A History of the English Monarchy

Henry V at Agincourt. Throughout the book, I am fascinated by the ways in which the legends of Camelot fuelled the monarchy's veneration of martial victory.

I am very excited to say that my new book A History of the English Monarchy: From Boadicea to Elizabeth I was released this week by MadeGlobal Publishing. I've been writing about the monarchy on this blog for a few years, so it was great fun to write the story of the Crown from its beginnings under Roman rule, right the way through to the accession of the first 'British', as opposed to English, sovereign in 1603. Thank you so much to everyone who has commented on my royal history posts in the past; for those who order History, I hope you enjoy it! Throughout, I was fascinated by the influence of the Arthurian legends in shaping how English kings, and their subjects, viewed and shaped the early monarchy. I was also particularly interested in telling the story of how the English Crown interacted with its Welsh, Scottish, and Irish neighbours, so chapters 3, 4, and 7 are heavy on exploring the often surprising story of how each part of the British Isles related to one another in that fascinating, bloody, compelling period of History. UK customers can order the book here; US and Canadian customers here.

The blurb reads: In A History of the English Monarchy, historian Gareth Russell traces the story of the English monarchy and the interactions between popular belief, religious faith and brutal political reality that helped shape the extraordinary journey of one of history’s most important institutions. From the birth of the nation to the dazzling court of Elizabeth I, A History of the English Monarchy charts the fascinating path of the English monarchy from the uprising of the Warrior Queen, Boadicea, in AD 60, through each king and queen up to the 'Golden Age' of Elizabeth I. Russell offers a fresh take on a fascinating subject as old as the nation itself.

INFORMATION: Each chapter is divided into sections, chronicling the monarchy’s story.

Chapter 1 - Conquest: The violent birth of the monarchy

* Britannia
* The Barbarian Conspiracy
* Seven Kingdoms
* Praying men, fighting men, and working men
* Edward the Confessor

Chapter 2 - God, Life and Victory: The coming of the Normans
* The Conqueror
* The Red King
* Beauclerc
* When Christ and His saints slept
* The Lioness in Winter


Chapter 3 - From Scotland to Spain: The empire of the Plantagenets
* Eleanor
* Henry
* Diarmait na nGall
* Murder in the Cathedral
* Family Strife
* Come, and see the place
* Sic Gloria Transit Mundi


Chapter 4 - Diluted Magnificence: The birth of Parliament
* The Wrath of God abideth upon him
* Crowned with a bracelet
* Know, Sire, that Llywelyn ap Gruffydd is dead
* The Jewish Diaspora
* Until a king is provided


Chapter 5 - Enemies Foreign and Domestic: The fourteenth-century monarchy
* Our friends do fail us all
* The glory of the English
* Shameless fire was thus mixed with sacred flame


Chapter 6 - Spilled Blood Does Not Sleep: The Wars of the Roses
* Necessitas non habet legem
* This story shall the good man teach his son
* The lords in England kill their enemies
* The sun in splendour
* No more sons of the royal blood


Chapter 7 - As the Law of Christ Allows: The rule of the Tudors
* The Welsh Moses
* Bluff King Hal
* The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn
* Deborah and Josiah
* The Queen of Scotland rises on the world
* That Good Old Princess

Epilogue - The word 'must'

The Other Queen: The Life of Matilda of Boulogne, Queen of England

"In many ways, Matilda of Boulogne was a model consort. As a regent, diplomat, warrior, counsellor and mother, she occupies a position alongside her predecessors Matilda of Scotland and Matilda of Flanders, at the apogee of English queenship, after which many historians concur that the power invested in the office began to decline ... Matilda's husband is one of the great, if misunderstood, failures of English kingship. Matilda herself, though, was never anything less than a great queen." 

- Lisa Hilton, Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens (2008)

Author's Note

Firstly, a note of apology for having taken so long to write and upload the fourth instalment in this blog’s “Queens of England” series. The last update – “The Fair Maid of Brabant” – chronicling the life of Adeliza of Louvain was posted on August 31st, over two months ago. With writing the sequel to Popular and working on various scripts and my Masters degree in Medieval History, things have rather gotten away from me. This post – the life of Adeliza’s successor (although Adeliza never really regarded her as such) – is the last post chronicling the lives of the queens of the House of Normandy, which ruled England from 1066 to 1154. In terms of time, it was a short dynastic reign; in terms of importance, vast. After this, I shall be posting on the House of Normandy’s genealogy and then moving onto the queens of the House of Plantagenet, who reigned from 1154 to 1399. 

Secondly, a note on structure. Just as the names Eleanor and Isabella were to dominate the lists of their immediate successors, the name Matilda was very much the preferred name of the queens of the Anglo-Norman empire. In fact, with the exception of the decorous Adeliza of Louvain, every Anglo-Norman queen bore the name of Matilda. In part, this was because the British-Norman elite was a relatively tiny and close-knit group. Its first queen, Matilda of Flanders, stood as godmother to her future daughter-in-law and successor, who was thus also named Matilda, in her honour. This Matilda (of Scotland), in turn, stood as godmother to this queen, her niece Matilda of Boulogne. All this would potentially be complicated enough from a narrative point-of-view were it not for the fact that for the entirety of Matilda of Boulogne’s time as queen, her life was fatally intertwined with that of her cousin, also named Matilda (herself the daughter of Matilda of Scotland). At the very same time as Matilda of Boulogne claimed to be the true queen-consort of England, her cousin was claiming to be the true queen-regnant. Needless to say, neither acknowledged the legitimacy of the other’s claim. The two Matildas were intimately aware of one another, but from the perspective of telling their story, having two Matildas appearing so frequently in the text is going to be distracting. Luckily, their world was bi- and sometimes even tri-lingual. “Matilda” was the European version of their name, but their Anglo-Saxon subjects preferred to render it by its more traditional usage – “Maud.” This chapter in the series focuses primarily on the life of Matilda of Boulogne, a French heiress married to the prince who controversially seized the throne of England in 1135 and became known as “King Stephen.” Their cousin and rival, who claimed to be the true inheritor of the English crown, was an English princess and the widow of the German Emperor. She will thus be referred to either as “the Empress” or by the Anglo-Saxon variant of her name, “Maud.”

