Twice Royal Lady

Written by Hilary Green
Review by Marilyn Sherlock

The story of Matilda, daughter to Henry I, and her attempts to wrest the throne from King Stephen in 1135 is well known and fairly well documented, and there have been many books, films and TV adaptations covering the period. This novel is different in that the author takes us back, first to Matilda’s childhood and her betrothal to Henry, Emperor of Germany, when she was only eight years old, and then to her marriage to him when she was twelve. We are more familiar with the events after Henry I died suddenly of a surfeit of lampreys, so we are told, and her cousin, Stephen, raced off to Winchester, seized the treasury, and had himself crowned as King of England. What followed has become known as ‘The Anarchy’, or a period called ‘When Christ and the Saints Slept’.

There are no author’s notes to guide us as to her sources for her account of Matilda’s childhood, so this may be based on fact or simply the author’s own supposition, but the book is eminently readable and convincing.  Her main characters are real people, of course, but it all fits together well, and the pace of the story is good.

This would appear to be Hilary Green’s first medieval historical novel, but from reading this one, I would definitely read another.