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england podcast hello and welcome to the queens of england podcast supplemental empress matilda

the daughter wife and mother of Henry.

All the way back in episode seven, we told the story of Matilda of Bolloyne,

everyone's favourite, all-action, bad-ass, sweet-talking soldier-leading warrior diplomat.

She was one of medieval England's most impressive, popular and successful queens,

but she was completely overshadowed in her own time, and by history in general.

Why? Because of the woman who opposed her and her husband, the Empress Matilda.

An even more impressive woman, the Empress Matilda would come the closest that any woman came in medieval England to actually being

crowned as a Queen Regnant. Indeed, some, myself including, count her in the list of England's

medieval monarchs, the only entry on that list, and not to be repeated for another 400 years. One cannot help but be fascinated by

this woman. But enough with a build-up, let the first supplemental begin. In medieval Western Europe,

only three women transcended their gender and ruled their kingdoms on their own as a female king,

and all three of them were almost contemporaneous.

Uracca of Castile ruled her kingdom largely as a stopgap between the reigns of her father and son,

but in the intervening period she exercised the full powers of a king.

On the other side of the Mediterranean, Melisandra of Jerusalem never quite managed the same power as Araika,

but by the standards of the time,

she was an extremely powerful figure, wielding far more power than a normal queen consort would.

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