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- [00:00]
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Kate Williams
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- [03:25]
Charlotte Vosper
that have painted queens as mad but
- [03:27]
Kate Williams
bad or just not up to the job.
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Charlotte Vosper
Your book challenges the myths and stereotypes which have presented queens as evil, mad or not just up to the job throughout the past. How did you choose the women to include in your book?
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Kate Williams
Well, Charlotte, that was the tough question because there were so many choices. I could have written volume after volume and I was in a large battle with the publisher of My Word Count because it kept expanding. But I really wanted to pick out queens who have been seen as iconic so often of failure or success and to analyze this. So we have everyone from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra to Mary I to Marie Antoinette to Grace of Monaco. I know I've worked a lot on monarchy in the past and female monarchy, but looking at them all over time really brings out these trends and patterns that are repeated from the most ancient time right up until the modern day. Over and over again we see queens being characterized as failures and overled by their emotions and not up to managing money in particular. That's a key one. And it really strikes me that yes, these women live in a gilded cage. They are wealthy beyond measure. In the earlier period. They decide who lives and dies. We cannot call them women under the thumb, but yet they are emblematic of the stories that are told about all women. If some of our most significant women in society, which queens are seen as failures, military failures, financial failures, just led by their heart, sexualized, romanticized, then what does that do to perceptions of women? If we get obsessed with Marie Antoinette bringing the revolution, bringing down Versailles due to spending too much money, if we have Cleopatra's enemies saying she brought ruin on all Egypt and everywhere else beside, well, that perception that this is what women do when they get a tiny bit of power or a tiny bit of freedom or a tiny bit of money, I think does impact on all women. We might say it's got no connection what we say about Cleopatra or Anne Boleyn or Marie Antoinette in terms of whether we'll ever get a female president of the United States or whether we'll see many more women in political power across the world. But I think it does these narratives that we weave about these most celebrated women impact on all women.
- [05:54]
Charlotte Vosper
That's a really interesting idea. And you mentioned there those trends and patterns in queenship, and that is something we're gonna be drawing out in this interview. You open the book with Hatshepsut, one of the earliest female rulers with no blueprint for queenship. How did she go about legitimizing her rule?
- [06:13]
Kate Williams
Well, Hatshepsut, I mean, she's absolutely sensational. She is expected to be. She's king's daughter, she's the consort of. And then she's the king's stepmother. And that is a role that gives a woman quite a lot of power anyway at court. And yet she vaults her role as the stepmother of the next pharaoh into one of a female king. She becomes a female monarch. She pretty much pushes her stepson out of the way and becomes this female monarch, harking back to her father, who had seen her as his wife, blood descendant. And so she maneuvers herself into power and with, I think, the ascent of all the networks around her, I think we sometimes underestimate and often misogynistic history is underestimated that these women wouldn't get into power if the men around them didn't agree with it and didn't want them in power. These are networks and networking, you know, right back to 1,500 BC. The WhatsApp group in the Houses of Parliament has its equivalent in ancient Egypt. And these men agree with Hatshepsut in power. And she takes this and creates an iconography that she was always destined to be monarch in her incredible mortuary tomb, the mansion of millions of years, which, when you go to Luxor, you can just see opposite the other side of the Nile. It's just there, an absolute vision that she has this whole birth of her as a king, the birth story of her as male, that the God comes to her mother in the palace, and the baby is formed on the wheel as the gods do. And this is a baby boy. And when she becomes this female king, she really excludes from her iconography her roles before as daughter, as wife, and also high priestess, which is a very significant role that she assumes and becomes a female king. And we really see her kind of moving her own vision of herself. She starts out queenie, but a bit kingy, and Then she goes more and more kingy, and then she just goes full king and she has the full outfit of a male monarch. And she completely excludes from her stories how she did use her position as the great high priestess, which is so important to her rise. The role of great high priestess, which is given to the king's daughter, is given a massive significance. This young woman is sent to commune every day with the God, with Amun, and she communes with him, she sings with him, she dances with him, and she stimulates him to great gifts to the country. If there is agricultural success and great fertility, it's thanks to Amun. It's thanks to her. And this position really gets her in with the priest class, with a class of men who controls religion in the whole of Egypt. And that role, I think, really does vault Hatshepsut into power. And that's so fascinating because that is only a role that a woman can take on. And the fact that she's that female role, and yet she uses it to vault herself into a position of power where she is a female king. And by the maturity of her reign, she's all in male dress. It's totally fascinating.
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Charlotte Vosper
It absolutely is. You mentioned there her male dress. Was she bending gender norms or was she using the only language of power available at the time, do you think?
