Henry's heir? So they swear the oaths because Henry's kind of making them. I guess it would have been difficult to say to Henry, I don't fancy doing this. But they all do swear the oath, but they still seem to have these reservations about

Matilda as Henry's heir. Do you think there's anything in that beyond misogyny and her gender, or is there something else going on at all? Or is it just a terrible bunch of men being a terrible bunch of men? It's her gender. I know everybody says there's the other argument that because she's married to Geoffrey O'Anjou and the Anglo-Normans didn't like the Angevans. That's why they opposed Matilda. But even that, basically, it's because she was a woman, because they thought Geoffrey of Anjou would have more influence because he's the man of the house. And that's why they opposed Matilda. They didn't oppose Henry the first plan to marry his only son, William,

to Matilda of Vanjou, before his death in the white ship in 1120. There was no argument there. So they were happy for a man to marry a daughter of Anjou, but for the daughter of England to marry a son of Anjou, that's what they complained at. So yeah, it was simply because she was a woman. There were so many arguments against the fact she was a woman because in the natural order of things in those days, men weren't supposed to take orders from women. Women were supposed to be meek and obedient and stay at home and look after the children and let the men worry about warfare and ruling. And although Empress Matilda was more than capable of worrying about everything and leaving her children at home for somebody else to look after, they didn't like that.

So do you think when people swore all of those oaths of allegiance to Empress Matilda, Do you think at the time they simply didn't mean it and they were doing it because they had to and they were always going to look for a way out of this? I think they may have actually thought they meant it. And of course, Henry I was there when they were making these oaths. And if Henry I tell you to make a nose, you do it because it's Henry I first.

And he wasn't someone to defy easily. But I think at the time they probably agreed to it, but they thought, under their breath went unless we can find another way out. Because at the time also, although Stephen had been, been a favourite of entry, Henry I, there was no obvious alternative, except perhaps Robert Earl of Bloster, but his illegitimacy was a real bar to the throne by that point,

even though William the Conqueror, who was illegitimate, had claimed the throne a hundred years before. By the middle of the 12th century, illegitimacy was a totally different matter, and Robert was never getting the throne. And I do think the rest of the barons may not have known whether Stephen would make a move when the time came, Yes, they're swearing to uphold Matilda's claim,

but at the back of their mind, they're probably thinking, unless we can think of someone else. Because obviously Matilda has a son by this point. I wonder how many of them are thinking we'll just wait until little Henry is old enough, and maybe we won't ever really have to worry about this? If Henry I'd have held on until Little Henry was 12, I don't think there would have been even an issue. The throne would have passed straight to Henry.

It was because he was still only about three. years old when his granddad died, that it was an issue. And how about if we flip our attention to Queen Matilda, how was she prepared for authority? She can't have undergone the same kind of education as Empress Matilda, not having kind of ruled in the Holy Roman Empire in the same way. So what would her position as Countess of Boulogne equipped Queen Matilda with? Because she was an only child, she was trained to be Countess of Boulogne. And throughout her time with Stephen, the charters in Beloit are issued jointly between Stephen and Matilda

rather than Stephen with Matilda as a witness they're always Stephen and Matilda issuing these charters. It was her county and she seems to have been actively involved in the management of the county. There's this time where they're besieging Dover Castle and she actually calls on Beloit ships to come and attack the castle from the sea

while the land forces are attacking as well and it's she who calls them. And in 1142, I think it was, when Stephen was indisposed after his time in prison, she went over to Boulogne to manage some matters. She was really actively involved in the county. So she was trained from a young age. They knew she was going to be taking over.

She was about 25 when she married Stephen as well. So it wasn't get her married off as soon as she's 12, which was quite interesting. So she was actively involved in the management of the county and that would have stood her in good stead for when she got to England as well. And I suppose in that way she's quite similar to her cousin, Empress Matilda, in that she doesn't have a brother looming over her. So Empress Matilda obviously does until the white ship,

but then she is the kind of the sole heir. So there is that focus on equipping her to rule, not just equipping her to be a sister of the future count or something like that and maybe making a good marriage for her. There is a lot of focus on their education. Yes, exactly. and she knew she was going to be countess. So she knew it was interesting actually

because her dad was at the wedding of Stephen and Matilda and then he retires to a monastery and basically hands Bolloyne over to Stephen and Matilda once they're married. So you can tell that it was always the plan that she would rule Boulogne, not just the wife sat at home. How competent do you think Queen Matilda was

