The Matildas of England
For a hundred years after William the Conqueror came to England, four strong women named Matilda shaped the nation’s history.
1066-1153
King William I 1066-1087 to King Stephen 1135-1154
For a hundred years after William the Conqueror came to England, four strong women named Matilda shaped the nation’s history.
1066-1153
King William I 1066-1087 to King Stephen 1135-1154
From 1066 to 1154, England saw no fewer than four royal women named Matilda, including the wife of William the Conqueror, and the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland. It can be a little confusing working out which one is which, so here is a short guide.
MATILDA of Flanders was the wife of William, Duke of Normandy, who snatched the English throne from Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
William’s third son, Henry I, married another Matilda, the daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland,* who herself was a great-granddaughter of King Edmund ‘Ironside’, who lost the English throne to Cnut in 1016.
Matilda and Henry named their daughter Matilda too, and after her marriage in 1114 to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, she was popularly known as ‘the Empress’. When her father Henry died in 1135, Empress Matilda, widowed ten years earlier and now the wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, was the King’s only heir.
However, her cousin Stephen stepped in, and through fourteen years of civil war he and his very determined wife, Matilda of Boulogne, clung to the crown of England, until the death of his son Eustace in 1153 led Stephen to name the Empress’s son Henry II as heir.*
Matilda of Scotland was baptised Edith, an Anglo-Saxon name she shared with the wife of King Harold, and with the wife of King Edward the Confessor: see Edith and Edward. The name Matilda was taken as a gesture to Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror and mother of Henry I.
Briefly, the four Matildas here are:
Matilda of Flanders,
Matilda of Scotland,
Matilda of Anjou (‘the Empress’), and
Matilda of Boulogne.
The Empress’s son Henry II of England had a daughter named Matilda, who married Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and of Saxony.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Who was the Empress Matilda’s grandmother?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
William was Duke of Normandy. He won the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He became King of England. His wife Matilda became Queen.