“Tragic Heroines”, “Hapless Victims”, and “Beheaded Queens”: Examining the emergence of ‘Victim Queens’ within academic and popular historiography produced during nineteenth-century queenship studies.

-- by Darcy R. Keim, MA

Chapter One

Introduction

-The Ingredients of a Victim Queen-

Titles such as ‘tragic queenship’ are structured by the manner in which historiography contextualises women of ill-fated rule. Alongside this study is a widespread desire to typify the roles of women. As a definition, ‘tragic queen’ specifically cites female monarchs who have undergone exceptional hardships. A recurrent example are queens who have been imprisoned; such as Joan of Navarre. However - reflective of historiography - it ought to be argued that ‘tragic queenship’ has evolved as an umbrella-term; inclusive of all ill-fated models of queenship. The intention of this study aims to focus on ‘victim queens’ as an explicit sub-genre. The differentiation between ‘tragic’ and ‘victim’ examines historiography in varying methods. A ‘victim queen’ is defined by circumstance. A prime example of this is the nature of fertility politics. Coined by Conor Byrne¹, who notes that Katherine of Aragon - among others - had been victim to fertility politics: “Katherine’s [of Aragon] failure to provide Henry VIII with a male heir effectively placed both her femininity and title as queen in jeopardy [...]”². Furthermore, it has been noted that these figures often are written to encapsulate beauty, innocence, and virtue to emphasise their tragic nature. A ‘victim queen’ is often highly romanticized in collective biographies, literature, and art. First, it is imperative to ascertain how these figures are contextualised within the nineteenth-century. This introduction will seek to review the literature that frame victim queens. It will do so by assessing the sources utilised, and provide an understanding as to how they shape these figures.

Queenship and Victorian studies play a key role in the research of this dissertation, which asserts itself through the context of the nineteenth-century. The seeds of first-wave feminism, the continuation of collective biographies from the eighteenth-century, and the alterations made to faith in law in England with the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829. All contributed to the makeup of collective biographies and entertainment featuring these ‘victim queens’. Alison Booth writes of how these aspects create the ‘victim queen’ as the makeup of a ‘victim queen’ reflects the society she is written in.³ For example, there was extensive focus on Lady Jane Grey’s education in collective biographies of her written during the nineteenth-century, as it was a period which saw a push for education for women. The nineteenth-century felt several revolutions - such as the Cult of Domesticity - and these are witnessed in the fashion by which these female monarchs are perceived. Anne Boleyn is given a far more sympathetic portrayal than anticipated; partially given that she was executed. It could be argued that the reassurances of good-natured ‘victim queens’ is due to the fact that Queen Victoria is on the throne. Victoria had experienced empathy for the executed queens; such as Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey. Authors may reflect their monarch, sharing a desire to rectify the bad press conditioned toward these women. There is a feeling of resurrection, with ‘victim queens’ being given a makeover. What is important to note is that they do not lose their humanity along the way.

In terms of Victorian historiography, there is the growth for women from family life to becoming a member of the workplace. The freedom afforded by this capitalist juncture contributed to the socialist revolution of women’s suffrage.⁴ In academic feminism, key words such as ‘public and private’, ‘separate spheres’, and ‘domesticity’ play a crucial role in how the Victorian past is understood in terms of gender.⁵ It is thought that the private sphere provided a gender-group solidarity which developed into mid-Victorian feminism.⁶ The question was whether society would suffer if women, traditional homemakers, would gain political and legal privileges, such as employment and education.⁷ There were many that believed that women’s access to the workplace led to the breakdown of the family home.⁸ This approach became a catalyst for women’s suffrage, with MPs, such as Mill, supporting women’s right to vote.⁹ There was a desire by first-wave feminists to break down the separate spheres; the male sphere of public life and the female sphere of domesticity. The separate spheres were a social construction, shadowing social and economic services.¹⁰ Several aspects of the patriarchy were dismantled in the early nineteenth-century, as a result of an increasingly commercial economy that demanded both sexes participate in the workplace.¹¹ However, the workforce women entered was exceedingly segregated, and the ideology of domesticity - the “female world of love and ritual” - remained persuasive.¹² These facets can be seen in the representation of queenship in the nineteenth-century. The independence given to ‘victim queens’ to transcend the spheres demonstrates a rejection of Victorian restrictions on gender.

In terms of collective biographies, these were created to portray minute samples of important individuals. With regards to queens, the most well-known is Agnes Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England (1840)¹³, and Richard S. Deans’, The Trials of Five Queens: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette and Caroline of Brunswick (1910)¹⁴. These two sources introduce an array of queens to the Victorian and Edwardian public. The qualities that Strickland’s work embodies is that of virtue, compassion, and innocence. Her queens were not merely damsels, they had agency. Perhaps this is the source of Strickland’s popularity. Strickland paved the way for a new genre that opened up “domestic history” as “social history”.¹⁵ Miriam E. Burstein wrote of Strickland’s success, stating, “Nor, given that amount of critical press, is it surprising that today both Strickland and her “Queens” are virtually synonymous with the entire enterprise of nineteenth-century women's history.”¹⁶ This is not the only importance of Strickland’s work. She produced work that was original in the backdrop of collective biographies; using sources that had been previously undiscovered.¹⁷ As a result of Strickland’s success, women’s history found a market of its own.¹⁸ However, it was not without struggle. As Booth asserts, professional historians reviewed collections of female biographies as sentimental “pen portraits”.¹⁹ Nonetheless, collective biographers simultaneously represent Victorian values. Yet they portray “[...] recent discourses of victimization or rights, share a belief in the restorative and documentary effect of personal narrative.”²⁰ In collective biographies, it is not only the figures that are being depicted, but the Victorian perspective. For example, it may be seen that collective biographies are used as “self-help” guides.²¹ That is, as Booth argues, if the “[...] narrative constructs subjectivity, and if reiterated patterns of narrative form imagined communities or collective histories, self-help modeling must have world-shaping consequences.”²² Booth believes that collective biographies are founded on “the writer’s need to answer the simultaneous call of morals and mammon in double quick time.”²³ Such models as Anne Boleyn and Mary, Queen of Scots may be held up as warnings of how a Victorian woman should not behave.²⁴ More particularly, they demonstrate factors of pursuit of power, adultery, and murder. Jayne E. Lewis writes of the effects collective biographies have on nineteenth-century woman:

[...] unmarried, Protestant, English and middle class - to feel what those readers called “a lover’s enthusiasm” for the likes of Mary? [...] Yet, to hear Agnes Strickland tell it, Mary Stuart had been the very mold and mirror of sovereign woman, fitted to nineteenth-century standards. Queens, she always held, invariably provide “the most touching examples of all that is lovely, holy, and enduring in womanhood,” [...] Mary is the queen of queens to Strickland’s mind; in her Life she is “true woman,” endowed with the most pious, “charities and instincts of woman’s nature. She is (once) living proof of what woman most truly and deeply is, and neither murder nor adultery, nor indeed any trace of malice or self-interest, lurks in her repertoire.²⁵

This again demonstrates that collective biographies were shaped by Victorian values. The ingredients of a ‘victim queen’ in the nineteenth-century were moved by morality, domesticity, and virtue. In some aspects, it challenges the cult of domesticity. Booth prompts this by stating, “In the popular biographical histories, such dramatic episodes often prove men’s need of women. Though the outcome may be tragic, the repetition suggests farce.”²⁶ The agency underlining the women within these biographies is evident. During a period amidst the first echo of first-wave feminism, as women began to struggle for suffrage, these collective biographies shape ‘victim queens’ with a sense of independence. Deans exemplifies this, as he writes at the turn of the century. His description of Anne Boleyn portrays a woman who carries herself with a self-supporting form: “Anne Boleyn was a young woman who was bound to be marked, wherever she went. Her beauty of face and form, her graceful carriage, her ready wit and her exhaustless spirits ensured that she could not pass through the world unnoticed.”²⁷ Deans’ work was published in 1910, as first-wave feminism was underway. His descriptions of the ‘victim queens’ is reflective of this; even if unintentional. His Edwardian approach depicts the female monarchs as self-sufficient - full of independence - albeit victims to circumstance. Additionally, he poses questions as to the stereotype of each queen. For example, the idea that Mary, Queen of Scots is as devout to her religion as was previously thought: “To say that Mary was a devout Roman Catholic, a sincere daughter of the Church - in the same sense as Mary Tudor was, for instance - is, to my mind, to misunderstand her character and her actions.”²⁸

Collective biographies largely question the previous portrayals of ‘victim queens’; marking their own stamp on the makeup of these individuals. J. Tillotson illustrates this with his framework of Lady Jane Grey. He writes of a Lady Jane that is studious, and depends on the quiet life: “She worked admirably with her needle, wrote an incomparable hand, played well on different instruments, and acquired a knowledge of the Greek and Latin, as well as of the French and Italian languages.”²⁹ His focus on education may be reflective of the push for access to women’s education during this period. His work was published in 1853, in the height of the cult of domesticity. This indicated that women were meant to inhabit the private sphere; working in the home. The values surrounding this were piety, purity, submission, and domesticity. Tillotson’s Lady Jane embodies these facets. She is fashionably educated; needlework, writing, playing on different instruments, and proficient in the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian languages.³⁰ However, Tillotson is not alone in mirroring the cult of domesticity and the push for education. S. W. Williams writes of a Mary, Queen of Scots that is accomplished in her studies:

Mary Stuart possessed not only rare beauty, but also rare accomplishments. She excelled in her studies and acquired an unusual skill in executing ingenious devices. She was above medium height, faultless in her person, graceful in all her motions, and the exquisite beauty of her face was heightened by a certain spiritual expression, as if the soul was making continual utterances through the countenance.³¹

According to Williams, Mary was exceedingly pious: “She loved retirement and study, and so entirely was her mind inclined to religious meditation and pious acts that she desired to become a nun, and devout herself to a life of seclusion and piety.”³² This makeup of Mary is a reminder of the values of domesticity that thrived in the nineteenth-century.

This reflection of Victorian society is imperative to understanding the buildup of ‘victim queens’. These sources are within the context of their own period. They mirror the society that it is written in. However, another ingredient of ‘victim queens’ that they demonstrate is the nature of circumstance. That is, the ‘victim queen’ is a victim of circumstance surrounding her. All the odds are stacked up against them. Willis J. Abbot is an interesting example of this, as he describes Anne Boleyn as being surrounded by her downfall:

It is pitiful, because she for so brief a time enjoyed the confidence and love of the king, her husband; because of the cruelty of the aspersions that were cast upon her character; because of the fact that, although she desired to gratify her liege lord in the ambition which had led him to marry her, nature thwarted her, and, finally, because of the fact that the man who had promised to love and cherish her not merely sent her to the block, but hours before the axe fell, persuaded a pliant archbishop to grant him a divorce and declare the marriage invalid from the beginning.³³

What collective biographies introduce to the argument is that ‘victim queens’ are a product of their environment. Other than being a form of self-help, collective biographies reproduce these women to share their stories in the rawest form possible. Strickland, Deans, Tillotson, Williams, and Abbot are just a few examples of collective biographers that makeup the ‘victim queen’. Strickland and Deans being the most well-known of that group certainly pave the way for future representations of these female monarchs. Their depictions present women in realistic situations. Strickland became famous among collective biographers and passive readers alike for her portrayal of these figures. The aforementioned biographies were chosen due to their precedence among collective biographies. Other biographies utilised in the dissertation include J. Tillotson’ Lives of Illustrious Women of England; or, Biographical Treasury containing Memoirs of Royal, Noble, and Celebrated British Females of the Past and Present Day, (London, 1853)³⁴ and W. Russell’ Extraordinary Women: Their Girlhood and Early Life, (London, 1857)³⁵. These, like Strickland and Deans, present the ‘victim queens’ as victims of circumstance; as well as strong, independent figures of their own volition. This contrast is important to the dissertation as it informs the research that these figures are three-dimensional. Additionally, it contributes to the understanding of Victorian values that these women either play into or are the antithesis of.

However, it was not merely collective biographies that brought these women to life. Operas and plays introduced ‘victim queens’ to a popular audience. The German playwright, Friedrich Schiller’s play Maria Stuart (1800) formulised Mary, Queen of Scots for a receptive audience. The play showcases Mary already in captivity in England. She is found guilty of treason and is condemned to execution. The play demonstrates Mary’s resilience, her strength, and - realistically - her fear. Schiller’s perspective as a German and a Protestant lends itself to the writing of Mary. As Mary is a diligent Catholic, Schiller presented her as a woman who leans on her religion for consolation. Schiller is a persuasive playwright; his demonstration of Mary was successful during his lifetime. The ingredients to ‘victim queens’ that Schiller introduces is faith, fear, and determination. In the backdrop of the nineteenth-century, these themes may have been accepted or rejected. In 1800 - when the play first premiered - women were expected to be docile, innocent, and virtuous. However, with regard to the play’s success, it is thought that these facets were largely accepted by the audience.

Another composer who lends himself to his work is Gaetano Donizetti, in his opera Anna Bolena (1830). Donizetti, as an Italian in the nineteenth-century, provides his own background to Anne’s plight. Coming from a Catholic environment, his understanding of Anne’s attachment to her faith is palpable. Anna Bolena presents Anne at the end of her reign, surrounded by fear and terror, aware of her oncoming ending. The motifs of Donizetti’s opera are power, religion, and death. These themes would have been well received by a nineteenth-century audience, which is notable by the initial success of the opera. What the opera contributes to the makeup of ‘victim queens’ is making its heroine - Anne - realistic in her downfall: “Ah! you do not know that my bonds are as sacred as they are dreadful, that beside me on the throne are seated suspicion and terror.”³⁶ A playwright that follows this pattern of portrayal is Alexandre Dumas, in his work, Catherine Howard or The Throne, The Tomb, And the Scaffold (1858)³⁷. Dumas writes of a Katherine who is young, naive, and enamoured by her ascension. The lesson is that power comes with a price. Her drive for the throne is lynched when she finds herself embroiled in scandal, and therefore moved to the Tower. Dumas’ work is rife with Victorian values. Such as to remain in one’s social status, and not to climb too high. Alike to the collective biographies, Schiller, Donizetti, and Dumas represent victims of circumstance, but also depicts individuals who navigate their own way. The purpose of these plays and operas is to reach out to a public audience; as well as introduce them to these figures. Schiller, Donizetti, and Dumas depict their monarchs within the framework of ‘victim queens’; painting them as heroines lost within the circumstance of their position. However, the limitations of these operas and plays is that they demand the audience to view these women in lieu of their circumstance, instead of navigators of their own fortune. Although there is certainly agency in these figures, they are still propelled by the elements around them. Nonetheless, apart from this, the positives outrank the negatives. Positively, these female monarchs are given new life and are popularised by the theatre. The successes of these works is testament to how easily nineteenth-century audiences relate to these figures.

