We Asked the Public Who the First Queen of England Was… | History's First

Britain and England have had some seriously impressive Queens think about it three of our longest reigning monarchs have been women including at the top spot the late Queen Elizabeth II who reigned for a whopping at 70 years so we know who reigned for the longest but who range first no idea I'm going to guess it's going to be in Victoria or an Elizabeth or something like that who was the first queen to rule in her own right as a female monic as the top dog The Big Cheese you get the idea first queen of England um I'm taking most of my knowledge from Game of Thrones here Queen of England eh let's find out how much people know about their female monarchs and see if anyone can help me figure out once and for all who was the first ruling Queen of England are you interested in having a chat didn't want to chat who was the first ruling Queen of England oh first well actually I mean I guess that's quite like an interesting again question cuz you have a couple of candidates I mean traditionally would be Mary Tudor Bloody Mary um but you could argue that impress Matilda was the first queen was it actually Queen Mary I'm not sure that's the only one I know of Queen Elizabeth with a red air and the thing you know the the funny one and they make the movie as well with um the elf woman it can't be Mary obviously can't be Elizabeth no cuz she was there was someone definitely before her uh Queen of England e proper Queen of England would be like Mary chuda what else do you know about Mary the first uh I'm pretty sure the Bloody Mary cocktail is named after her because she was quite bloodthirsty perhaps MH um did she burn people it was Elizabeth now I feel like that's too late though we thought this is W way too late what about and you said you can't be Mary it could be Mary I guess another option could be also Lady Jane greay she was declared Queen though never she never had an official coronation she was I think the post after six days or something like that and then sadly lady J gray was Queen for 15 days do you not think that she counts as a queen of England not really I mean she wasn't there for long enough like it's a bit like LZ like Matilda Empress Matilda Queen Matilda I mean she was never I think officially crowned Queen of England but she did I mean she had a claim to her throne she did control quite large areas I know during the Roman era you had Boda or bodia as we know she was like a warrior Queen I think she met an unfortunate end as well but she was quite tough my favorite Queen of England is the only Queen I recognize is buddika uh Queen of the ASI who she's from mys and she tore up London a bit like I like to what would you say are the big biggest differences between a medieval king and a medieval ruling Queen oh KY that's a hard one do you know what I'm not 100% certain based on everything that I've read and seen about Queen Elizabeth the she seemed really ruthless so in that respect I'm not sure that there's an awful lot of difference between say her and her father yeah I think the queen would have had to have acted differently she probably would have had to uh act a lot more in the way that perhaps a male would have done she would have had to probably been a bit more fced command that respect and fear they don't seem as aggressive even though they can be I think or as imperialistic but they were going to say so at the time of the first queen the first queen of England comes to power ruling Queen that's a big deal right like how do you think people reacted to it at the time I think it must have been very unusual for I can imagine that some thought that that it was unnatural so I'm quite a firm believer that uh we haven't changed that much uh socially so I think I think the the The Peasants of the day were they probably had bigger things to worry about than what the ruling class had between their legs do you have a favorite Queen I love Queen Elizabeth the first for so many reasons tough woman she had a brilliant um well because she was the Virgin Queen let's put it this way uh she's a quite interesting character but not because of the Virgin Queen but because of the pr exercise behind her and the Virgin Mary Association to just defy her not getting married who would you want to hang out with I don't know Queen Victoria had a lot of cool black outfits what do you think about Britain's approach to Queens like do you think there's an attitude that like we think we've got some like a history of good Queens yeah definitely definitely so I think Queen Elizabeth the first was quite scary um certainly it seems that way you know and you look at all the films that have been made about her and television programs and she's always portrayed as this quite scary character um quite strong um and then yeah Queen Elizabeth II clearly very very strong very um thoughtful and very steadfast do you think people are more proud of the queens of England ruling queens of England that we've had maybe I don't know because most of my lifetime I'm getting away my age now we had a queen um and now that we have a king it seems a bit almost like um almost a par they all got kind of a different feel about them but they obviously feels a lot better than a king what about you personally would you rather be living in a country ruled by a king or a queen a queen why is that I just H I don't know I think it's more fun you know a queen is kind of like more interesting you know and of course you know as a gay man you know I do love my Queens so it seems that a lot of people are quite fond of England's