- [09:41]
Kate Williams
I think this is the million dollar question about Hatshepsut for me. I think Hatshepsut saw herself as beyond gen. I think she saw herself as embodying both genders. And it's very interesting because in Egyptian mythology, when you die, you do become really transcendent of gender. And I think we see that in a lot of religions and mythologies, don't we, that we imagine that when we go to the afterlife, we'll be free of sexual jealousy and free of sexual needs, that angels aren't doing that kind of thing. But in Egyptian mythology, when you die, you can combine with Osiris and become really both genders. And so I think that Shepsut, she's really building on a long tradition. And also to her, I think monarchy is beyond gender. And that's what she portrays herself as. And, you know, throughout history, I think the women who are seen as sort of similar to men are the ones who are congratulated. I think about Napoleon saying that Marie Louise, the daughter of Marie Antoinette, was the only man he feared. And Elizabeth I, the iconic speech about having the body of a weak and feeble woman, but the heart and stomach of a king. And we have other women who dress as Men throughout history. Think about when Mary I was the first coronation of a woman, she adopts some of the male dress, but not other parts of it. So she has the sword that the male king would carry at the coronation, but she also had the sceptre of the consort. And she doesn't actually wear the royal spurs, she touches them. So aspects are combined. And I think this is always the question for women, particularly in the earlier period, how do you be bothered? Woman and monarch? And what Hatshepsut's done in terms of creating a mythology of female kingship is a real problem. Her descendants, she's cancelled out, she's scraped off. And when you go to the mansion of million of years, there's like scrapes on the wall. And what really amuses me is it's done in such a shoddy way. They kind of like just scrape it off a little bit so you can see that there's a shadow there. And in the amazing new Grand Egyptian Museum, they have the head of the obelisk and Hatshepsut was supposed to be giving offerings to the God on the obelisk. And they cross her out and they replace her with some random, actually quite badly drawn flowers. I mean, I could do better. You've got the flowers giving presents to the God. And I think, you know, what was it? Was it that the workmen just thought, oh, I'm not being paid enough for this, and did it a bit shoddily and wandered off for lunch? Or was it that they feared that if they actually totally canceled out Hatshepsut, that the curse of the God would come upon them and they didn't do it. And as a consequence, we didn't know about Hatshepsut for so many years until really in the 19th century, the European explorers who were there, they said, oh, I don't understand why this person is a king, but they're referring to her as a she. So it was because some of the pronouns had been left in. So it was something of a problem for her descendants. And they cut out all the images of her as a female king, but not images of her as a consort, as a woman. Those were allowed to stay. So it wasn't all of Hatshepsut that were erased, just those bits.
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Charlotte Vosper
But the female king idea does resurface with Cleopatra. She called herself, like we say, a female king, but she's remembered as a seductress. How should we understand her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony?
- [12:55]
Kate Williams
I would like to die on this hill that Cleopatra is the greatest queen and she's the greatest queen because she's a diplomat, she's a linguist. Apparently she could speak nine languages, including to the Troglodytes. Goodness knows what the Troglodytes spoke. I know. And she was one of the few of her Ptolemaic line to actually learn Egyptian. I mean, they'd been on the throne for 300 years. You thought by now they could have managed it by now a little bit. Not that difficult, surely. And she was this great linguist, this great diplomat, and an incredible monarch, and yet she is always blamed for the end of Egypt. But it wasn't her fault. You know, Rome had captured everywhere else and Egypt was the last little bit. But also her great uncle in particular, he pretty much mortgaged Egypt to Rome and said, if I die without heirs, you can come and get it. And after that, the die was cast. So Cleopatra actually was not the end of Egypt. She held onto it for longer than anyone else would have done. And that was because she created alliances with Rome. First Julius Caesar, then Mark Antony and. And it drives me crazy the way she's seen her so sexualized and has turned into a seductress. I mean, when she met Julius Caesar, he was in his 50s, she was probably 21 or 22. And he'd had plenty of wives, any amount of lovers. And the wives of his officers really had had to submit to him. So he's a seducer. But it's always her who's blamed for it. And because Cleopatra has so often been written about by her enemies by these Roman scholars, by these Roman historians, what they're trying to say is, hey guys, don't try and resist. Give in straight away, otherwise you'll bring ruin on all Egypt. They call her wanton daughter, the Ptolemies. And another Roman writer says she's a courtesan. And this carries on and on and on. And then, I mean, I get it. Shakespeare isn't going to write a play about someone who was really good at economics and trade and languages. He wants the sexualized image. But we have there the Anthony saying, where is my serpent of old Nile? And I feed myself on most delicious poison. I mean, incredible play. And I think by the time he was writing Antony, Cleopatra James is on the throne. And the whole point is, yeah, yeah, queens are rubbish. Stuarts go. I mean, once Shakespeare, when he's on a roll has got hold of a character, you are going to really struggle to shake off that vision. So Shakespeare gives us Julius Caesar upstanding. Shakespeare gives us Henry V upstanding. He gives us Cleopatra. Sexual, indulgent, decadent failure. But she wasn't. She wasn't. You know, the meeting between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar wasn't a seductive moment. It was a summit between two superpowers. And unlike all the Ptolemies before her, she got Rome on her side in an equal partnership, not one where Rome was in charge. And she had Caesar's child. And that child, Caesarion, made her very, very dangerous because that child could rule Egypt and Rome together, a gigantic superpower. And had Caesar not been assassinated in the Ides of March, Cleopatra would have been fine, trundled on in Egypt forever and ever. And yet the battles for power in Rome changed the lives of all of those in the empire and outside of the Empire. So Caesar's assassinated, Cleopatra is back to square one, and she has to then make the alliance with Mark Antony. And in the end, she made the right decision with Caesar. Did she make it with Mark Antony? Should she have allied with Octavian? Perhaps it wasn't even possible. But I think Cleopatra, in managing to hold off Roman influence until the very end, she is a sensation.
