Berenice II Euergetis (267/6-221 BCE), the daughter of King Magas of Cyrene (Libya) and wife of King Ptolemy III of Egypt, was queen at an important juncture in Hellenistic history. This collection of four essays focuses on aspects of chronology, genealogy and marital practices, royal ideology and queenship.

Printed book and manuscript dedications were at the juncture between the actual interests and reading abilities of Tudor royal ladies and the beliefs and hopes of those who wrote them to persuade Tudor royal ladies in certain directions. Queen Mary I rece

Scholars and Poets Talk About Queens is a lively and erudite collection, unusual in an especially appealing way. This collection of essays shows how queens were represented in the Middle Ages and Renaissance through primary accounts, chronicles, and literary representations. The book also contains modern poetry and short plays about these same queens, allowing readers to understand and appreciate them both intellectually and emotionally. Contributors study a wide range of queens including such famous and fascinating women as Queen Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, Hecuba, the Empress Matilda, Mary...

Queen Marie Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I of England were two of the most notorious queens in European history. They both faced accusations that they had transgressed social, gender and regional norms, and attempted to defend themselves against negative reactions to their behavior. Each queen engaged with the debates of her time concerning the place of women within their families, religion, politics, the public sphere and court culture and attempted to counter criticism of her foreign origins and political influence. The...

Royal Mothers and their Ruling Children: Wielding Political Authority from Antiquity to the Early Modern Era brings together a range of case studies from the Pre-Modern era to illustrate key themes with regard to motherhood, ambition and authority, with a focus on queens and elite women who are at the political heart of their respective realms.

Yolande of Aragon is one of the most intriguing of late medieval queens who contrived to be everywhere and nowhere simultaneously; operating seamlessly from backstage and front-of-house. She was shrewd, focused and intelligent - an eminence grise whose political and diplomatic agency secured the throne of France for her son-in-law, Charles VII, and the survival of her marital house. Rohr's work is a long-anticipated and much-needed scholarly assessment of an incredibly powerful and influential figure of fifteenth century history who just happened to be a queen.

Ruling Women is a two-volume study devoted to an analysis of the conflicting discourses concerning government by women in seventeenth-century France. In this second volume, Configuring the Female Prince in Seventeenth-Century French Drama, Conroy analyzes over 30 plays published between 1637 and 1691, examining the range of constructions of queenship that are thrown into relief. The analysis focuses on the ways in which certain texts strive to manage the cultural anxiety produced by female rule and facilitate the diminution of the uneasy cultural reality it represents, while others dramatize...

Ruling Women is the first study of its kind devoted to an analysis of the debate concerning government by women in seventeenth-century France. Drawing on a wide range of political, feminist and dramatic texts, Conroy sets out to demonstrate that the dominant discourse which upholds patriarchy at the time is frequently in conflict with alternative discourses which frame gynaecocracy as a feasible, and laudable reality, and which reconfigure (wittingly or unwittingly) the normative paradigm of male authority. Central to the argument is an analysis of how the discourse which constructs...

This is a lively and erudite collection, unusual in an especially appealing way: not only are there essays about a range of queens and how they were represented in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but the book contains modern poetry and short plays about these same queens, allowing a multi-faceted way of understanding and appreciating them.

Marking the 500th year anniversary of the birth of Queen Mary I in 1516, this book both commemorates her rule and rehabilitates and redefines her image and reign as England's first queen regnant. In this broad collection of essays, leading historians of queenship (or monarchy) explore aspects of Mary's life from birth to reign to death and cultural afterlife, giving consideration to the struggles she faced both before and after her accession, and celebrating Mary as a queen in her own right.