as Stephen's Queen Consort during the early years of his reign? So before the trouble with the Empress really kicks off, do we see her having an influence in Stephen's early reign? Not so much, except for the fact that I think it was her resources that he used to claim the throne in the first place. Looking at how quickly he acted after Henry the first step, I suspect he'd been handing out various gifts and promises to various barons, probably from the wealth of Beloit in order to guarantee their acquiescence or support when he became king. He was sat in Boulogne waiting to hear of Henry the first's death, so he was right on the coast ready to make for England as soon as he heard of Henry's death,

whereas Empress Matilda was still recovering from one traumatic childbirth and had just discovered she was pregnant for the third and thankfully final time for her. So she wasn't prepared or ready for her father's death where Stephen was. Queen Matilda and herself, though, she had a child in 1130, I think it was, William of Blois, around 1135, 1136, Matilda may have been born. So she was in her childbearing years at that time and regularly pregnant. So I'm not sure how much practical assistance she could give Stephen. But certainly the support of just having Bolloyne behind him certainly made it easier for him to act quickly and get that thrown.

I feel like it does suggest a degree of teamwork because, as you say, Boulogne was very much her property. she wasn't just the Count's wife, she was the Countess. So she must have supported what Stephen was doing or at least offered him the support from what she was able to do. So there's a degree of teamwork going on, I think maybe. Yeah. I think there must have been a conversation at some point around the fire where he said, Henry's getting a bit ill, yes.

And I know the throne's supposed to go to Countess Matilda. But I was wondering, darling, what would you think if I went for the throne? he had to have her explicit support otherwise he wouldn't have been able to do it he wouldn't have been able to use her resources as easily so she had to say oh actually I wouldn't mind wearing a crown yes I'll be queen yeah I've got my eye on some property in London

and a new hat what do you think and so 1141 I guess is the big year during the anarchy when an awful lot happens it's quite a pivotal year in lots and lots of different ways I think for England as a kingdom how do the two Matilda's approach that year and all of the problems that it presents? It's a year where an awful lot happens, but at the end of the year, everybody's back where they started.

Stephen's still on the throne and Empress Matilda is still trying to get him off it. But in February 1141, after the Battle of Lincoln, Stephen's been captured and is in prison in Bristol Castle. Empress Matilda is garnering support and making her way to London to be crowned. and she must have thought, this is it, I've done it, I've just got to get crown now, Stephen's away, nothing can stop me. And then Queen Matilda pops up and goes, oh, by the way, I can stop you, because Stephen might be in prison, but I'm not,

and I've got a son to protect. He should inherit the crown after his dad, so I'm going to fight. And she marches on London, chases the empress out of London, and then chases her all the way to Winchester. The idea of the siege of Winchester, It's just so impressive. The Empress is there besieging Wolfse Palace and Winchester, and the Queen Matilda comes up behind her and besieges her,

so you've got a siege within a siege. The Empress ends up having to flee because Winchester's on fire and there's no more resources. In the retreat, her brother gets captured. And of course her brother, Robert of Gloucester, is her leading general, and her half-brother, her main support. He gets captured, and suddenly the tables are turned. because the Empress needs her brother back, just as much as Queen Matilda,

needs the king back, so they have to do this swap. And you've got this thing at the end of the year where Stephen's back on the throne, the Empress has got her brother back, but she's back where she started. It doesn't appear to be any further on than she was before, and you just think,

oh, if only she could have just held on to those days in June and July, rather than if all turn into disaster afterwards. And I guess the Empress and the Queen in 1141, they have different aims and different drives. So Empress Matilda is trying to get herself onto the throne. The Queen Matilda is trying to protect Stephen and keep him on his throne. Does that affect the way that they go about it? Obviously, we get lots of the criticism about Empress Matilda, as you mentioned earlier, behaving like a man, being unwomanly at this point.

And then there is this stark contrast throne in the way that Queen Matilda behaves entirely as people expect a queen to behave during this period. Do the way they approach it, does that affect their chances of success, I guess, is what I'm getting at? I suppose it does because it's easier for people to support Queen Matilda, because she points out clearly that she is doing this for her husband and her son, because she writes to the Empress Matilda and actually offers to take Stephen into exile, but asks that her son Eustace be allowed to inherit the Biloin lands, and apparently Empress Matilda refuses her,

and suddenly all the barons are up in arms because inheritance is really important to them and if there's a shadow of a doubt that their sons won't be allowed to inherit their lands then that's a big worry. So they see that as Empress Matilda being against them. What nobody seems to point out in any of the chronicles at the time was yes, Empress Matilda wanted the throne for herself.

