Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations
Welcome to 'Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations,' the podcast where we analyze and look at the events, people and actions that have shaped the nations of our world . From revolutions to treaties, conflicts to triumphs, we explore the historical blueprints that continue to influence the way nations think and act today.
Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations
Special Episode: The Anarchy with Grimdark History Podcast
Join us for this special collaboration between Jeremy Agnew of the Grimdark History Podcast and Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations, as we explore the period known as the Anarchy in Medieval England—a time when reality was stranger than fiction
Follow GrimDark History Podcast here:
https://open.spotify.com/show/42GdeWFNXLG0ZbMYNdpRRv?si=2Wuy9uVhT9Ota7rlOCTJLg
Have feedback? Send us a Text and Interact with us!
Twitter: @HistoryHelix
BlueSky: @historyhelix.bsky.social
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Doublehelixhistory
Instagram: History_Helix
Email: DoubleHelixHistorypodcast@gmail.com
Welcome to a very special collaborative episode between Double Helix, blueprint of Nations and Grimdark History. I'm Paul De La Rosa and today we're exploring one of medieval Europe's most chaotic and transformative periods the English Anarchy of 1135 to 1153. This episode comes to you in two parts to 1153. This episode comes to you in two parts. In the first half, jeremy Agnew from Grimdark History takes us through the dramatic backdrop that made this civil war inevitable, from William the Conqueror's brutal transformation of England in 1066, through the complex web of Norman politics, family rivalries and succession crises that culminated in one of history's most catastrophic shipwrecks. Jeremy's exploration reveals how the foundations of this conflict were laid across decades of Norman rule, building towards the moment when a single night of tragedy would plunge England into constitutional chaos England into constitutional chaos. After you hear Jeremy's first half, I strongly encourage you to check out Grimdark History wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1:His deep dive into the Norman world, the personalities, the politics, the intricate relationships that bound this warrior aristocracy together, provides essential context for understanding how England reached the breaking points we're about to witness.
Speaker 1:He also does wonderful deep dives into other periods of history to help us get to know the people, the details and all of the things that matter about that particular time in history. What Jeremy shows us is that the anarchy wasn't born in 1135, when Henry I dies. It was born in the contradictions of Norman conquest itself, in the tensions between English customs and Norman authority, between the demands of ruling an island kingdom and maintaining continental territories, between the brutal pragmatism needed for conquest and the legitimacy required for stable rule. His narrative brings to life the human complexity behind these grand political forces the ambitious younger sons carving out domains with swords and cunning careful balance of loyalty and self-interest that held the Norman world together, and the terrible fragility of arrangements that seemed so solid until they suddenly weren't. In the second half we'll witness what happens when all of those carefully maintained balances finally collapse, when England's crown became the prize in a conflict that would reshape not just medieval politics but the very nature of royal authority in England itself.
Speaker 2:To his most loving Lord Robert, son of King Henry and Earl of Gloucester, william, librarian of Malmesbury wishes, after completing his victorious course on earth, eternal triumph in heaven. Course on earth, eternal triumph in heaven. Many of the transactions of your father of glorious memory I have not omitted to record, both in the fifth book of my regal history and in those three smaller volumes which I have entitled Chronicles. Your Highness is now desirous that those events which, through the miraculous power of God, have taken place in modern time in England, should be transmitted to posterity. Truly, like all your other desires, a most noble one, for what more concerns the advancement of virtue, what more conduces to justice than to recognize the divine favor towards good men and his vengeance upon the wicked? What, too, can be more grateful than to commit to the page of history the exploits of brave men by whose example others may shake off their indolence and take up arms in defense of their country?
Speaker 2:This quote was the introduction to my primary source for today's episode, and that is by the author, william of Malmesbury, to Robert, the Earl of Gloucester, the half-brother of the Empress of England, the Queen of England, empress Matilda or Queen Matilda, whoever you want to talk about it, but we're going to dig into that today.
Speaker 2:But I just thought I would open with this because I love being able to draw direct quotes and give them to you, and nothing I thought I read encapsulated the spirit of William of Mansbury's history as that quote that I just read. One of the great things that I love about history is getting to share and explore history with you from firsthand accounts. If you're a fan of the show, if you followed along, then you know that we've shared several of these accounts so far, and if you're a brand new listener today you're going to get a treat because we're going to get one of these firsthand accounts today. Today I'm going to share with you not only a firsthand account of somebody who lived through these events that we're about to talk to, but who was literally present in the room for some of its key moments. This person is a monk, known to us as William of Malmesbury, and he lived from 1095 to 1143 Common.
Speaker 1:Era.
Speaker 2:Now, william of Malmesbury already had some fame amongst the nobility of England prior to the events we're about to discuss. William, he wasn't any major person, but he had fame because he was extremely well-educated and he had recently written and published a book called the Deeds of English Kings, in which he wrote a biography of all the kings of England right up until the period that we're just about to discuss today. After the events happened a period of time known as the Anarchy, which is what we're going to be talking about Malmesbury was commissioned by one of our main characters, a man by the name of Robert Earl of Gloucester, and he was commissioned to write a history of the current events that we're going to talk about today. So, as always, whenever we're dealing with these firsthand accounts, we have to take them with a certain grain of salt. Being commissioned by the brother of the queen who we're about to talk about obviously comes with it a pressure to show favoritism to the king or queen that you're writing the history for. So take some of what I'm going to say with a grain of salt, but that's fine when we're talking about history, because I'm again, I'm just sharing my love of history with you and we're going to review the events today as written by William of Malmesbury, and so let's start today in a rough period of time.