Queens which I guess makes sense if you consider that until recently most of us have only known a queen of England and this whole concept of a king of England is something of an adjustment anyway we're not here to talk about Kings I'm looking for the first ruling Queen of England and from talking to people I think I've narrowed the answer down to five contenders and they are Elizabeth the first Mary the First Lady Jane gray Empress Matilda and budika and budika next I need an expert and that's why I'm off to meet a queen of medieval and early modern matriarchs Dr Elena yanar and hopefully she'll be able to tell me who was first ruling Queen of England um hi Ellena it's great to see you Louise thank you for coming right I'm hoping that you can help me figure out who the first queen of England is but first of all I mean don't get me wrong love a trip to the pub but why are we meeting here yeah well first of all this is my natural environment so have some respect uh but no this is a really important Pub especially when we're talking about queens of England so this is the old miter and it is in elely place technically Cambridge here fun fact but it's connected to the history of the queens of England because right in the corner of these windows here you have a pillar that is made out of an old cherry tree and allegedly Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Drake danced around it most flirtatiously at a point in time so it's one of uh London's oldest pubs and one of my faves wow this is a perfect place to come to talk about queens of England then absolutely brilliant so my first question is like there there are loads of Queens in English and British history but only some of them sort of rule like what is what do we mean by ruling Queen you see this is the thing there's all kinds of way to be a queen you can be a queen consort which means that you're married to the king you can be a dowager Queen which means that your husband is now dead and you're kind of like the mom or you can be a queen regnant and so a queen regnant is one who's actually ruling in her name and controlling the country wow so is the Queen regnant the the ones with the real power does that mean that Queen consorts never had any power at all oh yeah like let's not go that far they definitely have tons of power so for example one of my very favorite Queens Elanor of aquame is technically a queen consort at some points in time and then a dowager Queen but when Richard the lionart her son is on Crusade she's ruling in his name they would also rule say if their husbands were incredibly unwell and unable to rule they would make decisions in their stad so it's not uncommon to see Queens who are wielding real power but it's just that you can't call them a queen regnant because the power is kind of derived through other sources okay so it would be naive to say or or to think that Queen consorts are just sort of sat back being a queen enjoying leisurely life like some of them were really actively involved oh absolutely and you know Queen conort is a real job with real political power and you wield a lot of social or what we call soft power a lot of the time so you'll be the person who mediates between the king and the church or the people in the king you have real ceremonial power and they will invest a lot of money in communities a lot of money in the church they're wheeling and dealing on a really serious level are there any examples of Queens either consorts or or remnants like actually leading battles especially medieval times or is that just something they couldn't R do oh well I mean Elanor vain does that uh when she goes on Crusade uh with her first husand usband huh Lou the king of France she is the head of her own contingent of soldiers from aquatan so you know that is certainly something that they would do um Queens also show up on the battlefield very commonly often alongside their husbands you know you got to understand that a lot of the time for medieval purposes uh your husband isn't necessarily going to be out there in the fry you know it isn't unusual for women to be around battlefields and to also be you know putting their two cents in okay so with Queen regnant the ruling monarchs female ruling how do they become Queens like is it is it enough for them just to be proclaimed a ruling Monarch okay so theoretically they're is a system right wherein somebody dies and you have been made Queen so the next thing that needs to happen first they're going to Proclaim that you were the queen and then you need to go and be crowned for us in England that means not just being crowned but being crowned specifically at Westminster ABY okay like ever since Edward the Confessor founded it that was the place that English kings show up um and this is a really important ceremony not just so that everyone can see who is Queen around here but it's also a religious thing so in theory the reason that you are king or queen is because God has ordained that you are such in the later kind of early modern period we'll call this the divine right of kings okay so it's not enough just to be proclaimed queen or even King if we're talking about King Kings as well you have to have that that coronation which is kind of like the approval from God it's like the like being verified on social media you can't just call yourself ruling Queen of England you need that Blue Tick which is the coronation to make it official yeah no that's exactly right you know you can't just anyone can show up and be like hey what's up guys I'm the queen but unless you have these series of things happen it's not going