The Warrior Queens

by Antonia Fraser

  26 Zosimus (VIII–12), p. 27; although the exchanges may well, of course, be fictional.

  27 Cambridge Ancient History (VIII–18), XII, p. 306.

  28 Historia Augusta (v–5), III, p. 137.

  29 Zosimus (VIII–12), p. 29; Historia Augusta (v–5), III, p. 249.

  30 Gibbon (I–9), i, pp. 311–12; Historia Augusta (v–5), III, pp. 141, 259; Cambridge Ancient History (VIII–18), XII, p. 305 note I: ‘Zosimus should be rejected’.

  31 Perceval, A. P. Caussin de, Essai sur l’histoire des Arabes avant l’Islamisme, pendant l’époque de Mahomet …, Vol. II (Paris 1897), pp. 30 note 4, 192–8; Abbott, ‘Queens’ (VIII–6), p. 13.

  32 Mommsen (VIII–22), p. 110; Gibbon (I–9), I, p. 308.

  33 See Tlass (VIII–2), p. 169 note 1 for another Queen Al-Zabba, part of the royal family of Al-Hyra, sometimes confused with Zenobia.

  34 Zénobie by Assi and Mansour Al-Rahbani, cit. Tlass (VIII–2), pp.254–60.

  35 Zenobia: A Tragedy, ‘As it is performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. By the Author of the Orphan of China [Arthur Murphy]’ (1768).

  Chapter 9: Matilda, Daughter of Peter

  1 The ‘Epistolae Vagantes’ of Pope Gregory VII, edited and translated by H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford 1972), p. 13.

  2 Dudley and Webster (I–3), p. 115.

  3 Cit. Briey, Comte Renaud de, Mathilde, Duchesse de Toscane, Comtesse de Briey, Fondatrice de l’Abbaye d’Orval (1046–1115): Une Jeanne d’Arc Italienne (Brussels 1934), p. 50.

  4 See Overmann, A., Gräfin Mathilde von Tuscien (Innsbruck 1895) for Regesta of her life pp. 123–90; also Tondelli, Leone, Matilda di Canossa – profile storico (3rd edn Reggio 1969); Duff (I–21), for biographical details.

  5 Vedriani and Paluda, cit. Duff (I–21), p. 77; Tondelli (IX–4), pp. 30–1.

  6 Huddy (v–5), p. 104.

  7 See Colucci, G., Un nuovo poema latina dello IX secolo (Rome 1895), pp. 132–3.

  8 Villani, Giovanni, Istorie Fiorentine, Vol. I (Milan 1802), pp. 201f.

  9 Tondelli (IX–4), pp. 5, 144–5; Schevill, Ferdinand, History of Florence from the Founding of the City through the Renaissance (New York 1961), p. 54.

  10 Erra, C. A., Memorie storico-critiche della gran contessa Matilda (Rome 1768), p. xiii.

  11 Dante, De Monarchia, translated by P. H. Wicksteed, Book III (1896), pp. 277–8.

  12 Cit. Duff (I–21), p. 91.

  13 Tondelli (IX–4), pp. 30–1.

  14 Cit. Duff (I–21), p. 127.

  15 Cit. Briey (IX–3), p. 53.

  16 See Gregory VII, Epistolae (IX–1) passim and biographies of Matilda, esp. Briey (IX–3), Duff (I–21) and Tondelli (IX–4).

  17 Briey (IX–3), p. 56.

  18 Donizo’s Vita Comitissae Mathildis – in two books of Latin verse – is the principal souce for events at Canossa (1734) BL: 12 f.6; see also the latest Italian translation by G. Marzi and V. Bellocchi (Modena 1970).

  19 Gregory VII’s letter in Duff (I–21), Appendix D pp. 290–1.

  20 Donizo, 1, 2, v. 203 cit. Briey (IX–3), p. 127.

  21 Cit. Briey (IX–3), p. 151.

  22 Schenetti, Matteo, ‘La vittoria de Matilde di Canossa su Arrigo IV’, Studi Matildici, Reggio 7–9 ottobre 1972 (Modena 1978), pp. 238–9.