Speaker 2:We're going to be talking about today, a period of time in English history known as the Anarchy, as we go through a generation-long civil war that wracked England and split the country in two. Before we get to the events of the anarchy, which is going to be looked at in the second half of the episode, today we're going to talk about the lead up to that, the dominoes that I love to dig into the details of and figure out and understand all the things that lead to the main event. So we're going to start very, very briefly with the period of time immediately following the reign of William of Normandy. You know what does England look like in this time period? It's in a process of radical transformation. From the end of William of Normandy's reign to the beginning of the period of time we're talking about, the anarchy is roughly 70 years. So William of Normandy invades England, conquers it, installs his Norman nobility, rejiggers the entire government system and bends it to the will of Norman nobles.
Speaker 2:Then we have the sons of King William. The sons of King William. William dies in 1087, and the throne passes to William's third son, another William, and this guy's known to us as William of Normandy as well. So we have William the Conqueror and then, on his death in 1087, his third son, william of Normandy, becomes king. William of Normandy rules for roughly 12, 13 years, give or take. William had many sons, and William of Normandy becomes king. A couple of other sons get lands in Normandy and one of our Conqueror dies. Henry will inherit her lands.
Speaker 2:However, the new king, william II, the third son of William of Normandy, dies in a hunting accident, and there's suspicion as to whether or not this was a real accident. Was it a murder? We'll never know, but there's some suspicion there, so I'm going to throw it out. Of course, william of Malmesbury does not talk to us about this suspicion, but immediately following the death of William II, one of our main characters, henry, seizes the throne, and it's here where we're going to begin our story, with the reign of Henry I, who's the fourth son of William the Conqueror, who takes the throne when his brother, william II, who takes the throne when his brother, william II, dies in a hunting accident.
Speaker 2:Let's start with understanding. What does England even look like? We all have an idea of an ancient England filled with knights and towns and all that sort of thing. And it may be you've seen the TV series the Pillars of Earth or read the book the Pillars of Earth that the TV series was based off of. It's a great little mini series. If you can get it it's well worth watching. But that period of time from the Pillars of Earth sets itself in the anarchy and right where we're starting our story today.
Speaker 2:The language of the common people across England would have been a form of Anglo-Saxon, known to us today as Old English. It's very Germanic sounding. There's not a lot in common to us with our modern English, but you'll see words. You might even hear a few words that kind of sound familiar. So they're speaking Old English, the commoners across the country. However, the language of the court, the languageaxon nobility, supported the invasion of William the Conqueror and William replaced almost all the Anglo-Saxon nobility with Norman nobility and those people who supported William financially on his invasion, people who supported William financially on his invasion. So we have one generation after. This is culture shock around England, as the nobility is basically replaced almost in its entirety.
Speaker 2:On top of that, during the second year of the invasion, william the Conqueror did not have a lock on the control of the English countryside. In fact, the entire northern half of England, from Cheshire to the Scottish border then, which is roughly around Cumbria, was still in open resistance against William the Conqueror, william and his army. They went on a series of campaigns, which is known in history as the Harrying of the North. Rather than engage in open battle, the English nobility were kind of separated and they held themselves up in their forts. The Norman forces under William of Normandy instead waged a campaign of starvation by seizing and burning crops, livestock, and starved the Anglo-Saxon lords into submission. So huge famine across the northern half of England, huge famine across the northern half of England. Lots of people died, lots of peasants, and hardly any of it in an actual conflict. They died from starvation, disease and the things that happen when your crops are burned across the entire countryside. So after the harrying of the north, william replaces most, if not all, the reigning Anglo-Saxon nobility with his French supporters, ensuring Norman French as the language of court.
Speaker 2:Also, during this window of time, one of England's most important historical documents is produced. It's called the Doomsday Book. If you're with me in my episode when I talked with the archaeological crew doing the uncovering Roman Carlisle dig in Carlisle. We talked briefly about the Doomsday Book and we joked that maybe it was made by somebody, a lord, whose name was Doom. That's not, in fact, what it is. What the Doomsday Book was, it is an extraordinarily detailed and thorough audit of all the lands and nobility in England during the reign of William of Normandy and it was called the Doomsday Book because the data, the information once written in that book was considered legally binding and it was immutable and inevitable as Doomsday. That's the nickname and why it's called the Doomsday Book.
Speaker 2:So, aside from the language and general cultural differences that would have been between Anglo-Saxon peasants and Norman French nobility, there was also another major change that came to England with William the Conqueror and that is the end of slavery. Anglo-saxon kings and nobility practiced slavery all across England and William of Normandy, norman French. They used the French system of serfdom and we might split hairs over whether or not serfdom is slavery or just slavery by another name. I'm not going to get into how bad one was versus the other, but regardless, serfdom was implemented and the Anglo-Saxon practice of slavery and enslaving was changed and serfdom replaced that. Slavery and enslaving was changed and serfdom replaced that. So this is one of the main, two main things that have rocked England in this 70-year period. We had the invasion of William of Normandy, we had the replacement of almost the entirety of English nobility, and then slavery was abolished and replaced with serfdom. So we have a bunch of nobles, hardly any of who speak the language of the commoners and can really communicate with them. There's definitely some happening by the time of Henry, but the average commoner isn't going to be able to speak French. They would need an interpreter if anybody should ever need to address the nobility. So there's a cultural difference, a little bit of indifference between commoners and nobility.
Speaker 2:As we get to the reign of Henry I I Now King Henry, though described in glowing terms by our author William of Mansbury, was not a man to be messed with. He had a reputation for enforcing order, with sanctioned violence if needed, and in the early years of Henry I's reign was by no means 100% peaceful. There was a very brief conflict with his other two brothers who, shockingly all of them, felt that they had a claim to the English throne. So there was a brief period of conflict between Henry I and the other two sons of William the Conqueror and then Henry locked up his reign but there was still a lot of conflict and lawlessness in the countryside. Remember, we still have a countryside that is still learning to adjust to being under Norman rule, different ways of doing things, norman laws. And then there's still the entire northern half of England which is recovering from the harrying of the North from years earlier. So there's a lot of poison in the well of the commoners over the heirs of William and the Norman nobles. So King Henry I was quite ruthless in his early years in establishing law and order. However, it's hard to argue with results and it did seem, at least from our friend William of Malmesbury, that the English countryside was quickly restored to good order and a period of relative peace settles on England and Norman lands. Relative peace settles on England and Norman lands leading to the reign of Henry I, to be seen as one of the first positives.
