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The Historiography of Women The phrase ‘winners write history’ helpfully encapsulates how men have treated women throughout history. How is a ‘winner’ defined other than the one with control over both the pen and the sword? The idea that men have always been the main characters on the world’s stage has been upheld by one persistent system; patriarchy. This system has attempted to sideline women’s stories in all realms, be it medicine, war, poetry or art. One quotation that summarises this atavistic but sustained belief comes from Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys; ‘In an anti-male era, it’s important to remember that men built the planes, fought the wars, laid the railroad tracks, invented the cars, built the hospitals, invented the medicines and sailed the ships that made it all happen.’ If this is to be believed, Pankhurst herself would hang her head in shame. With the fourth wave of feminism advancing through society there has been an increasing volume of historiography surrounding women’s histories and contributions to politics, culture and science. This series ‘Winners Write History: Or is it just Men?’ aims to explore this historiography and the evolving discussion on the true nature of women’s history and how it is represented. History itself arguably cannot be rewritten, but it can be better represented and better understood. In fourth wave feminism we are battling with the infinitesimal intricacies of sociopolitical equalities. It is important to remember, however, that all movements are started by and propelled by continuous questioning, even of the movement itself. How have women been treated in their lifetimes, in spite of or because of their achievements? How has this treatment impacted ongoing perceptions of these individuals and of women’s contributions to society in general? Ultimately, how have men used their control over historical narratives to shape our idea of gender in society? Alice Perrers Perrers is a lesser-known royal mistress from the mediaeval period of British history, living alongside the court of Edward III in the 14th century. Perrers is a classic example of the vilification of women in history by men who sought the power she wielded. This process was aided by her sexuality, supposed promiscuity and the enforcement of gendered expectations. A more famous example of this is the life and memory of Anne Boleyn, the ‘great whore’ whose extraordinary rise to power angered courtiers and countries alike and whose memory has been sullied continuously by misinformation spread during her lifetime. As mistress to Edward III (r.1327-77) Perrers possessed an extraordinary amount of independence in an age where women were still considered property and had little to no legal protection or rights. Perrers’ life defied these constraints on mediaeval women even in the highest of circles. This did not sit well with her contemporaries. Alice differs in an important way to the story of Anne Boleyn; her rise defies the stereotype of sexualised women elevated by men around her and simultaneously defies the image purported by her contemporaries of an evil manipulative shrew that has lasted the centuries. Historiography generally agrees that many of Alice’s contemporaries have given an inaccurate account of her character and events in her lifetime. However, the overall narrative of a manipulative woman still influences her image today. These sources, namely Thomas Walsingham and Jean Froissart, are pivotal to the depiction of mediaeval warfare, royalty and politics including the Hundred Years War, Edward III’s kingship and that of his counterpart Philip VI of France. Their understanding and depictions of women’s roles, however, is severely lacking in accuracy, let alone empathy. Alice has been depicted as a manipulative gold digger, using an ageing Edward III for her own financial gain, offending his pious queen, Phillipa of Hainault as well as the Christian sensibilities of the court. Phillipa’s queenship has also been used against Alice as evidence of her inferiority and immorality. The mere connotations of ‘mistress’ already have inbuilt ammunition against women like Alice who worked for their livelihoods. Alice became one of the wealthiest people during her lifetime through various means that have been erased by antagonistic contemporaries and biased historiographical works. This wealth was all but lost by her death as Edward III died before her, leaving her undefended against the Good Parliament. With modern understanding of the reality women faced in these years, Alice’s life deserves a sympathetic reassessment to better understand the complexities of mediaeval life. A Woman Born and a Woman Made Mediaeval historiography is subject to a paucity of sources remaining today to tell us about life in this period. This has made the invisibility of women in society ever more present. Little is known about Alice’s origins, even the time and place of her birth is contested with most estimating around 1348 in the south of England, possibly London. Her parentage is also unknown, but it is generally agreed (Given-Wilson, Ormrod, Tompkins) that her father was a jeweller of the Salisbury family making her suitable for a traditional education of French, basic literacy and numeracy as well as the economic abilities necessary in her family’s industry. Alice was also born in a time of economic prosperity for the mercantile class of London, so prosperous in fact that the first sumptuary laws were implemented dictating what the lower ranks of society could eat and wear so as to not compete with nobility. Alice therefore received a comparatively privileged upbringing and benefited greatly from her family’s business, making her relatively well suited for court life. English chronicler Thomas Walsingham wrote that Alice was born to a thatcher. Whilst a jeweller was not a noble profession, it did rank higher than a thatcher and this debasement of Alice’ birth has evident intentions. We don’t have to dig deep to decipher Walsingham’s bias as he calls Alice a ‘shameless, impudent harlot’ and rallies against her role at the king’s side. Criticism of royal favourites, be they mistresses, advisors or soldiers, is an age-old tactic of indirectly criticising a king himself without facing the consequences of doing so (see the fate of Henry VIII’s courtiers). Edward III has been described as the ‘perfect king’ (Mortimer) however he has also been subject to heavy criticism for his later kingship. In the years before his death Edward is criticised for his personal conduct and his military record, the time when Walsingham was writing his chronicles again furthering his bias against Edwardian rule. Walsingham was also a monk of St Albans Abbey, which became a rival of Alice Perrers in her rise to prosperity, furthering his bias against the royal favourite. Although a prominent English chronicler, Walsingham’s account of Alice’s life has largely been dismissed as unreliable. Contextual clues can also be used against this chronicler’s description of Alice, as a low-born, ill-educated woman would not be elevated to the position of lady-in-waiting to a queen. It can be concluded that Walsingham exploited societal expectations of mediaeval English women, being the categorisation of obedient, quiet and subservient Christians vs disruptive, promiscuous and disobedient ‘harlots’ against Alice in her rise to prominence. Perrers is the name by which Alice is generally known as her maiden name cannot be certified; she is also sometimes referred to as Alice de Windsor following her second marriage, however both unions left little evidence of their occurrences. Alice’s first husband was ostensibly of French descent so it is fair to say that her understanding of the language would have made her suitable for life at court, where French was the primary language until the Statute of Pleading issued by her lover Edward III in 1362. As with most royal mistresses, Alice’s husband was known to the king through his work, in this case as a jeweller offering Alice the opportunity to meet the king herself.  It was common in these times for women of the peasant and mercantile classes to marry a man of the same profession as their father. Alice had begun to exercise her knowledge of her family’s trade, carrying out business herself following her first husband’s death in 1364. Alice’s official entrance into court was as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Phillipa, to whom Edward was reportedly devoted to throughout their 41-year marriage. This role opened the door for Alice’s most rewarding career move. As a royal favourite, Alice received many gifts and, through a diversity of means, became one of the richest people in the realm. This wealth was only protected, however, by the presence of the king and after his death Alice was exiled by the Good Parliament and her lands stripped. Although this has been referred to as her fall from grace (Moorhouse), Alice went down fighting. A Career Woman The primary issue contemporaries and historians have taken with Alice is the vast wealth she amassed in her lifetime, ostensibly at the expense of Edward’s purse and pride. Some of the most infamous royal mistresses throughout history have amassed great wealth through their influence like Madame de Pompadour, Barbara Palmer, and Diane de Poitiers. In many ways Alice’s treatment in history has not been so different from her counterparts as the work of women not of the blood at royal courts is often degraded or dismissed. This is habitually achieved through the hyperfocus on the sexual life of a mistress and, although this is often a key part of such a career, it is not the backbone of its success. Palmer maintained her influence in the Caroline court through patronage, Poitiers allied herself with Henry II’s closest courtiers and Alice secured her wealth with the knowledge and skill learned through her time spent in her family’s industry. The lens through which Alice’s wealth has been assessed has been a misogynistically motivated and cynical one. Edward’s wife Philipa was ailing by the beginning of his relationship with Alice and died before they became public. Edward himself was ageing and Alice has been accused of manipulating the weakened, mourning king to her own financial gain at his expense. I argue, however, those without official power, in the feudal world, cannot manipulate those with ultimate power - the king. Undoubtedly, Alice took advantage of the situation, utilised her skills and exploited the system to her benefit but this does not warrant the image of a ‘manipulative shrew’ to which she has been subject throughout the centuries. It could even be argued that her actions in her time when an unmarried woman could not own property, stand in court, or, (God forbid) vote, is admirable. However the connotations of the profession ‘mistress’ perforates today’s understanding of women’s lives in royal and noble history. Oversexualisation of women both vilifies and victimises these women as it reduces their achievements to a sexual conquest, disenfranchising their independence or contributions to the world of politics, art, literature or economics. Alice, in addition to a romantic and sexual partner of the king, was also a skilled businesswoman and property investor using her skills and good fortune to increase her net worth and secure her independence and protection when society offered her none. The evidence that Alice formed alliances at court to protect her economic interests following the uncertainty of her early widowhood has been used to represent alternating portrayals of her life and personality. As always in historical analysis, context is key. Alice undeniably used her sex to her advantage, utilising her close relationship with the king to line her coffers. Yet she had already amassed a considerable fortune relative to her birth and made her family proud with her position in the queen’s court as a lady-in-waiting. Men born into similarly modest backgrounds throughout history have faced starkly different treatment from society and historians alike. To quote Reese Witherspoon, ‘ambition is not a dirty word’, but when it comes to women in the royal court, their successes have not been treated kindly. Instead, they are often debased and slandered in an attack on women outside of biblically archaic expectations of a meek and modest woman; ‘That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands’ -  Titus 2:4-5 Drawing from Fiona Tolhurst's insights, royally associated women have faced unjust criticism and condemnation for exhibiting traditionally masculine traits like ambition, financial autonomy, and intellectual prowess—qualities that are often commended in men. Where Edward VI’s 1st Duke of Northumberland had a ‘determined ambition’ as he worked to control the young king and implement the soon-to-be Nine Day Queen, Jane Grey. Meanwhile, Tolhurst helpfully encapsulates the plight of women’s characterisations in history through the lens of Empress Matilda, who for modern historians is ‘both too feminine in her weaknesses and too masculine in her aggressive exercise of power.’ Witherspoon’s speech at the Glamour Women of the Year awards is obviously from a wildly different context than the life of Alice Perrers, yet serves to illustrate the way in which she has been remembered. Her ambition was her cause for success but also her adverse memorialisation. Hollman’s biography of Phillipa and Alice illustrates the sympathetic approach to women’s history we should be taking today with our understanding of the realities these women faced without an icon like Witherspoon to inspire them. Without looking at Alice through rose-tinted glasses, we can remove the ‘caricature’ recognised by Hollman and assess the mediaeval figure through a less biassed criteria. It can be argued that mistresses throughout history have partaken in one of the most controversial jobs in society. They exchanged sexual relationships for wealth and protection and used the position this work gave them to further their interests and those of their friends, families and allies. The narrative of a rapacious, manipulative, vindictive woman is based on the shame associated with sex work. Even the word ‘mistress’ pertains certain connotations around femininity and promiscuity despite the many successful careers shared by women in countries across the world (Hürrem Sultan, Madame de Montespan). Looking at the context of her time, Alice had very limited pathways to bettering herself. Alice’s supposed promiscuity has made it all too easy to dismiss her meteoric rise as a misuse of her feminine virtues and thus she has been treated harshly throughout history. Alice was involved in the business of her family, her husband and later for herself when she became a widow in 1364. The beginnings of Alice’s extensive property portfolio began in Kent with a deal exchanged between herself and John de Mereworth, a knight at Edward’s court. A major part of economic and social success in these courts was to be seen to be successful and owning property such as this would have significantly aided Alice onto her path of wealth and fortune. Behind the scenes, this land deal was even more impressive and is highly indicative of Alice’s hidden potential as a financial investor and property manager. This deal was the beginning of Alice’s independent income and has no relevance to her relationship with Edward; the introduction was made through her role at Phillipa’s court attained through her own means. This business attitude was sustained throughout her time at Edward’s side as she only became richer and richer until his death. Bothwell has described the role of ‘mistress’ as a passive one whose ‘position, her wealth, and even her fate were dependent upon the will of the king’. If this is to be proven true, should Alice not be heralded as the ultimate ‘girlboss’ who navigated these constraints and surpassed all expectations? Woman to Woman The feudal system of Edward’s reign thrust high expectations of mediaeval kingship upon him. Chivalric values embodied by the Order of the Garter formed by Edward in 1348 demanded military prowess, achieved at the Battle of Crecy, and domestic domination, achieved through the obtainment of an obedient wife. In Edward’s case this was the pious and loyal Phillipa of Hainault, who herself deserves a historical re-analysis. Jean Froissart, a French chronicler of the Hundred Years War described Phillipa as the ‘most gentle Queen, most liberal, and most courteous that ever was Queen in her days’ and this has been the general consensus of Phillipa’s queenship since her death (Hollman). Our old friend Thomas Walsingham similarly described Phillipa as ‘the most noble woman’ from which we can infer an additional motivation behind his slander of Alice’s name. If one meets the societal expectations of womanhood and femininity, one must fall short to perpetuate general masculine superiority. Phillipa’s maternal, beautiful, charitable queenship heightens the standard by which Alice is contrasted, painting an image of a white sheathed maiden angel on one shoulder and a red cloaked horned devil on the other. Comparing women in order to maintain power over them is an age-old strategy of the patriarchy that remains present in modern society; think Olivia vs Sabrina or Haley vs Selena. Evidently the standards to which Alice and Phillipa were, and continue to be, held vary greatly from today’s modern pop icons. Gentle femininity and obedience have been key characteristics of the ‘perfect woman’ for centuries in most cultures; the fact that Phillipa was able to publicly meet these requirements has served as fuel for the fire surrounding the continuous deformation of Alice’s character when compared to the pious queen. Alice has also been vilified through the victimisation of Phillipa in her final years as she watched her once faithful husband conduct his affair with the decades younger Perrers. To this, I refer to my earlier argument that those without official power in the feudal world, cannot manipulate those with ultimate power, such as the king. This means that Alice did not ‘steal’ her husband from her and should not be cast in the role of master manipulator. By separating these women as individuals whilst simultaneously recognising their coexistence we can better assess their characters, faults and virtues. Gemma Hollman’s comparative work on Phillipa and Alice seamlessly highlights the two women’s characters including their respective flaws without using either to elevate or vitiate the other. The Queen and the Mistress exemplifies changing attitudes towards women in history and especially those who lived in a time with strongly enforced gender expectations with a more empathetic analytical approach. The Rise and Fall of an Empire The evidence of Alice’s shrewd cunning is apparent on multiple fronts, not least in the physical manifestations of her wealth. Her portfolio of 56 properties across 25 counties by the time of her lover’s death made her one of the richest people (not just women) in England, transcending all gender expectations. This manifestation of wealth has been used as evidence of her ‘greed’, rather than her immense success (Ormrod). Notably, 15 of her manors were gifted to her by Edward III while the remaining properties were acquired through Alice’s own financial acumen by Alice herself owing to intricate land deals, agreements and negotiations. Alice's tale is a fascinating account of a woman’s ambition, fortune, and the prejudices that often accompany the elevation and memory of successful women. This success, however, inevitably stirred resentment, leading to a concerted effort from her adversaries to strip her of the wealth she had meticulously accumulated and fought to protect as she foresaw the vulnerability Edward’s death would expose her to. The Good Parliament was formed in 1376 in response to Alice’s excessive accumulation of landed wealth. Mediaeval historiography faces the challenge of a great paucity of sources due to the obvious problem of time. Most material has decayed in centuries past and so few people were literate, written sources are also scarce. This has meant a heavy reliance on sources with ostensible biases, including court documents, chroniclers as aforementioned and religious material. In Alice’s case the primary sources on her life come from the former, namely documentation of the trials of the Good Parliament and her demise. These trials represented public sentiment towards the royal mistress who had achieved so much in her lifetime. Alice’s contemporaries resented her for the wealth she had amassed with the aid of Edward III, who for so long had been the figurehead of chivalric kingly values as Froissart wrote ‘his like had not been seen since the days of King Arthur’. There is little evidence that Alice had any real parliamentary or military influence and although she was better educated that most would give her credit for, she was not so politically inclined. The influence she is accused of wielding over Edward was primarily financial as she exploited her position to benefit her coffers, arguably conflicting with the chivalric dictum of domestic control i.e. control over one’s household, including its women. Edward has been recorded as the ‘perfect king’ and this deference to a woman, a low ranking one at that, did not suit this narrative of a great and noble king (Mortimer). This was unacceptable to a proud and patriotic community as the English. Alice represented a threat to traditional masculine and chivalric values, further transcending gendered expectations of strict feudal society. Edward’s politicians and courtiers also blamed her for his later downfalls including ill health, military losses in France and costs to the royal coffers. The Good Parliament, so named after their desire to reform the corrupt royal house, exiled Alice from the realm and seized her worldly goods. By this time Alice had secretly married Sir William Windsor in order to protect herself from what she saw coming as her lover was dying and those in power despised her. This marriage was further ammunition to use against the royal mistress as a supposed betrayal of the king’s love. A targeted decree was made against Alice declaring; some women have pursued various business and disputes in the king’s courts by way of maintenance, bribing and influencing the parties, which thing displeases the king; the king forbids any woman to do it, and especially Alice Perrers, on penalty of whatever the said Alice can forfeit and of being banished from the realm. Gesta abbatum Monasterii Sancti Alba This declaration showcases Alice as a conniving gold digger defying the rules of femininity set out by the mediaeval patriarchy and feudal system that demanded a strict hierarchy in society that placed women in the lowest ranks. The ‘bribing and influencing’ found in the royal courts has been rife throughout all of history and is arguably what the nation is built on. The reason for the direct attack on Alice for these crimes which all courtiers and politicians were guilty of, is plain (misogyny, if you weren’t sure). It is a disappointment but not a shock, then, that this depiction has been the one to stand the test of time. The seizure and exile were not so effective in reality as planned. Under Richard II parliament again rallied to condemn Alice for her manipulation of the ageing king and misuse of royal power. In this court Alice was tried as a femme sole as she was believed to be unmarried and as such was not granted the protection offered to married women (a wife could not be tried as an individual as she was the property of her husband, along with all her worldly goods). This fact was not unbeknownst to Alice. It is unclear when she married for a second time but following her conviction William Wyndsore petitioned the result of the court on the basis of an unfair trial (Ormrod). Perrers had secretly married Wyndsore, Lieutenant of Ireland. A risky move, as it ostensibly painted Alice as a disloyal mistress betraying the love and kindness of the late king. Then again, Alice anticipated the danger of being an unmarried woman at the court of her lover’s son, now king, surrounded by enemies and wannabes. After constant petitioning, Wyndsore secured a substantial portion of his wife’s lands. Without this marriage Alice would have been left with nothing. It is this alliance that prevented her from total ruin in the end, although she suffered great losses at the hands of a vengeful consortium of men masquerading as a parliament. The image these courts aimed to paint of Alice as a universally hated seductress and gold digger, responsible for the depletion of royal treasury is contradicted by the circumstances of the bloody Peasant’s Revolt close by to Alice’s homestead. Alice’s properties were not attacked unlike many of those similarly convicted by the Good Parliament and Alice herself was never threatened with violence unlike her counterpart Richard Lyons who was killed in the street by leader Wat Tyler. The artistic licence taken with Alice’s reputation by her contemporaries reached levels of absurdity when it was rumoured she thieved the rings off a dying Edward’s fingers when left alone with him on his deathbed. This can be easily disproved by the apparent fact that no king would be left alone on his deathbed, unguarded especially  by such a loyal and loving family as Edward’s had proved to be. Walsingham has proven to be more of a dramatist than a chronicler as Alice supposedly; ‘artfully removed from the royal hands the rings, which the king wore on his fingers to display his royalty… so, in this way bidding the king farewell’ Yet, no such rings existed and no such action was taken. Alice was no thief in the night and had more foresight than to act on whim. Undeterred by vicious hearsay, legal constraints and feudal expectations, Alice fought fiercely against the forces determined to dismantle the empire she had worked decades to build. She bore losses to the wealth and honour of her children by the king, her own capital and reputation but died having lived an astoundingly affluent life. The resulting legacy is one of tenacity, wisdom and cunning tragically tinged by misogynistic rumour, false accusation and outright attacks on her wealth and character both in her lifetime and years after. Conclusion The aim of this article has not been to perceive Alice Perrers through rose-tinted glasses or to resituate her as a heroine or tragic victim of her time or the androcentric narrative of mediaeval history. Feminist history does not seek to put women on a pedestal. Rather, by employing the facts and information available, we can evaluate women like Alice in a manner akin to the treatment men have traditionally received, with a degree of empathy, respect and even sympathy for the times in which they lived. Alice did not live as a victim and should not be remembered as one, although the men who envied her success threw everything they had at her to take it. While Phillipa led a life of piety and ‘womanly’ obedience, Alice defied these constraints of femininity yet neither better or worse than the other. Both experienced loss, affluence, and even a degree of power. Both have been subject to the gendered bias of their contemporaries and historiography that followed. There is one question left to ask in light of this. If Alice manipulated Edward III, used him for her own gain, rinsed him for all he was worth and lied and cheated to protect herself, in a time where women had so few rights or protection, would that be so bad? Bibliography Biddulph, Steve, 2015, Raising Boys, Thorsons. Bothwell, James, 1998, ‘The management of position: Alice Perrers, Edward III, and the creation of a landed estates, 1362–1377’, Journal of Medieval History, Volume 24, Issue 1, Pages 31-51. Dawson, Ian, 1993, The Tudor Century 1485–1603, Nelson. Given-Wilson, C., 2004, Perrers [other married name Windsor], Alice  (d. 1401/02), ODNB. Hollman, G., 2022, The Queen and the Mistress: The Women of Edward III, The History Press, Cheltenham. Holmes, G., 1975, The Good Parliament, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Lewis, Jone Johnson, 2020,  Alice Perrers,  ThoughtCo,  Accessed November 2023. Lewis, K., 2013, Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England, Routledge. Moeslein, Anna, 2015, ‘Reese Witherspoon's Moving Speech at Glamour's 2015 Women of the Year Awards: 'Like Elle Woods, I Do Not Like to be Underestimated’, Glamour. Moorhouse, D., The Hundred Years War: Alice Perrers, Accessed November 2023. Mortimer, Ian, 2006, The Perfect King. The life of King Edward III, Pimlico. Ormrod, W.M., 2006, ‘Who was Alice Perrers?’, Chaucer Review 40, 219-229. Ormrod, W.M., 2008, ‘Alice Perrers and John Salisbury’, EHR 123, 379-392. Ormrod, W.M., 2008, ‘The Trials of Alice Perrers’, Speculum 83, 366-396. Ormrod, W.M., 2004, Edward III, Accessed November 2023. The Royal Women, Alice Perrers: The Manipulative Mistress, Accessed November 2023. Thompson, E.M., 1874, [T. Walsingham], Chronicon Angliae, ab anno Domini 1328 usque ad annum 1388, Rolls Series, 64. Tompkins, L., 2015, ‘Alice Perrers and the Goldsmiths’ Mistery: New Evidence Concerning the identity of the Mistress of Edward III’, EHR 130, 1361-1391. Westminster Abbey, Edward III and Philippa of Hainault,  Accessed November 2023.

