In this early Centre Place lecture, John Hamer looks back at the history of England's queens regnant to consider interplay between gender roles and leadership. Mathilda almost became England's first reigning queen. When King Henry I's heir, William Adelin, died in the White Ship disaster, the English nobility swore oaths in support of Henry's daughter Mathilda as heiress. (Mathilda was widow of a Holy Roman Emperor and was known to contemporaries as "the Empress Mathilda.") Upon Henry's death, most of the English nobles preferred to forget their oaths and instead recognized Henry's nephew Stephen as king, plunging the realm into civil war. John Hamer looks at the steep hurdles Mathilda faced attempting to exercise authority over men in the Middle Ages and considers the extent to which these same gender biases continue to the present day.