Gendered Objections to Female Rule

Lecture Center 19

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a striking event in European monarchies: four queens ruled England and Scotland. These four queens, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth Tudor, challenged prevailing assumptions about the relationship between power and gender. They faced many objections to their legitimacy merely because they were women. My paper explores the opposition these queens faced and the ways that they sought to overcome them. It argues that hostility to female rule were based on both understandings of nature and of society at the time. As evidence, I examine writings such as John Knox's The First Blast of the Trumpet: Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, which appeared in 1558. Knox, a Scottish minister, argued that letting a woman rule a country went against the natural order and was an insult to God. Yet, these queens did rule and Elizabeth I held power for nearly half a century. In order to understand how they overcame hardships, I look at how they crafted their public image through paintings held in the National Portrait Gallery. Through these portraits, these queens made a case for their legitimacy using their clothing, posture, and other physical features to argue for their right to rule. My paper shows the different characteristics of male and a female rule during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, how female rules adapted to and changed existing norms, and the lasting legacy of their challenge to gendered structures of power.