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Trollheart 03-09-2023 02:39 PM

I am Woman, Hear Me Roar: The Good, the Bad and the Forgotten Women in History
 
https://i.postimg.cc/j5H8mZwh/iammwoman1k.png

Yes, in a perfect world there would be little or no distinction between the sexes, certainly no bias on one side or the other, but sadly we don’t live in a perfect world, nor are we ever likely to, and our world has been, like it or not, male dominated ever since, well, forever really. If you’re a Christian, this sense of entitlement is drilled into you from a young age through the Bible, and the story of the Garden of Eden, where we’re told that the weak woman Eve was responsible for getting her and her hubby thrown out of Paradise by an irked God who snapped “Didn’t I tell you to leave that fucking tree alone? Didn’t I? You think I planted the Tree of Knowledge just so you two losers could benefit from it, and make yourselves as me? Fuck off out of my garden! Go on, do one!” (Actual quote).

This fantasy has given us men the mistaken belief that we are better than women, and has instilled in our gender as literally God-given fact that we are the masters of the Earth. If it wasn’t for damn women listening to suspicious serpents, we could still be running around in the nip, eating fruit and completely unaware of words like mortgage, heart attack and cancer. And so Man’s superiority is established from the moment we can understand what we’re told, and we see the result of this all around us, even today, where, despite having made major advances in the last century, women are still struggling to be treated as equals.

And history is no better. Well, given that it’s almost all been written by men, what would you expect? Reading through a history book, apart from the obvious ones we can’t ignore or airbrush out, like Queen Elizabeth I, Marie Curie, Joan of Arc, Margaret Thatcher and others, we have, as men, done our level best to ignore, push to one side or bury entirely the contribution our opposite sex has made to our civilisation. There are certain things we have to acknowledge, but where we can, we have always shoved the troublesome woman into a dark room and locked the door, walked away with the key whistling innocently.

But though women remained silent for centuries, hardly even given a voice to use in their lives, seen as property or at best an inconvenience by their husbands or other male counterparts, the silence has been broken recently and a whole slew of books now trumpet the stories of the women time forgot, who have been all but erased from history. This journal will not be concentrating solely on them, because as the title says, it’s a story of the good, bad and forgotten women who have helped make our world what it is today. Many of these brave and pioneering women you will all be familiar with: those mentioned above, as well as writers like Jane Austen and the Brontes, leaders like Cleopatra, Mary Queen of Scots and Hilary Clinton (um) as well as less salubrious characters such as Ruth Ellis, Ma Barker and Aileen Wournos, though in general I am going to try to avoid any unnecessary crossover with my Serial Killers or Most Evil journals. I’m sure there’ll be plenty to go around.

But did you know that the person to pioneer the practice of defence counsel in the USA was a woman? Or that a woman held together the fragmenting French court during the worst years of the religious wars that raged across Europe in the sixteenth century? Were you aware Hollywood screen queen Hedy Lamarr was responsible for creating radar - well, part of it - and that her work led to what we know today as GPS and Bluetooth? These are the kind of stories that, while it would be unfair and inaccurate to say have all been buried by historians, don’t tend to really be known unless you go looking for them. And you can’t go looking for something unless you know to, well, go looking for it.

So here is where I will try, in my poor, inadequate way, to redress the balance as much as I can, by telling you not only about the famous and infamous women in history, about whom most if not all of us know, but the unsung heroes, the buried secrets, the figures pushed into the background, the forgotten women of humanity’s history. I’m sure some of you ladies out there are saying it’s not my place to write such a journal, and you know, it’s probably not. But I reckon I’m the only one who would undertake such a project, so I guess you’re stuck with me. Hopefully I can do you proud, or at least not completely fuck it up. I guess we’ll see.

This journal will not run on any sort of a timeline, nor will it really be organised in any significant way. My intention is to hop, skip and jump through history, going maybe back to the fifth century BC and then jumping to World War II, coming up to date before heading back to the Napoleonic Wars. So all over the place, really. It doesn’t matter, because no matter what century or era you lived in, women were there, doing what they do. It’s just that for the better part of our history, we as men have ignored and kept them down, laughed at or ignored their achievements (or in some cases, stolen them as our own) and shook our heads at how such silly, pretty things could ever consider that they would find their own place in history without us.