Trigger Warning: Images of Human Remains & Mentions of Rape/Necrophilia Glossary Deviant - Deviating from normal social, etc., standards or behaviour. Hundred - a subdivision of a county or shire, having its own court; also formerly applied to the court itself Perimortem - At the time of death Wergeld - the price set upon a man according to his rank. This would be paid as compensation in the event of death, harm, or a broken oath. Isotopic Analysis - analysis of isotopes that are taken from archaeological remains to provide details on how old the remains are, where the individual lived at birth and later in life, and further information “The dead are not all remembered equally.” - Howard Williams, 2011 It is the 1960s in Oakridge, Basingstoke. The solitary cranium of a young female is uncovered by a construction crew at a roadside. Oakridge is an exceedingly rare site in that the remains are singular and exhibit a show of brutal punishment and mutilation at the time of death. This is considered to be “the first case of formal facial mutilation” as the evidence is frequently limited due to the deterioration or loss of the soft tissues and a lack of marks left on the skeletal structure. The discovery of this site provides the opportunity for further understanding of local law, mob mentality, as well as legal action that is usually lost on the archaeological record, especially in reference to the Anglo-Saxon period which is dated from 410 AD to 1066 AD. It is theorised by archaeologists that this mutilation was not intended to kill her, but done as an extreme form of humiliation and debasement. This belief is based on analysis undertaken on the perimortem cut marks, which are multiple and precise. This mutilation does not align with a single law, rather is an accumulation of several, which leads archaeologists to believe that this is the work of local people rather than a formal judicial action, and was done as a way to mark her for an offence - a form of scarlet letter. It is remarked upon that the aim was to ensure that these criminals, and in this instance this young girl, ‘lost face’. Her isotopic results and tooth analysis have revealed that she was between 15 and 18 years old and was not local to the area. Her remains have been radiocarbon dated to between 920 - 946 AD. There is extreme perimortem trauma to her nose and mouth, with no remodelling, further proving that this was inflicted at the time of death. Only the skull was recovered, and it is possible that decapitation was included as part of her humiliation and punishment but this cannot be confirmed. This site is a rare occurrence that aids in the understanding of local law, mob mentality, as well as revealing legal action that is usually lost on the archaeological record due to the loss of organic materials. The cranium itself was found 80 metres south of a parish hundred boundary, as well as near an Iron Age site, which would have been used as a reference point within the landscape. The repeated use of a site over successive stages of occupation and having these earlier connections allows this case to stand out further as it implies some form of ritualism or reverence of space, time, and the ancestors. Anglo Saxon Legal Codes Legal texts are among some of the oldest written documents that survive from many different civilisations across time. In reference to Anglo-Saxon communities specifically, Andrew Reynolds (University College London) comments that whilst legal texts are significant and provide a lens through which to see these communities, that it is also pertinent to be aware that the enforcement of these laws and the standard to which they are upheld will differ depending on where and when you are in the territory. It is also critical to consider that regional and local laws would likely also have been in use and may not feature on the national legal records. Moreover, many laws may have communicated through oral tradition rather than viewing these laws in their entirety in a written form. Law and order saw a change throughout the Anglo-Saxon period with laws being introduced on a national scale, and Christianity becoming a major factor within the formation of new laws and the upholding of new Christian ideals. This is reflected through burial evidence across the UK. These changes also coincide with the major change of the conversion to the Catholic Church in the 9th century. At this time, there was a sharp increase in the country’s lawmaking and the enforcement of laws, with gallows being placed at ports, entrypoints, and they are thought to have been placed within the majority of large towns. Several laws themselves lay out punishments, usually in reference to wergeld (or ‘man’s price’). These laws commonly focus heavily on the male experience, and later also encompass religious and ecclesiastical laws which are held to the very highest standard. It is thought that women sometimes evaded the law due to the legal codes being heavily tailored towards male perpetrators. This is also seen within the archaeological record where the majority of the deviant remains found are those of young men. Mutilation was a form of punishment undertaken by the judiciary, short of execution. Many Anglo-Saxon laws decree scalping and mutilation as the primary punishment as wergeld appears to have been a tangible honour to the Saxon peoples and its right must be upheld. Moreover, King Cnut’s clause 53 (a law) shows a female adulterer losing her nose and ears as punishment, a code that aligns with the damage seen on the cranium at Oakridge. This could also be implemented for thievery, such as with the idea that thieves lost their hands, as well as through activities such as branding, that would not be evident in the osteological record due to the loss of the soft tissues. Despite these being seen as kinder punishments than execution, many likely would have lost their lives due to complications and infections from the mutilation site. Grave Reopenings Historically, the reopening of graves was primarily for the purpose of grave robbing. However, new research by Aspöck has shown that graves from the Anglo-Saxon period were opened relatively close to the date of internment and that it is likely that some of the bodies had not finished decomposing by the time their grave was opened. This brings forth new considerations into the treatment of the dead, as well as how the dead were treated and remembered. In the case of these deviant cemetery sites it is likely that these graves were reopened as a secondary form of punishment where they are once again humiliated after death. The opening and viewing of decomposing remains reinforces fear and allows for the punishment of the deceased individual to be felt within the community for an extended period of time, maintaining fear and order within the population. There is some consideration that this may have been a ritual occurrence to revisit the deceased, however, the movement of bodies and in some cases, the removal of parts of the remains from the grave, present this as an abusive and degrading act. The reopening of graves may not always be obvious and it is unknown how many graves would have been opened during the Saxon period. Some theories show that these graves, mostly of younger women, were reopened for nefarious means, specifically for the further debasement and rape of these women. This is theoretical and based on the positioning of the remains, as well as the times of reopening. The graves were cut to the size of the individual, however, after they were reopened the bodies were pushed far up to the head-end with legs akimbo. Rape and necrophilia are unsettling but very real considerations in this instance. Grave desecration was outlawed within the Anglo Saxon code, and these offences may have resulted in legal action themselves. The reopening of deviant burials is a further aspect of deviance that requires further analysis. These instances of desecration are highly motivated, and by understanding these motivations archaeologists can produce a clearer understanding of the societal and cultural driving forces that allow deviancy to be so prevalent. What does this tell us? Throughout the period, women were needlessly debased and defiled, even after death. These instances build an image of a society where women were clearly second class citizens who were not even important enough to factor into the legal codes. However, this is not always the case as there are many instances of Anglo-Saxon men championing their female counterparts, such as King Edward the Elder building and endowing an abbey for his daughter Elflaeda. Women of all echelons, with a few exemptions, were not afforded the same opportunities or respect as their male counterparts. Despite these occurrences, it is clear that Anglo-Saxon attitudes were not kind to women and heavily favoured men and even young boys who were considered to be adults around the age of 10! This is again reinforced by the likely mob action against this teenage girl, which resulted in her losing her nose, ears, and her scalp. Further Reading: Aspöck, E. (2011). Past ‘Disturbances’ of Graves as a Source: Taphonomy and Interpretation of Reopened Early Medieval Inhumation Graves at Brunn Am Gebirge (Austria) and Winnall II (England). Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 30(3), pp.299–324. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0092.2011.00370.x. Aspöck, E. (2015). Funerary and Post-Depositional Body Treatments at the Middle Anglo-Saxon Cemetery Winnall II: Norm, Variety – and Deviance? In: Death embodied: Archaeological Approaches to the Treatment of the Corpse. [online] Oxbow Books, pp.86–108. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1989441.7 [Accessed 19 Apr. 2023]. Cole, G., Ditchfield, P.W., Dulias, K., Edwards, C.J., Reynolds, A. and Waldron, T. (2020). Summary justice or the King’s will? The first case of formal facial mutilation from Anglo-Saxon England. Antiquity, [online] 94(377), pp.1263–1277. doi:https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.176. Hough, C. (2021). Early English Laws: Women and Law in the Anglo-Saxon Period. [online] Earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk. Available at: https://earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/reference/essays/women-and-law/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2023]. Lucy, S.J. (1996). Housewives, Warriors and slaves? Sex and Gender in Anglo-Saxon burials. In: Theoretical Archaeology Group, ed., Invisible People and processes; Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology, Theoretical Archaeology Group. Leicester University Press, pp.150–168. Reynolds, A. (2011). Crime and Punishment. In: H. Hamerow, D. Hinton and S. Crawford, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.238–259. Reynolds, A. (2013). Judicial culture and social complexity: a general model from Anglo-Saxon England. World Archaeology, 45(5), pp.699–713. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2013.878524. Reynolds, N. (1988). The rape of the Anglo-Saxon women. Antiquity, 62(237), pp.715–718. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00075141. Williams, H. (2011). Mortuary Practices in Early Anglo-Saxon England. In: H. Hamerow, D. Hinton and S. Crawford, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.238–259.

The mystique of the redhead is well documented throughout the ages , dating back to biblical times. The queen of Hell, Lilith, was thought to be a redhead, and the mythological women of Greek stories like Cassandra and Persephone have been depicted with this hair colour, indicating a pattern across centuries of troubled or troubling women sharing a common feature of red hair. Hair gives women agency, but only insofar as it is linked to appearance, whether judged as beautiful or ugly according to beauty standards throughout history. It is associated with the cisgendered female Other, and this strength and beauty has much to be admired but also feared. Red hair can be traced through beauty trends made visible by literature, historical records, and art. Cleopatra was presumed to have reddened her hair using henna, a cosmetic tool favoured by the Ancient Egyptians, whereas in Japanese culture an 1896 article suggested that red hair brought bad luck, and that ‘he or she must not wash her hair on the day of horse when hair would turn red, an evil turn of events (Volker 1975, 7). Examples of famous women such as Boudica, Elizabeth I, and Moira Shearer indicate no lack of redheaded women in popular history, but their shared feature of red hair is often felt to be a problem (Figure One). Its sheer rarity, with less than 2% of the global population considered as natural redheads may justify such claims of uniqueness and fascination, but the deep-rooted and dangerous appeal of red in all its literary and historical forms implies an otherness which is historically feared in masculine perspectives of history. The problematic of red hair is its colour, and this perceived abnormality has been weaponised into a vilification of women. It is difficult to define the archetype of the redhead in history as inherently positive or negative, as famous figures like Elizabeth I created a fashion of having red hair, whilst Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables perceives her red hair as ugly and is bullied for having ‘carrots’ for hair. The devilish allusions to fire and sin seem too straightforward in answer to the often -unfair stereotyping of scarlet haired women throughout history, but the fact of natural red hair as a rare quality fosters this nature of suspicion across the real and fiction women I am discussing (Montgomery 154). The colour red, ginger, or strawberry blond does ‘stand out’ in its vibrancy, and where women have historically been taught modesty, the dangerous power of hair was thought to beguile and disturb male onlookers. My study reflects on iconic women across literature, art and mythology, who can be grouped together as outsiders or unique characters partially due to their red hair and the patriarchal fears that are intrinsically linked with being a redhead. Religious lore provides one source for the fear of red hair, as records from the European witch trials spanning from the 15th to 18th century reveal that it was widely believed that simply having red hair could invoke the devil. Wendy Cooper’s Social History of Hair identifies the duplicitous Judas as one origin of this idea, as the religious damnation of this man as disloyal and untrustworthy is tied to his red hair (Cooper 1971, p.75). The power of religious symbols is connected to persecution of redheads, and in relation to the Spanish inquisition, the immoral allusions of red hair and fear of heresy came hand in hand (Cooper). In A Vindication of the Redhead, Brenda Ayres affirms that ‘The association of red hair with Satan, devils, monsters, murderers, villains, seductive women, Jews, and other personages of presumed infamy continues to be propagated through literature and other media today’ (21 ). Red hair, then, is doubly embedded in the cultural myths of hair and western beauty standards as well as religious ideas of sin and seduction, especially due to the primal colour associated with temper, desire, and violence. Ayres equally discusses the biblical idea of sexual temptation associated with hair, and how historically women have been punished for their perceived sexuality by having their hair cut off. The Grimm Brothers’ Rapunzel and Fantine from Les Misérables are two important cultural examples, when their hair is forcefully cut, they both lose power and become disposable (Figure Two). Joan of Arc is a counterpoint to these women; although suffering an equally tragic fate, the martyr chose to cut her hair as a form of disguise. All of these cultural references exemplify the equivocal truth that long hair can be a mark of beauty but also objectification. Long flowing hair presents a threat to male power due to its distracting ‘allure’, and feminist history emphasises the important context behind the mythologization of hair. It can be used as a way to vilify women, as a tradeable product of femininity that someone like Fantine uses very literally to make money. Barbara G Walker notes the popular myth of ‘prophetic priestesses or witches, who operated with unbound hair on the theory that their tresses could control the spirit world’ (Walker 1996, p.368). Hair, in magical terms, was a source of power, so adding the dimension of red hair increased the strength of these women. There is a sense of both monetary value but also emasculation at play with red hair, so the mythology of red headed women as imbued with supernatural power is a means to explain the oxymoron of patriarchal beauty ideals and sinfulness that they embody. We can thus see a trend emerging from the fear of dissent surrounding red hair that then transposes to a visual figuration of red hair as ever seductive yet valuable. Thus, if hair studies reveal a gendered perception of red hair, how can we account for the diverse depictions of women thought to have or often visualised with ginger hair? It can be attributed to changes in beauty standards, as the trend in depictions of ‘devilish’ female characters in religious cultures such as Eve and Lilith was replaced by an adoration of redheaded women in the Pre-Raphaelite muses Fanny Cornforth and Elizabeth Siddal and the mythological women they incarnated. Feared and revered , the unanimous agreement is that red hair attracts attention, why is why I have chosen to look at key examples of the male gaze at work in shaping perceptions of redhaired women and how these can be reconstructed. Historically, naturally occurring red hair has been found primarily in European countries, so the majority of artwork and accounts of red hair are associated with white Western women. This is not to say that red hair does not exist in all parts of the world, and indeed it is thought that Cleopatra may have had red hair. Negative criticism of red hair has been associated with antisemitism, and the very fact that it is a ‘minority attribute’ indicates historic