Dan Snow's History Hit - Platinum Jubilee: Britain’s Greatest Queens

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch in British history and one of the longest-reigning in the world. To mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, we have brought together some of today’s best historians to discuss the life and times of Britain's long history of queens from the Medieval period, right up to the present day.Joining Dan is Professor Anna Whitelock who discusses Queen Elizabeth I; Dr Hannah Greig on Queen Anne; Dr Eleanor Janega on Eleanor of Aquitaine and Empress Matilda; Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks through the Tudor Queens Mary I and Mary, Queen of Scots, and lastly Professor Kate Williams on Queen Victoria.Discover how these queens came to wield power, their role in peace and war, what society made of female rule, if queens are better leaders than their male counterparts, their impact and influence and, of course, which queen you'd most want to party with.Produced by Charlotte Long and Mariana Des ForgesResearch by Hannah WardMixed and Mastered by Dougal PatmoreIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom and of many Commonwealth countries, is celebrating 70 years on the throne this year. The Platinum Jubilee, that's a make-up a thing because you've been on the throne for so long. She has recently overhauled Johann II of Liechtenstein. Ha, loser. She's now in number three in the all-time longest serving monarchs category. In a few days, when you listen to this, she will have overtaken the King of Thailand, who died in 2016. And she is hot on the heels Thailand, who died in 2016. And she is hot on the heels of Louis XIV, the Sun King, who has country rule for about two years more than her. So in two years time, she's going to overhaul the Sun King, that useless, overrated King of France from 1643 to 1715, who, by the way, cheated by ascending to the throne as a baby. She will have overhauled him to be the longest serving monarch of all time. So hang in

there, Queen Elizabeth, you can do it. This is the greatest gathering of historians that we have ever had on this podcast. It is a suitably platinum occasion for the Platinum Jubilee, and we're talking about queens. We're talking about the very rare examples in British and European history of women who attained and wielded power in their own right. You are going to love this. And we got some pretty impressive historians around the table to talk about it. All of them are friends of the pod. They are all brilliant academic historians. Kate Williams, Hannah Gregg, Susanna Lipscomb, Anna Whitelock, Eleanor Janager. These people are legends. They're legends on this podcast. They have their own podcasts. They have their own TV shows. You can see Susanna Lipscomb so recently on History Hit TV.

She made a show about Anne Boleyn and her young life before arriving at Henry VIII's court. It's done really well in History Hit TV. You can also watch this panel of Queen's. We filmed it as well as recorded the audio for it. And if you go and follow the link in the notes of this podcast episode, you'll get taken to History Hit TV. You get two weeks free if you sign up today. You can watch Elianicus, Medieval Pleasures. Her episode on sex is unsurprisingly the most popular TV

programme we have ever produced history at TV. You can watch Susanna Lipscomb, like I said. You can listen to various podcasts on there without the ads. Me and Hannah, Greg, me and Kate Williams talking about various aspects of 16th, 17th and 18th century history. You're going to love it. So make sure you head over to history at tv after you've listened to this wonderful podcast when we are talking about queens all right so guys we're going to go through some notable queens queens regnant doesn't matter they could be queen consort regnant whatever you like And we are going to kind of briefly talk about their careers, notable events of their careers. Let's start with the Empress Matilda, only remaining legitimate child of William II,

didn't ever get on the throne. So this is, but here's a big thing. She did get on a throne. And one might say, if one was an expert in the Holy Roman Empire, a much more impressive throne. Because really, you know, as a bargaining chip, which is what daughters are when one has a son, which is what, you know, the expectation was. She had played an absolute blinder because she gets engaged to the Holy Roman Emperor to be the king of the Romans at the time. It's a thing. You get elected king of the Romans and then the Pope's got to crown you and then you're the Holy Roman Emperor to be the King of the Romans at the time. It's a thing, you get elected King of the Romans, and then the Pope's got to crown you, and then you're the Holy Roman Emperor, right? So huge get for the English monarchy, actually, because we're still in the Norman period. It's all coalescing. There's never been a peaceful transition of kings up to this point.

And it really helps to say, okay, well, the Norman kings have arrived. England is a legitimate kingdom. If you manage to marry your daughter off to the king of the Romans, fantastic. So they pay a lot of money for this. About 10,000 marks get paid in order to get this marriage. And that pays for her husband to get down to Rome and be crowned emperor. What Matilda does is she gets herself crowned empress at the same time. And that's almost unheard of. You very very very rarely see a queen who's crowned at all within this way and instead you usually crowned Queen of the Romans not Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and then she decides that she's going to take on power of her own and she's the one who's

ruling Italy for her husband. Her husband goes back to the German lands and here she is ruling the entire Italian peninsula. So actually it's a bit of a calm down to go back and be the queen of England, but her husband dies and they die without issue. She gets married off very, very young. So off she goes because unfortunately her brother died in the white ship disaster. About 200 people, very fancy people all die. Henry then makes a fool out of himself trying to have kids with much younger women. Oh, it's really embarrassing. So embarrassing. It's like the worst thing your dad could do to you.