It was her right. All these barons had promised it to her, but they stopped short of reminding people that she was also fighting for her son. She had a son whose inheritance was the throne of England. And if she didn't get the throne of England, then her son wouldn't get the throne of England. It seems to be that they're like, oh, she was fighting for herself.

But she wasn't. She was fighting for her children just as much as Queen Matilda was. It's just she had a right to the throne herself. So why shouldn't that be the foremost bit she actually projected? I think it strikes me that the people, pivot point really is the behaviour of the two women and to some extent the balance is shifted by Queen Matilda because Empress Matilda is clearly suffering from all of the misogyny that's going on. Queen Matilda is able to, but also perfectly willing to lean into that misogyny and say to all the

men, you know, woe is me, I'm just here being exactly the kind of woman you think I should be and she's being so utterly horrible to me. And that you say, what does it mean that she's messing with the laws of inheritance, I don't understand all of this, but what does that mean for you guys? Yeah, I think she did play up to them, though, didn't she? Because I think if she had a claim to the throne as strong as Empress Matilda had, she would have been claiming it just the way the Empress was. Absolutely. All I'm saying is I think Queen Matilda kind of played that game really well and used the misogyny against the men in a way that Empress Matilda was struggling to do. So she played on their misogyny to further.

her own cause, whereas Empress Matilda kind of didn't have the option to do that. The misogyny is always a barrier and a blockage for her. Yes. But maybe where Empress Matilda fails to play the game so well is exactly as you say, she doesn't talk about her son and her dynasty. And Henry as her father's grandson and inheritor, she could have softened her position, but it seems to me that she makes a very deliberate decision not to soften her position,

that she doesn't want to do that. She does in 1141. It's funny because the 1141, you do have this bit where it's all for the Empress. But then in 1142, after she escapes from Oxford Castle in a snowstorm through enemy lines, which is such a fantastic little adventure, Robert of Gloucester has gone over to Normandy to try and get some extra troops from her husband, Geoffrey of Arnjou, and he comes back and he brings Little Henry with him. And you suddenly get this swing then from 1142 onwards, where they're showing.

Henry as the air and she's slowly taking a step back so that by 11407 1148 she's more or less out of the picture and Henry's fighting for himself but I wonder if she took on some of the lessons of 1141 and the way Matilda Beloit acted and

maybe she's just real I'm never going to win they're all against me everybody hates me but I've got to carry on fighting for Henry and Henry becomes although he's still a child I think he's about nine at the time, he comes over the first time. He is the figurehead and she's showing the barons who are on her side, who they're fighting for. They're not fighting for her future. They're fighting for Henry's future. Yeah, I was going to say, I wonder how much she maybe took on board

some of those lessons from 1141 and slightly modified her behaviour afterwards, albeit that that's come too late for her and her own efforts to get herself onto the throne of England. So she perhaps just learnt those lessons the hard way, but learnt them a little bit too late for herself as well. But I think it's telling that even after 1141, and it must have been so disappointing for the end of that year, to hear about Stephen sitting in Canterbury wearing his crown and Queen Matilda at the side of him.

It must have been so disappointing to hear about that. But she still carried on fighting. She still carried on the struggle, even after everything she'd been through. After the siege of Winchester, she got to Devise us castle and she was half dead from exhaustion, but she was still carrying on the fight. Do you think Empress Matilda ever really stood a chance?

I'd love to say yes, I really would, but I don't think so. There weren't enough people on her side, and England, just like the rest of Europe, wasn't ready for a female ruler. We didn't even like female regents when we had child kings, what, 50 years later when King John did,

and Henry III came to the throne. Isabella Van Gogh was sidelined and pushed out and ignored. And she was the mother of the king, but she wasn't having any regency. So unfortunately, England, like the rest of the world, wasn't ready for female rulers. Why do you think, as well, Queen Matilda is as overlooked as I think she probably is? Because to me she seems genuinely amazing. She seems to be the reason that Stephen gets his throne back in 1141 and remains on it for the rest of his life. yet we don't talk about her anywhere near as much as the Empress.

To me, I find her at least as much of an interesting, compelling character as the Empress. I totally agree. I think when I was writing Women of the Anarchy, the original idea was to tell Empress Matilda's story, but using Queen Matilda rather than Stephen as her opponent. And I just thought, it was Empress Matilda's story I wanted to tell. But as I was getting into it, it was like, actually, this Queen Matilda, she's like Stephen's backbone.