  23 Cit. Duff (I–21), p. 204.

  24 Schevill (IX–9), pp. 58f.

  25 See Rough, Robert H., The Reformist Illuminations in the Gospels of Matilda Countess of Tuscany: A Study in the Art of the Age of Gregory VII (The Hague 1973).

  26 Inscriptions given in Duff (I–21), pp. 275–6.

  27 Cit. Stephan, Rt. Hon. Sir James, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, Vol. I (1907), pp. 35f.

  28 The Vision of Purgatory and Paradise by Dante Alighieri, translated by Rev. H. F. Cary (1893), Cantos XXVIII, XIX, XXXI and XXXII, and p. 120 note 1. Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, translated by Edward Fairfax, The Carisbrooke Library, Vol. VII (1890), Book XVII, p. 352.

  29 Nencioni, G., Matilde di Canossa (Milan 1937), p. 190.

  30 Tondelli (IX–4), Preface.

  Chapter 10: England’s Domina

  1 For the Empress Maud see Dictionary of National Biography entry by Kate Norgate (1908–9); Onslow, the Earl of, The Empress Maud (1939) and Pain, Nesta, Empress Matilda: Uncrowned Queen of England (1978); for the period generally, Chibnall, Marjorie, Anglo-Norman England, 1066–1166 (Oxford 1986) is the principal source.

  2 DNB (x–1).

  3 The Works of Gildas, in Six Old English Chronicles, edited by J. A. Giles (1878), p. 301.

  4 See Dudley and Webster (I–3), p. 114.

  5 Ruskin, Mornings in Florence, cit. Purdie, Edna, The Story of Judith in German and English Literature (Paris 1927).

  6 William of Malmesbury, The History of the Kings of England …, Vol. III, Part I (The Church Historians of England 1854), p. 109.

  7 Judith, edited by B. J. Timmer (1966), p. 7.

  8 Anglo-Saxon Poetry, selected and translated by Professor R. K. Gordon (revised edn 1954), pp. 320–6.

  9 See Chibnall (X–1), pp. 83–5.

  10 Cit. Chibnall (X–1), p. 67 note 33.

  11 The Idea of a perfect Princesse, in The Life of St Margaret Queen of Scotland. With Elogiums on her children David and Mathilda Queen of England. Now englished (Paris 1661).

  12 Chibnall (X–1), p. 68.

  13 The Historia Novella by William of Malmesbury, edited by K. R. Potter (1955), pp. 3–5.

  14 See Gillingham, John, The Angevin Empire (1984 pbk), p. 9 for the view that Henry had Geoffrey in mind as his successor at the time of the betrothal; Chibnall (X–1), p. 85; ‘no reliable evidence that he ever changed his mind about his heir’.

  15 Cit. Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the Queens of England, Vol. I (reprint 1972), p. 203.

  16 Gillingham (X–14), pp. 10–11.

  17 Gesta Stephani, edited and translated from the Latin by K. R. Potter, with a new Introduction and Notes by R. H. C. Davis (Oxford 1976), p. 5; William of Malmesbury (X–6), III, Part I, p. 389.

  18 Fell, Christine, Clark, Cecily and Williams, Elizabeth, Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066 (1984), p. 170.

  19 Strickland (X–15), p. 1 where the quotations are given in Latin, slightly mixed up.

  20 Geoffrey of Monmouth, Histories of the Kings of Britain, translated by Sebastian Evans, introduction by Lucy Anne Paton (1934), p. 34.

  21 See Reilly, Bernard F., The Kingdom of León-Castilla under Queen Urraca 1109–1126 (Princeton, New Jersey 1982), especially Ch. 12, pp. 352f.

  22 DNB (X–1); Chibnall (X–1), p. 94 note 103.

  23 Gesta Stephani (X–17), pp. 179–84.

  24 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited and translated by D. Whitelock, D. C. Douglas and S. I. Tucker (1961), p. 200.

  25 Cit. DNB (X–1).

  26 Strickland (X–15), p. 225 gives the various contemporary references; Gesta Stephani (X–17), pp. 94–5; William of Malmesbury (X–6), III, Part I, pp. 421–2.