And she's like, and she's been called back to ruin. And she's like, oh God, no. Okay, please. But anyway, her dad is like, okay, everybody, I didn't manage to do it. I don't have any other kids. Everybody, you promise me right now that Matilda is going to be a queen.

And they're like, oh yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Absolutely, Matilda is going to be the queen and they're like oh yeah okay yeah yeah yeah sure absolutely Matilda is going to be the queen they don't really like it though because the Norman mode of inheriting is usually primogeniture it's usually first sons that's not always the case but it's generally a rule so instead her cousin Stephen of Blois gets on to the throne and this kind of tells you everything you need to know about how up in the air things are in the Norman kingdom because it's like, I don't know, find a French guy, any French, there, you're the king of England.

Fantastic. It's you. It's you, great, you know. But her uncle is the king of Scotland. One of her half-brothers, she's got 22 half-siblings. So really interesting that her dad couldn't make another legitimate heir, but okay. So her half-brother, who is Robert of Gloucester, also supports her.

And they try, they try. She captures Stephen at a point in time during the Battle of Lincoln, which is super, super interesting. Everybody go to Lincoln immediately. The best. Oh, it's the best. Geek out. And she gets hold of him, so it's looking like the tides will turn. But London doesn't accept her.

So she comes to get crowned at Westminster, which one must be. And London was of the opinion that Stephen was going to give them more rights. So there's almost a riot. She runs away and it never happens. So she becomes the Lady of England, which I think is great. It's a great title. But she always keeps Empress on everything. And she's like, but I'm an Empress and you should like this. And, you know, fair play to her. But it never really, really works out. Her husband's kind of a non-starter. She's always having to go back to Normandy to settle things.

And what happens eventually is that her son Henry gets her cousin to agree that he will succeed for her cousin. So Stephen says, okay, look, I don't, whatever. After I'm dead, who cares? I can't be king anymore. So fair enough, Henry, you'll be it. And then the minute that happens, Matilda goes, all right, fair enough. And she just kind of like retires in Rouen. She really runs Rouen until her death. And she is a really prolific, typical medieval queen from that point on where she's like investing Cistercian monasteries. Cistercian is very hot at the time. You want a Cistercian monastery if you're a queen and she does that. So there's all these

kind of traditional expectations that she meets. And to a certain extent, it's interesting because once she meets the traditional expectation of, well, there's a son who's going to inherit the throne, I guess I'm good. And she really, really takes the pressure off. But up until that point, she's really aware of what the kind of newish customs are. She is really, really involved when Henry, who is, Henry needs a lot of guiding. And when he gets into the Beckett controversy, she is really instrumental in trying to calm things down with that. And, you know, writing letters to the church and being like, I know my son is an idiot. I'm sorry. And this sort of thing. That sort of thing honest letter to write yeah i mean so henry huh you know he's lucky he was surrounded by uh women who knew what they're doing speaking of which we'll move on to the next one which is eleanor his wife yeah when you learn about the plantagents initially

you think wow they built this enormous empire that was so impressive matilda and eleanor loom very large in this big trans-maritime plantation empire which, surprise, surprise, completely ceased to exist almost the day Eleanor dies, right? Yeah, she's got this incredible force of will, does our Eleanor. And I mean, just as a proviso, I'm named after her, of course I'm going to say ridiculous things about her. But the thing about Eleanor is she's born into absolutely immense power. So, I'll pretend it's about a third of the landmass of France at the time. She's immensely rich. She's immensely powerful when she inherits that throne. And that's why she gets married so,

so quickly into the French court. So there's this thing in the 12th century where a way to get yourself a wife is just to kidnap one uh so immediately upon her father dying quick and easy yeah i mean what just like take a wife yeah you know you see i'll have you see one get one you know um so her father when he knows that he's dying he is on pilgrimage to santa guada compostela he writes directly to the king and it's like oh my god please be the guardian of my daughter because she's just gonna get kidnapped and married off in some ridiculous way. The King of France sees this and like, I'm marrying you to my son. Thanks. Like, we are going to take this incredibly rich and important piece of land. But Eleanor sufficiently has this kind of force of will and foresight. One of the things that she does with her marriage

contract is she says, well, that's fine. But I retain control of aquitaine until such time as my son inherits the crown of france so my husband i'll go ahead and marry him i'll have kids with him he does not control aquitaine i control aquitaine she proceeds to have two daughters marie and alex but that kind of works out for her because louis her husband, is a stupid man. Just the worst. The worst. The worst. So off they go on crusade to the Holy Land.

