by Nancy Reagin
In other cases, women inherited royal or noble titles independently: ruling by themselves (as did Elizabeth I and Victoria, both in England) or jointly with a spouse, as did Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, who created the new kingdom of Spain through their marriage. These queens still didn’t have an easy time of it, because custom, if not law, made it difficult for women to wield political power—something that Rebel Alliance figures such as Mon Mothma and Princess Leia never face in Star Wars’ more egalitarian galactic culture. In times of war, queens rallied troops and inspired nations, just as Boudicca did against the Romans.2 When medieval popes were hounded by the Holy Roman emperors in the eleventh century, it was a noblewoman, Matilda of Tuscany, whose troops and strategies saved the day. Our history and the history of the Star Wars universe preserve many stories of strong women rulers who, against great odds, fought for their people, their nation, and their right to rule.
“You Think a Princess and a Guy Like Me . . . ?”
Queens were both political leaders and women. Their private emotions and personal relationships often became part of their public lives in ways that few kings ever had to justify. Han Solo and Princess Leia show that love can cross boundaries of rank. A generation earlier, Padmé and Anakin’s star-crossed love stretches across an even broader gulf of social class, when the one-time slave boy from Tatooine marries the former Queen of Naboo. Love and relationships complicated the lives of historical women sometimes even more so than they did in the time of the Republic and the Empire.
Consider the case of Cleopatra VII, who was born long ago but not in a galaxy far, far away. This powerful woman came into the world sometime during the winter of 69 BC. Cleopatra was part of the Ptolemaic dynasty, descendants of the general who accompanied Alexander the Great in his 332 BC conquest of Egypt. The country had been frequently torn by vicious battles for power between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters (sometimes one and the same, because Egyptian rulers tended to marry their own siblings in order to keep the bloodlines pure). When Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, died in 51 BC, Cleopatra was only eighteen and the coruler of Egypt with her oldest brother and husband, ten-year-old Ptolemy XIII. Their new-won realm was bitterly divided, drowning in debt, and a tempting target for the powerful mercantile and militaristic state Rome.3 Unlike Padmé’s confrontational relationship with the Trade Federation, young Cleopatra welcomed Rome’s intervention, which supported her as a ruler of Egypt against her annoying younger brother.
Padmé Amidala is already an experienced politician by the time she becomes Queen of Naboo. (The Phantom Menace)
Cleopatra was only eighteen when she claimed her throne and not even forty when she committed suicide.
Cleopatra’s greatest problem at that time was her brother and his courtiers. Ptolemy XIII wanted to eliminate his sister and coruler, and in the cutthroat politics of Ptolemaic Egypt, this meant having her killed. At least when Leia fights her own father while seeking to destroy the Empire, neither knows they are related! Ptolemy was supported by the great Roman general Pompey, who declared the youngster sole ruler of Egypt. In early 48 BC, Cleopatra therefore fled Alexandria, the royal residence, and sought refuge farther up the Nile River, near the historic heartland of Egyptian royal tradition, Thebes. Similarly, Queen Amidala flees her capital city of Theed, winding up in the Outer Rim world of Tatooine when the Trade Federation’s guns damage her escaping starship. Her goal, however, was Coruscant, seat of the Galactic Senate, where she hoped to find support for her planet against the invaders.
When Cleopatra left Alexandria, the queen was only twenty-one and in a desperate situation. She moved on to rally an army in Syria, but an even more significant battle loomed across the Mediterranean in Greece. Pompey was at war with another Roman and his former ally Julius Caesar. After Caesar’s victory at the Battle of Pharsalos, in August 48 BC, Pompey fled to Egypt. Instead of Pompey’s finding refuge at Ptolemy XIII’s court, the Egyptian courtiers killed him out of hand, while the young king watched. This move didn’t endear Ptolemy XIII and his government to the victorious Caesar, as the Egyptian child-king had hoped. Instead, the Roman decreed that the brother and the sister should settle their differences before him. This invitation was all that Cleopatra needed to turn Caesar to her cause.
