"Cleopatra was sexualised and romanticised": here's why we've been getting royal women wrong

Kate williams speaks to Charlotte Vosper about the changing image of female monarchs – and why we expect too much of them

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Published: July 22, 2026 at 6:00 PM

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Charlotte Vosper: Your new book challenges the myths and stereotypes that have depicted queens as evil, mad or just not up to the job. How did you decide which women to include?

Kate Williams: It was a tough decision – I could have written volume after volume. I wanted to pick out queens who have been characterised as iconic failures or successes, and to analyse these depictions. So we have everyone from Hatshepsut to Mary I, from Boudicca to Grace of Monaco. And I noticed trends and patterns appearing. For example, lots of queens, such as Marie Antoinette and Cleopatra, are characterised as being led by their emotions and unable to manage money. Many were sexualised and romanticised – again including Cleopatra, but also Anne Boleyn.

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Of course, we must recognise that these women were privileged beyond measure, but I think that their reputations are emblematic of the stories told about all women through time. If we think that queens are failures, then what does that do to perceptions of ordinary women? You might suggest that there’s no connection between what we say about someone like Anne Boleyn and whether we’ll ever have a female US president, but I think that the narratives we weave about the most celebrated women impact all of us.

You open the book by discussing the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, one of the earliest female rulers. With no blueprint for queenship, how did she go about legitimising her rule?

Hatshepsut [ruled c1473–1458 BC] was expected to live as the king’s daughter and the consort of another king, then to become a king’s stepmother. Those roles would have given a woman quite a lot of power in the court of ancient Egypt, yet Hatshepsut vaulted her status as stepmother to become pharaoh herself.

She transformed her role as regent into one of a female king by pushing her stepson out of the way and claiming her legitimacy as the heir to her father, Thutmose I. She then created a whole iconography to make the point that she was always destined to be monarch. We can see this at her incredible ‘Mansion of a Million Years’ in Luxor, where her story is carved into the walls. These reliefs show her born as a boy and growing into a ruler wearing the dress of a male monarch. This iconography completely excludes images of her as a daughter, a high priestess or a consort, even though these female roles had been very important to her rise to power.

A carved granite bust of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, shown with a striped nemes headdress, smooth symmetrical features, and a calm, faintly smiling expression.

A 15th-century BC statue of Hatshepsut wearing the nemes headcloth, usually reserved for kings | Credit: Bridgeman Images

You mentioned her male dress. Was Hatshepsut bending gender norms or was she using the only language of power available at the time?

I think Hatshepsut saw herself as beyond gender – as transcending the bounds of femininity and embodying both genders. In Egyptian mythology, when you died, you became transcendent of gender – which is actually common in a lot of religions and mythologies. In the case of Hatshepsut fashioning herself as a king, she’s really building on a long tradition of Egyptian mortuary beliefs.

Over and over again throughout history, being similar to a man was congratulated. For example, Napoleon reportedly said that Marie-Thérèse, daughter of Marie Antoinette, was the “only man in her family”. Meanwhile, Elizabeth I claimed to have the “body of a weak and feeble woman but… the heart and stomach of a king”. These figures raised the question of how a queen could be both a woman and a monarch.

In Hatshepsut’s case, that combination created a real problem for her descendants. Images of her as a female king were scraped off the walls of her temples. Luckily for us, though, it was done in a pretty shoddy way, so by the 19th century European explorers found themselves looking at carvings of an Egyptian king who was referred to with female pronouns.

What type of queens emerged in the early Middle Ages?

What we start to see are great periods of female kingship, because when societies are in transition, female monarchs start appearing. It may be because all the men have died in battle and people think “well, there’s no one left, let’s have a woman on the throne”. But certainly, from the fifth and 10th centuries, when lots of small kingdoms formed into larger empires, more queens took power.

For example, you might think that the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan has always been occupied solely by men, but several women reigned during this period, from Empress Suiko [r593–628] to Empress Kōken [r749–58 and 764–70]. They were powerful, admired and beloved, ruling not just because there was no one else, but as chosen monarchs.

A colourful Japanese woodblock print showing two Heian‑period figures indoors: one seated at a low writing desk in gold robes, the other standing in layered patterned kimono, with calligraphy above.

Empress Kōken, seen above in a 19th-century woodblock print, ruled Japan twice in her lifetime, one of several women to take the Chrysanthemum Throne | Credit: Alamy

Moving into the later medieval period, one of my favourite monarchs is the 14th-century sultana Khadijah of the Maldives. A traveller to the archipelago at that time wrote that “one of the great wonders is a female monarch called Khadija”. Little remains of her palace or archives today, but we do know that she bumped off her brother to take the throne. She then got married, perhaps because she felt she had to continue her line – but when her husband got too keen on power, she bumped him off, too. She married again, but her second husband also became too power-hungry, so she had him killed and ruled alone.

In general, however, there was a decline in female monarchs over the course of the medieval period. After 900, though there were many queen-consorts, fewer queen-regnants ruled themselves. It wasn’t until the 16th century that a period of unprecedented levels of queenship arrived.

