Through centuries of male-only and then male-dominated rule of England and Britain, the men who take the throne don’t come out of nowhere. The mothers and grandmothers may work primarily behind the scenes, but they make their presence and influence known.
This week, we’ll be looking at six of the women who came to England and became game-changers: Emma of Normandy, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Henrietta Maria of France, Mary of Modena, and Mary of Teck. In her own way, each of these women had an extraordinary and lasting impact on her son (or, in some cases, sons) and his rule.
Emma of Normandy
Emma of Normandy arrived in England at age 12, daughter of Richard of Normandy and Gunnor of Denmark. Emma’s Viking heritage was seen as a way to preserve England from ongoing Viking attacks. She married Aethelred, who was 20 years her senior and had 10 children already—making it unlikely at that point that Emma’s children would ever come to the throne. Even at her young age, she quickly became involved in her husband’s court. She received land and began building projects, especially around Winchester. She had two sons, Edward and Alfred, and a daughter Godgifu, which strengthened her position.
Unfortunately, Aethelred continued fighting against the Danes, leading to a Viking invasion of England in 1013. King Swyen took control, so Emma and her children fled to Normandy to take refuge with her father. After Swyen’s death, Emma and Aethelred retook control. Aethelred died in 1016 and his eldest surviving son from his first marriage, Edmund Ironside, took the throne even though Emma advocated for her son Edward. Swyen’s son Cnut invaded England and defeated Edmund Ironside; their agreement to split the kingdom ended with Edmund’s death. By the end of 1016, Cnut was King of all England. Emma maintained a friendly relationship with the new regime and married Cnut in 1017.
Queen of England again, now with the “enemy” regime, Emma became an important part of Cnut’s government. She advised the King and is shown in the only surviving manuscript image of Cnut, where they stand on either side of the New Minster at Winchester. She and Cnut had two children: Harthacnut and Gunnhild.
When Cnut died in 1035, Emma continued to influence politics. She worked to make sure one of her sons, either Cnut’s son Harthacnut or Aethelred’s son Edward, became the next King. But the throne went to Cnut’s son with his first wife, Harald Harefoot. Ultimately, Harthacnut ruled Denmark while Harald ruled England; then they ruled England jointly from 1035 to 1037, after which Harthacnut was driven into exile. When Harald Harefoot died in 1040, Harthacnut became King and Emma is thought to have arranged for his half-brother Edward to become joint ruler. Harthacnut died in 1042 and Edward, who became known as Edward the Confessor, became King of England. He seems to have resented his mother’s relationship with Cnut; he deprived Emma of wealth and her position at court.
Emma’s political alliances and influence helped shaped the monarchy. She also established a family relationship between the dukes of Normandy and the Anglo-Saxon kings of England, which gave the Normans a hereditary claim to the English throne. Emma was involved and influential in politics on both sides of the English Channel and throughout Europe. Less than 15 years after Emma’s death, William of Normandy set out for England. His claim to the throne was based in part on Emma and her influence.
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine, like Emma of Normandy, came to the throne more than once. Unlike Emma, Eleanor became Queen of France and then Queen of England. Her two husbands became enemies, as did their heirs. It was…complicated. And although she wasn’t responsible for all of it, Eleanor’s decisions and actions contributed significantly to the royal families of France and England in the 12th century.
Eleanor was raised in an environment of literature, philosophy, art, and languages, as well as court politics. After the death of her father, she became Duchess of Aquitaine and the ward of the King of France. The King quickly betrothed her to her son and brought her to Paris. Louis and Eleanor were married in July 1137, and within months they became King and Queen of France.
Louis VII made a series of bad decisions and faced increasing criticism from his people and the Pope. He decided to go on a Crusade; Eleanor decided to go with him and spent 1147-1149 traveling with her husband. At the court of her uncle, Raymond of Poitiers at Antioch, trouble between the royal couple came to a head. Eleanor was happy in the luxurious court and supported her uncle’s Crusade plan to attack Aleppo, but Louis was determined to push on toward Jerusalem and forced Eleanor to accompany him. The Crusade turned out to be a failure, as did the marriage.
Disappointed in life with Louis, Eleanor pressed for an annulment. Louis resisted for a while, but eventually the lack of a male heir was persuasive and the annulment was granted on grounds of consanguinity. Within just two months, she was married again, this time to Henry of Anjou, who was 11 years her junior and more closely related to her than Louis had been! The speed with which the marriage was arranged and carried out raised the possibility that perhaps she had been working on it before her annulment was final. In any case, Henry was heir to the English throne and two years after the marriage Eleanor was once again crowned Queen Consort, this time of England.
Eleanor’s second marriage was full of drama and important milestones for the future. The couple had eight children together by 1166, including four surviving sons. In 1167, Eleanor moved her household to Poitiers. It was here that the legend began of Eleanor and possibly her daughter holding “Courts of Love.” Along with her daughter Marie, the story goes, Eleanor leaned back to her childhood with a life full of literature, poetry, and music and established the same in her court. The focus was chivalry and courtly love, and the legends outlived Eleanor’s actual time in Poitiers.
