Young Queens

June 5, 2023
Historian Chang (Portraits of the Queen Mother) highlights complicated mother-daughter relationships in this sympathetic study of the 16th-century French queen Catherine de’ Medici; her daughter, Elisabeth de Valois; and her daughter-in-law, Mary, Queen of Scots. Following Mary’s betrothal at the age of five to Elisabeth’s brother, Francis II, the three women bonded while living in the same household for 13 years. Elisabeth married Spain’s king, Philip II, in 1559; two years later, Mary, recently widowed, returned to Scotland to rule in her own right, having inherited the throne when she was six days old. Meanwhile, Catherine strove to influence both young women to benefit France. Relations between the queens devolved when Catherine blocked Mary’s remarriage to Philip II’s heir, his son by an earlier marriage. Still, the Scottish queen begged both Catherine and Elisabeth for help after she was imprisoned by Elizabeth I of England in 1568. Chang wisely adds context by also delving into the motivations of Elizabeth I and Philip II, but ignores previous examples of powerful medieval queen mothers whose experiences may have emboldened Catherine’s far-ranging ambitions. Nevertheless, this sheds valuable light on interpersonal feelings and familial relations often missed in more traditional accounts of political power.