Empress Matilda
historical figure · 2 works · 4 mentions · 4 anchored passages
Matilda · Henry's daughter · the ex-Empress Matilda
in the texts
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
Daughter of Henry I and rival claimant to the English throne against Stephen.
by others, to the defective nature of his title, combined with the presence of a rival in the field in the person of his cousin, Henry’s daughter, the ex–Empress Matilda.
Among the evil legacies from Stephen’s reign, not the least troublesome were the claims advanced by rival magnates to estates and franchises which had been bestowed with lavish prodigality by Matilda and Stephen.
Conscious of the claims of his cousin Matilda, Stephen here ignores the element of hereditary succession in determining the title to the Crown, and emphasizes the element of appointment or “election,” both of which were blended in the twelfth, as in earlier centuries, in proportions not easy to define with accuracy.
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
Claimant to the English throne whose contested title was successfully transmitted to her son Henry II.
and Matilda, herself a woman, and but faintly objected to by the English barons on that account, transmitted an unquestioned title to her son Henry II.