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Born: circa 1031
Died: 1083
William the Conqueror, who in 1066 defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings during the Norman Conquest of England, remains a legendary figure. But what of his queen? Who is aware of the considerable role she played in supporting and facilitating the invasion, or that she was the first Queen of England to be crowned separately in Westminster Abbey? How many could even recall her name?
William’s queen was, unsurprisingly, better known in France, in particular the region of Normandy, where she and William ruled as Duke and Duchess. Raised in the powerful medieval principality of Flanders, Matilda was of noble birth, grand-daughter of a king of France (King Robert II, who died in 1031) and descendant of the Frankish emperor, Charlemagne, and the Saxon king, Alfred the Great. William had impressive lineage through his father, Robert I, Duke of Normandy, but his mother was the unmarried Herleva of Falaise, a lowly tanner’s daughter. Although William would later defiantly sign his name ‘William Bastard’, he could never quite shake off the taint of bastardy and would react violently if taunted.
Legends tell of Matilda first refusing William’s offer of marriage on account of his illegitimacy, publicly declaring to the Duke’s envoys and her father Count Baldwin that ‘she would not have a bastard for a husband’. Her father had hoped for a closer alliance with the ruler of Normandy, but he was forced to turn William down (a rare occurrence when high-born women were generally forced into arranged marriages). Tales then tell of a furious William riding to Bruges, dragging Matilda off her horse by her long braids and throwing her into the mud. Count Baldwin was rightly outraged, although Matilda is said to have enjoyed this display of raw machismo, deciding then that William was the man for her. The story smacks of male fantasy and indeed formed part of a scurrilous volume full of anti-Norman sentiment penned by monks two centuries after the event – hardly a reliable source on which to draw an accurate picture of a Norman ruler, never mind a female one. It is just as likely that her change of heart was brought about by having been turned down herself by a former suitor, the Saxon leader Brictric, for reasons unknown.
Whatever the cause, the marriage went ahead in 1050, in defiance of Pope Leo IX, who initially forbade the match partly on the grounds that the couple were distantly related. Matilda was at most nineteen and William twenty-three. By all accounts the marriage was harmonious from the outset, with a papal dispensation later awarded by Pope Nicholas II. It was said that Matilda ‘united beauty and gentle breeding with all the graces of Christian holiness’ – attributes typically expected of noble women of the period.
As wife to William, Matilda fulfilled her principle duty of procreation, bearing ten children who survived into adulthood, including the two future English kings, William II and Henry I. Although their marriage was a strategic alliance, it seems to have been one of genuine love and trust and, unusually for a medieval ruler, William was not known to have had any mistresses or to have fathered any illegitimate children. It also proved to be an effective ruling partnership: Matilda witnessed countless charters and presided with William in court when he heard lawsuits, and they both founded and sponsored churches and religious institutions across the duchy.
With such a capable ally at his side, William was able to turn his attention to further horizons, namely that of the Crown of England which, he maintained, Edward the Confessor had promised him. As he built his immense fleet in preparation for invasion, Matilda secretly outfitted a ship, the Mora, and stood at its prow as it sailed into harbour. So astonished and thrilled was William that he used it as his flagship (as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry – an embroidered cloth depicting events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England). Before leaving for England, William solemnly invested Matilda with the regency of Normandy, safeguarding to her the protection of the duchy in the name of their fifteen-year-old eldest son, Robert.
These were turbulent times in Normandy and William’s absence could well have prompted others to try to seize control of the French duchy. Despite this, there were no major uprisings or rebellions during William’s leave and it was said that Matilda presided over the court and government with great prudence and skill, William of Poitiers conceding the ‘government was carried on smoothly’ by a woman of ‘masculine wisdom’ (‘feminine wisdom’ being deemed pretty much non-existent back then).
Across the Channel, William had by Christmas Day 1066 secured the crown of England, although it was over a year before Matilda would visit his new realm. At around Easter of 1068, she landed at Dover, where she was met by her king and a company of nobles. They escorted her to the palace of Westminster and on 11 May she was anointed with holy oil and adorned with a crown, ring and sceptre at an elaborate ceremony at Westminster Abbey. In England, queen consorts had been crowned with their kings since 973, but Matilda was the first to have a separate coronation, in a revised service which proclaimed that she shared royal power with the King, almost as if she were a queen regnant. It was a coronation that, unlike any service before, boosted her power and prestige as queen and secured that of her successors.
With such holy honours bestowed on Matilda, she would have been aware of her weighty responsibilities as Queen. As wife to the King, she was expected to support and love her husband, produce healthy heirs, and embody the virtues of piety and virtue by patronising religious institutions and giving to charity. As England’s queen, her gifts to religious houses are well documented – ‘while the victorious arms of her illustrious spouse subdued all things before him, she was indefatigable at alleviating distress in every shape, and redoubled her alms’. Matilda was also a great patron of painters, architects and poets in England, bringing Flemish artisans to the country and employing English seamstresses who were famed for their skills. (It was once wrongly thought she commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry, on which she makes no appearance.)
As a medieval queen, her role was also a political one, requiring her to foster good relations at court, whilst also mediate and smooth over family and dynastic disputes. As in Normandy, Matilda gave judgements and heard pleas jointly with William in English courts and he gave her the authority to hear lawsuits over land disputes, as mentioned several times in the Domesday Book. She witnessed many royal charters, some jointly with William, her name appearing below his but above their sons (although, as neither could write, they marked their names with a symbol, she with a Jerusalem cross).
As William battled to consolidate his rule in England, particularly in the troublesome north of the country, it was said that a heavily pregnant Matilda travelled some 200 miles to be with her husband and that their fourth child Henry was born just south of York in late 1068. The subsequent year saw further resistance in the north, culminating in William ordering a violent annihilation of entire villages and the burning of crops and herds. During this tumultuous time, he sent Matilda back to Normandy, where she again ruled in William’s stead, bringing up their children, issuing charters and attending Councils of State. In England, William continued to establish his rule, bestowing land and titles to Norman barons and encouraging them to raise fortified castles across the kingdom. By 1072, the conquest was more or less complete, largely at the expense of the Saxon population, who were savagely oppressed by the new Norman aristocracy.
