4 ideas
Henry I made his barons swear to accept his daughter Matilda as heir, but her cousin Stephen seized the throne in 1135 and civil war followed. The Londoners drove her out before she could be crowned, citing a haughtiness that would have passed as lordliness in a man, and the crown finally went to her son Henry II in 1154.
In medieval England a woman could not hold power in her own right. She could exercise it legitimately only on behalf of a man, as mother of an heir, wife of an absent or incapable king, or regent for a son. Eleanor of Aquitaine was most effective as a widow governing and raising ransom for Richard I, because her authority was framed as a mother's service rather than her own rule.
The same conduct was read differently depending on the ruler's sex. Decisiveness, pride and force that marked a strong king were condemned as arrogance or unnatural ambition in a woman, while restraint was dismissed as weakness. Chroniclers' verdicts on these queens therefore measure their transgression of gender roles as much as their actual political competence.
Power held in a man's name is only as durable as the tie to that man. Isabella of France deposed Edward II in 1326–27 acting for her son, but lost everything when the adult Edward III seized her ally Mortimer in 1330.