The radical Protestant John Knox published a tract in 1558 denouncing what he called the 'monstrous regiment of women'. He had in mind three women who dominated the political scene: Queen Mary I of England (Henry VIII's Catholic daughter) Marie of Guise (widow and queen regent of the deceased James V of Scotland); and young Mary Queen of Scots, betrothed to the future king of Catholic France. Knox had the spectacularly bad luck to publish his attack on queenship at the moment when Mary I died and her Protestant sister Elizabeth ascended the throne, a queen mighty in defense of her authority and with a temper to match her illustrious father Henry VIII. These women defined British History after 1550. Looking back on these years, Francis Bacon wrote of the 'strange perturbations' of England, having been ruled by a boy king (Edward VI) and two women before finally again seeing on the throne a proper adult male, James VI of Scotland - with nice irony, Mary Queen of Scots' son. This course explores the lives of these Tudor and Stewart queens and analyzes the intersections of gender, authority, and religious zeal that defined their age.