In 1074, Matilda was briefly again made Queen Regent of Normandy, the same year that she and William lost their second son, Richard, in a hunting accident. In 1076, trouble flared between William and their eldest son, Robert, on whom Matilda doted but who proved a disappointment to his father, his short stature, ‘pot belly’ and fat legs earning him the unflattering moniker of Robert ‘Curthose’. Officially, Robert was Duke of Normandy, but he was frustrated by his father not granting him full autonomy, a resentment that broke out into open hostilities in 1078 as the King fought a three-week siege against Robert, during which father and son actually fought, with the King’s horse killed and his hand wounded. Not unsurprisingly, the feud greatly distressed Matilda, and it was soon discovered that she had been secretly sending Robert large sums of money, much to the fury of William. When he confronted Matilda, she stood her ground, pleading maternal devotion, for which William eventually forgave her: father and son were formally reconciled in 1080.
By the early 1080s, Matilda’s health was beginning to suffer and she died in November 1083, around the age of fifty-two. After thirty-three years of marriage, William was apparently inconsolable, some saying from thereon ‘he abandoned pleasure of every kind.’ Matilda was buried at the convent of the Holy Trinity at Caen. Her passing was mourned throughout France, and it was claimed she was ‘wept for by the English and the Normans for many years’. She had proved herself a most able ruler, one who wielded great power and influence in Normandy and England, who was by turns an ambitious consort, a wise counsel, a capable leader and doting mother – a queen who deserves much greater acclaim, for being both a powerful ally to William the Conqueror and ruler in her own right.
Wu Zetian (#ub91772aa-8a63-58d6-bd4b-ead74676fb1c)
Born: 624 CE
Died: 705 CE
Some fifty miles northwest of the modern Chinese city of Xi’an, deep within Mount Liang, is the tomb of Empress Wu Zetian. There lies the remains of an Empress of China who ruled for more than fifty years during the Tang dynasty (610–907 CE), the only woman in 3,000 years of Chinese history to have sat on the Chinese throne as ruler in her own right.
And yet the great memorial tablet that stands at the entrance to her tomb, erected during her lifetime so that her successors could compose the usual epitaph proclaiming her worthiness as empress, remains starkly blank. By contrast, the tablet that immortalises her husband, Emperor Gaozong, buried in the same mausoleum, carries the usual inscription recording his deeds as emperor, as composed by Wu Zetian to a husband whose death preceded hers by some twenty years.
The lack of inscription on Wu’s memorial, the only one of its kind, was clearly an attempt to obscure any record of Wu Zetian’s rule; she died and lies near to her husband but any other details are best forgotten. The omission also reflects how she was perceived by people around her and successors – in particular the Confucian hierarchy who deeply disapproved of her and the idea of any women having genuine power, deemed as unnatural as having a ‘hen crow like a rooster at daybreak’.
Despite attempts to remove her from record, Wu Zetian is now an immensely famous figure in China – the subject of books, films and TV shows – although she is still largely unknown in the West. Much of her fame, however, rests on her startling propensity for ruthlessness: murdering female rivals, elder statesmen who opposed her, and even members of her own family so that she could wield supreme power. Her image is that of a murderous megalomaniac, almost as if a warning of what a woman can do when given enough power, an image that has in the past overshadowed the many achievements of her reign.
Born in 624 CE, Wu Zetian (original name Wu Zhao) entered the palace of the Tang emperor Taizong in 638 as a fourteen-year-old concubine. As the daughter of a minor general, this was deemed quite an honour, although her role at first would largely be as a glorified serving woman. Little is known about her life as a concubine but it’s thought she managed to get close to the Emperor when her duties included changing the imperial bed sheets. When the Emperor died in 649, the custom was for concubines to have their heads shaved and be sent to a convent, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. Taizong’s heir, Gaozong, however, brought Wu back to the palace as his favourite concubine, her rise in status brought about, as some Chinese historians have speculated, by her willingness to gratify emperors’ unusual sexual appetites.
Having given birth to two sons, Wu had a daughter in 654 who died soon after. Wu accused the wife of Gaozong, Empress Wang, of strangling the child in a fit of a jealousy over her own childlessness, although other histories of the period claim Wu smothered the child herself only then to blame the Empress for the death. Wang was subsequently demoted and imprisoned along with another leading concubine. It is said that Wu, who had now replaced Wang as Empress Consort, ordered that both women have their legs and arms cut off and their torsos thrown into a vat of wine, leaving them to drown – an account suspiciously similar to the revenge act of a previous empress, Lu Zhi (241–180 BCE), who is held up in Chinese history as one of the most wicked female rulers.
As Empress, Wu set about removing officials who were opposed to her elevated status on the grounds that she was not of an aristocratic background and as a former concubine of Taizong, her relationship with Gaozong was incestuous. In 660, Gaozong suffered a stroke – although some historians have claimed that Wu Zetian poisoned him – and he remained in poor health for the rest of his life. Wu in effect took charge and continued exiling and executing potential rivals, some from her own family, including possibly her sister and brothers, her teenage niece, who had caught Gaozong’s eye, and Wu’s eldest son Li Hong, who in 675 died suspiciously, some believing that he was poisoned by the Empress.
When it came to her innermost circle, Wu clearly maintained a reign of terror, but her responsibilities also lay with the vast empire of China and the 50 million people who lived on its mountains, lush fields and everywhere in between. Wu did this with real efficiency, employing bureaucratic officials largely based on talent rather than social standing, and increasing the number of government posts filled by civil servants and scholars, who were required to pass a rigorous exam, rather than by those of noble birth. Her government helped to stabilise the Tang Empire, previously torn apart by civil war and under threat from ethic groups in the north and west, and under her aegis the empire was relatively fertile and prosperous. Between 655 and 675, military leaders that were chosen by Wu also conquered Korea, which considerably expanded the influence of the Chinese state, and she welcomed ambassadors from as far away as the Byzantine Empire.
