In this study, I show how the gendered construction of sovereignty in the Elizabethan period helped to make marriage dangerous for female rulers. In a society with firmly held convictions about a husband's divinely ordained dominion over his wife, marriage threatened to diminish a queen's sovereignty. Anticipatory fears about the marriages of England's first two queens, Mary and Elizabeth, had a more general impact, however; they contributed to the elaboration of constitutional doctrines and metaphors that further distanced sovereignty from ruler. Specifically, the need to distinguish the King's `body politic' from his `body natural' became acute when a female body assumed the royal office and began considering matrimony. This makes gender and marriage more fundamental to sovereignty than modern prejudices have hitherto allowed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aspin, Les
(1992) `National Security in the 1990s: Defining a New Basis for US Military Forces', paper delivered before the Atlantic Council of the United States, 6 January.
2.
Bacon, Francis
(1860a [1608]) `In Felicem Memoriam Elizabethae, Angliae Reginae', in James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath (eds and trans) The Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. XI, pp. 425-442. Boston: Brown and Taggard.
3.
Bacon, Francis
(1860b) `On the Fortunate Memory of Elizabeth, Queen of England', in James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath (eds and trans) The Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. XI, pp. 443-461. Boston: Brown and Taggard.
4.
Bacon, Francis
(1889 [1624?]) `The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh', in The Essays of Lord Bacon, pp. 387-507. London: Frederick Warne and Co.
5.
Baumer, Franklin L.
(1944) `England, the Turk, and the Common Corps of Christendom', American Historical ReviewL(1): 26-48.
6.
Bodin, Jean
(1962 [1606]) The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, trans Richard Knolles. Reprint ed. by Kenneth Douglas McRae. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
Buchanan, Patricia Hill
(1985) Margaret Tudor: Queen of Scots. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.
8.
Campbell, David
(1992) Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
9.
Clapham, John
(1951 [1603]) Elizabeth of England: Certain Observations Concerning the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth, reprint ed. by Evelyn Plummer Read and Conyers Read. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
10.
Cohn, Carol
(1987) `Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals', Signs12(4): 687-718.
11.
Connolly, William E.
(1991) Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
12.
Doty, Roxanne Lynn
(1993) `Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of US Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines', International Studies Quarterly37(3): 297-320.
13.
Enloe, Cynthia
(1989) Bananas, Beaches, & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
14.
Ferris, Dianne
(1981) `Elizabeth I and Richard II: Portraits in “Masculine” and “Feminine” Princes', International Journal of Women's Studies4(1): 10-18.
15.
Fraser, Antonia
(1988) The Warrior Queens. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
16.
Greenblatt, Stephen
(ed.) (1988) Representing the English Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press.
17.
Guy, John
(1988) Tudor England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
18.
Harbison, E. Harris
(1970 [1940]) Rival Ambassadors at the Court of Queen Mary. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press.
19.
Heisch, Allison
(1975) `Queen Elizabeth I: Parliamentary Rhetoric and the Exercise of Power', Signs1(1): 31-55.
20.
Howard, Henry
(1968 [1580]) `Earl of Northampton's Answer to John Stubbs', in Lloyd E. Berry (ed.) John Stubbs's Gaping Gulf, with Letters and Other Relevant Documents, pp. 155-194. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia.
21.
Hume, Martin
(1906) The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth: A History of the Various Negotiations for her Marriage. London: Eveleigh Nash.
22.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H.
(1957) The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
23.
Knox, John
(1895a [1558]) The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, reprint ed. by Edward Arber. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co.
24.
Knox, John
(1895b [1559]) `John Knox's Declaration to Queen Elizabeth', in his The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, pp. 57-60, reprint ed. by Edward Arber. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co.
25.
Loades, David M.
(1979) The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government, and Religion in England, 1553-1558. New York: St Martin's Press.
26.
Loades, David M.
(1987) The Tudor Court. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books.
27.
Montrose, Louis Adrian
(1988) ` “Shaping Fantasies”: Figurations of Gender and Power in Elizabethan Culture', in Stephen Greenblatt (ed.) Representing the English Renaissance, pp. 31-64. Berkeley: University of California Press.
