Matilda

Empress, Queen, Warrior

By: Catherine Hanley

Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon

A life of Matilda - empress, skilled military leader, and one of the greatest figures of the English Middle Ages.

Matilda was a daughter, wife, and mother. But she was also empress, heir to the English crown - the first woman ever to hold the position - and an able military general.

This new biography explores Matilda's achievements as military and political leader and sets her life and career in full context. Catherine Hanley provides fresh insight into Matilda's campaign to claim the title of queen, her approach to allied kingdoms and rival rulers, and her role in the succession crisis. Hanley highlights how Matilda fought for the throne and argues that although she never sat on it herself, her reward was to see her son become king. Extraordinarily, her line has continued through every single monarch of England or Britain from that time to the present day.

©2019 Catherine Hanley (P)2019 Tantor

Confusing Matilda

The book was very informative and well written. The narrator was great. I found it tough at times to keep track of which Matilda was doing what during the battle.

Wonderful

I really enjoyed this book, I accidentally stumbled on it looking for her grandmother, Matilda, Queen consort to William the conqueror. I would love to know more about her sources. I thought this book was wonderful, and how someone has the patience and diligence to compile all this information together is beyond me thank goodness there are authors who can do this. We plan to go to Rouen. I just loved this book.

Excellent

An extremely thorough and well researched survey of the life of Matilda. Insightful and complex, this book gives us wonderful details about the woman's life , about whom most know so very little.

An excellent biography of a remarkable woman

This book feels very well researched, and Hanley regularly challenges her own bias with contemporary facts & accounts, arriving at a a balance narrative. Personally, I feel like this book sits at an important point in the narrative on Matilda. Where contemporaries argued over her over-reach as a woman, this book celebrates Matilda as a woman who dared - praise she likely never received in her own time. An important contribution to history.
Well done Ms. Hanley.

A new view of Empress Matilda

This well-written and well-narrated audiobook provides a fresh perspective on Matilda. Long derided for her failures as a prospective queen of England, this book shows how her greatest disadvantage was the inability of the men of her time to envision a queen regnant. The qualities she portrayed, which would have been praised in a king or a queen consort, were criticized in her as arrogance. Yet her efforts on behalf of her son, Henry II, changed English history forever.

It’s perfect

The way in which the story flows, the narrator’voice and the careful investigation made for this book makes it a must listen!

Good attention to fine details that illuminate Matilda’s actions.

Good reading pace and volume, attention to proper pronunciation to avoid confusion on place names, excellent book to listen to while doing needlework.

essential study for English royal succession

I am an amateur historian if not more a fan of history. I am also a huge fan of this work.

the author does an excellent job of filling the reader in on what is going on else where and providing context. of special interest the author invests their time in cutting through the bias laid on the topic by the many intervening years to provide as honest and accurate an image of the subject as this reader believes possible.

Hey this was great!

My favorite period of English history goes from Alfred to the Angevins and Empress Matilda is a key factor. Her life story is so fascinating!! I though the author did a great job telling the story in a balanced way: Matilda was unfairly lambasted by historians for too long, but she wasn't perfect. That's what makes her so interesting. The fact that Empress Matilda's daughter-in-law was Eleanor of Aquitaine adds an additional layer into the story of her life. The treatment Matilda received from her contemporaries is unfortunately too recognizable, and the suffering that her and Stephen's Anarchy inflicted on the people of the England and Normandy was hard to hear, but this woman has echoed through history and this is an excellent means by which to have her story told.

The REAL "Queen Who Never Was"

Considering that her father never intended for her to become the Mother of the greatest, and still today most consequential and influential, dynasty in the history of the English speaking people, and that for the time period during which she lived there were practically no written records kept, and thus passed down from the 12th century to the 21st century, for ANY woman of ANY rank or station other than what records there are as they pertain to the deeds of their fathers and husbands and sons (and in Matilda's case her cousin as well), Catherine Hanley has somehow managed to glean from that paucity of documentary evidence, much of which seems incredibly and quite often disgustingly misogynistic to our modern sensibilities, a marvelously detailed and thoroughly enjoyable narrative history of the Anglo-Norman Princess Royal who became Queen of the Germans and (unanointed) Holy Roman Empress and by the, if not later disavowed, solemn oaths of her father's leading barons and clergy, and by birthright if she had been born 8 or 9 centuries later, should have been the first Queen Regnant of England. If you're a fan of the (Fire & Blood) House of the Dragon prequel to (A Song of Fire and Ice) Game of Thrones, this is the story of the historical inspiration for both George R R Martin's Rhaenys AND Rhaenyra Targaryen.