In 683 Gaozong died and was succeeded by his and Wu’s son, Li Xian, known as the Zhongzong Emperor. He was married to a woman who tried to exert as much influence over Li Xian as Wu herself, which led to Wu swiftly deposing and exiling Li Xian and installing her second son, Li Dan, in 684, although his rule was largely nominal and she continued to govern in his stead. Crushing a rebellion in the south by a loyal army, Wu also maintained an efficient secret police, installing a series of copper boxes in the capital in which citizens could post anonymous denunciations of one another.
In 690, Wu took the ultimate step: at the age of sixty-five she usurped the throne itself and declared herself Empress Regnant of the newly declared ‘Zhou Dynasty’, moving the capital to Luoyang in the west of Henan province. As the traditional Chinese order of succession normally barred women from ascending the throne, Wu was determined to sweep away all opposition and continued making use of the secret police. She also took steps to elevate the status of Buddhism as the favoured state religion, over that of Taoism and Confucianism, which had strongly held views against female rule. She ordered every district to set up a Buddhist temple and instigated various visual representations of the Buddha, adding to those built at the grottoes at Longmen near Luoyang – where there is a colossal statue called the Grand Vairocana Buddha, which is believed to have been carved in Wu’s own likeness.
In the last years of her life, Wu made two young courtiers, the Zhang brothers, her favourites at court in return for their devotion and elaborate entertainments, some say in the bedchamber, despite Wu being in her seventies. The brothers were increasingly resented by the court and senior officials. In 705, when she was eighty years old, a group of ministers seized the palace, executed the Zhang brothers and forced Wu to give up power to her son Zhongzong, who ruled as Emperor for another five years. Wu, who was already ill, retired to another palace and died at the end of 705.
Wu Zetian was clearly ruthless, killing off large numbers of officials and her own family, as did other (male) emperors before and after her – intense rivalries at court underpinned the imperial system. As a female, she could only secure power through guile and sheer determination and, in the face of fierce opposition, maintain her power through the ruthless elimination of anyone who stood in her way. And yet she was a competent ruler, controlling a large and widespread bureaucracy, and one of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China. Had she been a man, she could well have been considered a great emperor and not, as one contemporary described her, ‘with a heart like a serpent and a nature like that of a wolf’. At the very least, her memorial tablet deserves some kind of inscription, although her name and her supposed wicked deeds have lived on regardless.
Margaret Tudor (#litres_trial_promo)
Born: 1489
Died: 1541
Margaret Tudor, Scots queen and wife to King James IV, is very much a forgotten queen, upstaged by her younger brother, King Henry VIII, and even her own grand-daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. Widowed as a young woman, her life was beset by unwise marriages and her tenure as Queen was fraught with political intrigue and shifting alliances. Her role as Scottish monarch, however, marked the first step towards the union of England and Scotland, where she would rule as Queen, in one way or another, for three decades.
Discussions over the future marriage of Margaret Tudor began early in her life. The daughter of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, she was one of four children: Arthur was the eldest, followed by Margaret, Henry and Mary. As the eldest daughter, she would have been primed for marriage, one that would enhance and secure the status of Tudors as monarchs of England. Even before her sixth birthday, her father had put forward the idea of King James IV of Scotland as a suitable partner, largely as a means to reduce Scottish support for the Yorkist pretender to his throne, Perkin Warbeck. Henry may also have seen it as a step towards uniting the thrones, dismissing objections amongst the royal council that the match would put the Stewarts directly into the line of English succession (which indeed would happen just over a century later). Scotland was also in need of a queen for James IV, who was in his late twenties and not yet married, although by 1502 and the signing of the ‘Treaty of Perpetual Peace’ (which agreed the marriage between James and Margaret and an ending to hostilities between Scotland and England), the King had fathered several illegitimate children.
After a proxy marriage (popular amongst royals to seal the deal without the individuals involved actually having to be present), Margaret, then thirteen, made a grand journey northward to Scotland to join her new husband. Splendidly dressed, she met local dignitaries along the way, her father keen to demonstrate the power and opulence of the Tudor dynasty across his realm. In August 1503, James and Margaret celebrated their marriage in person at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, the couple wearing matching white damask outfits, after which they attended extravagant festivities. The King appeared attentive to his young redhaired wife, even shaving off his beard after the wedding at her request. Whilst he was never faithful to his queen, James provided Margaret with lavish accommodation and she was clothed in rich furs and jewels. At sixteen, Margaret conceived a child, who died in infancy, as did another two children. Her first surviving son, James, was born in 1512, followed by Alexander in 1514 (although he would die a year later).
The couple would share a love of music and dancing and they presided over a cultured court; the King spoke multiple languages and had a wide interest in a variety of subjects from history to surgery and medicine. Foreign affairs, however, proved more troublesome, and the peace between Scotland and England not quite so perpetual when Margaret’s brother Henry VIII declared war on France and the French King, Louis XII, requested help from his Scottish ally. As a result, in 1513 James IV led an army south and invaded England, which culminated in a heavy Scottish defeat at the Battle of Flodden in which 10,000 Scots lost their lives, along with James himself. (Henry’s VIII’s wife, Catherine of Aragon, was actually English regent at the time of the battle and rejoiced in the Scottish defeat, even sending to Henry the Scottish King’s banner and bloody coat as trophies.) The infant James V was crowned three weeks later and, as was stipulated in the King’s will, Margaret became regent with the proviso that she remained unmarried.
Aged twenty-three, pregnant with Alexander and ruling over a country that had just lost its king and a huge number of men, all at the hands of her brother and sister-in-law, Margaret’s role as regent must have seemed fraught with difficulty. A pro-French faction took shape at Parliament, urging that Margaret be replaced by the French-born uncle of James V, John Stewart, Duke of Albany. For just over a year, she deftly managed to fend off the rival factions around her whilst maintaining a tenuous peace with her home country. In seeking allies, however, she would end up making the mistake of falling for the pro-England Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus (described by his own uncle as a ‘young, witless fool’), whom she secretly married. In doing so, she forfeited the regency and Parliament appointed the Duke of Albany in her stead in September 1514. Margaret headed to Stirling Castle, where she was forced to hand her two sons over into the care of their uncle.
