England’s Queens From Catherine of Aragon to Elizabeth II

Henry VIII’s six wives have made a name for themselves in English history. After Henry broke with Rome in order to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry his second, Anne Boleyn, he managed to fit five marriages into the space of fourteen years. These six women brought queenship into the early modern era. His daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I, found themselves in an almost unprecedented position as reigning queens. From these Tudor women to the present, each queen has a unique story to tell. The unhappy Sophia Dorothea of Celle was imprisoned for over thirty years by her husband George I when her affair was discovered. Her lover, Count von Konigsmarck was murdered. Queen Victoria spent her childhood secluded with her overprotective mother, even sharing the same bedroom until the day when she was proclaimed queen and finally freed herself from her mother’s control. Nearly eighty women have sat on the throne of England, either as queen regnant or queen consort and the voices of all of them survive through their writings and those of their contemporaries. For the first time, the voices of each individual queen can be heard. This volume charts the course of English queenship from Henry’s wives through the Tudors, Stuarts, Hanoverians, right up to the House of Windsor and our current queen, Elizabeth II.