Marie de Guise, Queen and Regent of Scotland

Marie de Guise, queen and regent of Scotland (born 22 November 1515)

As I have noted many times in the years since I began writing this blog, its title--"The Monstrous Regiment of Women"--is drawn from the virulent political pamphlet published by the Scottish religious reformer John Knox. 

Knox published his blistering assessment of female rule, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, in 1558. His bitter, almost pornographic, indictment of "gynecocracy" was quickly followed in print by a series of pamphlets that echoed, expanded, disputed, and countered his argument that female rule was unnatural, unlawful, and contrary to scripture.

From Knox's point of view, the political situation could hardly seem worse. Not only had Mary Tudor succeeded to the throne of England, but Mary Stuart, wife of the dauphin of France, had become queen of Scotland, while her mother, Marie de Guise, was acting as regent in Scotland on Mary's behalf.*

Marie of Guise, c. 1537
portrait attributed to Corneille de Lyon

The daughter of Claude of Lorraine, duke of Guise (after 1528), and Antoinette Bourbon, Marie was the couple's firstborn and only child for the first four years of her life.

But after the birth of a son and heir in 1519, her father sent his daughter to the convent Clarisse to Pont-à-Mousson. There Marie joined her paternal grandmother, Philippa of Guelders. After an active career in Lorraine, where she had served as regent for her son, the duke of Lorraine (Claude's elder brother), the dowager duchess had retired there. (As only one more indication of Margaret of Austria's powerful influence for a generation of early-modern women, a young Philippa of Guelders spent time in her court.)

Marie remained in the convent with her grandmother until she was about fourteen years old. After visiting his mother in the convent, the duke of Lorraine must have seen the potential in his niece--he arranged for Marie to leave the convent and to prepare for a life in the French court. She made her first appearance there in 1531. A politically advantageous alliance was soon arranged. 

On 4 August 1534, when she was eighteen years old, Marie of Lorraine was married to Louis II d'Orléans, duc de Longueville and comte de Dunois. Her first child, a boy named François, after the French king, was born just over a year later. But Marie's husband died in 1537, just three years after their marriage. A posthumous son, Louis, was born two months after his father's death--and four months later, the baby was also dead.

Within months, it was clear that a second marriage would be arranged for the young widow. James V of Scotland, whose wife had recently died, was looking for a new queen, as was Henry VIII of England, whose offer was rejected by Marie in December 1537--the English king is said to have told the French ambassador that he was a big man, in need of a similarly sized wife (Marie was quite tall). Marie is said to have replied that, though she was a big woman, she had a very little neck (referring to Henry's execution of his second wife, Anne Boleyn).

Happily for Marie, the French king decided to reject Henry's offer and to accept that of James of Scotland. Less happily, marriage negotiations were immediately underway--she was not eager for a second marriage. Despite her wish to delay, by January of 1538, just seven months after her first husband's death, the marriage contract with Scotland was complete.

The couple were married by proxy in France on 9 May 1538. On 10 June, Marie, now queen of Scotland, left France for her new home. As was customary, she left behind her three-year-old son.

After her arrival in Scotland, the new queen worked to reconcile her husband and his mother, Margaret Tudor, whose second marriage, subsequent divorce, and remarriage, had strained relations with the Scottish king. 

 

Marie gave birth to her son James in May 1539 and quickly became pregnant again. The second child was also a boy, but disaster struck in April 1541 when the two young princes died within a week of one another. Margaret, who knew only too well the pain of losing her children, comforted her son and his wife. Margaret Tudor herself died as the year ended, on 18 October 1541.

Double portrait of James V of Scotland and Marie of Guise,
artist unknown

Marie of Guise gave birth to a third child, a girl to be named Mary, on 8 December 1542. But the king of Scotland died just six days later, on 14 December. At her father's death, Mary Stuart became queen of Scotland. 

During the regency of James Hamilton, earl of Arran, Henry VIII made every effort to secure the marriage of Mary, queen of Scots, to his son, the infant Edward, moving from promises and inducements to war, when negotiations failed. Instead, Mary Stuart was betrothed to the French dauphin, another François, and in 1548 the little girl was sent to France to be reared alongside her future husband. 

Marie of Guise, the dowager queen, meanwhile, remained in Scotland. Only after the war with England ended and a treaty had been signed did she travel to France to see her young daughter. In September 1550 she left Scotland for the continent. She landed in Normandy and was able to travel to Longueville to reunite with the fifteen-year-old son from whom she had been separated a dozen years earlier. 

She also reunited with her daughter, the queen of Scotland, and she was able to visit with her recently widowed mother, Antoinette of Bourbon. (Marie's father, Claude of Bourbon, had died in April 1550). But before Marie of Guise returned to Scotland, she suffered one more blow--her son, François, died, still not sixteen years old.

Although the regency of Scotland had been in the hands of James Hamilton, earl of Arran, since James V's death, he was replaced as regent in April 1554. Marie of Guise's position as queen regent was "ratified by the Estates of Scotland." She served as regent until her death in 1560 and seems to have taken to heart the advice of her brother, the duke of Guise, to "deal in Scotland in a spirit of conciliation, introducing much gentleness and moderation into the administration of justice." 

She attempted to steer a judicious middle course for herself, acting in Antonia Fraser's words, "gently and slowly by the use of Parliament," introducing more equitable administration of the law into a country "where administration was either non-existent or archaic in the extreme," aiming for stability in economic matters, and proceeding with "balance and political acumen" in her dealings with the Scots lords, whom she judged to be "jealous and suspicious." She knew the difficulty of her task: "whenever it is a question of meeting out justice or punishment," Marie wrote, the lords "find these things insupportable, thinking always that one wants to give them new laws and change theirs, which in fact have much need of amendment."

Her family predicted that her "tender" methods would result in her failure. Her enemies condemned her as full of "craft and subtleties"; she had a "queenly mind," but "the heart of a man of war." John Knox, her most virulent critic, described her regency in an oft-quoted passage: "a crown [was] put upon her head, as seemly a sight . . . as to put a saddle upon the back of an unruly cow." But her supporters described her differently. The Catholic bishop John Lesley judged her to be a "princess most prudent and very well instructed in sweetness, comely and honest manners and integrity of life":  

Through use and experience, she knew much of our affairs and was very expert, in so far that none was of the nobility and of the common people except very few obscure persons whose engine, mind and manners she knew not perfectly and very well. . . . [S]he did justice with all diligence all her days. . . . [S]he likewise in virtues and many offices of humanity far overcame many other women. . . . [T]herefore she won the hearts of all . . . with wit and wisdom.