It doesn’t matter whether Cleopatra had herself rolled up in a bed-sack (not a carpet!) and smuggled into Caesar’s residence, as Plutarch described, or if she simply asked to speak to Caesar. Either way, the young queen presented her case with the charm and skill for which she would be renowned. What is important is that Cleopatra allied herself with the man who was rising to power, not only in Rome but wherever that state had influence. Caesar fought a war to defend Cleopatra’s right to rule. When it was over, a year later, her siblings were dead or captured and Cleopatra gave birth to a son by Caesar, Caesarion, whom she would eventually adopt as her coruler.4
It’s interesting that despite not having a son by his Roman marriage, Julius Caesar never acknowledged Caesarion, instead willing his fortune to his grand-nephew Octavian. Many Romans doubted Cleopatra’s claim that Caesar was the boy’s father, and rumors about the boy’s parentage dogged the queen, rather as the secret of Padmé and Anakin’s marriage helps shroud Luke and Leia’s parentage in mystery. In both cases, pregnancy did not prevent these women from wielding political power. Padmé Amidala, even though she is pregnant and no longer the Queen of Naboo, still works as a Senator with Bail Organa and others to resist Palpatine’s destruction of the Republic. Cleopatra’s pregnancy was celebrated in Egypt, if not in Rome, and helped her retain her throne, even while Caesar brought her valuable state more securely under Roman control.
In 44 BC, Caesar was brutally assassinated by a number of high-ranking conspirators. Cleopatra commanded her own fleet to assist in avenging Caesar’s death the following year. After the conspirators were routed, Cleopatra made a successful play for the most powerful of the trio of Roman rulers: Mark Antony. The two soon became lovers and enjoyed a scandalously lavish lifestyle together in Alexandria. Antony was Rome’s greatest military leader, and Cleopatra’s Egypt grew in wealth and influence under his protection. The ancient historian Plutarch confidently asserted that Cleopatra cold-bloodedly seduced and corrupted the Roman general, but he was just one of many to try to discredit the Egyptian queen as Rome’s enemy. The reality of their relationship was likely more complicated: Cleopatra welcomed Antony’s protection and the generous provisions he made for their children, who were given sizable kingdoms of Roman territory in the eastern Mediterranean; Antony probably preferred Alexandria’s freedom of action over Rome’s more restraining political system.
Antony’s standing in Rome declined, however, due to rumors of his slavish devotion to a foreign queen, and he was soon defeated by his former coruler, Octavian, Caesar’s grand-nephew and a cunning politician who likely managed the propaganda campaign that discredited Antony.5 Just as Chancellor Palpatine orchestrates the downfall of the Republic, Octavian brought down the Roman Republic from within: Antony and Cleopatra were two of the casualties, although both chose suicide, rather than the humiliation of being paraded as captives before a Roman crowd. Their children were carried off by the triumphant Octavian to be paraded in Rome in their parents’ place, including the twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene.6
For all that Cleopatra is considered a figure of romantic tragedy, this queen was very careful in her love life. Cleopatra’s relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony appear more calculated than Padmé’s desperate love for Anakin, and, unlike Padmé, Cleopatra never married her lovers. She was married, in name only, to her corulers: first her brother, and then her son. Both Caesar and Mark Antony were married to women from powerful Roman families, while they were involved with the Egyptian queen. This may have been to Cleopatra’s advantage. She ruled for twenty-two years without having to hand over control to any man in her life. This degree of freedom was almost unimaginable for women in the classical
world; few other queens ruled in the ancient Mediterranean world, and none of them enjoyed Cleopatra’s independence, wealth, and power.7 All of that came to nothing with Cleopatra’s death. Egypt’s riches were absorbed into Octavian’s new empire, just as Naboo is folded into Palpatine’s Imperial Empire.
