Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T05:07:20.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Women in the royal courts

from Part II - Sites of production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2010

Laura Lunger Knoppers
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

Of the three Queens I will consider here (from 1550 to 1700), only one, Elizabeth, was a reigning monarch: Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria of France were Queens Consort, the wives of James I and Charles I respectively. As the anointed Queen of England, Elizabeth was the centre of the country's political life: the courts of Anna and Henrietta Maria, established alongside those of their husbands, often provided places from which reservations about the monarch's policies could be articulated. It is interesting to see, in these very different courts, how struggles for inclusion in the Queen's inner circle broke out among courtiers, particularly at the start of each reign. Rather than being ephemeral to the political process, the court of a Queen Consort was, at the very least, a significant locus of powerbroking, as well as of literary patronage and literary production. Early studies of Anna and Henrietta Maria presented these Queens as politically naive and culturally frivolous in a way rarely applied to Elizabeth I. Alfred Harbage, for example, described Henrietta Maria as a 'charming lady' who dignified 'a love of festive toys and tinsel' which in Anna of Denmark 'had seemed childish frivolity'. This backhanded compliment infantilizes both Queens and leads, unsurprisingly, to the value judgement that 'Henrietta had not a jot of literary taste.' In contrast, Elizabeth I is often presented as a woman of impeccable sense, whose education and knowledge impressed foreign ambassadors. This nationalistic construction elevates the English Elizabeth at the expense of her foreign counterparts, yet, if the study of these royal courts reveals anything, it is that the women associated with them were deeply involved in the continental exchange of texts, goods and personnel.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×