December 1135. King Henry I eats a dish his doctor had forbidden him, and within a week he is dead. The barons had sworn twice to accept his daughter as their ruler. But Matilda is far away in Anjou, and nobody sends for her.

Across the Channel, Stephen of Blois makes a dash for the crown. The gates of Dover are shut against him, but London cheers him in. His brother delivers the royal treasury at Winchester, and a timely claim about the old king’s dying words clears his path to the throne.

In this episode, we follow the race for England’s crown, and we hear the gruesome fate of the old king’s body. We also ask why the barons broke their oath.

On New Year’s Day 1127, the great men of England knelt before King Henry I. They swore that his daughter would rule after him. No woman had ever ruled England in her own right.

In this episode, we follow Matilda’s extraordinary early life. Sent to Germany at the age of eight to marry the most powerful man in Christendom, she was crowned queen as a child. She was governing in Italy by sixteen. When her husband died, she came home as the Empress.

We meet the men who would decide her fate: her charming cousin Stephen and her half-brother Robert of Gloucester. We also meet the teenage husband she couldn’t stand, Geoffrey of Anjou.

Two oaths are sworn. Both will be broken.