Catholic Mary I (1553–58), daughter of Henry’s banished Queen Katherine, succeeded her Protestant brother, Edward VI, in a coup d’état her dubious legacy included an unpopular marriage to Philip II of Spain and the burning of heretics. Henry VIII’s daughters were the first two queens to actually rule. After that, most women with royal claims ceded or were forced to cede their rights to husbands or male relatives. No law barred women from the medieval nation’s throne, writes British historian Waller ( London 1945, 2005, etc.), “but in practice the idea of female sovereignty was anathema.” Although Henry I left the crown to his daughter Matilda, she was never actually anointed queen, and a male cousin snatched the throne in 1135. Glossy, deeply detailed, occasionally repetitious comparative examination of the six queens who have ruled England in their own right.
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