A succession crisis that tore England apart (2023)(historytoday.com) |
A succession crisis that tore England apart (2023)(historytoday.com) |
G.R.R.M.: it's free real estate
Is always true, unless they somehow all comply with precisely equal reluctance.
> However, even such a decisive military victory was not enough to overturn a genuinely deep-seated prejudice against a female monarch.
Clearly prejudice, and lack of precedent, materially hampered Matilda's attempt at the throne, but speculative and reductive statements like these carry a whiff of dubious history. It gives the impression that Matilda's failed succession hinged uniquely on her gender, when her own father Henry I only gained power after a long and violent succession struggle involving both of his siblings. I assume the author's book goes into much greater detail on the many reasons Matilda's succession never achieved critical mass in England, but I think this short an article is probably worse for giving so much emphasis to this particular detail.
> The bark that held a prince went down,
> The sweeping waves roll’d on;
> And what was England’s glorious crown
> To him that wept a son?
> He lived-for life may long be borne
> Ere sorrow break its chain;-
> Why comes not death to those who mourn?
> —He never smiled again!
Yes 1066 was a peaceful transition and certainly not a scramble
I don't know about that, the quoted criticisms sound a lot like those that would be levelled at a king too. The issue is more that nobody expects a man to care, even a little bit, if someone accuses him of being crude and arbitrary in his search for power. Obviously it is gendered, but the actual complaints are generic. Anyone with serious power has to bat through things like that.
I can give an example by swapping in Trump. The criticism holds up with a gender swap, adjusted for the fact that by default we expect a man to be in the office so it isn't explicitly gendered. This sounds like stock criticism of him that might turn up in any political conversation.
[Donald Trump] at once put on an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to --the gentle sex-- [his office], began to walk and speak and do all things more stiffly and haughtily than [he] had been wont … [he] arranged everything as [he himself] thought fit and according to [his] own arbitrary will.
In particular, the belief that a married woman had no agency separate from her husband, who would then be de facto king, continued all the way up to Elisabeth II. Much reduced and not ultimately a problem, but it was still discussed at the time of her coronation.
What is more interesting in all this is the reminder of the succession crisis. Monarchy is "supposed to" reduce chaotic power struggles like this by making it unambiguous, but quite often the English succession was disputed or passed down through a second degree relationship.
I'm sure being a woman counted against her, bit if the article is going to put up a quote as evidence of sexism then it shouldn't be a passage that can be realistically adapted to any politician ever. If the article had a passage that says "we can't let this woman be king, she can't even own property!" that would be different. But the quote in the article doesn't sound ludicrous when applied to a man. It sounds like something that is routinely said of men in positions of power.
It could even keep the superficial gendering if you wanted it to, there is a lot of argument that men in positions of power should be exhibiting positive masculine bearing (stoicism, accountability, honour, etc, etc) that politicians routinely fail at to great public outcry.
This predates married women losing the right to control their own property https://lawandhistoryreview.org/article/married-womens-prope...
Would be interesting if there were any texts at the time discussing this.
I’m asking out of genuine curiosity not to start an argument.
Anna Jagiellon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Jagiellon
If you want to learn more about early medieval attitudes to women and power in England, it’s on you to learn, not on the article to triple its length to prove every minor claim.
> an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex
That is, the 'Gesta Stephani' is claiming that she should not be arrogant because it is not proper, because she is a woman.
That evidence?
Perhaps what you consider generic criticism was considered gendered criticism at the time?
France only had kings at that point (in fact, Matilda’s son Henry II’s marriage to Eleanor of Acquitaine comes about because she didn’t give the king of France a son!)
Germany (HRE) selected their emperor so didn’t have succession problems in that sense.
Italy was a collection of city states, Naples was yet to form a kingdom.
Maybe Poland had an earlier queen? But then I don’t know if English nobles paid much attention to Poland, to be honest!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_monarchs
it seems like the rest of the world (India, China, Thailand, Egypt, ...) had female monarchs of various sorts ('queen regnant' seems like a relevant terminology here, I'm not sure).
The closest ones to Europe (discounting ancient Egypt?) might be:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85sa_Haraldsdottir_of_Agde... (semi-legendary)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinar_of_Hereti (11th C. Georgian)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica (of course, also other less-well known Britons)
Actually, there are a fair few Greek and Spanish examples. One other possible might be:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronilla_of_Aragon (12th C.)
We might reasonably infer that she got called arrogant for doing something that wouldn't be considered arrogance in a man, the article has unhelpfully elided that detail (maybe the original author did as well). But we've also got to admit she might have actually been unusually arrogant, that does happen from time to time. If I were in charge of a military I'd be standing around even more arrogant than I already am.
pjc50 offered a good example of something that was actually gendered - women not being able to own property in their own right for whatever unfair reason. The quote isn't that sort of out-and-obvious sexism. Said quote could almost be modern political whinging.
PS I'll add in an acknowledgement that words did mean different things back then so possibly at the time the only reasonable reading was with an "[as with all women]" on the end, but the fact is that as written this quote is making specific accusations of arrogance and arbitraryness that are not contained to either gender and are bad in all leaders, female or otherwise. He didn't write "women are all arrogant" or "women are all arbitrary". If anything the thrust of the quote is most women weren't either of those things. It doesn't support the idea of double standards or ludicrous criticism that would never be made of a man.
To address your question, though, yes I absolutely read "proper to the gentler sex" to be a statement about how Queen Mathilda _ought_ to have behaved. Also I have strong doubts that men (especially male rulers) at the time would have had the same standard set for arrogance. Of course a King could be in fact arrogant and then critics might point that out, but I do not see why they would bring his sex into it.
One thing we might agree on is that all political criticism can be false, and whether or not she was _actually_ arrogant is difficult to say. In the context of a bitter civil war, any record of events will have the strong bias of the author. The modern world did not invent fake news.
Yes but that is my point. They're making the article longer by including evidence that undermines its claims. They should have either made the claim and let it stand without evidence, or they should have aligned what they said to the evidence they felt was worth including.
If they're going to claim gendered criticism then hold up generic criticism as the best example of criticism it confuses the picture. Assuming that there was gendered criticism happening somewhere off to the side out of sight, was that the decisive criticism? Or was it the criticisms that the article writer felt were important enough to include in the article?
Because the impression the article is giving is that people weren't complaining about her gender, but the fact she was behaving arbitrarily and arrogantly. That is good reason not to put a man in charge too - if you see a man acting arbitrarily and arrogantly it is also a mistake to put him in charge of anything and he would be criticised for it. I do that all the time, there are a lot of unprincipled men in politics who should be called out for their hubris. And they are.
Now it may be that what she was doing wouldn't be considered arrogance and hubris in a man (we don't know exactly because the article is short) but "double standards" and "sound ludicrous if aimed at a man" are simply not true. We hold men to the same standard and make the same criticisms of them.
Let me repeat: this is not intended as a thesis. It’s a small historical tale to explain the background of a period of time in early mediaeval England. It assumes you know how women were viewed during that time period and the example provides flavour. If you want to contradict its claims, just post the articles that shows differently.
I don’t think the modern day Privy Council ever met with Elizabeth II in such a way!
"Privy" more generally means private or personal, which explains its use for a group which advises specifically the monarch alone.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privy_Council_of_England#Name