{"id":31586,"date":"2022-10-19T02:48:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T02:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=31586"},"modified":"2022-10-20T20:42:15","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T20:42:15","slug":"hbos-house-of-the-dragon-was-inspired-by-a-real-medieval-dynastic-struggle-over-a-female-ruler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/hbos-house-of-the-dragon-was-inspired-by-a-real-medieval-dynastic-struggle-over-a-female-ruler\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO\u2019s \u2018House of the Dragon\u2019 was inspired by a real medieval dynastic struggle over a female\u00a0ruler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Routt<\/a>, University of Richmond<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In three decades of teaching medieval European history, I\u2019ve noticed my students are especially curious about the intersection of the stories told in class and the depictions of the Middle Ages they see in movies and television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judged by their historical accuracy, cinematic portrayals are a mixed bag<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, popular fantasy, unencumbered by the competing priority of \u201cgetting it right,\u201d can, in broad strokes, reflect the values of the medieval society that inspires it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHouse of the Dragon<\/a>\u201d is one of those TV shows. A king, lacking a male heir to his throne, elevates his teenage daughter to be his named successor, and a complex dynastic drama ensues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This storyline reflects the real obstacles facing women who aspired to exercise royal authority in medieval society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The queen as a conduit to power<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

George R. R. Martin<\/a>, whose novels were the foundation for the HBO series \u201cGame of Thrones<\/a>,\u201d has made no secret of his inspiration<\/a> for \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d: the Anarchy<\/a>, a two-decade period, from 1135 to 1154, when a man and a woman vied with each other for the English throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story went like this: Henry I<\/a> sired two dozen or more children out of wedlock. But with his queen, Matilda<\/a>, he had only a daughter, the future \u201cEmpress\u201d Matilda<\/a>, and a son, William<\/a>. With William\u2019s birth, the foremost responsibility of medieval queenship<\/a> was fulfilled: There would be a male heir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then tragedy struck. In 1120, a drunken 17-year-old William attempted a nighttime channel crossing. When his also-inebriated helmsmen hit a rock, the prince drowned<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The queen had died two years earlier, so Henry I remarried \u2013 Adeliza of Louvain<\/a> \u2013 but they had no children together. The cradle sat empty and the sands in Henry I\u2019s hourglass ran low, so he resolved that his lone legitimate child, Matilda, would have the throne as a ruling queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Old
The Empress Matilda. Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The move was unprecedented in medieval England. A queen could exert influence in her husband\u2019s physical absence or when, after a king\u2019s death, their son was a minor. Her role, moreover, as an intimate confidant and counselor could be consequential.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a queen was not expected to swing a sword or lead troops into battle and forge the personal loyalties on which kingship rested, to say nothing of the misogyny inherent to medieval English society<\/a>. The queen was the conduit through which power was transferred by marriage and childbirth, not its exclusive wielder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viserys and Henry I share the same plight<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A similar scenario drives the plot of \u201cHouse of the Dragon.\u201d The absolute preference in the fictional kingdom Westeros for a male ruler is expressed in the series\u2019 opening scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old king<\/a>, having outlived his sons, empowers a council of nobles to choose his successor between two of his grandchildren, the cousins Rhaenys<\/a> and Viserys<\/a>. Rhaenys, a female, is the older of the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the male Viserys becomes king and Rhaenys, \u201cthe queen who never was,\u201d later ruefully concedes that this represented \u201cthe order of things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once installed, however, Westeros\u2019 new king would have understood the plight of England\u2019s Henry I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aemma<\/a>, Viserys\u2019 queen, suffers stillbirths and miscarriages and produces only a daughter, Rhaenyra<\/a>. A fading hope for a son is dashed when a breached birth and a brutal Caesarian section, intended to save the child, ends up killing Aemma. The boy \u2013 the desperately desired heir \u2013 doesn\u2019t live out the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonless, Visery\u2019s named heir is his younger brother, the debauched, sinister Daemon<\/a>. When Daemon\u2019s conduct becomes intolerable, Viserys disinherits and banishes him. Left with his young daughter Rhaenyra, he decides to make her a ruling queen, a role the girl relishes as she seeks to change \u201cthe order of things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building support for a ruling