"She-Wolves: England's Early Queens" - BBC4
Ep 1 - 7 March 2012: Matilda and Eleanor
Helen finds out why Matilda's bid for the throne ultimately failed. Her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine was also an equally formidable woman and was remembered as the queen of courtly love. In reality though during her long life she divorced one king and married another, only to head a rebellion against him.
Ep 2 - 14 March 2012: Isabella and Margaret
In 1308 a 12-year-old girl known as Isabella of France, became queen of England after she married the English king. One hundred years later later another young French girl, Margaret of Anjou, followed in her footsteps. Helen reveals that their self-assertion would have seemed natural in a man was deemed unnatural, even monstrous for a woman of the time.
Ep 3 - 21 March 2012: Jane, Mary and Elizabeth
During the medieval and Tudor times there was no question in people's minds about the order of God's creation, men ruled and women didn't. A few women did attempt to rule Tudor England though and Helen looks at the queens who challenged male power. In 1553, for the first time in English history all the contenders for the crown were women.
A review, from
theartsdesk.com [edited]
"Throughout our history, women and power have made an uneasy combination." Dr Helen Castor made it clear the path to power depended on more than the right alliances, lineage, and marriage partner. Even if all those were spot on, being female was enough to halt any rise. The series began with the medieval Queens Matilda and her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine. Both wanted to rule, not reign like Queen Elizabeth II.
She Wolves brought Castor’s book
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth to television. The programme’s sensational title was a given. With an audience beyond the niches of either a history readership or gender studies, the book is a natural for television with clearly told, linear stories that resonate despite dating back at least 600 years. But with only one contemporary image apiece for Matilda and Eleanor, visual material was lacking.
Fortunately, the gap wasn’t filled by clichéd set-ups of Dr Castor poring over medieval manuscripts. Equally thankfully, purposeful striding was at a minimum – although close-ups of pounding horse's
http://www.theartsdesk.com/film/war-horse hooves to suggest urgency were overused. Snatches from historic documents were read out by other voices but there were no talking heads, another plus. In a refreshingly unfussy, old-fashioned touch, Dr Castor directly addressed the camera or provided the voiceover.
The generally measured approach extended to eschewing the ghastly analogies that can clog history docs: neither Matilda and Eleanor were the Madonna of the Middle Ages or the Margaret Thatcher of their era.
a reader's comment
"I have to say I am rather disappointed with this series. It fails to accept the roles of the earlier queens of england and the impact they had on the 'she-wolf' sterotype. Ælfthryth mother of Æthelred II (commonly know as Æthelred 'unread' or the unready) is among the first 'queens' to have been entitled 'she-wolf' by the chroniclers of the time.
Another early queen so often forgotten when she should not be is 'Queen' Emma. As the wife of two kings of England, the mother of two kings of England and the Great Aunt of William the Conquorer it is shameful that she is not dipicted in any historical TV adaptations. She played a huge role in the governing of England at a time when the foundations of our country was laid to be built on by the following rulers.
It would be nice for the BBC to delve a little further back and truely include ALL the 'she-wolves' of England and not simply leave the public beleiving that before Matilda, queens were simply ignored or incapable, when this is clearly untrue."
.