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Charlotte Vosper
Yeah, I think it's a really powerful image when we reframe those relationships that Cleopatra had with Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, as part of her political toolkit, as a way of expressing her diplomatic relations that she was creating. I've got to ask, on her death, did she really die from a snake bite?
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Kate Williams
Well, I get very fascinated by this, Charlotte. I get very fascinated by this. Did Cleopatra die of a snakebite? And it just is this sort of sexualized, magical version of Egypt. But the reality, I think, zero chance she died by a snakebite. And actually Plutarch, who wrote the most about Cleopatra in his biographies of Caesar and Mark Antony, he sort of fudges it a bit and says, well, you know, maybe. Maybe it was snake poison. Because he knows that even though the Romans bought into this magical sexual other east of Egypt, even they would know this was unlikely. Because how can you hide a gigantic Egyptian snake in your rooms? I mean, like any pet, I've got a friend who's got a snake and it's always running away. You know, the snake wouldn't have been lying there, would it? And also, a lot of snakes do have no venom. They have dry bites. You cannot guarantee it's going to work. And it's gonna take a long time to act. There's no way that if Cleopatra was being watched by Octavian and his men, that she would have managed to use a snake poison. And really, fascinatingly There's a fresco in Pompeii that shows Cleopatra drinking the poison, it seems, in a cup, which would have made it much more likely. I mean, this woman studied poisons, studied medicines, and let's face it, she came from a dynasty that bumped each other off with no compunction. They knew how to poison each other, the Ptolemies, they were always kill. She knew how to kill herself swiftly with a poison. And the likelihood of it being a snake bite, I think is just impossible. But, you know, I think about Cleopatra. Who benefited, who benefits from her dying? It's the Romans. Because I think the last thing that Octavian wanted was a real life Cleopatra living in captivity in Rome, because that could have been a superb threat to his total vision that Egypt was excessive and needed to be taken over and all its money taken. And Mark Antony had been seduced by the East. And Cleopatra said, actually, no, that's not true. Because Octavian said that he found Mark Antony's will and it said, oh, you know, give everything to Cleopatra, and I think Rome should give everything up. And Cleopatra could have said, not true, not true. So it does very much benefit Octavian that Cleopatra is dead. Her children were taken and put in the triumph, her children by Mark Antony. Caesarean. Her son by Caesar was killed. Hmm.
- [19:30]
Charlotte Vosper
Surprising.
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Kate Williams
Surprising. He got bumped off by Caesar's men. I mean, you think, ah, yes, he would have kept Cleopatra alive but killed her son. It does fascinate me that everyone else of power is bumped off around Cleopatra, but the claim is that she committed suicide.
- [19:45]
Charlotte Vosper
I think that's a very interesting rereading of that.
- [19:48]
Kate Williams
Food for thought. We will never know. We will never know for sure.
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Charlotte Vosper
Now, moving on from the ancient world of female kings, what type of queens do we start to see emerging in the early Middle Ages?
