She Didn't Wait for Permission
Nicola de la Haye and the Original Women's Day
Nicola de la Haye defended Lincoln Castle
International Women's Day asks us to celebrate the women who refused to accept the limits placed upon them. Who pushed back. Who led. Who endured. And every year, we tend to look to the recent past — to suffragettes, trailblazers, and glass-ceiling-breakers of the modern era.
But what about the women who did all of that eight hundred years before anyone thought to name it?
Meet Nicola de la Haye. Sheriff of Lincolnshire. Castellan of Lincoln Castle. The woman who, in 1217, successfully defended one of England's most strategically vital fortresses against a French-backed rebel army: at the age of approximately seventy. She didn't wait for permission, and she didn’t expect plaudits: because no one was going to give it.
What the Twelfth Century Said Women Were
The medieval world had very clear ideas about women's place in society, and those ideas were enforced from pulpit, court, and custom alike. Women were considered intellectually weaker than men, legally subordinate to their fathers and husbands, and spiritually suspect - daughters of Eve, prone to temptation and manipulation(!!!). Church fathers and contemporary writers were emphatic on the subject. Women should be silent, obedient, and invisible in public life.
I've explored just how relentless and inventive that misogyny was in my medieval misogyny series, including a look at the men who competed, with some enthusiasm, for the title of Worst Villain to Women of the 12th Century. It's a crowded field.
What Nicola de la Haye Actually Did
Nicola inherited the hereditary castellanship of Lincoln Castle from her father, and she held it through two marriages, through political upheaval, through sieges and civil wars, and with a grip that no one could prise loose. She administered justice, she negotiated with kings, defied a rogue justiciar who threatened the kingdom whilst Richard the Lionheart was on crusade, and she commanded garrisons and organised castle defences - incredibly well.
When King John's reign collapsed into civil war and a French prince threatened to take the English throne, Nicola was the one defending Lincoln.
She was also, at various points, told she was too old, too female, and too inconvenient. She resigned her position as castellan (constable), but was promptly reappointed, because no one else could do it as well as she could.
And one of King John’s last acts was to make her the first female sheriff in England - Sheriff of Lincoln.
This is the woman at the heart of my novel Lady of Lincoln: not a fictional heroine invented to fit a modern template, but a real woman whose story has simply been waiting to be told.
There’s a full video about her here.
She Wasn't Alone
One of the things that strikes me again and again in researching this period is that Nicola wasn't a complete anomaly. Other women, when circumstance demanded it, simply got on with what needed to be done.
Her own grandmother, Muriel of Lincoln, was the Saxon woman whose strategic marriage to Norman knight Richard de la Haye transformed a foreign military appointment into a hereditary right, so building the very foundations of Lincoln Castle's legitimacy that Nicola would later defend. She survived conquest, navigated civil war, and endured what may have been betrayal by her own son. Her name barely appears in the historical record. But without what she built, there is no Nicola.
And if you want a continental example, look no further than Eleanor of Vermandois, who is the main character in my novella, Eleanor’s Revenge, available for FREE to those who sign up to my email list.
Why We Should Care
International Women's Day is about visibility and about refusing to let women's contributions be erased, minimised, or simply forgotten. Nicola de la Haye held a castle and shaped the future of England, whilst Muriel of Lincoln built the foundation that made it possible. These are women whose stories belong in the same breath as every trailblazer we celebrate today.
History has not always been kind about preserving them. But we can be.
If you'd like to spend time with Nicola's story: the politics, the danger, the remarkable life she carved out against every expectation of her age, then the multi-award winning first novel in the Nicola de la Haye series (and the Coffee Pot Book Club’s Book of the Year), Lady of Lincoln is available now. Purchase your copy here. (Paperback, ebook, and audio available).
Lady of Lincoln is the multi-award winning first novel in the Nicola de la Haye series.
Happy International Women's Day. To Nicola, to Muriel, to Eleanor, and to all the women history almost forgot.
Eleanor’s Revenge is an historical novel that covers the story of the real French noblewoman, Eleanor of Vermandois