It may be ascertained that ‘victim queens’ are bold, driven individuals. Victims of circumstance, they are swept up in the torrential storm that surrounds the throne. Their innocence is pushed by authors and playwrights alike. Whether this is the case or not, the nineteenth-century does remedy the manner in which these monarchs are approached. There is a wave to modify and reassess how these individuals are presented. In Britain, this may well be influenced by Victoria’s ascension to the throne. Victoria herself held great respect for these figures, and felt that their innocence was clearly set. For those abroad, like Schiller and Donizetti, there was a sense of defending these figures. What this demonstrates is that ‘victim queens’ have the power to draw one in, as a result of their respective stories. How they are swept up by the power dynamics around them. Collective biographers demonstrate these women with a degree of agency. These facets of historiography aid in understanding why these female monarchs are portrayed as thus. What this dissertation will aim to do is to assess ‘victim queens’ within three contexts. The first is collective biographies. The key argument is that these figures are framed within the context of Victorian values, but also act as the antithesis of it. More specifically, their independence in how they navigate their life ties in with women’s suffrage. The second is nineteenth-century artwork. This looks at representations of ‘victim queens’ and connects them to how ‘victim queens’ are represented in collective biographies. The third focuses on operas and plays, and how ‘victim queens’ are depicted in them. The question is are they presented as victims of circumstance or women of their own volition. Through this, the objective is to understand how these women are depicted and why they are represented in the manner that they are. Ultimately, the focus is to demonstrate how ‘victim queens’ became such a source of controversy in their presentation.

Chapter Two

Strickland’s Heroines, Deans’ Damsels

-The Birth of ‘Victim Queens’ in Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Scholarship-

It is clear that models of ‘Tragic Queenship’ feature throughout collective biographies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Case studies focus primarily on examples of womanhood that were tragic by nature. Leading instances of this are Richard S. Deans’, The Trials of Five Queens: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette and Caroline of Brunswick (1910), archive.org; as well as Teodor de Wyzewa’, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, (London, 1909), archive.org. Historiographical texts include Alison Booth’s, How to Make it as a Woman (London, 2004). By the 1850s, women’s history became a commercial genre, and was attacked as thus.¹ It may have been targeted as it was written for and largely by women. Moreover, women’s historiography displayed contemporary women’s movement’s or trends in women’s gender ideals.² Collective biographies impart an imprint of their female subjects. That is, each style of womanhood - the manner by which women are represented - is shaped to demonstrate a certain message. For example, the plight of Mary, Queen of Scots is heavily romanticised in the texts. Additionally, the life of Lady Jane Grey is often written about with particular attention paid to her aptitude for education. These illustrations of female monarchy present stereotypes that each woman is memorialized by in the wider cultural consciousness. It has been proposed that “women’s mission” was to re-contextualise women’s rights in collective biographies.³ This frames this chapter's objective. Therefore the method of approach is to discuss these monarchs as case studies within sub-categories of ‘tragic queenship’. Firstly, those that have been romanticized by collective biographies; secondly, those whose primary focus is on the education of the subject; thirdly, those whose narrative is enveloped by fertility politics; fourth, those who are victimized by collective biographies; and fifth, those who have been dressed up as a “Party Queen”. The case-studies will range from the sixteenth-century to the eighteenth-century. A third component will adopt a socio-political and gendered emphasis. For instance, how queenship collective biographies manifested alongside the cult of domesticity.

The first case-study is Mary, Queen of Scots. As a romantic figure, Mary is witnessed as a melancholy individual. The romanticization of Mary reads as palpable within the texts. With each author approaching her as a victim of circumstance, Mary is painted as a martyr, as a bewitching beauty, and as a courageous monarch.⁴ Altogether, Deans describes Mary’s misfortune as literatures gain, proceeding on to summarise her downfall with:

The world had been poorer deprived of the story of the beautiful Queen of Scots-- her imprisonments, her escapes, her loves and lovers, her last imprisonment and direful fate. These have inspired the pens of romancers and poets, of grave historians and learned antiquaries.⁵

Deans is certainly not alone in his conceptualisation of Mary Stuart. Willis J. Abbot wrote that “About the name of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, tradition has built up a fabric of romance [...]”⁶ . He cited this “fabric of romance” as impossible to avoid whilst the subject was a “[...] beautiful young queen from the earliest days of her infancy made the pawn of rival factions playing for the throne of England and Scotland.”⁷ From this, it is hinted that historiography has modelled Mary to centre around key events in her life-time. This is exemplified by the attention paid to the deaths of Rizzio and Darnley, her marriage to Bothwell, and her long-term captivity in England. Her activity has been elevated by a number of collective biographers to martyrdom.⁸ Her beauty and bravery have been the subject of this image. One distinctive reason behind this is the Catholic faction. The Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 gave rise to catholic figures appearing in both collective biographies and histories respectively. This made an impact on how these figures were addressed. The intent of martyrdom is to promote the individual to an element of sainthood. Furthermore, she may be seen as a martyr of the conflict between England and Scotland. A martyr of the abuses of the English. By developing an image of Mary as a martyr, the narrative is erasing all manner of responsibility from her lifetime. Even so, Deans’ description heralds her as a monarch “[...] sacrificed to the Moloch of State necessity.”⁹ However, Deans’ immortalisation of Mary as a sacrificial lamb is not unique. Octavius Owen remarked that “[...] Mary's murder terminated their career in shame, distress, or violence.”¹⁰ Both collective biographers play into the notion that Mary was a victim of chance and fate, rather than a coordinator of the events that befell her.

Nevertheless, it is evident that many of those who chronicle Mary’s fate bind it to her heroism. Historiography may follow the upcoming statement: “[...] her fate was so terrible and undeserved, and encountered so calmly and heroically that pity and admiration have influenced the verdict which stern history might otherwise pass upon this famous Queen.”¹¹ That is, historians ought to harbour empathy toward Mary’s situation. However, this does not discount the fact that the historiography remains distinctly polarised in its approach to Mary Stuart. Lydia Farmer observes that the “[...] historians who defend Mary, Queen of Scots, claim that she was innocent, not only of connivance at murder and infamous vice, but that she was also free from all political intrigues [...]”¹² only to ascertain that “[...] while the historians who denounce Mary Stuart declare that she was guilty of all and every crime, both as wife, woman, and fanatic intriguer.”¹³ Overall, whilst the romanticization of Mary pursues, there will be those who oppose this image wholeheartedly. Even going so far as to question Mary’s place in the historical record; with Deans’ open queries regarding the nature of her beauty echoing the compliments given by fellow historians:

What were the charms of the young Queen of Scots that drew the gaze of all men to her? What was the secret fascination that ensnared the hearts of mankind? In none of the contemporary portraits do we find a satisfactory answer.¹⁴

The search for Mary behind the romanticism is perhaps driven by a need to uncover the truth behind Darnley’s murder, her correspondence with her cousin, Elizabeth, and the justifications behind Mary’s decisions. By dressing up Mary as a romantic heroine, history loses her humanity. This skepticism comes about as notable in the overarching record, whilst others attempt to tie the tragedy of Mary Stuart to her supposedly otherworldly beauty.¹⁵ Albeit this, despite the differing opinions, collective biographies largely sympathise with Mary, Queen of Scots.¹⁶ Her fall from grace and subsequent captivity invite empathy. For example, S. W. Williams highlights the distinction between Mary’s role as queen and her life as a dejected monarch: “Mary had now sadly irrecoverably fallen. Once she was almost adored, now she was hooted by the populace.”¹⁷ In agreement with Williams, Farmer paints a similar picture: “The captive Queen of Scots had been transferred from prison to prison, each day more closely confined, each day treated with less respect and greater cruelty.”¹⁸ Farmer goes on to further state that Mary was alone throughout her trials, with no one to fend her corner, “At length Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought to trial and accused of high treason. Mary Stuart had neither advocates, counsel, nor documents; no one was allowed to plead for her [...]”¹⁹ Mary Stuart as a romantic idol may adopt a favourable narrative, but it leaves a lot to be desired. It largely ignores the ulterior models that she built for herself during her lifetime and her self-fashioning throughout her period in French court particularly. For example, her position as a highly educated monarch. John Tillotson is one of a few writers to address this portion of Mary’s life, narrating that:

Educated in France, she excelled in the freedom of her address, the politeness of her manners, and the play of her genius. She embodied the very perfection of elegance and refinement. She was skilled in various languages, ancient and modern, and proficient in several of the fine arts.²⁰

Moreover, Mary sought to advocate education for women whilst at French court. As detailed in the following by Tillotson: “[...] in which she maintained that it was most becoming for woman to cultivate learning, and that it was unjust and tyrannical to deprive flowers of their perfume, by confining young girls merely to the care of their household.”²¹ Although Mary’s period in France is not a focal point of most collective biographies, it still remains that Mary fashioned herself as a product of European courtly manners. That is, the Renaissance expectation of a fully rounded monarch: educated, beautiful, fertile.

Mary Ridpath-Mann wrote of a Mary that was beautiful to both friend and enemy; furthering this with “[...] she had great personal charm, attractiveness little short of witchery.”²² However, countering this, she was also “[...] a creature of infinitely changeful moods, flashing readily from laughter to tears.”²³ Mary, Queen of Scots is memorialised as a romantic figure. One that Williams stressed has a sad, melancholy interest attached to her life.²⁴ Furthermore, Tillotson concluded his piece with, “Thus perished Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, the most lovely of women, the most unhappy of sovereigns.”²⁵ This quote alone summarises the sentiment of collective biographies surrounding the unfortunate queen.

Throughout collective biographies, Lady Jane Grey is memorialised for her studious nature. Tillotson exemplifies this by remarking, “She was not more distinguished by the beauty of her person than the endowments of her mind.”²⁶ Moreover, Samuel Burder echoes this statement with his own, “Lady Jane very early in life gave astonishing proofs of the greatness of her mind [...]”²⁷. Collective biographers show a keen interest in Jane’s education. Octavius Freire Owen wrote that, “Eminently endowed by nature, her abilities and aptitude for instruction were only equaled by the excessive modesty and sweetness of her disposition.”²⁸ As such, Jane encompasses the sixteenth-century woman; with her studies covering a wide range: “She worked admirably with her needle, wrote an incomparable hand, played well on different instruments, and acquired a knowledge of the Greek and Latin, as well as of the French and Italian languages.”²⁹ It is ascertained that Lady Jane developed an early love of study, and that her education was given the utmost care.³⁰ More importantly, “[...] in her early girlhood she surpassed in general scholarship her equals in age.”³¹ Equally, Pardon wrote that, “Her passions were lulled, and her mind awakened. She loved to question past ages, and to unravel their dark wisdom.”³² It is said that this proficiency for education was an escape from domestic abuse. Hamilton Wright Mabie and Kate Stephens paint a singular picture of Lady Jane’s home life:

She was rigorously punished for the slightest defect in her behaviour or the most trivial failure in her studies. Her parents taught her to fear, rather than to love, them; and insisted upon reverence, rather than affection, as the duty of children.³³

Therefore, there are collective biographers who have reached the conclusion that Lady Jane applied herself to her studies as a form of escape from the strict and unloving nature of her parents:

In the pages of the wise she met with divine words of encouragement and consolation; they soothed her sorrows, they taught her the heroism of endurance, they lifted her into that serene realm where dwelt the Immortals - the glorious minds of old.³⁴

In direct contrast with the behaviour of her parents, Lady Jane was said to be celebrated among her peers. Charles Bruce illustrated this by ascertaining, “Thus the harshness with which she was treated by her parents was far from being adopted by others. On the contrary, her talents, accomplishments, and character won the admiration and favour of all those who had the happiness of becoming acquainted with her.”³⁵

However, Lady Jane was not known throughout collective biographies for her education alone. Indeed, she was pinpointed as a figure that lacked the architect of her own fortune. In fact, she is described as a puppet of the ambitions of the men in her life: “[...] to be first the puppet and then the victim of ambition of unscrupulous men, whose designs she neither approved nor indeed comprehended [...]”³⁶ This contrasts the shy and retiring nature of Lady Jane; as well as her desire for a quiet, private life.³⁷ Bruce remarked upon this, stating:

[...] she yet became the tool of unscrupulous men, who, to further their own ambitious designs, did not hesitate to elevate her to a position of considerable peril; and against her will engaged her as principal in a scheme the failure of which they must have known would entail upon her the most fatal consequences.³⁸

Anna Brownell Jameson wrote that Jane had no desire to take upon the position of monarch.³⁹ Many biographers painted Jane as innocent by nature. With a desire to retire to a quiet life in the country.⁴⁰ However, circumstances were out of her control. Jameson wrote that, “She long resisted the fatal counsel of her father-in-law; but she was dragged on by her evil destiny.”⁴¹ This introduces another image perpetuated by biographers. Namely that of Jane the martyr. Jane was a known Protestant, who took great comfort in her faith.⁴² Biographer George Ballard surmised this in his expression, “[...] the victim of her own and husband's father's unscrupulous ambition is made to figure as a martyr to religious truth.”⁴³ Jane was considered by these writers as a martyr to the ambitions of others: “Queen for twelve days, she is to us a martyr for all time - a martyr to ambition she never felt; a martyr to conjugal obedience; a martyr to the will of the bigoted, violent, cruel, vindictive, revengeful Mary.”⁴⁴

However, why emphasise these elements of her life? The focus on Lady Jane’s education may tie in with the push for women’s education during the nineteenth-century. An access to education determined that women’s domestication was “[...] wholly against the grain of women’s experiences”⁴⁵ The nineteenth-century demand for women’s access to education was a prime objective for first-wave feminism. The bluestocking inheritance led female historians to promote women’s rights through collective biographies.⁴⁶ Therefore, Lady Jane may be seen as a figurehead of rejecting female domesticity in favour of focus on her studies. Furthermore Lady Jane is represented as a martyr to her faith. This may also be a reaction to the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829). The Catholic Emancipation Act allowed members of the Catholic Church to sit in Parliament -- a shift in societal standards against Catholics. Afterward, prominent Reformation figures appeared in collective biographies. These include Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I. Dressing Lady Jane as a martyr and a sympathetic figure with the Protestant faction. Moreover, it can be seen to revitalise the Protestant movement. In contrast, the Catholic Emancipation Act elevated Mary Stuart as a Catholic martyr. Both Lady Jane and Mary Stuart are seen as martyrs of their faith -- and to their fate. Nevertheless, where Lady Jane is painted as wholly innocent to the charges rested against her, Mary Stuart is recognised as paving the way through her decisions to the scaffold. Nevertheless, Lady Jane carries a number of historiographical images. Abbot summarises these by asserting:

An unloved child, offered at one time as a pledge for borrowed money, educated under the harshest system, made a puppet in a great game for the throne of England, married against her protest to an unloved husband, proclaimed queen for a nine days' reign, and finally sent to the headsman's block [...]⁴⁷

Of all these images of Lady Jane, one of them stands more pronounced. That is her memorialisation as a sacrificial lamb. This is exemplified by Tillotson, as he writes, “Never was more innocent blood shed; never was purer virtue sacrificed; never was eternal justice more wounded or violated.”⁴⁸ It is vital to note that the perspective of Victorian collective biographies were largely Protestant.⁴⁹

Fertility politics play a key role in the composition of victim queens. In nineteenth-century historiography, both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn are remembered for their inability to produce a male heir. Each queen-consort produced a single female offspring and suffered miscarriages during their reigns.⁵⁰ These factors affected their public image. Deans writes of Anne as an “unlucky woman”: “First a daughter; then a dead child! How dared the woman thus reward the affection of a man who had raised her from the very dust to the splendour of a throne!”⁵¹ Arguably, fertility politics is unique to this particular situation. This is evidenced by the fact that when Elizabeth was born, the blame lay on Anne. Furthermore, Henry VIII determined that Anne, like Katherine, was the cause for God in denying him a son.⁵² Anne’s misfortune was further heightened by the birth of a stillborn boy; then the king lost all interest in her.⁵³ Clearly, the image of a queen was of importance in maneuvering court-life, and intended to be met with an abundance of male heirs. Frank B. Goodrich completes the picture by ascertaining:“From the very outset of her ambitious career, however, she had felt the situation to be precarious. She was conscious that her tenure of power was contingent upon her giving birth to a son who should inherit the crown.”⁵⁴ However, prior to her ascension of queenship, Anne ensured a reputation clean of scandal. Abbot summarises this by ascertaining:

Anne, while not a prude, was at least prudent, and though residing at the court as a maid of honour, she bore herself so that the breath of scandal was not raised against her. She stood out for the full measure of wifehood and the status of a queen.⁵⁵

Like Anne, Katherine crafted an image for herself. Foremost, she was known for her piety; as well as her strength.⁵⁶ Unlike Anne, Katherine was popular with the public.⁵⁷ Deans observes that, “The public, on the whole, took Katherine's side; for she was popular with the great mass of the nation, who saw in her a model woman and devoted wife.”⁵⁸ Whereas, by comparison, Anne was an upstart.⁵⁹ However, Katherine’s downfall was her inability to produce a male heir; thus faltering on her duty both as wife and queen. Ultimately, Anne presented Henry VIII with a new opportunity to safeguard the Tudor dynasty.⁶⁰ However, Katherine was viewed as the pitied figure throughout the king’s “Great Matter”. Katherine’s position was a precarious one. This is evidenced by how rapidly the court had vacated her in favour of Anne.⁶¹ She had very little support throughout the annulment proceedings; aside from Chapuys, the imperial ambassador and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.⁶² Even so, Katherine continued to be cherished by the public. Whereas Anne received less support; particularly from Catholic factions. According to Agnes Strickland, Cardinal Pole, Henry VIII’s cousin, drafted letters styling Anne as “Jezebel.” “sorceress,” and other selective names.⁶³ Strickland’s ‘Anne’ was enveloped in enchantments, poetry, and romance. However, although her ‘Anne’ is a Protestant, she is not a true convert.

Whereas Anne was being stylised by the Catholic faction, Katherine - though unsupported by members of court - had built a respectable reputation in public throughout Europe. Her decisions during the king’s “Great Matter” caused a revolution in Europe; so much so that the effects remain to be seen today.⁶⁴ Francis Lancelott writes of Katherine as “[...] adored by her friends, respected by her foes, and whose moral worth and high endowments Shakespeare has portrayed with scrupulous truth and inimitable skill.”⁶⁵ Deans compares Katherine and Anne, ascertaining that:

[...] contrasted her full-blooded beauty with the anaemic form and wasted, ascetic figure of his elderly wife. Doubtless he found the ready wit and merry humour of the maid of honour a welcome relief after the sad dutifulness and chastened piety of the queen.⁶⁶

Anne’s exotic beauty won her the attention of her fellow courtiers. Deans further remarks that “Her beauty of face and form, her graceful carriage, her ready wit and her exhaustless spirits ensured that she could not pass through the world unnoticed.”⁶⁷ Likewise, Mary Howitt wrote of a Katherine that was “grave and stately” that could not compete with “the young and fascinating Anne Boleyn”.⁶⁸ This contrast between Katherine’s piety and Anne’s liveliness is a prominent theme throughout collective biographies. Certainly one reason behind this is to polarise the image of each woman from each other. Painting a story of the outcast wife and the younger, more lively mistress. Another justification is to highlight Katherine’s Catholicism and Anne as a figurehead of the Reformation. By dressing Anne up as a fresh, newcomer onto the world stage, the Reformation can be seen to be embodied by her. Frank Goodrich remarks upon the historiography; suggesting that -

Anne Boleyn having been the recognized cause of separation of English from the Romish communion, her character has been from that time to this the subject of fierce denunciation on the part of Catholic polemical writers. They have striven elaborately to prove her unchaste before marriage and adulterous afterwards. Protestant authors, on the other hand, urge the fact of her marriage with Henry as conclusive proof of her virtue, and repel charges upon which the cruel monarch caused her to be condemned as slanderous and futile.⁶⁹

Therefore it is important to note that Anne herself is memorialised in a polarised fashion; depending on who the author is and what faction they belong to. Nevertheless, Anne was not simply viewed as a lively persona. Collective biographies saw her as a victim of the situation she had been placed in. Deans writes of an Anne that is a victim of circumstance:

She was the victim, in a great measure, of circumstances. Placed in a situation from which she could not escape, if she would, she was compelled to marry the king. Once married to him she became the target for a hundred arrows.⁷⁰

Furthermore, according to Deans, Anne was a victim of the game of power. This captured the insecure nature of her ascension:

Anne lost; and, having lost, expected to pay the stake. That the stake was a heavy one was the fault of the time. For my part, I doubt not that she would, had it been possible, have played once more the glorious game of power, risking yet again the life she laid down so cheerfully.⁷¹

Similarly Goodrich writes of an Anne that is a victim of the Reformation, as well as a key player in it. According to Goodrich, Anne “[...] enabled Henry VIII - whom the pope had once in flattery called the Defender of the Faith - to become the unworthy instrument of the introduction of the Reformation into England; and as such, her history would always be interesting [...]”⁷² Equally, she was also written as a victim of Henry’s unbridled temper. Abbot provides a commentary as to Anne’s rapid ascension and decline:

Additionally, Katherine was on the receiving end of Henry’s temperament. Howitt depicts this by stating, “Henry was probably led to desire a divorce because he was tired of a wife whose gravity reminded him that she was some years his senior, and by whom he despaired of having a male heir to his crown [...]”⁷⁴ Anne would receive the same consequence, according to Mary Hays: “By the desire of raising to his bed and throne the new object of his fancy, he was induced to lend an eager ear to every suggestion, however lightly founded, that tended to criminate the unhappy Anne.”⁷⁵ Therefore, it is imperative to note that not only did collective biographers focus on fertility politics, but also how both women were victims of the tyrannical Henry VIII. This may have been done to create sympathy for the two queens-consort. Additionally, it represents the power dynamics of the sixteenth-century. Demonstrating how powerless and weak Anne and Katherine are in comparison to the power of their king, and husband. This represents the imbalance of power between the genders; even during the Victorian period when these collective biographies were written. This was a problematic aspect for early nineteenth female historians, as despite their efforts to return women to the centre of history, the role of these queens were - nonetheless - influenced by men.⁷⁶

Akin to Anne and Katherine’s plight at the hands of Henry, Caroline of Brunswick had a similar dynamic with George IV. The initial wooing was strange, as George was unwilling and only consented to the marriage in order to pay his debts.⁷⁷ Their marriage was an unhappy one, as demonstrated by Tillotson’s emotive language:

No sooner was the marriage solemnized, than the "first gentleman in Europe" began to treat his newly-wedded wife with every slight that could be given, every outrage which could be offered to a delicate and sensitive woman. One child, the Princess Charlotte, was the fruit of this unhappy union; and no sooner had the ill-fated woman given birth to an heir to the crown, than the "most amiable prince of his time," intimated to her that it was no longer his pleasure that they should reside together.⁷⁸

Deans writes of Caroline as a “[...] a young woman of a kind heart and entire absence of dignity. She would play with children of any rank without tiring; and the maternal instinct was strong within her.”⁷⁹ However, her predicament left her isolated by her peers, with Tillotson asserting, “She was insulted by her husband, scorned by his paramours, forsaken by false friends, and left to fight her own battles [...]”⁸⁰ George was set upon a divorce, and as a result, drove Caroline to extremities.⁸¹

Does this excuse her unqueenly behaviour? Collective biographers certainly think so. Clearly Caroline is depicted as a heroine of an abusive union. Alice D. Greenwood emphasises this by asserting:

Of course the Princess did not see herself as did her few pitying friends: a discarded wife without rights or hopes, useful to none, an embarrassment to most, at best an object for chivalrous charity; in her own eyes she was the innocent, wronged Princess, royally superior to rules and conventions, condescending, disinterested, and heroically honest, waiting inflexibly till the acclaim of a noble nation should somehow replace her in the royal position from which the vices of others had so long thrust her out.⁸²

Yet collective biographies contrast this tragedy with Caroline’s kind-hearted manner. This plays into the sympathy the audience is expected to experience for her. Namely, her charitable nature: “Yet she was not distinguished by her mental qualities only; the goodness of her heart was testified by several charitable foundations, visits to public buildings, and personal attendances on the indigent and distressed.”⁸³ Greenwood is quick to ascertain that the common folk supported Caroline in her plight, “The populace were quick to resent the treatment accorded to the Princess of Wales, and when Princess Charlotte drove out the crowd, who always cheered her, would cry “God bless you - don’t desert your mother!””⁸⁴ Where Caroline failed as a wife, collective biographers redeem her in motherhood. Alison Booth refers to this type of biographical modeling as a “standing lesson”. That is, for the audience to passively yield to follow examples of didactic examples of weak, ignorant, or unoriginal examples of goodness.⁸⁵ Caroline was victim to George’s mercurial temper and was wholly abandoned by him. For example, her income was charged to George’s account, which usually meant that it went unpaid.⁸⁶ After the birth of Princess Charlotte, the Prince made it known to Caroline that he did not intend to treat her as his wife, and that she was to make her own plans for the future.⁸⁷ One could imagine that Caroline was portrayed as wholly alone and unsupported by her peers during this period. By comparison, Henry VIII and George are kin in the manner by which they treated their wives. Alike to Katherine of Aragon, Caroline had the support of the populace -- even if the government sneered at her.⁸⁸ Clearly, Caroline lived an isolated existence as the wife of George IV. Booth writes that such dramatic episodes often support men’s need for women. Furthering this with the example of “[...] the imprisonment of the wife in the husband’s stead.”⁸⁹ Caroline’s existence revolved around her husband and lover. It was ultimately the power dynamic between George IV and her that led to her demise; as she had been lonely, powerless, and politically - and emotionally - isolated.

Nonetheless, portraying the victim is hardly anomalous in collective biographies. Both Katherine Howard and Sophia Dorothea of Celle receive the victim treatment respectively. The narrative for Katherine ranges from her position as a political puppet for the Catholics⁹⁰ to a recipient of Henry VIII’s temperament. Mary Howitt concludes her chapter by stating, “She was put to death without trial, and in violation of all the constitutional safeguards of human life which had been raised by the laws of England against the evil passions of tyrants.”⁹¹ Francis Lancelott sees it as his duty to narrate Katherine’s life; describing it as her “[...] crime-fraught career [...]”⁹². Equally, Howitt refers to her as “[...] a most abandoned character [...]”⁹³. She then begins to outline Katherine’s early life. Beginning with life under the care of her father's stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, Howitt paints a story of familial neglect. Targeting the absence of the Dowager Duchess, Howitt depicts the early life of Katherine as encouraged by the female attendants of her grandmother to give attention to select males in their company.⁹⁴ Howitt further details the repercussions of this education:

When the aged grandmother of Katharine, who had blindly been the cause of all this injury to her young relative by her own utter neglect, was made at last acquainted with what had been going on under her roof, such was her indignation that she is have to have vented it in "blows" on Katharine, but Derham was beyond her power.⁹⁵

Howitt encapsulates the relationship between Derham and Katherine as one of manipulation. This he did by insinuating himself into her regard by the exchange of love tokens; such as money for Katherine to purchase female finery.⁹⁶ Katherine was so grateful that she yielded to becoming his wife.⁹⁷ Katherine’s early suitors, including Manox, were undoubtedly based on manipulation on the part of the male suitor. Particularly as there had been no guiding figure in Katherine’s life at this point. This could mean that Katherine could be easily led astray, contributing to the classic ‘fallen woman’ trope. This would impact her relationship with Henry VIII beyond accusations of adultery. Katherine was used to power dynamics in her relationships with men. One of the reasons she has been written this way may have been due to the gender politics of the period. The rules of courtship demanded a fresh, diminutive English rose and a bold suitor. Indeed, it is not difficult to believe this arrangement of events. Alison Booth refers to this as “a menu of models”. This is the idea that womanhood - as represented in collective biographies - range beyond wife, mother, or mistress, angel and whore.⁹⁸ Collective biographers tag some of these women with warning labels, and Katherine would be “do thou the contrary”.⁹⁹

Howitt writes of the first meeting between Katherine and Henry: "Henry the Eighth is supposed to have first met Katharine Howard at a banquet, soon after his union with Anne of Cleves. The contrast with the phlegmatic queen he had selected made the loveliness of the opening beauty yet more conspicuous [...]"¹⁰⁰ Katherine was singled out for her beauty, in comparison to Anne of Cleves. Henry VIII was so enamoured with Katherine, whom collective biographers detail as “[...] beautiful in person and graceful in demeanour, while her exceedingly youthful and childish manners added fresh charms in the eyes of her royal spouse.”¹⁰¹ This vitality brought fresh life to the court. However, Katherine’s past would catch up with her; as she appointed Derham as her private secretary. Katherine’s favour would turn once an anonymous letter was delivered to Henry, describing her adulterous relationship with Thomas Culpepper and her history with Derham. Katherine was ignorant of the danger she was in whilst Derham was examined.¹⁰² Following this, Henry did not allow Katherine to see him, nor did he send her any message.¹⁰³ Howitt writes of Katherine’s execution, stating, “The queen received the fatal stroke with a composure which in the minds of some of the witnesses led to the belief of her innocence [...]”¹⁰⁴ According to Howitt, Katherine was “[...] notwithstanding her early failings, appears clearly to have been guiltless of any of the crimes against the king which were laid to her charge.”¹⁰⁵ One explanation for depicting Katherine in the manner of a victim of circumstance is that it emphasises a narrative of innocence. By depicting Katherine as innocent, the author contrasts her with the tyrannical Henry. An additional reason is that it portrays gender politics in the sixteenth-century. From the beginning, with her relationship to Manox and Derham and how this condemns her later on. Women were expected to be virtuous and innocent; without blemish to their reputations. Booth remarks upon this, stating that the Victorian era consisted of positive and negative modeling. These were models to aspire to and salutary lessons of women not to emulate. This led to examples of famous women poised to fall: queens and female courtiers, favourites, and mistresses.¹⁰⁶ The standard of femininity was put to the test, and in Katherine’s case her prior relationships with Manox and Derham played as an example of the fallen woman.