Among the most famous queens of the 16th century are Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. How should we understand their roles and relationship?

Catherine and Anne are often compared with each other: one is dowdy and one is glamorous. To me, though, these women show us that, in the 16th century, kings were beginning to grapple with the question of the role of the queen-consort. During that century, the consort was really unassailable – and that became a problem for Henry VIII when he wanted to marry Anne. He couldn’t simply say: “Oh, can I have another wife?” – he had to get rid of Catherine entirely to justify his marriage to Anne.

A Tudor‑era portrait of a woman in a richly decorated gown with pearl‑trimmed square neckline, geometric gold‑and‑maroon headdress, and a large jeweled pendant, framed by two ornate columns.

A portrait of Catherine of Aragon, whose treatment by Henry VIII, says Kate Williams, showed “that male monarchs felt that female consorts had too much power” | Credit: Getty Images

Catherine, however, would not be set aside easily – and Henry punished her for it. She was prevented from seeing her child, Mary, and was sent away from court, plunging her into an impossible limbo. When Henry later wanted to set aside Anne Boleyn, he realised that he couldn’t do so on the same grounds as with his marriage to Catherine [which was annulled on the basis that she had been previously married to Henry’s elder brother, Arthur].

So Anne had to be killed in a political assassination, based on trumped-up evidence supposedly showing that she’d had sex with man after man. Henry wanted to characterise her as a wild seductress, a sinful woman – and that idea has stuck. But I think we should view Henry’s treatment of Catherine and Anne as evidence that male monarchs felt that female consorts had too much power in the 16th century. We should focus on how difficult it was for Henry to dislodge Catherine and Anne, rather than viewing the women themselves as rivals. Isn’t it the greatest irony that Henry turned the world upside down to re-marry and have a son, yet who is often seen as the greatest Tudor? Elizabeth I.

Which other queens have been saddled with unfair reputations?

Mary I is another whose reputation has been unfairly tarnished. Yes, she burned around 280 people – but, though that was incredibly brutal, her relatives killed many more people. Holinshed’s Chronicles [published 1577 and 1587] estimated that Henry VIII had 72,000 people executed across his reign. During her half-brother Edward VI’s time on the throne, approximately 5,500 people died in the Prayer Book Rebellion. Elizabeth executed many people, too. Yet Mary is the one labelled ‘bloody’. Actually, I think she was the most merciful of the Tudors.

So why has this ‘bloody’ notion stayed with us all these years? Partly, it’s because Protestants were writing history in Elizabeth I’s reign, castigating and criticising Mary as a way of vaulting and praising Elizabeth. There’s something particularly cruel in the name ‘Bloody Mary’: it brings to mind the association between women and menstrual blood – and though Mary tried so hard to have a child, she never did.

In her short reign, Mary laid down the roadmap for Elizabeth’s rule, yet it was during Elizabeth’s reign that Mary was declared terrible. We see that again, in extremis, with Marie Antoinette, who became a human shooting target for those who saw a problem with the luxurious life of the French monarchy. Yes, the court in Versailles spent a lot of money, and so did Marie, but it was nothing compared with French military spending in support of the American War of Independence against Britain. The French were also operating within an archaic taxation collection system, which led to unrest.

A classical 18th‑century portrait of a person in ornate aristocratic dress, featuring a towering pearl‑trimmed headdress, styled light hair, and a red gown with lace and sheer ruffles against a dark background.

A c1785 portrait of Marie Antoinette. “The queen-consort – the woman who had no blood right to the throne – was seen as more symbolic of the horrors and disaster of monarchy than the monarchy itself,” says Kate Williams | Credit: Getty Images

Despite these other contributing factors, after the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was blamed for everything. And we should remember that, during the 18th century, a queen was supposed to display wealth and symbolise excellence. Marie Antoinette tried to portray herself in this way – and for this, she was turned into a monster.

Marie Antoinette was executed in 1793, as was her husband, Louis XVI. But if the French deemed monarchy to be so terrible, why did they not kill the heirs to the throne? Marie’s young son, Louis-Charles, became a workman’s apprentice (while still imprisoned), and the king’s brothers fled. Clearly, the queen-consort – the woman who had no blood right to the throne – was seen as more symbolic of the horrors and disaster of monarchy than the monarchy itself.

The 19th century brought the age of empire and constitutional monarchy. How was queenship used to sell imperial power?

In Britain, Victoria spun an image of the perfect domestic wife and mother with a vengeance, and the British public lapped it up – from the image of the queen and Albert in 1848 with a Christmas tree, to Highland Leaves, her bestselling Scottish travel journal. But this vision of happy domesticity wasn’t her reality. She and Albert were always arguing, and Victoria was bent on keeping her power for herself.

The image of Victoria as the perfect, domestic queen was used across the British empire to justify takeovers. For example, Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar [r1828–61] was given Victoria’s image by British envoys and essentially told ‘can’t you be more like Victoria?’ They compared Ranavalona’s military effort to protect her country’s sovereignty and her expulsion of British missionaries with the popular image of Victoria – of domestic, submissive, constitutional queenship. Of course, they were really asking the queen of Madagascar to be more subservient and become a Christian – more receptive to European colonial influences.

