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