The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503

Contemporary Review, August, 2004

The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503. J. L. Laynesmith. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xviii 294 pages. ISBN 0-19-924737-4. This impressive study sets out to answer the question, 'What did it mean to be a queen in fifteenth-century England' when the country was torn apart by the Wars of the Roses, rather than to give a collection of potted biographies of four queen consorts: Margaret of Anjou (Henry VI), Elizabeth Woodville (Edward IV), Anne Neville (Richard III), Elizabeth of York (Henry VII).

Of these, Margaret of Anjou is the most famous because of the catastrophic reign of her consort. But in each case Dr Laynesmith asks the same questions: What were these women like? What was expected of them? What power or influence did each have? What was her role as helpmate to her husband? What happened when troubles came or when she was judged inadequate? This is an erudite and well written study which also looks at how queens were chosen, the rituals surrounding their public life, their role as mother, the place of their families in the power struggles that raged round the Throne and their place at court and in the royal household. The author concludes that a rethinking of the queen's role is needed because 'the office of the queen was essential to the effective exercise of sovereignty by an adult king in the second half of the fifteenth century: indeed it was an integral part of the king's public body'. (R.P.K.)