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On the 24th of June 1141 |
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a 39-year-old woman sat down here at Westminster to a sumptuous banquet |
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It was a feast to celebrate her planned coronation as Queen of England |
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Matilda, it seemed |
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was about to become the first woman to rule England in her own right |
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Matilda was the daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror |
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but you won't find her on the role-call of English monarchs |
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This faint manuscript image is the only contemporary picture of her that survives |
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Her attempt to claim the crown was to throw the country into almost 20 years of catastrophic civil war |
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Matilda herself has gone down in history as a domineering and destructive woman |
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perceived by men as a she-wolf simply because |
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she dared to challenge the assumption that only a man could wear the English crown |
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And her bid for the throne began with a tragedy |
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The death of the male heir, her brother William |
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It happened not in England |
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but when he and their father were returning from their territory across the channel in Normandy |
