This is a five-act play in iambic pentameter, but in modern English.

Matilda is married off at the age of 12, in a political arrangement, to the future King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor. When he dies childless, she is ousted from her role as Queen of Germany and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.

Her father subsequently marries her off to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, in another political alliance. When her father dies, she in pregnant in Normandy and unable to go to England to claim the throne she is heir to.  Her cousin Stephen of Blois sails to England and has himself crowned King of England 25 days later.

For the next 18 years she fights in a civil war, known as The Anarchy, ruling parts of England intermittently, though never being formally crowned.  Battles are fought; Stephen is captured, then released,; se escapes capture by crossing the ice in the dead of winter.

After 18 years, the church and the nobles force a truce, whereby Stephen bypasses his son and names Matilda's son, Henry Plantagenet, to be his heir.  A year later, Stephen dies, and Matilda's son becomes Henry II, with Eleanor of Aquitaine as his queen.