England's Uncrowned Queen | Mother Of The Plantagenet Dynasty | The Formidable Empress Matilda 

awww I’m glad you got here too! Your videos really are amazing and the effort really shows🙏🙏

congratulations!

Well done!

Was she the inspiration for the king thrushbeard fairytale?

That would be awesome if she bears responsibility for that fairy tales.

It's certainly a part that often gets left out, but I think it was so integral to knowing that she had the skills to rule, not just the bloodline. And thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the video! 😊

​@@HistorysForgottenPeopledid she get along with her father does anyone know?

​@@leeannproctor47that's covered in the video. If I'm remembering the info in the video correctly, she left her father's House to prepare for the marriage he arranged for her at age 6. She returned to his House after her 1st husband died and followed his wishes for her. They had a falling out at a very important point. But you should really watch the video for all the specifics. I've watched it twice. It's worth watching

Interesting 😊

Oh, DEFINTELY! And House of the Dragon, too - when I'm watching it at the moment with my husband, he must get annoyed with me pausing it and going, "That's just like what happened to Empress Matilda!" 😂😂😂

@@HistorysForgottenPeople Yeah but her father has legitime heirs, unlike Henry who didn't. Matilda was the only legitime.

Legitimate

@@animallover6645 I mean, William the Bastard was king by conquest, not legitimacy (he wasn't even a legitimate child of his father). At the end of the day, a claim to the throne is only valid insofar as it can be confirmed by bigger army diplomacy. And Stephen was as valid an heir as Matilda, considering Matilda's own father seized the throne from his own living elder brother Robert Curthose, instead of respecting the rights of primogeniture.

Hmm. I think ultimately my favourite (although they're all impressive in different ways) has to be Emma of Normandy. She was queen of England TWICE, through her own determination to survive and protect her sons, she did protect her sons very well, she was intelligent and highly capable, and she was an excellent regent to boot. 😊

She and her daughter in law, Eleanor of Aquitaine both lived long, eventful lives.

I hope you guys enjoy it! 😊Definitely going to need more than two weeks if I do another long one like this though! 😂

@@HistorysForgottenPeople That would be pretty understandable lol you do such a great job of storytelling and I can only imagine how much research must go into each and every video. So far I’ve loved literally everything you’ve uploaded lol I’m certain I’m not the only one

Does empress matilda have surviving portraits?

Hehehe, I hope you enjoyed both! 😊

Me too! Pillars of the earth is how I learned of matilda.

@@user-fg9xz4bz3b 'Pillars of the Earth' is such a great miniseries! Love it! 👍🏾

Thank you so much! :) I know it's a repeat, in a way, but I've always felt bad that my first ones weren't up to the standard of my current ones, haha.

Hi friend ! I hope you’re doing well and your studies are going well. Did know: Kaiser Wilhelm I was in love with a Polish woman but he could not marry her.

@@DarthDread-oh2ne Hello! My studies are done for now, thank God :) I didn’t know that, what was her name?

Awww, thank you! You know Empress Matilda is (not so secretly) my favourite of all time, so I couldn't just let her languish with my cheap £10 mic recording and free editing program forever! 😂😂 Hopefully soon I'll redo Eleanor of Aquitaine as well, as I think firstly she needs a do-over, and I probably missed a lot of stuff.

Elisa Radziwill

It won't be my next one, but YES! I'm re-doing Eleanor of Aquitaine at some point soon, as well as doing a new one on Matilda of Boulogne to complete them.