Now pregnant with the Earl of Angus’s child, she escaped to England, and in Harbottle Castle in Northumberland she gave birth to Margaret Douglas; two months later, in December 1515, she learned of the death of her second son, Alexander. Angus, showing his true colours, fled back to Scotland, leaving Margaret to head to the protection of her brother Henry in London. She returned to Scotland in 1517 to discover that Angus had rekindled a relationship with Lady Jane Stewart, with whom he’d had an illegitimate child, all the while living on Margaret’s dower income. Margaret was rightly outraged and mooted divorce to her brother, although Henry was opposed to it (which was a bit rich coming from him), and in angered response Margaret allied herself more closely with the Albany faction.
The Duke of Albany, who had been in France for three years, returned to Scotland in November 1521 and both he and Margaret actively sided against Angus. This lasted until 1524, when Margaret organised a coup d’état and ousted Albany, restoring twelve-year-old James to the throne, with Margaret formally recognised as the chief councillor to the King. Still desperately wanting a divorce from Angus, she ordered cannon guns to fire on him when he appeared in Edinburgh with a large group of armed men. Angus (sadly) managed to dodge the cannon balls and ended up in control of the King, whom he kept a virtual prisoner for three years.
In 1527, Margaret was finally granted a divorce by the Pope, after which she married a member of her household, Henry Stewart, later titled Lord Methven. When James assumed the full role as King in 1528, Margaret and Methven would act as close advisors to him, although by 1534 she fell out of favour with her son when she was discovered betraying state secrets to her brother, Henry. All was not well with her marriage either, as Methven proved equally partial to cavorting with other women and spending Margaret’s money. She would eventually reconcile with Methven and in 1538 form a close bond with her new daughter-in-law, the French queen consort of James V, Marie de Guise, before dying of a stroke in 1541 at Methven Castle in Perthshire.
Margaret Tudor’s tenure as Scottish Queen was turbulent and her life was made all the more difficult by the loss of James IV and her subsequent marriages to unscrupulous men. Throughout it all she tried to bring about a better understanding between long-time enemies England and Scotland, and no doubt would have whooped with delight at the eventual union of the Scottish and English crowns under her great-grandson, King James VI and I.
Arwa al-Sulayhi (#litres_trial_promo)
Born: circa 1048
Died: 1138
Arwa al-Sulayhi was a long-reigning and powerful queen of Yemen. She was affectionally called by her many supporters the ‘Little Queen of Sheba’, as some claimed her throne was even greater than the biblical Queen of Sheba, who was thought to rule the kingdom of Saba in Yemen. She and her aunt before her were respected as sovereign rulers of the Sulayhid dynasty, and for the first time in Arab-Muslim history khutba prayers in mosques were proclaimed in their names, a privilege traditionally given only to monarchs. Arwa occupies a unique place in Islamic history, not only because she was a female ruler but also because her reign brought prosperity and stability to Yemen. And yet few know of her rule or even her name, her memory consigned to that now hefty file of forgotten queens.
Orphaned at a very young age, Arwa was brought up by her uncle, Ali al-Sulayhi, the then ruler of Yemen, and her aunt, Asma bint Shihab, in the palace of the Yemeni capital Sana’a. Ali, who had ruled since 1047, had named Asma ‘malika’ (queen) and formally acknowledged her as co-ruler, and her name was proclaimed in mosques alongside her husbands in the khutba. As a result, Asma attended council meetings and the King regularly sought her counsel and consulted with her over state business. Growing up alongside her cousin, Ahmad-al Mukarram, Arwa was groomed to be Queen. At the age of seventeen, she married al-Mukarram (cousins as marital partners are a popular choice for royal families wherever you are in the world). The bride received the principality of Aden as her dowry, after which she took charge of its management, appointing governors and overseeing collection of its taxes.
In 1067, King Ali and Queen Asma took a pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way there, their large caravan stopped for a night at an oasis. Suddenly they were attacked by their Ethiopian enemy, Sa’id ibn Najah, the Prince of Zabid. Ali was killed, his 5,000 accompanying soldiers were persuaded to join Sai’id, and Asma was taken to a secret prison in Zabid. There, it was said that the severed head of the King was placed on a pole where his widow could see it from her cell. After a year’s imprisonment, Asma managed to get a message to al-Mukarram. Notables in Sana’a immediately rallied in support of al-Mukarram ‘to save the honour of the Queen’. Three thousand horsemen rode to Zabid and succeeded in routing the 20,000 Ethiopians defending the city, and al-Mukarram rushed to the prison where his mother was being held.
Still wearing his helmet, he arrived at the door of Asma’s cell, announced who he was and asked if he could enter. With his face masked, however, the Queen was suspicious and it was only when he took his helmet off that she could see it was her son and immediately greeted him as the King. It was said that al-Mukarram was so shocked, both at seeing his mother alive and being named as King, that he suffered partial and permanent paralysis.
Both mother and son returned to Sana’a, al-Mukarram was invested as King but Asma acted as the effective regent as al-Mukarram was now largely bed-ridden. Asma also brought in her aunt Arwa to help with affairs of state, which she did for another two decades. In 1087, Asma died, al-Mukarram had largely removed himself from public life and Arwa was acknowledged as co-regent. She became known as Sayyida-al Hurra (meaning ‘noble queen’) – the same title given to another much-admired Moroccan queen of the 1500s (see Sayyida al-Hurra (#litres_trial_promo)).
As ruler, Arwa set upon reasserting the might of the Sulayhid dynasty and to avenge her father-in-law’s death. She moved the capital from Sana’a to the mountainous fortress city of Jabala, installing al-Mukarram there along with her treasure. Near to Jabala she managed to crush the army of Sa’id ibn Najah, having lured their leader to Jabala under the pretext that her allies were about to abandon her, whereas they were in fact lying in wait for the Ethiopians. Sai’d was killed and his wife Umm al-Mu’arik was imprisoned. Arwa then ordered that Sai’d’s decapitated head be placed on a pole just outside his wife’s cell, mirroring the punishment meted out to her aunt and uncle – proving that queens can be just as vindictive as their male counterparts.
