Book
Game of Queens
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Game of Queens presents sixteenth-century Europe as a political world repeatedly governed, negotiated and contested by women. Beginning with Isabella of Castile and Anne de Beaujeu, Sarah Gristwood traces networks of mothers, daughters, regents and mentors through Margaret of Austria, Louise of Savoy, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Catherine de’ Medici, Mary I, Elizabeth I, Jeanne d’Albret and Mary, Queen of Scots.
Rather than treating each court in isolation, the book follows the movement of women, ideas and diplomatic practice across dynastic borders. Queens ruled for absent or under-age men, arranged marriages, managed religious division and fought to preserve their children’s inheritances. Gristwood argues that their shared examples created a recognisable tradition of female power, even as confessional conflict and patriarchal law imposed severe limits on what any queen could safely achieve.
Historical periods
Historical people
Catherine of Aragon1485–1536 Anne Boleyn1501–1536 Mary I1516–1558 Isabella I of Castile1451–1504 Elizabeth I1533–1603 Mary, Queen of Scots1542–1587 Catherine de’ Medici1519–1589 Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy1480–1530 Louise of Savoy1476–1531 Marguerite de Navarre1492–1549 Jeanne d’Albret1528–1572
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