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Kate Williams
We see great periods of female kingship, and I think certainly Egypt is one. And then we really see, I think, in the kind of four hundreds, nine hundreds, a real growth in female power. And I think if we look at great traditions, I think often when societies are in transition, we see female monarchs. It may be because all the men have died in battle and they think, well, there's no one left, let's have a woman. Or it may be because a woman, perhaps they think is more secure because she doesn't necessarily have to go out to battle, she can take the throne. But certainly, you know, a lot of these transitional periods where you see Egypt moving to empire, where you see, going up to the nine hundreds or so, the movement from small kingdoms to larger empires and then again in the 16th century, when we're seeing the transition to what we would see as a more modern state with the civil service. These are times when we see particular growth in female power. And it really fascinated me that we often think that the chrysanthemum throne in Japan is always male. Only the current emperor has one daughter and she cannot inherit. But actually, it's a very recent law. It was a 19th century law that was then formalized in 1947, post war. And we see some really great female empresses in the early period in Japan. And they are so powerful and so admired and so beloved. And then the military empire comes and that's the end of the female empresses. But until that period, you see a real growth in these women who are not just there because there's no one else, but actually chosen to be monarch. Another area that really fascinated me was Cambodia. I mean, I've had some tough research trips for this, for this bookshelf. You know, I suffer, I suffer, but I put research first. Versailles, all these tough things, I put research first. But in Cambodia, you know, Angkor Wat is, I mean, it's wondrous, but it also is symbolic of this great male monarchy that came along. And before that, there were a lot of female monarchs and it was actually a matriarchy and it was passed down from mother to daughter. And really we have to look at the history as well, because a lot of the history that was written about this, the female monarchs were conquered. But actually it just seemed as if they married and they created these alliances through marriage. And it was a peaceful alliance that they chose to bond together. And yet history hasn't liked that. So has said, oh, yes, all those female queens, they all conquer, those monarchs. And so Angkor Wat is of course, absolutely incredible, but also symbolic of this male military regime that we see coming after a series of female monarchs that we also see in other countries like Japan as well. So I was so fascinated by this early period that sees a real congratulation of female rule and into the medieval period. One of my Favorites is the 13th century monarch, Khadija of the Maldives. Now, I didn't go on a research trip to this. I really wanted to, but, you know, if you see me in the Maldives on social media, you'll know it's a research trip. It's research purposes only. Yes. I don't believe there's much remaining of her palace, her archives there. But Khadija, the Maldives, she bumped off her brother to get the throne. Then she got married because I think she felt she had to continue the line. Husband got too keen on power, bumped him off, then she tried again, hopeful, he got too keen on power, bumped him off and stayed that ruling alone after that. And she's incredible.
- [23:22]
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- [24:48]
Kate Williams
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- [25:45]
Charlotte Vosper
Now jumping Forward. In the book, you also describe the 16th century as a period of unprecedented levels of queenship. Amongst the other famous queens that you write about from the 16th century are Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. But you suggest in the book that we shouldn't view them as rivals.
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Kate Williams
Yes. Often Catherine and Anne are set against each other. One is, one is dowdy. And for me, Catherine and Anne, it is about, what does the consort mean? Because the consort is really unassailable. That's Henry VIII's problem. He can't just say, oh, can I have another wife? Or, can I use one of my illegitimate children? He has to get rid of her. And he can't even give her the kindness of divorcing her, saying, well, we've come so far, Catherine, but time to move on. He actually has to annul the marriage and say they were never married and plunge her into this impossible limbo that Catherine and Anne are both embodiments of, really, I think the male monarchy and the male society realizing that the consort has got too much power. She can't be dislodged, she can't be moved. There are precedents of divorce and annulment, but people don't want it to happen. And when Catherine of Aragon married Henry viii, the vision was she'd be queen forever. So Catherine of Aragon fights back so bravely against Henry viii, over and over again. She won't just take it. And perhaps her life would have been much easier had she agreed to him straight away, just like Anne of Cleves does, and say, well, okay, I'll retire from court. Give me a couple of mansions and houses. Instead, she fights and she suffers for it because he excludes her. She can't see her daughter Mary. It's miserable. And then when he comes to Anne Boleyn, when he wants to get rid of Anne Boleyn, he realizes he can't try and set her aside as well. She has to be killed in this political assassination where she's set up with all this evidence that she's had sex with man after man. You know, not long after the birth of Elizabeth, when they're at court surrounded by other people, when Henry VIII says, oh, I think more than 100 men had to do with Anne. You think 100 men. Are you really saying seriously that 100 men had to do with Anne? In less than three years, she was married to you. Henry turns Anne into this monster. And if Anne had simply had one son, we would remember her in such a different way. She would be Anne the matron Anne, the mother of sons. And instead, thanks to Henry, he wanted to characterize her as this wild seductress, this sinful woman. And that's often how history has seen it. The idea of Anne as this seductress, excess has stuck. And I think there's a comparison with Cleopatra. Cleopatra tried to present herself as a divorce. Instead, everyone said she was seductress. And I'm sure Anne would have done the same with Elizabeth. But we've lost all of Anne's representations of herself apart from the later ones, like the wondrous healer portrait. We don't have anything other than a medallion of Anne from the time. But I really think that Anne and Catherine symbolize this incredible power of the woman. The consort in previous times just got rid of them. Now it is a fight that almost brings Henry VIII off the throne. And isn't it the greatest irony that when Henry VIII dies, after his poor son Edward VI dies in great agony, there are three potential females for the throne. It's Lady Jane Grey, it's Mary I, it's Elizabeth. And the biggest I told you so to Henry VIII is that he turned the world upside down to have a son, and yet who is often seen as the greatest Tudor, It's Elizabeth I.
- [29:29]
Charlotte Vosper
It is a lovely irony, isn't it?
- [29:31]
Kate Williams
Yes. Take that, Henry viii. Hope you saw it. Hope you saw it. Yes, absolutely.