Over the next few years Arwa began a series of conquests in an attempt to expand her territories. In 1091, al-Mukarram died, and she was encouraged by the Fatimid caliphate in Cairo (with whom the Sulayhid dynasty were allied) to marry her late husband’s cousin Saba ibn Ahmad. Sources are conflicted on the marriage; some say she was reluctant to marry him and only did so to remain in power. Whether or not the marriage was successful, Arwa remained fully in charge of Yemen and Saba was an effective military general for her until his death in around 1100.
Not long after, tribes under Arwa’s rule began to show signs of rebellion, which erupted into civil war, and Arwa gave control of Sana’a to a tribal leader. Relations between the Fatimids in Cairo also deteriorated and in 1119, conflict between Yemen and Cairo flared up. An army came to take control of Yemen, or (depending on which source you look at), came to defend the Sulayhids against the Najahids. Either way, they attempted a coup against Arwa, which ultimately failed as she still had so much loyalty and support amongst the Yemeni people, even though she was by now in her seventies.
Soon after there was another succession crisis in Cairo when Al-Mustansir Billah died in 1130. He was succeeded by his cousin, but Arwa supported his son, Imam at-Tayyib, which effectively ended any affiliation between Arwa and the caliphate. Arwa became Tayyib’s leading proponent and in effect a head of a new branch of Islam known as Taiyabi Ismaili. The other branch of Ismaili, tied to the Fatimid regime in Cairo, effectively disappeared after the collapse of the caliphate in 1171. The Taiyabi Shi’ites, however, survived, even after the Sulayhid dynasty had ended and as Yemen was such a fulcrum for maritime trade, it eventually made its way to Western India.
In Jabala, Arwa built herself a palace and at Sana’a she rebuilt the old palace into a mosque. Her tomb now resides in the mosque within a silver- and gold-covered mausoleum. The mosque is still in use today and became a place of pilgrimage for many years after Arwa’s death in 1138 when the Sulayhid dynasty ended. She outlived all four of her children, ruled Yemen for over half a century, and as co-regent for twenty years beforehand, she built monuments and mosques and helped keep a sect of Islam alive. It’s an impressive legacy for a queen who, in the words of the nineteenth-century historian Yasin al-Khatib al-‘Amri, ‘perfectly understood how to manage the affairs of state and of war’.
Seondeok of Silla (#litres_trial_promo)
Born: circa 606 CE
Died: 647 CE
Many expected ancient Korea’s first female sovereign to fail. The Chinese Tang Empire was of the opinion that enemies were simply emboldened by a female ruler, whilst a twelfth-century Confucian scholar remarked that it was lucky her kingdom wasn’t destroyed under her rule, as ‘according to heavenly principles, the yang [male] is hard while the yin [female] is soft’ (whatever that means). Well, this soft female seems to have done a pretty good job as Queen and, rather than destroying the kingdom of Silla over which she ruled, she may well have even contributed to its eventual triumph over the Korean peninsula.
Since the first century BCE, ancient Korea had been dominated by three kingdoms – Baekje, Goguryeo and Silla – which battled constantly for pre-eminence. Born in around 606 CE as Princess Deokman, Seondeok ascended the throne of Silla in 632, succeeding her father, King Jinpyeong, who had ruled the kingdom for fifty-three years. He had had no male heir and, as only those who were members of the ‘sacred bone class’ – the highest social level in Silla – could succeed the throne, Seondeok was duly crowned. High-born women may well have had relatively high status in ancient Korea during this period, and it wasn’t unknown for women to rule over small areas of the Silla kingdom, but this was the first time a woman had ruled as regent in her own right.
The History of the Three Kingdoms (The Samguk sagi) written by the abovementioned Confucian scholar, Gim Busik, relates that even before Seondeok’s reign, she had proven herself ‘generous, benevolent, wise and smart’ – ideal traits for any would-be queen, it would seem. And as befitting of a well-meaning sovereign, one of her first acts after ascending the throne was to organise a relief campaign to provide aid for poor commoners in the countryside. Seondeok also had to address the problem that her kingdom, whilst prosperous, was still facing constant attacks by its neighbours and had lost territory, particularly to Baekje. In the face of such a threat, she enlisted the help of two key officials, her nephew Gim Chunchu (future king of Silla) and renowned general Gim Yushin, thereby beginning the unification process which eventually resulted in Silla conquering the other two kingdoms in the 670s whilst deepening its relations with the Tang dynasty in China.
In 641 a Baekje attack on Silla led to the death of Gim Chunchu’s daughter. Seeking revenge, Chunchu asked Seondeok’s permission to approach the ruler of Goguryeo, King Yeongnyu, and request his assistance against Baekje. The Goguryeo king agreed to help but only on the condition that Silla return some of its territory, which Seondeok refused, and Chunchu was promptly imprisoned. In a bid to rescue him, Seondeok then mobilised a 10,000-strong army under General Gim Yushin. When King Yeongnyu discovered this, the threat of such a force heading to his kingdom was enough to prompt him to release Chunchu.
Two years later, following further attacks from Goguryeo and Baekje, Seondeok sent representatives to the Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty in China requesting his urgent assistance. Keen to benefit from the rivalry of the three kingdoms, Taizong was happy to oblige. The Emperor said he would first attack the Liaodong Peninsula between China and the Korean peninsula to divert the attention of the Goguryeo and at the same time carry out a naval campaign on the west coast to do the same with Baekje. He also offered to supply thousands of Tang army flags and uniforms so that Silla soldiers could disguise themselves as fearsome Chinese warriors. In addition, Taizong insisted on placing a Chinese prince as an interim ruler in Silla, which would put an end to the troubles in the kingdom – the implication being that the presence of a female ruler sends an open invitation to enemies to try their luck.