  27 Onslow (X–1), p. 106; Pain (X–1), p. 102.

  28 Cit. Pain (X–1), pp. 85, 91.

  29 Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, edited by H. R. Luard (part of Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores or, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During The Middle Ages), Vol. II (1874), p. 324; DNB (X–1).

  Chapter 11: Lion of the Caucasus

  The principal sources for this chapter are W. E. D. Allen’s History of the Georgian People (XI–3) and D. M. Lang’s The Georgians (XI–7).

  1 Professor Mariam Lordkipanidze, communication to the author; Kelly, Lawrence, Lermontov: Tragedy in the Caucasus (1983 pbk), p. 78.

  2 ‘The Demon’ translated by Robert Burness (Edinburgh 1918), cit. Kelly (XI–1), p. 79.

  3 Thubron, Colin, Among the Russians (1985 pbk), p. 165; Allen, W. E. D., A History of the Georgian People: From the Beginning down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century (1932), pp. 40, 103.

  4 Allen (XI–3), p. 2. />
  5 Shota Rustaveli, The Knight in Panther’s Skin, a free translation in prose by Katharine Vivian, Foreword by David Lang (1977), p. 39.

  6 Allen (XI–3), pp. 39–40.

  7 Cit. Lang, D. M., The Georgians (1966), pp. 112, 28.

  8 Lang (XI–7), pp. 64f. gives a good summary.

  9 Cit. Allen (XI–3), p. 107.

  10 Cit. Maclean, Sir Fitzroy, To Caucasus (1976), p. 20.

  11 Allen (XI–3), p. 102.

  12 d’Auriac, Eugène, Thamar Reine de Géorgie (Paris 1892), p. 2.

  13 Allen (XI–3), p. 103.

  14 Lang (XI–7), p. 225.

  15 Allen (XI–3), p. 106.

  16 d’Auriac (XI–12), pp. 9, 12.

  17 Cit. Katharine Vivian to author.

  18 d’Auriac (XI–12), p. 12.

  19 Allen (XI–3), p. 103.

  20 Titus Andronicus, Act v, scene iii; Georgian Shakespeariana, III, edited and with a Foreword and notes by Nico Kiasashvili (seminar in Georgia to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth) (Tbilisi 1964), p. 336.

  21 Rustaveli (XI–5), p. 9.

  22 Rustaveli (XI–5), p. 11.

  23 The Georgian Chronicle, cit. David Lang’s Foreword to Rustaveli (XI–5), p. 18.

  24 Urushadze, Venera, Shota Rustaveli’s The Knight in Panther’s Skin, translated from the Georgian, Introduction by David M. Lang (Tbilisi 1979), p. 11.

  25 Bowra, C. M., Inspiration and Poetry (1955), pp. 45–67.

  26 Allen (XI–3), p. 244: his own translation.

  Chapter 12: Isabella with her Prayers

  The principal modern sources consulted for this chapter are J. H. Elliot’s Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (XII–1), J. N. Hillgarth’s The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516 (XII–4) and F. Fernández-Armesto’s joint biography of Ferdinand and Isabella (XII–2).

  1 J. H. Elliott’s Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (1963), p. 65.

  2 Cit. Fernández-Armesto, F., Ferdinand and Isabella (1975), p. 96.

  3 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 149.

  4 Bernáldez cit. Hillgarth, J. N., The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516 (Oxford 1978), p. 451.

  5 Hillgarth (XII–4), p. 483.

  6 Cit. Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 53.

  7 See Elliott (XII–1), p. 11: ‘a consideration lately gives her the benefit of the doubt’.

  8 Elliott (XII–1), pp. 10, 66.

  9 Walsh, W. T., Isabella of Spain (1931), p. 137.

  10 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 83.

  11 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 27.

  12 Prescott, W. H., History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (new and revised edition 1885), p. 592 note 3.

  13 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 64.

  14 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 41.

  15 Prescott (XII–12), pp. 591f.; Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), pp. 106f.

  16 Hillgarth (XII–4), p. 363; and see Walsh (XII–9), p. 616 note 2 writing in 1931: ‘The canonization of Isabel as a saint has been urged strongly in Spain during the past year.’

