The Succession of a Queen

Abstract

When Mary I ascended to the throne in 1553, she became the first female ruler in English history—the earlier claim of Matilda, heir to Henry I, to the royal crown in 1135 AD had provoked a civil war. The untraditional and undefined role of queen regnant raised questions about the nature of female sovereignty. A female monarch, ruling in her own right and occupying the highest position of authority in a patriarchal society, challenged sixteenth-century beliefs about traditional gender roles. Women were expected to be chaste, silent, obedient, and subservient to men. A woman wielding power was out of the ordinary, unnatural—even frightening—because she embraced a traditionally masculine role.1 In spite of this fact, early modern Europe witnessed the ascent of a large number of female rulers, both ruling queens and regents. England experienced 50 years of queenship with the successive reigns of Mary and Elizabeth; Mary Stuart became Queen of Scotland in 1542, when her father, King James V, was killed in battle; Queen Isabel of Castile ruled Castile jointly with King Ferdinand of Aragon from 1474 to 1504; several widowed Habsburg queens served at various times as regents of the Low Countries and Spain; and in France, the widowed Queen Catherine de Medici served as regent for her three young sons.