A figure who shares Katherine’s and Anne’s narrative of adultery is Sophia Dorothea of Celle. Her relationship with Philip Christopher of Königsmark - a union that collective biographies have condemned for his poor treatment of her - is legendary for its drama. Teodor de Wyzewa goes so far as to stress that this story has been dressed up by these same scholars: “[...] the story of the loves of Sophia Dorothea and Königsmark has often been told, as reconstructed by various German and Scandinavian scholars.”¹⁰⁷ Theirs was a love story that transgressed boundaries. Their letters were filled with unrestrained passion. Königsmark would sign his letters “your slave” or “your obedient valet”¹⁰⁸. Königsmark was “[...] sprung from a race of brilliant adventurers, he spent his youth in wandering over Europe in quest of adventures [...]”¹⁰⁹. Biographer Wyzewa provides a deep understanding of the rising passions between Sophia and Königsmark. The focus of Sophia's life appears to have revolved around their relationship. Their letters demonstrate the intensity of their relationship; as Wyzewa depicts in the following: “Not having poetical imagination, and not caring to exert himself to turn compliments, he tells his lady-love that the excess of his passion is making him ill.”¹¹⁰ Königsmark went so far as to begin “[...] declaring that he will kill himself if she obstinately persists in refusing to receive him.”¹¹¹ Clearly, the letters reveal a relationship rife with power dynamics with Königsmark being the perpetrator of the conflict. This is clear in his own words: “If you should fail to return my love, I shall bare my breast and let him tear my heart out.”¹¹² In any case, Wyzewa bears sympathy for Sophia. This is abundantly clear in the following passage:

Whether he loved her or not, few men assuredly have ever been more loved. And if, in spite of his heroic death, those who read his letters cannot help despising him, no one can help, in spite of her failings, admiring and pitying the young woman who yielded herself wholly to him.¹¹³

Furthermore, Wyzewa refers to Sophia Dorothea as “[...] the victim of an evil necessity [...]”¹¹⁴. Elaborating upon this, he states “Married to a lout who hates her, surrounded by enemies implacably bent on humiliating and tormenting her, for a long time her only thought is for her duty [...]”¹¹⁵. However, she was not merely a victim of her cold and brutal marriage, collective biographers also view her as a victim to Königsmark: “A mere brute; that is what this handsome Königsmark is in plain language, and a brute full of cunning in his coarseness; for the princess at this moment is not in the least resigned to give herself to him.”¹¹⁶ His pressuring letters are evidence of his easy jealousy and hard tone:

The life I have been leading since the return of the Court must, I fear, give you cause for much jealousy; for I am playing every night with ladies, and, without vanity, they are not ugly nor of mean rank. I crave your pardon but I cannot live without a little pleasure, and one of them is so like you that I cannot help being in her society.¹¹⁷

Williams Henry Wilkins, author of The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, Sophie Dorothea, Consort of George I.: and Her Correspondence with Philip Christopher, Count Königsmarck, writes of a similar approach to the relationship with Königsmark:

His passion for the Princess was growing daily, and threatened to outstep all bounds of discretion. He was not wholly selfish; he loved her with all the love he was capable of feeling, and he began to see that his presence, so far from serving her cause, was likely only to increase her difficulties.¹¹⁸

It is abundantly clear that biographies treat Sophia Dorothea with care; as well as with an understanding of the condemned relationship between Königsmark and her. According to Wilkins, “She treated him with reserve, and took alarm at his temerity and her imprudence.”¹¹⁹ However, this begs the question as to why Sophia Dorothea and Königsmark are treated in such a polarised manner; namely that their passion is presented as overwhelmingly toxic rather than balanced between both recipients. One reason dictates that it presents drama to an already dramatic coupling. The story of a reluctant princess and her forbidden love. Sophia Dorothea is written as kind-hearted and giving; with one example showcasing her to be beloved by the poor: “Sophia Dorothea was much beloved by the poor in Hanover and Celle for her kind heart, which was always ready to respond to the cry of suffering and distress.”¹²⁰ This presents Sophia as the victim of Königsmark’s advances; which grow more intense over time, as is evident in this extract from one of Königsmark’s letters: “I am in the depths of despair at finding so little opportunity of speaking to you. I dare not even admire the eyes that give me life. For pity's sake let me see you alone, that I may say four words -- only four small words.”¹²¹ Furthermore, the question presents itself: what does the author gain by presenting this relationship in a dramatic manner? It intensifies the narrative, and much like Katherine Howard, it makes Sophia Dorothea the victim of a passionate relationship; rather than a promiscuous queen whose wrongdoing was forced by her lover.

Both Katherine Howard and Sophia Dorothea find themselves to be pawns to the men in their lives. Curiously, Sophia Dorothea is presented as a victim of Königsmarck in collective biographies rather than her husband, George I. Her relationship with George may not have been as dramatic, but certainly was turbulent. Conclusively Katherine Howard and Sophia Dorothea mirror one another. Where Katherine Howard is executed, Sophia Dorothea is imprisoned. Collective biographies presenting these women as victims of male intrigue - as well as tyrannical, cruel husbands - lends itself a lesson. Namely that - in a particularly Victorian fashion - to take care in due with passion, lust, and sex.

Marie Antoinette is another such figure that collective biographies make a lesson of. The damsel of the French Revolution, biographers upheld her love of entertainment as an education in vanity, as well as the vulgarity of spending and luxury. The romantic writings of this period are a reaction to the French Revolution. For it is “[...] is one such work that dramatises Romantic apprehensions about the entrapment of individual consciousness within the processes of history.”¹²²

Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette proceeded on her own light-hearted way. She held parties of quite a friendly character in her apartments. She organised theatricals, wherein she herself took part on the stage. She planned innocent excursions -- as for instance, to a hill-top to view the rising of the sun."¹²³

However, these parties - although innocent - came to be viewed as “monstrous orgies”. Every act of Marie Antoinette’s was distorted into a manifestation of profligacy.¹²⁴ It has been argued that she was influenced by court life. As no other court in Europe was more extravagant and corrupt then that of Versailles; which Marie Antoinette, at fifteen, was to call home.¹²⁵ Marie was passionately involved with masked balls and gambling; delighting in the freedom it afforded.¹²⁶

However, Marie was not simply viewed by biographers for her love of entertainment. Her generosity and act of charity is given mention. One such instance is memorialised by Deans; in which the Queen remodelled a tax income in order to help the poor.

One act of the young queen ought to have shown the French the generosity of her heart and the nobility of her intentions towards her subjects. It was an act worthy of the daughter of Maria Theresa. One the accession of a queen, she became entitled to the proceeds of a tax, levied every three years, on the commodities of bread and wine. This tax was called officially la taille du pain et du vin; but was popularly termed la ceinture de la reine (the queen's girdle). It was an imposition that pressed very hardly on the poor; and Marie Antoinette at once resolved that it should never be exacted on her account. She accordingly ordered it not to be collected.¹²⁷

This juxtaposition with her love of lavish entertainment with her fellow courtiers asserts that Marie was far more complex than the one-dimensional figure many view her as. Above all, she is viewed as a tragic component of the French Revolution. She is written as “[...] beautiful, charming, amiable [...]”¹²⁸ and defined as “[...] one of the most tragical to be encountered in the history of royalty.”¹²⁹ More importantly is that “[...] she ended her life on the scaffold amid a storm of obloquy, after enduring ever species of injury and insult possible to be offered to a high-spirited queen.”¹³⁰ She stood out in bold relief in the French Revolution. Her unfortunate end is remembered in contrast with her love of luxury, partying, and naivety for the political sphere ever evolving around her. Deans illuminates her by writing:

In an age of brilliant women she had few superiors. She hated bores and dullards; and delighted in the society of witty, well-informed people. That is why she was at once so hated and so beloved. For - and this was the great defect of her character - she took little or no pain to disguise her likes and dislikes; and was mercilessly insolent to those woman she despire for their want to intellect.¹³¹

Contrasting Deans is William Russell, who writes of Marie’s death at the hands of the French Revolution: “Yet Marie-Antoinette, it may be urged, was withal only one of the many thousand innocent women slain ruthlessly as she, and should, therefore, excite no keener sympathy than the socially meanest suffer of them all.”¹³² Collective biographers appear to agree on Marie’s innocence. Samuel G. Goodrich denounced the charges brought against her; asserting, “The accusations brought against the unhappy queen on her trial, were all unfounded, and merely advanced because her enemies still had enough respect for justice to mimic its forms in their guilty court.”¹³³ Equally, William Russell paints Marie as a “[...] fair and noble a victim [...]”¹³⁴ Laure Abrantès writes of a Marie that is a victim to slanderous libels; noted that she faced these published in alarming numbers.¹³⁵ Moreover - akin to Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, and Mary, Queen of Scots - Abrantès depicts her as a sainted martyr. Abrantès employs colourful, emotive language to describe Marie:

[...] her unhappy destiny, and the tragical termination of her sufferings, when her pure spirit, released from its earthly torment, flew to its kindred sphere, and prayed for those who devoted her, in the prime of her days, to a cruel ignominious death?¹³⁶

Burnstein summarises this approach appropriately; ascertaining that the author universalised the queen, “[...] stripping her of her temporal, social and national particularities, the better to make her accessible to a reader of any 'condition'.”¹³⁷ Furthermore, she tended toward Mary, Queen of Scots, writing that both attracted vilification and sympathetic pity for all that she suffered.¹³⁸ It comes as no surprise that Anglo-American authors sympathise with Marie, whereas the French rarely do so. This is a reaction to the horrors of the French Revolution. Marie is perceived as a symbol of the monarchy by both; however, the English with their established monarchy, view the death of a queen in such a violent manner as a tragedy. Whereas the French look upon it as an ideal of freedom.

To summarise, Burstein attached the success of royal life as a popular genre as a means of transforming the nineteenth-century monarch’s image.¹³⁹ Reasons behind this are that it “[...] offered models of exemplary morality and spirituality to potential leaders, identifying worthy or dangerous patterns of behaviour.”¹⁴⁰ It made the subject of biography an example of morality.¹⁴¹ The compilation of women’s lives and achievements drove the argument about women’s progress and contribution to society.¹⁴² Booth refers to collective biographies as both self-help and historiography.¹⁴³ That is, the representation of famous women is that of self-help modeling. This is exemplified by the cases of Katherine Howard and Sophia Dorothea of Celle, with their extra-marital affairs. They are role models - a narrative construction - of self-help. Benefiting members of the public who are eager to learn more about these figures. According to Booth, “the most cited women set dangerous precedents, bright flares shining in dark days.”¹⁴⁴ This is seen with examples like Mary, Queen of Scots, Anne Boleyn, Sophia Dorothea of Celle, and Marie Antoinette. These role models present the Victorian approach to sex, adultery, and greed. Collective biographies encapsulate Victorian values and are didactic by nature. Either representing a figure as “what to do” or “what not to do”. These collections are instructional, as well as informative. Authors impart a lesson, and these are rooted in the Victorian moral compass. Thus the stories of these figures contain their own legacy, as well as give an insight into Victorian society. With this understanding, the following chapters will introduce nineteenth-century artwork; as well as operas and plays. Featuring the aforementioned queens, applied in a new setting.

Chapter Three

Mythos and Delaroche

Romantic Iconography of Queenship in Nineteenth-Century Art

Tragic queenship is not solely seen within collective biographies. It is also visualised within artwork. This chapter follows the approach of the previous chapter. It looks at visual representations of tragic queens; more particularly, in the Romantic period. It then will establish how these link with examples of tragic queenship in nineteenth-century biographies. The Romantic period evolved in Germany, where Romantic visual art first came around the years between 1796 and 1830.¹ There were three currents: Frühromantic (Early Romanticism, 1796-1806), Hochoromantik (High Romanticism, 1806-15), and Spätromantik (Late Romanticism, 1815-30).² Allert Beate ascertained that “Early Romantic poets and painters continue the heritage of the Enlightenment by turning toward their own senses rather than by accepting any given belief system.”³ This is an imperative point made to how the paintings are crafted, and will be noted in the assessment of the artwork. This chapter will analyse six paintings by Romantic artists. The queens featured are Lady Jane Grey, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Anne Boleyn. What it will look for is how the painting has stylised the queen; in what manner does it encapsulate the ‘tragic’ element; and what the painter intended for the audience to experience.

Fig. 1. Paul Delaroche, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey ; 1834, oil on canvas, 246 x 297 cm, National Gallery, London. (Photo: Bridgeman Art Library.)