  17 Elliott (XII–1), p. 11.

  18 Viaggio cit. Prescott (XII–12), p. 596.

  19 Prescott (XII–12), p. 240.

  20 Laffin, John, Women in Battle (1967), pp. 20–1.

  21 Walsh (XII–9), p. 365.

  22 Prescott (XII–12), p. 244.

  23 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 90.

  24 Elliott (XII–1), p. 20.

  25 Prescott (XII–12), p. 240; Walsh (XII–9), p. 325.

  26 Nervo, Baron de, Isabella the Catholic: Queen of Spain. Her Life, Reign and Times 1451–1504 (1897), p. 203.

  27 Nervo (XII–26), p. 195.

  28 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 49; Walsh (XII–9), p. 22.

  29 See Colby, Kenneth Mark, ‘Gentlemen, the Queen’, Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. 40 (1953), pp. 144–8.

  30 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 136.

  31 Ernst Breisach’s biography of Caterina Sforza (I–21) is the basis of the ensuing pages; see also Kelly (I–7), pp. 31f.

  32 See Breisach (I–21), p. 296 note 99 for sources of the various versions.

  33 Fernández-Armesto (XII–2), p. 55.

  34 Elliott (XII–1), p. 42; Walsh (XII–9), p. 605.

  Chapter 13: Elizabetha Triumphans

  1 Harborowe (III–9).

  2 Knox (II–13), p. 12.

  3 Knox (II–13), pp. 31f.

  4 Knox, John, History of the Church of Scotland, cit. Knox (II–13), Appendix.

  5 Abbott, Aishah (I–11), p. 176; see Phillips, James E., Jr, ‘The Background of Spenser’s Attitude Toward Women Rulers’, Huntington Library Quarterly (1941–2), pp. 5f.

  6 Knox (II–13), pp. XVII, 31.

  7 Knox (II–13), Appendix; Phillips, (XIII–5), passim.

  8 Harborowe (III–9), passim.

  9 Ridley, Jasper, Elizabeth 1 (1987), pp. 25–6, 85.

  10 Prescott, H. F. M., Mary Tudor (1953), p. 164.

  11 Erickson, Carolly, Bloody Mary (1978), p. 56.

  12 Waldman, Milton, The Lady Mary: A Biography of Mary Tudor 1516–1558 (1972), p. 204.

  13 Neale, J. E., Queen Elizabeth 1 (1960 pbk), p. 69.

  14 Williams, Neville, Elizabeth 1:Queen of England (1971 pbk), pp. 48, 70.

  15 Fraser, Antonia, Mary Queen of Scots (1969), p. 163; Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth 1: the Inventory of 1574, edited by A. Jefferies Collins (1955), p. 112; Neale (XIII–13), p. 288.

  16 Cit. Erickson (XIII–11), p. 388.

  17 The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse, edited by John H. Ellis (Charlestown 1867), p. 361.

  18 Heisch, Allison, ‘Queen Elizabeth I and the Persistence of Patriarchy’, Feminist Review, February 1980, pp. 45–55.

  19 Longford, Elizabeth, Victoria RI (1964), p. 395.

  20 Cit. Erickson (XIII–11), p. 390.

  21 The Memoirs of Sir James Melville of Halhill, edited and with an Introduction by Gordon Donaldson (1969), p. 37.

  22 Buchanan cit. Phillips, James E., Jr, ‘The Woman Ruler in Spenser’s Faerie Queene’, Huntington Library Quarterly (1941–2), p. 220.

  23 Strong, Roy, The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry (1977), p. 50.

  24 Williams (XIII–14), p. 168.

  25 Williams (XIII–14), p. 324.

  26 Palliser, D. M., The Age of Elizabeth: England under the Later Tudors 1547–1603 (1983), pp. 12, 107f.; Adams, Simon, ‘The Queen Embattled: Elizabeth I and the Conduct of Foreign Policy’ in Queen Elizabeth I: Most Politick Princess, edited by Simon Adams, History Today special issue (1984).

  27 Cit. Fraser, Mary (XIII–15), p. 344; Palliser (XIII–26), p. 108.

  28 Creighton, Rev. Mandell, Queen Elizabeth (1896), p. 179.

  29 Nichols, John (ed.), Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, 2 vols (1780–90), Vol. I, Appendix VII pp. 525–6.

