My latest article: The troubled history of kings consort

Earlier this month, Prince Henrik of Denmark caused quite an uproar when he announced that he no longer wants to be buried together with his wife of fifty years, Queen Margrethe II. In a series of interviews he also launched a personal attack on his wife, who he claimed makes a fool of him, and stated that he would be willing to reconsider the decision about his burial place if she would agree to make him King Consort.
It was explained that the Prince’s decision was made because of his dissatisfaction with his title and function, something a spokeswoman said had become more and more important for him in recent years. It is far from the first time Prince Henrik raises the issue of his title and the fact that he believes that as the wife of a king is queen, a queen’s husband ought to be king (i.e. king consort and not, as some ill-informed people have claimed, take over as monarch).
Many seem to think that this is an idea Prince Henrik has grasped out of thin air, but in a long article in today’s issue of the broadsheet Politiken (external link) I recount the history of kings consort, which began in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the twelfth century and soon spread to Naples, Spain, Navarre, Portugal, Poland, England, Scotland and Cyprus. In fact, the husbands of queens regnant were actually usually (although not always) styled kings and many of them took part in the governance of the realm. The so far last king consort in Europe died as recently as 1902, and it is only during the last century and a half that it has become more common for male consorts not to be called kings. Thus, although Prince Henrik may have history and principles on his side, it seems highly unlikely that he will ever achieve his dream of becoming King Consort of Denmark.

Book news: The male consorts of female monarchs

While much has been written about female monarchs, there has until now been no study of the roles and challenges of the men who were in the unusual position of consorts to female rulers. Therefore I am glad to be one of the contributors to the new book The Man Behind the Queen: Male Consorts in History, edited by Charles Beem and Miles Taylor, which has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan of New York.
My contribution is a chapter on Prince Consort Henrik of Denmark and his struggle for recognition of the role he has tried to carve out through his more than four decades as the first ever male consort of a Danish monarch. But this is only the last chapter of a book that covers a number of male consorts in Navarre, Spain, England/Britain, Sweden, Russia, Austria, Portugal, Brazil, India, the Netherlands and Denmark from the end of the thirteenth century till today.
The table of contents:

Introduction: The Man Behind the Queen; Charles Beem and Miles Taylor
1. The King Consorts of Navarre, 1284-1512; Elena Crislyn Woodacre
2. Ferdinand the Catholic: King and Consort; David Abufalia
3. "He to be Entitled Kinge": King Philip and the Anglo-Spanish Court; Sarah Duncan
4. Why Prince George of Denmark Did Not Become a King of England; Charles Beem
5. From Ruler in the Shadows to Shadow King: Frederick I of Sweden; Fabian Persson
6. Count Ernst Johann Bühren and the Russian Court of Anna Ioannova; Michael Bitter
7. Francis Stephen: Duke, Regent and Emperor; Derek Beales
8. Prince Albert; The Creative Consort; Karina Urbach
9. Commemorating the Consort in Colonial Bombay; Simin Patel
10. Ferdinand II of Portugal: A Conciliator King in a Turmoil Kingdom; Daniel Alves
11. Gaston d'Orléans, Comte d'Eu: Prince Consort to Princess Isabel of Brazil; Roderick Barman
12. The Rise and Fall of Siddiq Hasan, Male Consort of Shah Jahan of Bhopal; Caroline Keen
13. Royalty, Rank, and Masculinity: Three Dutch Princes Consort in the Twentieth Century; Maria Grever and Jeroen Van Zanten
14. Prince Philip: Sportsman and Youth Leader; Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska
15. The Prince Who Would Be King: Henrik of Denmark's Struggle for Recognition; Trond Norén Isaksen

The best royal books of 2013

I did not have much time for writing book reviews on my blog in the past year, but 2013 saw the publication of several interesting works, so I thought I should at least give a brief survey of some of the best royal books of 2013 (in no particular order).

1. Jonas Nordin, Versailles: Slottet, parken, livet
Versailles, the ultimate royal palace, is done more than justice by the Swedish historian Jonas Nordin in his well-researched, insightful and readable account of the palace, the park and life at the French court. While most of the literature on Versailles focuses on the age of Louis XIV, Nordin takes the story through the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, making this one of the most complete histories of Versailles.

2. Philip Murphy, Monarchy and the End of Empire: The House of Windsor, the British Government, and the Post-war Commonwealth
While the accession of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain 62 years ago was hailed by some as the dawn of a new Elizabethan age, the main link between Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II proved to be that while the foundations for the British Empire were laid during Elizabeth I, the Empire came to an end during Elizabeth II. Taking up Peter Hennessy’s and the late Ben Pimlott’s challenge to historians to explore the links between monarchy and politics, Professor Murphy shows how the British Empire has morphed into a Commonwealth of Nations and what has been the role of Elizabeth II and the monarchy in this process. This volume will take its place among the handful of the most important books on the reign of Elizabeth II written in her lifetime.

