Top image: Creighton, M. (Mandell), 1843-1901. Queen Elizabeth / with portrait frontispiece in colors, and 56 illustrations 1896 | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Five queens regnant ruled across England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Britain’s claimed colonies during the Tudor and Stuart monarchies, making it surprisingly common for subjects to bow to a woman on the throne.
Yet submission to female rule remained controversial, provoking anxiety and antagonism rather than easy acceptance.
“United Queendom: Legacies of Gendered Power in the Early Modern British World” brings together scholars of power, femininity, race, authority and queerness to examine how those early modern debates about women’s authority created patterns that continue to influence politics and culture.
The conference also situates British queenship alongside powerful models in the Americas, the Ottoman Empire and rival European courts, highlighting a wider, transnational history of female rule.
Event organizers connect this past to the present by citing UN Women findings that, as of January 1, there are 25 countries where 28 women serve as heads of state and/or government.
By placing these statistics next to the long experience of governing queens, the conference invites participants to reconsider assumptions about who is “naturally” suited to rule.
United Queendom: Legacies of Gendered Power in the Early Modern British World will run on Friday and Saturday, February 27 and 28, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, at The Huntington Library, Haaga Hall, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California 91108. For more information, call (626) 405-3432 or visit https://www.huntington.org/event/united-queendom-legacies-gendered-power-early-modern-british-world. Ticket prices: General: $50; Society of Fellows, Members & Readers: $30 (students and research fellows free); optional lunch: $20 each day.