HeyJaredQueens, Kings, and Sexy History
A space for all things monarchy, gender, and sexuality in premodern history.
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Isabella of Angoulême: a ‘she-wolf’, a witch, an adulterer...or a victim of historical writing? (opens the original)
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Isabella of Angoulême, second wife of John, king of England, is a fascinating figure. The last of the Angevin queens (the Angevin dynasty being another name given to the early Plantagenet kings, originating from Anjou, who ruled England 1154-1216), much like her sister-in-law Berengaria of Navarre it has been hypothesised, on the basis of a ‘lack’ of evidence, that Isabella was an inactive queen consort at best and a scheming enchantress at worst. Yet fuller investigations into her activity in h
Berengaria of Navarre: A Queen and Lord (opens the original)
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Whilst Eleanor of Aquitaine was the woman who initially drew me to my PhD, it was Berengaria of Navarre who I became convinced I had to write a biography of afterwards. I was struck by Berengaria’s story as not only was she heralded (mythically) as the only queen to have never set foot in England, but she was also viewed as a ‘do-nothing’ queen due to the scrappy evidence that survived for her time as queen consort. However, piecing together the surviving evidence and undertaking years of archiv
Eleanor of Aquitaine: Ways to Scandalise A Queen (opens the original)
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<img alt="Eleanor Of Aquitaine: 5 Myths About The Medieval Queen | HistoryExtra" class="sizing-normal" height="630" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!a8en!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%
Empress Matilda: Righting Some Historical Wrongs (opens the original)
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So this month I decided I wanted to go back to my PhD roots as the end of August marked six years since I handed in my doctoral thesis (time definitely flies!) My PhD was a comparative study of the four Angevin queens: Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Berengaria of Navarre, and Isabella of Angoulême (John’s second wife - I didn’t cover Isabella of Gloucester, as a study of her and Isabella of Angoulême was being undertaken by the wonderful Sally Spong at the time). There were so many diffe
Ways To Ruin A Reputation (opens the original)
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In some ways, it can feel like the world hasn’t changed very much when we consider people’s reputations. Character traits, virtues or flaws, morals, scandals, poor judgement, excess, all those nebulous things which can come together at the wrong time and derail someone’s political survival, career, or personal life haven’t really differed too much. There’s different contexts and certainly different circumstances and results, but by the by, we can draw parallels between today’s world and that of
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