Presentations of Female Monarchy: Elizabeth I and Victoria

Paul Harries

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Wallace, Miriam

Keywords

Monarchy, Elizabeth I, Victoria, Women in Politics

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

This project analyzes the methods by which two prominent female English monarchs formed functional strategies for participating in government while also negotiating gender. Both Elizabeth I and Victoria had to contend with periods that typified women as inferior intellectually and unfit by nature for a role in public affairs. Additionally, this project surveys major shifts in the English conception of the monarch and of English femininity. These shifts, occurring over the period of two centuries, produced a divide that ensured that the set of tactics that was suitable for each queen to function as a female monarch differed greatly. This thesis illustrates the fashion in which modes of presentation could be "effective" in the creation of a public appeal, the formulation of a similarly "effective" government, and the fashion in which the public serves as the audience for this presentation, with its biases, anxieties, and social mores limiting the potential expressions of the figure of the monarch.

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