The first of these paintings is Paul Delaroche’s The Execution of the Lady Jane Grey. Famous for its blindfolded Jane stumbling toward the block, whilst one of her ladies-in-waiting leans against the wall in despair, and the executioner watches on. This is presented in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, in which it is recorded that:

Then the executioner kneeled down, and asked her forgiveness, whom she forgave most willingly. Then he desired her to stand upon the straw, which doing, she saw the block. Then she said, "I pray you, despatch me quickly." Then she kneeled down, saying, "Will you take it off before I lay me down?" And the executioner said, "No, madam." Then she tied a handkerchief about her eyes, and feeling for the block, she said, "What shall I do? Where is it? Where is it?" One of the standers-by guiding her therunto, she laid her head upon the block, and then stretched forth her body, and said, "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit;" and so finished her life, in the year of our Lord 1554, the twelfth day of February, about the seventeenth year of her age.⁴

The power of this image is in the virgin and virtuous white that Jane is dressed in. Her innocence shines through in stark contrast with the dark background and dark colours of those surrounding her. Her hair is unbound, and her blindfold is the same colour as her dress. The light of the painting is set on Jane, and to her luminous satin dress; the texture is placed so that the audience is immediately drawn to her distress. This image is not intended to condemn the figure, but rather stress her freedom from guilt. Everything in this image - from the background characters to Jane’s silhouette - is intentional by Delaroche. Stephen Bann, in his Paul Delaroche’s Early Work in the Context of English History Painting, wrote of Delaroche’s evolution into looking at English monarchs for his paintings:

Delaroche had immersed himself in English historical genre that he had promoted his own career not just by copying English print sources, but by familiarising himself at first-hand with the cultural milieu in which they were produced - was not advanced at the time, and has not been investigated subsequently.⁵

It is clear in the image that Delaroche has familiarised himself with the plight of Lady Jane Grey. The painting has been referred to by Gautier as “cette scene dramatique et mélodramatique”, more specifically meaning that Delaroche took the theatrical and made it modern drama, as well as melodrama.⁶ This meant the painting tended toward the corporal demonstration of plot and character rather than toward the presentation of moral action.⁷ Delaroche was painting under the historical genre; this meant he was engaging with theatrical painting. As Susan Siegfried once highlighted --

[...] the qualities which link Delaroche's paintings to theatrical models relate more to the spectators' empathy with the protagonists than to gestural repertory or the feigned experience of a spectator in an actual theatre, for whom the actors onstage would have to be seen from a greater distance.⁸

That is to say, figures such as Lady Jane Grey “[...] cannot stand as the original historical protagonists in the original moment, despite their placement close to the picture plane, as close to the visual spectator as if they existed in the same time as well as the same space.”⁹ However, the composition still provokes an emotional impact. The distinction of Jane’s body stumbling toward the block, helpless as a newborn lamb, does not escape the audience.

Fig. 2. George Whiting Flagg, Lady Jane Grey Preparing for Execution ; 1835, oil on canvas, 142.2 x 117.4 cm, The Henry Luce II Center for the Study of American Culture, New York

Comparatively is George Whiting Flagg’s Lady Jane Grey Preparing for Execution. Similar to Delaroche’s composition, the audience witnesses a Jane Grey blindfolded and kneeling. However, unlike Delaroche’s, this Lady Jane Grey appears much more composed and relaxed. Her hands laying in her lap, her expression angled and serene; almost as if she is readily accepting death. How do these two images relate to the collective biographies? In fact, they resonate closely with them. Tillotson wrote of Jane on the scaffold, stating:

When conducted to the scaffold she respectfully addressed the spectators, who were all dissolved in tears at the depressing spectacle. Her crime, she said, was not the having seized a crown, but not refusing it with sufficient resolution: that duty to her parents, whom she had always been taught to honour and obey [...]¹⁰

Akin to Delaroche’s virtuous, innocent Jane, Tillotson writes, “Never was more innocent blood shed; never was purer virtue sacrificed; never was eternal justice more wounded or violated.”¹¹ Russell embodies a Jane that is the victim of the ambitions of others, and a martyr to religious truth.¹² Owen shares Russell’s view, stating, “[...] and the martyr's faith shines most radiantly in the hour of physical dissolution!”¹³ Sweetser portrays Jane’s final moments on the scaffold, “[...] advanced to the edge of the platform and spoke in a clear sweet voice, of her innocence of treason, and begging them to bear witness that she died a true Christian woman.”¹⁴ He then goes onto describe the moment depicted in Delaroche’s image -- the section originating from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs - of Jane stumbling toward the block:

Without any apparent emotion, Lady Jane then tied the handkerchief over her eyes. She was now blindfolded and, trying to feel for the block, asked "What shall I do? Where is it?" A person near her, on the scaffold, guided her to the block, and she instantly laid her head upon it [...]¹⁵

These images and their themes are reflected in collective biographies. It may be argued that the purpose of both artwork and biography is to create iconic moments. Patricia Smyth suggested that this was the intention of Delaroche, stating:

The perceived 'transparency' of Delaroche's work, whereby the eye is not invited to dwell upon the surface qualities of colour or line but instead looks directly 'through' to the subject portrayed, has been central to his critical fortunes and continues to determine discussion of this artist.¹⁶

Another tragic queen who has received similar status of admiration is Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary is popular in posthumous representations. First is John Callcott Horsley’s Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity.

Fig. 3. John Calcott Horsley, Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity, (1817-1903), oil on canvas, 137 x 190 cm.

The image showcases Mary amidst her Ladies, clutching a letter, her jailer stands behind her as an imposing figure. Mary’s face is turned toward the light, at the barred window. To the left of the image is religious iconography, displayed openly. The artist’s intention was to showcase how enclosed Mary is. She is constantly surrounded in intimate quarters. Her only outlet to the outside world is her correspondence, the very element that is used as evidence against her later on. It is an image full of characters, and Mary is at the centre of it; as the painting revolves around her.

Another image that places Mary at the forefront of her tragedy is Ford Madox Brown’s The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

Fig. 4. Ford Madox Brown, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, (1842), oil on canvas, 78.2 x 69.5 cm, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester

In Brown’s painting, Mary is upon the scaffold. She shares the centre of the image with the priest. She is dressed all in black, with a crucifix hanging from her hand. A lady-in-waiting is bent over in grief; wracked with sobs. Mary appears peaceful as she listens to the priest read from what is supposedly the Bible. This painting does not play into the tragic theme as much as The Execution of the Lady Jane Grey. It is more contemplative. There is a degree of serenity to it, albeit the setting. It allows the audience to question the innocence of Mary; whether she deserved her fate. Mary’s last moments are spent surrounded by her faith.

What is important to remember is that the audience - Victorians - would approach these two paintings with a certain mindset. As well as this, the painters themselves would invoke Victorian attitudes into their work. It may be argued that Victoria’s own image is mirrored in these images.¹⁷ Within depictions of Mary, there is a layered understanding of how Victorian society functions. What is expected of a woman during this period, and what it says about the class divide:

At the same time, though, representations of the Queen of Scots were themselves split between the image of Mary as a “bad woman disguised in the livery of a martyr” and that of her as a paragon of middle class “purity” notable for the moral influence she exercised in her household.¹⁸

These two painters evoked in their images a woman innocent of her charges. In Horsley’s work, Jayne Elizabeth Lewis (Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation) wrote that “Under any circumstances, Victorian artists would have had trouble believably clothing a woman once suspected of adultery, murder and treason in the garb of a nineteenth-century angel of the house.”¹⁹ This is easily noticeable in Horsley’s image, where the audience would question Mary’s crimes. She appears, as Roy Strong states, “a symbol to the repressed womanhood of mid-Victorian England.”²⁰ The Victorians saw themselves reflected in Mary. This is particularly palpable in how these paintings connect to her representation in collective biographies. Tillotson summarises Mary’s plight, suggesting that her situation led her to partake in treason:

Her numerous misfortunes, the length and severity of her confinement, and the cruel persecutions to which she had been subjected on account of her religion, had riveted in her mind an extreme degree of bigotry; and such was the violent spirit and principles of that age, that it is less a matter of astonishment that her zeal, her resentment, and her interest concurring, induced her to give her consent to a design [...]²¹

Mary is a polarising figure for collective biographers. She is regarded as a Romantic figure, much like her visual depictions: “The student of human affairs, the historian, can discover in all the realm of history, no story at once so pitiful and so romantic as the story of Mary, Queen of Scots.”²² This is evident in Brown’s work, where the audience sees the lady-in-waiting figure bent down in despair. Deans’ description of Mary at her execution also reflects Brown’s image, stating, “She still bears traces of great beauty and her carriage is dignified and stately.”²³ With Mary standing tall and acknowledging the priest, she does appear as fully a monarch in her last moments. Deans then discusses Mary the martyr, which is noticeable in Brown’s painting: “I am a solitary woman. When I am dead neither the Catholics nor the foreign princes will cease to make enterprises, if the Catholic persecution does not stop meanwhile.”²⁴ At the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, she de-robed to reveal a red dress -- the colour of a Catholic martyr. There appears to be no nineteenth-century paintings depicting this. A reason for this could be that Catholicism was not at the forefront of Victorian England. Although this is not witnessed in Brown’s work, it is still palpable that Mary turns to her religion in the last moments. Wyzewa writes of a Mary that is a victim of circumstance “[...] from Rizzio's murder, or even from her marriage with Darnley, Mary Stuart had ceased to be morally responsible for her actions, hunted and harassed as she was, like a poor little mouse in the claws of a cat.”²⁵ Horsley’s image of Mary’s imprisonment showcases the intimacy of her confinement. How she is surrounded by people every moment of the day. Her lack of privacy demonstrates the level of threat she is seen to pose. Ridpath-Mann writes of the interest surrounding Mary in the nineteenth-century, asserting, “Four centuries have not sufficed to set at rest the fierce and seemingly interminable controversy over the character and reign of Mary Stuart, and one is quite safe in assuming that four centuries from now it will be no nearer a solution at present.”²⁶ There is a palpable intrigue revolving around the figure that is Mary, Queen of Scots. With collective biographers, historians, and artists all placing their own stamp on her life.

Fig. 5. Édouard Cibot, Anne Boleyn in the Tower, (1835), oil on canvas, 162.5 x 129.4, Institution:Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Another figure given similar treatment is Anne Boleyn. Anne is a tragic individual by the nature of her story. Artists are drawn to her due to the dramatic ethos of her fall. One particular image that stands out for its accumulation of these factors is Édouard Cibot’s Anne Boleyn in the Tower (1835). In this painting, Anne is at the centrefold of the image -- with the light selected on her figure. She is knelt down, looking sorrowful -- yet resigned, one hand in her lady-in-waitings hand. Her lady-in-waiting is turned away, her face buried in a handkerchief as she weeps. In the background is presumably a bible and - like Anne - is draped in light. Similar to that of Delaroche’s Lady Jane. The striking element of this image is not merely Anne’s appearance, or the despair seen in the anonymous lady-in-waiting. It is the complete loss of power envisioned by Cibot.

Fig. 6. Gustave Wappers, Anne Boleyn says a final goodbye to her daughter Princess Elizabeth, (1838), oil on canvas

Another artist that shares Cibot’s qualities is Gustave Wappers. His painting Anne Boleyn says a final goodbye to her daughter Princess Elizabeth (1838) sets a similar tone to Cibot. In it Anne is center-front, looking upward to the heavens whilst clutching a young Elizabeth to her chest; who looks up toward her mother with innocence of the situation. The light bathes them both, whilst to the right a lady-in-waiting weeps into her hand. Behind, ominously lit, are the men who - presumably - are intending to bring Anne to the Tower. This painting is powerful in its depiction of a mother’s love, a woman’s innocence, and Anne’s final moments of freedom. Both Cibot and Wappers capture a Victorian perspective of Anne. That is, Anne the innocent, Anne the fallen, Anne the victim of tyranny. Susan Bordo expands on this, stating:

Even more striking - and probably more influential - in creating a popular image of Anne as the romantic victim of Henry's tyranny were two paintings: Anne Boleyn in the Tower (Edouard Cibot, 1835) and an 1838 depiction of Anne saying a final farewell to Elizabeth by Gustave Wappers. If the Victorians "feminized" history, it had more to do with a gender ideology that men and women shared rather than which sex held the pen (or the brush).²⁷

Anne was an idol of the Romantic period, much like Lady Jane Grey and Mary, Queen of Scots. This is particularly palpable in collective biographies. Deans writes Anne as a victim, observing, “She was the victim, in a great measure, of circumstances. Placed in a situation from which she could not escape, if she would, she was compelled to marry the king. Once married to him she became the target for a hundred arrows.”²⁸ More specifically, she was a victim of the game of power. Abrantès notes that Anne is an innocent figure, despite her pride and vanity:

Ann was more vain than proud; and her vanity was applied principally to the charms of her person. To obtain admiration, she spared neither her smiles nor her powers of pleasing. [...] But her conduct was strictly virtuous, and her soul pure and innocent.²⁹

This proclamation of her soul’s innocence resonates in Cibot’s and Wappers paintings. This belief of Anne’s innocence does not exist in isolation. Other collective biographers share these views. One example is Hays, who writes, “The innocence of Anne Boleyn of the charges alleged against her, can scarcely be questioned. The tyrant himself knew not whom to accuse as her lover; no proof was brought against any of the persons named.”³⁰ Deans describes a moment in which Anne acknowledged her elevation to a martyr, asserting, “‘he King has been very good to me. He promoted me from being a simple maid to a Marchioness. Then he raised me to be a queen. Now he will raise me to a martyr.’”³¹ Whether this was true to life is arguable. However, it notes that collective biographies are largely supporting Anne’s innocence.

The dichotomy of each of these paintings are in their execution of the model: the emphasis on purity, sanctity, and innocence. Albert Boime observes that, “It is becoming more apparent that we tend to reduce the development of nineteenth century French painting to a simple formula that reads more often like the scenario of a silent movie drama than like flesh and blood history.”³² These artists are creating moments. Boime continues on to describe what these artists achieve in their work:

Avant-garde heroes and academic villains-Good and Evil incarnate-contest with one another in pitched battle, with the former triumphing ultimately to the blare of salvation trumpets. But this tortured dichotomy appears increasingly untenable and improbable as our scholarship begins to exhaust the lives of the 'heroes' and turns its attention to the abundance and complexity of French art in the nineteenth century.³³

Each of these paintings showcase a hero. Lady Jane Grey in her final moments, Mary, Queen of Scots in her confinement and at her execution, Anne Boleyn awaiting her verdict in the tower, or holding onto Elizabeth before she is imprisoned. These are moments that capture the sympathy of the audience. That begs the audience to question their stance on these figures. To invite admiration - even love - for these figures. These individuals are reflected in the collective biographies. There is a nineteenth-century need to revive tragic figures and humanise them. This is particular to French artists like Cibot and Delaroche, where there is a desire to review history. However, each artist has taken a figure and breathed life into them. The paintings display drama, tragedy, and melancholy. Painted during the Romantic period, it is unsurprising that they create icons out of these figures. These individuals have been further immortalised by the artwork. The next chapter will analyse how these figures have been viewed within operas and plays. Whether there is a similarity in approach toward these figures or whether they are more grounded.

