How will these resources help you?

When it comes to studying Tudor history, the main focus has been on monarchs and on the men who gained power through advising and counselling these rulers. The truth is, political agency is more complex than the study of rulership itself. Women – especially royal and noblewomen – influenced their kinsmen to the point that they wielded significant political, cultural and diplomatic power. 

Most of these influential women remained overshadowed by their better-known contemporaries, such as Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. To fix this imbalance, we need to look at a more nuanced definition of power. Not all forms of power are strong or determined by life and death – they can also be as soft as a murmur in someone’s ear, which could have far-reaching repercussions. This is also known as ‘the butterfly effect’.