“The Queen Will Not Approve”
In disguise as a handmaid and on the run with Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé can hardly issue a royal decree when the Senate does not help her in her plight. At least, no one thinks it inappropriate that the queen will have opinions or wield some sort of power. The Calvinist preacher John Knox complained about European women rulers in a sixteenth-century book. Faced with three Catholic women in power, he argued that women’s rule was unnatural: a “monstrous regiment of women.”8 His language may have been extreme, but his attitudes were hardly unusual. Historically, many kingdoms barred women entirely from ruling, while others practiced primogeniture, giving lands, power, and the royal title only to the oldest male child of the previous king—even if that heir had one or many older sisters.
Refreshingly, the Star Wars galaxy exhibits no prejudice against women rulers or leaders, whether during the Republic, when women serve as leaders in all levels of government, or in the fraught years of the Clone Wars. Although being young and female might have been two strikes against a candidate for the throne in ancient and medieval history, on Naboo, those qualities are positively celebrated. There, public service is mandated for youngsters. Citizens as young as eight years of age even contribute to the planet’s government, apprenticing in the legislature. One such civic-minded and serious citizen is Padmé Naberrie, who can boast of six years’ political experience when she is elected queen at fourteen years of age. Young Padmé takes a new name, Amidala, when she accepts the crown, but that doesn’t mean she distances herself from her family. Indeed, Padmé keeps a close relationship with her parents and her older sister throughout her career as first Queen of Naboo and then, when her term as monarch is over, as that planet’s Senator.9
If acceptable on Naboo, elective monarchy was exceedingly rare in Earth’s history, especially for women. The Holy Roman Empire of medieval Europe might be the most famous example, and, even then, it was far from a free choice. Candidates needed to be leading landholders, as well as male. The tradition of primogeniture sidelined many women over the centuries, although, in some rare cases, a woman made for a useful compromise candidate. This was the case for Catherine of Brandenburg, who was elected Prince of Transylvania in 1629 on the death of her husband, who had previously held the title. Her power as prince, however, was severely limited, and charges that she was both extravagant and immoral helped push her out of office. These attacks were as politically motivated as those that Palpatine engineers to bring down Chancellor Valorum. The following year, Catherine was forced to abdicate in favor of the Hungarian nobleman Georg Rakoczi, a favorite of many of the Transylvanian courtiers.10
This avoidance of women rulers sometimes destabilized dynasties, as daughters (or their sons) might seek the throne despite the rule, which could lead to war with their male cousins (who often stood to inherit if the king’s daughters were barred from the throne). This sort of conflict between cousins ignited the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, for example.11
Women also couldn’t succeed to rule in the Holy Roman Empire, which included much of central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages and beyond. The empire was an elective monarchy where bishops, dukes, and other nobles, known as prince-electors, chose the heir to the imperial throne. After the fifteenth century, the imperial title was almost exclusively a privilege of the Hapsburg family. When Charles VI died in 1740, there was a crisis. The only Hapsburg heirs were women: Charles’s daughter Maria Theresa and her older cousins, daughters of the previous emperor. Yet women couldn’t be elected to become emperor, and this situation led to a political crisis.
That wouldn’t stop Maria Theresa from eventually taking power, although she had to work hard to earn her place. Her father spent his fortune bribing other kings and the electors to agree that Maria Theresa and her husband should inherit his position. These agreements, known as the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, achieved little for Maria Theresa and Francis because most of the other kings and princes ignored their promises. In some respects, this resembles the promises of Chancellor Palpatine to use his Emergency Powers only temporarily to fight the Clone Wars.
Unlike Padmé, who is both well-educated and experienced in politics, Maria was untrained to lead the state she ruled. Even more worrisome, she was almost without resources. As she later noted, her father had exhausted the empire’s wealth in his attempt to secure her position as his successor: the new queen was “without money, without credit, without army.”12 Her Austrians had something in common with those who defended Naboo in the Star Wars galaxy against the endless wave of Trade Federation droids: those soldiers she could afford to pay had to make do with old and outdated materials, while facing a much more sophisticated opponent, the king of Prussia, who had relatively unlimited resources.