Speaker 2:A receding hairline, but he was a heavily muscled man. You didn't want to mess around with him. But he is also a smooth political operator. He adjusted well between life at court and politics. He was equally smooth and capable. Dealing with nobility, dealing with clergy, dealing with whatever commoners he would have dealt with the soldiers. He could make jokes and he could be serious and he knew when to apply one versus the other in his dealings with people, the other in his dealings with people. Henry also commissioned the construction of several monasteries in England and Normandy which, if you're at all familiar with the Pillars of Earth book or TV series that I talked about or mentioned earlier on, is a huge part of that series or that book, building a massive cathedral in the English countryside. So we've established a little bit about Henry I.
Speaker 2:We have an idea of the wider life of England and English nobility, but of course the Roman Catholic Church and the clergy is extremely crucial to the life of any monarch and it's no less so during the reign of Henry I and his heirs and the period of the anarchy. So I think it's important we just take a moment and understand two key things about life in England. The first is how the inheritance of the English throne is determined. At this moment it's not necessarily taken for granted that the first son will inherit the throne, nor is it even a certainty that any sons of a king will inherit. Henry is able to take the throne through the support of the nobility and bishops of England and there is a kind of elective council called when a new king needs to be determined. Although it may oftentimes just be for show because the king has a lock on the council, nevertheless the council of nobility and senior clergy effectively elect and nominate the king. So having the support of the nobility and the bishops in England is absolutely crucial in becoming king of England. So clearly the king needs the support of these people not just the nobility but the senior bishops in order to ensure his dynasty continues to inherit the throne. And, in turn, all these people need the king's support in order to keep their lands and whatever else they need. Do favors, support the king and we'll support you in turn. And the clergy themselves were also often of the very same nobles that would make up the elective council.
Speaker 2:The brothers or cousins of powerful dukes or counts increased the power a single family could have on the king a brother who is a duke and your other brother is also a count in a major province, and you also have another brother or a cousin who's a bishop of a major part of England. Well then, that's what one, two, three votes on the council about who to determine the king is, and you myself may also have alliances and deals with other dukes, other counts, other bishops, so you can see voting blocks being a thing that the king has to deal with. So being the bishop or the head of an important monastery not only gave you a lot of influence on the king, but it also gave you access to being very wealthy. You were a rich man. A duke might have one or two counts and might even have a bishop within their family and maybe a senior monk at a powerful monastery that rakes in a lot of cash.
Speaker 2:Should the king happen to die, their votes to support the heir of the king were potentially very crucial. So you can see it's in the best interests of the king to both reward loyal nobles with lands and titles and appointments to bishoprics or to powerful monasteries, but also to prevent any one family from becoming too influential. You know, if you have too many votes then you can just keep the king under your thumb or maybe even, if you had some good claim to the throne, just push through your heir. So the ability for the king to appoint bishops is an important thing and, believe it or not, it's extraordinarily crucial to the period of time that we call the anarchy, because the support of the bishops are deciding votes as to who will rule England. So, before Henry I, the kings of England could appoint their own bishops. It was called investiture, and whoever has the power to appoint bishops in England not only controls massive amounts of wealth, but you have an outsized influence on who the future kings of England will be on. This council will be on this council. Not surprisingly, the Pope believes the power of this investiture belongs to the office of the Pope and the Pope alone. And, not surprisingly, the King of England and the kings of all of Europe, believe it or not all believe that the power of this investiture should belong to them so that they can secure their own dynasties through these councils. So, all over Europe, this investiture power is important, and one of the other things English kings did at this time is when they were nominated king is when they were nominated king.
Speaker 2:They often started office with what you might call today a political platform. If I'm in Canada, we elect our prime ministers. My neighbor to the south has a president. So every kind of president, prime minister, mayor, whatever that is, they all have a platform. This is what I'm going to do if you put me into office During this time.
Speaker 2:The kings of England have something very similar. When they first start their reign, they come out with a proclamation to say that this is the things I'm going to achieve in my reign, and it might be we're going to give this noble his lands here that I promised him. It might be we're going to build some monasteries, improve some roads, whatever that is. You can imagine these types of things being made in order to appease the elective council. So, henry, as part of his plan to secure the votes of the elective council, he promises to hand the power of investiture back over to the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome. Now he makes that promise, the council and the bishops support him. He becomes the elected king and then he tries to backtrack on that promise. And there is quite a few letters and normally I would quote you some of those because we'd spend several episodes talking about this to get into the details. If you want those details, I will be doing a future episode on the entire Anarchy or Future series and we will go into those details. I'll quote you some of those letters because I actually have copies of the letters between King Henry and the Pope and bishops and that sort of thing. However, there's a series of letters exchanged where Henry is effectively trying to extract from the Pope and the bishops their unwavering oath that they will support whoever Henry nominates for his heir, and they ultimately firmly agree to do that. And then Henry agrees to hand the power of investiture back over to the church, and this is a thing that's well celebrated by William of Monsbury, who's a Roman Catholic monk in England. So obviously he would celebrate any gain the Catholic Church had in what he felt was their God-given right.
