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This has become the defining account of Matilda's difficulties at this crucial moment. She was just too arrogant to make a success of ruling. But there's more going on here than a previously undetected character flaw. Matilda was trying to become Queen of England, not in the conventional sense of a king's wife, but in the unprecedented form of a female king. And kings didn't deport themselves with a modest gait and bearing, they had to be commanding and authoritative. But when Matilda tried to do that, she was seen as unnaturally domineering. The great men of the realm couldn't believe that a mere woman wouldn't take their advice without question and as the rumblings of discontent grew louder and louder, medieval spin doctors went to work. True to form, the hostile chronicler of the Gesta Stephani, the Deeds of Stephen, reported that she had demanded money from the citizens of London. And when they resisted. She, with a grim look, her forehead wrinkled into a frown, every trace of a woman's gentleness removed from her face, blazed into unbearable fury. |
