I don't mean to disparage Julia Fox or John Guy â both of whom have produced work I really highly regard â but the argument that Anne's queenship was exceptional, on some sort of ideological level, is too common, as is. She didn't do anything distinctive or unique â queenship just looks more empowering on Anne because of a false idea that queenship meant nothing prior to Anne. The reality is that late medieval queenship was inherently political, that these women did (and were expected to do) numerous things within their role.
The above quote, positing Anne's predecessors' position as âa gentle feminine presenceâ is a huge oversimplification â if queens were the feminine power to masculine power, that still positioned them as one half of a dual role. As Joanna Laynesmith has put it: âall queens had the potential to make their husband's kingship more whole [âŠ] often hinging upon a need for a female element in even the most male structuresâ. Indeed, it was the queen, through the function of her marriage (symbolic, religious, and practical), who was integral to âconfirming and representing the legitimacy of her husbandâs kingshipâ.
However, queenship was more than that. Queens were land-owners managing numerous estates across their territories â which, as Michele Seah and Katia Wright have pointed out: âthe lands themselves enabled the queen to build and maintain a power baseâ. Queens interceded with the king (and others) â which served many functions, both politically but also in symbolically positioning queens as merciful; as Laynesmith has summarised, âthe queenâs traditional role as intercessor had also long been connected with the Virgin Mary. The notion of queen as intercessor - mercy in opposition to the king as judgementâ. Queens were active in alms-giving and charitable works â which Michelle Beer has pointed out were also intended to be seen: âqueenly acts, such as the distribution of alms at the queenâs gates, were witnessed by pre-modern individuals who understood these acts to be constitutive of the queenâs power and authorityâ. Queens founded schools/colleges. Queens were deeply significant agents for diplomacy, including arranging marriages and foreign networking. Queens fulfilled a significant function within ceremony and ritual: to, again, quote Laynesmith: âthe display and ritual celebration of kingship was one of the primary roles of the court, and the queen was expected to be present for crown-wearings, anniversaries of coronations, the ennoblement of peers, and the observance of religious festivals. Such celebrations might include festivities held in separate chambers for some part, if only to cope with the numbers present for banqueting, but a surviving description of several such occasions in Henry VIIâs reign reveals that the queen was most commonly at her husbandâs side. It was not only at such major feasts that they were together, but frequently for the reception of foreign ambassadors or papal legatesâ. Queens were effectively the âhostessâ of the royal court, with all the responsibilities that demanded. Queens commissioned works of art, establishing fashion trends, cultivated careers and influenced culture.
âQueens consort in late medieval and early modern England performed significant and essential court roles. Their subjects viewed them as exemplars of womanhood, providing models for their female subjects to follow [âŠ] Giving birth to royal heirs remained, of course, their most important familial duty [âŠ] The consortsâ other important roles included appointing numerous officials to handle household and financial administration; collecting honorable female attendants; supervising various family matters; relying on churchmen and almoners for spiritual support; patronizing individuals; both lay and religious; participating in various royal rituals; and attending to other public duties, such as acting as intercessors or regents.â
â Retha Warnicke, Elizabeth of York and her Six Daughters-in-Law
And, to some extent, Fox&Guy are aware of this â because here is how they summarise Elizabeth of Yorkâs queenship: âElizabeth was as cultured, intelligent and sophisticated as she was beautiful. Affectionate, accessible, charming, a peacemaker, she brought harmony to the royal family and was the perfect counterpoise to her distant, dispassionate husbandâ. But it seems clear that they are heavily relying on caricatures of Henryâs parents, as they strictly characterise Henry VIII as obsessed with finding his mother in his wives, so the recognition of Elizabeth of York as âaccessible, a peacemakerâ and as a âperfect counterpoiseâ to the king seems, I would argue, accidental.
Especially because the book also argues that Anne was learning revolutionary ideas about female agency and power in the Low Countries and, later, France: âLouise and Marguerite resoundingly gave the lie to those who believed that women had no place in the government and politics of a patriarchal society [âŠ] her [Anneâs] experiences helped to transform her outlook and her life. She could contrast them to the way that women were not regarded as political actors in Englandâ. But this strictly ignores how politically involved royal women were during the Wars of the Roses. Certainly, there were gendered limitations, and queens occupied an inherently contradictory position: they were to be âexemplars of womanhoodâ, yet their position placed them in a more masculine position (as landowners, regents etc.). Consider Helen Maurerâs point: âthe gender system in which Margaret [of Anjou] lived theoretically denied that a woman could ever hold political authority. At the same time, however, it permitted and even encouraged women to act in ways that had political consequences; this was most true for the queen. This uneasy duality made transgression possibleâ. Yet Anne did not do anything that uniquely challenged this capacity, and nor does the book really engage with this nuance whilst making claims that Anneâs queenship was, indeed, unique.