The image of Victoria’s queenship was used frequently to bolster imperial ventures. Towards the end of her reign, when she was in very poor health, Frederick Hodgson, governor of the British colony of the Gold Coast [in what’s now Ghana], wanted to take the sacred golden stool from the Asante people. In justification, he claimed that he would be taking it for the queen. Of course, Victoria knew nothing about the stool. But it’s an example of how the idea of Britain as the ultimate ruler, with Victoria at the top of the tree, was used to justify the seizure of power from other monarchs and people across the empire.

How did the expectations of queenship evolve during the 20th century?

Grace Kelly is emblematic of the new type of queenship seen in the 20th century – televisual queenship. Before she became Princess of Monaco, few Americans, and not many overall, knew where Monaco was – this tiny principality, smaller than Central Park. But the country was in serious debt after the Second World War, so Prince Rainier wanted to put the place on the map.

A close‑up portrait of a fair‑skinned person with softly waved light hair, bright red lipstick, and even studio lighting against a smooth pink background.

Hollywood movie star Grace Kelly, who was “emblematic of the new type of queenship in the 20th century – televisual” | Credit: Getty Images

He did so by marrying an American movie star. Grace Kelly had first been an advertising model, selling things such as household bug sprays, but by the time she met Rainier she was a successful Hollywood actress. About a year after meeting, they got married – and it was a huge media event. She described how, when she walked into the cathedral of Monaco on her wedding day, she saw cameras everywhere, hidden in the flower arrangements. She looks so serene in the wedding footage, which sold the image of her as a fairytale princess worldwide, putting Monaco on the global stage.

But this fairytale wasn’t her reality. At a party in 1981, Princess Grace met Lady Diana Spencer in the powder room. Diana, then engaged to Prince Charles, was upset that she’d worn the wrong dress for the occasion. Grace warned Diana that the scrutiny was only going to get worse. To me, Grace really epitomises the point that the 20th-century princess had to sell the happiness of a country – even if that happiness was a fairy tale.

When you were researching the book, who surprised you the most?

The woman I knew the least about was Lili‘uokalani, queen of Hawaii. When she came to the throne in 1891, people were already trying to seize her country. Europeans and Americans who had bought sugar plantations in Hawaii wanted representation and power there – and, after she’d been on the throne for less than two years, these men overthrew Lili‘uokalani’s monarchy and deposed her. When she fought back and refused to give in, they imprisoned her in her own ‘Iolani Palace – the only royal palace on US soil.

A black‑and‑white formal portrait of a seated woman in an ornate gown with lace and bead details, a sash across her chest, jewellery, and a decorative hairpiece, posed against a textured backdrop with handwritten dedication along the side.

A c1890s photograph of Queen Lili‘uokalani of Hawaii, who, while imprisoned, embroidered her story into a quilt to ensure she retained her own narrative | Credit: Getty Images

She was denied newspapers, visitors, pen and paper. She wasn’t even allowed to walk on the balcony in case she was seen. But she was given a needle and thread, with which she created a sensational quilt on which she embroidered her story and a message of resistance. For me, she is emblematic of the fact that if you don’t tell your own story as a woman – as a queen – it’ll be told for you. Lili‘uokalani told hers through embroidery, and also through music that was smuggled out. When she was released, she wrote a powerful memoir, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen. I think it was incredibly prescient of her, putting her message into a quilt – a piece of work that will endure for generations. In modern Hawaii, she is still a symbol of independence.

Do you think we’ll ever stop expecting queens to live up to impossible ideals, and criticising them when they don’t?

We’re drawn to visions of perfect female monarchs – like the golden image of Elizabeth II on her coronation day, and Grace Kelly’s fairytale wedding in the cathedral of Monaco. It’s almost as if we prefer the image of a queen to the reality of a flesh-and-blood woman.

It fascinated me that, during the late queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations, when the Gold State Coach travelled to Buckingham Palace, the then 96-year-old monarch wasn’t actually riding inside. Instead, the coach displayed in its window a hologram of the young Elizabeth, waving to the crowd. I think it suggests that we as a public might actually prefer monarchs who don’t tire, complain or get ill, who aren’t really real. We might prefer queens who wave like a perfect hologram.

Queenship is a bellwether of how we see women and how much power is acceptable for them to have. As long as we continue to castigate or stereotype female monarchs, those queens’ representations will craft thinking about the lives of ordinary women. Only when we finally see queens as complex, multifaceted women in a world often lined up against them – rather than as seductresses, as financially reckless or even as picture-perfect holograms – will we change perceptions of women and power in society.

Kate Williams is a historian, broadcaster and author, and professor in public engagement with history at the University of Reading. Her books include Rival Queens: The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots (Hutchinson, 2018) and Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon (Hutchinson, 2013)

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This article was first published in the July 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine

Authors

Charlotte VosperContent producer

Charlotte Vosper is a content producer at HistoryExtra

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