When we picture knights in the Tudor period, we see armored men, battlefield honors, and a world where

chivalry still mattered. Tudor England never knighted women, no matter how powerful they were,

but that doesn't mean that women stayed out of roles normally reserved for military leaders.

In fact, several Tudor-era women moved through the

world in ways that felt unmistakably knightly, commanding forces, directing defenses, negotiating

like generals, or carrying themselves with the same martial authority expected from the great

magnets of the age.

Hey friend, welcome back to the YouTube channel for the Renaissance English History podcast.

I'm your host, Heather.

I'm caffeinated, and I've been podcasting on Tudor England since 2009

with my show, which makes it the original Tudor History podcast. I am absolutely delighted that you

have decided to join me today to talk about Lady Nights. So my friend Catherine emailed me the other

week with a bunch of books that have been published recently, historical fiction, about women who lived as knights.

And the email subject in her email was, Lady Knights are having a moment.

So I decided to hop on that Lady Knight bandwagon and talk about the nonfiction part, the real women who were living as

Lady Knights. So let's dig in. We will start with the clearest, most obvious example, Grace O'Malley,

the Irish chieftain often called the Pirate Queen. She was born around 1530 to the O'Malley clan on the west coast of

Ireland, and from the beginning, she lived in a maritime world that demanded both political judgment

and real physical courage. By adulthood, she led a fleet. English officials described her with a

mixture of fear and frustration because she operated with

exactly the authority that they associated with male war leaders.

She commanded ships and raids. She confronted rivals at sea.

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