to work really right well this is really interesting and I love any excuse to talk about Elanor of aquatain but we need to talk about who the first ruling Queen of England is are you happy to help me with that I am very happy to help you with that brilliant right well let's get inside shall we oh yeah let's do it right Elena so we've been out and about and we've been asking people who was the first ruling Queen of England okay and we've narrowed it down to five contenders we've got Elizabeth the first Mary the First Lady Jane gray Empress Matilda and budika oh this is five these are five good ladies yeah there are five ladies near and dear to my heart so I'm very excited about that BR you ready to get into it oh yeah let's go let's go cool right so the first lady we're going to talk about Elizabeth the first now she was really popular like a lot of people said Elizabeth the first like why do you think so many people named her not only is she a queen but she's a queen that Reigns for an incredibly long time and she's associated with all these things that are incredibly important to us in a cultural way like Shakespeare or uh you know just even the Church of England this real final and reassertion of it as you being important and Protestant so you know she's an easy answer because she just kind of brings Mone yeah she's got some great paintings as well right oh yeah yeah we you know we've all seen the paintings you know you go to the National Portrait Museum she's got some real bangers in there you know a woman who understood how to hold the public imagination right and she could do it then and so she still does it now like that's how these things work so Elizabeth the first very cool Queen in many ways but can she be called the first ruling Queen of England uh no uh let me expand I mean the trouble is if you're to get to Elizabeth the first you have to go through her sister inherits the crown from her sister Mary so there's no way of getting there without also talking Mary who was definitely also the queen so it's cute thanks for all the plays Lizzy we love you but that's going to be a no for me okay she's gone looks great but off she goes you know only time she's ever been told no in her life so it's fine don't think she's G to like it right so you just mentioned her and she's next up Queen Mary the first like she's definitely Queen right oh she's 100% the queen and she is someone who really inherits the throne now was everybody happy about that no and so I think that's one of the reasons she really gets overlooked is because she is Catholic of course Mary killed a few people but what I would say to that is she didn't kill nearly as many people as her father killed for being Catholic or as her sister killed I was going to say a lot of people associate her even before saying like Mary the first or Queen Mary they say oh bloody mary right and you're saying that that's actually not not a fair title it's a horrible nickname yeah you know what I think that if she was a man we wouldn't go so hard on that I think there is something about her being a woman having presided over these deaths that you know people really stick to um and you know again it's because they happened in the name of Catholicism when Elizabeth does it we're like oh you cheeky little Scamp so you know I I think that you have to kind of get past what is a lot of like outright propaganda against Mary and fundamentally she inherits the throne was she raised to become Queen at first very much so you know she was for a while engaged to the emperor Charles I fth who was the largest land owner that Europe had ever seen you know which would have been hell of a match like for her so she was very much brought up educated incredibly well to be a sort of ruler and then when Henry divorces her mother everything is thrown into turmoil she is basically disinherited Elizabeth the first is inherited then Elizabeth the first is uninherited and Edward is inherited but Jane Seymour does a big bunch of work to try to get her back in her father's good graces does a lot of work to try reconcile them and you know by the time her father dies like she very much has kind of like been brought in to help him host things she kind of Moves In and Out so there's an understanding that she has an important place within the royal family almost certainly but the act of succession absolutely did name her as air should her brother die without air so by the time that her father Henry VII is is D he's dying she is second in line to the throne yeah after Edward absolutely so that's pretty good claim yeah yeah I mean that seems like yeah you said good stad for her to inherit after Edward dies but you did mention Edward what's on there oh God Edward uh well in the first place he's 13 right and you know as a general rule of thumb I just don't think 13-year-olds should be allowed to rule countries that's just me I mean it's controversial take yeah I mean like I'm so modern right like I can't believe it um but he's also um a really staunch Protestant in that way that like you know young people are and also wow you tell a 13-year-old guess what you're the head of church and a representative of God like imagine yeah imagine like so he is putting tons of pressure on Mary to stop being Catholic and she's like no I mean imagine okay you're 37 years old she's 37 she's a 37y old woman and her 13-year-old half brother is like I just feel like you should really uh give up your entire faith and belief system because uh I'm the head of the church I mean like what do you do with that does this new TR think Catholicism is so L you