If it wasn't for her resources in Beloit, he wouldn't have even been able to launch a bit for the throne. If it wasn't for her in 1141, he would have stayed in a dungeon in Bristol Castle for the rest of his life in chains. If it wasn't for her in 1142 when he had some kind of illness, possibly a breakdown, and she was the one continuing the government at that time. It's just like everywhere you look, it was her pushing for things. Even when Stephen tried to get his son Eustace crowned during his lifetime, it was Queen Matilda, who was corresponding with the Pope, making all the moves to make that happen.

I do get the impression that she's the one telling him what to do rather than him telling her what to do. Yeah, genuine power behind the throne. Yes, I think so. It begs the question, was taking the throne Stephen's idea or Queen Matilda's idea? I guess we'll never know. I just had the same thought because I'm not thinking, Maybe it wasn't Stephen saying, I've just had this idea.

Maybe it was Matilda saying I've had an idea. What do you think this period of conflict that we call the anarchy, which essentially covers the whole of Stephen's 19-year reign for the most part? What do you think that period tells us about female power in 12th century England? From, I guess, the position of the throne, but perhaps also around the nobility as well. How do we see female power being exercised? With the permission of men.

unfortunately. I think that's the thing that it chose us, that women were allowed overt power only with the permission of men. I do think women had ways of getting what they wanted and getting their own way. And the idea that maybe it was Matilda's idea for Stephen to claim the throne would show exactly what women were capable of. If she was the one who came up with the idea, then she did get what she wanted by manipulating Stephen into taking the throne. It's an intriguing possibility, isn't it? But it was women, they had to use their wiles and their intelligence to get what they wanted, and they had to do it within the bounds of the rules set out for them.

So they still could use influence and exercise power. They had to use subtlety in order to do it. And you see this throughout medieval history. When I wrote about Nicola de la Hay, it was like you look at it, she was given power and she used it. But most of the time, even when women are believed to be capable, men still want to limit their powers and influence. Yeah, sometimes there's still a temptation to think that women in the medieval period had no power.

You know, noble women and royal women had no power. That's certainly not the case. They had a different type of power to men. I think Queen Matilda is a really good, demonstration of just how much power you could bring to play if you did it within the rules kind of thing. Do you what, sometimes I hate being a man talking about women's positions, because I know what it sounds like, but she does demonstrate that there were mechanisms and levers of power that women could pull. What they couldn't do is step out of those bounds, perhaps as

readily as a man could. But in a lot of ways, men were restricted in the power that they exercised. It was very easy to become treasonous or something else like that. And we do see medieval women, particularly in their widowhood, being able to exercise power in their own right when they're not expected to remarry or anything like that. So I think we kind of need to forget this idea that they had no. Oh yes. Many of women as widows, that was it. If I'd been a widow, I'd never remarried. It was like they were allowed to look after their own lands, their own property, spend their own money. But once they were married, that was it. Everything belonged to their husband. So I can see how women felt restricted. But the clever women, like Matilda of the

who had a great deal of intelligence, knew how to use that power to the best to get the outcomes they wanted. And as we mentioned at the start, these aren't the only two women of the anarchy. There are at least 12 Matildas, as you've said. So aside from the Empress and the Queen, do you have a favourite woman from the period of the anarchy

who stands out for you? They all stand out in different ways. There are a couple of interesting stories. There's the one about Gondreda de Warren, who was married to Roger Beaumont, the Earl of Warwick. And this was later in the anarchist. Henry of Anjou, the future Henry II, was over trying to make headway into claiming England,

and he arrived outside Warwick Castle. And rather than fighting, Gondreda handed him the keys to the castle. Now, her husband at the time was with King Stephen at the court. And when he heard this news, apparently he had a heart attack and dropped dead. It's horrible, but I can't stop laughing. when I hear the story. This poor bloke thought he had everything in hand. Leave your wife in charge of the castle. It's okay. She'll look after it. Instead, she hands it to the enemy. Yeah, you can almost imagine the scene of Stephen getting the news, reading it, kind of handing it to him and him reading it

and thinking, well, how do I get out of this? Heart stack it is. Yeah, exactly. And there's others. I like Adelizer Lovant as well, who was Henry the first, second wife. And you feel for her, because whilst she was married to Henry, he married her shortly after the death of William in the White Ship and in the hope of having a son by her. And of course, he kept her with him all the time. She travelled with him constantly

so that she was on hand for any moment he thought he could consummate and get her son. And they were married for nearly 15 years and yet no child. And she got the blame for it, of course. Henry had 20 or the illegitimate children to prove that he could have.

