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. 

Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem

Melisende of Jerusalem (queen of Jerusalem, 21 August 1131)

The daughter of Baldwin II, the Crusader king of Jerusalem, Melisende followed her father onto the throne, as queen regnant, ruling Jerusalem for more than twenty years, from 1131 until 1153.  

Melisende at her
coronation

Born 1105 in the county of Edessa, a Crusader state established in 1098, Melisende was the daughter of Baldwin of Boulogne, the count of Edessa, and Morphia of Melitene, the daughter of an Armenian nobleman who ruled the nearby city of Melitene and became a vassal of Baldwin's.

Morphia was a politically astute companion to Baldwin, undoubtedly a capable model for her eldest daughter, Melisende, and the couple's other three children, all daughters, Alice (later princess of Antioch), Hodierna (later countess of Tripoli), and Ioveta (later abbess of Bethany).

When Baldwin became the king of Jerusalem in 1118, he was "encouraged" to put aside his wife, because Morphia had only given him daughters (three at the time) and as a king, Baldwin would, obviously, need a male heir. Instead, Baldwin raised Melisende as his heir, styling her "daughter of the king and heir of the kingdom of Jerusalem"; she was named officially as his successor in 1128.

Even so, Baldwin thought Melisende would need a husband to protect her status as queen regnant, and he arranged for her marriage to Fulk of Anjou in 1129, which proved to be a bad decision. (Fulk's son by a previous marriage, Geoffrey of Anjou, was married to a woman--and would-be ruling queen--whom we  have met before, Matilda of England.)

Even before Baldwin's death, Fulk began maneuvering to control Melisende's role as queen, aiming to reduce her to a queen consort rather than a queen regnant. But after Melisende gave birth to a son in 1130, Baldwin II held a coronation for his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, investing them as co-rulers of Jerusalem--Melisende alone was given the guardianship of her son, Baldwin III, thus reducing Fulk's influence.

After Baldwin II's death on 21 August 1131, Melisende began to rule jointly with her husband, who persisted in his efforts to wrest political power from her. Rather than rejecting a woman as ruler, the Haute Court, the feudal council of the kingdom of Jerusalem, supported Melisende. 

The conflicts and tensions between husband and wife persisted, and the two went to war in 1134. No less a man than the renowned theologian and religious reformer Bernard of Clairvaux urged Melisende to "show the man in the woman" and to "order all things . . . so that those who see you will judge your works to be those of a king rather than a queen."

After defeating the forces of her husband in 1135, Melisende was reconciled to him (she bore another child in 1136). She continued to rule with Fulk until his death in 1143, after which she ruled as regent for her son, Baldwin III. About Melisende's role as queen regnant, the historian and archbishop William of Tyre, concluded, "Power in the kingdom resided in the hands of the Lady Melisende, a queen beloved of God, to whom it belonged by hereditary right." (His Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, the History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea or the History of Jerusalem, was written between 1170 and 1184.)

In one form or another, she governed from 1131 to 1153, when Baldwin III was twenty-three years old--and insisted that he be given power as sole king, though he had shown no interest at all in governing before that time. To appease Baldwin, the Haute Court decided that, as a compromise, the kingdom should be divided into northern and southern halves, with Baldwin to rule the northern part and Melisende continuing as queen regnant in the southern portion, including the city of Jerusalem. 

But Baldwin was not happy with that decision. Once again, tensions broke out into warfare, this time the son attacking his mother. Eventually, peace was restored and Melisende "retired," though she was called upon to act as regent of Jerusalem for her son when he was on campaign, fighting endless battles to maintain control in the Holy Land.

Melisende died on 11 September 1161. Her son died just two years later, in 1163, succeeded by Melisende's younger son, Amalric. 

Interestingly, Melisende of Jerusalem was a ruling queen at a time when there were several notable women rulers. 

Although she was not a queen regnant, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who controlled the wealthy and politically significant duchy of Aquitaine in her own right, was Melisende's contemporary. As queen of England, she was a political player of the first order. Melisende and Eleanor actually met when Eleanor accompanied her first husband, Louis VII of France, on the Second Crusade.