***

ENGLAND,

In the Year of Grace, 1135

The mystic’s eyes gleamed with certainty as he pronounced his prophecy. It is always difficult to tell where the fire of spiritual surety springs from – either a religious gift or a mental imbalance. But the hermit need not have worried; the prince standing before him was a pious soul, much more inclined to see the old man’s mutterings as visionary, rather than insane. It was a dangerous time in England, dangerous, even, for the prince to be consulting the hermit about the matter in question. An old and sick man, who had long outlived the sons of his first marriage, was sitting upon the throne; his queen, beautiful and charming, was barren. After over a decade of marriage, she had produced no children to replace those lost years ago in a catastrophic shipwreck off the coast of Normandy. A crisis of the succession was brewing, just as surely as there was a God in Heaven. Recently, the King’s only surviving legitimate child - a daughter - had recently been made a widow by the death of the German Emperor. In her widowhood, she had returned to her father’s realm, which placed her back in play as viable contender for the succession. Certainly, it seemed to be the old king’s wish to leave his crown to his imperial daughter. But within the elite of his kingdoms in England and Normandy, there were many great lords who said that for them to be ruled over by a woman would be an abomination. They said that the true heir was not the King’s daughter, but his nephew, Stephen.

It was that prince, Stephen, who now stood before the old man, who years earlier had eschewed the vanities of the world and retreated into a life of religious seclusion and poverty where, it was said, the angels had endowed him with the dubious gift of prophecy. The Hermit fixed his rheumy eyes upon the prince who, despite his quiet and chivalrous exterior, wanted so desperately to take the throne of England when his aged uncle at last died. The holy man spoke: the Queen would remain barren. It had been ordained by Heaven that no child would quicken the womb of Adeliza of Louvain, whilst the Crown of England still sat upon her head. The King would not die in England, the monk said next, but rather in his possessions beyond the sea – in Normandy, the land of his ancestors. Finally, he concluded the prophecy by giving the prince the news he had been so desperate to hear – the Empress would not sit upon the throne when her father died. England and Normandy would pass instead to Stephen. Infused by an intoxicating mixture of piety and ambition, Stephen received the hermit’s blessing and hurried swiftly from the dank cave where the holy man chose to worship Christ in solitude and suffering. 

Daughter of the Church: The Life of Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England

"From the time England first became subject to kings, out of all the queens none was found to be comparable to her, and none will be found in time to come, whose memory will be praised and name will be blessed throughout the ages."
- The Hyde Chronicle

For seventeen years after the death of Matilda of Flanders, England had no queen. William the Conqueror followed his wife to the grave four years later, to be succeeded in England by his son, William II, who for his own reasons decided not to marry. When William died and was succeeded by his brother, Henry I, in 1100, the new King married for reasons very similar to his father’s – his chosen queen was a princess of unassailable royal ancestry and famed for her piety. The two queens even shared the same Christian name and, in fact, the new Queen Matilda had been the god-daughter of the old. Unlike her predecessor however, the new Queen was not beautiful. One of her champions rather kindly said that the Queen’s appearance was ‘not entirely to be despised.’

Beauty or no beauty, Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England, had an august lineage and, as the career of her predecessor showed, such things mattered at that time. Matilda could claim in her family one parent who was to become a character in a Shakespearean play and another who was to become a Catholic saint. Her father, Malcolm III, King of Scots, was the hero whose victory heralds the end of Macbeth, whilst Matilda’s mother, Queen Margaret, was an English princess so famed for her religious zeal that she was to be canonised in the 13th century by Pope Innocent IV. Four of Matilda’s brothers and one of her half-brothers – Duncan II, Edmund, Edgar, Alexander I and David I – were to wear the Crown of Scotland and her sister, Mary, was to become the mother of the Queen of England in the next generation.

Early Christian icons uncovered

Firstly, a word of condolence to the Northern Irish blogger, "Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland," whose posts on the history of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ulster and their surviving (or vanished) homes are both invaluable and fascinating. He sadly lost his mother, whom he affectionately nicknamed "the Dowager," when she passed away peacefully at 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 19th. Sincere condolences, thoughts and prayers to him and his family at this sad time.

Secondly, and on an unrelated note, excavations in Rome have uncovered some of the earliest surviving Christian icons of Saint Peter, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Andrew (above; the patron saint of Scotland), as well as the evangelical Saint Paul, author of much of the latter-half of the New Testament. They were discovered in Santa Tecla catacombs beneath the Eternal City.

MSNBC has more on the story, including accounts of how lasers were used to help uncover these artifacts, the happy partnership between religion and science which helped unearth them and a little on their historical significance.

A fascinating look inside the Vatican archives

The Daily Telegraph reports on the opening of the Vatican archives in Rome.

Although conspiracy theorists may point to the fact that the withholding of any documents pertaining to events after either 1922 or 1939 obviously points to a massive cover-up, it's really not much different to the British Government's policy of suppressing sensitive documents for over a century after they are written, in order to protect the identities of those mentioned and their immediate family. Although it would of course be interesting to know the exact state of the Vatican's affairs during the terrible years of the Holocaust, rather than having to rely on either the panegyric or venom of hindsight.

On another note, the petition from the English upper-classes requesting that the Pope speed up the divorce of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon was partly organised by Sir William Brereton, whose later life you can read about here.