The Stephen-Mathilda wars

 Twelfth-century English royal history usually goes from the sons of William the Conqueror, to Henry II with Eleanor of Aquitaine and Becket, to Richard the Lionheart (who is good) and King John (who is bad).  Rarely do history buffs focus on the Stephen-Mathilda wars of 1135-1154, almost twenty years of upheaval, civil war, and betrayal, dense with family politics and strong women.

Never heard of it, you say?  Well, you're about to.

The issue was whether the son of a daughter or the daughter of a son was the most appropriate heir.  Stephen and Mathilda were first cousins, grandchildren of William the Conqueror.  The Conqueror's second and third sons, William Rufus and Henry I, had succeeded him as kings of England (the oldest son, Robert, was duke of Normandy until Henry I defeated his older brother in battle and took Normandy).  Meanwhile the Conqueror's daughter Adela married Stephen, Count of Blois (Blois is on the Loire, in France).  So far so good?

The problem arose when Henry I died without legitimate sons in 1135.  He had had a son, named William like Henry's father and brother, but Young William had died in 1120 in the White Ship debacle, when he and his friends were sailing between France and England, probably DUI, and crashed and sank.  So Henry ended up naming his daughter Mathilda as future King of England and got all his barons to agree to it.

They may have had their fingers crossed behind their backs, because they all hated Mathilda (also sometimes known as Maud in England).  She had earlier been married to the German emperor, Heinrich V, and continued to call herself Empress even after he died and she returned to England.  This was bad enough, but then she married Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou, the county right next to Normandy.  The Anglo-Norman barons who had promised to support Mathilda as King of England had serious reservations about Geoffrey Plantagenet.

So they turned instead to her cousin Stephen, son of Adela and Stephen of Blois (see above, I hope you're taking notes).  Young Stephen thought becoming King of England was a swell plan, and the wars were on.  The barons loved the Stephen-Mathilda wars.  They changed sides multiple times, getting rewards and grants and promises every time they did.  But even they thought things were getting a little too chaotic after a while.

(Interestingly, in official lists of Kings of England, Stephen is always listed rather than Mathilda.  Personally I disagree, but I'm not making official lists.)

As both Stephen and Mathilda got older, the question arose as to who would succeed either one.  Stephen thought his oldest son, Eustace, ought to be king after him.  But no one liked this plan (which is why you've heard even less about King Eustace than about the Stephen-Mathilda wars, as Eustace was never crowned).  Stephen had married Mathilda, countess of Boulogne, in France (another Mathilda! it seems like about half the women at the time were named Mathilda), and the French did not want Boulogne, an important port, attached to the English crown.  For that matter, neither did the pope.

As it turned out, Eustace died before his father, and when King Stephen was dying in 1154 he decided to make amends with his cousins.  At this point both Empress Mathilda and Geoffrey Plantagenet had died, leaving a son, Henry, count of Anjou.  Stephen officially named Henry his heir as King of England, and young Henry Plantagenet succeeded as Henry II (1154-1189).  He was father of both Richard the Lionheart and King John.

Interestingly, although we tend to assume that a king's oldest son will succeed as king, Richard the Lionheart, sixth of the Anglo-Norman kings, is the first example of the oldest surviving son succeeding (and he'd actually had a couple of older brothers who predeceased their father).  Starting with the Conqueror, who succeeded by conquest, the succession went next to a second son, then to a younger brother, then to a nephew (Stephen), then to a first cousin once removed (Henry II), and finally to the oldest surviving son.

© C. Dale Brittain 2023
For more on medieval political history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other platforms.  Also available in paperback.