The extent to which the ‘gendered’ element or, more simply, gender prejudices shaped society, relative to their theoretical rigidity, is a key focus in the study of early modern England, particularly concerning monarchy given the novelty of queenship. Many feminist historians posit that patriarchal norms dictated how contemporaries viewed monarchy, and that female monarchs were only successful by manipulating this to their advantage.[1]However, to properly assess monarchy, one must appreciate that it has different modes: it is simultaneously a concept, a practice, and an image, the latter drawing upon and manipulating the former two. A narrative that might apply well to one will not necessarily apply to another. This approach allows one to appreciate that while the conceptualisation of monarchy was contested and changing, it maintained an expectation of ‘masculine’ conduct. Practice was, however, different. While female monarchs faced issues Kings would not, both genders were able to exercise power effectively, drawing on divine absolutism. Image nonetheless remained heavily gendered, some representations remaining the preserve of the masculine monarch with others adopted and adapted by Queens regnant.
The conception of monarchy was contested, with growing, but not definitive acceptance of both male and female rule. Our understanding of ideological conceptions of monarchy is limited by their periodic appearance, generally revealing themselves at female succession, and by the fact that we are largely exposed to the conceptions of the higher socio-economic stratum. Nevertheless, visible sources ostensibly demonstrate a prevalence of the belief that monarchy should be exclusively masculine. John Knox, long the classic example, castigated women’s rule as “repugnant to nature, contumely to God … the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.”[2] Nor was he alone, Thomas Becon bewailing: “to take away the empire from a man and give it unto a woman, seemeth to be an evident token of anger toward us Englishmen.”[3] These views were given divine providence by religious tracts such as the Homily on Obedience which denoted a gendered hierarchy of God, Kings, Princes and governors.[4] However, these proclamations must be contextualised. Becon’s true basis was that Mary’s womanhood was a function of corrupt Catholicism.[5] The primacy of the religious factor over gender is clear as by 1564 he was writing of “the most blessed and flourishing reign of this our most gracious lady Queen Elizabeth”.[6] Indeed, most of those hostile to queenship with Mary’s accession to the throne were fervent protestants set against a Catholic monarch.[7] Even Knox was prepared to invoke divine dispensation and accept female rule under Elizabeth[8] – admitting later to Elizabeth that his target had been solely Mary.[9] Moreover, these Protestant polemics were equally countered by many such as Sir Thomas Elyot[10] and Sir Thomas Smith, the latter of which argued that it was ‘bloud and progenie’[11] that really mattered in monarchy. By 1701 this was institutionally recognised with the Act of Settlement prohibiting Catholics on the throne, preferring the Protestant Electress Sophia of Hanover as heir, over male Catholic successors.[12] Indeed, under Queen Anne, Daniel Defoe proclaimed “crowns know no sexes”,[13] while for some, a woman was the ideal parliamentary monarch,[14] as the concept of queenship became less novel and the post-1689 constitutional monarchy suited the publics’ uneasiness with authoritarian women. Nevertheless, one cannot view monarchy in this period as ungendered. Many of the defences of queenship justified it by declaring the suitability of that particular monarch, rather than defending the concept.[15] The widespread preferment for men[16] betrays contemporaries’ deeper patriarchal conceptions of society from which monarchy could not be immune, evidenced by concern over female weakness under Queen Anne.[17]