We have also met Urraca of Castile and León, a queen regnant who, like Melisende, inherited her title from her father Alfonso VI. Matilda of England (1102-67), married to Fulk of Anjou's son, was designated heir to the English throne by her father Henry I, though she never managed to reign as queen.

And as another interesting note, Melisende’s sisters were also regents; Alice of Jerusalem (m.c. 1126) acted as regent of Antioch for her daughter, Constance, while Hodierna of Jerusalem (c. 1120s-50s) was regent of Tripoli. Melisende’s niece, Constance (1126-1160s), whose mother had functioned as regent of Antioch, herself governed Antioch as regent.

Melisende's correspondence is available at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters.

I can recommend two wonderful books about Melisende of Jerusalem. The first is a new biographical treatment, Sharan Newman's Defending the City of God: A Medieval Queen, the First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem. The second places Melisende in her cultural context: Margaret Tranovich, Melisende of Jerusalem: The World of a Forgotten Crusader Queen.

Update, 22 November 2019: The BBC's In Our Time features a full-length broadcast discussion of Melisende of Jerusalem on its 21 November program. To listen to the podcast, click here.

Christina, Queen of Sweden, Decides to Quit

Queen Christina of Sweden (abdicates 5 June 1654)

For so many medieval and early-modern women, succeeding to the monarchy was difficult, if not impossible.

Christina as queen, c. 1640,

portrait by Jacob Henry Elbfas

But there was no opposition to the succession of Christina to the throne of Sweden. Born in December of 1626, the only surviving child of King Gustavus Adolphus and his queen, Maria Eleanora of Brandenburg, Christina became queen of Sweden on 15 March 1633, when she was just six years old.

After conflicts between her mother and her aunt, the king's half-sister Catherine of Sweden, in whose care her father had left her, the regency council eventually appointed Catherine the young queen's guardian. 

Christina flourished under her aunt's care. She was also, as her father had ordered, educated as a prince, tutored in religion, philosophy, the classical languages, modern languages (including German, French, and Italian), and, most importantly, in politics. Although the ruling council invited her to assume her full duties as queen when she was sixteen, she deferred, postponing until her eighteenth birthday (claiming her father's majority as a precedent).

Like her English predecessor, Elizabeth I, Christina determined not to marry--a decision she announced on 26 February 1649, even before her coronation. Unlike Elizabeth, however, Christina solved the question of succession by naming her cousin Charles as her heir. (And, in fact, he did become king after Christina.)

While Christina's reign was a successful one, it was not without its difficulties. Christina worked tirelessly as queen, and she began suffering from numerous ailments. Her unconventional behavior and personal relationships became a cause for concern, and she was also accused of being fiscally irresponsible, even wasteful, angering many in the nobility for her efforts to raise money to pay off her debts. And, more problematically, in 1652, after sending a secret letter to Rome and welcoming two disguised Jesuits to Sweden, she received them, underwent instruction, and formulated a plan to convert to Catholicism.

In 1651, Christina had broached the idea of abdication with her council, but had been dissuaded from so drastic a move. By 1654, she could no longer be dissuaded. Her abdication ceremony at Uppsala Cathedral took place on 5 June 1654.

The next day, Christina left Sweden, dressed as a man and under the assumed name of Count Dohna. On 24 December 1654, in Austria, she converted to the Roman Catholic faith. Her ultimate destination, though, was Rome, where she arrived in December 1655.

While she settled more or less permanently, she also traveled to France in 1656, but she was back in Rome by the spring of 1658. She returned briefly to Sweden in 1660 at the death of Charles, even suggesting that she might like to return as queen--but, given her conversion, that was an impossibility. She returned to Rome in 1662. In 1667 she considered one last return to Sweden, but conditions prevented her from traveling farther than Hamburg. She was back in Rome by the end of 1668.

