Long Live the Queens: Mighty, Magnificent and Bloody Marvellous Monarchs History’s Forgotten

Matilda of Flanders

Born: circa 1031

Died: 1083

William the Conqueror, who in 1066 defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings during the Norman Conquest of England, remains a legendary figure. But what of his queen? Who is aware of the considerable role she played in supporting and facilitating the invasion, or that she was the first Queen of England to be crowned separately in Westminster Abbey? How many could even recall her name?

William’s queen was, unsurprisingly, better known in France, in particular the region of Normandy, where she and William ruled as Duke and Duchess. Raised in the powerful medieval principality of Flanders, Matilda was of noble birth, grand-daughter of a king of France (King Robert II, who died in 1031) and descendant of the Frankish emperor, Charlemagne, and the Saxon king, Alfred the Great. William had impressive lineage through his father, Robert I, Duke of Normandy, but his mother was the unmarried Herleva of Falaise, a lowly tanner’s daughter. Although William would later defiantly sign his name ‘William Bastard’, he could never quite shake off the taint of bastardy and would react violently if taunted.

Legends tell of Matilda first refusing William’s offer of marriage on account of his illegitimacy, publicly declaring to the Duke’s envoys and her father Count Baldwin that ‘she would not have a bastard for a husband’. Her father had hoped for a closer alliance with the ruler of Normandy, but he was forced to turn William down (a rare occurrence when high-born women were generally forced into arranged marriages). Tales then tell of a furious William riding to Bruges, dragging Matilda off her horse by her long braids and throwing her into the mud. Count Baldwin was rightly outraged, although Matilda is said to have enjoyed this display of raw machismo, deciding then that William was the man for her. The story smacks of male fantasy and indeed formed part of a scurrilous volume full of anti-Norman sentiment penned by monks two centuries after the event – hardly a reliable source on which to draw an accurate picture of a Norman ruler, never mind a female one. It is just as likely that her change of heart was brought about by having been turned down herself by a former suitor, the Saxon leader Brictric, for reasons unknown.

Whatever the cause, the marriage went ahead in 1050, in defiance of Pope Leo IX, who initially forbade the match partly on the grounds that the couple were distantly related. Matilda was at most nineteen and William twenty-three. By all accounts the marriage was harmonious from the outset, with a papal dispensation later awarded by Pope Nicholas II. It was said that Matilda ‘united beauty and gentle breeding with all the graces of Christian holiness’ – attributes typically expected of noble women of the period.

As wife to William, Matilda fulfilled her principle duty of procreation, bearing ten children who survived into adulthood, including the two future English kings, William II and Henry I. Although their marriage was a strategic alliance, it seems to have been one of genuine love and trust and, unusually for a medieval ruler, William was not known to have had any mistresses or to have fathered any illegitimate children. It also proved to be an effective ruling partnership: Matilda witnessed countless charters and presided with William in court when he heard lawsuits, and they both founded and sponsored churches and religious institutions across the duchy.

With such a capable ally at his side, William was able to turn his attention to further horizons, namely that of the Crown of England which, he maintained, Edward the Confessor had promised him. As he built his immense fleet in preparation for invasion, Matilda secretly outfitted a ship, the Mora, and stood at its prow as it sailed into harbour. So astonished and thrilled was William that he used it as his flagship (as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry – an embroidered cloth depicting events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England). Before leaving for England, William solemnly invested Matilda with the regency of Normandy, safeguarding to her the protection of the duchy in the name of their fifteen-year-old eldest son, Robert.

These were turbulent times in Normandy and William’s absence could well have prompted others to try to seize control of the French duchy. Despite this, there were no major uprisings or rebellions during William’s leave and it was said that Matilda presided over the court and government with great prudence and skill, William of Poitiers conceding the ‘government was carried on smoothly’ by a woman of ‘masculine wisdom’ (‘feminine wisdom’ being deemed pretty much non-existent back then).

Across the Channel, William had by Christmas Day 1066 secured the crown of England, although it was over a year before Matilda would visit his new realm. At around Easter of 1068, she landed at Dover, where she was met by her king and a company of nobles. They escorted her to the palace of Westminster and on 11 May she was anointed with holy oil and adorned with a crown, ring and sceptre at an elaborate ceremony at Westminster Abbey. In England, queen consorts had been crowned with their kings since 973, but Matilda was the first to have a separate coronation, in a revised service which proclaimed that she shared royal power with the King, almost as if she were a queen regnant. It was a coronation that, unlike any service before, boosted her power and prestige as queen and secured that of her successors.

With such holy honours bestowed on Matilda, she would have been aware of her weighty responsibilities as Queen. As wife to the King, she was expected to support and love her husband, produce healthy heirs, and embody the virtues of piety and virtue by patronising religious institutions and giving to charity. As England’s queen, her gifts to religious houses are well documented – ‘while the victorious arms of her illustrious spouse subdued all things before him, she was indefatigable at alleviating distress in every shape, and redoubled her alms’. Matilda was also a great patron of painters, architects and poets in England, bringing Flemish artisans to the country and employing English seamstresses who were famed for their skills. (It was once wrongly thought she commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry, on which she makes no appearance.)

As a medieval queen, her role was also a political one, requiring her to foster good relations at court, whilst also mediate and smooth over family and dynastic disputes. As in Normandy, Matilda gave judgements and heard pleas jointly with William in English courts and he gave her the authority to hear lawsuits over land disputes, as mentioned several times in the Domesday Book. She witnessed many royal charters, some jointly with William, her name appearing below his but above their sons (although, as neither could write, they marked their names with a symbol, she with a Jerusalem cross).

