Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria: Virgins, Witches, and Catholic Queens

by Susan Dunn-Hensley

Overview

This book examines how early Stuart queens navigated their roles as political players and artistic patrons in a culture deeply conflicted about the legitimacy of female authority. Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria both employed powerful female archetypes such as Amazons and the Virgin Mary in court performances. Susan Dunn-Hensley analyzes how darker images of usurping, contaminating women, epitomized by the witch, often merged with these celebratory depictions. By tracing these competing representations through the Jacobean and Caroline periods, Dunn-Hensley peels back layers of misogyny from historical scholarship and points to rich new lines of inquiry. Few have written about Anna’s religious beliefs, and comparing her Catholicism with Henrietta Maria’s illuminates the ways in which both women were politically subversive. This book offers an important corrective to centuries of negative representation, and contributes to a fuller understanding of the role of queenship in the English Civil War and the fall of the Stuart monarchy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319875026
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	08/24/2018
Series:	Queenship and Power
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Susan Dunn-Hensley is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wheaton College, USA. Her essays on queenship and the sacred feminine appear in “High and Mighty Queens” of Early Modern England (Palgrave 2003) and in Walsingham in Literature and Culture from the Middle Ages to Modernity (2010).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria: Catholic Queens in a Protestant Land

3. Witches and Queens: Queen Anna and Representations of Female Power

4. Performing Power: Gender, Authority, and Catholicism in Anna's English Masques

5. Finding Anna: Anna's Influence on Early Jacobean Theatre and Her Legacy

6. Henrietta Maria: The Esther to Her Oppressed People

7. Envisioning a Catholic Utopia: The Faithful Shepherdess and The Shepherd's Paradise

8. Salmacida Spolia: The Last Masque of the Caroline Period and the English Civil War

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria combines careful research and fresh, accessible prose with an original comparative approach—in positioning these two queens side by side, this study yields numerous rich insights, illuminating more than any separate study could. Susan Dunn-Hensley examines the ways in which the two queens yielded power, and contextualizes the political, religious, and cultural challenges they faced. The result is an essential remedy to powerful narratives of these women as irrational, impractical, and unruly, which have influenced even recent scholarship.” (Jo Carney, Professor of English, The College of New Jersey, USA)