This sentiment revealed itself in the manner in which monarchs were expected to rule – keeping to supposedly masculine traits such as rationality, moderation, and sobriety.[18] Monarchs of both sexes were commonly praised for their manly behaviour. Elizabeth was praised by John Foxe for “her princely qualities” while the fact she had “so temperate condition, such mildness of manners” was impressive because of “that sex”, implying that these qualities were viewed as generally alien to women.[19] William likewise was praised for his “manly courage and fury” in military pursuits.[20] Herrup provides sensible qualification for this however, emphasising that monarchs’ actions were not judged by a binary comparison of masculine or feminine traits but rather across a spectrum.[21] A monarch could be too masculine just as they could be too feminine. She evidences this by arguing that it was James I’s obvious masculinity, aggressive and impatient, that brought him initial disrepute in England.[22] However, these categorisations were not equally prominent – a monarch was much more likely to be attacked for effeminacy than masculinity. Indeed, Herrup’s diagnosis of the dislike for James is her only evidence of a monarch being seen as too masculine and is not universally held.[23] There is plentiful evidence of attacks on feminine monarchs – Samuel Pepys decried Charles II’s “horrid effeminacy”[24] while childless male monarchs were ridiculed and, in William III’s case, laden with accusations of cuckoldry and homosexuality.[25]
Practice was often more nuanced, with male and female monarchs successfully drawing on their divine right[26] and absoluteness to assert their will.[27] Feminist historians have, alternatively, often stressed the pervasiveness of patriarchal norms, asserting that they critically altered female monarchs’ rule, compared to men’s. This is demonstrated in the supposed politics of courtship in which, at the Elizabethan court, ritual courtship and pretended affection were prerequisites to preferment.[28] However, as Mears has established, the Elizabethan court was more akin to that of male monarchs like Henry VIII than such historians have supposed. Elizabeth’s and Henry’s advisers were chosen on the basis of trust, underpinned by social and familial networks[29] and ideological similarity.[30] Moreover, these advisers were not imposed upon her[31]nor was she restricted by her use of informal ‘probeouleutic’ groups.[32] She utilised these informal consultations as they offered flexibility and privacy, important for sensitive issues such as Mary Stuart[33] and justified her ability to listen though not necessarily heed advice by divinely ordained absolutism.[34] Queen Anne similarly, even in her reduced constitutional role, legitimised it through a belief in a subtle sacral connection.[35] This is not to say gendered notions of monarchy weren’t influential – they crucially shaped the approaches of the (male) counsellors[36] and imposed on Queens regnant issues of a manner male monarchs would not face. Female monarchs could not assume control of their military operations. While Mary I was key in mustering her troops to both seize the throne[37] and defend it during Wyatt’s rebellion,[38] she had to yield control of the battlefield, as did Elizabeth. On marriage too, both Elizabeth and Mary had to contend with counsellors’ attempts to control the process, both continuously petitioning for marriage (as the House of Commons did with Elizabeth in 1559, 1563 and 1566[39]) and trying to dictate whom they marry. In November 1553, when Mary was met by a delegation of some of her most powerful nobles, trying to persuade her to marry within England, she castigated them for the offence.[40] This highlights both the issues that only female monarchs had to face and their responsive assertion of authority. However, female monarchs’ control of their policy-making did not, as Read has suggested in the case of Elizabeth’s courtship of the Duke of Anjou, amount to a manipulation of gender prejudices, utilising dither and delay, to enact political gain.[41] Elizabeth was instead conflicted over personal issues such as concerns over age difference and political ones, notably that the match might bring war with Philip.[42] Nevertheless, by Queen Anne, there were no such manoeuvrings by court, reflecting the growing acceptance of independently-wielded female authority.[43] Thus monarchy could be practised effectively by both men and women, although it was not without any gendered element, with female monarchs facing issues in a manner male monarchs would not.