know this is the equivalent of like showing a 13-year-old showing a 37y old Tik Tok now she's like protestantism is the is the Tik Tok she's like we're not we're not playing this you know so it's it's too complex it's too it's too much to ask and you know and she was like absolutely not so Edward does this huge workaround on his deathbed and he's like who who out here is a Protestant and now he doesn't even want to um name Elizabeth either because to name Elizabeth that's a little bit getting too close you know to Mary so instead he goes over to his first cousin removed who is Lady Jane gray God bless her and she's a really staunch Protestant and she's been brought up incredibly well and you know she could she could have been a pretty outright Queen but it's a wild thing to do very tenuous it's a tenuous claim isn't it and especially if you're I mean I guess one of the reasons people maybe thought Mary shouldn't take it take the the crown is because she's female so to be like oh don't worry I'm going to instead give it to this other woman who has less of a claim but she is Protestant but know it's so weird right and it's just it doesn't make make any real logical sense but again I want to emphasize how much this kid is 13 so so Edward again I imagine he probably thought you know you I'm sure he hoped he was going to live a long old life he doesn't he dies at what like 15 I think yeah yeah yeah yeah so what what happens then it's meant to be that the Lady Jane gray takes the crown but so how do we end up with Mary well uh Mary basically raises a huge Army and one thing that happened is that when Edward was dying he was like hey Mary come say goodbye to me and she was like homie the way I am not coming to say goodbye you right so instead of coming into C Edward on his deathbed she flees up to norfol where she's got uh multiple castles and she's got a lot of support because a lot of Catholics had kind of coalesced around there when yeah and so she gets to raise a big army and they all come and March on London uh once uh God bless her Lady Jane gray is announced as as the heir um and it basically it's just like that because she's got enough support and it's really Testament to her for of Will and the fact that she was very politically Savvy she was very good at making connections she's very much her father's daughter why do people support her well in the first place it is logical right you know she is Henry's firstborn daughter you know there is that they it wasn't that they didn't go with oh well there is a son or you know the system of primogeniture which is where the first son inherits everything like kicked in real hard and everyone's like oh well that is a boy but then you know failing there being a man uh you know it kind of makes sense to just do this and also um you know the whole idea of the Anglican Church hadn't necessarily taken hold with everyone yet there still were a lot of Catholics and a lot of Catholics who had been treated incredibly badly for a few decades and they were like I'm ready to uh not be persecuted for my religion actually and it would be nice to get back to being able to do that so you know it's really easy to raise a lot of supporters in those circumstances right so can we say that Mary the first is in the running to be the first ruling Queen of England yeah I think you absolutely have to include Mary in this conversation she's incredibly flawed she's incredibly human she's got a lot of great qualities she's got a lot of terrible qualities you know she's a real queen I would say perfect cool so she's up on the pedestal there and we'll uh deal with her deal with her later right so we've been talking a lot about the Tudors and we're sticking with the Tudors with the next Lady Lady Jane gray now she's also known as a nday queen so like what's her deal this is all very muddy tutors are muddy all right there are a muddy bunch of people um and so it can be a little bit confusing but in theory she is Queen for nine days as you say before Mary gets in there so she is in the line of seccession just kind of cut right in before Mary and Elizabeth okay so after Edward yes you have Lady Jane gray then Mary the first or so Edward would like you to think yes or so he tried yeah I actually have a real soft spot for Lady Jane gr because much like Elizabeth and Mary this is a woman who gets jerked around right um she is brought up to be a duchess she has family in common with the tutor Queens she receives this incredible humanist education and then her dick of a cousin once removed Edward is like oh yeah and you are my Heir on his death bread and you know to which she would have said what even then it's even more tenuous because Edward isn't like oh yeah and then uh she's going to be the queen what he says is well she's going to Ru rule until her theoretical unborn male progyny are born right so Lady Jane gray her it's it just feels like such a tenuous claim this like she's sort of a distant cousin of Edward so like why why is she named well in the first place for Edward Edward is a real died in the wool Protestant he absolutely believes this he wants another Protestant he can't name Elizabeth because then why were you skipping Mary it becomes like a really difficult sort of thing so he kind of cast down oh and look there you have it here is a little old Jane she is really this kind of Pawn that's getting shoved around by Edward yes because Edward's just you know again kind of a jerk so she is promptly whisked up to London and she gets brought to the Tower of London to uh await coronation um and she never receives that uh because