3. Jes Fabricius Møller, Dynastiet Glücksborg: En danmarkshistorie
While there is no dearth of Danish royal books there has until now been no book covering the history of the reign of the Glücksburg dynasty since it came to the Danish throne in 1863. The historian Jes Fabricius Møller puts this right by what may be called a “political history” of the Danish monarchy since 1863, where he charts the monarchy’s interaction with politics, the public and the media. Unlike many royal books this one approaches the royal family in an analytical rather than anecdotal manner. Yet it does so in an engaging way, so that the result is rewarding reading for general readers as well as for fellow historians.

4. Elena Woodacre, The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics, and Partnership, 1274-1512
While the Kingdom of Navarre is largely forgotten today, it commanded a strategically important position in the Pyrenean region and is also of interest as the kingdom where reigning queens first ceased being an anomaly. Between 1274 and 1512, when the major part of the realm was conquered by Castile, there were five queens regnant (a sixth queen ruled the rump kingdom later in the sixteenth century). In her ground-breaking volume, the historian Elena Woodacre investigates the challenges faced by these five female rulers and their way of governing, including the various modes of power-sharing with their husbands. As such this is a book which ought to be of interest to anyone interested in the issue of female rule in early modern Europe.

5. Poul Grinder-Hansen, Frederik 2.: Danmarks renæssancekonge King Frederik II, who reigned over the Dano-Norwegian realm between 1559 and 1577, has to a great extent been overshadowed by his popular, long-reigning son Christian IV and often been portrayed in a less than flattering manner. In this first biography of Frederik II, the historian Poul Grinder-Hansen sums up recent decades’ re-evaluation of Frederik II, showing how his policies were arguably far more successful than those of his son and demonstrating the cultural role played by Denmark-Norway’s first true renaissance monarch.

