Lady of the English - The Life of Empress Matilda
This year marks the 60 th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation which is a remarkable achievement. Elizabeth II is the 6 th Queen regnant in over 1,000 years of English history, following in the footsteps of Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne, and Victoria. The anniversary also started me thinking about the woman, who should have been the first Queen regnant of England, the Empress Matilda. One can’t help but speculate how the history of England might have been different if Matilda had been able to take her rightful place on the throne of England. Would it have made the road easier for later Queens such as Margaret of Anjou who worked to hold the throne for her husband and son, or later on Mary Tudor? Or would Matilda have been seen as a fluke, an experiment never to be repeated? Matilda was the eldest child of Henry I of England, son of William the Conqueror, and his first wife Edith of Scotland. She was born on February 7, 1102...