Speaker 2:One of our main characters, king Henry I of England, who's the son of William the Conqueror of Normandy, his early reign, initial reign, was marked by some violence, some argument to get a lock on the support of the church for his heirs. And then there is a period, a long reign of peace across England, in which Henry is very well looked after and regarded. The wife of Henry, who has a very minor role to play in our story, but we're going to take a few brief moments and just we're going to talk about her. Her name is Matilda, queen Matilda. She's often referred to as Good Queen Maud. Queen Matilda spent her early years in a nunnery. She was extremely pious and she is a Scottish princess. In fact, for all our fans of Shakespeare here, matilda is the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, who is King of Alba, and this is the same Malcolm who is one of the characters in Shakespeare's Macbeth. So if you've read Macbeth, if you're familiar of the story of Macbeth, the character of Malcolm in Macbeth is Matilda's father. So this is how close in time Macbeth is to the period that we're talking about. So she's a Scottish princess. There isn't a united kingdom of Scotland yet. There's actually the kingdom of Alba is who Malcolm is the king of. So I think it's like the northern half of Scotland. She also has in her blood Anglo-Saxon kings of England, so she has in her blood that line of nobility. So by Henry I marrying her, not only is he ensuring the Norman nobility, but he is bringing some legitimacy back by getting somebody who has that Anglo-Saxon king blood in their veins and putting that back on the throne. And she is extraordinarily well regarded. Not only does she have this nickname, good Queen Maud, she has a reputation for being extremely pious and religious, but she also acted as regent of England for several years while Henry was off on his travels. Political operator on an equal level with King Henry.
Speaker 2:I, and through King Henry and our Queen Matilda, we have two heirs to the King of England. We have William of Adeline, who is the oldest son and the first son of King Henry, and we have the daughter of Henry and Matilda, who is also named Matilda after her mother. So these are our two crucial main characters that I'll be talking at in a moment. One other main character we're going to have involved here, who is a child of King Henry, is one of his illegitimate children, a man who will become known as Robert Earl of Gloucester. Gloucester William of Malmesbury refers to Henry as being extraordinarily pious, and he will become that eventually. But in his early years Henry was a notorious womanizer and he had lots of illegitimate children. And Robert the Earl of Gloucester is one of these illegitimate children and he will be a very crucial main character in the second part of our story.
Speaker 2:Next on our list of main characters is Stephen of Blois. He was born in Blois, france. He is the Count of Bologna, and that's Bologna, france, not Bologna, italy. He is a Duke of Normandy, but he is also part of the English lands. Remember, normandy is a part of England. Well, technically it's a part of France. We'll talk about that in just a moment. However, stephen of Blois, a duke of Normandy, count of Bologna, is a powerful, rich man, and he is of equivalent age to Matilda and her brother. So Stephen's mother is a woman by the name of Adela and she was a daughter of William of Normandy. So Adela is the sister of Henry I, both children of William the Conqueror. So Stephen of Blois is the cousin of the heirs to the king. He is also you know he's right in that generation. So remember this name, stephen of Blois, because he will be of crucial importance and I will talk about him briefly in a moment as we lead up to our main event here. So now that we have an understanding about what life in England is like, who the main players are like, who the main players are, let's talk about what the triggers are for this generation-long civil war that's known as the Anarchy.
Speaker 2:At age 13, prince William Adeline that's Henry's son and heir received a pledge of loyalty from every noble in the realm, from both England and Normandy. He was also betrothed to the daughter of the Earl of Anjou, a province within Normandy, and at that exact same time, the King of France demanded the Duke of Normandy come and pay homage to him. Well, at that time, the Duke of Normandy is actually King Henry I. So this is a power play from the King of France. He's trying to make King Henry come and pay homage and bend the knee to him. King Henry, come and pay homage and bend the knee to him, which King Henry doesn't want to do so. At age 13, king Henry negotiated with the King of France to have his son become the legal Duke of Normandy, and then he sent Prince William to the King of France to pay homage, which was all well and done. And at that time, henry and William, his court and a bunch of the children of the nobles who were sent to be with William Adeline all went to Normandy and they stayed there for several years, effectively ruling the lands from Normandy. And after four years passed, prince William Adeline will be approximately 17 years old and Henry decides to return to England.
Speaker 2:The trip across the Channel was split into two ships, one for the king and his court and the other for the prince and his being the heir presumptive to the kingdom of England. William Adeline had most of the children of the English nobility with him, ones who were of his approximate age group. The noble families were obviously hopeful that their own children would become friends with the prince and benefit from being in his good graces when it came time for Prince William to become King William. The prince reportedly spent the afternoon drinking with his friends on shore while his father left in the first ship with the intention of being able to leave later and still beat Henry across the Channel. King Henry had given William one of the fastest and newest ships in his fleet. It was named the White Ship and, unfortunately, it seems the evening launch of the ship to have been a poor choice, as the ship was barely away from the coast when it struck rocks, got stuck on them and then took on water and sank.
Speaker 2:Some rowboats were managed to be launched from the ship. The prince and a few others were on one such boat and, according to survivors, as the prince was rowing towards the shore, he heard the cries of his half-sister, the Countess of Perche. That's another of Henry's illegitimate children. She was crying for help and he turned the rescue boat around to go and help her, and as he did so, as he was moving through the water towards the ship, the people that were already in the water and drowning, started latching onto his boat while he was trying to make his way to his half-sister, and the weight of the people grabbing onto the boat became too much and it too capsized. It overturned, the prince fell into the water and, along with everybody else on that boat, they all drowned. So much of the English nobility, or the children of the English nobility, drowned in what has become known as the White Ship Disaster. One single sailor had managed to hold on to a piece of driftwood and drifted through the night in the cold channel November waters and managed to get back to France, and he is the only survivor that lived.
Speaker 2:To tell the tale, king Henry, though crushed, would not have any more heirs until his death, leaving as the only possible heir to the kingdom of England his daughter Matilda. Matilda had not been part of the English court for many years now. At the age of six, she was married off to the Holy Roman Emperor, henry V, and she was sent off to Germany to be raised there. There was roughly an 18-year age difference between Henry V, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and Matilda, if you're wondering, and she would later reluctantly return to England, having been virtually raised in the German court after her husband, the emperor, died and Henry, king Henry called her back home. And Henry, king Henry called her back home. On her return, king Henry would call all the nobility of England and all the clergy to London over the Christmas holidays. He had them all swear an oath that if he should die without a male heir, that they would quoting our author, our historian William of Malmesbury, who was present they would, without delay or hesitation, accept his daughter, matilda, as their sovereign end quote.