Lesley's view was surely as partisan Knox's, but, as Rosalind Marshall writes, "it is interesting to note" that the English chronicler Holinshed's estimation of the regent is much closer to Lesley's than to Knox's: In his view Mary of Guise was "wise and very prudent." During her regency "she kept good justice and was well obeyed in all parts of the realm." 

Marie of Guise, regent of Scotland, died in the sixth year of her regency, on 11 June 1560. She was forty-four years old.

In her extraordinary nineteenth-century history, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses Connected with the Royal Succession of Great Britain, Alice Strickland provides an extended narrative of Marie of Guise (whom she refers to as Mary of Lorraine). The biography spans volume 1 and volume 2. 

In her 1969 biography of Mary, queen of Scots, Antonia Fraser (quoted here) writes about Mary's mother, Marie of Guise.

Rosalind Marshall's Mary of Guise (2001) is also quoted here. 

For a more recent biography, see Melanie Clegg's The Scourge of Henry VIII: The Life of Marie de Guise (2016). 

*This post has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe. 

Lady Margaret Douglas, Poet and "Progenitor of Princes"

Margaret Douglas, countess of Lennox (christened 8 October 1515)

Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's older sister--the Tudor princess's first marriage had been to James IV of Scotland. After the king's death, the queen dowager had married Archibald Douglas, the earl of Angus. Margaret Douglas was the only child of Margaret Tudor's second marriage.

Margaret Douglas,
c. 1560-65

As a widowed queen, Margaret Tudor struggled to maintain her role as regent for her young son, who at seventeen months old succeeded his father as James V of Scotland in 1513, after the king's death at the battle of Flodden.

But when the queen dowager married her second husband secretly in 1514, she lost her regency and her guardianship of her two royal sons, the child-king, and his younger brother, Alexander, born in 1514, after his father's death.

In 1515, heavily pregnant with Angus's child and deeply embroiled in the violent political struggles of the Scottish lords, the former queen left the country, undertaking a desperate escape to England.

She took refuge in Harbottle Castle (Northumberland), where her daughter, Margaret Douglas, was born on 8 October 1515. The elder Margaret, too ill after childbirth to travel south to join her brother's court, remained in the castle with her daughter until she recovered enough to make the journey.

In late April of 1516, mother and daughter were finally able to move on to the safety of Henry's court, where they were greeted by Henry's queen, Katherine of Aragon, who had just given birth to a daughter of her own, Mary Tudor, in February. 

But after a year in England, with her husband Angus refusing to join his wife and daughter, Margaret Tudor returned to Scotland and her husband, taking Margaret Douglas with her. The turbulent marriage of Margaret and Angus, despite their brief reconciliation, was not to last.

Back in Scotland, Margaret was allowed to have some contact with her son, James V, but her difficult marriage disintegrated, and by the time the younger Margaret was three, her parents were engaged in a long and bitter struggle. 

Though the two would continue in their attempts at reconciliation, primarily at the urging of Henry VIII, by 1527 the marriage was irretrievably broken, and it was at last annulled by Clement VII--while declaring Margaret Tudor's second marriage invalid, the pope nevertheless declared Margaret Douglas legitimate. (Margaret Tudor would go on to marry a third time, to Henry Stewart, first lord Methven--but that's another story.)

At some point between 1525 and 1528, Angus removed his daughter from her mother's guardianship--although some historians have referred to this as a kidnapping or even an abduction, Angus had every legal right to take possession of his child. Now in her father's custody, Margaret, began to identify not as English but Scottish.

Angus continued to involve himself in the struggle to control the Scottish throne and the person of the young king. By 1528, Angus was not only back in Scotland but once again regent--though he quickly lost power. By the end of the year, the young king escaped from Angus's control and joined his mother. 

Attainted and finding his lands confiscated, Angus managed a truce and fled to England, taking his daughter with him, recognizing her value as a significant political pawn. While Margaret Tudor's son, James V, might be considered an heir to the English king, he was at least technically debarred by reason of his Scottish birth. Margaret's daughter, on the other hand, faced no such bar. She was English--born in Northumberland. 

But once in England, Margaret Douglas was removed from her father's custody and joined the household of her godfather, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, her residence established in Berwick Castle. She remained there until the spring of 1530; after Wolsey's death, she was summoned to her uncle's court.

Her proximity to the throne would shape her turbulent life. In 1530, she was made a lady-in-waiting to her cousin, Mary, whose residence was at the royal palace at Beaulieu. The two would remain lifelong confidantes. 

But in 1533, with the English king's marriage to Anne Boleyn, Margaret Douglas was transferred to the new queen's court, once again appointed as lady-in-waiting. After Elizabeth Tudor's birth, Margaret was a lady of honor to the princess. 

While at the court of Henry and Anne, she met and fell in love with Lord Thomas Howard, the queen's uncle. The two seem to have entered into a contract for marriage. When King Henry discovered the relationship between the two, he regarded it as a dangerous attempt by Howard to gain control of the throne. On 8 June 1534, Henry had the pair arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Howard was attainted for treason, his position becoming increasingly dire after Anne Boleyn's fall and execution in 1536, but he was not tried and executed--he eventually fell ill as a result of the harsh conditions he suffered while imprisoned in the Tower.

For her part, Margaret also fell ill, but she was transferred from the Tower into the custody of the abbess of Syon Abbey.  She was finally released on 29 October 1537, but she would not be reunited with her lover--he died in the Tower just two days later.

The poems that Howard and Margaret Douglas exchanged during their calamitous affair are now part of the collection known as the Devonshire Manuscript--an anthology of courtly lyric poetry composed and compiled by members of the royal court, many of them women. In addition to its significance as a repository of sixteenth-century poetry, the manuscript collection "also provides a unique insight into the precarious position of Renaissance women in, or close to, power."

A leaf from the Devonshire Manuscript

As a result of his niece's actions, the king altered the Act of Succession to make any attempt to "espouse, marry or deflower being unmarried" a female claimant to the throne an act of treason.

Margaret Douglas was released from her confinement in Syon in order to attend the funeral of Jane Seymour, Henry's third queen. Fearing that his long-desired son's legitimacy might be questioned by the Catholic church, given his complicated marital history, Henry VIII had his niece Margaret declared illegitimate--on he grounds that her mother's marriage to Angus had been entered into clandestinely, 

Although legally debarred from the throne, Margaret was welcomed back to court. In 1539, she was appointed as a member of the household of Anne of Cleves, serving as one of the English women who would greet the future queen on her arrival in England. The Cleves married was annulled in 1540.