Chapter Four

“Ripping Bodices”: Opera and Period Dramas

-Exploring Fictional Portrayals of ‘Victim Queens’ in Nineteenth-Century Popular Culture-

The nineteenth-century contributed collective biographies and artwork; as well as an additional medium presenting ‘victim queens’ in opera and plays. This tool of portrayal introduced the public to these figures; as well as engaged them in the ‘self-help’ of the stories. As a component of public history, opera and plays gained traction and grew in popularity. One example is Anna Bolena (1830) by the Italian Gaetano Donizetti. Notably, the figures involved in these period dramas are pioneers of the Reformation and Protestantism; such as Lady Jane Grey. Therefore, this chapter will examine these individuals alongside James Anderson’ Ladies of the Reformation: Memoirs of Distinguished Female Characters, belonging to the Period of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century (1858); as well as previous biographies utilised. The purpose of this chapter is to present the characterisation of the figures in each period drama. A supplemental objective is to ascertain the connection between the portrayal in the period drama and the depiction in collective biographies.

The first case study is Friedrich Schiller’ verse play, Maria Stuart (1800). Initially the audience is introduced to a Mary in imprisonment during the last few days of her life. Her emotional state ranges from feisty to deeply anxious. In Act One, Mary is rebellious toward her captors; speaking fiercely: “The laws of England are no rule for me. I am not England's subject; I have ne'er consented to its laws, and will not bow before their cruel and despotic sway.”¹ Mary holds onto her sovereignty with the independence awarded to her station. However, she also demonstrates regret; specifically her role in the death of Darnley: “This long-atoned crime arises fresh and bleeding from its lightly-covered grave; my husband's restless spirit seeks revenge; no sacred bell can exorcise, no host in priestly hands dismiss it to his tomb.”² In this play, Mary admits guilt in having an indirect part to play in Darnley’s death; admitting that she had knowledge of its coming. Wyzewa summarises Mary’s “sins”; dictating them as an entirely human reaction to a bad situation:

The wretched Darnley, who was afterwards given her for a husband, was himself too much of a nullity to direct anybody. Mary then found a counsellor in the Italian Rizzio of whom there is not the smallest proof he ever was her lover. [...] But Darnley, with the aid of Morton and on Murray's advice, had Rizzio murdered "almost before her eyes." That after this the poor woman's heart should have been "touched with the evil spirit of hatred and vengeance" is a thing too natural to leave room for doubt.³

Nevertheless, this represents the juxtaposition between Maria’s fierce independence and her remorseful reflection.

Mary is not unrealistic about her situation - that of her impending execution - stating, “Sir, I am not surprised, nor terrified. I have been long prepared for such a message. Too well I know my judges. After all their cruel treatment I can well conceive they dare not now restore my liberty.”⁴ Agnes Strickland, in her work Life of Mary Queen of Scots, describes this as a “fanatical thirst for Mary’s blood”; going on to say, “this malignant hatred which no sufferings on the part of its hapless object but death could satisfy [...]”⁵ Schiller’s Mary is aware of this, stating, “I am condemned; upon the word of those who have betrayed me, me, their rightful queen! Who in that very moment, when they came as witnesses against me, broke their faith!”⁶ The play demonstrates the isolation and fear circulating Mary. The success of it is that it portrays an exceedingly human side to the monarch, who is famous for the drama of her life. Moreover, it showcases the power dynamics in this situation: “I am the weak, she is the mighty one: 'Tis well, my lord; her let, then, use her power; let her destroy me; let me bleed, that she may live secure [...]”⁷ This is further determined in Act Three, in a fictional meeting between Elizabeth I and Mary at Fotheringhay. The meeting does not bode well, with Mary stating, “O sister, rule your realm in peace; I give up every claim to these domains [...]”⁸ and “My sins were human, and the faults of youth: superior force misled me. I have never denied or sought to hide it: I despised all false appearance, as become a queen.”⁹ The meeting between Elizabeth and Mary ends on a sour note, with Mary exclaiming, “She carries death within her heart! I know it.”¹⁰ This meeting, though not true to history, has a long term impact in literature. Meetings between Elizabeth and Mary lead up into the twenty-first century, with the most recent film, Mary Queen of Scots (2018). In Act Four, Schiller depicts Elizabeth as having issues signing the death warrant. Leading onto Act Five, Mary prepares for death. Schiller portrays her as welcoming to it, saying:

Why these complaints? Why weep ye? Ye should rather rejoice with me, that now at length the end of my long woe approaches; that my shackles fall off, my prison opens, and my soul delighted mounts on seraph's wings, and seeks the land of everlasting bliss.¹¹

In the end, she pardons Elizabeth her guilt over regicide: “Unto her majesty of England bear a sister's salutation; tell her that from the bottom of my heart I pardon her my death [...]”¹² This scene is replicated by Agnes Strickland, in the following:

The dignified composure and melancholy sweetness of her countenance, in which the intellectual beauty of reflective middle age had superseded the charms that in youth had been celebrated by all the poets of France and Scotland, her majestic and intrepid demeanour, made a profound impression on every one present when Mary Stuart and her sorrowful followers entered the hall of her death.¹³

Schiller’s play was received well by audiences. Indeed, it inspired Donizetti to write the opera Maria Stuarda (1835). There are several factors behind the secret of its success. Even so Germany was largely Protestant, there was an interest in the Catholic faction. Additionally, there is the element of regicide; which would have intrigued the German audience. Possibly why the meeting between Elizabeth and Mary was written in. The values demonstrated in the play include faith, a rebellious nature against her captors, and tenacity. It may be argued that they take the place of patriarchal components of what it means to be a woman. However, this is not merely a woman -- she is a monarch. Therefore, it is demonstrated that this is what is expected of a queen. Whether this is a model of womanhood is questionable. This play premiered in the early nineteenth-century, where women were still expected to be quiet, submissive, demure figures. It is interesting that Schiller took a sympathetic view of Mary; as a Catholic, she opposed Schiller’s Whig perspective of Protestantism triumphing over Catholicism. Nevertheless, Maria Stuart is distinguished for its portrayal of Mary and Elizabeth as stripped down, clearly human characters. Maria Stuart was successfully received in Victorian England. In Jayne Elizabeth Lewis’ Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation, Lewis writes of the difference in approach to Mary between Lord Melbourne and Victoria. Where Lord Melbourne felt Mary was “a bad woman” that should have been beheaded sooner, Victoria pitied the Queen of Scots.¹⁴ She even went so far as to pride herself as being lineally descended - no matter how distant - from Mary. This fascination with Mary was not limited to royals. The public too were fascinated with Mary, ascending past interest in Elizabeth I.¹⁵ Lewis best summarises this national interest for Mary:

Between 1820 and 1892 the Royal Academy alone displayed fifty-six new scenes from Mary’s life. Special exhibitions were mounted from London to Glasgow, and in 1887 the tercenary of her death was lavishly commemorated at Peterborough. Schiller and Scott were recycled ad infinitum, but that did not keep eight new Mary Stuart tragedies from the stage between 1839 and 1880.

Through all of this a “fantastic and forbidden Mary” became real to the Victorian public.¹⁶As Lewis states, “Through her the past itself seemed to become the present.”¹⁷

However, Friedrich Schiller was German. As a foreigner, it begs to answer why he was so interested in figures like Mary. Clearly, the fascination with the Queen of Scots is in her tragedy. Schiller was interested in extraordinary women who underwent great undertakings. His play The Maid of Orleans (1801) about Joan of Arc is testament to this. It is thought that Schiller was inspired by the French Revolution. More specifically, the politics surrounding Marie Antoinette. He saw a mirroring between Marie’s fall alongside that of the Queen of Scots. Schiller’s interest in Mary was also in the exploration of Catholicism. Having been brought up in a strict Lutheran household, there was little room to converse about other sects of Christianity. It is palpable in his work that he utilises his craft to extend his understanding of Christianity:

Moreover, it is important to bear in mind, in considering Schiller's utterances on the subject of religion that he himself was in some measure a victim of this religious astigmatism, or, if not, that he used the word religion frequently in the same partial senses as did his contemporaries, in order to be understood by them.¹⁸

Mary’s faith is returned throughout the play. It is quintessential to her character development. Schiller’s understanding of Mary’s plight and her attachment to her religion is tangible. Despite being brought up a Lutheran, his writing of Mary showcases a comprehension of the Queen of Scots and her leanings toward her faith.

The second case study is Gaetano Donizetti’s, Anna Bolena (1830). The opera tracks the life of Anne Boleyn after she becomes queen; specifically, toward the end of her reign, portraying the danger Anne was in from various factions of the Henrician Court. This is demonstrated by Anne’s monologues: “I have paid the full penalty for it: ambitious, I wanted a crown, and a crown I received, of thorns.”¹⁹ Donizetti encapsulates the melodrama of her final months as queen consort to the tyrannical Henry VIII: “Ah! you do not know that my bonds are as sacred as they are dreadful, that beside me on the throne are seated suspicion and terror.”²⁰ In Reverend James Anderson’ collective biography, he goes on to describe Anne at the beginning of her venture, contrasting Donizetti’s Anne, who is distraught with anxiety and nerves:

Gay, sprightly, witty, graceful in her carriage, affable in her behaviour, tasteful in her dress, singing with a voice melodious, sweet, touching, like that of a nightingale; mingling in the dance with the ease and skill of a perfect mistress in the art - possessing such a choice assemblage of charms, she was an object likely to be admired and caressed in the English court.²¹

Anderson’ Anne begins with the grace of innocence. However, akin to Donizetti’s Anne, “[...] she was surrounded by malicious Popish enemies, both male and female, in the court and elsewhere, who were thirsting for her ruin.”²² Donizetti’s Anne is aware of those around her who wish - or intend - to see her ruin, saying, “Stamped on these faces I see your suspicion; but I ask for mercy, do not condemn me, O King. Let this oppressed heart recover itself for a bit.”²³

In Act 3 we see Anna’s condemnation; her delirium and her death. Although Donizetti’s Anne does not touch upon her Protestant roots, it is clear in the opera that the factions acting against her consist of those members against the Reformation. According to Anderson, Anne’s death was the result of a secret Popish conspiracy:

This horrible tragedy was bewailed by the secret tears of many of the good in England, who traced it to a secret Popish conspiracy, in combination with the furious passions of the monarch [...] The friends of the Reformation in other countries were shocked, and deeply lamented her unmerited fate.²⁴

Notably, this contrasts with Anne’s speech at her trial as dictated by Anderson:

"[...] for I am entirely innocent of all these accusations; so that I cannot ask pardon of God for them. I have always been a faithful and loyal wife to the king. I have not, perhaps, at all times shown him that humility and reverence which his goodness to me, and the high honour bestowed by him upon me, did deserve. [...] but God knows, and is my witness that I never trespassed otherwise against him: and at the moment of my death I shall confess nothing else. Think not that I say this to prolong my life: God has taught me how to die, and by his grace I will fortify my spirit.²⁵

The link between Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and collective biographies like Anderson’ Ladies of the Reformation is that each displays an Anne that is surrounded by enemies, Popish or otherwise. Additionally, Anne asserts an awareness of the danger she is in. Moreover, how is Donizetti’s Anna linked to Victorian values? This is best framed by Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution (1867):

We have come to regard the crown as head of our morality. The virtues of George III have sunk deep into the popular heart. We have become to believe that it is natural to have a virtuous sovereign. And that the domestic virtues are as likely to be found on thrones as they are eminent when there.²⁶

Donizetti’s version of Anne does not so much lack morality, as refuses to refer to it. The charges stacked against her - albeit falsified - strips her of her morality. Additionally, Anne is not the epitome of domestic virtues either. Both these aspects mean that Donizetti has written an Anne Boleyn that relies on the good faith of her peers to see her way through; whilst not honing the values expected of a monarch. This may be one of the lessons Donizetti has set for the audience. Anne is a lesson in morality and virtue; designed to showcase a lack of domesticity. During a time when the cult of domesticity is being introduced to the class consciousness, this may have played a part in the makeup of Anne. However, that is not to say that Anne is not determined to draw sympathy from the audience. Donizetti is clearly empathetic toward her. It merely asserts that Anne lacks the nineteenth-century framework of what it means to be a wife, mother, and queen. Donizetti, as an Italian playwright, promotes a unique approach to Anne. His verses contain Catholic Liberalism. Therefore, his nature is not necessarily to focus on the Popish Sovereignty, but to ascertain the familial factions. Moreover, “[...] Donizetti, and Verdi, seem to reproduce the genre's aesthetic and political ideologies, both through characteristic textual and musical means.”²⁷ He places the relationships under analysis. Instead of looking toward the establishment, he portrays the aspects that lead to these components causing friction.