Speaker 2:The crucial argument put forward was not only that Matilda was the daughter and rightful heir to the throne because of his virtue as being king, but, as I pointed out earlier, within the blood of Matilda she had in her the blood, through her mother, of all the Anglo-Saxon kings of England. Fourteen generations of English royalty were effectively in her veins. The Archbishop of Canterbury, which is the head of all the clergy within England. He was the first to swear the oath of loyalty, followed by the entire rest of the clergy, that would be all the bishops as well as the senior monks from the senior major monasteries. Then Matilda's uncle, king David of Scotland, swore an oath to uphold her right as heir. Robert, the Earl of Gloucester, that's her half-brother. All the nobility swore this oath, including Stephen that I talked about, who was her cousin. And then Henry married Matilda off to a French noble, who he needed as an ally. Ten years later, king Henry would have all the nobility and clergy, including Stephen of Blois, renew that very same oath, promising to uphold Matilda as heir.
Speaker 2:But later, that same year, william of Malmesbury writes of some terrible portents that wracked England. A disease swept through most of the livestock in the country, killing many of the animals they used for feed, causing a famine, later followed by both an eclipse and an earthquake. William said the following of the eclipse quote I saw the stars around the sun and at the time of the earthquake, the walls of the house in which I was sitting was lifted up by two shocks and then settled again with a third. As the year continued on, henry would catch ill during a hunting trip and then die very shortly afterwards, setting up what should have been a smooth succession for his daughter, matilda, whom all the clergy, all the nobility, including our friend Stephen of Blois, had twice sworn an oath to honor and acknowledge her as the heir to the throne of England. But let's find out what happens in the second half of our episode.
Speaker 1:The night, air cuts like a blade across the frozen Thames and snow falls so heavy it seems to muffle the very concept of sound. It is December 6th 1142, in Oxford, england, empress Matilda stands at a narrow window in Oxford Castle watching the campfires of Stephen's army spread across the winter landscape like fallen stars. For three months, those fires have burned a constellation of siege that has slowly, methodically, strangled her rebellion. She's 39 years old and the rightful heir to the English throne. Widow of a Holy Roman Emperor, mother to the future Henry II, she has fought for this crown for seven years, endured capture and escape, victory and defeat, the loyalty and betrayal of men who swore sacred oaths to support her claim, of men who swore sacred oaths to support her claim. Tonight, for the first time since landing in England, she faces the possibility that it might all end in the cold tower road, overlooking a frozen river Behind her.
Speaker 1:Three of her most loyal companions prepare for what any reasonable person would call suicide. They wrap themselves in white cloaks, check the ropes that they'll use to scale down the castle walls, test the sharpness of daggers. Pray they won't need it. The plan is madness Walk past Stephen's sentries in a blizzard, cross a frozen river and somehow reach Wallingford Castle 15 miles away. The madness in December of 1142, is the only strategy left, milady, whispers Brian Fitzcount, her most devoted supporter, a man who has loved her from afar for two decades. If we're captured, we won't be. Matilda, replies, though her voice betrays nothing of the certainty her words claim. She pulls the white cloak tighter around her shoulders and tests its color against the snow gathering on the windowsill. Perfect camouflage. Perfect camouflage can overcome the fundamental impossibility of what they're about to attempt. Outside, she can hear Stephen's soldiers calling passwords for each other, their voices muffled by wind and snow. Some of these men she knew as courtiers in her father's time, when they swore oaths to support her succession. Now they hunt her through a winter night, following a king whose only legitimate claim to the throne was that he'd seize that faster than she could. And precisely midnight they begin their descent, hand over hand, down the road that grows slick with ice, past stone walls that have protected English royalty for decades but tonight offer only the echo of their breathing. When they reach the ground, the snow is so deep it comes nearly to their knees, and so thick they can barely see five feet ahead. And yet they begin to walk.
Speaker 1:This is the story of the Anarchy Period on Double Helix Blueprint of Nations. You know how they say you can't understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I'd argue, you can't understand a nation until you've walked through its history, not just the highlight reel or the sanitized version you find in textbooks. I mean really getting into its DNA, those defining moments that shaped everything that came after, those moments where paths were chosen, where decisions were made in palaces and backrooms and city streets that changed the course of millions of lives. I'm your host, paul, and this is Double Helix Blueprint of Nations, where we unravel the genetic code of countries through their most transformative moments. Think of it like ancestry testing, but for entire nations. We dig deep into the historical DNA, finding those crucial moments that made countries who they are today.
Speaker 1:What you've just witnessed, if the chronicles are to be believed, is one of the most audacious escapes in medieval history An empress, rightful queen of England, walking past an entire army in a snowstorm because her white cloak made her invisible against the winter landscape. It sounds like something from a fantasy novel, except it actually happened and it captures everything about the period the Victorians would later call the Anarchy, a time when reality consistently outpaced fiction, when the impossible became routine and when the future of English kingship was decided by a combination of courage, luck and the sheer, bloody-minded refusal of people to accept defeat. But Matilda's midnight walk through the snow isn't just a thrilling escape story. It's the culmination of a constitutional crisis that began, as Jeremy has shown us, with a shipwreck in 1120 and escalated into something that would reshape the very DNA of English governance. This is the story of how civil war, fought like a chess match by people who treated treason as a career option, accidentally created the foundations of constitutional monarchy. Today we're exploring the second half of our theme, when history is stranger than fiction, because if the white ship disaster reads like the opening chapter of an epic tragedy, the anarchy that follows reads like someone decided Game of Thrones wasn't quite complicated enough. Let me take you back to the moment when this all began, not the shipwreck Jeremy described, but the constitutional crisis it made inevitable.