By that time, Margaret had involved herself in yet another disastrous romantic entanglement, this time with Sir Charles Howard, the brother of Henry's fifth queen, Catherine Howard. (Charles Howard was also the nephew of Margaret's earlier love, Thomas Howard.)

Margaret once again found herself in disgrace, though on this occasion she avoided the Tower and went immediately back to Syon. (For his part, Charles Howard escaped to the continent.) But she was quickly released after Catherine Howard's fall and execution, once more back at court and appointed to the household of Henry's last queen, Katherine Parr.

In 1544, Margaret Douglas at last found a marital prospect of whom the English king approved, and she married the Scottish exile Matthew Stewart, earl of Lennox. Although they remained in England, the couple had many interests (and intrigues) in Scotland. (Still fearful of Margaret's claims to the English throne, Henry VIII excluded her from the succession in his will.)

Now the countess of Lennox, Margaret Douglas quickly gave birth to eight children, but only two survived, two sons, Henry Stuart, lord Darnley, in 1545, and Charles Stuart, earl of Lennox, in 1555. Meanwhile, during the brief reign of Edward VI, the staunchly Catholic Margaret and her more religiously opportunistic husband largely stayed away from court.

By contrast, she remained at the English court throughout the reign of Queen Mary (1553-58). The first English queen reportedly told Simon Renard, Habsburg ambassador to the English court, that her cousin was "best suited" to succeed her on the English throne.

But after Mary's death, Margaret retired to Yorkshire. Her northern household was a center for Catholic intrigue and numerous political plots. 

Margaret involved herself in many of them--notably angling for the marriage of her son, Darnley, to the widowed Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland. In the midst of her scheming, she was again arrested and imprisoned--unlike her husband, who was sent to the Tower, Margaret was moved south but placed under house arrest at Sheen (the former Carthusian monastery, not far from the palace of Westminster).

The two were held for a year, but by 1563, Margaret Douglas was accepted back at court, perhaps because she could be kept under Elizabeth's watchful eye. But after Darnley's marriage to the Scottish queen, Margaret Douglas found herself once more in the Tower, where she remained until Darnley's murder in 1567.  

Released by Elizabeth, Margaret Douglas witnessed the fulfillment of many of her aspirations when she saw her grandson, Darnley's child, become James VI after his mother, Mary Stuart, was forced to abdicate on 24 June 1567. Margaret's husband, the earl of Lennox, was at last able to return to Scotland, serving as regent for his grandson--at least until his murder on 4 September 1571.

Still the indomitable countess was not to be stopped. With the redoubtable Bess of Hardwick, she conspired to marry her second son, Charles, to Bess's daughter, Elizabeth--this couple would give birth to the unfortunate Arbella Stuart. (As noted at the British Library website, "Douglas's disastrous love affair [with Thomas Howard] in turn foreshadowed her granddaughter Arbella Stuart’s experiences almost 75 years later.") In 1574, after the marriage was accomplished, a furious Queen Elizabeth ordered Margaret to the Tower once more.

Having achieved this last marriage, Margaret Douglas "retired" from her political intrigues and matchmaking, dying just a few years later on 9 March 1578. Although she died in poverty, she was given an extravagant tomb in Westminster Abbey, funded by her cousin and adversary, Queen Elizabeth.

The tomb of Margaret Douglas, countess of Lennox,
Westminster Abbey

Margaret Douglas did not live to witness her ultimate dynastic triumph, when her grandson James VI of Scotland would ascend to the English throne in 1603, after the death of Elizabeth, becoming James I of England. 

For an excellent essay, I recommend "King Henry's Niece," by Leanda De Lisle. (In her essay she calls Margaret the "progenitor of princes," which I have quoted in the title of this post.)

Women and Political Power--Or, Some Things Never Change

Hillary Clinton, Matilda of England, and the Crap Women Have to Put Up With

When it comes to women seeking political power, things don't seem to change much.

Critics have pointed out the persistence of the sexist rhetoric swirling around Hillary Clinton and her campaign for the presidency--and of the media's complete disregard of their responsibility for it and their failure to address their complicity in this persistence. Check out "The Media Have a Hillary Story and They're Sticking to It" (Neil Gabler, 8 April 2016, Moyers & Company) and "Morning Joe Panel Admits Discussing Clinton’s Tone is 'a Gender Thing'--Continues to Do It Anyway" (Scott Eric Kaufman, 12 April 2016, Salon).

In fact, reading stories like these and listening to "reasoned" political commentary on CNN and NPR for the last few weeks, I've been thinking more and more about the Empress Matilda--the twelfth-century woman who was determined to become queen of England. And if the men who had sworn solemn oaths to her father, Henry I, to support Matilda's succession had actually fulfilled those oaths, she would have been the first queen regnant of England. 

A fifteenth-century imagined portrait
of Matilda of England,
the woman who would be queen

I've written about Matilda of England before (to read that post, click here). Born in 1102, Matilda fought to become queen from the time of her father's death, in 1135, until 1154, when her cousin Stephen of Blois, who had seized the English throne in her stead, finally named Matilda's son, Henry, as his heir. Matilda never became queen, but her son became King Henry II of England. Matilda died in 1167.

But going over Matilda's struggle once again isn't my purpose here. Rather, it's the gendered rhetoric surrounding Matilda's pursuit of political power that's interesting to me today.

In the twelfth century, political power--and the pursuit of power--were of course viewed as male. There was no precedent for Matilda in England, but neither was there anything to prevent her from becoming a queen regnant. She was, after all, the only legal heir of her father, and Henry's men had sworn to support her. And her life, first as queen of the Germans and Holy Roman empress, then in a second diplomatic marriage to the count of Anjou, had provided her with ample training in and experience of power politics. So nothing stood in her way--no law, no lack of education and skill. Except, of course, pervasive views about women. 

For a time Matilda was victorious--and in 1141, when she defeated Stephen of Blois and his supporters at the battle of Lincoln, taking him captive, it looked like she might achieve her goal. But that's really when the trouble began. 

Immediately after her victory, the author of the Gesta Stephani (the Deeds of Stephen) said that Matilda refused the request of Stephen's wife (another Matilda, Matilda of Boulogne) to release Stephen by responding with "harsh and insulting language." Even worse, she had promised to reward her supporters with lands that had been Stephen's.