by this time and Mary is like I think the F not yeah uh and she has like marched on London surrounds the tower and like that basically that never happens so she's kind of like the air presumptive for about nine days and you know go go ahead and call her the queen for those nine days a little bit she never does anything except kind of like hang out in the tower and like get abandoned by all her supporters which is like really sad so sad it's really sad you know like basically her support collapses almost immediately because people see which way the wind is blowing it was such a tenuous way of doing things on Edwards part that it it just she never really receives the kind of support that you would need in a fractur situation like this but how old is she when one of this happening she's 16 so she's only like a year older than Edward was when he died and can you imagine like you're just like a regular old 16-year old girl and you got crushes on boys and you are trying to get your homework done and then suddenly he's like oh you're the queen it's like no but not even like you're the queen now it's like your your sons in theory are going to be the queens and you're just like what I was practicing the loot you know like it just doesn't make sense and so it's a huge and tumultuous event for her because it isn't something that she ever expected could she have been a pretty good Queen yeah I have no doubt she's you know very clever uh she's well-liked everything about her that we see indicates that she's a really remarkable young woman and she probably could have done a good job but it's not like she had ever been expecting this or that it was something that she had been like planning towards her entire life this is just something that comes out of nowhere for her she gets taken over to the Tower and you know that's when things kind of get really sad because a lot of her supporters abandon her they see which way the wind is blowing they realize how many people Mary's been able to raise in order to press her claim and everything just kind of falls apart Mary shows up outside of London with just thousands of men and it's just kind of all over for her um she eventually is just like told she has to step aside and like knock that off but she's killed the next year like all this goes down in July and she's killed the next year in February because it's just kind of deemed as too much of a risk for Mary which is a real shame because none of this was her fault it's just a bunch of men scheming and really using her body if you think about it none of this is about her this isn't like a feminist go girl story this is about her potentiality to birth Sons so uh what do you reckon could she be a finalist for the first ruling Queen of England to me she's not but because she is kept from ever ruling you know she never like my girl here never makes a decree you know she's never like checked in on the taxes she gets a chance to actually be Queen yeah and it's you know she does she's not crowned she doesn't ever move things around so it's it's very sweet to call her the nine days queen and I think that it's nice to kind of acknowledge her but as a result of the fact that nine days is a really finite amount of time she never gets to do any of those queenly things so I don't think that it really counts okay all right I'll let you do the honors then bye go the way of Elizabeth first I feel bad right we are finally leaving the 16th century we're going back to Big Medi eval Monarch Empress Matilda that's my girl though that's my girl though I love Matilda right um so her title is empress I feel like that's a bit of a giveaway like was she a queen she was in Empress and you like girl marries well so she marries the Holy Roman Emperor and this is like top of the stakes in medieval Europe right the Holy Roman Emperor controls like what is now Germany uh what is now the Czech Republic the north of Italy bats of France it's like that is like winning wow and she's crowned the empress in Rome you know she really kind of is part of one of the most important ruling dynasties in Europe so this girl like gets it she understand what power means she is brought up in the most high echelons of what it means to rule yeah she's not supposed to be the queen of England though she's got Brothers right Unfortunately they die right and so her Emperor husband dies in the first place and it's kind of like oh like so that that's like it's not a great thing and she was like I am the empress and everyone was like girl no and she's like okay yeah fair enough fair enough you know and uh then her father calls her back to court in Normandy you've got to understand that at this point in time the Kings of England are also the dukes of Normandy and Normandy has got more money than England so off she goes to court and her dad is like okay well we need to sort out what succession is going to be Matilda's going to be left so he calls all of the Barett and says you need to swear fty right now to Matilda because Matilda is my Heir and Matilda is going to be the queen of England but uh she is basically said that she's going to be the next Queen so she's like all right right are like I'm ready I'm absolutely ready um unfortunately her Uncle Stephen is a noted douchebag and the minute her father dies she's like all right well well here we go stepping up it's time to be Queen uh her uncle's like no I'm the king wow yeah no I'm the I'm I'm the I'm the king actually okay and it's like well where did that come from because I seem to remember you swearing Allegiance and falty to me along with every single Baron where