Speaker 1:We are in Westminster Abbey, december 22nd of 1135. Stephen of Blois stands before the altar about to be crowned King of England by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's been exactly three weeks since his uncle, henry I, died in Normandy, and Stephen has moved with breathtaking speed to claim a throne that, by every legal and moral standard of the time, belongs to Henry's daughter, matilda. How has he pulled this off? The answer reveals everything about medieval politics that modern people struggle to understand. Stephen hasn't just seized power. He's constructed an elaborate fiction that allows everyone involved to pretend he is the legitimate heir. The key architect of this fiction is his brother, henry of Bloch, bishop of Winchester and the second richest man in England. Henry has convinced the church that Stephen's previous oath to support Matilda doesn't count. Because, conveniently, the royal steward Hugh Bygod count. Because, conveniently, the royal steward Hugh Bygod swears that King Henry changed his mind on his deathbed and named Stephen instead. Is this true? Almost certainly not. Hugh Bygod is probably lying through his teeth, but it's the kind of lie that powerful men tell themselves when they want to justify doing what they were planning to do. Anyway, the English barons don't want a woman on the throne, especially not one married to Geoffrey of Anjou, their traditional enemy. So they embrace this convenient legal fiction and crown Stephen with all the ceremonial dignity of legitimate succession. As Stephen kneels to receive the crown, one witness, a minor clerk whose account survives in monastic records, notes something telling. The king's hand shook as he took the scepter, though whether from excitement or guilt I could not determine, but I noticed he avoided looking towards the floor, as though he expected someone to arrive and dispute his claim. And someone would just not for another four years.
Speaker 1:For the first three years of Stephen's reign, his gamble seems to pay off brilliantly. He is everything his predecessor wasn't. It's charming. Where Henry was harsh, generous, where Henry was miserly accessible, where Henry was remote, he hands out heirlooms like party favors, grants, land and privileges with the easy confidence of a man who believes loyalty can be purchased. But Stephen has made a fundamental miscalculation. He's assumed that successful kingship is about popularity, about being the kind of ruler people want to serve. What he hasn't grasped is that medieval kingship is about fear, and not just fear of the king's displeasure, but fear of the consequence of opposing a king who might actually win. And by 1138, as rebellions begin to flare across his realm, stephen is starting to look like a king who might not. The catalyst comes from an unexpected source Robert of Gloucester, henry I's illegitimate son and one of the most powerful men in England. For three years Robert has kept his peace, apparently accepting Stephen's rule, but in 1138, he makes a choice that will plunge England into civil war for the next 15 years. He makes a choice that will plunge England into civil war for the next fifteen years. Gloucester Castle, summer 1138.
Speaker 1:Robert stands in his private chamber dictating a letter to Stephen that represents a formal renunciation of feudal loyalty, what medievalists call defiance. The words are carefully chosen, precise in their legal implication To Stephen, who calls himself King of England. I renounce that homage and fealty. I have sworn to you, for you have broken faith with my father's memory and usurped the throne that rightfully belongs to my sister, the Empress Matilda. Robert's secretary, a learned clerk named William of Mammelsbury, pauses in his writing. My lord, he says carefully, once this letter is sent, there can be no going back. You're declaring war on the King of England. Robert looks out of the window towards the harbor where ships are being prepared to carry his message to Normandy and to bring his sister home to claim her birthright. William, he replies, stephen stopped being King of England the moment he broke his oath to my father, but we're declaring war on his usurper, who's been clever enough to get himself crowned.
Speaker 1:This distinction between legitimate authority and successful seizure of power will define everything that follows, because what Robert is really announcing isn't just rebellion against Stephen, but the beginning of England's first constitutional crisis. The question isn't just who will be king, but what makes a king legitimate in the first place. When Matilda finally lands in England in September of 1139, she brings more than an army. She brings a completely different understanding of royal authority. More than an army, she brings a completely different understanding of royal authority. Where Stephen rules through consensus and generosity, matilda governs through uncompromising assertion of hereditary right. Where Stephen adapts to political realities, matilda expects political realities to adapt to her. This philosophical divide creates a conflict unlike anything England has experienced since the Norman conquest. It's not just civil war. It's a laboratory for testing different theories of kingship played out with real armies and real consequences.
Speaker 1:Arendelle Castle, september 1139. Matilda has just landed and taken refuge with her stepmother, queen Adeliza. Stephen faces his first crucial decision Storm the castle and capture his rival immediately or allow her safe passage to rally her supporters. Any competent military strategist would choose the first option capture his rival immediately or allow her safe passage to rally her supporters. Any competent military strategist would choose the first option. Stephen chose the second. Why? Because Stephen still thinks like a usurper trying to prove his legitimacy, not like a king defending his throne. Attacking a castle where his stepmother has claimed sanctuary would violate the chivalric code he desperately needs to uphold. So he hands Matilda safe passage to Bristol, where her brother Robert waits with an army. As one chronicler acidly observes, the king showed much courtesy to his enemies that he might as well have provided her with a siege engine and a map of the castle's weak points. This decision reveals everything about Stephen's fundamental weakness as a war leader. He's fighting for a crown he seized through decisive action, but now he's paralyzed by the very scruples that were supposed to be legitimized with his seizure. It's a contradiction that will haunt him throughout the war.
Speaker 1:The war that follows defies every convention of medieval conflict. Instead of the decisive battles that usually settle succession disputes, england gets a grinding, attritional struggle that lasts nearly two decades. Instead of clear victories and defeats, there are endless sieges, temporary captures, negotiated truces and bewildering changes of allegiance. Take the Battle of Lincoln in February of 1141, the one moment when it seems like the war might actually be decided by conventional military action. Stephen, besieging Lincoln Castle, finds himself attacked by an army led by Robert of Gloucester and Randolph Earl of Chester. Instead of withdrawing to fight on better terms, stephen chooses to give battle immediately.
