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Head to head: did it matter that Elizabeth I was a woman?

Hackett, Helen; (2025) Head to head: did it matter that Elizabeth I was a woman? History Today , 75 (9) pp. 9-10.

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Abstract

Who can fail to be awed by the magnificent portraits of Elizabeth I: the Armada, the Ditchley, and the Rainbow, to name but a few? They surely surpass even the glorifying images of Henry VIII by Holbein, and of Charles I by Van Dyck, in their power to impress and fascinate. This not only reflects the fact that the costume of elite Renaissance women was even more flamboyant and sumptuous than that of men; Elizabeth’s portraits also draw us in with complex symbolism, requiring interpretation like texts. Meanwhile, in literary texts themselves Elizabeth generated a plethora of personae: as Thomas Dekker wrote in a court prologue of 1599, ‘some call her Pandora, some Gloriana, some Cynthia, some Delphoebe

Type: Article
Title: Head to head: did it matter that Elizabeth I was a woman?
Publisher version: https://www.historytoday.com/
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author-accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Elizabeth I, Queens in history, Female rulers
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of English Lang and Literature
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212369
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