queen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The challenge for a medieval king, whether Henry I or the fictional Viserys, was to persuade the nobles to overcome their prejudices and not just accept but actively support a woman\u2019s ascension to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry I pursued measures to make his daughter palatable to them. Matilda, who had married the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1114, returned to England a widow in 1125. Henry I, determined to forge a sacramental bond between his daughter and England\u2019s magnates, compelled his barons<\/a> in 1127 to swear their support for her as his successor. Henry I then turned to arranging a marriage for Matilda so she could give birth to a grandson and buttress her position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Matilda\u2019s nuptials with Geoffrey, count of Anjou<\/a>, the barons were summoned to renew their oath to her in 1131. A son, Henry, was born two years later, and a third pledge followed. Henry I died two years later of food poisoning after eating eels<\/a>, a favorite dish of his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The durability of his arrangements for Matilda\u2019s rise to authority was immediately tested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viserys in \u201cHouse of the Dragon\u201d works from a similar playbook. The worthies of Westeros vow their loyalty to Rhaenyra as royal successor. Once Rhaenyra becomes marriageable, Viserys fields a plethora of suitors for her hand. A reluctant bride, Rhaenyra finally accedes to a union in which she would \u201cdutifully\u201d produce a male heir but then let her heart have what it wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unfortunate result is her inability to conceive with her husband while having three sons by a lover. Her situation is further complicated by Viserys\u2019 remarriage to the lady Alicent<\/a>, who gives him sons. Dangers stalk Rhaenyra\u2019s path to power. In Westeros, as in England, a princess is expected to guard her chastity closely until marriage and, once wed, to be monogamous and not to \u201csully\u201d herself in order to ensure the legitimacy of her children \u2013 a blatant double standard when noblemen frequently had children out of wedlock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even rumors of female infidelity could threaten succession. Lineage matters. Blood binds, as evident in the streams of it running from family crest to family crest in the series\u2019 opening credits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War ensues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Did these strategies work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not for Matilda. Stephen of Blois<\/a>, a son from the marriage of Henry I\u2019s sister Adela to a French count, aggressively registered a claim to the crown after Henry I\u2019s death. Many English magnates conveniently forgot their oaths to Matilda, and Stephen became king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matilda was not without supporters<\/a> \u2013 her half-brother Robert, earl of Gloucester; her husband, the count of Anjou; nobles disaffected by Stephen\u2019s rule; and opportunists seeking personal gain from the conflict. Matilda resisted and the Anarchy ensued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Three
The succession, from left to right: Henry I, Stephen and Henry II. Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Forces supporting Matilda invaded England in 1139 but, save for a moment in 1141<\/a>, she never ruled. She then focused instead on elevating her son to the crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecution of the war ultimately passed to the young Henry. His mounting military successes jogged the barons\u2019 memory of their past commitments, and the contending parties reached a settlement. Henry would succeed Stephen. With Stephen\u2019s death, Henry became Henry II<\/a>. England wouldn\u2019t have another ruling queen until the ascension of Queen Mary I in 1553<\/a>, nearly four centuries later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what of Rhaenyra?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Westeros is not 12th century England. For Martin, the author, the Anarchy does not serve to establish historical fact but is a wellspring for his creative vision. The fire-breathing dragon \u2013 that denizen of the medieval imagination \u2013 exists in Westeros. Rhaenyra\u2019s pursuit of the throne may be fraught with difficulties, but she is a dragon-rider, and dragons were the most fearsome military asset in the kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes her dangerous in a way Matilda of England could hardly have conceived. Nonetheless, \u201cHouse of the Dragon,\u201d through the lens of fantasy, reflects a slice of the English medieval experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Routt<\/a>, Adjunct Professor of History, University of Richmond<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Routt, University of Richmond In three decades of teaching medieval European history, I\u2019ve noticed my students are especially curious about the intersection of the stories told in class and the depictions of the Middle Ages they see in movies and television. Judged by their historical accuracy, cinematic portrayals are a mixed bag. However, popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":31587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[12774,204,1606,79,12775,12776,12772,12773],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31589,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31586\/revisions\/31589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}