Not unsurprisingly, Seondeok refused this last request but diplomatically managed to secure Tang military assistance anyway – thereby laying down the foundations for a future alliance between Silla and China. The joint army they formed, however, would suffer defeat at the hands of the Goguryeo, as they would another three times over the next decade, and it wouldn’t be until the 660s, after Seondeok’s reign, that Silla would ultimately conquer the kingdoms of Baekje and Goguryeo.
Seondeok was more successful when it came to the domestic rule of Silla, centralising the rule of state further, and most notably supporting the spread of Buddhism. Rulers at this time found Buddhism a useful tool in consolidating their influence and endorsing the sovereign as ruler. The History of the Three Kingdoms relates that an especially large number of Buddhist temples were built during Seondeok’s reign. As most were wooden structures, they haven’t survived, but the remnants of one of Seondeok’s temples – Hwangnyong (‘Temple of the Illustrious Dragon’) – is visible in present-day Gyeongju. The Queen’s father began its construction but Seondeok added a nine-storey wooden pagoda, reported to be 80 metres tall, making it one of the highest structures in East Asia at the time and the tallest wooden structure in the world.
Seondeok seems to have elicited fierce loyalty amongst her people and she was worshipped almost as the reincarnation of Buddha. Stories also still abound in Korea of her mystical powers, in particular the prophecies she issued during her reign, all of which were said to have come true. One legend relates how, on hearing a chorus of white frogs suddenly appearing and croaking by the Jade Gate Pond at the Yeongmyosa Temple, Seondeok surmised that 500 Baekje enemy soldiers were hiding in a particular valley west of the capital, Gyeongui. As a result, she immediately ordered two generals to lead 2,000 of her best soldiers to the valley, where the Baekje army and their reinforcements were destroyed. When asked how she knew this, she reported that the frogs represented soldiers, white meant they came from the west, and the jade gate was a euphemism for female genitalia, so she knew they would be hiding in the ‘Woman’s Root Valley’.
Another surviving structure that bears witness to the cultural and technical advances made during Seondeok’s reign is the Cheomseongdae astronomical observatory of Gyeongju. This structure may have been part of a larger complex as the Silla capital of Gyeongju was already thriving as a scientific hub, particularly in the field of astronomy and astrology. Historical accounts point to it being built during the reign of Seondeok, and its twenty-seven layers of stone correlate with the Queen being the twenty-seventh monarch of Silla. With a window that captured the sun’s rays, it’s thought the observatory acted like a sundial, telling the time, setting the agricultural calendar and forecasting the weather; it would have formed a central place in the economic life of people. (Some even say its bottle-like shape represents the feminine form and thus could have been a temple dedicated to Seondeok, but the most favoured view is that it was an observatory.)
Seondeok never married or had children – possibly to avoid political conflict – and the two subsequent queens of Silla similarly remained unwed. Seondeok did apparently predict the exact date of her death: 17 January 647, and she chose as her successor her cousin, Kim Seung-man, named Jindeok, proving that the people of Silla were receptive to female rulers and that Seondeok’s reign must not have been quite so disastrous as others predicted. Far from it, at a time of war and violence, Seondeok held her kingdom together, advanced Buddhism and culture in Silla and paved the way for future queens, both in her successor and the ninth-century Jinseong, who would rule as Korea’s third and final female ruler. Zip forward over a thousand years and Seondeok’s story has been told in an immensely popular South Korean TV drama of the same name, her life even now immortalised on the small screen.
Tamar of Georgia (#litres_trial_promo)
Born: circa1166
Died: circa 1213
There are multiple legends and theories about where Queen Tamar of Georgia is buried. The scholarly view is that she lies within the vaults of the Bagrationi dynasty at the Gelati monastery in west Georgia, whilst others believe she is buried in the caves of Vardzia in the south or that her holy relics were taken to a vault in Jerusalem. In another legend, she is not dead, but lying in a gold-wreathed coffin somewhere in the mountains of Georgia and that a time may come when she finally wakens from her centuries-old slumber, and that day will be one of revival and great happiness for the people of Georgia.
Such legends are testament to how revered Queen Tamar was, and still is. She remains to this day an important symbol in Georgian culture, the inspiration for poems, songs and stories, who was also canonised as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Reigning from 1184 to 1213, her rule is associated with a ‘Golden Age’ in Georgia, a period which saw political, military and cultural successes credited to a woman who was proclaimed a king (‘mepe’) as there was no word in the Georgian language for ‘queen’.
Tamar was crowned co-ruler with her father King George III of Georgia in 1178 at the age of eighteen. George himself could be ruthless – blinding and castrating his own nephew who had legitimate claim to the throne – but his eldest daughter he described as ‘the bright light of his eyes’. When he died in 1184, Tamar became sole ruler and was crowned a second time to legitimate her rule. She was soon encouraged to find a husband and her aunt encouraged a union with Yury Bogolyubsky, son of the Grand Prince Andrew of Suzdal from the neighbouring Russian kingdom of Kiev. The marriage was strained from the outset as Yury was an able soldier but a heavy drinker and for two years Tamar was forced to put up with his promiscuity with concubines and slaves. As Tamar had not conceived a child, she took the decision to persuade the noble council to annul the marriage, and Yury was duly expelled from the kingdom and sent to Constantinople. He subsequently made two coup attempts with other disaffected nobles but each failed and instead of punishing him harshly (aka executing him, as her father would have done), Tamar showed clemency and exiled him each time.
Tamar chose her second husband for herself and this marriage proved more of a success. He was David Soslan, an Alan prince and military commander, who had been instrumental in defeating the nobles who had rallied around Yury. Tamar and David had two children, a son – George-Lasha – in 1192, and daughter – Rusada – in around 1194, both of whom would be future sovereigns of Georgia. Whilst David appeared on coins and charters, he remained a subordinate ruler to Queen Tamar, although he was praised for his devotion to her and was instrumental in securing military victories against a host of Georgia’s enemies.