Well, that ends now.

Synthgirl 03-09-2023 06:09 PM

Very interested to follow this one!

And don't worry about anyone who says it's not your place as a man to write about women. Your cultural paradigm is different than a woman's, and as a trans woman who was socialized male mine is different to that of any cis person. Your insight is still valuable, and maybe us gals can help fill in some potential cultural blind spots and we can all understand each other better.

With that said I'm looking forward to the first entry!

Trollheart 03-09-2023 06:28 PM

Hands up who can name England’s first queen? You there: no, sorry, Elizabeth was preceded by Mary, known as Bloody Mary. But even she wasn’t the first, even if this woman is not really recognised by history as such, or at least, her claim to the throne is disputed.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ss_Matilda.png
Timeline and location: Twelfth Century England, France and Germany

Name: Matilda
Occupation: Holy Roman Empress; Queen of England (disputed)
Nationality: English
Born: 1102
Died: 1167
Famous (or infamous) for: Holding the English throne, though unrecognised, and therefore being the first unofficial Queen of England.

Daughter to Henry I (who was not anything to do with the Henry Tudors, but was in fact the son of William the Conqueror, and so a Norman though born in England) Matilda was born into a time of turmoil and a family at war. Her father’s two brothers (therefore her uncles) Robert Curthose and William Rufus fought over William the Conqueror’s inheritance, and warred upon each other, both wanting the throne of England. Henry nominally supported his elder brother Robert, and in return for his support was made Count of Cotentin, in western Normandy. But only till it suited him. In 1088 Robert rescinded the Countship and imprisoned Henry, who had been to England to see William about those estates their father had left him in his will. Nothing doing, the younger and far more alive William had snapped, and Henry high-tailed it back across the Channel, and into the waiting arm(ie)s of his other brother. What a family, huh?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...0px-Henry1.jpg

(Now, doesn't it look like old King Henry is holding a birthday cake in one hand and a beer in the other? He's not: that's a book - probably either The Bible or How To Deal with All Your Bastards - in his right (as we look at it). The other thing? Dunno. Looks like a city. Must have been a damn big guy!)

In 1091 Henry decided fuck them both, and went to war against Robert and William, a war he quickly lost, but rather than pursue Henry the two brothers instead began to duke it out again, allowing their younger sibling to gain power in Normandy and mass an army. Seeing how Henry’s power was growing, and losing ground against Robert, William decided to support his kid brother and they took on Robert. In 1095 their war was broken up as God called - well, the Pope, which to people back then was the same thing - on all Christian men to defend (um) the Holy Land as the First Crusade got under way. Robert responded and Henry got pally with his other brother, fighting alongside instead of against him, but as the new century turned William fell victim to the old “hunting accident” so prevalent back then, and while it may very well have been some sort of conspiracy, at which most eminent historians (and possibly some less eminent) wag their fingers and shake their heads, the upshot (sorry) was that Henry was able to seize the throne of England while Robert was still off killing for Christ in a godless country. Score!

All of which tells us what a time Matilda was born into. She now had one uncle who had been killed, possibly by (yes, yes, eminent historians! I said possibly!) or at the behest of her father, another off fighting in Jerusalem who might very well want the crown back when he again sighted the shores of Old Blighty, and a mother who was from the royal family of England’s age-old enemy, bonny Scotland. Not only that, but daddy could most definitely not keep it in his pants, and while she only had one legitimate sibling, a brother, she had no less than twenty-two bastard brothers and sisters. Talk about an extended family! As if this wasn’t enough to deal with, she was barely seven or eight years old when the lecherous old king of Germany, another Henry, decided he’d have her as his wife. Let’s see what age he was at this time. We’re talking 1109 here, so then: born in either 1081 or 1086, this makes him at best (assuming the latter date to be the correct one) twenty-three years old. Well okay, not too old, but he sure did like them young then, didn’t he? Matilda began her voyage to Germany in 1110, her dad chuffed at the marriage proposal, as it would strengthen his weak claim on the English throne and make Germany his ally. Matilda? What had she to do with it?