Image, however, remained heavily gendered. Queenship ensured both the appropriation of many previously exclusively ‘masculine’ representations of monarchy and their adaptation to better appreciate pervasive conceptions of ‘proper’ gender roles and characteristics. The appropriation of gendered roles by Queens regnant is evident on Elizabeth’s Great Seal which depicted her mounted in battle array.[44] Mary I, likewise, assumed a kingly vogue in her royal entry into London in August 1553 at which all monarchical precedent was followed[45]. Elizabeth’s image was even more explicit in its subversion of gender norms, popularly styled as judges and kings from the Old Testament including David, Gideon, and Solomon.[46] Herrup contends that just as Queens appropriated the iconography of men, kings did the same with women, with Elizabeth and James presented as Solomon and Mary I and Henry VIII as Judith [47], evidence of royal iconography having ‘transcended gender’.[48] However, Herrup’s assertion rests on limited foundations. While praising Elizabeth by likening her to biblical men is well documented,[49] praising British Kings by likening them to female figures is not. Herrup’s only reference originates from John King who notes only one example and appreciates its exceptionality, stating that “Parker … even compared Henry VIII to Judith.”[50] Moreover, Herrup’s claim fails to account for the ample evidence that monarchical image was not just adopted by Queens but adapted to suit gender norms. Mary I’s coronation, for example, adapted the kingly procession by appropriating the traditions of queen consorts[51] of dress and transport, conveyed through the streets in a litter rather than on horseback under a canopy.[52] In doing so she didn’t present herself solely as a reigning monarch (as a king would) but also as a virgin consort.[53] This duality of asserting monarchy and acquiescing to gender norms continues in Mary’s Great Seal on which one side depicts Mary holding traditional symbols of royal power, the orb and the sceptre, while on the other she rides side-saddle with flowers in the background.[54] This form of presentation continues with Elizabeth I and Queen Anne. The latter followed this queenly mixture of gentility and warrior. She was commonly portrayed as a Deborah,[55] like Mary[56] and Elizabeth,[57] the links to the biblical implying divine right, but also in a maternal fashion such as through the preaching of Isaiah 49:23 which includes “queens [shall be] thy nursing mothers” at her coronation.[58]
However, in a demonstration of the gendered nature of image at the time, some monarchical rites remained the preserve of male monarchs, such as tournaments that represented military prowess and chivalric honour.[59] This function was heavily utilised by Prince Philip to exercise symbolic power.[60] Sarah Duncan however contends that Philip undertook ceremonial roles “to represent her (Mary’s) kingly persona”,[61] implying a female appropriation of even the most masculine ceremonies. She argues that Philip simply assumed the role that noblemen such as the Earl of Arundel had undertaken when representing Mary in rituals for which she was precluded due to her sex.[62] However, one might equally contend that Philip undertook these roles in his own right, asserting his own masculinity and kingly status, which a nobleman who could claim no monarchical authority of his own was unable to do. This interpretation better fits with both Duncan’s earlier assertion that Mary presented a “public portrayal of traditional gender roles”[63] and Glenn Richardson’s evidence, of the exclusive gendering of certain rites of kingship.[64] Richardson demonstrates how hunting was integral to Kings’ expression of masculinity, showing prowess in skills required for warfare and functioning as an allegory of male prowess in the pursuit of women.[65] This latter link was made explicitly as Kings would have noblewomen follow them during the chase, ready to meet the King’s sexual desires.[66]
In conclusion, the extent to which monarchy was gendered in this period differs according to the mode of monarchy analysed. The theory of monarchy became, over time, more accepting of female rule, though it maintained ‘masculine’ expectations of how that authority would be exercised. In practice, the influence of gender was limited to the approaches of counsellors and certain issues which Queens regnant faced. Largely, monarchical authority turned on divine right and, before 1689, absolutism, rather than gender. Image nevertheless remained heavily gendered with female and male monarchs having shared but also distinct presentations.
Anton Higgins is currently in his first-year of a BA in History at Durham University (University College).
Full Question when assigned: To what extent and why was monarchy gendered in early modern England?
