Queen Consorts in the Renaissance

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

Throughout this month, every episode of Not Just the Tudors is honouring Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee by focussing on some aspect of Queenship in the Early Modern period.

In this first exploration, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb looks at Queens Consort - those wives of Kings so well-known to us - to whom we tend to ascribe a passive role. Today's guest Dr. Michelle Beer wants us to rethink that notion. Her work on Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, and Catherine of Aragon suggests that Queens Consort also wielded power in ways that we have not recognised.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This month, in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's platinum Jubilee, we're celebrating her
0:08.3	seven decades on the throne, or not just the tutors, by focusing on Queen ship in the
0:13.9	early modern period. Funnily enough, we're not actually starting with Queen's regnant,
0:19.2	like the current Queen's namesake, Elizabeth I, though we will come to her. But we're
0:24.0	thinking today about Queen's consort, those wives of kings, many of whom are so well-known
0:30.6	to us. And I think this is an interesting place to start, because there's a tendency when
0:36.3	we think about Queen's in this period to make a divide in our minds between Queen's regnant
0:41.3	and Queen's consort. So to Queen's regnant, reigning Queen's, Isabelle Castile, Mary the
0:47.0	First Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and so on, we attribute power. But to Queen's consort,
0:54.6	the wives of Henry VIII, the France's the First, Charles V and so on, we tend to ascribe a secondary,
1:01.8	receptive, passive role. And yet today's guest wants us to rethink that binary. Her work on
1:11.0	Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots and Catherine of Arigand, Queen of England, suggests that Queen's
1:17.8	consort also wielded power in ways that we lacking understanding often of symbolism, personal
1:25.8	monarchy, material culture and so on, haven't recognised. Today's podcast will make you rethink
1:34.4	power and Queen's ship. My guest is Dr. Michelle Beere. She's the author of Queen's ship at the
1:43.2	Renaissance Courts of Britain, Catherine of Arigand and Margaret Tudor, 1503 to 1533, published by
1:50.0	Boydell and Brewer, and now available in paperback. And she's also written a wonderful article on
1:55.3	Catherine of Arigand's estates. So I started by asking her about what we should make of Queen's consort.
2:05.3	Dr. Beere, thank you so much for joining me on Not Just a Tudor. I'm a great fan of your work.
2:13.3	I love your book, Queen's Ship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain, and it is a sheer delight to
2:20.0	have a chance to speak to you. So I suppose the first question is about the ways in which we have
2:28.6	underestimated the role and the nature of Queen's consort when we think about Renaissance Europe.
	...

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