fear and alienation in pictorial depictions of Jewish people (Mellinkoff 202). Vindictive histories of russet haired women focus on the colour itself as a rarity and a warning symbol, with the most common being devilish associations. The great Iceni queen Boudica is exemplary of often prejudiced accounts of powerful redheaded women, and her physical appearance plays a deciding factor in male historian’s accounts (Figure Three). She was described by the monk Gildas in the sixth century as 'the treacherous lioness' and her followers 'crafty foxes,' when both animals are known for their red hair (Gildas 540, 21, in Gibson 92). Ancient Roman historian Cassius Dio elaborates that ‘in stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips’. Her ‘tawny’ hair was thought to be red, and here her physically dominating appearance is measured by fear and awe. Whilst this pattern of redheads may be a coincidence, their history of literary and visual representations reflects beauty standards of idealism and male anxiety, as Dio’s account is yet another shaped by the male gaze. Red hair, from the earliest Greek myths and biblical tales, seek to emphasise a woman’s otherness or demonic qualities, whereby a powerful or powerless woman could be vilified by the fact of having distinctive red hair. Early religious accounts associate red, and thus redheads, with Satan, and the Babylonian Talmud (a central text of study in Judaism) describes Lilith, the first wife of Adam, as a redhead (Ayres 28). The biblical image of Lilith as a demonic woman who disobeyed traditional ideas of motherhood and female sexuality indicates that her unruliness is equitable with her hair colour. The figuration of both Lilith and Judas as having fiery hair must then symbolise their dissidence and infallible branding as sinful in certain religious interpretations. In the Babylonian Talmud (c.500), Lilith is scarcely mentioned but is described with long hair and is thought to have been banished from the garden of Eden for not following Adam’s rule and then becoming the Mother of Hell (British Library). The 'Lady Lilith' painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1867) is perhaps the most famous incarnation of Lilith, and her distinctive long red hair adds to her femme fatale characterisation (Figure Four). Rosetti’s choice to use his mistress Fanny Cornforth as the model is telling of the seductive power that is often emphasised by redheaded characters. The demonic idea of Lilith is translated into a more formal tradition in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, where Lilith is shown in an intimate setting, importantly combing her hair. Other details include a red bracelet and a poppy, which can symbolise death, drawing the viewer’s attention to red as a key motif in this painting. For Rossetti, and indeed Victorian viewers, it is unclear whether red hair can be judged as a beauty ideal, as Roach notes that this hair colour has ‘struck every emotion in our hearts, from vehement terror to unthrottled lust, since the hue first appeared in humankind’ (Roach 3). Lilith is a prime example of how literature dictated by men can influence cultural myths of red hair, which goes on to include Princess Salome and Greek myths such as Cassandra and Persephone, who are also figured with red hair (Figures Five and Six). Cassandra (left) and Persephone (right) suffered alienation and tragedy all whilst having red hair in artistic depictions, and the flaming locks of Cassandra echo the ruined city behind her. Their fates are not comparable to their hair colour, of course, but there is a shared sense of foreboding in the artists’ choice to depict these tragic heroines with red hair. Botticelli’s iconic ‘The Birth of Venus’ painting also leans into the femme fatale trope of Greek mythology, as the love goddess Venus’s long wavy tresses emphasise her ideal femininity, and a noticeable tawny strawberry blonde colour (Figure Seven). It seems then that the common stereotyping of redheads as fiery and passionate are found in these Greek goddesses, who have been viewed in artistic renderings as passionate yet idealised redheads. It is difficult to define the archetype of the redhead in history as inherently positive or negative, as famous figures like Elizabeth I created a fashion of having red hair, whilst Anne perceives her red hair as ugly and is bullied for having ‘carrots’ for hair. The devilish allusions to fire and sin seem too straightforward in answer to the often -unfair stereotyping of scarlet haired women throughout history , but the fact of natural red hair as a rare quality fosters this nature of suspicion across the real and fiction women I am discussing (Montgomery 154). The colour red, ginger, or strawberry blond does ‘stand out’ in its vibrancy, and where women have historically been taught modesty, the dangerous power of hair was thought to beguile and disturb male onlookers. My study reflects on iconic women across literature, art and mythology, who can be grouped together as outsiders or unique characters partially due to their red hair and the patriarchal fears that are intrinsically linked with being a redhead. Continuing in history, a distinctive shift in the correlation between redheads and beauty standards is visible in Queen Elizabeth I. Her portraiture created a cult of royal authority and established her strength and regal power as a queen, making her red hair famous. As an influencer of national fashions and beauty, many women aspired to Queen Elizabeth’s look, including her red hair. Her most vibrant ‘Rainbow Portrait’ shows her late in her reign but still figured as an eternal young woman, her hair perfectly curled and bejewelled (Figure Eight). She controlled the circulation of her image, and so this portrait is indicative of her desire to publicly maintain her features to show the constancy of her power. Elizabeth I’s patronage of artists created a cult of imagery around the queen which maintained her regal status of the Virgin Queen, and her distinctive red hair remained a key feature of her portraiture. Her red hair remained the same hue and thickness throughout her life, causing one to question the truthfulness of the artist’s brush. What is clear is that the image of the young, omnipotent queen was paramount and the power of beauty standards reigned over the Queen herself to maintain the Gloriana image. During that time, Ayres notes that ‘Titian was famous for painting redheads. In fact, the hair color—a “golden red-brown”—had become so popular in Venice that women dyed their hair that color.’ (Roach 68, in Ayres 11). The term ‘Titian red’ has become widespread due to his common use of the colour, which was distinctive to his style, and suggests an increase in appreciation for redheads, certainly aided by its visibility in portraiture and presentation as both beautiful and powerful in the case of Queen Elizabeth I. These visual signifiers of auburn hair as ethereal and the highest pinnacle of beauty denote an appreciation that is interlinked with concepts of female power and royalty. The regal power of Elizabeth I exponentially increased the popularity of red hair and may have elevated it from negative cultural prejudices. Titian’s fixation on red hair and his own shade of red indicates this widespread visual culture of redheads which confronted women of the epoque, casting beauty and a regal aura on the female models (Figure Nine). The popularity of trends and the rise and fall of perceived beauty of redheads can then be traced in literary depictions, but a common feature is that often these women are powerful, mystically so, and their beauty is often replaced by patriarchal fear, or in Queen Elizabeth I’s case, a cult of power. Paintings of redheads put Western beauty on a pedestal and share myths of red hair across fictional and historical women that they depict. Elizabeth I created a popular image of herself which brought her flaming locks into prominence, associating her hair with both her femininity and strength, perhaps trading into the fiery stereotype as her forte as a speech maker and long ruling monarch relied on public support. When imagining paintings of redheads, the Pre-Raphaelites are central to visual culture, as the Brotherhood (and Sisterhood), founded in 1848, is recognizable in art movements for the prominence of red-haired female subjects in various classical and Victorian settings. The redheaded model is common among their depictions of so called dangerous and tragic women such as Ophelia and the Lady of Shalott, who are often to be feared and safely contained in the canvas of a painting. Elizabeth Siddal is a key example of how red hair situated women as the muse and model for the male artist rather than artists in their own right. Often figured as dangerous and beautiful women, Siddal’s’ history is often rendered synonymous with her sitting as Ophelia in the infamous 1851-2 painting by John Everett Millais (Figure Ten). Her tragically short life mirrors the heroine Ophelia, but this is an injustice to her own writing and artwork she produced . Perhaps the memory of Siddal as a muse known for the visual marker of her long red hair emphasises the beauty standards of the Pre-Raphaelites and suggests auburn hair is in fact an ideal, albeit a tragic one. The male gaze is inextricable within the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, so their contribution to Victorian beauty standards in painting such as ‘The Beloved’, ‘Lilith’ and ‘Lucrezia Borgia’. Their artwork combines myths of redheads with male desire and female power. They perpetuated the stereotype of red hair as beautiful but also laced with scandal, the sitters themselves were often depicted as adulterous, magical or tragic women but were artists themselves in their own right. Their red hair harks back to the religious ideas of sinfulness, where stories of powerful and mythical women were often reinvented with red hair. The male artist, whether it is Rossetti or Titian, had great sway over cultural perceptions of female beauty, and their choice of redheaded female subject is thus telling of a male gaze which has ownership over the vivid red-haired model. Siddal is still remembered primarily as a muse, and the memorialisation of her face and hair in Rossetti’s art displays the gender powerplay at work in constraining the female model within a patriarchal canvas. Red hair, as a visual signifier of beauty or ‘abnormality’, has also been well documented in literature. Traits that we have encountered in the historical redheaded women lend themselves to fiction too, where the most outspoken female characters are often redheads . Some are alienated, such as the plucky orphan Anne of Green Gables who dislikes her red hair so intensely that it is a ‘lifelong sorrow’ (Figure Eleven). She believes in the popular myth that ginger hair is a curse and wishes for it to be raven black instead. This informs us more about beauty standards of the time, so her fixation on her hair is not a vanity but rather ostracization of a young girl in 1880s society. L.M. Montgomery’s novel reflects a misogynistic attitude towards hair colour which can be compared to other similar historical depictions of redheaded women. The character of Anne is made to feel worthless, and her distinctive hair is a visual sign for her that she does not belong. She tells Marilla that ‘red-headed people can’t wear pink, not even in imagination’ (Montgomery 52). Rejected from society as an orphan, her red hair seems to escalate the sense that beauty and belonging is out of reach. She internalises beauty standards that deem her red hair ‘ugly’, which derives from bullying and unfair treatment, and can only become empowering as she grows up and accepts herself (101). Anne’s temper and boldness is fitting with the fiery stereotype, although it is arguable that her outsider status and thirst for justice is the real reasoning behind her personality. Other orphans like Annie and Pippi Longstockings share the same outspoken characteristics, and all triumph in their resilience in the face of alienation. Pippi in particular is an unconventional little girl, she lives alone and has an unexpected superpower of incredible strength. Here, her so called ‘oddity’ is a superpower, as is her red hair: she may stand out but is celebrated for this and overcomes adversity. In fiction, hair holds a history of oppression and power in equal parts, which plucky Anne and powerful Pippi exemplify. If we take Rapunzel as an example, her hair has magical qualities which then aid her escape from evil forces which would keep her and her rebelliously long hair hidden . Connie Koppelman notes that ‘because hair continually replenishes itself, it has been imbued with magical, symbolic power and defined by myth and tradition’, adding to the concept that hair is a powerful symbol of something uncontrollable (87). There is certainly then a myth around hair and superstition which form a part of literary tradition. Elsewhere, Sylvia Plath’ s ‘Lady Lazarus’ dramatically announces that ‘Out of the ash/ I rise with my red hair/ And I eat men like air’ . The reclamation of biblical ideas of sin and hell are reworked in the image of resurrection and female power, the female Lazarus is invincible and vengeful. Here, her ‘red hair’ is part of Plath’s feminist message of reinvention and dangerous natural power, and ideas of fieriness and fire are linked directly to her red hair. Plath plays on religious ideals of good and evil by subverting the parable of Lazarus rising from the dead to present us with a violent feminine rebirth ‘out of ash’ where ‘red hair’ is a form of armour that Lady Lazarus can use to take on patriarchal forces. Red hair can be a cause for celebration and feminism as an act of reclamation, and even in current literature the eponymous Daisy Jones, the rebellious 70s musician , has ‘copper red hair that is thick and wavy and… takes up so much space’ (Reid 3). Jenkins Reid puts scarlet haired women as her heroines, and Daisy Jones and Celia St James, a Hollywood It Girl from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, both have charisma and inspire beauty and fear. They are vilified for it but also capitalise on their beauty and art. Emily Dickinson was confirmed to have had red hair, underlining this trend of red hair and uplifting, even riotous feminist role models in literature (Figure Twelve). She described her hair as ‘bold, like the Chestnut Bur’, linking Dickinson’s perception of her hair as a naturally imbued powerful feature with Plath’s later sentiment about fiery Lady Lazarus (Letter 268, Dickinson/Higginson Correspondence: July 1862). These female writers and their characters view red hair as part of their individualism, it is a reason for celebration, not sorrow like the young Anne. A shift in popular opinion in modern day society to celebrate difference which can include ‘fieriness’ as a woman has its origins in historical and fictional women, whose stories must be retold and rethought through the lens of beauty standards. By separating problematic beauty myths from the array of powerful and often misunderstood characters in literature, one can see the literary appreciation for redheads, particularly in feminist narratives, that works against historical prejudice. Is red hair then the age-old scarlet letter, particularly for women? Countless male artists would seem to say this in their paintings, and stereotypes of beauty throughout mythology, history and literature single out red-haired women as extraordinarily fiery and often dangerous. These female figures are often framed from the perspective of the male historian or artist, so bringing them all together suggests that freeing the redhead from archaic stereotypes is much more liberating, instead sharing a wealth of powerful and inspirational women who happen to also have red hair. Like Anne who grows to love her auburn locks as she grows up and discards harmful stereotypes, it is important to understand that these beauty standards are reflected in cultural productions like art and literature often prescribed by men. There is in fact no rarity of flame-haired women in stories to inspire a much more positive and complex understanding of the myth of the redhead, who has been misunderstood under misogynistic ideals and is instead a force to be reckoned with. Further Reading Primary Sources Montgomery, L. M. Anne of Green Gables. Penguin Random House, 2015. Dio. Roman History (LXII.1-2) Plath, Sylvia. ‘Lady Lazarus’, Ariel, 1965. Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49000/lady-lazarus. Reid, Taylor Jenkins. Daisy Jones and the Six. Arrow Books, 2019. Dickinson, Emily. ‘Letter 268’, Dickinson/Higginson Correspondence: July 1862. emilydickinson.org Secondary Sources Ayres, Brenda and Maier, Sarah E. A Vindication of the Redhead: The Typology of Red Hair Throughout the Literary and Visual Art. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Gibson, Rachael. ‘Why are artists infatuated with red hair?’, Art UK, 26th Apr. 2018. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/why-are-artists-infatuated-with-red-hair. Cooper, Wendy. Hair: Society, Sex and Symbolism. New York City: Stein and Day, 1971. Walker, Barbara. The Women’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. Castle Books, 1996. Koppelman, Caroline. ‘The politics of hair’, Frontiers, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 87-88, 1996. Mellinkoff, Ruth. Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993. British Library. ‘Babylonian Talmud.’ British Library website, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/babylonian-talmund. Roach, Marion. The Roots of Desire: The Myth, the Meaning, and Sexual Power or Red Hair. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005. Gildas. De Excidio Britanniae: The Ruin of Britain. vol. 1. Translated and edited by Hugh Williams. London: David Nutt, 1899. https://books.google.com/books?id=FfsmAAAAMAAJ. Volker, T. The Animal in Far Eastern Art: And Especially in the Art of the Japanese Netsuke with References to Chinese Origins, Traditions, Legends, and Art. Ledien: Brill, 1975.