Thank you so much! I'm planning on many more to come. 😊

Aww, you just made my day! Thank you, I hope you enjoyed the video. 😊

You're right, the issues surrounding why she was rejected as a possible queen are definitely more layered than her just being female, although this was undoubtedly the excuse used - most likely because it was better than saying, "Honestly, Stephen gave us more stuff, and we don't want a 'foreign' count ruling us." As you say, Henry I would have made everything much stronger if he had perhaps firmly stated that Matilda would hold the crown until her sons were old enough to take over. Not something I agree with, but it would have worked for the time they lived in! I do agree with your second statement, that Matilda also definitely put her own need to wear the crown above the needs of people in England, and there was absolutely an air of defiance about her actions that suggests she would never have stopped. Having said that, the question can equally be placed at Stephen's door - he also willingly left Normandy to fall into chaos (and didn't bother much with the north of England, either), and took a crown knowing it would cause problems. I honestly think both were as bad as each other! There's also the uncomfortable knowledge that at that time in the medieval period, ordinary people were believed (by themselves as well) to be part of a hierarchy that was designed to serve those above them. This included having to put up with your crops being burnt, and fighting on behalf of whoever was monarch that month, and you couldn't get out of it or you lost what little protection you might have had within your community. Both Stephen and Matilda treated themselves in the manner they had been brought up; that they came before the general population, and that only the church required any sort of input from themselves. As you also point out, the example before both of them was their grandfather William the Conqueror, but his brutal take-over of England also wasn't unexpected at this point. Taking a crown by force was a legitimate way to become a king, and was seen as ordained by God if it happened. Neither Stephen nor Matilda would have batted an eye at the idea, although I'm sure the general populace saw it a different way. It was, for all its culture, religion and literature, a very brutal time to be alive. On top of this, both Stephen and Matilda (Matilda especially) had people siding with them and vehemently declaring they were the rightful sovereign - if you already have a sense of majesty, believe you should be monarch, and you surround yourself with people who agree, it's difficult to see beyond that. I'll admit Empress Matilda is one of my favourite people in history (I'm afraid I probably wouldn't have given up on reclaiming my birthright either, although I like to hope I would have tried politics before war!), but I can' totally understand why a lot of people would also dislike her! 😂 It makes me wonder what sort of roles Stephen and Matilda would have today if they were alive in our time instead - perhaps two members of a business family sniping, like in Succession, haha.

Thanks for your additional insights! I have to admit to a really romantic, i.e. ignorant idea of these times that is nothing like reality, I’m sure. I kept trying to put myself more in mind of, say, “A Lion in Winter” to try to remember how incredibly rough life was then, and that’s for royalty. Absolutely savage in some respects, even in daily life. Of course, You’re right, people then would have had a totally different worldview and yes, still very primitive rule by conquest. (Not really different today sadly.) I wonder if Matilda and Eleanor ever met? They don’t come much more formidable! It would be fantastic if someday you could bring the two together in a play to discuss their lives! One finally passes along her dream to her son, Henry. The other invests her dreams in Henry her husband. In the end, there are no dreams about it. Husbands, sons, kings all, look to them to keep it all together. If you haven’t heard it already, you might enjoy the BBC radio Comedy, “A Leopard in Autumn.” It was on RU-vid but most recently I found it on Internet Archive. I thought it was hilarious. And the brilliant Dame Sian Phillips did a perfect portrayal, very much in keeping with just the Matilda/Eleanor every kingdom needs to keep it on its toes! Thanks for all your hard work and great research! Wishing you well.

I did! I felt bad that poor Empress Matilda had rubbish sound quality and dodgy editing, so I thought it was only fair to bring her 'up to date'. 😂😂😂

Oooh....Eleanor of Provence is tricky. I can't decide on her - I dislike her for some things, although I also have some sympathy for her. My main dislike of her comes from that medieval favourite - expelling Jewish people. It's a difficult one, because obviously it's a horrible thing to have done, but at the same time, Eleanor was born at a time where she was brought up to believe Jewish people were bad. Without knowing her motivation, we can't know if she was doing this because she thought she should, or if she was a raging racist. Either way, I don't like it, although as a historian I try to view it through the lens of the time. She herself faced racism, of course, as the Barons and general population disliked her for bringing foreign members of her own family with her to England, who were then given lucrative positions in the government. I've got sympathy for her on that, and it certainly wasn't the only time in history that a foreign queen was instantly disliked by the population merely for not being English. Other good things - Eleanor loved reading, can't fault that, and she did a lot for the culture of the court and her time. She was also apparently a devoted mother and tried to be a good regent when Henry III was away. I'm definitely doing a video on her at some point, because like you say, Eleanor divides opinion! She was very human, and had her good points and her bad points - but like everyone in a high position of society, Eleanor had to be a paragon of virtue or she was the total opposite LOL.

Hi Michelle, we're doing well, thank you! I'm glad you and Benjamin are good, too. 😊Our weather is a bit dodgy at the moment, haha! We've had cold days with rain, but today is warmer and sunny - feel free to send some of that heat our way! I will add William II to my list, definitely, thanks for the suggestion!