And she didn't always listen to her male advisers--she made up her own mind about what to do. So another charge against her was not "paying attention" to men and "failing" to keep their "good will." Instead, "she did not rise respectfully, as she should have, when [the chief men of the whole kingdom] bowed before her . . . or agree to what they asked, but repeatedly sent them away with contumely, rebuffing them by an arrogant answer and refusing to hearken to their words; and by this time she no longer relied on their advice, as she should have, and had promised them, but arranged everything as she herself thought fit and according to her own arbitrary will."

As the author of the Gesta Stephanie summarized her "failings," "She at once put on an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex." The chronicler Henry of Huntingdon agreed:  “she was lifted up into an insufferable arrogance . . . and alienated the hearts of almost everyone.”

When Londoners objected to paying taxes Matilda imposed on them (they had supported Stephen), "She, with a grim look, her forehead wrinkled into a frown, every trace of a woman's gentleness removed from her face, blazed into unbearable fury." They'd supported her enemies--she wasn't going to "spare them" from the money she thought they should pay. Those very Londoners drove her from Westminster before she could be crowned.

I wonder if Matilda of England's disdainful face
looked anything like this?

It's hard to imagine her formidable father, Henry I, or her first husband, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, or such English kings as Richard the Lionheart or Henry VIII, weren't equally arrogant and didn't "blaze" into "unbearable fury" once or twice.

But Matilda's behavior didn't conform to ideas about what a woman's behavior should be: she wasn't soft-spoken, gentle, self-effacing, humble, or deferential. 

Arrogant and insufferable or not, Matilda was pragmatic--she ultimately gave up her quest for the throne and passed her claim to her son.

Nearly eight centuries later, the rhetoric about women and political power doesn't seem to have changed all that much. 

AND . . . 

Just as I was finishing this post, health-care activist and Bernie Sanders supporter Paul Song let loose with his own misogynist rhetoric--an attack on Hillary Clinton (thinly veiled? Nah, I don't think so) by referring to "corporate Democratic whores." You might--or might not--enjoy the Twitter shitstorm.*

Just a reminder here that queens regnant like Mary Tudor, Elizabeth Tudor, and Mary Stuart were also regularly insulted as whores. It was one of the most frequent attacks made on them. Sigh.

Of course, as I've also noted in this blog, politically powerful women were regularly accused of incest. Can that be far behind? (Here are links to just a few: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabeau of Bavaria, Margaret Beaufort, Louise of Savoy, Marguerite de Navarre. I won't even begin to note all the Borgias and Medici women similarly discredited.)

*Speaking of assholes, Elon Musk and his shift of the platform from Twitter to X have made this no longer available to me (I’m checking links on 4 January 2025). Sorry if that’s the case for you as well… I’ve left the link in, just in case. 

Isabel of Portugal: Duchess of Burgundy, Queen of Italy, Naples, the Germans, and Spain, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire

Isabel of Portugal, regent of Spain (born 24 October 1503)

Isabel of Portugal was the daughter of Manuel I of Portugal and his second queen, Maria of Aragon, who was the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. 

Isabel of Portugal in 1526,
at the time of her marriage

(Interestingly, Maria was the second of Isabella and Ferdinand's daughters to marry Manuel--Maria's elder sister, Isabel, had been married, first, to Afonso of Portugal, but after his untimely death just a year after their marriage, the young widow was married, much against her wishes, to Manuel, who was Afonso's uncle. And, by the way, after Maria of Aragon's death,  Manuel married his niece, Eleanor of Austria . . . So, yay for traditional marriage, I guess.)

Named after both her grandmother and her aunt, Isabel of Portugal was married to her cousin, the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, in 1526. (According to the terms of the marriage arrangement, Isabel's brother, John III of Portugal, married Charles's sister, Catherine of Spain, a woman whom we have met before.)

Through her marriage, Isabel gained a number of titles, some of them indicated in the heading of this post. She was the Holy Roman empress, the queen of the Germans, the queen of Italy, the queen of Spain, the queen of Naples and Sicily, and duchess of Burgundy. But she also gained another title: regent of Spain.

Charles recognized the importance of marrying a woman with the ability to govern. In a letter to his brother, he noted that marrying Isabel of Portugal was "the only sure way of securing stability in the Spanish kingdoms in his absence." 

When Charles was forced to leave Spain for the empire, he appointed his wife as his regent, a role she fulfilled admirably. The Cortes recognized her position on 27 July 1527; she served as regent from 1529 until 1532.  She was personally involved, as well, in the education of her two children, Philip, born in May 1527, and Mary, born in 1528. Charles returned to Spain in April 1533, and when he left again in April 1535, Isabel was regent once more. 

But after Isabel's early death in 1539, at the age of thirty-six (she died after giving birth to a child, her sixth, a stillbirth), Charles had difficulty in finding a suitable replacement for her. Historian Andrew Wheatcroft describes the emperor as "hamstrung" because he "could find no one to replace her effectively." He would not "countenance the appointment of any of his male kin whom he judged inadequate to the role," nor any female "unless she was married, widowed, or old enough to be widowed."

A portrait by Titan, from 1548,
after Isabel's death

Ultimately Isabel's eldest son, Philip II, was old enough to act his father's behalf; Charles appointed him to act as his representative in Spain in 1543. 

In the same year, Philip married his first cousin Maria Manuela of Portugal, the eldest daughter of John III of Portugal (Philip's maternal uncle) and Catherine of Spain (his paternal aunt). By 1545, Maria had given birth to a son and heir, Carlos, and had died. In 1554, when Philip left Spain for his second marriage, this one to Mary Tudor, queen of England, he turned to his sister Joanna of Castile to act as regent of Spain in his place.

There is no biography of Isabel of Portugal. You can find references to her in biographies of Charles V and of her son, Philip, but I like Andrew Wheatcroft's The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire, quoted here, because he focuses quite deliberately on the Habsburg strategy of using female family members as regents. 

Mary Tudor, Queen of England

Mary Tudor (crowned 1 October 1553)

Mary Tudor was crowned queen of England on 1 October 1553.

Queen Mary of England, 1554,
portrait by Hans Eworth

The succession of a woman to the throne of England horrified many, including the Protestant reformer John Knox, who denounced “gynecocracy,” or rule by women, and whose astonishing First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, published in 1558, has provided the title for this blog.* According to Knox,

To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to His revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice. 

This uncompromising assessment of a woman’s right to govern serves as both thesis and refrain in Knox's condemnation of female sovereignty--and in 1558, both Scotland and England were ruled by women. 

