If the average person knows anything about Empress Matilda it is likely to be the romantic story of her escape from Oxford in the winter of 1142. She had been besieged for weeks at Oxford Castle by Stephen of Blois, her cousin and rival for the throne of England. Castle supplies were running low and the situation was desperate. 

One December night, during a heavy snowfall, Matilda and three loyal knights lowered a rope from a window in St George’s Tower and silently climbed down. Donning white cloaks as camouflage, they stole across the frozen river and through the ranks of Stephen’s men, eventually making it to Wallingford Castle, the stronghold of one of Matilda’s supporters.

However, according to this new biography of the woman who would have been England’s first queen, chroniclers almost certainly embellished the tale. Matilda probably left the castle by a little-used gate at a time when the watch was lax. Professor Elisabeth van Houts of the University of Cambridge does her best to strip away the exaggerations and distortions of previous writers to provide as full, and as sober, an account of Matilda’s life as we are likely to get.

Matilda was born in 1102, the only daughter of Henry I and Matilda of Scotland. At just eight years old, she was promised to Henry V of Germany, the Holy Roman Emperor, almost two decades her senior, and packed off to Germany. The couple were married in 1114 and she became indispensable to the emperor.

On his death in 1125, she was recalled home by her father the king, who arranged for her to be married to 14-year-old Geoffrey of Anjou. Her father declared her his successor, his only son having drowned in 1120, and compelled the nobility to swear an oath acknowledging her as next in line.

But when Henry died in 1135, Stephen, his nephew, seized the throne before Matilda was able to, triggering a civil war that lasted from 1138 to 1153. This period used to be known as ‘the Anarchy’ and it was said that ‘Christ and all his saints slept’ as the armies of Stephen and Matilda battled for supremacy. Eventually, a stalemate was reached and in the Treaty of Westminster of 1153, King Stephen recognised Matilda’s son as his successor. He was crowned Henry II of England in 1154, after Stephen’s death.

Matilda retired to Normandy and died in 1167. Writers of her time dubbed her imperious and haughty but that was probably simple misogyny. As van Houts shows, she was redoubtable, resilient and clever.

Empress Matilda is likely to become the standard text on her life, certainly for the lay reader.