She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth This is now a BBC4 series showing in March 2012. When Edward VI
- Henry VIIIs longed-for son
- died in 1553, extraordinarily, there was no one left to claim the title King of Engl&. For the first time, all the contenders for the crown were female. In 1553, England was about to experience the monstrous regiment
- the unnatural rule
- of a woman. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edwards death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I & granddaughter of William the Conquerer, came tantalisingly close to securing her hold on the power of the crown. & between the 12th & the 15th centuries three more exceptional women
- Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, & Margaret of Anjou
- discovered, as queens consort & dowager, how much was possible if the presumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly. The stories of these women
- told here in all their vivid humanity
- illustrate the paradox which the female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman; & the king was the head of all. How, then, could a woman be king, how could royal power lie in female hands?ISBN: 9780571237067