New books: Europe’s female monarchs

When Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister of Britain in 1979, it was the first time since Ekaterina II of Russia died and Maria I of Portugal went insane in the 1790s that a European government was led by a woman, states the American historian William Monter in his new book The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300-1800, published by Yale University Press.
Some might perhaps object that there had been several female monarchs in between, but, Monter argues, the advent of constitutional monarchy in the early nineteenth century meant that these queens regnant were not executive heads of state. The women who reigned over European kingdoms during the preceding five centuries were, on the other hand, also heads of government.
There were thirty of them, ranging from the sixteen-year-old Jeanne II, who became Queen of Navarre in 1328, to the forty-two-year-old Maria I of Portugal, whose effective reign came to an end with her mental breakdown in 1792 and the regency of her son from 1799. Except from France, the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal States, female monarchs were found all over Europe, covering the map from Oslo in the north to Palermo in the south, and from Lisbon in the west to Nicosia in the east.
There had, as her numeral alone suggest, been female monarchs even before Jeanne II, and Monter gives an overview of female rule both before 1300 and outside Europe before embarking on his main subject. In Europe, female monarchs before 1300 were mostly found in Latin countries during the twelfth century, and must then be considered anomalies. After 1300, they became a more regular, although still rare occurrence, and, Monter points out, “centered in Christian Europe”, while vanishing from most Asian monarchies. The author identifies two ways through which most female monarchs acceded to their thrones: inheritance from fathers and usurpation by regents.
Monter shows how his list of thirty female monarchs through five centuries might meaningfully be split into two halves to find that most of the fifteen rulers during the first 250 years “were younger women who generally ruled in close association with and often politically subordinated to their husbands”. After 1550, on the other hand, the majority of the female monarchs “governed her kingdom autonomously for at least part of her reign”, while husbands as co-rulers became rarer and were eventually reduced to subordinated positions – if the female monarchs were married at all.
Fernando of Aragón and Isabel of Castile are without doubt the most famous – and arguably the most successful – couple to have served as joint monarchs, but the author highlights the pioneering role of the now mostly forgotten Kingdom of Navarre, which saw unusually many female monarchs, for the concept of joint rule between a queen regnant and her husband (Danish readers might well note that the part of France from which hails the family of Henrik the Prince Consort, who has often voiced the idea that he ought to be King Consort, was subject to the monarchs of Navarre).
When Jeanne II became Queen of Navarre in 1328, she and her husband insisted on a joint coronation, despite official Navarrese opposition, and the reins of power were thereafter left in the hands of the King Consort, Philippe of Evreux. This, which Monter calls “the Navarrese solution to female inheritance”, became the norm throughout Europe for most of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – although there were of course exceptions. But, the author points out, this solution failed everywhere but in Navarre, and in Navarre itself it eventually unravelled following the death in 1441 of Queen Blanche, whose widower clung on to the throne until his death 38 years later, preventing their son from ascending the throne.
Female regents are not included in this book; although rulers, they held power only temporarily and were not monarchs in their own rights. Nevertheless Monter chooses to take a closer look at some female regents which he considers of great importance for the development whereby it was gradually accepted that women ruled on their own even while married. This, Monter considers, was “greatly assisted by various printed, painted, sculpted, and engraved endorsements of women’s capacities for ruling, [...] the most audacious of these [...] sponsored or commissioned not by female monarchs (whose sovereignty was permanent and divinely ordained) but by eight female regents, each of whom governed a major state for at least five years between 1507 and 1633”.
1550 marks the turning point in Monter’s book. The six queens regnant between 1550 and 1700 were married for a total of only 20 % of their reigns (nineteen of eighty-eight years), and two of them (Elizabeth I of England and Christina of Sweden) never married at all. In England, the husband of Mary I, Philip II of Spain, was accorded the title of King, but a prenuptial agreement left him no independent powers, an act which Monter considers “a watershed in the history of marriages of royal heiresses”.
While the first husband of Mary Queen of Scots was given the crown matrimonial, her second husband received the title of king, but without the right to act on his own, and her third husband did not receive the royal title. At the same time, the Navarrese pattern “broke down in Navarre itself”, where Jeanne III d’Albret, despite strong opposition from the estates, insisted on a joint role with her husband and got her way. But the Queen’s conversion to the Reformed church caused the marriage to break down, and Queen Jeanne and King Antoine found themselves on opposing sides in the religious wars (in which the King was killed).
There were two notable exceptions to the general trend at this time. The joint rule of William III and Mary II of England, Scotland and Ireland was in reality William III’s sole rule, and when the Swedish estates refused to agree to a joint rule, Queen Ulrika Eleonora abdicated in favour of her husband, who became King Fredrik I. But, as the author points out, “England after 1688 looks less like the dawn of modern liberalism than the last gasp of the Middle Ages”. And when William III died and Queen Anne came to the throne, her husband received neither title nor powers.
Like Queen Anne, Western Europe’s two other female monarchs of the eighteenth century – Maria Theresia of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia and Maria I of Portugal – “exercised power while finding various ways to keep their husbands in politically useful but subordinate roles”. And none of the four Russian empresses of the eighteenth century was married at any stage of her reign. So within five centuries, Europe moved from a situation where female monarchs were generally dependent on their husbands to a situation where male consorts, if they existed at all, were generally sidelined and the female monarch exercised her powers on her own. Thus it seems quite ironic that, after the 1790s, 180 years would pass before a woman again became the actual rather than merely symbolic head of a European government.
Monter finds that women did not generally rule very differently from men; “for all the talk about female inferiority and frailty, having a woman as divine-right sovereign made very little practical difference in the way governments actually operated”. However, the reigns of female monarchs were much likelier than those of male monarchs to be prematurely or dramatically terminated. The statistics also show that only 40 % of female monarchs, as opposed to 70 % of male monarchs, were succeeded by their direct descendants.
Monter’s analytical powers seem to be at their sharpest in the earlier parts of the book; towards the end it tends to read too much like a collection of short biographies of female monarchs. The book also suffers from its lack of a final and concluding chapter where the author might have summed up his findings; instead he treats the readers to an epilogue about how female monarchs have been represented in twentieth century films, pointing out that while “[s]uccessful women rulers from Hatsheput to Thatcher have been rulers first and women second [...], popular representations of them have always reversed these aspects because romance sells infinitely better than political power in female hands”.
There are some factual mistakes to be found and, when attempting to cover such a vast field, the author cannot possibly have as sure a grasp on all countries and persons involved. There are, obviously, also some language barriers to struggle with. A Norwegian historian like myself might notice that this colours some of what he writes about the Scandinavian female monarchs. And when covering such a vast topic in little more than 200 pages, there will necessarily be some summarising and generalising which causes some nuances to be lost – for instance one might argue that there were certain variances in Navarre which are lost and that the author’s view of “the Navarrese solution” is somewhat too static.
But although one may occasionally disagree with some of the author’s view, the main impression is that this is a significant contribution to the historiography of European monarchies as well as of female rule. There have in recent years been several studies devoted to female monarchs – among them Charles Beem’s The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History (2006) and Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen’s Kungen är en kvinna – Retorik och praktik kring kvinnliga monarker under tidigmodern tid (2003), both of them excellent – but William Monter’s book is the first study to cover all Europe and such a large time span. This enables him to see individual queens regnant in an international context and to describe general trends which have until now not been clearly identified. That alone makes this book a study of great value which might well inspire many future works on the challenges which arose when women were kings.