Notes: [1] See, for example, Elizabeth Russell, ‘Mary Tudor and Mr. Jorkins’, Historical Research, Volume. 63 (1990), pp. 263-76 and Allison Heisch, ‘Queen Elizabeth I and the Persistence of Patriarchy’, Feminist Review, No. 4 (1980), pp. 45-56. [2] John Knox, On Rebellion, ed. R. Mason (Cambridge, 1994) cited in J. A. Guy, Tudor Monarchy (London, 1997), p. 93. [3] Thomas Becon, An Humble Supplication unto God for the Restoring of His Holy Word unto the Church of God (1554) cited in Judith M., Richards, ‘“To Promote a Woman to Beare Rule”: Talking of Queens in Mid-Tudor England’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring 1997), p.115. [4] The First Book of Homilies, ‘An exhortation to obedience’, http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/homilies/bk1hom10.htm (last accessed 14thFebruary 2022) [5] Constance Jordan, ‘Woman’s Rule in Sixteenth-Century British Political Thought’, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Autumn 1987), p.430. [6] January 17th 1564, preface to The Early Works of Thomas Becon, ed. John Ayre (Cambridge, 1844), pp. 1-32 cited in Richards, ‘To Promote a Woman’, p. 117. [7] Jane E. A. Dawson, ‘The Two Knoxes: England, Scotland and the 1558 Tracts’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 42 (1991), p. 562. [8] Richards, ‘To Promote a Woman’, p. 116. [9] Dawson, ‘The Two Knoxes’, p. 561. [10] Richards, ‘To Promote a Woman’, p. 107. [11] Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1583; reprint, ed. Mary Dewar, Cambridge, 1892), pp. 64-5 cited in Richards, ‘To Promote a Woman’, p. 103. [12] Robert Tombs, The English and Their History (London, 2014), pp. 309-10. [13] Hannah Smith, ‘“Last of all the Heavenly Birth”: Queen Anne and Sacral Queenship’, Parliamentary History, Vol. 28, Issue 1 (February 2009), p.146. [14] Matthew Prior, Poems on Several Occasions (1709), p. 292 cited in Smith, ‘Queen Anne and Sacral Queenship’, p. 146. [15] See, for example: Smith, De Republica Anglorum, pp. 64-5 cited in Richards, ‘To Promote a Woman’, p. 103; John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithful and Trewe Subjects (Strasburg, 1559), sig. G4 cited in Jordan, ‘Woman’s Rule’, pp. 439-40. [16] Richards, ‘To Promote a Woman’, p. 102. [17] Smith, ‘Queen Anne and Sacral Queenship’, p. 146. [18] Cynthia Herrup, ‘The King’s Two Genders’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3 (2006), p. 500. [19] John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church (1563), p. 1711 in A.F. Pollard (ed.), Tudor Tracts 1532-1588 (London, 1903), p. 335. [20] Edward Terry, The Character of His Royal Highness, William Henry, Prince of Orange (London 1689), p. 6 cited in Owen Brittan, ‘The print depiction of King William III’s masculinity’, The Seventeenth Century, Vol. 33, Number. 2 (2018), p. 223. [21] Herrup, ‘The King’s Two Genders’, p. 499. [22] Judith Richards, ‘The English Accession of James VI: ‘National’ Identity, Gender and Personal Monarchy of England,” English Historical Review, Vol. 117 (June 2002), pp. 513-23 cited in Herrup, ‘The King’s Two Genders’, p. 503. [23] Herrup, “The King’s Two Genders’, p. 503. [24] Paul Hammond, ‘The King’s Two Bodies: Representations of Charles II,’ in Jeremy Black (ed.), Culture, Politics and Society in Britain, 1660-1800 (Manchester, 1991), pp. 21-22 cited in Herrup, ‘The King’s Two Genders’, p. 504. [25] Brittan, ‘The print depiction of King William III’s masculinity’, pp. 228-9. [26] Guy, Tudor Monarchy, p. 83. [27] Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), p. 88. [28] Guy, Tudor monarchy, p. 90. [29] Mears, Queenship, p. 71. [30] Ibid., p. 65. [31] Ibid., p. 78. [32] A. N. Mclaren, Political culture