  30 Williams (XIII–14), p. 290.

  31 Williams (XIII–14), pp. 279, 347.

  32 See Strong, Cult (XIII–23), passim; most recently Strong, Roy, Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (1987).

  33 Strong, Cult (XIII–23), p. 47.

  34 Jewels (XIII–15), p. 112; Williams (XIII–14), pp. 350–1.

  35 Dunlop, Ian, Palaces and Progresses of Elizabeth 1 (1962), p. 85; Williams (XIII–14), p. 250.

  36 Chambers, Anne, Granuaile: The Life and Times of Grace O’Malley, c. 1530–1603 (Dublin 1983 pbk), Ch. VI, pp. 127f.

  37 Dunlop (XIII–35), p. 32; cit. Erickson (XIII–11), p. 276.

  38 Henry VI Part III, Act I, scene iv.

  39 Savile, Henry, The Ende of Nero and the beginning of Galba. Fower bookes of the histories of Cornelius Tacitus. The life of Agricola (1591), Preface.

  40 Dudley and Webster (I–3), p. 115; Polydore Vergil’s English History, Vol. I, edited by Sir Henry Ellis (1846), pp. 17, 70–2.

  41 The Chronicles of Scotland, compiled by Hector Boëce, translated into Scots by John Bellenden 1531, edited by R. W. Chambers and Edith Batho, Vol.
I (Edinburgh 1938), pp. 141–5.

  42 Holinshed (v–27), I, pp. 43–8.

  43 Ubaldini, Donne (I–5).

  44 Ubaldini, ‘Fatti’ (I–5).

  45 Camden’s Britannia, Introduction by Stuart Piggott (1971 facsimile), pp. 311, 347, 366; Dudley and Webster (I–3), pp. 117, 156 note 10.

  46 Spenser (II–5), Vol. I, p. 297.

  47 Spenser (II–5), Vol. II, p. 199.

  48 Williams (XIII–14), pp. 307, 311; Camden (XIII–45), p. 10.

  49 ‘Elizabetha Triumphans’ in Nichols, John, The Progresses, and Public Processions, of Queen Elizabeth …, Vol. II (1788), p. 22.

  50 This account is based on Christy, Miller, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to Tilbury in 1588’, English Historical Review (1919), pp. 43–61; Mattingly, Garrett, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1959), pp. 290–7; also The Queenes visiting of the Campe at Tilburie with her entertainement there, BL c. 18 l. 2 (64) (1588); ‘Elizabetha Triumphans’ (XIII–49); Ridley (XIII–9), p. 285 and note.

  51 Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1581–90, p. 516; Neale (XIII–13), p. 301.

  52 See Barker, Felix, ‘If Parma had Landed’, History Today (May 1988), p. 40. Recent research dismisses Arden Hall as the Queen’s residence.

  53 Barker (XIII–52), p. 38 questions the text because Aske reports the speech differently; but Sharp would have been closer to the Queen than Aske and, as Leicester’s chaplain, closer to court circles. Letter to The Times, 12 May 1988.

  54 CSP Domestic (XIII–51), p. 514.

  55 Hacker (I–10), p. 653.

  Chapter 14: Jinga at the Gates

  1 Oakley, Stewart, The Story of Sweden (1966), p. 82.

  2 Kelly (I–7), p. 86.

  3 Cit. Green (II–17), p. 187.

  4 Swift, Jack Frenchman’s Lamentation, cit. Green (II–17), pp. 191, 360 note 28.

  5 Blake, Robert, Disraeli (1966), p. 637.

  6 Bonduca (VII–11), Act III, scene i; Fletcher, John, Bonduca (Malone Society reprint Oxford 1951) suggests it is ‘hardly open to doubt’ that the play is ‘substantially Fletcher’s’.

  7 Bonduca or, The British Heroine, A Tragedy Acted at the Theatre Royal by his Majesty’s Servants (1696); Price, C. A., Henry Purcell and the London Stage (Cambridge 1984), pp. 97, 117–25.