Speaker 1:Picture the scene A winter morning, two armies facing each other across frozen mud, the King of England personally leading a cavalry charge. Because that's what heroic kings do in the stories that he's grown up reading. For a moment it must have felt like the old certainty still applied that divine right and personal valor could settle questions of legitimacy. Then Stephen Swords is killed from under him. His battleaxe breaks, earl Ruther's men surround him and suddenly the King of England is a prisoner, chained by the ankles in Bristol Castle like a common criminal. News of Stephen's capture creates a constitutional crisis within the constitutional crisis. If the king is a prisoner, who rules England? Matilda moves quickly to fill the vacuum, styling herself Lady of the English and preparing for coronation in London. For a brief moment it seems like the war might actually be over. But this is where reality becomes genuinely stranger than fiction, because the people of London not the barons, not the church, but the actual citizens of the capital take one look at Empress Matilda and essentially tell her to go get lost.
Speaker 1:London, june 1141. Matilda has established herself in Westminster, demanding taxes to pay her army and grants to reward her supporters. She's imperious, uncompromising, refusing to negotiate with the city's merchants and guild leaders who've come to express concern about her policies. The meeting doesn't go well, as one witness records. The Empress spoke to the London Burgess as though they were servants, not citizens. She demanded rather than requested, commanded rather than consulted. When they protested the size of the tax levy, she reminded them that she was their rightful queen by divine appointment, not by their sufferance.
Speaker 1:What happens next belongs in a comedy, except for the very real political consequences. The citizens of London, merchants, artisans, apprentices, riot. Not a palace coup orchestrated by nobles, but actual urban revolt by people who decided that they don't want this particular queen, by people who decided that they don't want this particular queen. They storm Westminster, forcing Matilda to flee the capital before her coronation can even take place. Think about what this means. The rightful heir to the English throne, whose claim has been acknowledged by Hafton nobility, is chased out of her own capital by angry shopkeepers.
Speaker 1:Medieval chroniclers struggled to find precedent for such an event, because there really isn't one. The idea that popular opinion could override hereditary rights simply doesn't exist in their political vocabulary. But it happened and it reveals something profound about the nature of royal authority that neither Stephen nor Matilda fully understood. Power wasn't just about legal claims or military force. It was about acceptance, about the complicated relationship between rulers and ruled. That couldn't be reduced to simple formulas to simple formulas. Meanwhile, stephen's wife also named Matilda, because medieval naming conventions were designed to confuse future historians has been busy. While her husband sits in chains, she's raised an army and captured Robert of Gloucester.
Speaker 1:Now we get the prisoner exchange that defines the war's essential character the King of England for an illegitimate earl. Kings in medieval theory rule by divine right and can be treated like ordinary prisoners of war. Yet here's Stephen, swapped like a chess piece because military necessities trump royal dignity. Chess piece because military necessities trump royal dignity. The exchange doesn't just free the king, it fundamentally alters the nature of English kingship by demonstrating that even crown monarchs can be held accountable through force. But the war's absolute peak of impossibility comes the following winter, when Matilda finds herself besieged at Oxford Castle. Stephen has learned from his earlier mistakes. This time there will be no chivalry courtesy, no safe passage. He's going to starve her out and end this rebellion once and for all.
Speaker 1:Which brings us back to that snowy night on December of 1142. Matilda, wrapped in her white cloak, walking past Stephen's sentries, with three companions crossing the frozen Thames River in a blizzard, because camouflage and courage are her only remaining weapons. And if that wasn't enough, the escape works. Against all odds, against all military logic, it actually works. It's made right out of a movie script. By dawn she's reached Wallingford Castle, 15 miles away, where Brienne Fitzcount waits with her horses in a garrison that remained loyal through seven years of civil war. When Matthew Parris writes about this escape 70 years later, even he seems skeptical, hedging with phrases like it is said and possibly fanciful. But archaeological evidence supports the basic story. It was indeed a postern gate at Oxford Castle. The Thames did freeze that winter and Matilda certainly escaped somehow to continue fighting for another six years.
Speaker 1:This is what makes the anarchy so endlessly fascinating. It's full of moments that sound like they were invented by a novelist who didn't care about believability. Except most of these events, at least as far as we know, actually happened. Here's what's remarkable about the war how it was fought. If you're imagining constant pitch battles and blood-soaked fields, you're thinking the wrong kind of conflict. The anarchy was fought more like an incredibly violent chess match, where the pieces were castles and players were perfectly willing to wait decades for the right move.
Speaker 1:Archaeological evidence from places like Wallingford Castle tells us something fascinating about medieval siege warfare. Despite being under almost constant military pressure for 14 years, there's surprisingly little evidence of direct assault, no massive breaches, no piles of arrowheads from desperate last stands. Instead, you find evidence of what one archaeologist calls performative warfare High-status military equipment deliberately discarded in castle ditches, not lost in battle but thrown away as symbols of content. Siege castles built not to attack but to intimidate Soldiers playing in elaborate games of medieval chicken, where the goal wasn't necessarily to win quickly but to force your opponent to make the first costly mistake. This is warfare as psychological theater, where appearances matter as much as reality.
Speaker 1:Stephen builds rings of siege castles around enemy strongholds, and not to storm them, but to demonstrate that he can afford to tie up armies for years at a time. Matilda's supporters respond by holding out behind walls that weren't really that strong, banking on Stephen's reluctance to take heavy casualties in direct assaults. The only really gory moment at Wallingford, when Matilda's supporters beheaded 60 of Stephen's archers, not in the heat of battle, but apparently as a calculated message about the consequences of serving the wrong side. It is a profoundly alien way of thinking about conflict. In our age of decisive battles and total war, the idea that you could besiege the same castle three separate times for over 14 years without ever seriously trying to take it seems almost absurd. But that is exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:By 1153, everyone was exhausted. The war had lasted 19 years, longer than most medieval kings ruled. An entire generation had grown up knowing nothing but civil conflict. The economic cost was staggering. Trade was completely disrupted, agriculture devastated, royal revenues a fraction of what they had been under Henry I. More importantly, the fundamental question that started the war whether Matilda or Stephen had the better claim to the throne had been rendered moot by this time. Matilda was now 51. Her active campaigning days were well behind her, but her son, henry, was 20, married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, ruler of vast territories in France and, clearly, the future.