In Scotland, the infant Mary Stuart had become queen regnant in 1542, when her father, King James V, died just a few days after she was born. James Hamilton, earl of Arran, was the first governor of Scotland during the queen’s minority, but in 1554 he had been replaced by Mary’s mother, Marie of Guise, who was confirmed as queen regent. 

In England, meanwhile, yet another Mary had also become queen; in 1553, following the death of her half-brother Edward VI, Mary Tudor, the eldest of Henry VIII’s three children, succeeded to the throne, becoming the first queen regnant in England.

Although there is no equivocation in the title of his work, Knox opens his “blast” with strategic indirection. Rather than attack female rulers at the outset, his preface opens with an expression of astonishment. “Wonder it is,” he begins, 

that amongst so many pregnant wits as the isle of Great Britain hath produced, so many godly and zealous preachers as England did sometime nourish, and amongst so many learned men and men of grave judgment as this day by Jezebel are exiled, none is found so stout of courage, so faithful to God, nor loving to their native country that they dare admonish the inhabitants of that isle how abominable before God is the empire or rule of a wicked woman, yea, of a traitoress and a bastard. . . . 

Of course Queen Mary is the “Jezebel,” the “wicked woman” whose birth and reign are both illegitimate, but, at least at the outset, Knox’s focus is on the failures of the “esteemed watchmen” of the nation rather than on the “cruel woman” who rules it. 

And without being explicit about it, he includes himself in his bitter indictment of the “universal negligence” and the “universal and ungodly silence” that have allowed her rule: “We see our country set forth [as] a prey to foreign nations,” we see the “blood of our brethren” shed “most cruelly,” we all know the “monstrous” rule of a woman to be “the only occasion of all those miseries,” and yet “with silence we pass the time, as though the matter did nothing appertain to us.” 

But Knox, having considered the “contrary examples of the ancient prophets”—Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel—has suddenly been awakened. In “this our miserable age,” he writes, we are “bound to admonish the world”; it is “our duty” to reveal the truth to the “ignorant and blind world” whether that ignorant and blind world wants to hear it or not. To “hide the talent committed to our charge” is to ignore duty and to incur condemnation. 

Inching carefully forward, Knox writes, “I am assured that God has revealed to some in this our age that it is more than a monster in nature that a woman shall reign and have empire above man. And yet with us all there is such silence as if God there with were nothing offended.” But the “empire of women” is an “impiety” and “abomination” of such importance that a man should stand ready to “hazard his life.” 

And so, recalling the faith, courage, and constancy not only of the Old Testament prophets but also of the New Testament apostles and identifying himself as one of “God’s messengers,” Knox takes up the heavy burden: 

. . . therefore I say that of necessity it is that this monstriferous empire of women—which amongst all enormities that this day do abound upon the face of the whole earth is most detestable and damnable—be openly revealed and plainly declared to the world to the end that some may repent and be saved. 

We have been misled by princes, Knox reminds his readers, but even “more than princes,” we have been misled by the “great multitude” of men who, mistaken or misguided, have helped “to establish women in their kingdoms and empires, not understanding how abominable, odious, and detestable is all such usurped authority in the presence of God.”

Although Knox admits that he cannot understand why God Himself has not removed such a female tyrant from her “unjust authority,” he predicts her end will come--and soon. "I fear not," he says, 

that the day of vengeance which shall apprehend that horrible monster, Jezebel of England, and such as maintain her monstrous cruelty is already appointed in the council of the eternal, and I verily believe that it is so nigh that she shall not reign so long in tyranny as hitherto she hath done, when God shall declare Himself to be her enemy, when He shall pour forth contempt upon her according to her cruelty and shall kindle the hearts of such as sometimes did favor her with deadly hatred against her that they may execute His judgments.

Knox’s prediction that Mary would not reign long was proven correct. Mary Tudor’s death was near at the very moment Knox proclaimed that “the trumpet hath once blown”: the English queen died on 17 November 1558, a matter of a few months after The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women was published.

If Knox felt any triumph at the death of the woman who had presumed to rule England, it could not have lasted for long, for she was succeeded on the throne by another female ruler, her half-sister Elizabeth. And, shortly thereafter, yet another queen joined the ranks of “monstrous” women when Catherine de’ Medici became regent in France.

And as I hope this blog has illustrated over the last few months, despite Knox's outrage at the "monstrous" regiment of women, women had been governing--and governing well--for centuries. And would continue to do so, no matter how "monstriferous" he (and many men) thought it was . . .

*This post has been adapted from Debating Women, Politics, and Power in Early Modern Europe, where I give an extended analysis of Knox's arguments, of the debate about female sovereignty that was ignited by The First Blast of the Trumpet, and about women writer's responses to the question of women's political abilities.

Lady Margaret Beaufort: The Kingmaker

Lady Margaret Beaufort (born 31 May 1443)

In 1485 Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field, ending thirty-three years of civil war. He was immediately proclaimed king: his victorious supporters shouted "God save King Henry" after the battle, while Thomas, lord Stanley, placed Richard's crown on the head of the new "king."

A sixteenth-century portrait of
Lady Margaret Beaufort,
as a widow, at prayer

The fifteenth-century political crisis in England that resulted in thirty years of civil war had pitted cousin against cousin in a struggle for the crown. The so-called War of the Roses had begun in 1455 with a rebellion against King Henry VI by Richard, duke of York.

The chief opponents in this civil strife were cousins, all descendants of Edward III. (Indeed, Philippa Gregory has linked her novels about this period under the series title "The Cousins' War.")

As these cousins and their numerous supporters struggled, first one branch of the family, then the other, controlled the throne of England. While Henry Tudor's victory at Bosworth seemed to put an end to the bloody contest between Lancaster and York, the new king still faced something of a dilemma. 

While the rival claimants to the English throne had fought it out on the battlefield, the contest had also raised questions of a woman's place in the royal succession. The Lancastrians had argued their superior claim to the English throne by excluding inheritance through the female line, while the Yorkists had made their claims to the throne through the female line.

But in 1485, after his victory at Bosworth, if the new Tudor king wanted to justify his right to the throne, he would have to do so through a woman, his mother, Margaret Beaufort.* But, while justifying his claim to the throne through a woman, Henry VII would have to deny another woman, his wife, Elizabeth of York, the right to make the same claim.