As William battled to consolidate his rule in England, particularly in the troublesome north of the country, it was said that a heavily pregnant Matilda travelled some 200 miles to be with her husband and that their fourth child Henry was born just south of York in late 1068. The subsequent year saw further resistance in the north, culminating in William ordering a violent annihilation of entire villages and the burning of crops and herds. During this tumultuous time, he sent Matilda back to Normandy, where she again ruled in William’s stead, bringing up their children, issuing charters and attending Councils of State. In England, William continued to establish his rule, bestowing land and titles to Norman barons and encouraging them to raise fortified castles across the kingdom. By 1072, the conquest was more or less complete, largely at the expense of the Saxon population, who were savagely oppressed by the new Norman aristocracy.

In 1074, Matilda was briefly again made Queen Regent of Normandy, the same year that she and William lost their second son, Richard, in a hunting accident. In 1076, trouble flared between William and their eldest son, Robert, on whom Matilda doted but who proved a disappointment to his father, his short stature, ‘pot belly’ and fat legs earning him the unflattering moniker of Robert ‘Curthose’. Officially, Robert was Duke of Normandy, but he was frustrated by his father not granting him full autonomy, a resentment that broke out into open hostilities in 1078 as the King fought a three-week siege against Robert, during which father and son actually fought, with the King’s horse killed and his hand wounded. Not unsurprisingly, the feud greatly distressed Matilda, and it was soon discovered that she had been secretly sending Robert large sums of money, much to the fury of William. When he confronted Matilda, she stood her ground, pleading maternal devotion, for which William eventually forgave her: father and son were formally reconciled in 1080.

By the early 1080s, Matilda’s health was beginning to suffer and she died in November 1083, around the age of fifty-two. After thirty-three years of marriage, William was apparently inconsolable, some saying from thereon ‘he abandoned pleasure of every kind.’ Matilda was buried at the convent of the Holy Trinity at Caen. Her passing was mourned throughout France, and it was claimed she was ‘wept for by the English and the Normans for many years’. She had proved herself a most able ruler, one who wielded great power and influence in Normandy and England, who was by turns an ambitious consort, a wise counsel, a capable leader and doting mother – a queen who deserves much greater acclaim, for being both a powerful ally to William the Conqueror and ruler in her own right.

Wu Zetian

Born: 624 CE

Died: 705 CE

Some fifty miles northwest of the modern Chinese city of Xi’an, deep within Mount Liang, is the tomb of Empress Wu Zetian. There lies the remains of an Empress of China who ruled for more than fifty years during the Tang dynasty (610–907 CE), the only woman in 3,000 years of Chinese history to have sat on the Chinese throne as ruler in her own right.

And yet the great memorial tablet that stands at the entrance to her tomb, erected during her lifetime so that her successors could compose the usual epitaph proclaiming her worthiness as empress, remains starkly blank. By contrast, the tablet that immortalises her husband, Emperor Gaozong, buried in the same mausoleum, carries the usual inscription recording his deeds as emperor, as composed by Wu Zetian to a husband whose death preceded hers by some twenty years.

The lack of inscription on Wu’s memorial, the only one of its kind, was clearly an attempt to obscure any record of Wu Zetian’s rule; she died and lies near to her husband but any other details are best forgotten. The omission also reflects how she was perceived by people around her and successors – in particular the Confucian hierarchy who deeply disapproved of her and the idea of any women having genuine power, deemed as unnatural as having a ‘hen crow like a rooster at daybreak’.

Despite attempts to remove her from record, Wu Zetian is now an immensely famous figure in China – the subject of books, films and TV shows – although she is still largely unknown in the West. Much of her fame, however, rests on her startling propensity for ruthlessness: murdering female rivals, elder statesmen who opposed her, and even members of her own family so that she could wield supreme power. Her image is that of a murderous megalomaniac, almost as if a warning of what a woman can do when given enough power, an image that has in the past overshadowed the many achievements of her reign.

Born in 624 CE, Wu Zetian (original name Wu Zhao) entered the palace of the Tang emperor Taizong in 638 as a fourteen-year-old concubine. As the daughter of a minor general, this was deemed quite an honour, although her role at first would largely be as a glorified serving woman. Little is known about her life as a concubine but it’s thought she managed to get close to the Emperor when her duties included changing the imperial bed sheets. When the Emperor died in 649, the custom was for concubines to have their heads shaved and be sent to a convent, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. Taizong’s heir, Gaozong, however, brought Wu back to the palace as his favourite concubine, her rise in status brought about, as some Chinese historians have speculated, by her willingness to gratify emperors’ unusual sexual appetites.

Having given birth to two sons, Wu had a daughter in 654 who died soon after. Wu accused the wife of Gaozong, Empress Wang, of strangling the child in a fit of a jealousy over her own childlessness, although other histories of the period claim Wu smothered the child herself only then to blame the Empress for the death. Wang was subsequently demoted and imprisoned along with another leading concubine. It is said that Wu, who had now replaced Wang as Empress Consort, ordered that both women have their legs and arms cut off and their torsos thrown into a vat of wine, leaving them to drown – an account suspiciously similar to the revenge act of a previous empress, Lu Zhi (241–180 BCE), who is held up in Chinese history as one of the most wicked female rulers.