Speaker 1:Whether Stephen liked it or not, the end came not through military victory, but through biological reality. Stephen's sons Eustache, his intended heir and the main obstacle to peace, died unexpectedly in August of 1153. And with him died Stephen's dynastic claims and any reason to continue fighting. The Treaty of Wallingford, signed on November of 1153, was a masterpiece of face-saving compromise. Stephen remained king for life, but acknowledged Henry as his heir. Stephen remained king for life, but acknowledged Henry as his heir. The Civil War was over, the succession crisis resolved and the Plantagenet dynasty, which would rule England for the next three centuries, was established. Stephen died peacefully in his bed a year later, probably of the stomach problems that had plagued him throughout the war. Henry II would eventually be crowned without opposition, founding a dynasty that included Richard the Lionheart, john Lackland and, eventually, edward I's Longshanks.
Speaker 1:So what did 19 years of constitutional chaos actually accomplish? On the surface, it seems almost pointless Massive human and economic costs to reach a compromise that might have been negotiated in 1135 if people had been more reasonable. But the anarchy changed something fundamental about English kingship. It established precedents that would echo through centuries of constitutional development the idea that royal authority requires some form of consent. The notion that even legitimate monarchs could be resisted if they governed badly. The precedent that England's laws and customs were somehow separate from and superior to pure royal will. Separate from and superior to pure royal will.
Speaker 1:The chroniclers of this period monks who lived through it developed a distinctive voice that was critical of royal authority in ways that would have been unthinkable earlier, when they write about the sleeping of Christ and his saints during the Stephen's reign. They're not just describing political chaos. They're articulating a theology of good governance, the idea that rulers who fail their people lose divine favor. This is the intellectual foundation for every subsequent English revolution, from the Baron's War to the Civil War, to the Glorious Revolution the idea that legitimate authority has limits and that those limits are enforced not just by military power but by something approaching public opinion. The anarchy also created England's first truly national literature of resistance.
Speaker 1:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written by a monk at Pitterborough gives us the common man's perspective. Written by a monk at Pitterborough gives us the common man's perspective. They filled the land with castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. They said openly that Christ and his saints slept. This is the voice of someone watching the kingdom tear itself apart over what seemed like minor problems To ordinary people. They were all legal technicalities. Whether Matilda's gender disqualified her from rule, whether Stephen's oath to support her was binding, whether popular acclamation could override hereditary succession. These weren't abstract questions. Every castle built meant peasants' force into unpaid labor. Every siege meant crops burned and livestock stolen. Every year the war continued meant another year when local courts didn't function, when trade routes stayed dangerous, when the basic infrastructure of medieval life slowly crumbled. But in that suffering something new was born the idea that royal authority was accountable to more than just military force or legal president, the notion that legitimate government requires some form of consent from the governed, even if that consent was expressed through riot rather than the ballot box.
Speaker 1:Looking back from our 21st century perspective, the anarchy offers characters and situations so dramatic that any competent novelist would tone them down for believability A succession decided by who could lie most convincingly about a death-bath confession, a civil war fought like an elaborate game where the rules kept changing. An empress who escaped capture by camouflaging herself with winter weather, or a kingdom saved by the unexpected death of a prince nobody really liked anyway. But it also shows us something profound about how national identities are forged in crisis. England emerged from the anarchy with a distinctive approach to royal authority that was pragmatic, consensual and surprisingly resistant to absolutism. Not because anyone planned it that way, but because 19 years of constitutional chaos had forced everyone nobles, the church, the common people—to think seriously about the difference between legitimate and illegitimate rule. The boy who would become Henry II inherited a kingdom that had learned the hard way that royal authority was something that had to be continuously earned rather than simply assumed. That lesson, written in the ruins of adultering castles and the blood of the Civil War, became part of England's political DNA.
Speaker 1:This has been our collaborative episode with Jeremy Acnew from Grimdark History. I hope you'll check out his podcast for his brilliant exploration of how the white ship disaster set it all into motion and how historical reality often exceeds anything fiction writers would dare to invent. Before we close, if you're enjoying these journeys through the DNA of nations, please take a moment to rate and follow both Double Helix Blueprint of Nations and Grimdark History wherever you get your podcasts. Your ratings help other history lovers discover their stories, and Jeremy and I both pour our hearts into bringing you the human complexity behind the moments that shaped our world, the reviews that help algorithms find fellow travelers on these intellectual adventures and join our growing community of people who believe that understanding the past is essential to navigating the present. I also have some exciting news for long-time listeners I'll be remastering the entire Colombian conflict series and the American Civil War episodes to better match the new cinematic direction the show has taken. So think of that as a director's cut Same essential stories, but told with a deeper character, focus and immersive storytelling techniques that we've developed over the past year or so. I'll also be revisiting some of the old friends from season one, where we first met leaders who had profoundly influenced the character and history of their nations. And these are not just reruns, they are completely reimagined episodes that will give you new insights into figures you thought you already knew. So stay tuned as these old but new episodes start hitting your feed in the coming months.
Speaker 1:Next time, on Double Helix, we continue our exploration of pivotal moments that shaped nations when we are traveling through Ethiopia and the Battle of Adwa in March 1st 1896, when Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia achieved something that seemed impossible. Picture Italian forces advancing into what they believed would be another easy colonial conquest, only to face an Ethiopian army that had spent months preparing the perfect trap. This was not just a military victory. It was psychological warfare against the European assumption of African inferiority. One day's fighting created Ethiopia's distinctive defiance reflex that sent shockwaves across the continent, where European dominance had seemed inevitable. We'll witness how this single battle rewrote the rules of African resistance and created ripple effects that echoed through decolonization movements worldwide. Until then, thank you for listening, listening. We will see you soon.