Although Margaret Beaufort would never become queen of England in her own right, she nevertheless would go on to wield considerable political power in the role she assumed as "the king's mother." Indeed, an alternative history of the Wars of the Roses might be written--for the more familiar and obvious battles of fathers and sons we might well substitute the equally bloody battles fought by mothers on behalf of those same sons. We've already looked at the role of one of those powerful women, Cecily Neville, duchess of York (who, remember, styled herself as "queen by right")--now it's time to look at her Lancastrian opposite, Margaret Beaufort.

Margaret Beaufort was the only child of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and his wife, Margaret Beauchamp. Through her father, Margaret Beaufort was the descended from King Edward III, and the Tudor claims to the throne of England came through her paternal line. Yet Margaret's mother was also a considerable force in her daughter's life. 

The daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Bletsoe, Margaret Beauchamp had been an heiress in her own right; following the death of her husband, the dowager duchess had control not only of her own possessions but those of her husband as well, thus insuring her independence. More importantly, Somerset had arranged that, in the event of his death, the rights to his daughter's wardship and marriage were to be left in the hands of her mother.

Although Henry VI had revoked this agreement after Somerset's death in 1444, Margaret continued to live with her mother; unlike many wealthy heiresses, she remained under her mother's care and guidance until 1453, when her wardship was transferred to Jasper and Edmund Tudor. She sustained a strong identification with her mother and her maternal lineage throughout her life.

Lady Margaret Beaufort's tomb effigy,
Westminster Abbey

Margaret Beaufort's "War of the Roses" was fought initially on a matrimonial battlefield. She was married four times, each alliance a politically expedient skirmish in her war of succession.

The first of these unions was in late January or early February of 1450, when William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, married his seven-year-old son John to the six-year-old Margaret. (William de la Pole's wife, little John's mother, was Alice Chaucer, the granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.) Suffolk, a Lancastrian supporter of Henry VI, had been awarded Margaret's wardship (though not custody--as I noted above, she remained under her mother's care) by the king as acknowledgement for the "notable services" he had performed. As Margaret Beaufort's biographer Linda Simon notes, this marriage was not without implications for the succession:

As a staunch Lancastrian, unwilling to consider the claims of the family of York, [Suffolk] believed that there was only one real heiress. Margaret Beaufort was a potential queen, and if his ward did not claim the crown for herself, she must pass that glorious inheritance to her son.

Suffolk suffered almost immediately for his presumption; he was indicted for treason, chief among the accusations against him that he had attempted to secure the English throne for his son by marrying the boy to Margaret, "presuming and pretending her to be next inheritable to the crown." (Although the two children had been married, Margaret had not been removed from her mother's guardianship. Later in her life, Margaret Beaufort would never acknowledge this marriage.)

Henry VI dissolved Margaret's marriage to Suffolk's son in 1453. He then granted the wardship and marriage of the nine-year-old girl to his half-brothers, Jasper and Edmund Tudor, the sons of another woman whom we have already discussed, Katherine of Valois (as queen of England, she was the mother of Henry VI; by her second marriage, she was the mother of the Jasper and Edmund).

This move once again had dynastic significance. As Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood suggest, "Henry's initial intention in dissolving Lady Margaret's marriage with John de la Pole may have been to nominate his half-brother, Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond as his heir, in the right of Margaret Beaufort." A twelve-year-old Margaret was married to Edmund Tudor in 1455; by November of 1456 Edmund Tudor was dead, his adolescent widow six months pregnant.

Margaret gave birth to her only child, Henry Tudor, on 28 January 1457. In their biography of Margaret Beaufort, Jones and Underwood note that her "chief concern" throughout her life was to protect her son's interests. To this end, the thirteen-year-old widow participated actively in arrangements for her next marriage, to Henry Stafford, a staunch Lancastrian.

Discussions for the match began in March 1457, the ceremony taking place on 3 January 1458. Margaret's decision about the alliance was to prove a good one. After Edward IV came to power in 1461, Stafford was reconciled to the Yorkist king, securing a pardon for both himself and for his wife. Wounded fighting for Edward IV and the Yorkists at the battle of Barnet, Stafford never recovered; he died in 1471.

Within the year, in fact before the arrangements for Stafford's burial were complete, Margaret married for a final time. Her strategy at this point is clear; she married a Yorkist supporter, Thomas Lord Stanley. Once more her marriage reflected her carefully calculated decision.

In the mean time, after his mother's marriage to Stafford, Henry Tudor had become the ward of the Yorkist William Lord Herbert, who intended to marry the young Henry to his own daughter, obviously recognizing what Jones and Underwood call Henry's "long-term political future." But in 1469, Henry Tudor's fortunes changed dramatically after Herbert's defeat by Lancastrian forces and with the brief restoration of Henry VI. Margaret's interest was, "first and foremost," the safety of her son, with whom she was reunited in London.

After the Lancastrians were defeated at Barnet, Jasper Tudor and his nephew fled first to Wales, then to France. Edward IV was returned to the throne and now, as Stanley's wife, the Lancastrian Margaret Beaufort was intimately involved with the Yorkist court. In 1479, for example, she carried the king's youngest daughter to her christening, while in 1483, during Richard III's coronation, she carried Queen Anne's train, "taking precedence over all other peeresses, even over King Richard's sister."

Within the year, however, Margaret Beaufort took the "calculated but highly dangerous step" of supporting, perhaps even initiating, the rebellion of Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham against King Richard. The Tudor historian Polydore Vergil was later to conclude that she "was commonly called the head of that conspiracy." Head of the plot or not, her "astonishing role in the conspiracy of 1483" is discussed at some length in both of the recent biographies written about her; in their discussion of Margaret's role in events, Jones and Underwood conclude that her participation demonstrated her "ruthless practice of realpolitik." After the insurrection failed, Richard initiated efforts to pass an act of attainder in Parliament against Margaret Beaufort, "mother to the king's great rebel and traitor, Henry, earl of Richmond." 

Richard charged that she had "conspired and committed high treason, especially by sending messages, writings, and tokens" to her son, and that she had "conspired and imagined the destruction of the king" by supporting Buckingham's treasonous rebellion. But, because of the "good and faithful service" of her husband" and "for his sake," she was spared the act of attainder. Her person and her considerable property were to be controlled by her husband, however; Stanley was to keep his wife "so straight with himself" that she could neither communicate with her son "nor practice anything at all" against the king.

Margaret's effort to defeat Richard did not end with Buckingham's defeat. Later in the same year, her efforts to bring Richard III down led to a coup d'etat of a different sort. Margaret's new strategy continued the war she had waged on the matrimonial battlefield, but this time her her effort was to arrange a marriage between her son and Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth. 