Maria Theresa rallied the Austrian people for her rule and against the Prussians in 1740.
Princess Leia presides over the celebrations and the awards ceremony after the Battle of Yavin. (A New Hope)
In some ways, Maria Theresa’s first months on the throne were as perilous as those of newly crowned Padmé Amidala facing down the Trade Federation or Princess Leia smuggling battle plans for the Death Star out from under the Emperor’s nose. Austria may have been a great state, but it was no match for the Prussians in 1740, just as Naboo is no match for the might of the Trade Federation at first. Prussia declared war on Maria Theresa’s Austrians and won Silesia in the War of the Austrian Succession. In this conflict, the young queen was forced to defend herself against an opponent almost as crafty and cunning as Palpatine: Frederick the Great.
Maria Theresa had to work hard to fight off further conquests eating up her weakened realm. Although she was immediately crowned archduchess of Austria on her father’s death and confirmed as queen of Hungary the following year, she never became Holy Roman empress in her own right. After Maria Theresa spent years building up the position of her husband, Francis, the electors finally chose him as the emperor in 1745. He held the title, but Maria Theresa exercised the real power as empress during his lifetime and later, when she shared power with her son, Joseph.13
Make no mistake: although she never held the imperial title on her own, Maria Theresa was the true power in the empire. She fought fiercely to gain and maintain her empire against some of the greatest powers of her age, including fearsome Frederick the Great of Prussia, whom she utterly despised. The Austrian empress also reformed the tax system to collect revenues from nobles and churchmen, as well as peasants, and significantly revised the law code that finally brought the witch-hunts to an end within the empire.14 Despite all of these achievements, the Holy Roman Empire’s traditions meant that Maria Theresa issued these decrees only in concert with a man, first her husband and then her son.
In England, women could inherit the throne, but that still didn’t make it easy for them to rule. A civil war broke out in the twelfth century between supporters of King Henry I’s only surviving heir, Matilda, and her cousin Stephen, in part because many English noblemen doubted a woman’s fitness to rule. The nineteen years of conflict between the two sides that followed were so bad that people called it the Anarchy, a time “when Christ and his saints slept.” Henry VIII felt the same way about female rulers, which is part of the reason he tried so desperately for a son, setting aside his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and executing his second, Anne Boleyn. The principle of primogeniture meant that Edward, a younger son by Henry’s third wife, became the next ruler of England.
Only Edward’s untimely death at sixteen years of age made his sisters’ succession to the English throne possible. Mary, Henry’s older daughter, followed after Edward, but her troubled reign lasted only five yea
rs. After Mary’s death, her half-sister Elizabeth ruled for almost a century as an unmarried woman. Remaining single may have solved the concerns about sharing power with her husband (as Maria Theresa had to do), but it raised another problem that elective monarchs such as Padmé never face: the question of who would follow the queen on the throne. Until her death, Elizabeth avoided naming a successor from among her many distant relatives and instead played all of the possibilities, as any good politician would.
“She’s a Politician, and They’re Not to Be Trusted”
Obi-Wan wants Anakin, as a Jedi, to be wary of Senator Padmé Amidala: not because of romance, but because of her political interests. Politics might have been thought a man’s game before the last century, but almost every queen in history had to play the game simply to survive. Many queens had to be ruthless and cunning in identifying and resisting their rivals. Padmé might be a strong supporter of the Jedi while she is Queen and during the period when she serves as Naboo’s Senator, but that doesn’t mean she is above the subtle work of politics. She out-maneuvers the Trade Federation through a combination of political appeals and military resistance. The same can be said of many historical queens who needed all of their wits to survive and thrive in the cutthroat world of court politics.