"Queen Elizabeth I", ca. 1600, unknown artist
For most of English history, the possibility of a successful English queen at the head of government was unthinkable. Laws and cultural norms required that a man sit on the throne. And yet, several women shattered that royal glass ceiling to inherit the crown of Great Britain in their own right.
They faced unique challenges in fulfilling typical royal duties: leading troops in battle, acting as Supreme Head of the Church of England, aligning the role of wife with the position of monarch. They faced civil wars, rebellions, and acts of Parliament that attempted to limit or remove their power. But most prevailed. Tudor and Renaissance scholar Carol Ann Lloyd Stanger examines the talents and weaknesses that each reigning queen brought to her role as monarch, as well as the challenges each faced within the context of her time.
9:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Early Britain and the Tudor Age of Queens
Twelfth-century England was rocked by years of civil war when Matilda inherited the throne and attempted to rule in her own right. The failure of her reign reinforced the belief that rule of the nation rightly belonged to men. In the 16th century, religious leader John Knox called the reign of women “monstrous” in the eyes of God and man. Henry VIII embarked on a marriage merry-go-round to produce a male heir. But Tudor women nevertheless took center stage in England and Scotland. With their unique personalities and relationships to power, Mary Queen of Scots, Jane Grey, Mary I, and Elizabeth I changed the face of royalty and reimagined women as rulers.
12:15–1:30 p.m. Lunch (participants provide their own)
1:30–4 p.m. Britain and its Queens Become Modern
As the world moved from the 18th into the 20th and 21st centuries, the role of women as leaders became a subject of personal and political debate. Many political leaders questioned the rights and roles of the monarch. The queens who ruled Britain had to navigate their countries and their families through these complicated and unstable years. The reigns of Mary II, Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth II brought England through periods of war into modern times. The most recent law regarding women as rulers, the Succession to the Crown Act of 2013, ended male-preference primogeniture in the United Kingdom and opened the door for the reign of queens to be far more likely in the future.
Lloyd-Stanger is a professional speaker and former head of visitor education at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