Fantastic, great, very much the thing to do at the time. And she's leading her own army. Her husband's an idiot. They were supposed to be going over to the Holy Land to attack Aleppo in order to get the county of Edessa back. This was the stated thing of their crusade. On the way, Louis decides, no, he wants to attack Damascus and go to Jerusalem. Eleanor is like, you know, my uncle, he's a local and I feel like maybe we should, nope, you're not going to wait for my uncle. Okay, great. Absolute rout, total disaster. And she, at a point in time, tries to get her uncle to kidnap her so she can

get away from Louis because that's how much she hates Louis. And she's like, look, Louis, I think we're going to get annulled. We're annulling this marriage. I'm out of here. This is where the not having a son works in her favor because Louis refuses to do it. But eventually he's like, well, we haven't had a son, so yeah, never mind. And then Eleanor goes and has to get herself remarried because there's two more attempts to kidnap her. There's like, she's unmarried for eight weeks. Like, between Louis and Henry, we've got eight weeks here. There are two attempted kidnappings. And then she writes to Henry and says, hey, Henry, do you want to get married? So like, this is what I'm talking about in terms of force of will. She's the sort of woman who will arrange her own

marriages. Henry says, yes, of course I want to control. Brilliant. Will do. They do that. They have eight kids. So, I mean, Eleanor really, it's like a clown car. It's amazing how many kids this woman can have and still can retain control of everything. And this is when you get into the huge world of what are the Norman politics around ruling things. She and Henry don't really get on either. Henry's constantly got mistresses. Rosamund, his big mistress, eventually like Eleanor gets accused of poisoning, which no, not so much.

You think definitely no. It's all a myth. I just don't think Eleanor cares that much. What do you mean? She's like, why? Like, it's great. Like I have at it. I don't think that she's that worried

about who he's sleeping with. She's like, as long as it's's great. Like, have at it. I don't think that she's that worried about who he's sleeping with. She's like, as long as it's not me. Brilliant. You know, just keep him away from me. But this is one of these really interesting things about Eleanor because she exerts this incredible power. And so one of the things that almost immediately starts to happen is that there are rumors that she's sleeping with her uncle. There's rumors that she's sleeping with anyone who kind of comes across her path. There's rumors that she's killing her husband's mistress.

Now, it's fine that her husband's got a mistress, right? Like, king, have your mistress. Oh, but if you get mad about it, then, like, the woman's wrong here, and she must have poisoned her. And the truth of the matter, after 10 pregnancies, she's just not interested in sex anymore. And of course she's not sleeping with people is tied up with these ideas of courtly love, where her court is a real center for coming up with the idea of courtly love. And courtly love specifically is a trope wherein married women sleep with men who are not their husbands, right? Or don't. Yeah, it's or don't, you know, or, you know.

Yeah, it's Ordo, you know, or, you know. So you can kind of understand because her legend is bound up with this incredible and very erotic literature that comes out of her court. Sure. But evidence is scant on the ground that any of this stuff happened. Although, having said that, if she did, I'm like, girl, treat yourself. Anything you want. All these terrible men that you're already running around after, just have fun for once. that you're already running around after, just have fun for once. But she then, after getting arrested by her husband for, you know,

trying to start a light revolution against him, just as... Oh, gentle corrective. Well, you know, who really cares which Henry's on the throne as long as it's a Henry, right? So, you know, but then Henry, who would have been king, dies. And of course, it becomes Richard the Lionheart instead. He lets his mom out of jail immediately. Great, good. Don't let your mom be of jail immediately. Great, good, don't let your mom be in jail, I think. But he also says, England, I've been there twice. Not a huge fan of being

there. Mom, please take this over for me. And interestingly, when Richard takes the throne and Eleanor goes to be the regent in his place, everybody at court in England has to swear allegiance to Eleanor, not Richard. She takes the oaths of allegiance on his behalf. So she's incredibly powerful, which is why I always kind of hate in Robin Hood myths how they'll be like, oh, that terrible King John and everything's bad and we wish Richard would come home. And I'm like, you have Eleanor. Come on. You don't want John, you don't want Richard, you want Eleanor. And she's the one who does things like ransoms Richard when he gets arrested by the Holy Roman Emperor. She's the one who's, like, calming things down and making sure that the English throne comes back to normal in this period.

And she's just this incredible intellect, I suppose, is one of the things that I like about her. Where she has a real understanding of statecraft and nuance and how to make alliances. She can do it from a horse or she can do it with a quill. And I just think that it's absolutely incredible. Makes it to 82 years old, legendary, fantastic stuff. And she's still brokering in her 80s, marriage deals and ushering her grandchildren back and forth across the Pyrenees to get the right person married to the King of France and this sort of thing. And just the idea that a woman can have this much power invested in her specifically, I think is a really big and important tell about how in the Middle Ages there's sort of rules, but, you know, Eleanor was not the sort that really cared what other

people said. And I think that there is a lot to be said for her as a result of that. Let's go one step beyond Eleanor Racklite, not somebody who wields power, but somebody who's actually queen in her own right. Mary I. Yeah, I mean, Mary I, I think, deserves a big shout out and is massively overlooked. And indeed, I would argue that her successor and sister, Elizabeth, is massively overrated. Mary Tudor who of course most people really think of as bloody Mary was the first crowned queen and she had to you know rule in a man's world and just basic things like the first woman to be crowned what should a queen regnant wear in a coronation what scepter should she carry? What about all the rituals around the knights of the bath that sort of plunge naked into a bath before the coronation? What happens

