Matilda "Mattie" Storin was a British junior political reporter at a Conservative-leaning tabloid newspaper called The Chronicle. Her career took off in 1990 after she became romantically involved with Conservative Party politician Francis Urquhart, who acted as an anonymous source for many of her stories, which he secretly used to discredit and eliminate his rivals within the Conservative Party.
Biography[]
Early life and career[]
Matilda Storin was born in 1963. Her grandfather had been a modern Viking who, in the stormy early months of 1941, had sailed across the North Sea in a waterlogged fishing boat to escape from Nazi-occupied Norway and join the Royal Air Force (RAF). Storin had inherited from him not only her natural Scandinavian looks but also a stubbornness of spirit that didn’t always commend itself to inadequate men. Storin originally lived in Yorkshire before moving to London in 1989.
In her adulthood, Storin became a journalist who was employed by The Chronicle, a right-wing tabloid newspaper owned by Benjamin Landless and managed by Greville Preston. At twenty-eight she was the youngest recruit to the paper’s political staff, replacing one of the senior correspondents who had fallen foul of the accountants for his habit of conducting interviews over extended lunches at the Savoy. Yet despite her relative youth and recent arrival, Storin had a confidence about her judgment that inadequate men mistook for stubbornness. Storin did not get on well with her bosses, and her career only took off in 1990, when she first met Conservative Party politician Francis Urquhart, the Chief Whip of the Conservative Party
Working with Francis Urquhart[]
Mattie Storin during a meeting with Francis Urquhart at his home.
Storin interviewed Urquhart at his home, seeking his input on Prime Minister Henry Collingridge's rejection of his cabinet; Urquhart told her that he needed a friend in the media, and he would often act as an anonymous source to her stories. However, he was secretly using her to discredit and eliminate his rivals within the Conservative Party, and her stories were influential in Collingridge's downfall. The relationship between Storin and Urquhart, of which Urquhart's wife Elizabeth was aware, was paternal as well as sexual; she called him "Daddy", and was attracted to him in part because he was old enough to be her father. At first Urquhart was a bit put-off by this, but it began to mould into reverse-form for him, where he began to wonder, "Why shouldn't I be everybody's Daddy?".
The newspaper Storin works for is corrupt and firmly in bed with the Conservative Party, having tied their fate to that of Collingridge when they helped him get elected during the 1990 Conservative Party leadership election. Storin finds out the hard way, when a story she writes (thanks to leaked material provided to her by Urquhart) is spiked because it would harm Collingridge. And when she finds proof that Collingridge and his brother Charles were framed by someone within their party, the editor (now backing Urquhart in the upcoming special election to replace Collingridge) not only spikes the story, but permanently reassigns Mattie to the humiliating task of writing the "cooking" section of the paper and tells her, point-blank, that if she quits, they will exercise her "no-compete" clause to keep her from finding work as a reporter for three months.
Digging into Urquhart's schemes[]
Storin confronting Urquhart
Storin later caught on, as, during the leadership election following Collingridge's resignation, she found contradictions in the inside trading accusations against Collingridge and his brother Charles, and she began to dig deeper into Urquhart's schemes. Urquhart sent Conservative Party public relations consultant Roger O'Neill to vandalise her car and apartment as a show of intimidation, and he later had the unstable O'Neill poisoned to die up lose ends. Storin eventually deduced that Urquhart was responsible for O'Neill's death and was behind the elimination of the other Conservative candidates in the leadership election.
Death[]
Storin's death
Storin confronted Urquhart on the roof garden of the House of Commons, where he confessed to these allegations. She told Urquhart that he could trust her, but he proceeded to throw her off the roof to her death, making it look like a suicide. He did not know that Storin had been recording their conversations, and that someone has found the tape.
Legacy[]
Urquhart had frequent nightmares and flashbacks to Storin's murder. Storin's recordings of her conversations with Urquhart were stolen, and later ended up in the possession of Tim Stamper and Tom Makepeace.
After a brief abduction by some homeless thugs, Urquhart's personal aide Sarah Harding is told to ask Urquhart about Storin. When she asked Urquhart about Storin, Urquhart told her that Storin killed herself. Despite her feelings for Urquhart, Harding begins to question his version of events about the tragedy. She meets John Krajewski, a former colleague of Storin's who is now a paranoid freelance journalist. Urquhart's personal bodyguard Corder and his staff execute Krajewski and blame it on Irish republican terrorists.
Stamper had been concurrently collecting evidence of Urquhart's murder of Storin, intending to use it against Urquhart and have a leadership contest held, to which Stamper would hope to emerge as the new Prime Minister. Urquhart oversaw Stamper's appointment as Chief Whip and, later, Chairman of the Conservative Party, but Stamper decided to betray Urquhart after Urquhart reneged on a promise to make him Home Secretary during a cabinet reshuffle. Stamper decided to release a tape incriminating Urquhart in the murders of Storin and O'Neill, conspiring with Harding. However, Urquhart arranged for the two of them to be killed with car bombs, making their deaths appear to be Provisional IRA attacks. Stamper was killed when his car exploded outside of New Scotland Yard, where he was preparing to turn in his copies of the tapes to the police. Harding was killed when her car exploded while she was en route to meet with the monarch's secretary Chloe Carmichael.
Corder sent a copy of Storin's tape, revealing Urquhart's role in her death, to Makepeace. He confronts Urquhart and announces that he will publish the tape, but not before Urquhart has achieved his aim of surpassing Margaret Thatcher's record as the longest serving prime minister in modern history.
Behind the Scenes[]
Promotional photo of Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker) outside 10 Downing Street
Mattie Storin was played by Susannah Harker in all four episodes of the first miniseries of the House of Cards trilogy. After Storin's death in the final episode of the first miniseries, Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) has several flashbacks to Storin's death throughout To Play the King and The Final Cut, with Harker being credited for these appearances. Storin is also mentioned several times in To Play the King and The Final Cut.
In the original novel, Urquhart and Mattie are not romantically involved and he does not kill her. The original version of the novel features a radically different ending: Urquhart commits suicide after Mattie exposes his crimes. The popularity of the first miniseries motivated Dobbs to rewrite the novel's ending to match that of the miniseries, and made two follow-up novels, To Play the King and The Final Cut.
Michael Dobbs chose Mattie Storin's name based on Matthew V. Storin, a male journalist, who was a colleague of Dobbs' at The Boston Globe in the 1970s and later became editor of The Globe (1993–2001).
Trivia[]
- Storin's counterpart in the US series is Zoe Barnes.
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