- [29:36]
Charlotte Vosper
So, as you mentioned, after Catherine and Anne, we get some fantastic Tudor queens following. Mary I has a pretty grim reputation. She's often known as Bloody Mary. And many historians suggest that she's been judged unfairly and that that name isn't fair.
- [29:51]
Kate Williams
I am dying on many hills in this podcast. I am dying on many hills. I've died on the Cleopatra Hill, Mary I hill, you think? Yes. She burned around 280 people, and that was brutal. And the actual imperial ambassador told her not to. But her father, in Hollinshit's chronicles, it suggested he executed 72,000 people. Now, I don't think it's that many. Maybe more like 20,000 people, but her brother, 5,500 people, died in Devon and Cornwall in the prayer book rebellion. Elizabeth executes many people, but Mary becomes the bloody one. Well, actually, she's the most merciful of Tudors because she keeps Lady Jane Grey alive. Most people would probably have chopped Lady Jane Grey's head off because Lady Jane Grey had taken the throne when it was to be Mary's. And Mary is kind to her. She keeps her alive. And only when Lady Jane Grey's idiot father gets involved in A rebellion against Mary. Does Mary realize that I'm gonna have to do something about this? Because she's pushed to do so. But Mary, I think, is the most merciful of Tudors, and she's characterized as Bloody Mary. But why has it stayed with us all these years? I think that Mary is castigated and criticized as a way of vaulting and praising Elizabeth. It was about Protestants writing history. But I also think there's something very cruel about the phrase Bloody Mary because women associate them with blood. And Mary, who tried so hard to have a child, it is totally heartbreaking. But, yes, Mary's short reign, she made great advances in terms of the queen's majesty, in terms of the queen's power. The coronation, she laid down the roadmap for Elizabeth. And yet Elizabeth, she is always seen as the great queen. And Mary was terrible.
- [31:33]
Charlotte Vosper
Do you think that Marie Antoinette is the same in your book? You suggest that she became a human shooting range.
- [31:40]
Kate Williams
Now, this is what we see, I think, in extremis, in Marie Antoinette. Yes, she was the human shooting range. And that's why I wanted to include her. Because over and over again, we see queens attacked when people are too nervous to attack the king because he could be divinely ordained after all. And she's an easy target. There is misogyny, but also she's not the monarch. The blood, she's married into it. And with Marie Antoinette, she becomes this monstrous image. She becomes blamed for everything. Now, yes, Versailles spent a lot. The aristocrats spent a lot. She spent a lot. But it was nothing compared to the spending, the military spending of being on the other side in the American wars of revolution, you know, fighting back against Britain and also the archaic taxation collection system that they have. Marie Antoinette is blamed for everything. And she is. The whole job of a queen that she was trained for is to be symbolic of wealth and excellence and society. And she continues this. And then she's turned by those around her into a monster. She's portrayed as this party animals, sexualized, excessive affairs. The affair of the diamond necklace, by which a necklace that she had refused and never wanted is imposed upon her. And a whole scandal about it is turned into caricatures in which there's a slippage between the word bijou jewel in French, which also could mean female genital. And what's so interesting is that she's the one who. So the king is executed, and he's executed in not a trial that's not necessarily fair, but he's allowed to review the evidence. A democratic vote is Taken on his killing. And so it is, by the standards, I say, a fair trial to a degree. But Marie Antoinette, she has this trial. She's not allowed to review the evidence, and there's no vote. And the committee beforehand, they say, oh, well, we've got to give the crowd Marie Antoinette's head, otherwise they'll come for hours. They blatantly say, if we don't cut off the Queen's head, the crowd are gonna cut off our head. Well, they did anyway. And she is put on this trial with all this trumped up evidence that someone once saw some bottles under someone's bed in Versailles, and that meant there were orgies and all these accusations to create her into this monster. And she is executed. But if you're so scared of the monarchy, if the monarchy is so terrible, as it was in the French Revolution, you kill the King, right? Okay, but why not kill the heir to the throne, the young boy? Now he's sent off to be apprenticed to a workman. And we might say we didn't kill children. Plenty of small children were killed in the Revolution. Aristocratic children were killed. He is not killed, and he does die of neglect and malnutrition, we believe. But also the King's brothers who have fled, they've fled into Austria, but they're still alive. If you really feel male monarchy so much, why kill the Queen? Why not kill those brothers of the King, the heirs to the throne, who do later come to the throne? And it is almost the situation that the consortium, a woman who has no right to the throne, could never get the throne. She is seen as more symbolic of the horrors and the depredation, the disaster of monarchy, than the monarchy itself. She is a human shooting range.
- [34:56]
Charlotte Vosper
By the 19th century, we get Queen Victoria, who has been, in comparison to someone like Marie Antoinette, associated with much more positive views of queenship. But this is also the age of the British Empire and constitutional monarchy. How was queenship used to sell imperial power?