Memorial monument to Christina,
St. Peter's Basilica,
Rome

Traveling in Campania, she fell ill and died on 19 April 1689. Over the years, aside from the possibility that she might wish to return to Sweden as queen, she had been considered for a variety of vacant thrones--maybe she could be queen of Naples? Or queen of Poland? But there were no second chances, at least not as a ruling monarch.

Queen Christina's life is far more complex and event-filled than a brief post like this one can summarize, much less detail.

Her involvement with contemporary intellectuals, like the French philosopher René Descartes, her role as a collector of art, her many political involvements, her pious and, then again, her scandalous behavior, her gender ambiguities--make her life story rich and compelling.

I recommend the biography by Veronica Buckley, Queen Christina: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric--the title just hints at what's in store for you!

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")

Matilda of England: The Woman Who Would Be Queen

Matilda of England, empress and "lady of the English" (born c. 7 February 1102)

The daughter of Henry I of England and his queen, Matilda of Scotland, Matilda of England was, like so many young royal women, an important part of her father's diplomacy--later, she became a powerful political force in her own right.

Matilda's Great Seal

Her first political role, though, was as a bride. In order to secure an important alliance for her father, Matilda was betrothed to Henry V, king of the Romans, in 1108 or 1109: the king of England wanted to connect himself to one of the most important dynastic powers in Europe, one which could help buttress his control of Normandy, while the king of the Romans wanted Henry of England's money to secure for himself the title of emperor. Matilda was the means to both their ends.

As a result of the alliance, the young Matilda was sent to the German court where she was schooled in the language and customs of her husband-to-be--and she learned a great deal about the art of government. She was finally old enough in January 1114 for her marriage to Henry to be formalized.

Throughout the years of this marriage, which lasted until Henry V's death in 1125, she participated in imperial politics, traveling with him and, from 1118 to 1119, acting as his regent in Italy. When the emperor died, Matilda was still only twenty-three years old.

In the mean time, the political situation in England had become uncertain--Henry I's son and heir, William, had died in 1120. Although the king had remarried, hopeful for a new male heir, that son did not appear. After Matilda returned to England following her husband's death, Henry named her as his heir, his English and Norman barons swearing to recognize her in January 1127.

But another dynastic marriage was in order for Matilda. This time, and again in order to secure his Norman possessions, Henry arranged for an alliance with Geoffrey of Anjou. The marriage took place in June of 1128. It was not particularly happy or peaceful, but it did result in three sons, the eldest of whom would become Henry II of England.

After her father's death in 1135, and despite the oaths they had sworn, the English lords did not welcome Matilda as queen. Instead, she spent more than a decade at war trying to gain recognition of her title and her throne. For six months in 1141, she was in power and formally recognized as "lady of the English," but she was never crowned as queen regnant. She fought on until 1148, after which she retired to Rouen. While she administered Normandy, her son, Henry, took up the fight in England. At long last, a truce was reached in 1153; "King" Stephen would continue to rule in England until his death, after which Henry would become king. (He succeeded to the throne as Henry II in 1154.)

Until her death in 1167, Matilda remained in Normandy. She continued to be an important adviser for her son, acted on his behalf in Normandy, and involved herself on his behalf in international diplomacy.

Contemporary chroniclers expressed a variety of opinions about Matilda, depending on their own political perspectives and alliances. Her right to inherit the English throne as a queen regnant became an important part of the debate about female rulers in the sixteenth century. From my point of view, she is an inspiring figure--a queen who might have been. 

Helen Castor discusses Matilda in her She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth, but the best and most comprehensive treatment is in Helen Chibnall's full-length academic biography, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English. 

You may also be interested in listening to a podcast about "the Anarchy," the civil war between Matilda and her cousin, Stephen of Blois, who claimed the English crown in her stead. You will find this episode of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time by clicking here.

Update, 20 February 2019: To listen to historian Catherine Hanley's excellent discussion of Matilda, broadcast on the BBC's History Extra podcast, click here. Hanley has just published a terrific new biography, Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior. It is wonderfully readable!