when you've got a woman? Well, a man has to kind of deputise for her. One of the most significant things I think about Mary's reign is the April 1554 Act for Regal Power. It's a much longer name, but it basically established that women could rule as fully and absolutely as their male predecessors. So it establishes kind of gender equality. It meant that women could rule as fully and absolutely as men. And of course, for the first time, a monarch not only had to provide an heir, but they actually had to produce an heir. So as a woman on the throne, her body was at stake in a way that it had never been before. She married and, of course, had to negotiate that

whole power relationship between a woman who was seen, of course, as the weaker sex, marrying a man who was seen as an essential element of government, the masculine element of government. She married Philip of Spain, of course. Also, really unusually, unlike Elizabeth II and Anne and Victoria, she didn't marry a minor or she married one of the most powerful women in the world, which I think is really fascinating. Yeah, I mean, it was a significant marriage. Of course, Mary's mother was Catherine of Aragon. And I think it's important to see the kind of line of women that preceded Mary. Isabella of Castile, who had basically kind of negotiated quite an amazing prenup with Ferdinand of Aragon to maintain her

own position in Castile when she married Ferdinand. And that agreement was used as a sort of template for the marriage agreement between Philip and Mary. And also Mary, quite remarkably, when there was a rebellion, Wyatt's rebellion in advance of the marriage, which actually was as much about religion as it was an anti-Spanish marriage rebellion. Mary basically goes to the Guildhall in London, gives this amazing speech, which is documented and in a way is really eloquent and amazing, persuasive rhetoric, where she kind of articulates queenship for the first time, really kind of leans into queenship, talking about, you know, as a mother doth love a child, I love my subjects, I will protect my subjects. But, you know, pluck up your hearts, we're going to defeat these rebels. But she also says, I'm going to put the marriage treaty before Parliament. And basically, okay, I won't marry without common assent, without popular assent in Parliament. I

mean, can you imagine Henry doing that? And in fact, of course, Parliament approves the marriage treaty. And so, you know, she does the right thing. There was no option for her not to marry. It was the expectation and she needed to provide an heir and in order to continue the Catholic Church, which she re-established. Mary's reign is a really good example of how the field of history and the study of history evolves. When I started studying Mary, I remember going to a conference in Oxford, and it was full pretty much of men, English historians. And a couple of years ago, when I went to a conference about Mary, half the delegates were Spanish. Half the panels were in Spanish, because suddenly everyone was like, oh, actually, she married a Spaniard. She was half Spanish. And

actually, you can't understand Mary's reign. Indeed, you can't really understand the Tudor period, which, of course, was underpinned by an Anglo-Spanish alliance, without having an awareness and, you know, a knowledge of languages, particularly Spanish. And now with Mary's reign, we begin to see the Spanish archive really being used. And therefore Philip, who of course was King of England, in many ways overlooked for so many years. I mean, it's only been really recently that even a biography of Philip as King of England has been published, because of course, it was the same Philip who then sent the Armada. So Mary's brain really exemplifies how Anglo-centric studies of the Tudors have been for so long. And the challenge now for anyone who studies this period is to really understand that, you know, Tudor England was such a small part

of a bigger global picture. And actually, we need to remember to contextualise it like that. This is the Dan Snow's History Hit. We've got a platinum panel talking about Queens. More coming up. Ever wanted to know more about some of the greatest stories in history? Kings, queens, knights, monks, peasants, battles, castles, love, hate, treachery and revenge? They're all waiting in the greatest millennium

in human history. Well, yet anyway. I'm Matt Lewis and my co-host Dr Kat Jarman and I are waiting to tell you some of the most exciting, exhilarating, fascinating and less well-known stories of the Middle Ages. What are you waiting for? We've gone medieval with History Hit. Are you coming? I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions,

and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Kate, should we talk about Mary Claire Scott but without giving her biography because we'll be here until doomsday

Mary Claire Scott suffers as a woman she is sexually assaulted she's abducted all the things we talked about she has a different experience of womanhood and power than her cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, would you say? Well, it's really significant that you say that, Dan, because, you know, when you think of great queens and people think of great queens, they never put Mary Queen of

Scots in there. She's seen as a failed queen. The best she ever gets is seen as a tragic queen. But yet when you look at her and what she does, and what she does particularly in terms of queenship, a lot of what she does that other queens are congratulated for, she does it too, but it doesn't work out for her in the same way because her situation is so very different. She comes to the throne as a child and she's sent to France to marry in a way that a princess would be, a marriage pawn. And yes, it gets her away from the kidnap attempts of the English, but does it mean that she's away from the networks and the building of networks, which Elizabeth I does so well as an adolescent? And when she comes back to take up her throne in Scotland at 18, she does so many things that Elizabeth I does so well. She talks about religious toleration. She has ministers of different religions advising her. And these

things work for Elizabeth, but for Mary, it's a complete disaster time after time. What is the disaster for her is that she's female. Eleanor was talking so much about how in the medieval period, if you're looking for a wife, just kidnap one. And we see that even happening to a queen. So we see that even happening to Mary, Queen of Scots. She has terrible husbands. But after the death of Lord Darnley, she is single, and it doesn't last long. She is ambushed. She's kidnapped. She's taken and sexually assaulted. And the reason is so that Bothwell can marry her. That's the reason. And what's fascinating is that throughout history after that, people have been horrified that that could happen to a queen. And all these excuses have been made that, oh, well, she must have set it up. She must have

