[00:01.240]On the 24th of June 1141
[00:03.930]a 39-year-old woman sat down here at Westminster to a sumptuous banquet
[00:09.880]It was a feast to celebrate her planned coronation as Queen of England
[00:14.930]Matilda, it seemed
[00:16.130]was about to become the first woman to rule England in her own right
[00:21.270]Matilda was the daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror
[00:26.880]but you won't find her on the role-call of English monarchs
[00:31.510]This faint manuscript image is the only contemporary picture of her that survives
[00:38.030]Her attempt to claim the crown was to throw the country into almost 20 years of catastrophic civil war
[00:45.500]Matilda herself has gone down in history as a domineering and destructive woman
[00:50.560]perceived by men as a she-wolf simply because
[00:53.020]she dared to challenge the assumption that only a man could wear the English crown
[00:59.570]And her bid for the throne began with a tragedy
[01:02.730]The death of the male heir, her brother William
[01:06.450]It happened not in England
[01:08.590]but when he and their father were returning from their territory across the channel in Normandy