It feels like the book makes the argument that Anne was distinctly political, both in her own right, and because of her relationship with Henry VIII, but the reality is queens were previously expected to act alongside and even above others of the kings agents â again, to quote Laynesmith: âqueens were expected to engage on an equal, or ever superior, footing with some of the kingâs principal officials in administering a substantial sector of the realmâ. The idea that Anneâs was an elevation of the role â that Catherine was less active by contrast â undermines the fact that the queenâs role was multifaceted and integral to monarchy, as court hostess, Marian wife/mother and intercessor, active in religious rituals and charity works ⊠all of which Catherine did (and, indeed, tried to keep doing after the divorce â Hunting the Falcon points out how Anne usurped the queenâs role in Maundy services from Catherine: âIt was the queenâs role to give them out, and by usurping Katherineâs function in this manner, Anne was making a pointâ.) And for as much as Anne might have had access to a âculturedâ French education, it wouldnât have been significantly more pro-âwomen in powerâ than had she stayed in England, and any progressions in that discourse were felt on both sides of channel as England had women in power AND access to relevant literature, too. Women such as Margaret Beaufort, Margaret of Anjou, Cecily Neville, Elizabeth Woodville should equally be regarded as potent and active in recent English memory.
Moreover, I don't feel like Fox&Guy, OR other authors & historians who perpetuate this true-ism ever prove that Anne did anything new or innovative as queen. The book argues she was the first to be involved in religious reform to such a degree and sure, Iâll give Anne that, and that is a fascinating component of Anne as an individual, but this is perhaps too much of a simplification. Anneâs desire to repurpose funds from religious houses to go towards poor relief effectively served to replace the loss of poor relief provided by religious houses pre-closures. This wasnât an addition or âelevationâ, but was a replacement. Can we fairly credit Anneâs queenship as âenlargedâ, when crediting her for the break from Rome likewise means her queenship was, by turns, more restrictive?
And these true-ism are actually problematic on the reverse, too. As much as I like Hunting the Falconâs general characterisation of Anne, it does insinuate that she was pushy, over-assertive, or difficult, which is a typical trend in her biography â âshe often could not comprehend how far she had crossed a boundary and would infuriate her husbandâ. However, if queenship gets properly considered as an active, political and agentic role, then Anneâs conduct should be recontextualised, and much of her behaviour that is characterised as âcrossing a boundaryâ as Fox&Guy put it, or as âtantrums and interference from a wife. Subservience was a word that had never been in Anne's vocabularyâ as Fox described Anne in a previous publication (Jane Boleyn), or as âincreasingly becoming waspishâ as Guy described Anne in a previous publication (Children of Henry VIII), should more accurately be accepted as Anne acting in accordance with her position. That Anneâs behaviour has not been regarded as legitimate stems from her queenship not being regarded as legitimate, when in actuality she seems to have performed her queenly duties acceptably. It is reductive, not just of other royal women, but of Anne, herself. Indeed, John Guy's limited understanding of queenship, and difficulties in accepting the period's acceptance of women in power, has been critiqued before, with Jacqueline Vanhoutte pointing out âwhen Guy describes the capable Sir Christopher Hatton as âan unctuous flattererâ for declaring âhimself to be Elizabeth [I]âs âeverlasting bondmanâ seemingly without a hint of hypocrisy,â he sounds nearly as outraged as a Vindice or a Hamletâ. She argues: âwhat Guy finds intolerable is not the possibility that Hatton was a hypocrite, but the possibility that he was not. Hatton loved the queen he served and believed in her superiorityâ; as clearly Guy's acceptance of the popularly assumed historical female inferiority superseded his ability to recognise the nuances of female power. This is arguably not the attitude that lends itself to a reasonable view of queenship in the sixteenth century.
vaporwave
areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
gummygunk
germansingergirl
stormborns