wanted it. She must have really wanted him to meet her and take her back. And then she talked him afterwards. So she can't, you know, everything that sort of Me Too has taught us, I'm not saying that the tutors had any interest in the period understood grooming or Me Too, but at the same time, they understand that when a woman is kidnapped, there's a reason for that. And it's a power differential. So the Mary Queen of Scots does have the sought after son. She does have the son. She does secure the monarchy. Her son is the first steward, James VI, James I. But yet she's seen as this great failure. But what her life really shows is that you can bring in this power. She tried to do

what Elizabeth I did, but the constant threats upon her because she was female, because people threatened her with kidnapping, with seizing her, with undermining her, with grabbing her. The fact is she's constantly vulnerable in a way that if someone tried to kidnap Elizabeth I and marry her, it would have been a complete catastrophe. No one would have accepted it. And yet in Mary's world, it's completely different. And so she shows both what a woman can do, but also the limitations on queenship, because even though she's actually taller than a lot of the men who even kidnap her, that still isn't enough. You always can be reduced to being seized and taken as a woman. And the fact that she does manage to have a child, even though so many queens have

been condemned for not having a child, she does manage to have one. That never seems to be really very congratulated. And yet, Susanna, we hear about Elizabeth's younger life. She was also very vulnerable to poetry men. Her royal personhood didn't protect her from that. That's right. When Elizabeth was young, she was in the household of Queen Catherine Parr, now Dowager Queen, who married very quickly after Henry VIII's death to Sir Thomas Seymour. Boo his. Yeah, I mean, there's an interesting story there about Catherine Parr, who I think is a great influence on Elizabeth in lots of positive ways,

and that she shows her an example of rule. She's Regent General when Henry goes to war in France. She's a great patron of learning and scholarship, and she models queenship in really important ways for the young Elizabeth. But one has to question a little bit whether there's a failure of duty of care, because when, and I love Catherine Parr, and I feel hard saying this, but when Elizabeth is staying with her and Thomas Seymour. Thomas Seymour goes to visit Elizabeth early in the mornings when she's in bed and tries to reach her under the covers, tries to smack her bottom, tries to tiggle her. She gets up earlier and earlier in order to be dressed because he doesn't

really bother with her if she's out of her nightgown. But he's arriving in his nightgown, which is basically undressed in Tudor terms. He's wearing it just to shift. And the interesting thing about this is that we know all of this from testimonies given two years later. There's a question about the purpose in giving these testimonies and whether Elizabeth's servants want to just get her off the hook, because if there'd been a thought that she had wanted to marry Thomas Seymour, which is the question being asked in 1549, then that would have been problematic because it was against the law. But also the suggestion that she might be pregnant at the time, Elizabeth, and that she should come to court and prove that she wasn't.

So her own chastity was at issue at this point as well, wasn't it? Exactly. So there's an impetus to sort of prove that it's all coming from Thomas Seymour and Elizabeth isn't responsible. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. From our point of view, of course, she's not responsible. She's a teenage girl and this

much older man. Yeah, he's, you know, 20 plus years's not responsible. She's a teenage girl and this much older man. Yeah, he's 20 plus years older than her and he's coming and making advances towards her. But I do feel that something about that encounter, which repeated again and again, and there are times where he writes her a letter, he passes on a message saying to her after Catherine Parr's death, he wonders whether her great buttocks have got less or no. I mean, there's an aggression. It's a sexual aggression towards her, which I feel must have coloured her perspective on marriage.

It's so hard to do pop psychology on characters 500 years ago, but it feels to me that this encounter when she's a young woman who should be in a situation where she's protected from a man who's basically got one eye on her and one on the crown, I think makes her think differently about her interactions with men. So Elizabeth is often held up to be the kind of paragon of the female exercise of power. Where are we on Elizabeth at the moment, Gail? What do we think? Yeah, well, I'll be interested to ask the others as well what they think. I mean, my point of view about Elizabeth is that she is praised a lot for what people around her did.

And much of her reputation comes from the fact that she is in power for a long time, that she doesn't die, frankly, when they don't have somebody who can inherit the throne from her in a sort of peaceful transition, that she is at the helm, I suppose, during the Spanish Armada, that there are these journeys abroad in her name and the beginnings of colonization. And I think much actually of her reputation comes from a kind of Victorian perspective on the world in terms of the extension of English, later British power. And of course, it's about the flourishing of culture, Shakespeare, for example, and the Renaissance in her reign. I think that Elizabeth herself exercises power greatly

by refusing to make decisions and by not demonstrating agency insofar as she just kind of sits there. It's a bit Theresa May. She waits for other people around to push her into something or she resists being pushed into it. But also, I mean, when I started learning history, one of the things about the monarchy was a monarch's first responsibility was to provide for the succession, to provide an heir.

