Queens in Tudor and Early Stuart England
26 January 2027
2:00-3:30pm
Online or Rewley House 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA
Event status:
Applications being accepted
Location:
Online or Rewley House 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA
Dates:
26 January 2027 - 2 March 2027
Study Format:
Online - live
Fees:
From £75.00 to £90.00
This hybrid lecture series given by Professor Susan Doran explores the fascinating lives and reigns of Tudor and Early Stuart queens.
The period 1485-1642 saw two queens regnant and nine queens consort. With a focus on gender, this series will consider the power and agency of elite women in the Early Modern period. Professor Doran will examine each queen in turn, considering how their gender influenced their lives, roles, and historical legacies.
In the first lecture, we will look at Elizabeth of York and examine how she fulfilled the role of queen consort.
In the second lecture, we will consider the wives of Henry VIII with a focus on how Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Parr acted outside conventional gender roles.
We then move on to Mary I to examine the challenges that confronted the first ever English queen regnant and her strategies for overcoming them.
Elizabeth is the subject of the fourth lecture, and we will deal with how contemporaries, historians, and popular media have dealt with her gender.
In the last two lectures, we shall see how the two early Stuarts – Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria – played the role of queen consort given that they were both foreign-born and Catholic. We shall also examine their significant patronage of the arts.
Register for the whole series or individual lectures
For this lecture series, you can register for the entire series by clicking 'Book Now' on this page or you can register for individual lectures via the links below.
Please note: enrolments for the complete series will close at 23:59 GMT on 21 January 2027. Enrolments for each individual lecture will close two days before each lecture.
Book this course
You can opt to attend this teaching event either online (via a livestream) or in person at Rewley House, Oxford. You will be given the option of how you wish to attend during the enrolment process. You can only pick one option. If your preferred attendance format is fully booked, you can email us to be put on the waiting list. For those who wish to attend online, please read the IT requirements below before enrolling.
IT requirements
We will be using Zoom for the livestreaming of this lecture series. If you’re attending online, you’ll be able to see and hear the speakers, and to submit questions via the Zoom interface. Joining instructions will be sent out prior to the start date. We recommend that you join the session at least 10-15 minutes prior to the start time – just as you might arrive a bit early at our lecture theatre for an in-person event.
Please note that this lecture series will not be recorded.
Recommended reading
Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: ‘The Most Happy’ (Blackwell Publishing, 2005)
Susan James, Catherine Parr: Henry VIII’s Last Love (The History Press, 2009)
Porter, Linda, Mary Tudor:The first Queen (various publishers, 2007, 2009)
Levin, Carole, The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
Linnell, A-M., Writing the Royal Consort in Stuart England (University of Exeter Thesis, 2016). Available online.
Programme details
Lectures take place on Tuesdays, from 2–3.30pm GMT.
Tuesday 26 January
Elizabeth of York
What was the role of a queen consort? In this lecture, we look at Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII. With a better claim to the throne than her husband, many thought she should rule alongside him. Why did she accept the secondary role as queen consort and how well did she perform it?
Tuesday 2 February
The Wives of Henry VIII
In this lecture, we focus on Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Parr, investigating how far they acted outside conventional gender roles. Henry’s other three wives also get a mention as victims of childbirth (Jane Seymour) and gender expectations (Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard).
Tuesday 9 February
Mary I
In this lecture, we examine the challenges that confronted the first ever English queen regnant and her strategies for overcoming them. We combat the older historiography that presents Mary as a weak woman subservient to her husband, Philip of Spain, reassessing her authority, decision making and political agency.
Tuesday 16 February
Elizabeth I
In this lecture, we will deal with how contemporaries, historians, and popular media have dealt with Elizabeth’s gender and question how important it really was in defining her rule. How did Elizabeth herself navigate – and at times manipulate – expectations of femininity and authority?
Tuesday 23 February
Anna of Denmark
Like Catherine of Aragon, Anna of Denmark was the foreign-born daughter of a monarch but, unlike Catherine, she was the mother of sons. This lecture looks at the wife of James VI and I and assesses her impact on political life and the arts.
Tuesday 2 March
Henrietta Maria
The wife of Charles I, Henrietta Maria was a foreign Catholic and seen by many as the root of his problems. In this lecture, we shall examine both her patronage of the arts and her political role both before and during the Civil War.
How and when to watch
Each lecture will last approximately 1 hour, followed by questions.
Please join in good time before each lecture to ensure that you have no connection problems. We recommend joining 10-15 minutes before the start time.
Fees
| Description | Costs |
|---|---|
| In-person event fee (includes tea/coffee and a pastry) | £90.00 |
| Virtual event fee | £75.00 |
Funding
If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, or are a care-leaver in the UK, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:
Concessionary fees for short courses
Payment
Please see the terms and conditions for our open-access courses.
Professor Susan Doran
Susan Doran is a Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of Oxford, a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, and a Lecturer at St John’s College. All her research centres on Tudor monarchs, except for her forthcoming book From Tudor to Stuart which covers the period 1603-12. Overall, she has written twelve books and edited or co-edited another ten, including four catalogues for major exhibitions. Before coming to teach in Oxford in 2002, she taught at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and earlier still at St Paul’s Girls’ School. She studied for her BA in History at St Anne’s College, Oxford, and her doctorate at UCL.
Module code: O26P102HIL
Please use the ‘Book’ button on this page. Alternatively, please contact us to obtain an application form.
You can also register for individual lectures if you do not wish to attend the whole series.
You can opt to attend this teaching event either online (via a livestream) or in person at Rewley House, Oxford. You will be given the option of how you wish to attend during the enrolment process. You can only pick one option. If your preferred attendance format is fully booked, you can email us to be put on the waiting list. For those who wish to attend online, please read the IT requirements below before enrolling.
