Suggested reading

This is a list of some of the books I have consulted for this subject. There are, of course a huge number of relevant books, but these are all relatively recent and contain a great deal of interesting and important material.

John Adamson, ed., The Princely Courts of Europe (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999)
 Helen Castor, She-Wolves. The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (Faber and Faber, 2011).
_______, Elizabeth I. A Study in Insecurity (Penguin, 2018).
Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici (Phoenix, 2005).
__________, The Deadly Sisterhood. A Story of Women, Power and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012).
Nancy Goldstone, Rival Queens. Catherine de’ Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal that Ignited a Kingdom (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016).
Sarah Gristwood, Game of Queens. The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe (Oneworld, 2017).
John Guy, My Heart is my Own. The Life of Mary Queen of Scots (HarperPerennial, 2004).
Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon. Henry’s Spanish Queen (Faber & Faber, 2011).
Giles Tremlett, Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen (Bloomsbury, 2017) 
Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor. England's First Queen (Bloomsbury, 2009)

Introduction

Margaret of Austria,
Regent of the Netherlands, 1507-30
A deceptively demure portrait of
Margaret as a widow
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels

In the early-modern period, power was dynastic. It centred round the king and therefore inevitably around his family. This meant that at least some women within his family would exercise political power. Through dynastic accident or political circumstances, the sixteenth century in particular saw an unusual number of female rulers. But the seventeenth century also had its share of women rulers – two regents in France, a reigning queen in Sweden, two reigning queens in Britain. The most extreme example of a woman holding political power is found in Russia in the eighteenth century. Because the monarchy was the personal possession of the tsar, he could bestow it on female relatives. As a result, Russia had four reigning empresses.

Regents

The mother of a monarch might be regent while he (or, more rarely she) was young (Mary of Guise, Catherine de Medici, Marie de Medici, Anne of Austria) or absent (Louise of Savoy). 

Louise of Savoy
Public domain

His wife might be a temporary regent while he was absent (Two of Henry VIII's wives, Catherine of Aragon and Katherine Parr, acted as regents when he was in France). When James IV of Scotland was killed at the battle of Flodden, his wife, Margaret, became regent for her infant son, James V.

His sister might also be a regent. Anne de Beaujeu, popularly known as ‘Madame la Grande’, was regent during the minority of her brother Charles VIII of France from 1483-91. From 1682-89 Sophia Aleckseyevna was regent for her brother and half-brother, Ivan and Peter. (This did not turn out well for her!)

A ruler's female relative might be a permanent regent if his domains were too large for him to govern by himself. The Netherlands was governed by three women in succession: Margaret of Austria, the aunt of Charles V; Mary of Hungary, his sister; Margaret of Parma the half-sister of Philip II. 

The other Margaret:
Margaret of Parma,
Governor of the Netherlands
for Philip II
Public Domain

As regents women could sign peace treaties, the most famous of these being the Treaty of Cambrai of 1529, known as the  ‘Ladies’ Peace', between Margaret of Austria and Louise of Savoy.

Daughters

A ruler’s daughters were invaluable because of their marriage alliances. Isabella of Castile’s councillor of state, Hernando de Pulgar, told Isabella: 

If your Highness gives us two or three more daughters, in twenty years’ time you will  have the pleasure of seeing your children and grandchildren on all the thrones of Europe. 

The Habsburg Empire was built up on these alliances. When Ferdinand and Isabella’s only son, Don Juan, died, their daughters became especially important. Juana became her mother’s heir, and her marriage to Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy led to the unification of Spain and the Netherlands. When their younger daughter,  Catalina, married Arthur, Prince of Wales in 1501 it provided invaluable recognition for the Tudor dynasty.

In 1572 Catherine de Medici secured the marriage of her daughter, Margot, to Henry of Navarre in an unsuccessful attempt to bring about peace between Catholics and Huguenots. 

The court and culture

Portrait of Isabella d'Este
by Titian
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries politics was dynastic and centred on the court. Political power depended on close access to the king. This made it possible for queens and mistresses to exert power, though ultimately this power depended on the consent of their husbands.

As well as being the focus of political power, the court was the centre of culture and it was in this area that the wife of the ruler could exercise considerable influence. 

Isabella d’Este (1474-1539)

This type of cultural power was especially marked in the Italian city states, and the supreme exemplar was Isabella d’Este, the Marchesa of Mantua. She was the daughter of Ercole I, Duke of Ferrara and Modena and his Neapolitan wife, Eleonora of Aragon. She grew up in a court that was a renowned centre of cultural patronage; Duke Ercole had Greek plays translated into Italian for performance, and Duchess Eleonora established her own library, which included Latin works and works of modern poetry. Isabella and her sister Beatrice received the same education as their brothers, becoming proficient in history, Greek and Latin. Isabella also learned to sing and play the lute, and like the rest of her family she was a keen hunter. 

In 1490 the age of fifteen she married Francesco Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua (1466-1519). The court of Mantua was already famous for its patronage of artists, and once there Isabella began to amass a collection of works of art for her private apartments. She wrote in 1502: ‘We desire to have in our camerino [little room] pictures with a story by the excellent painters now in Italy.’ At first her collection was housed in the castello di San Giorgio, but from 1519, after the death of her husband they were moved to her studiolo in the Ducal Palace. 

Castel di San Giorgio, Mantua
the initial home of Isabella's collection.

The Ducal Palace, Mantua
home of Isabella's studiolo.

Isabella and Mantegna: From 1460, though with some breaks in his service, Andrea Mantegna was the court painter at Mantua. He was already at work on his Triumphs of Caesar when Isabella arrived in 1490. The two struck up a partnership and she referred to him as her ‘expert in antiquities’.