father children. So everybody's looking at Adeliza and saying it's probably her fault. And then after Henry dies, she marries again and has seven children. But she's in a really difficult position because her husband supports King Stephen. But she's the stepmother of Empress Matilda, although she's stepmother at the same age as well, which must have been awkward at times. So when Matilda comes over to England, it's her castle, Arndale, that she lands at. And she's in this really awkward position because King Stephen's outside the walls and Empress Matilda's inside and she's Stephen's enemy. And of course Stephen is so chivalrous that he won't make war and women, so he allows Empress Matilda to leave and go to her brother at Bristol. But it's

Adeliser of Louvonde defies her husband to have her stepdaughter stay at Arndor. Knowing is going to cause her problems, but she's her stepdaughter and makes it out of it. It's just a family visit. She's popping over for afternoon tea. And it's like the courage in her. I'm never quite clear on what Adelisa's motivations were there, whether she has Empress Matilda over in an effort to give her a foothold in England and kickstart her efforts to take the throne, or whether Adeliza thinks this is going to be a way to find peace between Stephen and Empress Matilda.

And she's kind of ambushed by Empress Matilda's move onto a military footing. So I'm never quite sure where she sits in that. Obviously, we don't have any insight into what she's thinking when she invites Empress Matilda over. No, but Robert had already renounced his support of Stephen. So she must have been aware that there was a good chance that the Empress was here to make war. You can imagine her saying to her husband, oh no, she's just visiting, honest darling.

She might have known in the back of her mind what was going on. But it was her stepdaughter, and she probably thought she had a duty to support Empress Matilda and just say, I'll do this, but that's it. You land here, yes, but then you have to. to go because you can't cost too many arguments it will cause too many arguments if you stay so we have to work out a way to get you to go i'll give you that first foot hold and then it's up to you yeah i guess that ambiguity that i see might have been deliberate in an effort for adelaiza not

to get caught up in things these women again clever women doing things knowing what they have to do in order to get things done yeah you men think you're making all the decisions you're not really we put the ideas into your heads in the first place i've been married for way to too long to feel like I'm making any decisions. So just to end on, it's 1139. Whose side are you on? Are you with the Empress or are you with the Queen? And with the Empress.

It's her right to the throne. The throne's hers all along. I just think she probably didn't stand a chance, but just think how women's history would have changed over the centuries if she had got the crown. If she'd become a ruler in the mid-1100s, female agency would have happened a lot sooner than it did, Unless you've been really bad at it.

But we are talking 400 years before England does actually take the step to a Queen Regnant. You know, four centuries earlier we could have had that access to power for women that could have changed the playing field. Yes. Like I said with Henry III and the Regency, Isabella Van Goghlen wasn't even considered. She was sidelined and pushed out. Would that have happened if Empress Matilda had ruled in 1135 to 11 people? If they'd had that example of a female ruler, would they have pushed her out? Or would they have said, actually, you will give her a go?

Or, and here's one, Henry VIII. If he'd had the example of Empress Matilda, a queen regnant, all those years ago, would he have been so worried about having her son when he knew that queens could rule? And I mean, as well, I guess, all of those later medieval kings who had older sisters, would we have stuck with male line primogeniture as the only way to transmit the throne? You know, we could have had a lot more queens who were older sisters of the kings that we remember now. It's intriguing. It could have changed an awful lot if she'd just managed to get the crown. Yeah. For the record, I like Stephen more than a lot of people do.

I don't think he was quite the bad egg that he's often painted as. I got that impression from your book because I used Stephen and Matilda when I was writing women at the Anakin. He liked Stephen way too much. I think Stephen was a likable chap, but I don't think he was a great king. And the two go hand in hand too often, don't they? The nicest men make the worst kings. And the most horrible men make the best in inverted commas kings. Wonderful.

Thank you so much for joining us, Sharon. It's been wonderful to talk about some of the women of an often forgotten civil war. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Sharon's new book, Women of the Anarchy, is out now. If you'd like to build on this discussion, not only better understand the anarchy, but also the central role of the women involved in it. There are new episodes of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday,

so please do join us next time for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcast from and to tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please do drop us a review or rate us anywhere that you listen to your podcasts.

It really does help new listeners to find us, and you can also follow the show wherever you get your podcast too. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just got. on medieval with history hits.