Women: Born to Rule - II

In 2000 years England, or some portion thereof, has had a dozen queens. The first, Queen Boudicia (the spelling is open to question), led the only major revolt against the Romans, no man rose to the occasion. The two Queens prior to the Norman invasion left little record while Lady Jane Grey was illegal and only reigned for nine days (for which she is often referred to as the Nine Day Queen.) Matilda, ascending to the throne in 1141, was promptly usurped by a noble and spent what should have been her entire reign fighting a civil war. The fact that her son, Henry II, succeeded her would indicate that she won. Which brings us to the Elizabethan age, the first monarch to have an era named after them as opposed to a dynastic nomenclature such as the Normans or Plantagenets. Her half-sister Mary did precede her but all her energies were absorbed in trying to reinstate Catholicism and she only lasted for 5 years. Elizabeth, on the other hand, heralded in a period of prosperity, was especially adept at statecraft, offering her hand as an inducement to any number of treaties and alliances, while supporting the great burgeoning of the arts culminating in William Shakespeare. A century later Mary co-reigned with her husband William, followed shortly thereafter by Anne, just before and just after the dawn of the 18th century. Neither reigns were outstanding, though it should be noted that this was the period when England cemented her mercantile superiority with the newly formed East India Company, Stock Exchange and Lloyds Insurance. There was then a 120 year female interregnum, during which the colonies were lost while the Chief Executive, George III, was mistaking a large oak tree for the Empress of Austria. Victoria emulated her predecessor Elizabeth in having the era named after her, indeed the architecture, morals and literature as well as much else. This was a period when Britain reached its apogee, a vast empire, in fact Matilda and Victoria were the only two monarchs to have the title Empress bestowed upon them rather than inheriting it, three quarters of the world's trade in some commodities and goods, and an influence totally incommensurate with such a tiny nation.