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    Stephen and Matilda's Civil War: Cousins of Anarchy
    Unavailable
    Stephen and Matilda's Civil War: Cousins of Anarchy
    Unavailable
    Stephen and Matilda's Civil War: Cousins of Anarchy
    Ebook409 pages7 hours

    Stephen and Matilda's Civil War: Cousins of Anarchy

    By Matthew Lewis

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Two cousins waged war for the future of England. Only one could win. This is the story of Stephen and Matilda, and the civil war remembered as The Anarchy.

    The Anarchy was the first civil war in post-Conquest England, enduring throughout the reign of King Stephen between 1135 and 1154. It ultimately brought about the end of the Norman dynasty and the birth of the mighty Plantagenet kings. When Henry I died having lost his only legitimate son in a shipwreck, he had caused all of his barons to swear to recognize his daughter Matilda, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor, as his heir and remarried her to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. When she was slow to move to England on her father’s death, Henry’s favorite nephew Stephen of Blois rushed to have himself crowned, much as Henry himself had done on the death of his brother William Rufus.

    Supported by his brother Henry, Bishop of Winchester, Stephen made a promising start, but Matilda would not give up her birthright and tried to hold the English barons to their oaths. The result was more than a decade of civil war that saw England split apart. Empress Matilda is often remembered as aloof and high-handed, Stephen as ineffective and indecisive. By following both sides of the dispute and seeking to understand their actions and motivations, Matthew Lewis aims to reach a more rounded understanding of this crucial period of English history and asks to what extent there really was anarchy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPen and Sword History
    Release dateJan 19, 2020
    ISBN9781526718358
    Unavailable
    Stephen and Matilda's Civil War: Cousins of Anarchy
    Author

    Matthew Lewis

    Dr Matthew Lewis is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Until September 2013, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Centre for War Studies at University College Dublin. He completed his PhD at Queen's University Belfast in 2011.

    Read more from Matthew Lewis

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