The third case-study that reveals the intimacies of its character is Alexandre Dumas’ play Catherine Howard or the Throne, The Tomb, And the Scaffold (1834). In this, the fifth wife of Henry VIII is in an affair with a fictional man called Athelwold (written as the Earl of Northumberland), before Henry meets her eye. Catherine refers to Athelwold as husband.²⁸ Athelwold tries to poison her before Henry can have her. In Act Three, Henry offers Catherine the crown:

All - my palace and my throne - thou shalt share with me; thy most golden dreams shall be realized; thou shalt revel in every delight which this world can afford; where'er my power extends, thou shalt command; thou shalt be happy.²⁹

Catherine accepts Henry’s proposition willingly, if not naively. She is blinded by the rise in station, asserting:

This is the palace, this is the throne; my foot is on the first step. I ascend. I sit. Oh, to assure me that all this is true, let someone approach and bow before me; let them acknowledge my power, and salute me as the Queen.³⁰

However, this introduces an argument between Athelwold and her. To which she realises that she does not want to be queen if she cannot be him.³¹ Catherine meets her end in the unnatural way; through accusations of adultery and execution. In this, she exclaims, “So young, yet I have but to extend my arm to reach eternity - to die, to die! Oh heaven! wilt thou leave me thus to perish? Oh, if the king would but pardon me!”³² Following this, there is an emotional scene where the executioner visits Catherine to ask her pardon.³³

The play depicts a young, naive Catherine; who is entirely without guidance or a role model. Much like what is speculated to be true to life for Catherine. According to Agnes Strickland, Catherine lacked proper instruction from an early age: “[...] and the Duchess of Norfolk, her grandmother, who had charge of Katharine, was so neglectful of her duty as to permit the child to choose her own companions, and they were unfortunately low and degraded.”³⁴ The influencers in Catherine’s life encouraged liaisons with men, leading her to meet and become engaged with Francis Derham.³⁵ According to Strickland, around this time Henry VIII took an interest in Catherine and appointed her as maid-of-honour to Anne of Cleves.³⁶ Even further, Henry VIII fell in love with Catherine: “Henry VIII fell in love with her as he had done with Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, when they were maids-of-honor, and little Katharine was silly enough to be flattered by the marks of favor he showed her.”³⁷ Akin to the play, Strickland’s Catherine is enamoured by the crown. Strickland’s Catherine and Dumas’ Catherine share a lust for the throne, above sense. This is evident by her appointment of Derham as her private secretary upon his return to England.³⁸ Strickland believed that Catherine’s downfall was not merely due to Catherine’s own shortfalls, but a component of a larger plot by the Protestant faction.³⁹ However, Strickland pressed Catherine’s innocence, stating, “The 14th of the following month was fixed upon for the execution of this beautiful young girl, against whom no crime could be proved even through the instrumentality of torture.”⁴⁰ This innocence of Catherine is what features heavily in both Dumas' work, as well as collective biographies. Hers is a story that imparts a few lessons; warning against free liaisons with men, and the ascension of power. The values of womanhood determine chastity, innocence, and knowing one’s place in a patriarchal system. Catherine’s failure is founded in her lack of adult role models; emulating sixteenth-century womanhood and the components of courtly interaction. It can be concluded that Catherine is a victim of a patriarchal web; one that sets women up to fail due to its narrow design of womanhood. Her relationship with Derham (or Athelwold, as Dumas constructed) is indicative of this, as he takes advantage of the young Catherine who knows no better. It is easy to feel sympathy for Catherine’s plight; both in Dumas’ play and in Strickland’s biography. She is a person ensnared by the demanding affections of others. As a French writer and playwright, Dumas brings his own cultural framework to Catherine’s story. Dumas belonged to the aristocracy, and it is evident that he has an understanding of the higher social class. His understanding of Catherine is not merely isolated to this. In 1830, Dumas partook in the Revolution that removed Charles X from the throne. His revolutionary leanings are evident in his other works, such as The Three Musketeers. This ties in with the play's dictation of the toxicity of royalty. More particularly, the cruelty that Catherine receives. How swift her ascension and downfall is.

The aforementioned opera and plays contribute to nineteenth-century ideas of queenship. Whether that is Donizetti’s ‘Anna Bolena’ (who, even seeing her end, cannot do anything to stop the path she is on), or Schiller’s ‘Maria Stuart’ (whose feisty and rebellious nature garners empathy from the audience), these figures are humanised on the stage. For lack of a better word, they are made mortal. Audience members are presented with tangible representations of these larger-than-life figures. They reflect nineteenth-century values of womanhood; which warms the audience to the stories of each individual character. Values such as morality and virtue, innocence and chastity, are used to strip down each figure. What this means is that these queens are adapted to a nineteenth-century framework. Informing us of what it meant to be a nineteenth-century woman maneuvering a patriarchal system; its freedoms and restrictions. Maria Stuart, albeit under house arrest, is given free reign with her words as she asserts that England has no domain over her. Anna Bolena despairs at her lack of rights as her life cycles onto impending terror. Catherine is unable to stay with her love, Athelwold, and is forced instead to submit to the will of a King who is known for his short-temper, and tyrannical methods. Each of these women are enveloped with lessons for the audience to take in: Maria, Anna, and Catherine warn against subverting power dynamics. Maria’s is a story about regicide, and the horrors of committing it. Catherine stands as an example of opposing free liaisons with men; particularly at such a young age. Anna is removed of her morality when rumours and charges are stacked against her; essentially stripping her of her womanhood. These relate to the artwork of the previous chapter. Where Anne and Mary are perceived as models of sainthood and tragic victims. As noted, these women impart nineteenth-century messages. For example, how to remain within the cult of domesticity. Conclusively, their themes are intended to gather empathy, and by the popularity of these shows, they do.

Chapter 5

La Reine Immortelle

- The Immortalisation of ‘Victim Queens’ in Public History-

The initial hypothesis was that the navigation of ‘victim queens’ is supposedly presented in the circumstances they are placed in. However, what this dissertation has demonstrated is that these figures are thought to have had far more agency than previously thought. Strickland’s queens are women of their own fortune, tied up in the environment of their own making. Although some of the context is not of their own choosing, these individuals are depicted as navigators of the turbulent times that they lived in. Take for example Anne Boleyn, she is portrayed in collective biographies as a strong contender for courtly life. Her personality full of wit and charm, she dazzles the court she is in, and importantly, the king at the head of it. The importance of this agency is that it represents ‘victim queens’ as something beyond victims of circumstance. It makes them players in the game. Collective biographies are vital in knowing how the nineteenth-century understood these figures. Marie Antoinette is given a sympathetic outline, not merely a casualty of the French Revolution. Mary, Queen of Scots is heralded as a martyr, rather than a traitor. Katherine Howard is more than the woman who was executed as a result of adultery. Collective biographies provide a backdrop for the lives of their figures, and flesh them out for their readers. Public history shapes these women, and breathes new life into them. The popularity of Strickland and Deans is in their ability to evoke the past. Katherine of Aragon is not simply the wife placed aside by Henry VIII, she is a princess of Spain, an important diplomat, and a queen in her own right. This further feeds into queenship theory that reigning women were expected to be well-rounded individuals, and engage in matters as befits their role. Collective biographies are the genesis of queenship studies. Historiography dictates that these figures are deciphered in certain ways. However, this argument must be conscious of the fact that queenship studies boxes these women into their roles. For example, Katherine of Aragon is the forgotten, abandoned wife of Henry VIII; jilted for a younger model. Another illustration of this is Marie Antoinette, the woman that caused the Revolution. It may be argued that collective biographies also present the antithesis of queenship studies, as the reigning monarchs are permitted agency.

The importance of collective biographies is their influence in breathing new life into the past. Their reception is evidenced by this. As a component of popular and public history, they push nineteenth-century agendas; such as the desire for women’s education, the separate spheres theory (by which the man’s world is in public office and [the] woman's world is in the domestic home), and the cult of domesticity. Collective biographies exemplify these factors in their text. For example, the emphasis on Lady Jane Grey’s education, and her private pursuit for knowledge. These biographies have a wide-reaching impact on how these figures are represented. Although it would be a stretch to ascertain that collective biographies created the ‘victim queen’ narrative, it surely popularised it. It refreshes the manner by which the public approaches these figures. Women, such as Katherine Howard, are given a new life. That is, Katherine may be a victim of circumstance, but she is also a conscious individual, and readily aware of her choices. These individuals are given the three-dimensional treatment. Arguably, collective biographies also contribute to how ‘victim queens’ are modelled in wider society; such as in entertainment and in artwork.

What this dissertation has demonstrated is that operas and plays represent their own versions of ‘victim queens’, albeit attached to the framework displayed by collective biographies. It is apparent that operas and plays draw from the relevant historiography. Schiller, Donizetti, and Dumas play upon key themes of the lives of these figures. That is, power dynamics, domesticity, gender roles, religion, and the nature of queenship. Schiller’s Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned, refuses to bend the knee to her oppressors. She believes herself the divine leader of Scotland, and will not give up Catholicism whilst trapped in a Protestant country. She is fiercely rebellious against her wardens. The popularity of Schiller’s play may be due to this depiction of Mary. She is resistant until her end. This compares with the Mary that is portrayed in collective biographies, who is courageous even until her execution; clinging to her claim as Queen of Scotland, even when it has been revoked. Contrasting this is Donizetti’s Anne Boleyn, who is in constant despair about her position near the crown. Anne is aware of the imminent danger surrounding her, and she rises to the occasion. This Anne is fearful, yet brave, and steps toward her imprisonment and execution with a degree of self-control. Although she spends the play in a state of distress, she is still a portrait of strength. Dumas’ Katherine is the picture of innocence. When offered the crown, she is drawn to it. Although she continually questions her lust for the throne, particularly in light of her past relationship, she continues down her path. There is a degree of purity to Katherine’s decision, not particularly understanding what the deal entails. Even when accused of adultery, she remains unaware of the danger surrounding her. This innocence is the core of Katherine’s personality, and her representation as a victim of circumstance. What these plays and opera showcase are victims of situation, and the individuals who do their best to surpass their own fate. The message they send is the strength of these women; as well as their tenacity, innocence, and virtue. They rebrand the ‘victim queens’ with an assortment of qualities that can be absorbed by a nineteenth-century audience. In a similar way to collective biographies, these figures are permitted agency and are able to navigate their fate with the same freedom as their male counterparts. To an extent, it may be argued that they defy gender stereotypes of the Victorian period. Such is the power of the nature of entertainment; the authors are given the choice to offer their figures new life.

What is important to ascertain from this dissertation is that ‘victim queens’ are far more than victims of circumstance. The research has emphasised the agency disposed to these women. These are not merely women who commit adultery, who are imprisoned, or merely find themselves close to the throne; they are made real for their audience. They prey on the sympathy of the audience but also demonstrate a lived experience. For example, Sophia Dorothea of Celle is not simply a woman who commits an affair and is locked up, she is a figure in an abusive relationship with her husband. Katherine of Aragon is not merely a woman cast aside for a younger model, she is a fleshed out individual; a princess of Spain brought to England to prolong an insecure dynasty. These queens are given independent stories in collective biographies; as well as operas and plays, and artwork. They all tie in together, as each is influenced by the other. Although it is interesting where some queens are mentioned more than others. Such as Mary, Queen of Scots, Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, and Katherine Howard. Perhaps it is that their stories are more climactic, and dramatic than the others. Each ending at the executioner's block. However, apart from this, these queens are professionally treated. Each medium - whether that be collective biographies, operas and plays, or artwork - design their ‘victim queens’ to garner sympathy from their audience. However, it ought to be argued that these individuals are not entirely tragic. They may be victims of circumstance, but they are also architects of their own fortune. Importantly, they immortalise these figures for future generations to follow.

The nineteenth-century had a wide-reaching impact in its portrayal of ‘victim queens’. It can be argued that this stemmed throughout the twentieth-century into the twenty-first-century. From books, to television series, to films, there can be seen remnants of nineteenth-century public history. ‘Victim queens’ take centre stage in the hearts of the public, with interests in Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Katherine Howard seeing determined fans ready to defend and rectify these figures historical reputations. Take for example Showtime’s The Tudors (2007-2010)¹, where the portrayal of Anne Boleyn earned legions of fans as Natalie Dormer gave a heartbreaking performance on the scaffold. Likewise, Australian singer/songwriter Karliene Reynolds wrote a feminist album entitled The Ballad of Anne Boleyn²; asserting Anne’s ascension to the throne and her subsequent downfall. Songs like “I Will Be No Mistress” demonstrate Anne’s authority and autonomy. Other ‘victim queens’, like Katherine Howard, also see a revision of history. A prominent example of this is Byrne’s Katherine Howard: A New History³, in which he dissects the historiography surrounding Katherine. Strengthening Katherine’s character and position in history, Byrne pronounces her to be a subject of poor childhood management, the victim of harassment by Mannox and Dereham, and powerless to her rise to power. Byrne emphasises Katherine’s lack of agency, which leads to her quick descent toward the scaffold. Byrne’s ‘Katherine’ resonates with nineteenth-century historiography, as she is the victim of the factors that surround her; unable to maneuver freely.

Lady Jane Grey also gained new traction in the twenty-first century. Biographies such as Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey (2016)⁴ by Nicola Tallis look at the trajectory of Jane’s life. Importantly, it highlights the elements surrounding Jane’s ascension, and how powerless she was in this instance. Tallis does not necessarily convey Jane as a ‘victim queen’ but those nineteenth-century values shine through. She is still a victim of the circumstances that surround her; of the players that place her on the throne. She is still unable to reject her claim to the throne for a desired quieter life. Another author to perform similarly is Antonia Fraser in her biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001)⁵. Although Fraser perceives Marie as having more of an explicit role in her downfall than Tallis’ Jane. Another popular representation of Marie Antoinette is the Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette (2006)⁶. This depicts a materialistic Marie, surrounded by the lavish settings of French Court, and caught up in the richness of her surroundings. This Marie is innocent and naive, unaware of the politics of the country she is inhabiting. Though it is difficult to regard her as a victim, she is certainly a product of her setting. This eventually leads to her downfall, as the French revolution claims her.

What this suggests is that the trajectory of nineteenth-century historiography has a definite impact on the twenty-first-century. The motifs are not forgotten but rather are utilised; even updated. Like Strickland’s queens, these examples of queenship illustrate personal autonomy. In Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall (2009)⁷, a fierce Anne Boleyn is seen ferociously paving her way toward the throne. In Alison Weir’s biography The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn (2009)⁸, Weir emphasises Anne’s part in her ascension. However, it is important to note that some ‘victim queens’ fall behind. There are few mentions of Sophia Dorothe of Celle or Caroline of Brunswick however. The lack of popularity for these two figures is perhaps tied in with the fact that the periods they live in have not gained traction for the public imagination. In any case, those that do feature in twenty-first-century historiography are ‘victims’ in so much that they are swept up by the momentum of their lives. However, with third-wave feminism, they are given more of a role in the direction of their lives. The film Mary, Queen of Scots (2018)⁹ sees Mary own her destiny as she sets off against Elizabeth I. In comparison to the nineteenth-century, these figures are so much more powerful and independent. Their message is to reign with agency, and they are written to be a feminist role model. Thus the ‘victim queen’ continues to evolve from a figure swept up by their surroundings, to an individual deciding their own destiny despite the factions working against them.