in the reign of Elizabeth I: queen and commonwealth, 1558-1585 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 137-43 cited in Mears, Queenship, p. 82. [33] Natalie Mears, ‘The Council’ in Susan Doran and Norman Jones (eds.), The Elizabethan World (Oxford, 2011), p. 65. [34] Guy, Tudor Monarchy, p. 98. [35] Smith, ‘Queen Anne and Sacral Queenship’, p.145. [36] Mears, Queenship, p. 102. [37] Sarah Duncan, Mary I: Gender, Power, and Ceremony in the Reign of England’s First Queen (2012), p. 16. [38] Elizabeth Russell, ‘Mary Tudor and Mr. Jorkins’, Historical Research, Volume. 63 (1990), p. 274. [39] Heisch, ‘The Persistence of Patriarchy’, p. 47. [40] Judith M. Richards, Mary Tudor (Oxford, 2008), p. 147. [41] Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth (1960), p. 4 cited in Natalie Mears, ‘Love-making and Diplomacy: Elizabeth I and the Anjou Marriage Negotiations, c. 1678-1582’, History, Vol. 86, No. 284 (October, 2001), pp. 442-3. [42] Mears, ‘Love-making and Diplomacy’, pp. 464-5. [43] Tombs, The English and Their History, pp. 309-10. [44] Anna Whitelock, ‘“Woman, Warrior, Queen?” Rethinking Mary and Elizabeth’ in Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (eds.), Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (2010), p. 174. [45] Duncan, Mary I, p. 19. [46] Susan Doran, ‘Elizabeth I: An Old Testament King’ in Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (eds.), Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (2010), p. 95. [47] Herrup, ‘The King’s Two Genders’, p. 503. [48] Idem. [49] See, for example: Whitelock, ‘Woman, Warrior, Queen?’, pp. 173-189; John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography, Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis (1989), p. 254-261. [50] The Exposition and declaration of the Pslame, Deus ultionum Dominus (1539) cited in King, Tudor Royal Iconography, p. 219. “even” is not underlined by King. [51] Judith Richards, “Mary Tudor as ‘Sole Queen’? Gendering Tudor Monarchy,” Historical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 896-902 cited in Duncan, Mary I, p. 25. [52] William Jerdan (ed.), Rutland Papers: Original Documents Illustrative of the Court and Times of Henry VII and Henry VIII, (London 1842), pp. 4-6 cited in Duncan, Mary I, p. 25. [53] Duncan, Mary I, p. 26. [54] Whitelock, ‘Woman, Warrior, Queen?’, p. 174. [55] Carol Barash, English Women’s Poetry, 1649-1714: Politics, Community and Linguistic Authority (Oxford 1996), pp. 229-31 cited in Smith, ‘Queen Anne and Sacral Queenship’, p. 148. [56] King, Tudor Royal Iconography, p. 219. [57] Richard Mulcaster, The passage of our most dread Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, through the City of London to Westminster, the day before her Coronation: Anno. 1558 in Pollard (ed.), Tudor Tracts, pp. 367-92. [58] Joseph Hone, ‘Politicising Praise: Panegyric and the Accession of Queen Anne’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 37, No.2 (2014), p. 154. [59] Paul Hammer, The Polarisation of Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex, 1585-1597, (Cambridge, 1999), pp.55-7, 199-212, 231-4 cited in Mears, ‘Love-making and Diplomacy’, p. 452. [60] Alexander Samson, ‘Power Sharing: The Co-Monarchy of Philip and Mary’ in Alice Hunt and Anna Whitelock (eds.), Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (2010), p. 169. [61] Duncan, Mary I, p. 107. ‘her’ is not underlined by Duncan. [62] Idem. [63] Ibid., p. 98. [64] Glenn Richardson, ‘Hunting at the Courts of Francis I and Henry VIII’, The Court Historian, Vol. 18, No.2 (2013), pp. 127-141. [65] Ibid., pp. 127-128. [66] Ibid., p. 128.
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