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This work looks at queenship in a global, timeless sense—examining the role of queens, empresses, and other royal women from the ancient and classical period through to nearly the present day on every continent. By looking at queenship in this comparative, longue durée way, we can start to see connecting threads and continuity over time and space as well as the change and development and comparisons of how the queen's role differed in various cultural contexts. A wide variety of examples are given to explain and contextualize key themes in queenship: family and dynasty, rulership, and image crafting. The introduction provides a brief overview of the development of queenship studies and a discussion of the ideals that queens were expected to conform to. This book offers a radically new perspective on queenship studies which enables new insights into the queen's role as the preeminent woman in the realm.

The riveting true story of mother-and-daughter queens Catherine de'Medici and Marguerite de Valois, whose wildly divergent personalities and turbulent relationship changed the shape of their tempestuous and dangerous century. Set in magnificent Renaissance France, this is the story of two remarkable women, a mother and daughter driven into opposition by a terrible betrayal that threatened to destroy the realm. Catherine de'Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powerbroker who dominated the throne for thirty years. Her youngest daughter Marguerite, the glamorous'Queen Margot,'was a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother could neither intimidate nor control. When Catherine forces the Catholic Marguerite to marry her Protestant cousin Henry of Navarre against her will, and then uses her opulent Parisian wedding as a means of luring his followers to their deaths, she creates not only savage conflict within France but also a potent rival within her own family. Rich in detail and vivid prose, Goldstone's narrative unfolds as a thrilling historical epic. Treacherous court politics, poisonings, international espionage, and adultery form the background to a story that includes such celebrated figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Nostradamus. The Rival Queens is a dangerous tale of love, betrayal, ambition, and the true nature of courage, the echoes of which still resonate.