- [35:15]
Kate Williams
Victoria was an image spinner. She spun that image of the perfect domestic wife and mother with a vengeance. And the British public lapped it up from her image of herself and Albert in 1848 with a Christmas tree. That meant that everyone after that had to have a Christmas tree. Victoria turned domesticity, family life into this power base for herself and this image of the Queen and her perfect domestic home life, which wasn't the truth. She and Albert were always arguing, and Victoria was bent on keeping her own power to herself. She's used across the empire as the image of the most Perfect queen. And there's a problem because there are quite a lot of female monarchs across empire at this point and the imperial forces, the British forces, want them out. But you can't say, oh, a queen's terrible, because you've got Victoria, the perfect queen. What you can say is they're a monster compared to Victoria. So, for example, the Queen of Madagascar, Ranavalona, she was characterized as a total, total monster. And Victoria's image was repeatedly given by these envoys to Rannova saying, can't you be more like Victoria? Here you are setting off these military campaigns and killing your people and refusing the missionaries can't. So Victoria is used as an image of perfect sentimental domesticity and perfect middle class happiness across the empire, from everything from biscuit tins to statues to ceremonies to images. But she's also actually physically given as an image portraits of Victoria to queens themselves, to the Queen of Madagascar saying, be more like her. And what they mean by telling the Queen of Madagascar to be more like Victoria is saying, be more subservient, do what we say, agree with us, and also be a Christian, let those missionaries back in. And the Queen of Madagascar sees missionaries as a sort of conduit, allowing imperial power in. So she throws the missionaries out. And that to me is so fascinating that Victoria is used to sell empire across the world in terms of being this, this perfect, submissive, subservient, domestic, constitutional queen when the reality of Victoria was very different. She was someone who was always asking her ministers about updates. And this wonderful PhD student of mine, Gabrielle, did some fascinating work on Victoria about how she'd write to women in the empire saying, look, no one's telling me what's really going on. You tell me what's going on. And so she knows the power of the monarchy and at the same time she's being used as this image of sentimental perfection.
- [37:59]
Charlotte Vosper
I think that comparison is really revealing about how quite queenship and monarchy is embroiled in empire itself.
- [38:06]
Kate Williams
Embroiled. That is such a good word. It is. Queenship and monarchy is embroiled in empire. It's embroiled in oppression of the nations. That the idea of Britain as the ultimate ruler with Victoria at the top of the tree fair diplomatic is used as justification to seize power from other monarchs, other women and people across the empire.
- [38:31]
Charlotte Vosper
Yeah, that's quite an uncomfortable reality to face, isn't it? By the 20th century, though, as we progress through the 20th century, empire is increasingly seen as less palatable. What were expectations of a queen then?
- [38:45]
Kate Williams
Grace Kelly is to me so emblematic of a new type of queenship in the 20th century, and that is the televisual queenship. She he is someone who is really brought in to create an image of Monaco of greatness and grandeur. Before Grace Kelly, no one really knew where Monaco was. It was much declined after World War II. It had lost a lot, totally in debt. It is really this tiny little place with absolutely nothing. Prince Rainier of Monaco needs solution. And Aristotle Onassis, who's a big investor in Monaco, he's got this great idea. He says, rainier, you know what you need to do to sort out these problems. The fact that Monaco is impoverished, coffers are empty. And if coffers are empty, France might come calling, and that could be a problem. Let's get you married to a movie star, and the movie star can put you on the map. One of the initial candidates, which I really find very amusing, is Marilyn Monroe. You know, she initially thought that she could marry Prince Rainier, and she thinks it's hilarious. She calls him Prince Reindeer, and she thinks it's so funny. But then this idea of Grace Kelly comes up, who is a Catholic like Rainier, and she's from a very wealthy Irish American family from Philadelphia. She has this image, unlike Marilyn, of a perfect good girl, of the perfect woman. She's, well, an Oscar. And Grace Kelly marries the Prince of Monaco, really not knowing him very well. She goes over to France for the Cannes Film Festival, and one of the chaps on the train says, would you mind popping over to the palace and doing a photo shoot? And she does it for Paris Match. And Paris Match take the photo shoot, and Prince Rainier takes her all around the menagerie. And then after that, they correspond, and he comes and proposes at her family's house in America. And I love the fact that she starts out as an advertising model and then, of course, I think, advertises Hollywood as a place of kindness and sensitivity, which it was not. And now she's advertising Monaco. And that wondrous footage of Grace Kelly marrying in the beautiful cathedral of Monaco. I mean, when I watch it, she looks so serene. But she said that when she went in, all she saw were cameras everywhere. In every fly arrangement, there were cameras all watching her because she was performing for the cameras. And yet, as she grew older, she sort of tried to fight against the princess image, but she couldn't. It was too powerful. She said, I never saw anything fairy tale about it. And in fact, she had a meeting with Diana Spencer. Diana was engaged. She was not yet Married to Charles. It was one of her first engagements. And she was. Because the dress she'd worn was deemed to be wrong. She hadn't known no one had given her any heads up. And she and Grace went to the powder room. And Grace is by this point, much older than Diana. And Grace says, oh, don't worry, it's going to get much worse. Thanks God. But I think that Grace, to me, really epitomizes that idea that the princess in the 20th century needs to sell the happiness of the country, the fairytale. And we forget some of the great things that Grace Kelly did because Grace created this princess fantasy that was so strong because she was such a brilliant actress. It was too strong. She then couldn't escape it. And we often forget some of the great things she did with the Red Cross, with charities, but also by prevailing on Rainier and saying we should give women the vote when there's a new constitution. So Grace, a woman who wouldn't have been able to vote, ensured the political liberation of the women of Monaco.