An integral part of our military history is the remembrance of those who lost their lives and gave their service to defending others. Towns and villages more often than not have a traditional war memorial from World War I or II taking centre stage in churchyards and cenotaphs. The names of local men carved on each Commonwealth or private grave remind us of their sacrifice. Yet how many women’s names have you seen? There are lots of important women in global services, however, men still greatly prevail when one thinks of the Army, Navy, or Royal Air Force. As someone with a very minor role in the armed services, in this article I aim to showcase the roles and dedication of women in World War I & II using their (lack of) memorials around the UK, specifically focusing on the British Army. A Woman’s Role: Women in front line combat is still statistically flat-lined despite it being legal to join all the Armed services in the UK. Recruitment targeting women for front line roles arguably falls short of standards. Only 12% of the British Army specifically, is female, with aims of increasing it to 25% in the next 10 years. Within this statistic; 9% are in non-combat positions (e.g. HR, logistics, catering, medical, and other auxiliary roles). These roles are the backbone of the military in any country no question. Without the men and women in these jobs, front line soldiers in combat simply would not function! It’s a small statistic, but women hold positions in support more than anywhere else in the army. It was only as recently as 2018, when the British MOD (Ministry of Defense) allowed women to serve openly in all branches of the army, with a previous law being overturned in 2014 stating women were only allowed in ‘supporting roles’, i.e. auxiliary roles, as they had been for centuries beforehand. In my opinion, this overturning of law is shockingly late considering the demanding and dangerous jobs women did during WW I & II. Prior to WW I & II there have been monuments, art, and literature dedicated to women about warfare and achievements. Often only individual achievements. We can see Roman and Greek praise and dedications to wives, sisters, or mothers, in funerary items, or to statues or plaques to Empresses, Queens, or Pharaohs. Cleopatra’s needle, Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple and hieroglyphics, Nefertiti’s tomb, and more are all types of monuments to women. However, women’s successes have been dismissed, buried, and overlooked by the men who ruled afterwards. This can mirror society today in part; War memorials tend to be male centric, forgetting the often unseen work of women which I explore more as the article progresses. Way back when, we were doing similar jobs to today’s 9% during in WW I & II. During both conflicts, you could be a nurse in the Queen Alexandra Imperial Nursing service, or join FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). In 1917 the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was formed to solve the manpower decline, or join the ATS (Auxiliary Territory service). In 1941, women were then legally conscripted into supporting roles. Those who were physically able to work (even if they were married) were employed in munitions, the Land Army, nurses for the Red Cross or other, textile factories, and the auxiliary. By the end of WW II, 450,000 were employed by the armed forces (excluding Infantry roles). Over 74,000 British women were serving in anti-aircraft units near the front lines in the ATS. However, close combat roles remained off-limits. Members of the ATS were known as ‘Ack Ack girls’ who supported reconnaissance, finding and locating enemy pilots and camps, getting bearings, and observing enemy aircraft, but were barred from pulling the trigger on weaponry. This is demonstrated by the 93rd Searchlight Regiment: an all-female unit part of the Royal Artillery conducting anti-aircraft operations, based in Southern England. Unbelievably, the ATS was not recognized as a military regiment until 1941. A trial run of 54 ATS members was conducted in order to test a woman’s ability in dealing with the same physical and emotional conditions male soldiers suffered in wartime. This was the ‘Newark Experiment’ orchestrated by General Pile (General Officer Anti-Aircraft Commander-in-Chief). Sent to Wales, the experiment was a great success; ‘they showed themselves more effective, more horror inspiring and more blood-thirsty with their pick-helves than many a male sentry with his gun’ and ‘the girls lived like men, fought their fights like men and, alas, some died like men’ wrote Pile on the work of the ATS and subsequent formation of the 93rd Regiment. They were given uniforms after 1941, and a higher rate of pay was to be in order if women were doing the same job as male soldiers. However, they were not personally armed, and originally did not have the authorization to pull the trigger or give the fire control order on weaponry as mentioned. Each unit had a male soldier integrated who could actually fire the mortar based off the woman’s calculation. Units were based around the South West and East of England, with some in Western Europe. Around 389 of these women were killed in bombings. This is a staggering figure for women who were essentially considered as supporting non-combat roles in the law’s eyes. Memorials The vast majority of memorials are specifically for male infantry soldiers who deserve to be memorialized for their actions in warfare. Women’s achievements and dedications for their time are often forgotten – even in Remembrance services. Yet women both on the front lines or behind the lines, were equally important. This is why the ‘Women in World War II’ memorial was created. In 2005, the towering bronze memorial was unveiled on the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day by the Queen, in the center of Whitehall near Downing Street. This was the first dedicated pride-of-place monument in the UK to all women during World War II, named the ‘Women in World War II memorial’. It commemorates the women who served and survived, or lost their lives in the war. 22 feet high and 16 feet long, it depicts the outfits and uniforms of all the services and police, munitions garments, the Land Army, welding gear, farming, Air Wardens, pilot goggles and aviator jackets. ATS uniforms are also included thanks to General Pile’s efforts in 1941. 17 total uniforms are on display on sculpted hooks – as if they were hung up ready for another working day. The monument was designed by John W. Mills, whose mother was a firefighter in WW II. It remembers the 7 million plus women UK wide who were involved in wartime efforts. Baroness Boothroyd expertly remarked at the unveiling: “(women) hung them up and let the men take the credit”. The Baroness’ remark encapsulates the public and general opinions. Having seen the monument in person, the dedication is imposing and bold. Black with gold lettering for the title, a huge literal block statement, of which I found to really force the public to view and understand the gravity of war and who was involved. It is not the typical memorial such as crosses and plaques, but it is successful in creating a powerful statement on the impacts of war on women. However, this was unveiled in 2005 when women were not permitted in front line combat roles. Hypocritical much? Rather the ‘Women in World War II’ memorial commemorates the dedicated women of their time period, despite the lack of actual combat the majority saw. In hindsight, this hypocrisy crumbles. But like usual there was and still is tension over this memorial concerning its glorification of war, heightened because it is a women’s only memorial which brings its own criticisms. The memorial names no women either despite there being numerous key figures at play such as women code-breakers in Bletchley Park, or spies of the SOE (Special Operations Executive), and nurses killed in bombing raids. It displays their empty shells – their uniform. Seen to represent all women, but there are no statues or depictions of individual women unlike the majority of statues that show male soldiers; depicting faces and figures. Women are not a tangible entity, with some arguing the ‘Women in World War II’ memorial is a denial to the real women who represented our country as their bodies and faces are not visualized. On the flip side, I’m simply liking that there is a proper dedicated monument in Whitehall! Looking further back, WW I has a few low status memorials, for example a reworked 13th century stained glass window in York minster church. A commemorative plaque titled ‘Women of the Empire’, was made and unveiled in 1925. The Bury War memorial in Lancashire also features depictions of women in Land Army uniform, commissioned in 1924. There are few and far between female names added in inscriptions on male dominated plaques and crosses, one has to dig for and peer closer to see the sparse female names at the bottom of memorials. Moreover, I like how this plaque acknowledges all women in the empire, and not solely British women. Leading for it to be pretty inclusive. Women of all backgrounds, races, and ethnicities were expected to help the war effort, and the memorials in Whitehall and York portray this because they picture the uniforms any woman would have worn. Bletchley Park has a Roll of Honour memorial which is constantly being added to, as new information is being discovered after society’s interests in feminine history has increased in popularity. 75% of those who worked at Bletchley were female. When VE Day hit, almost all gave up their career to marry and resume relative normality with most never revealing what their true role was. In 2011, the Queen further unveiled a memorial dedicated to Alan Turing – who worked at Bletchley as a lead code-breaker. His untimely suicide in 1954 brought attention to LGBTQ+ rights and perspectives. It was not just the women who worked behind the scenes during war. This lead to perspectives changing on equality in warfare, and the fact that both men and women should and have taken public credit for what they achieved. Yet, this usually comes well after the lifetime of the individuals involved are over. Although in my opinion, the work of spies is to remain unseen - maintaining secrets. Therefore, no war memorial or public accreditation is to be erected. However, more individual contributions have been recently recognized such as respected British spies Pippa Latour and British-American Virginia Hall aka ‘A Woman of No Importance’. Other notable women include Winston Churchill’s youngest daughter Mary Churchill, who served in the ATS. Plus, we all know that future Queen Elizabeth II was also a member of the ATS. She worked as a mechanic and driver, making her the first female head of state to actively participate in conflict. Women now From 1938-45, women employed in industrial jobs increased from 19% to 27% as a percentage of total British female population. British women in the Tri-service auxiliary roles during this time were estimated to be 640,000 by 1945, compared to over 5 million British men total in all combat and non-combat roles. A further 3 million coming from Allied nations (excluding the Soviet Union). Leaving the male total to be about 8.5 million. By these figures, just 2.13% of British women involved in the war effort overall were auxiliary personnel in the Army, Navy, and RAF combined. If split equally for the purposes of this article only, we get an estimate of 0.71% of females in each service total. This is vast if we think to today where 12% of the total British army itself is female, remembering that the 2.13% in WW II is women in all three services! Women were a small percentile, but were involved in the main backbone of the war effort. As discussed, nowadays 9% of serving females are in non-combat army roles, with the remaining 3% being combat and front line infantry. We have jumped