#the dowager queen

[rhaenyrathecruell]

What was more culturally significant the renaissance or the revenge dress of 114 AC?

[gracielikegrapes]

Canon/most fanfics

The Dowager Queen by @feyhunter78

[elycetellsall]

mothers and daughters existing as wretched mirrors of each other

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Dowager Queens and Queen Mothers

The King is dead. Long live the next monarch (I guess). Their eldest child is now monarch, their other kids have probably started up lives elsewhere or started careers in the military or such. But what happens their Queen?

Queen Mother vs Dowager Queen

There are two titles the now widowed Queen can take after her husband dies. The first is Dowager Queen or Queen Dowager, which basically means ex-Queen or the previous Queen. The second is Queen Mother, which is the title which can be taken by the mother of the next monarch (this title cannot be granted to step-mothers). Ex-Queens who mothered the current monarch can go for either title if they wish. As for addressing a former Queen, it will still be "Your Majesty" and she would simply be referred to as Queen Firstname.

Life and Perks

The former Queen will move out of the palace after a few weeks. She will take up residence at one of the Crown's many palaces or houses, able to keep on as many servants as she wants - or that is paid for. She can typically do whatever she likes now, she can travel, she can live at court, she can spend her life away from it all in the country. She will have to surrender her official jewelry which sucks. This can lead to trouble such as the tension between Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and Empress Alexandra. Dowager Queens and Queen Mothers usually inherited lands and estates from their husband's will, which basically is a way to support them and their lifestyle. They may also recieve money from the Crown annually. However, some Dowager Queens faced some trouble if the new monarch didn't want to provide for them. This often led to conflict.

Duties

The former Queen might also be called in to help the Crown. She might be sent on diplomatic state visits, act as a diplomatic hostess, advise the new monarch and stand in for them at events if needed. The former Queen will also take an active role in the family if she wishes. Some Dowager Queens and Queen Mothers might act as Regents for underage monarchs.

Prospects

Being a Dowager or the Queen Mother is a relatively cushy job. While you lose some influence and prestige, you are still highly ranked but with less responsibility. Most ex-Queens spend their time relaxing and treating themselves while some stayed relevant with taking on full calenders of duties and events. Mostly, as long as you help out occasionally, live a quiet life, you will pretty much have a nice life. However, there have been instances of Dowager Queens and Queen Mothers going a little off the rails. A Dowager Queen without children might leave behind her new country and go home if she wanted to. She would remain Dowager Queen with all the perks unless she remarried. Some young widowed Queens remarried to varying successes (Catherine of Valois, Isabella of Angoulême, Kathryn Parr, Queen Margaret Tudor, Mary Tudor Queen of France).

[guiiay]

alicent hightower post 2x6. someone check up on the dowager queen please

[violaobanion]

ANEURIN BARNARD as RICHARD DUKE OF GLOUCESTER in THE WHITE QUEEN (2013), episode five

[royaltea000]

Imagine the entirety of the heavenly army pulling up to huaguoshan and this is who they’re mad at

Qitian dasheng design update ver 2

[newts-gay]

where is my alicent “i shall have one of her son’s eyes in return” hightower?

where is my alicent “you may do as you wish husband, when i am cold in my grave” hightower?

where is my alicent “congratulations, stepdaughter. what a blessing this is for you” hightower?

where is my alicent “do keep trying ser laenor, sooner or late you'll get one that looks like you” hightower?

AND

don’t even get me started on alicent “bastard blood shed at war” hightower

she would have been way too powerful for anyone’s screen (especially with olivia’s brilliant performances) and tb stannies kept her from us

[wonder-worker]

A central element of the myth of [Eleanor of Aquitaine] is that of her exceptionalism. Historians and Eleanor biographers have tended to take literally Richard of Devizes’s conventional panegyric of her as ‘an incomparable woman’ [and] a woman out of her time. […] Amazement at Eleanor’s power and independence is born from a presentism that assumes generally that the Middle Ages were a backward age, and specifically that medieval women were all downtrodden and marginalized. Eleanor’s career can, from such a perspective, only be explained by assuming that she was an exception who rose by sheer force of personality above the restrictions placed upon twelfth-century women.

— Michael R. Evans, Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine

"...The idea of Eleanor’s exceptionalism rests on an assumption that women of her age were powerless. On the contrary, in Western Europe before the twelfth century there were ‘no really effective barriers to the capacity of women to exercise power; they appear as military leaders, judges, castellans, controllers of property’. […] In an important article published in 1992, Jane Martindale sought to locate Eleanor in context, stripping away much of the conjecture that had grown up around her, and returning to primary sources, including her charters. Martindale also demonstrated how Eleanor was not out of the ordinary for a twelfth-century queen either in the extent of her power or in the criticisms levelled against her.

If we look at Eleanor’s predecessors as Anglo-Norman queens of England, we find many examples of women wielding political power. Matilda of Flanders (wife of William the Conqueror) acted as regent in Normandy during his frequent absences in England following the Conquest, and [the first wife of Henry I, Matilda of Scotland, played some role in governing England during her husband's absences], while during the civil war of Stephen’s reign Matilda of Boulogne led the fight for a time on behalf of her royal husband, who had been captured by the forces of the empress. And if we wish to seek a rebel woman, we need look no further than Juliana, illegitimate daughter of Henry I, who attempted to assassinate him with a crossbow, or Adèle of Champagne, the third wife of Louis VII, who ‘[a]t the moment when Henry II held Eleanor of Aquitaine in jail for her revolt … led a revolt with her brothers against her son, Philip II'.

Eleanor is, therefore, less the exception than the rule – albeit an extreme example of that rule. This can be illustrated by comparing her with a twelfth century woman who has attracted less literary and historical attention. Adela of Blois died in 1137, the year of Eleanor’s marriage to Louis VII. […] The chronicle and charter evidence reveals Adela to have ‘legitimately exercised the powers of comital lordship’ in the domains of Blois-Champagne, both in consort with her husband and alone during his absence on crusade and after his death. […] There was, however, nothing atypical about the nature of Adela’s power. In the words of her biographer Kimberley LoPrete, ‘while the extent of Adela’s powers and the political impact of her actions were exceptional for a woman of her day (and indeed for most men), the sources of her powers and the activities she engaged in were not fundamentally different from those of other women of lordly rank’. These words could equally apply to Eleanor; the extent of her power, as heiress to the richest lordship in France, wife of two kings and mother of two or three more, was remarkable, but the nature of her power was not exceptional. Other noble or royal women governed, arranged marriages and alliances, and were patrons of the church. Eleanor represents one end of a continuum, not an isolated outlier."

[galinneall-dearg]

TTTE Texposts Part 3 (Source)

[clixsmxdernxs]

i do not care about anything else other than this BEAUTIFUL FACE wtf

WHAT THE FUCK literally what the fuck is that face

[fictonrantsworld]

Oh my beloved she's so scared😭😥🥺

[elycetellsall]

if we had a daughter, i’d watch and could not save her

i’m telling you those redheads will get you

[7pleiades7]

The Queen Dowager Juliane Marie (1776), (detail), by Vigilius Eriksen (Danish, 1722–1782), oil on canvas, 301.8 × 212 cm, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

[feyhunter78]

Literally!!!! She’s got a kill streak going right now😂

She’s not called Alicent “Rap1st-Killer” Hightower for nothing

Canon/most fanfics

The Dowager Queen by @feyhunter78

[evagreen-stories]

"To you, I'm just a man,

To me, you're all I am,

Where the hell am I supposed to go?"

Something in the Orange (Z&Es Version) - Zach Bryan