And by that criteria, Elizabeth failed. Anna is right in that Elizabeth basically doesn't care what happens after her. It's a complete dereliction of duty. She's just like, après moi le déluge, after me the flood. Who cares? Well, let's talk about the mother of all succession crises. Let's go with the end of the Stuarts.

And it's so interesting, by the way, before we get to Anne, we're not even talking about Mary, a queen regnant. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. I mean, Anne's story is really one of sisters, of her sister Mary having a joint monarchy with her husband William before Anne comes to the throne. So really it's a family story, isn't it, as monarchy always is. But Anne sits in a really interesting position in that because she then comes to the throne as a sole woman, as a queen

in her own right, not sharing the crown with her husband, as her sister had done. And she kind of sits outside all of these descriptions that we have of these other queens. So it's interesting to hear you talk about Elizabeth as sort of indecisive, and perhaps we might say as lacking in authority in some way, because Queen Anne is absolutely the opposite of that. She is incredibly decisive. She is incredibly determined. She's incredibly clear-sighted, and she has real control and authority over the court, over the parliament, over affairs of state. She has this power, which I think it's very hard to detract from her, but then history has made a big effort to undermine her in lots of ways. So if we talk about the labels that are associated with queens, she was often described as the childless queen, and also sometimes the forgotten queen. So neither of those things

sound particularly positive. She's absolutely not childless. It is so far from the label that could be applied to Queen Anne, because she is a mother, a grieving mother, who has 17 pregnancies over that many years, most of them taken to term, ending either in stillbirth or a live birth of a child who lives for a day, a few months, two infant daughters who die of smallpox, a son who lives to 11 and then dies of smallpox. So she is a woman who is a mother who bears child after child after child. And yet history talks about her as if she failed to produce an heir, if her body somehow failed the line of succession. It's absolutely not true. So history has done a really good job of trying to undermine her. But she has a legacy in her 14 years of reign, which is really remarkable and has an impact into the modern world that we live in today. So for instance, under her reign, under her authority and her direction, we have the 1707

Act of Union between England and Scotland. So prior to that, there's a kind of loose union of crowns, but it's quite unstable. There's always a risk that those two countries might come apart. They have separate parliaments. And under her determination to secure for what she regards as the national good, the line of succession and the nature of the monarchy, she creates the active union between those two countries through her determination, which has a profound impact on what happens to the country right up to the modern day. She also rules as a constitutional monarch, so in tandem with Parliament. And so she controls these great ministers of state across both parties. And she performs her duties of state with absolute

determination and a massive work ethic. So she's there in cabinet meetings, she sits in the House of Lords, she mediates with the minister, she's absolutely on top of every single political detail. She goes to more cabinet ministers than anyone before or after. Yes. She turned up to Cobra meetings. Yes, she would. She would go to Cobra. She would absolutely not miss a meeting. And so she achieves all of these things. There's also this huge European war that's happening during her reign, which is, again, incredibly important for her authority

and also what happens to British history subsequently. So she has a military story there as well. But then there's this anything that people remember about Queen Anne, it's the kind of idea of a Queen Anne style, a kind of architecture, a kind of cultural moment. So she also has an authority as a patron of the arts, overseeing a flang of culture at a time where the country's spending a huge amount of money on war. And those things don't always align. Often we have a cultural moment when we're not spending money on other things, but not under the reign of Queen Anne. She does all of this when she comes to the throne in her mid-30s with a very, very frail body. Her body is broken by ill health. She is

effectively disabled by her lifelong condition. So she's not coming as a kind of Elizabeth I with her, I will have the body and heart of a man and all of these things. not coming as a kind of Elizabeth the first with her I will have the body and heart of a man and all of these things she comes as a woman who who has a physical frailty and yet she achieves all of these things so I see her sitting outside all of these kind of brackets of labels that we talk about the other queen so she sits apart so why do we not give her the credit that she deserves there is a parallel in what you've just said though in that it's Elizabeth who's remembered for her greatness apparently but is indecisive whereas actually where we look at mary the first or we look at anne or we look at mary queen of scotts these are three women who

are very decisive and assertive and guess what they haven't come off well in the estimations of historians that feels like there's something going on there what could it possibly be yes listening to your ministers and listening to male opinions whereas anne she knew what she wanted and she wanted a union between england and scotland and spoke of that i think in her first speech didn't she and and it's something that as much as she could as a constitutional one that brought to bear and yes as you say women who were decisive and said i want to reign in my own right sometimes don't always get congratulations i wonder it. I wonder where that puts Victoria then, in a way, because, I mean, Victoria is a dutiful wife. She's a mother, and she's also seen as another great queen. And I wonder what's sort of motivating the greatness, as we would attribute to Victoria, whether it's the things that go on in her name,

as you were suggesting was true of Elizabeth I, or it's because she conforms to gender stereotypes in a way, so it doesn't seem to push beyond expectation, and also lives a long time, which plays a big part in consolidating your position and your reputation, I think. I think that one of the things that Victoria really accomplishes is she does everything that a woman is expected to do at a time when colonialism is unfolding and there are terrible atrocities that are committed in her name. But she's not really seen as the one doing it. Exactly. Yeah.