does it come from why does why does stepen feel like he can just swoop in uh because of sexism oh okay that's find a point on it but you know 100% it just like it exists now it absolutely existed in the medieval period so this is the thing right so Matilda has an amazing claim she's literally uh named air her father names her air has people has the Nobles like um pledge allegiance to her as the heir right and it's unlike um Lady Jane gry where she over unlik Lady Jane Gray she's she's she's got experience as well she's been Empress of over Mainland Europe like she's got the experience she's she's kind of perfectly lined up to do it really oh God yeah like there is there are few people who were better suited to this position and she certainly had more experience than Steven did all Steven had was the right junk you know that's all so tell me more about when Henry the first dies why why isn't it why isn't Matilda rushing to England like Steven to stake her claim well in the first place she wants to secure the bag right and the bag is Normandy okay Normandy is is actually like pretty wealthy oh incredibly so like it's it's very very wealthy and also the kings of France are always like you know they're just like they're just have a look they're like you know kind of poking at being like is this is it secure is it I I don't know I was just looking you know they're always kind of looking at it so you don't want to lose Normandy and so she wants to make sure that she secures that and it you know is dicey but that's the one that you keep because that's where the money is right so keep that first and then when she gets that secured she leaves her husband there and she says watch Normandy for me she leaves her husband at home and she sails off to England and by this time she's been able to amass a huge force of people CU some people are not liars and some people you know when they took the oath they were like no they meant it yeah so um they were ready to go on her behalf first big battle the battle of Lincoln incredibly cool like they're up in the castle they're like throwing things up and down the hill wonderful stuff right she wins wow and she takes steveen prisoner so and she and you would be like oh bada bing bada boom like we're we're ready to rock except they had captured her half brother who was one of her big supporters okay so we're at a bit of a St right if she doesn't exchange Steven or she kills Steven her half brother's going to get killed yeah and Matilda is a nice person and she's like rather not yeah rather not get my half brother killed so they exchange prisoners okay um then there's like a lot of fighting back and forth in general and eventually what happens is that we reach a bit of a Dayton so what's happening instead is that Matilda sets up camp in kind of the southwest of England where she rules everything she sets up her court and she's just like like I am the queen like we have all these letters where she's like the imperatrix Matilda and she's like the Queen of England The Duchess of Normandy and she's like no I'm the queen right um whereas Stephen he's kind of ruling more in the Southeast and up into the Midlands he controls all this now kind of points against Matilda for this is she's never crowned you know so as I was saying like corination is this really important bit and she tries it like she gets to London and she gets to Westminster ABY and she tries on but a bunch of sexist people decide to have like a big Riot about it outside and so she kind of has to run off without ever being crowned in Westminster which is kind of the thing yeah right having said that she establishes a court um she is ruling parts of England absolutely and if people weren't liars and sexist jerks like none of this would have happened like this is a story about how uh men are crap right like this is that's that's what it is like she's she's an incredibly with it and together woman right like that's that's the only reason that any of this happens and her claim is so good that you know eventually she kind of goes back to Normandy because like again secure the bag like 100 but by this time she's given birth to her son Henry and Henry stays in England to kind of press her claims and here's the thing her claims are so good and Stephen still childless like just wilding out not like no kid like yeah and Stephen is like Henry's my air all right Henry is my Heir and so he names Matilda's son the air mhm so you know that claim was good you know that claim was good basically saying you know right like exactly you have the right the rightful yeah okay so right she should have been the queen yeah right so it's kind of like an admission there and it's also an admission that he simply doesn't have enough support not enough people see him as legitimate to ever Shore this up on his own and it's only naming Henry as the heir that clears these things up okay I feel like I'm going to I know how you're going to sort of sway here but would you say she's sort of in the running to be the first ruling Queen of England I think she absolutely has to be um you know I think that with the fact that she's holding a court with the fact that she's styling herself the queen with the fact that some people are acknowledging her as Queen she's got to be in the discussion yeah brilliant all right well I'll let you uh pop her up here next to Mary then there's my girl a bit bit of a tight squeeze oh they can do it y there we go great now we're going to jump way back to Roman Britain okay and a popular lady called budaa oh come on that's my girl though I love budaa I'm # bua did nothing