Mary and Elizabeth Tudor: Embracing and Manipulating Gender Expectations By Brenda Zetina B orn to King Henry VIII during the 16th century, Mary and Elizabeth have both served as the first Queens regnant of England. They now share a tomb together in Westminster Abbey. However, while Mary has been portrayed by historians as a barren, intolerant Catholic queen who had an unpopular marriage to Phillip II of Spain, Elizabeth has been regarded as the Virgin Queen and a symbol of English Protestantism. Mary is remembered as a closed-minded religious persecutor, but Elizabeth’s image is held in divinity. Modern historians have condemned Mary as being trapped by her own femininity while Elizabeth has been praised for being more masculine than her sister. Nonetheless, Mary was a pioneer of female rule, as her reign set the precedent that allowed her Elizabeth’s later rule to be accepted. Mary provided her sister with various examples and lessons of how to deal with the difficulties of being a female ruler in a male dominated society. The embracement and manipulation of gender expectations, her use of virginal imagery, and her presentation embodying masculine characteristics at different times were all responsible for Elizabeth’s success in meeting the challenge of being a female ruler. Mary and Elizabeth Tudor were each presented with the most stringent gender expectations of the Tudor era, and how they chose to meet or ignore those expectations would define their success, or failure, as rulers. Gender Expectations in the 16 th Century The Tudor queens’ plight can be explained by understanding the sixteenth century home and women’s place within it. As Susan Amussen has suggested, “we cannot understand politics (as conventionally defined) without understanding the politics of family.” 1 The gender hierarchy exhibited an arrangement where “wives were subject to their husbands,” and as a result “women were subject to men.” 2 The problems associated with female rule had been directly influenced by the patriarchy represented in the home. The family was a powerful socializing agent that provided the basis for social and political order. Likewise, James Daybell, whose work has exposed letter writing as reinforcing subservient nature and obedience, argues “the early modern household was seen as a microcosm for the hierarchy of the state.” 3 The superiority of men in was sustained in everyday life informally through “culture, custom, and differences in education, and more formally through the law.” 4 Maintaining the subjugation of women was seen as crucial to maintaining an orderly household. In the sixteenth century women were expected to be mothers and wives, and therefore were not work in high level professions. If women did manage to find work outside of the home it was often low paying and menial. Despite their differences, both Mary and Elizabeth had the same problem in that they were women rulers in a male dominated society. The men they governed viewed female rule as a threat to their status and Susan Dwyer Amussen. An Ordered Society Gender and Class in Early Modern England. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 2. Amussen, An Ordered Society, 3. James Daybell. “Gender, Obedience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Women's Letters.” Sixteenth Century Journal 41, no. 1 (2010): 49. Amussen, An Ordered Society, 3.