#claim that Anne Neville represented the true 'break' from foreign consorts? Yes. In my defense her argument was truly exceptionally stupid)
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The advent of English-born queens* challenged traditional power dynamics because their families, if they had them, were always present and always interested in English politics. A queen's natal family was an important part of her identity as a woman, a queen, and a mother to the king's heirs, and thus impacted upon the king's own identity. When these families were English, kings needed to learn to manage and reward them in order to strengthen their own kingship and to restrict the potential of their new relatives to destabilize the political community. But families also provided important networks of support and shared interest.
— J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503
*This began in 1464 with Elizabeth Woodville, who was the first post-Norman Englishwoman to be crowned queen. However, this did not represent a permanent "break" in the selection of queens, as foreign queens remained the default and ideal choice for almost all English kings (including Edward IV before his controversial marriage to Elizabeth).
#queenship tag#english history#my post#Also: Historians really should refrain from acting as though the families of English queens and foreign queens were in the same situation#Not least because the last time a foreign queen's family was as permanently involved in English politics as the families of Englishborn#queens' were was during Eleanor of Castile's queenship over 170+ years ago#But also because generally speaking the national effect perception and lived reality of foreign and English families would have been#very different? Particularly when they were considered comparatively 'lowborn' like the Woodvilles were#(Am I still bitter about Elena Woodacre somehow managing to mix up classism and xenophobia to downplay EW's queenship and falsely#claim that Anne Neville represented the true 'break' from foreign consorts? Yes. In my defense her argument was truly exceptionally stupid)#women in history
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