In 1173, Young Henry, so-called to distinguish him from his father Henry II, came to France, purportedly to plot a coup against his father. Eleanor is thought to have helped and at least supported her sons as they combined to fight their father for the throne. The King prevailed; he forgave his sons but not his wife. Eleanor spent the final 16 years of Henry’s life imprisoned in a variety of English strongholds. When Young Henry died in 1183, he begged his father to forgive and release Eleanor. The King didn’t go that far, but he did allow her to rejoin the royal household on occasion, such as Christmas court, and resume some of her duties as Queen.
Eleanor supported her son John’s claim to the throne and participated on his side in the rebellion of her grandson Arthur. However, she seems to have recognized John’s limitations, and she was not as involved in his reign as she had been in Richard’s. As she approached her eightieth year, something practically unheard of at the time, she retired from court. She died in 1203.
Isabella of France
Our first two royal mothers promoted and supported their sons’ claims to the throne. Isabella of France took this to a whole new level.
She came from France in 1308 to marry Edward II when she was just 12 years old and was crowned Queen consort a month after her wedding. At such a young age, Isabella wasn’t involved in English politics initially; nor was she of much interest to her husband, who had been infatuated with Piers Gaveston for years. Gaveston was killed by English barons who resented his influence with the King in 1312, by which time Isabella was pregnant. Her son Edward was born in November 1312. After that, the marriage between Isabella and Edward seemed to significantly improve for a time. But that changed when the King found a powerful new favorite, Hugh Despenser the Younger.
Isabella hated Despenser, who reduced her influence and presence at court. Edward was drawn away from his wife, and in 1324 went to war against her brother Charles IV of France and began to treat her like an enemy. In March 1325, the King sent his wife to France to negotiate a peace treaty. King Edward later sent his son Prince Edward to France on his behalf. Isabella seized this opportunity: with the heir alongside her in France, she gave King Edward an ultimatum: get rid of Despenser. The King refused.
The next year, having betrothed her son to the daughter of the Count of Hainault to secure cash and an army, Isabella invaded England. The King’s support collapsed quickly; Hugh Despenser was captured and executed in creative and quite gross way. Parliament decided the King must abdicate in favor of his 14-year old son. Edward III began his reign 25 January 1327, with Isabella and Roger Mortimer effectively ruling the country. It’s not exactly clear what Isabella’s relationship with Mortimer was, but he had been an essential part of her efforts to overthrow her husband and take control.
Edward III became tired of being controlled by his mother and her favorite, so he launched a successful coup and gained control in 1330. Mortimer was captured and hanged, and Isabella was stripped of much of her income. She lived independently and traveled around the country for nearly 30 more years. She entertained frequently and spent lavishly on clothes and jewels. When she died in 1358, she was buried at Greyfriars in London. Although she ended her life as a typical Queen Mother, she had in fact invaded her country and put her son on the throne.
Henrietta Maria of France
Henrietta Maria of France married Charles I, second Stuart King of England, in 1625. She spoke little English and was Catholic, making her very unpopular in England. The King and Queen had eight children, including sons Charles and James. Henrietta Maria invited Anthony van Dyck was invited to court to paint several portraits of the royal couple. Van Dyck’s portraits captured the sense of divine right to rule that Charles and Henrietta Maria believed to completely. The Queen brought French fashion to the English court. She was also interested in music and court masques, which she often performed in herself.
As time went on, Henrietta Maria began to expand her influence to promote Catholicism. In 1632, she began to build a new Catholic chapel at Somerset House. The Protestant community was alarmed by grand ceremony marking the opening of the chapel in 1636. This encouraged English Catholics to move more openly; they were also welcome at court. Public sentiment began to coalesce against the Queen. The King was also coming under pressure for his failed wars. He dissolved Parliament three times and was determined to raise money on his own. As a result, Henrietta Maria began reaching out to Catholics in England and abroad to raise funds.
In 1641, Charles was forced to call Parliament, which attempted to move against the Queen. In return, the King attempted to have five members arrested. It was King versus Parliament: in August 1642 the royal standard was raised and the Civil War began.
Henrietta Maria went to the Hague during as the Civil War began and continued to raise funds for the royalist cause. She also attempted to enlist the support of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange and King Christian IV of Denmark. She returned to England for a while, but as the King’s position weakened, Henrietta went to France and established a royalist court there. She was devastated to learn of the execution of the King in 1649. She was now Queen Mother of the young King Charles II, who held an alternate court in France.
In 1660, Charles was invited back to London and restored to the throne. Henrietta Maria returned to England and moved into Somerset House. She spent time in France and England, eventually settling in France in 1665. She died in 1669 and was buried in the Royal Basilica of Saint Denis. She had been a huge support to her husband and had kept the Stuart dynasty viable through her royal court in France. A strong advocate for the Stuarts, her support of the dynasty helped her two sons take the throne.