28.
Naunton, Robert
(1985 [1633?]) Fragmenta Regalia or Observations on Queen Elizabeth, Her Times & Favorites, reprint ed. by John S. Cerovski. Washington: The Folger Shakespeare Library.
29.
Neumann, Iver B.
and Jennifer M. Welsh (1991) `The Other in European Self-Definition: An Addendum to the Literature on International Society', Review of International Studies17: 327-348.
30.
Oxford English Dictionary
(1971) Compact edn, micrographic reduction, two vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
31.
Peterson, V. Spike
(ed.) (1992) Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
32.
Peterson, V. Spike
(1993) `Disciplining Practiced/Practices: Gendered States and Politics', in Ellen Messer-Davidow, David R. Shumway and David J. Sylvan (eds) Knowledges: Historical and Critical Studies in Disciplinarity, pp. 243-267. Charlottesville, NC: University Press of Virginia.
33.
Pollard, A.F.
(1969 [1915]) The History of England: From the Accession of Edward VI to the Death of Elizabeth (1547-1603), Vol. VI in the seriesThe Political History of England, ed. by William Hunt and Reginald L. Poole. New York: Greenwood Press.
34.
Prescott, H.F.M.
(1962 [1940]) Mary Tudor, rev. edn.London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
35.
Raleigh, Sir Walter
(1848 [1595?]) `Of the Voyage for Guiana', in Sir Robert H. Schomburgk (ed.) The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, pp. 135-153. London: Hakluyt Society.
36.
Simons, Eric N.
(1964) The Queen and the Rebel: Mary Tudor and Wyatt the Younger. London: Frederick Muller.
37.
Skinner, Quentin
(1978a) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Volume One: The Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38.
Skinner, Quentin
(1978b) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Volume Two: The Age of Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
39.
Spenser, Edmund
(1995 [1596]) The Faerie Queene, Book V (WWW document), URL http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/queene5.html (visited 15 April 1997).
40.
Stephenson, Carl
and Frederick George Marcham (eds and trans) (1937) Sources of English Constitutional History: A Selection of Documents from AD 600 to the Present. New York: Harper and Row.
41.
Strange, Susan
(1988) States and Markets. New York: Basil Blackwell.
42.
Stubbs, John
(1968 [1579]) `The Discovery of a Gaping Gulf, Whereinto England is Like to be Swallowed by an other French Marriage, if the Lord Forbid not the Banes, by Letting Her Majesty See the Sin and Punishment Thereof', in Lloyd E. Berry (ed.) John Stubbs's Gaping Gulf, with Letters and Other Relevant Documents, pp. 1-93. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia.
43.
Sylvan, David J.
and Stephen J. Majeski (1996) `Rhetorics of Place Characteristics in High-Level US Foreign Policy Making', in Francis A. Beer and Robert Hariman (eds) Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
44.
Sylvester, Christine
(1994) Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era. New York: Cambridge University Press.
45.
Tickner, J. Ann
(1992) Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security. New York: Columbia University Press.
46.
Tillyard, E.M.W.
(1944) The Elizabethan World Picture. New York: Macmillan.
47.
Todorov, Tzvetan
(1984) The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, trans. Richard Howard. New York: Harper and Row.
48.
`Wedding Ceremony — From the Prayerbook of Edward VI (Reigned 1537-1553; Transcription)' (1995, April 12) [WWW document], URL http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/uk/weded.html (visited 7 November 1996).
49.
Weldes, Jutta
(1996) `Constructing National Interests', European Journal of International Relations2(3): 275-318.
50.
Weldes
, Jutta, Mark Laffey, Hugh Gusterson and Raymond Duvall (eds) (1997) `Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger' (unpublished manuscript).
51.
Wendt, Alex
(1992) `Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics', International Organization46(2): 391-425.
52.
Whitworth, Sandra
(1994) Feminism and International Relations: Towards a Political Economy of Gender in Interstate and Non-Governmental Institutions. New York: St Martin's Press.