So it's a really interesting tension because she does the mum thing very well, you know, the mum thing,iful wife well she leans into it yeah it's a political strategy she leans into motherhood and maternity and femininity I think I think she uses photography doesn't she very effectively and portraiture as a real I mean she's a real propaganda queen but I mean isn't that another thing isn't that true of a lot of successful queens? They use image and portraits and style. And I wonder whether that's something that also is drawn up. Elizabeth I, perhaps, she uses portraiture so effectively. Victoria uses photography very effectively. Elizabeth II uses television.

But the importance of imagery, I think, it's completely true. And Victoria did very much. She could have used the stereotype of the middle- class mother and dressed like it and promoted herself like it. And as you say, leaned into it in a very effective way. So she does succeed in being queen, but at the same time doesn't push out the gender stereotypes too much. And so I think working within the stereotypes that you've got, which I think also we have to say Elizabeth II has done very well as well. She has used the imagery in a very effective way, while at the same time pushing forward power

in terms of the constitutional power of the monarchy. But also, I mean, one of the paradoxes, of course, between Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II is the unchanging quality of them. I mean, Elizabeth I quite deliberately, with her face pattern that, you know, she didn't allow herself to be seen to age. But actually, of course, the Queen,

even though she's kind of relaxed in a sense about being shown to age, she actually hasn't visibly aged that much. And so we see in her images, I mean, whether it be on stamps or coins, this remarkable constancy. She's just got very good skincare. Can I gallop into a gender stereotype pitfall, a trap here? From what you've all been saying today, is there

something about Queen's coming to terms with changing political realities and societal realities quite effectively here? It's really interesting, you mentioned Mary I using Parliament to say, fine, I'll go talk to Parliament about marriage. Elizabeth obviously is very mindful of Parliament and her religious settlement, and seems quite comfortable in the role of early modern beginnings of a constitutional post-Glorious Revolution monarch. Whereas you think about William IV, you think about Charles I, you think about Henry. Is there something about women getting the job done, being more pragmatic and working with politicians? They don't precipitate these great constitutional crises that you seem to get in male reigns. Yeah, I think that there's really something to this.

And I think that one of the things about being a woman is that one is introduced from a very early age that you have this thing that you have to overcome in order to be taken seriously. So if a woman is going to wield power in any meaningful sense, she has to be pragmatic enough that she listens to the right people, that she pushes forward in an agenda,. She has to be pragmatic enough that she listens to the right people, that she pushes forward in an agenda, and she has to stay extraordinarily focused. This is really different, I think, to being, well, there you go, that's the oldest boy, and he gets everything, you know? And you can see this, for example, with Matilda and her son Henry, right? So Matilda fights and scraps and does everything that she can. She does things like

puts out her own coinage at a time and puts her face on it. I was just thinking in terms of propaganda, where she's like, an important thing is to get my face in front of people, get people associating me with queenship. She does all these incredible things. And then her children are just idiots. They do absolutely nothing. And it's, again, they're reliant on women, but they're men. So that's fine. It's a really interesting point, isn't it? That nearly every man, when they come to the throne, they are the eldest son, but nearly all of the women we've talked about, they had no idea they're necessarily going to come to the throne. It is fascinating that Elizabeth II obviously was pitched into it. It was news for her when she was 10. She had no idea that she would end up being queen,

but so many of them, I always wonder whether that's a useful thing to not be so so secure in getting the throne, to see what happens to your predecessors. Does that help you become more in touch with what the people want when you come to the throne? It's just a question. There's no female equivalent of Edward VIII, a sort of fancy, self-satisfied, idiot, playboy. Prince of Wales his whole life. Who just thinks that world owes him a living. We don't have that. And we still have no title for a female heir to the throne. Princess of Wales was vetoed for Elizabeth II. So we still have no title for if George was Georgina, we have no official title for them. It also means crucially, they don't spend their childhood

preparing for this role. They don't have that sense of expectation. Being flattered. And yeah, maybe that we should see that as offering a freedom an intellectual freedom a kind of openness to what the role is because you haven't been prepping for your whole life and then it becomes a moment in your life at either girlhood or teenage when we now see as teenage or young womanhood where you suddenly see actually that could be mine that could be my throne that could be my crown and and in Anne we see a strategy developing you know really quite early on about how she wants to navigate those potential opportunities. And I think it is interesting that they're not trained in it.

There's not a sense of this is the education you will get because you're going to be the monarch. So perhaps it offers a freedom, a freedom of thought and a freedom of behaviour that we don't give enough credit for generally in history. British history is a little unusual that we do have these queens regnant recently. We've had a lot of time that Britain has had a female on the throne in the last 200 years. Is that a big part of the reason that Britain still has a monarchy today?

I think those queens have been queens at pivotal moments and they've ushered in change in society or in the monarchy. They've evolved the monarchy in a crucial way. And I think without them at different key points, I think Victoria being a woman at that point rather than a male monarch, similarly the current Queen Elizabeth II I think has been really important. But I'm conscious that we're all women commentating on queens, I suppose. And I just wonder from your perspective, Dan, as a kind of male historian. I don't think we need kind of.