wrong hash bua was rights uh hash Justice for budaa ETC bua yes get them all star 100% so I mean but the big question is like was she was she actually a queen I don't think that we can say she's a queen right this is a great disservice to the Celtic peoples like you know who they have like Chieftains and they have leaders right and now her claim also you know she wouldn't have told you she was I think because basically everything kind of kicks off with budaka because her husband is actually the leader of the II for their tribe um and then he is sort of like a friendly client of the Romans and on his deathbed he says well I leave my land jointly to the Roman Empire and my two daughters and they're going to be and they're going to be the ones who are ruling the Romans surprise are horrible fascist jerks so her husband is the leader of the ien tribe yeah yeah and they're based around what is it like the southeast of England yeah yeah exactly and then when he dies it's meant to be his daughters that inherit like jointly with the Romans yes exactly and so it's like it's not even supposed to really be Buddha CA she's supposed to be kind of like Dowager Chief it's supposed to be the daughters yeah but what she was was an incredible leader and she was an incredible uniter and she was like okay this has gone far enough and what she does is she manages to bring together varying of the Celtic tribes to fight against the Romans and quite right too um so that is a Real Testament to her skill and her diplomacy and also her as a tactician in war absolutely incredible what they achieved you know they Siege Colchester burn it down uh you know they they get a they burn down londinium like they they are 100% about that life and eventually the Romans are like uh oh like they almost get the Romans to pull out like it's a very close run thing Nero's looking at it he's like the maths don't work out like why are we why are we there cuz coester at this point is like is is it the center of the Roman power in brist or it's just a really big city it's just a really big place it's kind of where um Romans get sent to retire so it's sort of like oh my God she rans sax re time yeah she 100% does and quite right too and she was right to do it um and you know this is like an incredible story of resistance and uniting but I don't think we can call her a queen because we can't call her a queen of England certainly because they you would go to a celt you'd be like you know England and they'd be like didn't catch that England doesn't exist yeah like you in Kent right now you know that that kind of thing so there's no such idea of like one Amalgamated culture but she is a uniter of tribes against the incredibly oppressive Roman regime wow okay brilliant so I mean I don't think there's a huge amount of suspense here can we say is budaka in the running to be the first ruling Queen of England look I'm going to be so real with you if she could be she would be right and I would be like is budaka of shut up uh but I love her forever in my heart uh but we got to say no but it's a no all right now for us bye budaa bye bua don't hold it against us please no I mean great we are left with two amazing Queens here but this is the big question this is what we've been working towards who in your expert opinion is the first ruling Queen of England this is really hard right because I want to say Matilda because that's my girl all right um and the only thing that stops her from being Queen is a bunch of noted weasel men um and she is Queen kind of you know like all she just didn't have the ceremony Andy and you know like it's so unfair because again I think if she was a man none of this would have happened and right like uh we say that certain people were the king even though they never had a coronation so why exactly Edward the F exactly oh if Edward the fth is King how come she's not Queen so like it's a bit sexist is she acknowledged by everyone in England as Queen no um whereas with Mary like people are mad about it they don't really you know there's some people who don't really like the fact that Mary is the queen but everyone can get together sort of Undisputed yeah yeah so I feel like the easy answer is that it's Mary oh wow but oh wow look wait no actually no no no no no because men don't get to tell me what to do because weasel men don't get to tell me what to do right and just because you lied all right just because you lied to God and Henry the first because you're a liar you don't get to tell me what to do so it's so it's Empress Ma we're going with Empress Matilda I like we're going like we like Mary like good job girl but like look at her it's Empress Matilda it we got there we're getting there that's it amazing amazing so there we have it expert opinion is in and Elena says the empress Matilda was the first ruling Queen of England but what do you think is empress Matilda your queen does Mary the first take the crown instead let us know in the comments below

Channel: History Hit

Views: 42,049

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, new film, voxpops, royalty, england, british, monarch, monarchy, campaign, real, true, factual, queens, english history, royal family, history lesson, english history documentary, who was first, we asked the public, asking street questions, asking public, history of england, first queen of england, enlish queens in order, first queen, quuen of england, queen victoria, queen elizabeth i, Matilda history, who was the first queen of england

Id: Zk2RXwCsYxY

Length: 37min 26sec (2246 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024