- [42:26]
Charlotte Vosper
That beautiful princess image definitely took hold in the case of Princess Grace and also in the case of Diana. But as both of their stories show, it's very difficult to live up to that image and that stereotype. When you were researching this book and kind of zooming out and looking at it as a whole, which of the women surprised you the most? Which of them most defied their misconstrued stereotypes?
- [42:52]
Kate Williams
That is a good question, because I felt that all of them, once I started looking into them, had been characterized by these stereotypes that I know history has been fighting against, but the wider culture has not. But I think the queen, who I knew the least about and was the most revelatory to me, was another arduous research trip to beautiful Hawaii. And the Queen of Hawaii, who was named incredible figure when she came to the throne at the end of the 19th century after her brother, the first female monarch of Hawaii. And already there were powers around her who were trying to seize her throne. Those people, those Americans and British and European, mainly Americans who had bought land, made sugar farms, sugar plantations in Hawaii, wanted power. They wanted representation, they wanted to be in the Senate, they wanted to seize power. And so the Queen of Hawaii, power is seized from her, and she fights back. First she's deposed, she's pushed out of power. She's told that if she doesn't give in, there'll be a revolution. And it's really interesting, over and over again, queens are told that if they don't give in, there'll Be a revolution. They do, because they don't want their people to die. But kings are like, yeah, yeah, bring it on, bring it on. Okay, let's see how many are gonna die. And she is pushed off the throne. And then she's accused of conspiracy to fight back. And she's put on trial in her palace, the Iolani palace, the only palace on American soil. She's put on trial and they tell her, don't go on tr. It's undignified for you. And she says, what have I got left? I've got nothing left. And I'm going to speak for myself. And her words are so powerful. Over and over again, people try to stop queens speaking at their trials, from Catherine of Aragon to Mary Queen of Scots to the Queen of Hawaii. And they speak up and everyone realizes what a travesty it is. And Queen of Hawaii was imprisoned, and she was denied newspapers or visitors, apart from one lady in waiting and no pencil or pen or anything. And she wasn't even allowed to walk on the balcony so people would see her. What she was not denied was a needle and thread. And she creates this sensational quilt of resistance. She draws and embroiders her resistance, her power as queen in this quilt, which is still on show. And then they release her. Her. She's finally released because I think American pressure, and actually the United States say, why are we imprisoning this poor woman? It's not fair. And then she writes her own memoir, Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen, published by a publisher in Boston, and it becomes a best seller. And she makes it clear that no one could say it was her desire to lose the throne. It was a democratic vote that the Hawaiians wanted to keep the throne. I love the Queen of Hawaii, and I think her power, her resistance right up until her death in 1917 was absolutely admirable. And she is an image in modern day Hawaii of independence. There are many Queen Iluahle's statues, including a big one in front of the Hawaiian state buildings. But I chose her particularly because she is emblematic of the fact that if you don't tell your own story as a woman, as a queen, it'll be told for you. And she tells it in music, embroidery and her book.
- [46:13]
Charlotte Vosper
Yeah, it's so fantastic that we have that resource of her voice and her message of resistance. I also wanted to ask you about which of the queens you are most drawn to. So let's play a game of dinner, drinks or dodge. Which of the queens would you pick for each? So Dinner, drinks or dodge dinner?
- [46:33]
Kate Williams
I think it would have to be Cleopatra because apparently her dinners were huge. The Roman commentators, and indeed someone who apparently had a connection with the palace, said there were really gigantic meals, big celebrations over and over again that Egypt is such a wonderful land of great agricultural wealth. So I think they would have had loads of really nice food. And also, in one of the dinners, Cleopatra takes a pearl and she dissolves it in the wine and she drinks it and I, you know, I wonder, is this one of the pearls that maybe Julius Caesar found in Britain? Is that a British pearl? She's dissolving? That's just one of my little thoughts. But I would like to go to one of Cleopatra's dinner because perhaps they wouldn't have had my favourite chocolate biscuits there to be eaten. I don't think so, but I'm sure there'll been other wondrous things and it would have been grand and excessive. Although I do worry that my outfits wouldn't have been up to it. And something might have said, you know, go and sit down there.