Plans for such a marriage had first been considered while Edward IV was still alive, but at that point Margaret had warned her son not to return to England from the safety of France even if Edward offered such a marriage. Richard III, too, had suggested a marriage between Henry Tudor and one of Edward's daughters. After the failure of Buckingham's rebellion Margaret herself pursued the alliance, sending her personal physician to Edward IV's widow, Elizabeth Woodville, then in sanctuary at Westminster with her daughters. Between them, the two women arranged for the marriage of the "Lancastrian" heir Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York, the oldest surviving heir of Edward IV; in Brittany, Henry Tudor pledged himself to the match on 25 December 1483. 

Once her son became king of England, Margaret Beaufort could abandon her matrimonial strategy for a new tactic. She had waged her battle on Henry's behalf by successful marriages, her own and then his. Now she could continue to act on her son's behalf--and her own--as "my lady the king's mother."

At the beginning of her son's reign, Margaret was accorded an honor that was "semi-regal," and she easily dominated both her son's royal household and his queen. One Spanish observer noted that Elizabeth of York "was kept in subjection" by "the king's mother"; another, commenting on the influence of "the king's mother," wrote that "the queen, as is generally the case, does not like it."

Margaret's arrangements for the royal household extended even to the birth of a child, her plans compiled in her "Ordinances as to what preparation is to be made against the deliverance of a queen as also for the christening of the child of which she shall be delivered." She directed the arrangement of the "lying-in chamber," the procedure for the queen's retirement to await the birth, the composition of the queen's attendants, and the baptismal ceremony.

She established rules for the management and staffing of the royal nursery. Following the birth of her grandson Arthur in 1486, she took over his care. Her role in the lives of her grandchildren extended to her arrangements for their education. After Elizabeth of York's death in 1503, Margaret developed a particularly strong relationship with Henry, heir to the throne after Arthur's death, and she was instrumental in the marriage alliances of her granddaughters Margaret and Mary.

Meanwhile, within the royal households, she lived in close physical proximity to her son. At the residence of Woodstock, for instance, her rooms were linked to his by a shared "withdrawing" room "that belongs to the king's chamber and my lady, his mother's." In the Tower, her rooms were next to her son's bedchamber and council chamber. This physical closeness continued to the end of Henry's life; in 1508, when he was seriously ill, his mother "was in almost constant attendance": Jones and Underwood indicate that "makeshift lodgings were hurriedly erected at Richmond to house her servants as she watched over her son." A year later, as he lay dying, Margaret, "now based in her London house of Coldharbour, made regular journeys by barge along the Thames to the palace of Richmond."

The "king's mother" had a dominant place not only in her son's household but in his kingdom, where her political advice and experience were critical. Henry appointed many of his mother's trusted household officials to positions in his service. The two also shared legal advisors; Jones and Underwood note that "an overlap often existed between the councils of Margaret and her son," with these advisors and even decisions "sometimes passed from one to the other." In 1498 the Spanish ambassador to the court observed that Henry was "much influenced by his mother," and, indeed, that her authority exceeded that of many of his own advisors. 

Margaret's interest in and influence on Henry's foreign affairs were also considerable; she maintained "friendly" contact with the Yorkist Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, who posed a constant threat to the new Tudor king, for example, and she negotiated at length with the French king on her son's behalf. Most significantly, in the last years of his reign, Henry VII delegated power to his mother's council as a way of relieving the "enormous burden of work" on his own counselors. From 1499 to 1507 Margaret presided over this court, "her powers" and her authority judged to be "considerable," her role unprecedented: in this position, Jones and Underwood conclude, she "broke new ground."

While she spent a great deal of time in the royal court, the "king's mother" also maintained her own household, Collyweston, a kind of "city of ladies" that "represented a separate court establishment in its own right, particularly for the numerous aristocrat and gentry women who boarded there." Among those women were the queen's sister, as well as several other "ladies, wards, suitors and scholars." The "king's mother" negotiated marriages for many of the young women whose rearing she supervised, such political marriages benefitting her son, while at the same time demonstrating her own influence and authority.

As he lay dying in 1409, Henry designated his mother as the chief executor of his will. The "culmination of her ceremonial role" within her son's court is indicated by her part in the organization of the burial of her son Henry VII and of the coronation of her grandson Henry VIII; one contemporary account notes that the council arranging these ceremonies was headed by "the mother of the said late king." In both the funeral and the coronation, she was given precedence in the ceremonies. Her "political status" was also "enhanced," if that is possible, by her role in the interim council that governed until Henry VIII's coronation. "My lady the king's grandam," as she then became, "gave instructions for [her grandson's] marriage to Catherine of Aragon and for his coronation."

In their assessment of Margaret Beaufort's role during her son's reign, Jones and Underwood note that Margaret enjoyed a "degree of influence" that gave her "a dominating position within the realm." Throughout the twenty-four years of Henry VII's reign, from his victory at Bosworth in 1485 until his death in 1509, the "king's mother" participated "in every aspect of Tudor ceremony, government and administration and fought for the safeguarding of the dynasty." Hers was, they conclude, "a formidable achievement," even a "partnership."

For a quick overview of Margaret Beaufort, see Michael Jones's excellent essay, "Lady Margaret Beaufort," originally printed in History Today, click here. There are two excellent biographies of Margaret Beaufort: Linda Simon's Of Virtue Rare: Margaret Beaufort, Matriarch of the House of Tudor and Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood's The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby.

In addition to her political role, Margaret Beaufort was an educated and pious woman. Throughout her life, she was a supporter of a variety of religious orders and their institutions, including the Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Carthusians. She was a benefactor to both Oxford and Cambridge colleges, she was a patron of the English printers Richard Pynson, William Caxton, and Wynkyn de Worde (who all printed books at her request), and she was, herself, a writer. She translated into English one book (the fourth) of the Imitation of Christ (it was printed by Richard Pynson), and  her The Mirror of Gold for the Sinful Soul  was an English version of a French translation of a Carthusian devotional work, the Speculum aureum peccatorum. A selection of her letters and translations are found in Donald W. Foster's Women's Works: Volume 1, 900-1500.

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford,
founded in 1878
and named in honor of Lady Margaret Beaufort

Update, 26 May 2024: Recent archaeological work has uncovered the site of Collyweston Palace, Margaret Beaufort’s “city of ladies.” For Megan Specia’s piece in The New York Times, click here

Update, 31 May 2026: You may be interested in two recent podcasts episodes about Margaret Beaufort. First, Episode 2428 (8 December 2025) of the BBC's History Extra podcast focused on Margaret Beaufort for its "Life of the Week" series.  And the 2 April 2027 episode of the BBC's In Our Time podcast, hosted by Misha Glenny, featured a discussion of Margaret Beaufort by three eminent Tudor historians. You can access these episodes wherever you usually listen to podcasts. 