Which bit? The kind of male or the kind of historian? We'll go with kind of male, kind of historian. Who's very interested in, you know, obviously your passion is military and things. I mean, like... Gender studies. You haven't written particularly on queens. Is it not because of the fact? I mean, what's your take on this whole i think it's hard to argue that anything other than that women are better at this than men and we haven't talked about the georgian queen consorts either i think they were

hugely important in the 18th century and men are just not to be trusted with wielding supreme power i think the 20th century teacher says anything yeah Be wary of men near power. So I think it's very clear that the survival of the monarchy in Britain is heavily down to unimpeachable. Even Republicans in Britain recognise they've got a big problem with Elizabeth because she hasn't done anything wrong. That's in her personality. I'm not sure it's how much it's about Victoria, but I do think that the personality of the Queen has been absolutely crucial. And the way that, for example, she has shown a kind of maternal instinct when it's come to managing the Commonwealth. You know, she talked about it all the time as a family, going along to every meeting of the Commonwealth, meeting individual leaders of countries and cultivating relationships in that motherly fashion.

But that comes down to her personality. But do you not think the common theme, perhaps, of these women, of queens, is are they enigmatic? Do we think of male monarchs as enigmatic in the way that perhaps that word is associated with queens, I wonder? Do we feel we know female monarchs less, perhaps, than we think we know men? And I wonder if there's a sort of charismatic quality in their enigmatic sense, in a way, that we don't quite know them. Somehow to be a female monarch, it's just hard to understand. I just feel like that word enigmatic is associated

with queens more than it is kings. But is that not quite a gendered word in itself, Anna? Is that not a thing where you're saying, oh, well, you know, the mysterious woman, we woman we don't know what's going on no because I don't think being enigmatic is a weakness at all I think it's a shrewd political I mean I think for Elizabeth II that's been one of her great strengths being enigmatic people haven't been able to identify with a particular point of view I actually think that the future of the monarchy will depend on actually the monarch not being enigmatic in the same way and having much clearer, the articulated positions on things. So I think that whole position is no longer sustainable. But I think for her, it absolutely has been the key to the success of her reign in a way.

If the British monarchy depends on the lives of George IV, Edward VII and Edward VIII, we would not have a monarchy today. I mean, I agree with this because I think to a certain extent, one of the things that's kind of like foiled the Republican strife here is almost also like the rise of identity politics. There's this way of being like, oh, well, it's a woman. And when a woman is queen, then you have an ability to kind of shield yourself from what would be like the worst male excesses.

For example, if we are having the important conversations that we're having about decolonialization right now, and there was a man that was the figurehead here, I think it would come down more on the side of like, you're right, this is outmoded and we've done some terrible things. There is this way of kind of couching all of this in a maternal kind of feminine quality.

And that is how people in the work that I'm doing in the Caribbean, it's amazing how people in the work that I'm doing in the Caribbean, it's amazing how people see the Queen as this sort of mother figure whilst at the same time condemning Britain for the atrocities under the empire. They hang pictures of the Queen on their walls. There's a sense of adoration for her or love for her as this mother figure that is separate from Britain, which I think is really interesting. And I do think that's down to her gender, her own skill. And I do think that's down to her gender, her own skill. And I can't imagine that would have been the case

if she'd been a male monarch. Which queen would you most like to go for a pint with? Elizabeth I, definitely not Mary I. Totally boring. Not that my book on Mary is, but the poem itself. Caveat. Kate, go.

100% Mary Queen of Scots because she was charismatic, she was firm, and also she was a champion shopper and patron of the arts, but also patron of the decorative arts. So I'd also like to go to the shops and to the pub with Mary Queen of Scots. I'm sticking with Eleanor of Aquitaine. It's going to be the Eleanor's on a night out.

In the first place, I know this girl can drink. And in the second place, how much do I need to get out of her in order to be like, but are the rumors true? I'm worried that you'd have to be her wing woman though for all those men i'm not worried i think it's really true though when you said we come up like keeping the show on the road i mean it is one of the takeaways not that all the women do their very utmost to keep the show on the road and actually there's so many men who did their utmost to get the show off the road and that's really what the sort of gift of women to the monarchy is. I feel we have the history upon our shoulders.

All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks, for listening to this episode of Danston's History. As I say all the time, I love doing these podcasts. They are the best thing I do professionally. I feel very lucky to have you listening to them. If you fancied giving them a rating review, obviously the best rating review possible would be ideal.

It makes a big difference to us. I know it's a pain, but we'd really, really be grateful. And if you want to listen to the other podcasts in our ever-increasing stable, don't forget we've got Susanna Lipscomb with Not Just the Tudors. That's flying high in the charts. We've got our medieval podcast, Gone Medieval, with the brilliant Matt Lewis and Kat Jarman.

We've got The Ancients with our very own Tristan Hughes. And we've got Warfare as well, dealing with all things military. Please go and check those out ready get your pods