- [47:34]
Charlotte Vosper
The end of the table.
- [47:35]
Kate Williams
Exactly.
- [47:36]
Charlotte Vosper
Okay, so then, drinks. You're stopping by for a quick cheeky drink with a queen. Who's it gonna be?
- [47:41]
Kate Williams
My drinks would be with these two great embroiderers, either Mary, Queen of Scots or the Queen of Hawaii. And the problem is, I feel that if I paid a visit to the Queen of Hawaii and didn't manage to bring along any embroidery techniques, she might have been a little bit disappointed in me. But I can do the music, so hopefully she would have forgiven me with the music. But. But yes, I would love to see the Queen of Hawaii. I'm sure you're quite strict on your rules, aren't you, Charlotte? That I can't be interventionist. I can't tell these queens what's coming. I can't say I don't know. Cleopatra, you and Mark Antony should send Cesarian away and hide him because they'll bump him off. I shouldn't say that, Shannon.
- [48:16]
Charlotte Vosper
No, you can't say that. That's not allowed. You're purely there to eat and enjoy and drink and sew. Then maybe the sewing wouldn't go so well if you were drinking. It's a disaster.
- [48:25]
Kate Williams
Sewing is a disaster. And I think, who am I going to avoid?
- [48:28]
Charlotte Vosper
Who's gonna dodge?
- [48:29]
Kate Williams
I think this is controversial. Okay, but I think I might have to dodge. Elizabeth, I. Ooh. Yes, I know it's controversial. The fellow ginger. We're gingers together. I'm wondering whether I would have had the intellect to live up to Elizabeth I's expectations of lively conversation. I'm just not sure I could have done it.
- [48:52]
Charlotte Vosper
That's a good answer. I like that.
- [48:53]
Kate Williams
I think it's a tough one though. It's a tough one, but it depends on what sit. Am I just a powerless lady in waiting? Because then they can just.
- [49:01]
Charlotte Vosper
You're just an observer.
- [49:02]
Kate Williams
Just an observer. Because I would have been a terrible lady in waiting. Also I do have a habit of saying the wrong thing, so I think I would have been long executed by anyone. Yes. I just don't think that Elizabeth I would have thought much of me. The embroidery was poor, you know, my conversational skill was probably quite good enough. And I think, yes, I might have been out quite swiftly.
- [49:22]
Charlotte Vosper
So then looking ahead now, do you think we'll ever stop expecting queens to live up to an impossible ideal and then criticizing them when they don't?
- [49:33]
Kate Williams
I think we do expect women in particular in the monarchy to live up to this impossible idea. We have this obsession with both female behavior and the image of women and that combines with female monarchy to make really it impossible, I think, for anyone to hit those standards. And it is almost as if the image is preferred to the reality. That golden image of Elizabeth II on her coronation day, the vision of Grace Kelly when she is marrying in the Cathedral of Monaco, that almost that is what people want more than the actual reality of a flesh and blood woman. And I think for me, female monarchy is like a bellwether. It's like a thermometer of how we see women in society and what. Whether she is bad with money, seduces led by the heart, needs male guidance, cannot rule alone. And these stories repeat and repeat even until the modern day perhaps, when we can finally see a queen as a flesh and blood woman in the same way that we might see a male monarch will be a moment when we have reached a different perception of women in society.
- [50:44]
Charlotte Vosper
At the end of your book, you mention the idea of. Of replacing queens with holograms. I realize that it's a little bit tongue in cheek, but I wondered if you could expand on what you meant by that.
- [50:54]
Kate Williams
I was thinking about that moment in the Platinum Jubilee when the Gold State coach, which is famously uncomfortable. I mean, I wouldn't know, I've never been in it, but famously uncomfortable was sent out around the palace and the mall on TV. And the real life Elizabeth II in her 90s was not in it. It was actually a hologram of the young queen as she had been in her 20s, waving out and everyone thought that was marvel. And is that what we want? Monarchs who aren't ill, who don't age, who don't tire, who don't complain, who wave like a magical hologram. And that's what so fascinated me. And yes, it would have been really barbaric to put a woman in her 90s in such an uncomfortable mode of transport. But would we get to a situation where a younger monarch or a younger royal woman could be put in the state coach and go round as a hologram? You know, sometimes I think we make such demands of our female monarchs. Are the demands we make on these women too much? That was Professor Kate Williams speaking to Charlotte Vosper. Kate is a historian, presenter and author specializing in royal history and her latest book, A New History of Women and Power is out now. The Right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. @blinds.com We've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real Design Professionals free sample samples zero pressure right now. Get up to 45 off site wide plus get a free professional measure@blinds.com rules and restrictions apply.
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