Throughout her reign, Queen Tamar faced rebellions from various factions of the nobility, not least her feckless first husband Yury. To counter this, she set upon a series of military campaigns that not only extended Georgia’s boundaries farther than ever before, but also served to keep potential troublemakers occupied and focused on war. Tamar was also able to build upon the achievements of her predecessors, notably her father George III and great-grandfather David IV, ‘the builder’, who had succeeded in driving the Seljuk Turks out of the kingdom. The Queen presented herself as both a figurehead for her troops and as a general and was skilled at strategy and drawing up plans for battle, which her husband David helped to execute. In 1205, Tamar’s troops routed the Turkish army under the Seljuk Sultan of Rum and her armies ventured to previously unknown territories of Azerbaijan, Turkey and even as far as northern Iran. By the last years of Tamar’s reign, the Georgian empire and sphere of influence had reached its greatest extent, and stretched from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and from the Great Caucasus in the north to Erzurum in what is now Turkey.
As new territories and commercial centres came under Georgian control, wealth poured into the country and court, out of which emerged a flowering of Georgian culture. The monarchy sought to associate itself with Christianity and the Byzantine West and set about building a series of cathedrals. Georgia’s capital Tbilisi became a regional power with a thriving economy, a population of 100,000 and impressive cultural output. Trade flourished with the Middle East and coins issued in around 1200 feature both Georgian and Arabic inscriptions.
Queen Tamar and her court also gave inspiration to Georgia’s national poet of the time, Shota Rustaveli. He was a court official and seemingly greatly enamoured with the Queen, writing, ‘God who is six days brought forth out of nothingness all that is, rested the seventh day in the sweet and gentle spirit of Tamara.’ Rustaveli’s great epic poem The Knight in the Panther’s Skin is also dedicated to Tamar, ‘the jet-haired and ruby-cheeked’, and it is believed the description of the Princess Tinatin is a tribute to the Queen: ‘Tinatin is radiant as the rising sun, born to illuminate the world around her, so fair that the very sight of her would make a man lose his wits.’
Queen Tamar died in around 1213, having ruled Georgia as sole monarch for more than a quarter of a century, the first woman to have done so. Georgia had reached the zenith of its power and influence under her rule, although within just a few decades much of her work would be undone, as Mongol forces would overrun much of the kingdom. Whilst we may not know definitively where Queen Tamar is buried, it is perhaps of little importance as her name, certainly in Georgia, lives on. Her achievements, however, deserve greater credit elsewhere in the world. As the Georgian writer Grigol Robakidze put it in an essay from 1918: ‘Thus far, nobody knows where Tamar’s grave is. She belongs to everyone and to no one: her grave is in the heart of the Georgian.’
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Henrietta Maria of France (#litres_trial_promo)
Born: 1609
Died: 1669
In February 1643, Henrietta Maria, queen consort to the doomed English King Charles I, sailed through a stormy North Sea from the Netherlands to England. Bad weather forced her to disembark at Burlington Bay in Yorkshire, where she sought sanctuary in a nearby coastal cottage. At 5 a.m., a fleet of parliament warships, which had been in pursuit of her, fired cannon directly at the cottage, forcing her to flee with her ladies and her dog, Mitte, to the shelter of a ditch. There they lay in the freezing cold and, as she wrote in her own account, ‘the balls passing over our heads and sometimes covering us with dust’ whilst ‘a serjeant was killed twenty paces from me’.
It’s a story of high drama, but surprisingly little known, and is certainly far less famous than one featuring her son, the future King Charles II, who in a similar escape from enemy forces hid in an oak tree in 1651. And yet the only danger that befell him was not that he was bombarded by cannon but rather that an enemy soldier passed by underneath … He, however, was a man and a future king, and Henrietta Maria simply a queen, and a deeply unpopular one at that, who, depending on who you believe, did little of real importance or was entirely to blame for the downfall of the monarchy.
The reason for her unpopularity? Well, it’s the usual story that not only was she a woman, but also Catholic and French to boot – and indeed the first French princess to marry an English king since Margaret of Anjou – and the English have never exactly warmed to queens of their longstanding enemy. She and the King were also firm believers in the divine right to rule (and thus answerable only to God), which led to an inevitable clash with Parliament, the execution of Charles and the end of the monarchy in England from 1649 to 1660. This intransigence would ultimately contribute to their downfall but Henrietta Maria was, if nothing else, loyal to the King, working tirelessly on his behalf, both in the political arena and on the battlefield.
Henrietta arrived in Protestant England in 1625, a fifteen-year-old French princess who was the youngest daughter of King Henry IV of France and Marie de Medici. Henrietta and King Charles I married in Canterbury, but not long after there were apparent tensions in the marriage, largely caused by Charles’s mentor the Duke of Buckingham, who was determined to cause trouble between the couple. According to the diarist John Evelyn, Henrietta’s all-Catholic entourage were so disparaging about the Protestant religion that by 1646 Charles had sent many of them back to France, to which she reacted with typical teenage histrionics, writing: ‘I am the most afflicted person on earth.’ Her relationship with Charles, however, improved, even more so when Buckingham was assassinated in 1628.
Thereafter, her marriage with the King blossomed into one of real devotion and love – they wrote regularly, Charles addressing many of them ‘Dear Heart’ – and by 1630, Henrietta had given birth to the future Charles II. Over the next decade she would give birth to another six children who would live beyond early childhood. Henrietta Maria was still a devout Catholic and the closeness of the royal couple would lead to suspicions about her influence over the King. When in 1637 Charles attempted to introduce a new prayer book to Presbyterian Scotland, which triggered rebellion, people feared that this was the first step towards reinstating Catholicism, with many pointing the finger of blame at the Queen, the ‘popish brat of France’. Needing funds to fight the war in Scotland, Charles summoned Parliament, who refused to issue him with a tax subsidy. The King subsequently dissolved Parliament and by August 1642, civil war had broken out between Charles and his Royalist supporters and Parliament.