from 0.71% to 9% in non-combat, and 0 to 3% in combat roles since the end of World War II. But what makes it more impressive is recently, the British Army has shrunk from 2.9 million soldiers in 1945, to about 82,000 infantry soldiers today. Totaling 112,000 in other roles - regular and reserve and excluding officers (a further 150,000 total if we include the Navy and RAF). A lot of numbers, but in terms of female representation; we have excelled in the ratio. The army has depleted, but female numbers have increased. If we choose to look deeper into the breakdown of gender in each regiment in the present day, the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps has 520 women serving compared to 300 men, and the Royal Army Dental Corps of 130 women to 90 men. They are the only two regiments which have a majority of females. Statistics are taken from a 2016 survey completed on diversity and gender in the army. These figures may have changed since the survey, but provide a good insight into gender breakdowns in the army. Since both regiments are auxiliary, women are still attracted and accepted into these roles, just as they were in WW II. However, there is huge variation in figures I have found whilst researching British women involved in WW II, but the fact remains the same; millions of women worldwide were killed and injured no matter how you count. Conclusions Women were vital to the war effort in both World Wars, but some argue it was simply expected to serve selflessly and perform duties during a time of conflict. The Newark Experiment by General Pile proved that women were capable of operating the heavy anti-aircraft machinery, had the physicality, and emotional intelligence to consistently do so. They contributed to the war effort and earned the ATS a place in military history, causing a perspective shift in the way we view a woman’s ability in battle. By having the ‘Women in World War II’ memorial forever display their uniform, we can preserve and celebrate those women publically. The memorial is great example of showcasing women’s achievements without exaggerating them for attention, which is what the developing ‘woke’ media can so often do. In my mind, the uniforms show an accurate portrayal of women’s roles at the time, and do precede similar duties undertaken today. The ‘Women of the Empire’ memorial window was specifically reworked and rededicated to all the women of WW I, showing an appreciation of servicewomen in a time when women did not have the right to vote until just after the war ended in 1918. The 9% of women today in non-combat, and 3% in front-line combat roles, show us the progress we have made in the army. Men are still the majority overall and are often thought of first when thinking of a war memorial, as more men did serve and die in battle. But, to have female auxiliaries commemorated during the world’s largest conflict to date, dictates how important women were and still are in war. Both in roles supporting men, or in their own right. There are a few other war memorials dedicated to women, but none generate the same prestige as the two I have discussed in this article. Women in WW I & II were thanked for their services in small and large capacities, and I hope we can continue to show our gratitude to more servicewomen and important individuals in the future. A Timeline of Women in the army 1899-1902: The Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Corps founded and expanded. 1907: FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) was formed. A crucial link between the front-lines and field hospitals, with ambulance drivers and Red Cross first aiders. 1915: A Women’s march in London was conducted in order to persuade the government to allow women in the workplace for the war effort. Undertaken before women had the right to vote. 1917: The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps is used in response to the manpower crisis and supports duties in France and Belgium. 1917-18: Over 100,000 women are employed in industries which support the war effort. The number is most likely higher. 1938: ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) formed (originally named the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps). 1941 July: The ATS is recognized as a military service and its members are no longer volunteers – they are now paid service personnel. 1941 December: National conscription for women aged 20-30 years of age begins. In 1943, the age limit is increased to be most women of working age (generally 18 - 50 years of age) including married women. 1945 February: Future Queen Elizabeth II joins the ATS as a driver and mechanic. 8 May 1945: VE Day (Victory in Europe Day). Over 190,000 women are part of the ATS. 1949: The ATS was disbanded, and the WRAC (Women’s Royal Army Corps) is formed as its successor. In 1952 they are aligned with the British army ranks and standards. 1975: The Sex Discrimination Act is introduced – which continues the upholding of women in auxiliary and supporting roles only, despite petitions to change the law allowing women to serve in combat roles. 1991-92: Private Ellie Walton becomes the first female soldier to patrol with an arms and explosive dog in Northern Ireland. 1992: WRAC is disbanded and members join other regiments such as the Adjutant General Corps. 1999: Another petition is unsuccessfully launched against the Sex Discrimination Act, 1975. 2002: The Ministry of Defence (MOD) conclude that women are not fit for active service in close combat roles and women can affect ‘unit cohesion’ between men. 2009: The MOD states there was no statistical evidence for their earlier claims but continue to exclude women from close combat roles. 2014: The Women in Close Combat review lifted the ban on women employed only in supporting roles, with it coming into force in 2015. In 2018: Women are allowed in all branches of the military, including Special Forces and the Infantry. 2020 - 2023: Private Addy Carter, Captain Rosie Wild, and Lieutenant Hannah Knapton become the first females to pass P Company (Parachute Regiment), regarded as one of the toughest selections within the British army. Bibliography Women and War: A Historical Encyclopedia From Antiquity to the Present Vol. 2 [ONLINE] available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Women_and_War.html?id=lyZYS_GxglIC&redir_esc=y [Accessed 21 September 2023] 93rd Searchlight Regiment. 2022. [ONLINE] available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/93rd_Searchlight_Regiment [Accessed 10 October 2023] Brigstock. K., 2007. Royal Artillery Searchlights. Royal Artillery Society Winter Meeting. Minutes from. [ONLINE] available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20160304090443/http://www.army.mod.uk/images/images-microsites/RA/RASearchlights-Text-Final.doc [Accessed 10 October 2023] Tammy. P., 2003. Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War. [ONLINE] available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/tammy-m-proctor-female-intelligence-women-and-espionage-in-the-first-world-war-new-york-new-york-university-press-2003-pp-205-3500-cloth/CAF221B1955E538224D836759D2150DE [Accessed 28 September 2023] Shaw. G., 2021. World’s oldest war memorial may have been identified in Syria. The Art Newspaper. [ONLINE] available at: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/05/28/worlds-oldest-war-memorial-may-have-been-identified-in-syria [Accessed 1 September 2023] Imperial War Museum. 2023. Women of the Empire – WW1 Window. [ONLINE] available at: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/30648 [Accessed 2 September 2023] Named Non-Royal Women. 2023. Public Statues and Sculpture Association. [ONLINE] available at: https://pssauk.org/women/categories/named-non-royal-women/page/3/ [Accessed 2 September 2023] Pruitt. S., 2023. Women in WWII Took on These Dangerous Military Jobs. History Channel. [ONLINE] available at: https://www.history.com/news/women-wwii-military-combat-front-lines [Accessed 1 September 2023] Atlas Obscura. 2019. Memorial to the Women of World War II. [ONLINE] available at: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/memorial-to-the-women-of-world-war-ii [Accessed 4 September 2023] National Army Museum. 2023. A timeline of women in the Army. [ONLINE] available at: https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/timeline-women-army#:~:text=Women%20play%20a%20crucial%20role,even%20further%20back%20in%20time. [Accessed 2 September 2023] Nowaki. R., 2014. Nachthexen: Soviet Female Pilots in WW2. University of Hawaii. [ONLINE] available at: https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hohonu/volumes/documents/Nachthexen-SovietFemalePilotsinWWIIRochelleNowaki.pdf [Accessed 9 October 2023] Acknowledgments SUOTC for inspiration. Archaeology department University of Southampton.

Stuck for where to find that all important source? Not sure where to look for an article or portrait? This page encompasses a number of databases and websites which are useful starting points for historical research, this list is not exhaustive, so expect additions as and when they are found - if you have a suggestion please send in a submission. When looking for research articles or foundational historiographic literature, learning how to search the internet is a slightly tricky habit to get into. Firstly, don't just restrict yourself to your regular search engine - Google Scholar will become your best friend if you let it. Don't search for a long question, such as 'to what extent did Anne Boleyn meddle in Tudor Politics in 1529?', try 'Anne Boleyn politics'. If you know the name of the article you need, or the name of the author, search for the title in Google Scholar, this should bring up the title you're looking for on a number of sites and databases, and most likely several similar publications. Now at this point, it can get a little overwhelming, look for one of these databases as your first port of call, you should have either free access or free access via your institution. Jstor -digital library for articles, chapters, books and primary sources, you can use an institutional login to access the sources ODNB - The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a cumulative database for biographies of British individuals and British adjacent individuals. ProQuest - a cumulative database for research papers and articles generally - log in via your institution Shibboleth login will enable you to log in to a variety of University libraries in order to access their collections, this will typically pop up as an option once you have found a source online. Archives/primary sources (Most UK universities, libraries, museums, galleries and archives will now have fairly comprehensive databases of their collections available to view for free - some have licensing fees or processes to use images of these objects in your work so please check the details yourself. Here I have listed a few particularly useful sites.) The National Portrait Gallery - portraits/images can be downloaded for free under different licensing agreements. The Royal Collection Trust - items and objects (primarily art) held within the Royal Collection Victoria and Albert Museum - items and objects held within the V&A collections The British Museum - items and objects held within the British Museum collections Institute of Historical Research Collections - a huge range of objects and items available through this library The National Archives - access 1000s of documents, including newspapers and legal documents The proceedings of the Old Bailey - legal documents and trial transcripts from the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, 1674-1913 Step one in your personal research journey should be double checking facts for yourself. That's all for now, this list will be updated as and when and all sources used for articles and content on this site will be cited in the article itself.