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1 M. Hirst, ‘The Tudors’, Showtime, (2007-2010)

2 K. Reynolds, ‘The Ballad of Anne Boleyn’, (2014)

3 C. Byrne, Katherine Howard: A New History, (2014)

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7 H. Mantel, Wolf Hall, (New York, 2009)

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9 J. Rourke, ‘Mary, Queen of Scots’, Working Title Films, (2018)

1 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller: Complete Poetical Works, (2013), Act 1, Scene 2

2 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 1, Scene 4

3 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, trans. C. H. Jeaffreson, (London, 1909), p. 69

4 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 1, Scene 6

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6 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 1, Scene 7

7 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 1, Scene 7

8 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 3, Scene 4

9 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 3, Scene 4

10 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 3, Scene 4

11 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 5, Scene 6

12 F. Schiller, Friedrich Schiller, Act 5, Scene 8

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25 Rev. J. Anderson, Ladies of the Reformation, p. 121

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7 B. S. Wright, ‘The Space of Time’, p. 72-3

8 B. S. Wright, ‘The Space of Time’, p. 73

9 B. S. Wright, ‘The Space of Time’, p. 73

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14 K. D. Sweetser, Ten Girls from History, (New York, 1939), www.archive.org, p. 176

15 K. D. Sweetser, Ten Girls from History, p. 177

16 P. Smyth, 'Representing Authenticity: Attitude and Gesture in Delaroche and Melodrama', Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2011), p. 36

17 J. E. Lewis, Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation, (New York, 1998), p. 173

18 J. E. Lewis, Mary Queen of Scots, p. 178

19 J. E. Lewis, Mary Queen of Scots, p. 178

20 J. E. Lewis, Mary Queen of Scots, p. 178

21 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 159

22 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette and Caroline of Brunswick, (London, 1910), archive.org, p. 95

23 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 94

24 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 166

25 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, trans. C. H. Jeaffreson, (London, 1909), p. 69

26 M. Ridpath-Mann, Royal Women: Their History and Romance, (Chicago, 1913), www.archive.org, p. 96

27 S. Bordo, The Creation of Anne Boleyn, (London, 2014)

28 R. S. Deans., The Trials of Five Queens, p. 91

29 L. J. Abrantès, Memoirs of Celebrated Women of All Countries, (London, 1834), www.archive.org, p. 127

30 M. Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries, Alphabetically Arranged, Vol. II, (London, 1803), https://babel.hathitrust.org/, p. 24-25

31 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 90

32 A. Boime, ‘An Unpublished Petition Exemplifying the Oneness of the Community of Nineteenth-Century French Artists’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 33 (1970), p. 345

33 A. Boime, ‘An Unpublished Petition’, p. 345

1 M. E. Burstein, ‘“The Reduced Pretensions of the Historic Muse”: Agnes Strickland and the Commerce of Women's History’, The Journal of Narrative Technique, Vol. 28, No. 3, (1998), p. 228

2 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman: Collective Biographical History from Victoria to Present, (London, 2004), p. 55

3 B. Dabby, ‘Hannah Lawrence and the Claims of Women's History in Nineteenth-Century England’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 53, Issue 03, (2010), p. 702-03

4 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history; the lives of women who in all ages, all lands and in all womanly occupations have won fame and put their imprint on the world's history, (Philadelphia, 1913), www.archive.org, p. 86

5 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette and Caroline of Brunswick, (London, 1910), archive.org, p. 95-96

6 J.W. Abbot, Notable women in history, p. 76

7 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history, p. 76

8 O. F. Owen, The Heroines of History, (New York, 1854), www.babel.hathitrust.org, p. 318-9

9 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 196

10 O. F. Owen, The Heroines of History, p. 348

11 Fifty Famous Women And the Lessons of Their Lives: Illustrated With Numerous Wood Engravings. London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1830-1850, https://babel.hathitrust.org, p. 284

12 L. H. Farmer, The Girls Book of Famous Queens, (New York, 1887), www.archive.org, p. 204-05

13 L. H. Farmer, The Girls Book of Famous Queens, p. 204-05

14 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 193-4

15 M. Ridpath-Mann, Royal Women: Their History and Romance, (Chicago, 1913), www.archive.org, p. 98 “It is unanimous verdict of both friend and enemy that Mary was beautiful, that she had great personal charm, attractiveness little short of witchery.”

16 S. W. Williams, Queenly Women: Crowned and Uncrowned, (Chicago, 1885), https://babel.hathitrust.org/, p. 93-4

17 S. W. Williams, Queenly Women, p. 91

18 L. H. Farmer, The Girls Book of Famous Queens, p. 220

19 L. H. Farmer, The Girls Book of Famous Queens, 220

20 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 136

21J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 137

22 M. Ridpath-Mann, Royal Women, p. 98

23 M. Ridpath-Mann, Royal Women, p. 98

24 S. W. Williams, Queenly Women, p.83

25 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England Or Biographical Treasury Containing Memoirs of Royal, Noble, and Celebrated British Females of the Past and Present Day, (London, 1851), www.archive.org, p. 159

26 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 71

27 S. Burder, Memoirs of Eminently Pious Women, Vol. 1, (London, 1827), www.archive.org, p. 1

28 O. F. Owen, The Heroines of History, p. 302

29 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 71

30 C. Bruce, The Book of Noble Englishwomen: Lives Made Illustrious by Heroism, Goodness, and Great Attainments, (London, 1875), www.babel.hathitrust.org, p. 29-30

31 H. W. Mabie, and Stephens, K., Heroines That Every Child Should Know; Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages, (New York, 1908), www.archive.org, p. 133

32 G. F. Pardon, Illustrious Women Who Have Distinguished Themselves for Virtue, Piety and Benevolence, (London, 1861), p. 58

33 H. W. Mabie, and Stephens, K., Heroines That Every Child Should Know, p. 134-5

34 H. W. Mabie, and Stephens, K., Heroines That Every Child Should Know, p. 135

35 C. Bruce, The Book of Noble Englishwomen, p. 31

36 Fifty Famous Women And the Lessons of Their Lives, p. 67

37 Fifty Famous Women And the Lessons of Their Lives, p. 67

38 C. Bruce, The Book of Noble Englishwomen, p. 29

39 A. B. Jameson, Lives of Celebrated Female Sovereigns and Illustrious Women, (Philadelphia, 1870), www.archive.org, p. 203

40 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 71

41 A. B. Jameson, Lives of Celebrated Female Sovereign, p. 203

42 G. Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain: Who Have Been Celebrated for Their Writings or Skill in the Learned Languages, Arts and Sciences, (1752), www.archive.org, p. 99

43 W. Russell, Extraordinary Women: Their Girlhood and Early Life, (London, 1857), www.archive.org, p. 122

44 G. F. Pardon, Illustrious Women Who Have Distinguished Themselves for Virtue, Piety and Benevolence, (London, 1861), p. 57

45 L. Abrams, ‘The Unseamed Picture: Conflicting Narratives of Women in the Modern European Past’, in Alexandra Shepard and Garthine Walker (ed.) Gender and Change: Agency, Chronology and Periodisation, (Oxford, 2009), p. 225

46 B. Dabby, ‘Hannah Lawrence’, p. 701

47 W. J. Abbot, Notable women in history; the lives of women who in all ages, all lands and in all womanly occupations have won fame and put their imprint on the world's history, (Philadelphia, 1913), www.archive.org, p. 87

48 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 84

49 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 105

50 A. Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England: From the Norman Conquest, (Philadelphia, 1852), vol. IV and V, www.archive.org, p. 84

51 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 65

52 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history, p. 63

53 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history, p. 62

54 F. B. Goodrich, Women of Beauty and Heroism: From Semiramis to Eugenie: A Portrait Gallery of Female Loveliness, Achievement, and Influence, (New York, 1859), www.archive.org, p. 172

55 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history, p. 60

56 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 15

57 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 65

58 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 10

59 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 65

60 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 11

61 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 15

62 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 15

63 A. Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, p. 179

64 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history, p. 50

65 F. Lancelott, The Queens of England and Their Times, p. 356

66 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 63

67 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 63

68 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest to the Reign of Victoria; or, Royal Book of Beauty. Illustrated by Twenty-Eight Highly-Finished Portraits on Steel, (London, 1866), www.archive.org, p. 279

69 F. B. Goodrich. Women of Beauty and Heroism: From Semiramis to Eugenie: A Portrait Gallery of Female Loveliness, Achievement, and Influence. New York: Derby & Jackson, 1859; 1861; 1879-80., www.catalog.com, p. 186

70 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 91

71 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 91

72 F. B. Goodrich. Women of Beauty and Heroism, p. 186

73 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history, p. 60

74 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 273

75 M. Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries, Alphabetically Arranged, Vol. II, (London, 1803), https://babel.hathitrust.org/, p. 14

76 B. Dabby, ‘Hannah Lawrence and the Claims of Women's History in Nineteenth-Century England’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 53, Issue 03, (2010), p. 701

77 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 301

78 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 211

79 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 300

80 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 211

81 A. D. Greenwood, Lives Of The Hanoverian Queens Of England, Volume II, (London, 1911), www.archive.org, p. 305

82 A. D. Greenwood, Lives Of The Hanoverian Queens Of England, p. 304

83 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 493

84 A. D. Greenwood, Lives Of The Hanoverian Queens Of England, p. 319

85 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 51

86 A. D. Greenwood, Lives Of The Hanoverian Queens Of England, p. 281

87 A. D. Greenwood, Lives Of The Hanoverian Queens Of England, p. 262

88 A. D. Greenwood, Lives Of The Hanoverian Queens Of England, p. 321

89 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 102

90 F. Lancelott, The Queens of England and Their Times: From Matilda, Queen of William the Conqueror, to Adelaide, Queen of William the Fourth, Vol I, (New York, 1858), www.archive.org, p. 427

91 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 317

92 F. Lancelott, The Queens of England and Their Times, p. 419

93 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 313

94 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 313

95 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 314

96 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 314

97 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 314

98 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 61

99 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 67

100 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 315

101 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 315

102 F. Lancelott, The Queens of England and Their Times, p. 429

103 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 316

104 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 317

105 M. Howitt, Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, p. 317

106 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 68

107 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, trans. C. H. Jeaffreson, (London, 1909), www.archive.org, p. 3

108 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 10

109 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 9

110 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 10

111 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 11

112 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 11

113 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 18

114 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 19

115 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 19

116 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 12

117 T. Wyzewa, Some Women, Loving or Luckless, p. 15

118 W. H. Wilkins, The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, Sophie Dorothea, Consort of George I.: and Her Correspondence with Philip Christopher, Count Königsmarck, (London, 1903), p. 105

119 W. H. Wilkins, The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, p. 140

120W. H. Wilkins, The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, p. 96

121 W. H. Wilkins, The Love of an Uncrowned Queen, p. 142

122 M. Spongberg, ‘Burstein Royal Lives’, Companion to Women’s Historical Writing, (2005), p. 494

123 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 201

124 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 201

125 R. S. Holland, Historic Girlhoods: Vol. II, (Philadelphia, 1910), www.archive.org. p. 171

126 F. B. Goodrich. Women of Beauty and Heroism, p. 278-79

127 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 200

128 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 197

129 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 197

130 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 197

131 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 212

132 W. Russell, Extraordinary Women: Their Girlhood and Early Life, (London, 1857), p. 152

133 G. S. Goodrich, Lives of Celebrated Women, (Boston, 1849), p. 265

134 F. O. Owen, The Heroines of History, (New York, 1854), https://babel.hathitrust.org, p. 387

135 L. J. Abrantès, Memoirs of Celebrated Women of All Countries, (London, 1834), www.archive.org, p. 272

136 L. J. Abrantès, Memoirs of Celebrated Women, p. 257

137 M. Spongberg, ‘Burstein Royal Lives’, p. 496

138 M. Spongberg, ‘Burstein Royal Lives’, p. 497

139 M. Spongberg, ‘Burstein Royal Lives’, p. 496

140 M. Spongberg, ‘Burstein Royal Lives’, p. 496

141 M. Spongberg, ‘Burstein Royal Lives’, p. 497

142 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 57

143 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 77

144 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 89

1 C. Byrne, Katherine Howard: A New History, (2014), p. 26

2 C. Byrne, Katherine Howard, p. 26

3 A. Booth, How to Make tt as a Woman: Collective Biographical History from Victoria to Present, (London, 2004), p. 62

4 S. Vaid, ‘Ideologies on Women in Nineteenth Century Britain, 1850s-70s’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 20, No. 43, (1985), p. WS-63

5 A. Vickmery, ‘Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English Women's History’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2, (1993), p. 383

6 A. Vickmery, ‘Golden Age to Separate Spheres?’, p. 385

7 S. Vaid, ‘Ideologies on Women in Nineteenth Century Britain’, p. WS-63

8 S. Vaid, ‘Ideologies on Women in Nineteenth Century Britain’, p. WS-64

9 S. Vaid, ‘Ideologies on Women in Nineteenth Century Britain’, p. WS-65

10 L. K. Kerber,’'Separate Spheres, Female World, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History’ The Journal of American History, Vol, 75, No. 1, (1998), p. 14

11 L. K. Kerber,’'Seperate Spheres’, p. 24

12 L. K. Kerber,’'Seperate Spheres’, p. 25

13 A. Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England (1840)

14 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette and Caroline of Brunswick (1910)

15 M. E. Burstein, “The Reduced Pretensions of the Historic Muse”: Agnes Strickland and the Commerce of Women's History’, The Journal of Narrative Technique, Vol. 28, No. 3, (1998), p. 228

16 M. E. Burstein, “The Reduced Pretensions of the Historic Muse”, p. 220

17 M. E. Burstein, “The Reduced Pretensions of the Historic Muse”, p. 220

18 M. E. Burstein, “The Reduced Pretensions of the Historic Muse”, p. 222

19 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 50-51

20 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 53

21 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 77

22 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 77

23 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 56

24 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 62

25 J. E. Lewis, Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation, (New York, 1998), p. 182

26 A. Booth, How to Make it as a Woman, p. 102

27 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 63

28 R. S. Deans, The Trials of Five Queens, p. 196

29 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England; or, Biographical Treasury containing Memoirs of Royal, Noble, and Celebrated British Females of the Past and Present Day, (London, 1853), p. 71

30 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England, p. 71

31 S. W. Williams, Queenly Women, Crowned and Uncrowned, (Chicago, 1885), https://babel.hathitrust.org/, p. 84

32 S. W. Williams., Queenly Women, p. 84-5

33 J. W. Abbot, Notable women in history; the lives of women who in all ages, all lands and in all womanly occupations have won fame and put their imprint on the world's history, (Philadelphia, 1913), www.archive.org, p. 60

34 J. Tillotson, Lives of Illustrious Women of England

35 W. Russell, Extraordinary Women: Their Girlhood and Early Life, (London, 1857)

36 G. Donizetti, Anna Bolena, (1830), http://www.operafolio.com/, Act 1 Scene 12

37 A. Dumas, Catherine Howard or The Throne, The Tomb, And the Scaffold, (1858)

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The Historian Circle

“Tragic Heroines”, “Hapless Victims”, and “Beheaded Queens”: Examining the emergence of ‘Victim Queens’ within academic and popular historiography produced during nineteenth-century queenship studies.

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