Mary of Modena
Henrietta Maria’s daughter-in-law was Mary of Modena, another French, Catholic princess. Mary of Modena grew up in the court of French King Louis XIV and was selected to be the bride of James Duke of York, brother and heir of King Charles II. James and Mary were married by proxy on 30 September 1673 and didn’t even meet for a couple of months. It was not love at first sight when they did meet: reportedly Mary burst into tears when she met her new husband. However, eventually they learned to get along, despite the Duke’s frequent infidelities.
Mary’s Catholicism made her very unpopular. When James refused to take the Test Act of 1673, designed to prevent Catholics from holding any powerful office, he was revealed to be Catholic as well. In 1678, the “Popish Plot” broke out with Mary’s secretary accused of trying to overthrow the King and put her husband on the throne. James and Mary headed to Belgium in exile.
Their fortune changed a few years later. In February 1685, Charles II died and James and Mary became King and Queen of England. Their coronation was held the following April 23; the first full-length joint coronation since Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon in 1509. The Queen became pregnant again in 1687, setting off one of the strangest scandals of the Stuart reign.
Based on her history of miscarriages, people assumed she would not be able to bear a healthy son. She did, this represented a great threat to Protestant power. A son would take precedence over James’s two Protestant daughters, whom everyone had assumed would take the throne and return the crown to Protestantism. Thus emerged the rumor of the warming pan baby, which claimed that the Queen had once again miscarried and a replacement baby had been smuggled into her room in a warming pan. Even though there had been witnesses to the birth (and even though the size of a warming pan made it impossible to use it to smuggle in a baby), the rumor grew and was widely accepted by Protestants.
The child was christened Prince James Francis Edward. This triggered the Protestant Parliament’s decision to invite William of Orange and his wife, James’s eldest daughter and previous heir, to invade England and take the throne. James was devastated that both daughters turned against him. He had sent his wife and young son to France for safety, and he decided to flee the country and join them. William and Mary accepted the throne vacated by James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688
Mary of Modena became popular in the French court and developed a friendship with Louis XIV. After James II died in 1701, the French King recognized James Francis Edward as King of England with Mary as Regent. Mary issued a manifesto outlining the claim of her son to the throne. Although this was ignored in England, Mary reached a compromise with the Scottish Confederate Lords. When William III died in 1702, Lord Lovat of Scotland declared James Francis Edward the King of England. The once-Queen died on 7 May 1718 and was buried among the nuns at Chaillot. But despite her quiet end, she made the ongoing Jacobite claim possible not only for the Old Pretender, as James Francis Edward was known, and also for his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck was the final foreign princess to become Queen Consort of Britain and then Queen Mother of a British King. Officially Princess of Teck, she was actually born and raised in the United Kingdom. Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes was a royal of the Germanic state of Teck. She was the first cousin, once removed, of Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria was fond of her and chose her as the bride for her grandson, Prince Albert Victor. Their engagement lasted just six weeks before the prince died from the influenza pandemic of 1891. His younger brother George was now heir to the throne, and Victoria still wanted Mary as a royal bride. So George proposed in 1893, and Mary accepted. They were married later that year.
George became Prince of Wales and Mary became Princess of Wales when George’s father Edward came to the throne in 1901 after the death of Queen Victoria. When Edward VII died in 1910, George and Mary became King and Queen Consort. Mary had a reverence for the Royal Family and the Royal Collection. She was determined to restore the collection and retrieve the pieces that had been given or sold out of the collection She collected miniatures, figurines, and gemstones, including Faberge eggs. She also commissioned the Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, which includes contributions from more than 1,000 artists and craftsmen of the early 20th century.
During World War I, Queen Mary instituted an austerity drive and rationing at Buckingham Palace. She was a great support to the King during the war and throughout his reign. She and the King had six children, including sons Edward (known in the family as David) and George (known in the family as Bertie). After a 25-year marriage, George V died 20 January 1936. Having supported her husband and the royal family through the war, Mary would now be faced with helping the monarchy weather a very different challenge.
David took the throne as King Edward VIII after his father died. He had been very popular as Prince of Wales, and people looked forward to his reign. The problem was the woman he wanted to share it with: Wallis Simpson. A divorced woman with a questionable reputation, she was not acceptable to traditionalists such as Queen Mary. Church and government leaders agreed with Queen Mary, and eventually King Edward VIII was forced to make a choice: the crown or Wallis. He abdicated the throne in December 1936, declaring he was unable to continue as King without the support of “the woman I love.”
In the resulting chaos, Queen Mary was firm in her support of the new King, George VI, and his family. She appeared on the balcony with King George, Queen Elizabeth, and the two young Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret after the coronation. She supported the two young Princesses and nurtured Elizabeth, the new heir to the throne. As the country was plunged into another world war, Queen Mary remained an example of stability and previous victory.
Queen Mary outlived her son George VI and saw her granddaughter become Queen Elizabeth II. She died just 10 weeks before the coronation.
Queen Mary represented an extraordinary thread through the monarchy, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the reign of Elizabeth II.
From Emma of Normandy to Mary of Teck, several Queen Consorts have shaped the English and British monarchy through the reigns of their husbands and their sons (and granddaughter). We’ll continue to look at royal mothers and grandmothers, in the weeks ahead. Join us!