In the last five years, the international profile of European motorsports, particularly Formula One, has skyrocketed. However, with its rising popularity follows a growing critique. Where are the women in Formula One? Other racing series like NASCAR and IndyCar can boast numerous women racers, but F1 remains dominated by a grid of twenty men. The series has tried to respond, highlighting women like Bernie Collins – former Red Bull Racing Strategy Engineer and current analyst for Sky Sports. Indeed, in 2023, Jessica Hawkins became the first female F1 test-driver in five years since Tatiana Calderon in 2018. 2023 is also the inaugural season of the all-women's F1 Academy, directed by Susie Wolff, who herself made history when she participated in a free practice session for Williams Racing. The Academy started racing this year with an all-female grid of drivers supported by the 10 major F1 teams. It is a huge step in the development of women’s motor sports, and it could lead to a woman re-joining the grid for the first time since 1992 when Giovanna Amati tried and failed to qualify for three races in a row. Yet many new fans have no idea that women ever raced in Formula One at all. History has forgotten the women who blazed new paths in motorsports. This article remembers one of those women, Lella Lombardi who in 1975 became the first and only woman to ever score points in a Formula One Grand Prix. Lella’s story has always stood out to me. Maybe it’s because she was, in today’s terms, queer, supported throughout her career by her partner, Fiorenza. Maybe it’s because the era she raced in was so incredibly dangerous, with drivers literally risking their lives every race for the thrill of speed. Maybe it’s because scoring points is such an incredible accomplishment in F1, and Lella did it in the second race she qualified for! There are men who have raced for years without ever reaching this achievement which used to come from placing within the top six of a race. There are undoubtedly other stories to tell – that of Maria Teresea De Fillippis, the first woman to drive in F1 in 1958, and Desiré Wilson, the first woman to win a Formula One event in the British Aurora Series in 1980. All of these women faced the same question Lella did: what is your point? Even after De Fillippis’s trailblazing races, the world of motorsports was sure a woman could not find any real success in racing, so why even try? What was the purpose of pouring money into women pilots? Lella answered - her point was to prove that women could not only enter the world of motorsports, but succeed. Lella’s name deserves to be remembered for consistently flouting social scripts to achieve something no woman has since. Chasing a Dream Lella Lombardi’s unique career in Formula One starts with her upbringing. F1 has never been a cheap sport, it requires either immense personal wealth or sponsorships to build a career. As such, most drivers have historically come from privileged backgrounds, but Lella did not have this advantage. Lella was born Maria Grazia Lombardi on March 14th, 1941. Her parents were butchers from the village of Frugarolo, Italy, and she spent much of her childhood working at her family’s shop. The Lombardi family did not own a family car and neither of Lella’s parents drove in her youth. It was only when Lella was injured in a handball game as a young teenager that she first rode in a car when her coach took her to the local hospital. She became enraptured by driving and after this saved money to pay for lessons and practiced in any vehicle she could. She even convinced her parents to let her drive the business delivery van! Eventually with the help of her older brother, Lella bought a car of her own and immediately started looking for racing opportunities. But being a woman trying to break into the boys’ club of motorsport was no easy feat. Lella would have to rely on her male connections to support her early career. Early on, Lella was introduced to a rally car pilot who she impressed with her sheer determination to race. He took Lella onto his team, assigning her menial tasks like timing laps and changing tires. But Lella could not be dissuaded, eventually convincing him to let her become his navigator and then his co-pilot before finally piloting a race herself. Having worked her way up the ranks, Lella found quick success in rally racing, and soon she was setting her sights on single seaters. Single seaters are a different type of car, lower to the ground, exposed, and much more rigid, in turn requiring a different style of racing. There is no one there with the pilot, just the driver and the hunk of metal under them careening around corners, knowing that if they misjudge by a centimeter, it could mean not only the end of their race, but their lives. It was and remains today, for many, the pinnacle of motorsport. Lella knew the increased risk of single seaters, just like she would have known that finding success in these series would be even more of a challenge than getting her start in rally racing. One of the reasons Lella felt energized to enter the world of single seaters was she had the support of her partner, Fiorenza. While little is publicly known about the foundation of the women’s relationship, Fiorenza was clearly very supportive of her partner’s career. Indeed, Fiorenza’s emotional and financial support was integral to Lella’s start in single-seaters, helping her to enter the Formula 875-Monza series in 1968. This was one of the many junior Formula series Lella would work her way through. In 1970, Lella entered and came in third in the Italian Formula Ford Championship while simultaneously competing in the smaller Trofeo Italiano Formula 850 series. The next year, Lella entered Formula Three, competing across three seasons in various cars. The victory that propelled Lella to dedicate herself to Formula One success, however, came in 1973 when she raced in and won the first ever Italian Ford Escort Mexico Challenge. This was a celebrity racing series, and it brought Lella to the attention of many big names in the racing world. Lella had once again proven herself worthy to the right people. Proving a Point In 1974, Lella’s single seater career took off. She tested a Formula One car for Jackie Epstein, a man who ran several successful racing teams, and impressed him enough to gain a place on Fransisco Mir’s US F5000 team. Her teammate in this series was future 1976 F1 champion James Hunt, remembered today for his fierce rivalry with Niki Lauda. Race after race, Lella consistently matched the future star. After months of stellar results, Lella made the jump into Formula One for the first time. Driving a car loaned from Bernie Eccelstone, owner of the Brabham racing team, Lella entered the British GP at Brands Hatch in July driving for Hexagon of Highgate. Unsurprisingly, Eccelstone had little interest in lending his opponents a competitive car, and Lella struggled to match the rest of the field’s pace with her engine’s minimal power. In the end, it was a driveshaft malfunction that dashed her dreams of qualifying. She missed out on a racing position by just .9 seconds. Lella was not given another opportunity in F1 that year. However, she would finish fifth in the 1974 US F5000 series. Lella was persistent, continuing to make inroads in the racing world. Her enthusiasm for the sport was clear, and she had slowly gained the respect of many on the grid. Interviews from her time as a F1 driver give insight into why so many loved Lella Lombardi on and off track. When asked by a Swedish journalist if she was “just a nice doll in this sport?” she responded by saying, “No, No, for sure not me. You could judge me like this, but I really care to be seen as a pilot and not as a doll.” Lella simply refused to take any flack about her gender, reminding everyone that she was on track as a racing driver who happened to be a woman, not the other way around. Her confidence and results impressed many, and, in the winter of 1974, she charmed one of the biggest bankrollers in the racing world with her skills, knowledge, and determination. Count Vittorio Zanon was known for financially supporting the careers of many successful drivers including Ronnie Peterson and Michele Albereto. Businessmen like Zanon were essential for drivers like Lella who did not come from independent means. If you could not secure stable sponsorship, your career could not be sustained. Lella knew this, yet, in the end it was a woman who was central to securing Lella a permanent seat in F1. Jean Mosely, the wife of March’s owner Max Mosely, had been pestering her husband for months to consider Lella, after Lella impressed her with her Brands Hatch drive. After watching Lella race and meeting the driver in person, Mosley folded. By the start of the 1975 season, Lella was signed to the March Formula One team. In South Africa at the third race of the 1975 season Lella finally qualified for her first Formula One race, becoming the second woman after De Fillippis to do so. The competition Lella faced on track was fierce. Ferrari’s rising star Niki Lauda would go on to win his first of three world championships that year after overcoming the challenge of 1974 world champion Emerson Fittipaldi. Lella’s former teammate James Hunt had also joined the F1 grid. But unlike Lauda and Fittipaldi who were part of large and well-funded racing teams, the March F1 team had been facing financial difficulties since the early 1970s. As a result, the team could not afford to produce new F1 cars, so they started racing modified Formula Two cars. Lella’s car could not match the power or reliability of Lauda’s Ferrari or Fittipaldi’s McLaren. This disadvantage was clear in South Africa when Lella suffered a fuel system break, forcing her to retire in the twenty-third lap of the race. Similarly, her teammate, Vittorio Brambilla, retired in the sixteenth lap due to overheating. But Lella wasn’t done making history, quickly turning her sights to the next race weekend where she did what no woman had done before or has done since. The weekend of the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix started well. Lella was bringing a brand-new car to the track, a March 751–Ford she obtained with funds from Zanon’s Lavazza sponsorship. Though she qualified, starting 24th at the back of the grid certainly wasn’t what she was hoping for in her new outfit. What’s more, during qualifying the drivers noticed guardrails around the circuit were broken, and after qualifying, they agreed in a joint press conference that they would not race unless this was fixed. Engineers and mechanics from across the grid pitched into the effort which finished just before the race’s start. But not all the rails were properly checked before the race got underway. Nonetheless, Lella lined up on the grid at Montjuïc Park on the 21st of April 1975 ready to race. From the start, there was chaos on track. Four drivers retired after an opening lap accident caused by Lella’s teammate Brambillo. Mechanical failures and accidents continued to occur throughout the race and by the 25th lap only 8 of the starting 25 drivers remained on track. Lella drove incredibly well in what was one of the toughest races of the season, managing to avoid the fallout from each accident as she made her way up the grid. What happened next is the reason most people remember the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix. In the 26th lap of the race, Rolf Stommelen’s rear wing detached from his chassis. The car ricocheted off a barrier, leaving it in the middle of the track just as Carlos Pace rounded the corner. Pace hit Stommelen’s car with enough force to launch it over the guardrail on the other side of the track and into a crowd of spectators. Meanwhile, the race coordinators were in chaos, failing to stop the cars for another five laps while they tried to get a handle on the situation. In the end, four spectators were left dead and Stommelen suffered serious injuries. It still stands as a stark reminder of the dangers of motor racing. While the attention paid to such a tragedy is undoubtedly justified, what has unfortunately been lost in the story of that fateful day is what Lella Lombardi achieved. When the race directors finally ended the Grand Prix, Lella had secured sixth place. She became the only woman to score points in a Formula One event. Because the race ended before full race distance but with over 2/3rds of the event completed, half points were awarded. While the disastrous race end created significant controversy over the race results, Lella still walked away with half a point in the driver’s championship. Lella completed the rest of the 1975 season with March. Though she did not manage to score points again, she came exceedingly close, finishing 7th at the Nürburgring track in Germany. This result was perhaps even more impressive than her race in Spain, as she picked up a puncture early in the race. Lella fought her car lap after lap just to stay on track, and she still managed to almost score points again! Towards the end of the season, Lella was growing increasingly frustrated with the March team. She was consistently complaining about the car’s handling, struggling with understeer that made navigating high-speed corners difficult. Max Mosely later admitted to ignoring Lella’s concerns despite knowing the car was difficult to drive, having little interest in advancing her career. Finally, after consistently struggling to find adequate race pace, the team stripped back Lella’s March to find that one of the rear bulkheads had cracked earlier in the season. Lella could have easily walked away from the series. She had been consistently mistreated by her teams, and she had other racing opportunities in sportscar series. Her teammate at Le Mans, Marie-Claude Beaumont, remembers Lella telling her in 1975 that “Formula 1 was very important for her and her friend Fiorenza. She would just say to me, ‘Marie, I have to do Formula 1.’” Lella had no interest in leaving after fighting so hard for her dream, and with the support of her partner, she felt she had more to give. So, at the start of 1976, Lella decided to abandon the March team. Lella moved to Williams Racing in 1976 which looked like a promising decision on paper. While Williams was still a relatively small team, they had recently signed a lucrative new funding partner, which though short-lived, would make them much talked about going into the season. But she found little luck in 1976. On her debut Williams drive at the United States Grand Prix, she faced ignition problems that forced her to drop out of the race before the start. Ever determined, Lella tried to race her teammate, Jacques Latiffe’s Williams, as Latiffe also dropped out of the race with an eye infection. However, Latiffe was much shorter than Lella who was too tall to fit into his cockpit. Lella then failed to qualify in the next two races, and after the Brazilian Grand Prix, the team dropped her for Ronnie Peterson, a man with multiple grand prix victories. Desperate not to lose the opportunity she worked so hard for, Lella tried one last time to race in F1 for team RAM. Her car, however, was a year older than the rest of the fields, and she would only qualify for one grand prix that year where she finished far off the pace in 12th. By the end of 1976, Lella was exhausted after scraping and clawing for over three years just to drive some of the worst cars on the grid. At the end of 1976, she exited the series to look for opportunities elsewhere. Remembering Lella The end of Lella’s F1 career was far from the end of her racing career, as she moved into sportscar racing. Indeed, outside the world of Formula One, Lella found herself interacting with more and more female racing drivers. She raced in Le Mans with teammate Marie-Claude Beaumont, though a fuel issue forced them to retire in the race’s eighth hour. She made a singular NASCAR appearance, driving alongside Christine Becker and Janet Guthrie in the 1977 Daytona Firecracker 400. Lella would team up with Becker again at the 24 Hours of Daytona that same year, but the team would crash out in the 78th lap. They would finish Le Mans that year together in 11th, an impressive feat considering an electrical problem delayed their start. It would be Lella’s best result in any of the 24 hours races she competed in. Lella would continue to alternate between racing sports cars and touring cars for the next ten years, securing several impressive results. She won the 6 Hours of Mugello with teammate Giorgio Francia and pickied up multiple podium finishes. In the late 1980s, Lella started to struggle with her health and found herself unable to race. Lella was eventually diagnosed with breast cancer. Still, she would not walk away from motorsport, starting “Lella Lombardi Motorsport”, a touring-car team. Her niece remembers that Lella was incredibly happy during this time, thrilled to have a team of her own despite her worsening illness. She lived long enough to see them test their first touring car, a Ford Sierra RS 500 Cosworth. She passed away just after her 50th birthday on the 3rd of March 1992 in Milan, Italy. Lella Lombardi left behind a legacy that is hard to comprehend. Beyond her incredible racing achievements, she opened the doors for even more women in motorsport. What’s more, throughout her career she lived unabashedly as herself, shattering gendered stereotypes along the way. She kept her hair short and always travelled with her partner Fiorenza, living quite openly as a lesbian despite never publicly pronouncing her sexuality. When asked in a 1975 interview why she chose motorsport despite being a girl, Lella replied simply “Because I love it! I love motoring, I love racing cars. I love the feeling of driving.” Lella did not let anything stand in the way of that love. She fought tooth and nail for every opportunity, every start, every seat at the table. She knew she was not welcome, yet her skill and determination slowly impressed driver after driver, businessman after businessman, until she earned the racing community’s respect. She should be remembered for her spirit, her fortitude, and her love for the sport she dedicated her life to. Lella had a point to prove: to show everyone women could find success in F1, and she did so spectacularly. Her legacy lives on in the women today who continue to fight for their chance to add their name next to Lella’s in the history of motorsport. Further Reading 2023. "1975 F1 World Championship." MotorSport Magazine. Accessed 10 10, 2023. https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/database/championships/1975-f1-world-championship/. Dietrich, Nanni. n.d. "Lella Lombardi: 1941-1992." Motorsport Memorial. Accessed 10 10, 2023. http://www.motorsportmemorial.org/LWFWIW/focusLWFWIW.php?db=LWF&db2=ms&n=273. 2020. Beyond Driven. Directed by Riyaana Hartley and Vincent Tran. Performed by Giovanni Amati, et al. Jenkins, Aimée. 2023. "The Legacy of lella Lombardi." Along the Racing Line. 06 01. Accessed 10 10, 2023. https://www.alongtheracingline.com/the-legacy-of-lella-lombardi/. n.d. "March." ESPN. Accessed 10 10, 2023. http://en.espn.co.uk/march/motorsport/team/375.html#Profile. Resteck, Hilary, and Casey Schuster. n.d. "Lella Lombardi." The Henry Ford Women in the Winner Circle Foundation. Accessed 10 10, 2023. https://ophelia.sdsu.edu:8443/henryford_org/09-09-2013/exhibits/racing/wiwc/bios/trailblazers/LellaLombardi.pdf. Tremayne, David. 2022. "Trailblazing Racer Lella Lombardi Remembered, 30 Years On From Her Death ." Formula1. March 03. Accessed 10 10, 2023. https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.trailblazing-racer-lella-lombardi-remembered-30-years-on-from-her-death.6zz9pupcxc97yy5SEL1kkR.html. 2023. "Williams." MotorSport Magazine. Accessed 10 10, 2023. https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/database/teams/williams/.