So Matilda became Queen of Germany, but in fairness she was too young to be married, even for the decadent Middle Ages, so Henry had to take cold showers (and probably mistresses and servant girls) for another four years, before his new bride was ready to be porked. Henry and Matilda were married in 1114, which still only makes her about eleven, but that’s the twelfth century for you! I’m actually surprised His Majesty waited. Two years after their marriage Henry, with Matilda at his side, marched into Italy to sort out the pope, with whom he had a bone to pick, the guy having excommunicated him and all. Looks like popes just didn’t like kings named Henry! Nevertheless, excommunicating a king is one thing, taking on his army is another, and like the big girl’s blouse he was, the hilariously-named Paschal II legged it over the mountains at the approach of the Germany army, leaving his successor, Gregory VIII, to crown Henry as Holy Roman Emperor and Matilda as Holy Roman Empress.

“That’ll do for me,” grinned Henry, but unfortunately it would not. Do, that is. See, the thing is, our man Gregory VIII, then a mere papal envoy known as Maurice Bourdin, had also been excommunicated by his boss, and further, would be deposed and imprisoned by his successor, making the whole coronation thing a little shaky to say the least. Never one to let ambiguity get in the way though, both Henry and Matilda continued to use these titles, even if they may no longer have been seen as official. What happens in Rome stays in Rome, ja? Henry had to return to Germany in 1118, as the natives were getting restless, and Matilda ruled over Rome in his absence. He wasn’t to be long for his world though, suffering from cancer and succumbing to it in 1125. I guess Matilda didn’t have too many friends in the fatherland, as the local bishop convinced her to give up her claim to the throne, being childless and therefore unable to act as regent (for some reason I don’t understand) and promptly handed the crown to Henry’s enemy, Lothar of Supplinburg, who said "ta very much yer bishopness", and kicked Matilda out of Germany. She stuffed all her jewels in a bag, also cramming in two of her late husband’s favourite crowns and the Hand of St. James the Apostle (never know when you’re going to need a hand. Sorry.) and bailed for England.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...hipSinking.jpg
Why for England? To answer that, we have to look into the event which was a catastrophic blow to the succession there. History calls it the White Ship Disaster.

Sinking the Succession: The White Ship Goes Down

No less a figure than the son of the man who had brought William the Conqueror himself to England in 1066, the White Ship was captained by Thomas Fitzstephen, and was originally offered to Henry I (remember him? Matilda’s dad?) but he had said “nah you’re all right mate, I’m sorted already, but my sprogs would sure welcome a berth.” And so his son, yet another William, as well as two of his many bastards, and a bunch of others boarded the White Ship. As did the man who would later be King Stephen, but he, seeing all the boozing going on, thought better of it and disembarked, recorded as saying “Go ahead; I’ll catch the next one. Got a few loose ends to tie up here in Normandy anyway. I’ll see you over there.”

But he wouldn’t. What was that? Oh yeah. Booze. Well, seems that drink was called for, and supplied “in abundance”, showing little real difference from today’s booze cruises. I have no idea how many it was supposed to take but it was certainly carrying more than its complement, reckoned at around 300 people. Suitably tanked-up and belligerent, the nobles and the king’s sons roared “Follow that ship! Overtake the old man! We’ll show him!” or words to that effect. “Right you are, your various Highnesses!” grinned the captain at the nine hundred people yelling at him, and gripping one of the three helms on the ship, steered it away from port and directly into nearby rocks. They never even got out of the harbour, the vessel going down like one of the rocks it had hit, most of its passengers probably too drunk to realise what was happening, never mind swim for it.

The only one with any sort of a clear head, oddly enough, was William, Henry’s only legitimate heir, and he got into a boat and tried to make it but ended up turning back for his half-sister and being literally drowned by the rest of the bastards. When the captain, who had not drowned, surfaced and realised the heir to the throne had died on his watch, he decided it wasn’t worth it and just let himself drown. Better that than face the furious and grief-stricken king.

And so this left a gap in the market, as it were. The removal of William left Henry with only one legitimate heir, even if she was a woman. This threw England into the period known, rather colourfully, as The Anarchy.

Anarchy in the UK: A Woman’s Place is Not on the Throne!

The twelfth century was not a good time to be a woman. It would take another four hundred years before England would accept one as their ruler, and they sure weren’t in the mood to do so here. Despite being Henry’s only remaining progeny from his marriage, Matilda had no real claim to the throne of England in the eyes of the - male-dominated - nobility of the country, and through Henry had bastards for all occasions running around the country, more bastards than you could count almost, nearly all of them were rebelling or fighting against him in one way or another. He wasn’t about to crown one his successor, so his next plan was to do what any self-respecting heirless king would, and marry again, hoping to gain a son. Not only did his new wife fail to come up with an heir, she hadn’t even the decency to give him a daughter, useless as that would have been. Back to the drawing board for our king in a quandary.

The best thing he could come up with was to get the widowed daughter back on the horse, so to speak, and see if she couldn’t come up with a handy heir to his kingdom. To the end he had her marry Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. In theory, he could have married her off to any of a number of princes - Matilda was said to be quite beautiful, and still young and well able to bear children at this point - but like most kings, while he needed an heir he also planned strategically, trying to secure alliances that would consolidate his power in Normandy, and Geoffrey was his man for this. There were however several problems here, not least of which being the Count’s tender age, a mere lad of thirteen when he was wed to the twenty-five-year-old Matilda, whom he must have looked upon as very old indeed. Matilda wasn’t happy either; a count is a hell of a step down from a king, and miles from an empress, and remember, she was at this time the Holy Roman Empress, so she was being asked - ordered, commanded - to marry way below her status.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...u_Monument.jpg

(Geoffrey of Anjou. Looks like someone's rolled him up in a carpet, doesn't it?)

Add into this the fact that she didn’t particularly care for Geoffrey either, and it’s not that surprising that soon after the marriage she didn’t want, she told her new husband “See ya! Wouldn’t want to be ya! I’m for home!” And promptly returned to Normandy, leaving Geoffrey to sort through the CDs and DVDs possibly to work out who owned what. In 1131 they got back together, probably with a lot of urging/commanding/pleading/bribery from dear old dad, and to his immense joy his troublesome daughter finally popped a son out, a baby who would go on to become Henry II, first of the Plantagenet Kings of England. About fucking time, probably thought Henry, and sat back to enjoy his last few years as king, the succession now assured. A year later she was pregnant again, though this time the birth was much tougher and in fact she came so close to death that she and her father argued about where she would be buried. Come on now: what father hasn’t had that conversation with his dying daughter? We’ve all been there.

Anyway, Geoffrey was born and luckily Matilda survived. Henry now had two heirs, or if you prefer, and yes I’m going to do it, just see if I don’t, an heir and a spare. Whether the birth of their children had brought them closer together, or whether Geoffrey just fancied his own arse on the throne of England, the two fell out with Henry and Geoffrey demanded that the king recognise Matilda as his successor, to which Henry said, “Ask me arse. I know what your game is mate: you want to take my throne while I’m still alive. Well, over my dead body you do.” It's possible his son-in-law shrugged “Yeah, that’s the idea,” but Henry would not be swayed, and as a consequence, when rebels rose against him in Normandy, Geoffrey and Matilda put their own armies at their disposal, possibly trying to kill or dethrone daddy. When Henry unexpectedly died in 1135, the husband and wife saw their chance, and pressed their advantage.

Enter Stephen.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...epan_Blois.jpg
Uh, what? Are you actually shitting us here, Trollheart? This is supposed to be women in history, remember? So far we’ve had two Williams, two Henrys, a Robert, a Geoffrey and now a fucking Stephen? Yeah, well, I hear you, believe me, but you know, nobody in history, or even just normal life, exists in a vacuum. Everyone is influenced by those around them, and given the pretty much almost non-existent status of women into almost the twentieth century, or certainly the nineteenth anyway, it’s going to be a fact that powerful men will swarm around the women we’re talking about. Or, often, not powerful men, but just men. You can’t talk about Elizabeth I without mentioning her da, Henry VIII, or indeed the Earl of Dudley, you can’t write about Winnie Mandela without writing about her famous hubby, and you will do well to keep Hitler out of any discussion on Eva Braun. It’s just how it is: you have to set the scene, and history revolves, like it or not, almost completely around male figures, so we have to position Matilda with respect to the men around her, who influenced her, helped her or opposed her. Believe me, we’re getting there.

But first, to Stephen, later to be a King of England.

Known as Stephen of Blois, he was a Frenchman, born to the daughter of our man William the Conqueror, and so with possibly a stronger claim to the throne of England than Matilda possessed. You may recall he was one of the few with the foresight to say “No thanks, this cruise is looking too boozy for me!” and step off the ill-fated White Ship, thereby saving his life and remaining as one of those with the best legitimate claim to the English crown. Ah. According to another account his decision not to be aboard the White Ship was a little more prosaic and less noble; he was suffering from a case of the runs. Well, if so, his decision turned out not to be a shit one. Sorry. Anyway, not about to waste his heritage, when he heard Henry had popped his clogs, Stephen thought “Oh to see the green shores of England again”, or something, possibly ignoring the fact that he had never seen the shores of England, green or otherwise, in his life. But sure that wasn’t going to stop him. There was a throne going begging and as far as he and his mother were concerned, it had his name on it.

See, the thing about Henry was that he was generally not considered a good or well-liked king, and there may have in fact been few who mourned his passing. Witness the explosion of unrest and in-fighting amongst his many progeny, most of which were, quite literally, bastards. Whether he had instilled this lack of common familial feeling in his sons and daughters, or whether he had angered them by not being there for things like First Holy Communions and birthdays, or indeed whether it was just that none of them liked him, Henry was not a popular dad, and this lack of regard extended well outside his rather large and mostly illegitimate family. The flags may have been at half-mast when he breathed his last, but it was probably only for show. Inside, and in private - or even public perhaps - many may have been glad to have seen the back of the old bastard.

Stephen could not have been more different. A pious, noble man, he was one of the guys, sitting with his own men and laughing and drinking with them, and even his people liked him. He was very popular, and a very competent ruler too. He wasn’t a king in Normandy, but a noble, and also well in with the Church, which always helps. Making his way to London, Stephen was proclaimed king in 1135. Just to make things even more confusing, Stephen’s wife was also named Matilda, so technically there would be two Queen Matildas, as we will see. Whatever else can be said about her though, the Matilda we’re talking about, Henry’s daughter, must have been one tough woman. While campaigning around Normandy with Geoffrey they clearly found time to get it on - again - and she was pregnant with her third child, another boy, whom she gave birth to (thankfully sans the complications and near-death experience of her second-born) in 1136.

Stephen left his coat on the English throne in 1137 so that nobody would sit on it while he was gone, and returned to Normandy to take on Matilda and her husband. However as ever, slightly hilarious history intervened to thwart him. His Norman nobles, who thought little of the Flemish mercenaries the king had signed up to help him, decided they didn’t much fancy travelling and fighting alongside them: they’d much rather fight with them, and so they did, the two sides of his army duking it out in a crazy mini-civil war, while Stephen may or may not have pleaded “Come on, guys! Can’t we all just get along?” They couldn’t though, and King Stephen remarked “Fuck this! I’m off back to England!” And off he fucked.

Things, however, did not get any better for him once he landed on Old Blighty, as Matilda’s uncle, King David I of Scotland, seized the chance to attack the northern territories of Carlisle and Newcaste, necessitating the English king’s crossing the border with an army and asking David if he wouldn’t mind awfully going back to where he came from, to which David shrugged “Aye, sure. I was only fashin’* anyroad!” And off he fucked back to Scotland, leaving Stephen to breathe a sigh of relief and head southwards again. But not for long. The Welsh, seeing the Scots rise, thought we can do that too, and so they did, and Stephen was off fighting again, putting down revolts and rebellions like there was no tomorrow.

Time for a bastard to enter the fray.

*Fashing: joking, kidding around

Trollheart 03-09-2023 06:47 PM

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ert_Consul.jpg
Robert of Gloucester, one of the many illegitimate progeny of the oversexed late King Henry, rebelled against Stephen, being, as he was, technically Matilda’s half-brother. His rebellion caused everything to kick off: a civil war in Kent, the re-invasion of Normandy by Geoffrey, and sure David thought why not get in on the action too, and re-invaded the north of England. Stephen must have thought “Suffering Jesus! Am I to be allowed no fucking peace?” This was a period of three years during which everyone seemed to want to fight, rebel against or take his crown, and in 1139 Matilda, having failed to convince the Pope to legitimise her claim, decided to take the direct route and just take the throne by force. She landed in the suspiciously-French-sounding Arundel, in West Sussex, in the summer, though in the company not of Geoffrey but of Robert of Gloucester. Seems her hubby had decided “You’re all right, thanks, I’m happy here. But, you know, bon chance and all that bollocks.” Yeah, he stayed in France.

Seems a bit odd to me that Matilda and Robert only brought 140 men with them (well, it says 140 knights; maybe there were other soldiers?) - when Henry II landed in Ireland his army numbered in the thousands, and 140 men can hardly have been enough to oppose Stephen on his home ground. I expect they were looking for support from the Norman lords in England. Matilda’s mother was there, and she helped them, though Stephen seems to have quickly besieged her castle and taken her prisoner, later letting her go with a firm admonishment not to do it again, possibly missing the raspberry she blew at him behind his back. While he set about pursuing Robert, whom he no doubt considered the more dangerous enemy (what threat, after all, could a mere woman pose to a king and his army?) she settled in Gloucester and began making alliances, and plans. Irked to discover she was not just buggering off to a nunnery or sitting at home doing needlework, Stephen attacked her again, meaning to teach her a proper lesson this time.

However, he was the one who was taught the lesson.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-Marne.svg.png
New ally of Matilda, or at least enemy of Stephen, which amounted to the same thing, Ranulf of Chester joined Robert and together they took on Stephen’s forces at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, defeated the king’s forces and took Stephen prisoner, reversing the roles as he was now brought to Matilda’s castle and incarcerated at Bristol. Matilda now began to make plans to have herself declared queen. Naturally, this as always involved bribes, promises, threats and the odd round of excommunications before everyone was happy, and even Stephen shrugged and said “Fuck it, let the bitch have the crown. It’s been nothing but trouble to me since I put it on. Should have stayed in Normandy. They know how to treat a ruler there!”

On APril 7 1141 Matilda was crowned Queen of England, though she assumed the title “Lady of England and Normandy” before she was actually crowned. This never happened though, as she was chased from London (where her coronation was to take place) by supporters loyal to Stephen, while back in la belle France Geoffrey folded his newspaper (yes I know), glanced at the clock (I KNOW!) and stretched and yawned. “Time for another invasion of Normandy, methinks!” he grinned, and set about fitting action to word. His successes then reverberated back through England, as supporters of Stephen began to see which way the wind from across the Channel was blowing, and thought of their own skin. Matilda’s power grew as Stephen’s waned. But if there’s one thing you can say about military alliances, it’s that they are fragile, and fluid. Two things. If there are two things you can say about military alliances, it’s that they are fragile, fluid and likely to change. Three things. If there are three things you can say about military alliances, it’s that they are fragile, fluid and likely to change. And affect the whole balanc of power. Four things. Among the things you can say… you get the idea.

Having made an alliance with Henry of Blois, Stephen’s brother, Matilda fell out with him and she and Robert besieged his castle at Winchester. Stephen’s wife, the other Matilda (also known at this time still as Queen Matilda, to add to the confusion) took her chance and charged in for hubby’s glory, and battle was joined. In what became known as the Rout of Winchester, Matilda was roundly defeated but escaped, leaving Robert to be captured and eventually exchanged for Stephen. Release, Stephen made sure he was re-crowned and so essentially, although never entirely legitimate, Matilda’s reign as Queen of England lasted a mere eight months, making hers one of the shortest reigns in English history, though not the shortest. It’s said that it was believed (whether true or just anti-Matilda propaganda) that during his imprisonment Stephen had been held in very poor conditions, and that as a result he had become so sick that it was feared he might die. As he hovered on the brink of death, sympathies began to turn back towards him and his following saw a resurgence.

Matilda had made her court in Oxford, and perhaps naively had sent Robert to fetch Geoffrey, hoping her husband would reinforce her relatively small and inexperienced army. Stephen, meanwhile, managed to convince Ranulf of Chester to throw his lot in with him again, and Ranulf deserted Matilda’s cause. This left the Empress with a very small force against Stephen’s more than 1,000, and he easily took the town and besieged Matilda’s castle. Did a lot of besieging in those days, they did: besiege this, besiege that - couldn’t move with a siege going on somewhere. Two months into the siege Robert returned, with about 700 men but no Geoffrey, who had again decided France was where it was at, and bugger his wife, who had never understood him anyway.

As the army besieging the castle got tired and bored, and careless - or possibly helped her, betraying their king, who knows? - Matilda managed to escape from Oxford with four nights, shocking and enraging a chronicler of the time, almost an apologist for Stephen, who fumed “I have never read of another woman so luckily rescued from so many mortal foes and from the threat of dangers so great: the truth being that she went from the castle of Arundel uninjured through the midst of her enemies; she escaped unscathed from the midst of the Londoners when they were assailing her, and her only, in mighty wrath; then stole away alone, in wondrous fashion, from the rout of Winchester, when almost all her men were cut off; and then, when she left besieged Oxford, she came away safe and sound?”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...chester_01.JPG
Like a dark ages Houdini, Matilda was gone again, slipped through the king’s fingers like sand, literally, according to some chroniclers (not the one above) walking on water, though this has been taken to mean the Thames was frozen so she could use it as a path to escape, and wearing a white cloak as camouflage against the whiteness of the recently-fallen snow.

Having slipped through her enemy’s fingers, Matilda made Wiltshire her new capital, at the castle at Devizes which had been confiscated by Stephen previously. Pulling in those old reliables, the fractious Fleming mercenaries, she set about securing the county under her rule. With Robert at her side again and the support of various nobles whose land Stephen had snaffled, she built up a sizeable court and settled down to wait the King out. Stalemate, or as we might say today, Mexican standoff. In England, obviously. Not Mexico. Which wasn’t even discovered at this point. But you get the idea. She then decided to play Stephen at his own game, and besieged him in Wilton Castle in Herefordshire. This led to a battle as Stephen, knowing how serious a siege can be - he had done his share of besieging, after all - decided fuck this waiting around, I’m going for it, and out he broke. In the ensuing Battle of Wilton he was defeated, his castle burned, but he managed to become a dot on the horizon. One for Matilda and her forces. Girl power!

Things began to go slightly to shit for the king, as East Anglia rose up, followed by the yo-yo earl of Chester, Ranulf, who, like most nobles, didn’t really care too much about promises or treaties or agreements, and went where the wind was blowing. At the moment, it was blowing slightly in Matilda’s direction, so he headed that way. Stephen now had close to a full-blown rebellion on his hands, while in France Geoffrey hadn’t been idle, recognised by the end of the year as Duke of Normandy by the king, Louis VII. Despite this, things weren’t all sweetness and light for the Empress either.

One of her best military commanders, Miles of Gloucester (no, not Miles TO Gloucester, though if he had been Miles II that would have been funny… okay, okay, I’ll get on with it) fell victim to one of the most popular deaths for young virile men in 12th century England, the hunt. Whether he was done in or it was really an accident I don’t know, but there’s probably a reason men about to be married did not go on a stag. Anyway, his loss weakened Matilda’s position, and then Stephen defeated Geoffrey (no, another one) of Mandeville, who had kicked off the East Anglian trouble, and sued for terms. Neither were prepared to compromise, and so the stalemate continued. But it wouldn’t remain so for long.

Over a period from 1145 to 1151, Matilda lost many of her commanders to the Second Crusade, as they answered God’s call to knock some good old European blood-and-guts sense into those damned heretics, Robert died - peacefully, it says, which surprises me, and probably surprised him - and Brian Fitz Count, another of her big supporters, decided he also wanted to die a non-violent death, and entered a monastery. They threw him out, probably silently, but he re-entered, and when he was eventually able to explain to him that he didn’t in fact want to burn their abbey down, but join up, be a brother, be a monk, they said (silently; probably signed) sure dude, why not? God needs all the monks he can get. Unfortunately God called this new monk home sooner than he had expected, and the life of Brian (sorry) came to an end in 1151.

During this time, Matilda’s son decided it might be a good idea to pop over the Channel, picking up some duty-free on the way no doubt, and visit mummy. The army he brought with him though seemed put out when he explained he couldn’t pay them, and when mum refused to come up with the readies (“I only gave you sixteen thousand florins last week, son! That was supposed to last you all winter! You think I’m fucking made of money, do you?”) they ended up getting paid by, of all people, Stephen, who probably thought well if I pay these guys they can hardly fight against me, now can they? He was of course right, and off they all buggered back to France, to his relief. Matilda followed them the next year, 1148, possibly at least in part due to her need to talk to the Pope about demanding his castle at Devizes back. “Oi! That belongs to the Bishop of Salisbury!” Pope Eugene II had thundered when he found out she was squatting in it. “Clear off, or I’ll excommunicate you into the next century!” Hmm. Careful with that axe, Eugene!

“Fuck England into a hole!” thought Matilda, setting up her new court at Rouen, and when Geoffrey died in 1151, Henry, their son, legged it back across to England to claim his throne, an army at his back to explain in detail the thinking behind his legitimacy. He failed, but in the end Stephen adopted him as his son, and also his successor, so when Stephen died only a year later, Henry achieved what his mother could not, and became King of England. How proud his mum must have been.

As for her, she stayed in Normandy but did poke her nose into the new King Henry II’s affairs, helping him to sort out his kingdom. And that relic, the Hand of St. James? Well, you might possibly have thought she had taken it as a handy backscratcher, and maybe she did, who knows? But it ended up in the Abbey of Reading, despite attempts by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I, to get it returned to Germany. He was bought off instead with, um, a big tent. Yeah. If you have a choice between a supposedly priceless and powerful relic of a saint, and a marquee, go for the tent every time.

Matilda became a very valued advisor to her son and his court, and brokered many tricky deals and arrangements, and though she counselled against Henry’s invading Ireland, he went ahead and did it anyway after her death, setting in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to centuries of bloodshed, strife, death and really bad feeling between the English and us. See my History of Ireland journal, obviously, for more. Matilda died in 1167, and was buried at Rouen, though through the depredations , three hundred years later, of the people she had tried to rule, her bones got scattered and though re-located in 1684, Napoleon made sure they were messed up again in the eighteenth century until finally they were again re-interred at Rouen in 1846, seven hundred years after her death.

Although never officially crowned nor recognised, even today, as a queen of England, Matilda still took on the most powerful man of the time, the King, Stephen, and several times thwarted him, either evading capture herself, or indeed having him captured, and fought him to a standstill. Though she technically never really gave in - the war between her and Stephen sort of ground naturally to a halt, for the reasons stated above - she never sat on the English throne and is today only considered a footnote in the history of English monarchs. Nevertheless, considering the time, and the huge disadvantages of being a woman, and the enemies she faced both within and without her own power structure, immense credit must be given to her as surely one of the most powerful, and successful, women in twelfth-century England.

Trollheart 03-09-2023 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synthgirl (Post 2229646)
Very interested to follow this one!

And don't worry about anyone who says it's not your place as a man to write about women. Your cultural paradigm is different than a woman's, and as a trans woman who was socialized male mine is different to that of any cis person. Your insight is still valuable, and maybe us gals can help fill in some potential cultural blind spots and we can all understand each other better.

With that said I'm looking forward to the first entry!

Hey thanks! It's always nice to get a comment, especially as I begin the journal. I have a ton of interesting women to write about, but I thought well, go right to the top for the first one, eh? Hope you enjoyed it and stay tuned as they say. And thanks for the encouragement.


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