English Queenship from the Mid-Fifteenth to Mid-Sixteenth Centuries and England’s Place in the European World

Abstract

English kings had long sought consorts from outside England for various reasons. Yet, of England’s ten queens consort from the mid-1400s to mid-1500s, all but three were native-born. This article addresses the relationship between this development in English queenship and awareness during this period about England’s place in the world. It considers whether the changes in queens’ backgrounds was symptomatic of a regression in English political ambition. In so doing, it demonstrates that English kings remained invested in the wider world no matter where their queens came from and increasingly sure of the place they and England occupied in that world.