Henrietta, meanwhile, had been trying to enlist the support for the King from the Pope, the French and the Dutch, and when the civil war broke out she was in the Netherlands raising funds for the King (having also smuggled out many of the Crown Jewels and her personal valuables). Her return from the Netherlands led to the aforementioned forced landing at Burlington Bay, where pursuing parliamentary ships were intent on capturing or killing her. She was saved by a Dutch escort who threatened to open fire on the ships, forcing them to retreat. Despite the narrow escape, she remained undaunted and spent months in the north of England recruiting men and raising funds, continually arguing for nothing less than a total victory over Charles’s enemies. Having evaded capture again during a bloody battle against the parliamentary cavalry, the ‘generalissima’, as she jokingly called herself, arrived at Oxford with an army and ammunition and enjoyed an emotional reunion with her husband.
Henrietta continued to be accused by Parliament and London society of a papist conspiracy, not helped by a massacre of Protestant settlers during a rebellion in Ireland in 1641, which some believed was organised by Jesuits linked to the Queen. Suspicions about her turned to hatred and by 1644, Parliament was quick to make the most of her poor image, publishing a pamphlet entitled ‘Great Eclipse of the Sun’ that claimed ‘… the King was eclipsed by the Queen, and she perswaded him that the Darknesse was Light and that it was better to be a Papist, than a Protestant …’ and called for her impeachment as a traitor.
On the battlefield, things turned from bad to worse for the King and Royalist forces. Knowing that she would likely be executed if captured, Henrietta was forced to flee to France. Before she left, Henrietta and Charles said their final farewells in April 1644, not knowing that this would be the last time they would ever see each other. Henrietta was heavily pregnant and bore her final child, Henrietta Anne, in Exeter in June. Desperately ill from the birth, she nonetheless left ten days afterwards, leaving the baby in Exeter due to the risks of the journey. She fled disguised in humble dress and was forced to hide in a hut for two days, where, as she wrote, she could hear parliamentary soldiers passing by talking about the 50,0000-crown reward for the return of her head to London. She eventually boarded a Dutch ship for France, and despite coming under fire once again from parliamentary ships, she made it to the sanctuary of her family.
Henrietta continued to try to raise money and arms in France, and she was later joined by her infant daughter Henrietta Anne and eldest son Charles. However, the King’s position gradually grew worse and in 1646 he was captured and taken prisoner by the Scots. Letters between the King and Queen were published, with parliamentary journalists mocking the Queen’s unfeminine behaviour as a woman who led armies and titled herself ‘generalissima’, indicating that it was she who lost the King his throne and who was the ‘wearer of the breeches’. Parliament eventually condemned the King for treason in January 1649 and on 30 January 1649 he stepped onto the scaffold at Banqueting House and was beheaded. Deeply shocked at the news, Henrietta focused instead on her children and on her faith, founding a convent in Chaillot in 1651, where she lived for much of the 1650s.
In 1652 Henrietta’s youngest son Henry was released from captivity and was sent to France. There, Henrietta sent him to a Jesuit school and attempted to convert him to Catholicism, much to the anger of her eldest son Charles. Already a staunch Protestant, Henry refused to listen to his mother on matters of religion and from the mid-1650s to his early death in 1660 she never again saw Henry and was alienated from Charles. Nonetheless, she was delighted to hear of Charles’s restoration to the throne in 1660, after which she visited England, returning another two times, but finally she returned to France where she felt most comfortable and where she eventually died in 1669.
Far from doing anything of little importance, Henrietta Maria was a leading Royalist figure who fought tirelessly for the King. Her open, and some would say defiant, Catholicism served to deepen divisions in Britain and she was deeply criticised for her involvement in politics and warfare. As Queen, she faced extraordinary dangers both in the form of vicious propaganda by her enemies and volleys of cannonball fire, and she was lucky to escape with her life.
Queen Nzinga (#litres_trial_promo)
Born: circa 1583
Died: 1663
The seventeenth-century African queen, Nzinga (also known as Njinga) is a national heroine in Angola. In the Western world, however, she is virtually unknown, despite her decades-long reign in which she skilfully navigated the ruthless power politics of the time, brilliantly playing off her rivals. Contemporary Europeans and later writers delighted in vilifying her as an uncivilised savage – no doubt to make themselves feel better about slave trading – and lurid stories tell of her slaughtering her enemies, murdering babies, and keeping a harem of cross-dressing slaves for her sexual gratification.
Whilst some of these tales smack of fantasy, European colonisers were engaged in very real acts of barbarity: namely the trade of African slaves to the New World. The growing demand for human labour in the mines and plantations of Brazil had led Portugal to seek control of city states along the Central African coast and by the early 1600s the slave markets in Angola were rapidly expanding. Local African rulers were faced with a dilemma: either resist the occupiers, which meant risking established trade opportunities (including selling members of rival or hostile tribes as slaves) or submitting to them and thereby losing their independence. It was at this point that we first hear of Nzinga, acting as the official negotiator with the Portuguese on behalf of her brother, the Ngola (King) of the Ndongo in central West Africa.
Nzinga was born into the royal family of Ndongo, one of the principal kingdoms in the region. Tradition says she was born with an umbilical cord around her neck, which foretold of future greatness. Her father, the King of Ndongo, favoured his bright daughter and she was allowed to accompany him on royal visits. When he died, her brother inherited the throne, after which Portuguese forces continued to sweep through the kingdom, abducting and selling thousands of its people into slavery. Nzinga’s task in 1622, as an envoy of her brother, was to negotiate with the Portuguese Governor, João Correia de Sousa, in the new settlement of Luanda (now the capital of Angola). The aim was to secure the independence of Ndongo whilst at the same time enlisting Portuguese help in expelling their rivals, the Imbangala, a fearsome warrior tribe, from the Ndongo kingdom. The story goes that when Nzinga met the Governor, he was sat on a velvet-covered chair, whilst she was given a mat to sit on. Unwilling to be treated as an inferior, she ordered one of her maid servants to get down on all fours so she could sit on her back during the discussion. The result was a peace treaty on equal terms, and Ndongo retained its independent status. One concession Nzinga did make to the Portuguese was that she converted to Catholicism, adopting the name Dona Ana de Sousa in honour of the Governor’s wife, a conversion that one suspects was done primarily for political reasons.