*This post has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

Jane Grey, Queen for Nine Days

Jane Grey (executed 12 February 1554)

I never realized, until starting this daybook in women's history, the eerie juxtaposition of dates--the death of Elizabeth of York on 11 February 1503 and the execution of her great-granddaughter, Jane Grey, fifty-one years and one day later, on 12 February 1554.

Jane Grey, painted c. 1590
(Although there are many purported images of Jane Grey,
historian Eric Ives believes this one to be her
"best likeness")

The story of Jane Grey is, in large part, what drew me, first, to an interest in the Tudors, then to an interest in English history and literature, and ultimately to my teaching, research, and writing about early-modern women. 

I was in fifth grade, and I had checked a book on Jane Grey out of the public library. I remember lying in the bedroom I shared with my sister, completely engrossed in Jane's story. (At the time, we were living at 1127 West Ave. H-7 in Lancaster, California, for what it's worth.)

I knew nothing at all about Jane Grey--and so her end, beheaded in the Tower at age sixteen or seventeen, came as a complete shock. I lay on that bed in my bedroom sobbing for her, at the injustice of it all. I often wonder what book I was reading that day--I'd love to know what it was so I could find a copy of it now. It certainly changed my life.

Given the current interest in all things Tudor, I am assuming that the broad outline of Jane Grey's life is fairly well known--her traumatic childhood, the unscrupulous manipulation of powerful men, who put her on the throne, her brief "reign," and her subsequent fall. She was "officially" proclaimed queen on 10 July 1553 and then unproclaimed on 19 July, when Mary Tudor was proclaimed queen in London by the Privy Council. Jane was arrested, tried for, and convicted of treason in November.

Or so the story usually goes.

A letter signed "Jane the Quene" (upper left corner) written during her brief reign

There are almost too many books about Jane Grey, if that's possible--fiction, non-fiction, and purported works of non-fiction that are, in reality, fiction, if not fantasy. As a correction to all the crap, I wholeheartedly recommend Eric Ives's Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery, an exceptional work by a renowned scholar of Tudor history, whose biography counters the "story" of Jane Grey as it has usually been told.

Contrary to the conventional "nine days queen" label I've used here, for example, Ives argues convincingly that Jane's reign was actually thirteen days, not nine, and that, again contrary to the long-accepted story of her life as utterly determined by powerful men, as I've noted above, she is not to be regarded as "a hapless victim of political intrigue." She is a determined actor and agent in unfolding events. Ives is particularly good on Jane's education and scholarship, and his book ends with an excellent analysis of the "afterlife" of her story--how Jane Grey, the historical person, became "Jane Grey," romanticized victim and martyr.

Less well known, too, is Jane's intellectual history. She received an excellent humanist education, was steadfastly committed to her Protestant faith, and is now regarded as the author of several important compositions, including letters and a prayer. While Ives is very compelling in his analysis of the works attributed to Jane, particularly the way her letters and exhortation to her sister may have been rewritten after her death, you may want to look for yourself. I've found an excellent selection in Women's Works, vol. 2: 1550-1603, edited by Donald W. Foster--included are a selection of letters, the proclamation of her succession, the transcript of a purported interview while Jane is in the Tower, the "exhortation" she may--or may not--have written to her sister, and a note to her father, copied into the  prayerbook she carried to the scaffold.

And here's my complaint of the day: Penguin Books is now publishing a new English Monarchs series, which will include Oliver Cromwell (though he certainly was not a monarch) but will not include Jane Grey. Things like this get me crazy.

Jane's prayer book with a note to her father
(bottom margin, beginning "For as muche as you have desired so simple a woman
to wrighte in so worthye a booke")

Elizabeth of York: She Might Have Been Queen

Elizabeth of York (born 11 February 1466 and died 11 February 1503)

The daughter of Edward IV, the Yorkist king of England, and the niece of Edward's younger brother, King Richard III, Elizabeth of York became the wife of another English king, Henry Tudor, the first Tudor monarch.

Elizabeth of York, c. 1500, 
National Portrait Gallery, London

There is a great deal of popular historical fiction about the Wars of the Roses, and there are more than a few television dramas about the Lancastrians, Yorkists, and Tudors, so I don't need to say much about the rise of the Tudor monarchy here. But what is often unsaid--or unnoticed--is the place of Elizabeth of York in all of this.

After the defeat of Richard III at the battle of Bosworth--and given the disappearance and probable murder of Edward IV's two sons, the "Princes in the Tower"--there was still a viable Yorkist claimant to the throne in 1485, even after Richard's defeat: Elizabeth, the eldest surviving daughter of Edward IV.

But Elizabeth of York did not inherit the throne both her father and uncle had occupied (and that one of her brothers might have occupied, if one of them had lived). Instead, she was married to the victor of Bosworth, the man who became king of England.

Although her own mother, Elizabeth Woodville, and Henry's mother, the formidable Margaret Beaufort, were important political manipulators and power brokers, Elizabeth of York played no real role other than the one crucial for a queen consort--she produced male heirs to the throne, Arthur and Henry (who would become Henry VIII), as well as two daughters who grew to adulthood, Margaret and Mary.

Her daughter Margaret became queen of Scotland, and her daughter Mary, briefly, was queen of France. As queen, Margaret Tudor was also regent of Scotland for her husband, James IV, though she was unable to retain that role for her son, after James's death.

In the next generation, Elizabeth of York's two granddaughters, the daughters of Henry VIII, became queens of England, not as consorts but ruling in their own right: Mary I and Elizabeth I. Elizabeth of York was the great-grandmother to two other queens regnant, Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland (the descendant of Elizabeth's elder daughter Margaret) and Jane Grey, who "ruled" England for nine days (the descendant of Elizabeth of York's younger daughter, Mary).

Still grieving the death of her older son, Arthur, in 1502, Elizabeth of York gave birth to a baby girl, named Katherine, her seventh and last child, on 2 February 1503. The baby died on 10 February, and Elizabeth the next day, her thirty-seventh birthday.

There are several good biographies available, but I recommend Arlene Naylor Okerlund's Elizabeth of York. If you'd prefer a shorter read, there's a chapter on Elizabeth of York in Lisa Hilton's Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens.