The 19-Year Civil War That Nearly Destroyed Medieval England
The Succession Crisis That Tore England Apart
After Henry I's only legitimate son drowned in the White Ship disaster, he named his daughter Matilda as heir. But when Henry died in 1135, her cousin Stephen seized the throne, plunging England into a 19-year civil war known as the Anarchy. Barons split, the people suffered, and even Matilda's capture of Stephen at Lincoln in 1141 couldn't overcome deep prejudice against a female monarch. The conflict ended only when Matilda's son Henry was named Stephen's successor in 1153.
Designating a woman as his successor was such an unprecedented action that Henry felt obliged to compel his nobles, barons and churchmen to swear an oath of allegiance to Matilda.
- tetris11
Felicia Hemans's poem He Never Smiled Again is an ode to Henry I's reaction to his son and only male heir perishing in the tragedy
> The bark that held a prince went down,
> The sweeping waves roll’d on;
> And what was England’s glorious crown
> To him that wept a son?
> He lived-for life may long be borne
> Ere sorrow break its chain;-
> Why comes not death to those who mourn?
> —He never smiled again!
https://www.poeticous.com/felicia-hemans/he-never-smiled-aga...
- mattmcal
> [H]ad Henry left the crown to a 33-year-old, intelligent, well-educated, politically experienced son, such a situation would not have arisen.
> However, even such a decisive military victory was not enough to overturn a genuinely deep-seated prejudice against a female monarch.
Clearly prejudice, and lack of precedent, materially hampered Matilda's attempt at the throne, but speculative and reductive statements like these carry a whiff of dubious history. It gives the impression that Matilda's failed succession hinged uniquely on her gender, when her own father Henry I only gained power after a long and violent succession struggle involving both of his siblings. I assume the author's book goes into much greater detail on the many reasons Matilda's succession never achieved critical mass in England, but I think this short an article is probably worse for giving so much emphasis to this particular detail.
- hdgvhicv
How refreshing to read something on my phone away from pihole which is actually prose and accompanying images, rather than thousands of adverts for al the trashiest scammiest adverts going and if you’re lucky a few sentences between
- GeoAtreides
>Designating a woman as his successor was such an unprecedented action that Henry felt obliged to compel his nobles, barons and churchmen to swear an oath of allegiance to Matilda. All of them did so, although some complied with greater reluctance than others. [...] her cousin Stephen (a younger son of Henry’s sister Adela, dowager countess of Blois) had rushed to England, seized the royal treasury and had himself crowned.
G.R.R.M.: it's free real estate
- hdgvhicv
> For the first time since 1066, the death of an English king did not result in an undignified scramble for the throne
Yes 1066 was a peaceful transition and certainly not a scramble