The study of queens and practices of queenship has expanded rapidly over the last two decades. Works by scholars such as Clarissa Campbell Orr, Sarah Duncan, Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, and Elena Woodacre demonstrate that queens were able to exert power within patriarchal societies and, via their dynastic networks, could become channels of influence. Charles Beem's latest monograph—part of the Queenship and Power series edited by Beem and Carole Levin—is a wide-ranging survey of the roles played by queens in the political, religious, and cultural life of early modern Europe and is billed by the publisher as a companion volume to Theresa Earenfight's Queenship in Medieval Europe (2013).
Beem's book covers the period circa 1500–1800 and is organized into six chapters. In chapter 1, Beem provides an introduction to early modern European queenship. In chapters 2 to 6, he presents comparative case studies centered on a “series of four concentric circles emanating out of Europe's major kingdoms” (12): chapter 2 concentrates on queenship in Britain, chapter 3 on Franco-Iberian queenship; chapter 4 on the Holy Roman Empire; chapter 5 on the Baltic kingdoms; and chapter 6 on Russian queenship. Beem opens each of these chapters with a profile of a queen Beem argues was “emblematic to that region” (13) before moving on to a broader chronological discussion of queenship within that geographical zone. Beem argues that it is possible to identify a “pan-European template of queenship that possessed some universal characteristics but was subject to regional variations” (3). He applies this template whether the queen in question is a consort, dowager, regent, or queen regnant.
Beem makes clear at the start that his book is a survey rather than a work of original scholarship. Nonetheless, this is an ambitious volume, written in a lively and accessible manner, and Beem is to be commended for the way in which he deftly weaves together the complex political, religious, and cultural histories of the period with an assessment of the queenly strategies of the women under investigation. One of the strengths of the book is the way Beem draws the reader's attention to comparisons across time and territories. Historians often remark that Philip II of Spain (1527–1598), husband of Mary I and King Consort of England, was largely an absentee husband, but Beem notes that once Philip was crowned King of Naples (1554) and then Spain (1556), Mary became “the only absentee queen of Spain in the early modern era” with implications in that kingdom (101). Beem also points out the similarities between royal actors in different regions driving home his argument on the pan-European nature of queenship. For instance, in the chapter on the Baltic kingdoms, where he discusses the political strategies of Bona Sforza, Queen Consort of Poland (1494–1557), he compares her approach with the way Catherine of Aragon operated (160). Beem also pays due attention to the importance of material culture to the practice of queenship, from clothing and jewels to the paintings, sculpture, and palaces commissioned by royal women. It is therefore disappointing to find that Beem includes only one image in the entire book—a small black-and-white image of a painting on page 157—and there are no illustrations of maps or tables and timelines to guide novices.
The emphasis Beem places on religion accords with the work of scholars such as Michael Schaich, who argues that religion remained a “vibrant force” in the courts of the eighteenth century and contends that the devotion to “conspicuous religiosity” expected of the queen consort in the early modern period continued (Monarchy and Religion: The Transformation of Royal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe [2007], 4, 24). But the issue of religion was by no means straightforward, and from the “Reformation onwards marriage alliances had to be made within the boundaries of one of the three confessional blocs: Catholic, Lutheran or Reformed” (Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, “Afterword: Queens Consort, Dynasty and Cultural Transfer,” in Queens Consort, Cultural Transfer and European Politics, c. 1500–1800, ed. Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly and Adam Morton [2017], 231–49, at 233). Most monarchs kept within confessional boundaries, but England was unusual in that throughout the seventeenth century the Protestant Stuart kings married Catholic brides. Beem dedicates a section of chapter 2 to the “Catholic queens of seventeenth-century Britain,” opening with an assessment of Anne of Denmark, Queen Consort of James VI and I. Anne was Lutheran when, in November 1589, she formally married the Protestant King James VI of Scotland, and Beem discusses her conversion to Catholicism. While Beem acknowledges that Anne kept her “conversion and religious observances quiet,” he maintains (without referencing any historical evidence) that “the Scottish Kirk, the Anglican hierarchy, and the English puritans all took exception to the religiosity of a Catholic queen” (59), thus implying that Anne's Catholicism was, in effect, general knowledge among the ecclesiastical establishment in England and Scotland and that it caused difficulties. There are problems with Beem's analysis of Anne's religiosity: he does not reflect on the fact Anne skillfully hid her Catholicism and maintained an outward show of Protestantism, and he fails to engage with the ongoing debate among scholars over Anne's faith. Anne was not openly Catholic, and in a recent article Jemma Field convincingly argues that the continuing “ambiguity surrounding the dates of [Anna's] conversion and the inconclusive nature of the evidence concerning [her] Catholicism are proof of her success in keeping knowledge of her genuine beliefs contained” (“Anna of Denmark and the Politics of Religious Identity in Jacobean Scotland and England, c. 1592–1619,” Northern Studies, no. 50 [2019]: 87–113, at 108). It seems that Anne continued to attend Protestant services with James after her conversion (Field, 99), and whatever was taking place in her private apartments, the precise nature of her faith remained secret to everyone outside her inner circle and close confidants (see Field 95n30 for a list of those who knew or suspected). In terms of her religious practices, Anne was not like Henrietta Maria or the other Catholic Stuart consorts, who maintained a Catholic chapel and would not attend Protestant services.
At the very least, Beem might have noted that Anne's religiosity was not clear-cut; preferably citing the ongoing debate over her faith in his footnotes (Field's article appeared too late to be included, but other recent works on this subject are available). Unfortunately, the reductive coverage of Anne's religious practices weakens Beem's argument in this part of the book. Nevertheless, this is still a valuable survey of early modern European queens and their queenship and a useful introductory text for undergraduate and postgraduate students with an interest in the subject.