Glossary Onryo: There are many different varieties of spirits in Japanese culture, but I focus on the Onryo, which is, according to the encyclopaedia of Japan, a vengeful spirit separated from a dead person that is feared to bring disaster. The spirit is not inherently gendered, though I use feminine pronouns due to the modern, Western association that has been formed, as well as because the ghosts shown in Japanese horror films around the turn of the century were almost exclusively vengeful, dead women. Noh and Kabuki: Two forms of Japanese theatre and performance art. Nenbutsu and Amida: Repetition of the name for the principle Buddha of Pure Land Buddhism (Amida). Internationalisation and Globalisation: The processes undertaken by many countries during the 20th Century, where the country would experience rapid development, industrial growth, liberalisation, and connection to other countries across the globe either directly or indirectly assisted by dominant Western powers such as the USA. Sometimes, this is pejoratively referred to as Westernisation. You sit down in the dark and you insert the tape. The VHS player whirrs into action and you don’t even need to click play before the infamous footage begins. Several seemingly incoherent images flash up on your television set: a girl brushing her hair, letters dancing across the screen, and a distant well in a forest. From this point on, you have seven days to pass on the tape, else you will meet your fate with a vengeful spirit. Long, black, wet hair covers most of her front and poking out beneath it are deathly pale limbs clothed in a white dress. In modern times, Sadako, the murderous spirit from Ringu, is the most known iteration of this ghost, not only due to the international success of the film from which she stems, but also because she really was the first to properly tie the look with the effects of new media technologies and globalisation through the totally arresting image depicted above. There are few moments in horror as confounding as Sadako leaning into and through the TV set. Sadako could be seen as a modern take on the myth of the Onryo, a type of spirit belonging to a person who died with a grudge. The Onryo is now one of horror’s most ubiquitous monsters but not many people know just how far-reaching her history is. Besides Japanese horror classics such as Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) or Ringu (1998), this ghostly figure had its roots in Japanese myths and religious beliefs, was adopted into the theatrical arts, and now has been totally appropriated into cheap Hollywood remakes. This article traces the history of the vengeful spirit and how it came to be an embodiment of Japanese globalisation-anxiety by exploiting the trope of the ghost girl in horror. Death has for a long time been regarded with a particular sense of dread and superstition in Japanese religion and mythology. A “bad death” in particular was deemed to be a pollutant to the world of the living. If, say, a person died with an unresolved grudge in their life, it was believed that they would be unable to pass on to the afterlife and thus would have to wander and haunt the world of the living, affecting especially their families. Belief in these spirits rose to prominence during the Heian period (between 794 and 1185), beginning as a belief held amongst the higher classes of society and spreading to common people in the following centuries. These were the beginnings of the Onryo, and it was not necessarily a woman, though now it is so often associated in the West with the idea of a monstrous-woman. In fact, many battlefields were sites of religious practice where Buddhist priests would offer to pray Nenbutsu (a buddhist, often melodic prayer to Amida, the principal Buddha of Pure Land Buddhism) on dead or dying soldiers who wanted safe passage into Amida’s paradise. If a mother died during childbirth, this was also deemed to be unnatural and would turn her spirit into a very dangerous ghost, which shows early on there were grounds for engendering and highlighting the role of femininity or motherhood in the Onryo. Crucially, the Onryo was also believed to not only be responsible for their enemy’s death but also capable of causing disasters such as earthquakes. As we will see later on, these are key elements to understanding the millennial Onryo. The myth of the Onryo became incorporated into noh theatre, a form of drama that involved various forms of expression from singing and dancing to storytelling and costume-making. The Onryo is one of the few key archetypes of mask in this form of theatre, alongside those like Jo and Kishin for elder characters and demons, respectively.The Onryo mask was designed to strike fear into the hearts of audiences, with its twisted features and glaring eyes. The mask draws inspiration from the myth, as often the strength of the spirit (and by extension its grudge) would affect the mask’s design and how snarled it was made to look. Another form of theatre called kabuki established the most popular depiction of the Onryo, and it is the one that we would recognise even today. The design goes as far back as the Edo period (1603-1868) and was important in allowing the audience to distinguish between characters, since kabuki was mostly played by one actor (originally either male or female but gradually becoming more male-dominant). A white burial kimono, long, black, wild hair, and make-up that made the ghost look pale with accentuated blue features to make the face as striking as possible. This trend popularised the Onryo as feminine and as villainous, since the make-up look was similar to the depictions of villains in kabuki, too. Kabuki proved to be a great space for the Onryo to rise in popularity; the plays were often about moral conflict and relationships of the heart, while the stages were equipped with gadgets such as trapdoors to allow the ghost to appear suddenly. Oiwa is the Onryo in Japan’s famous ghost story Yotsuya kaidan. The tale has been performed on stage, film, and beyond, by telling the story of a woman brutally murdered by her husband returning as a ghost to seek revenge. The story’s influence on the modern Onryo cannot be understated. The visual aspect and narrative structure are crucial to the way Sadako, for one, was created. Also, the tale is accompanied by the legend of a curse; retelling the story, it has been told, leads to suffering, while in Ringu the tape haunted by Sadako can be passed on to avoid death. Another very famous tale of the Onryo involves three real men who were said to have become vengeful spirits after their political power was stripped from them. Sugawara no Michizane, born in 845, was one of them and the belief was that anyone who plotted against him died suspiciously. This shows that as much as the stereotype drifted towards feminising the Onryo, its roots are not so gendered. Ringu is certainly the most famous cinematic depiction of the Onryo. Not only did it become the highest grossing horror in Japan, it also was a hit in the home media market, which made films much more easily exportable to the UK and US. Sadako is the vengeful spirit in question and she holds her grudge due to her childhood trauma caused by adults exploiting her extrasensory perception powers that allow her to be telekinetic. While still a child, she was murdered by an ESP doctor who was investigating her case. In the present day, her curse spreads through a video tape that is passed around by young people. Reiko is a journalist who is investigating these mysterious and brutal deaths caused by the tape, and she enlists the help of her ex-husband to track down the Onryo, involuntarily exposing their son to their dangerous work. Sadako invokes many of the antiquated myths of the Onryo: she looks like the kabuki representation of the ghost and holds a deep grudge against those who wronged her, while also being capable of harming anyone who dares watch her cursed video tape. The modernistic aspect of Sadako comes in with the fact she occupies and lives through technology; technology literally re-generates the myth of the Onryo into the present day. She embodies very relevant anxieties surrounding Japanese identity in a modernised/Westernised world. After World War II, Japan was occupied by allied forces, mostly Americans, and entered a rapid process known as internationalisation. After millennia of mostly being an isolated and individualistic empire, Japan had quite suddenly become exposed to a lot of new influences on many levels of society, most importantly on an economic level. Through foreign, freed trade, Japan became a leader in information technologies and in various media spaces. Japanese horror was an offspring of that development. On the other hand, Japanese culture, films and all, quickly began flowing into Western homes. This offered film critics and academics a space to explore how these films expressed the fears of the neo-liberalised reality from which they spawned. The Onryo herself then serves as an amalgam of Japanese culture and some Hollywood horror tropes. Ironically, the Japanese film industry was, in its infancy, very opposed to Hollywood’s influences and much more aligned with Kabuki lighting and staging. However, blockbuster horror and its psychosexual ideology left a clear mark on the construction of the filmic Onryo. For decades, psychoanalysis and feminist readings had dominated academic discourse on horror films, so naturally a new feminine monster will catch the attention of critics. Sadako represents a “return of the repressed,” a pivotal concept in horror developed by Barbara Creed. Sadako’s trauma caused her to become the Onryo as she died with a grudge. She is also an example of abject horror: something that shows the breakdown of borders, boundaries and natural order. Her corporeality comes to be only when she crawls through a TV screen, defying the ‘natural’ voyeuristic relationship between audience and screen, and in the climax of Ringu her abjection reaches a peak when she kills off Reiko’s ex-husband. These are both horror ideas associated with feminine sexuality in particular. Julia Kristeva’s analysis of abject horror highlights the evocation of birth giving as a form of abjection, as well as the connotations of penetration inherent to the slasher film, since the ‘psycho’ murderer is very often depicted as a sexually disturbed individual. Notable examples include Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees/his mother, Norman Bates, and Leatherface. Kristeva and many other critics of the genre point out the sexual dilemmas at the core of these films as characteristic of the genre, as well as of the broader gender-focused commentary within these films. Ringu is similar since it also shows the resummoning of a serial-killer-like character in Sadako, though the violence in the film occurs not through bloody, stabby rampages but through the act of looking, otherwise known as voyeurism. Voyeurism, the fetish of observation, is a myth closely tied to classical cinematic structure and film viewership. It is the unspoken rule of cinema that visual pleasure is what draws an audience to the cinema and the film frames the spectator, regardless of their gender, as masculine looking and holding power over what is on the screen. Sadako’s ‘rule’ that all who watch her tape, indulging in her traumatic past, must die is a counter-attack against the desire to look. This attack expands to Japan’s culture at large. In a now rapidly globalising country, Japanese people can feel the influence of the West laid upon them as well as the objectifying Orientalist gaze. Sadako is a sort of double-threat as both a response to these fears and the root of them. Her attacks on family and technology reflect the abject nature of Japanese modernity, through the filmic depictions of Japan’s borders and technology. It is no wonder that there are so many scenes in Japanese horror that take place on the coast. Horror films often choose the targets of their deaths very carefully, and Reiko’s husband is no different. He is punished for representing a fracture in the traditional family unit: he is a divorcee, who prioritised uncovering the repressed narrative of Sadako, jeopardising the potential to get back together with his ex-wife, his co-sleuth in tracking down the origins of Sadako’s Onryo. The family unit was very much an important stake in Japanese horror, as family men, children, and homes are at the forefront of these narratives. This reflects the changing meaning of family life in Japan in the last century. Much like many Western countries after World War II, Japan saw an increase in divorce rates, particularly in the 1970s and 80s. Feminist movements prompted difficult conversations about coming to terms with liberalisation and its effects on the family unit. Other films that approach this topic include Audition (1999), which told the story of a single man looking to exploit young women in the acting business before meeting his untimely demise to a woman who was sexually traumatised in her childhood years. New media technologies also had a profound effect on Japanese horror narratives, as the video tape, though going out of fashion at the time, was used as a medium to bridge the Onryo with the terrifying present and the traumatic past. Other films like Ju-on: The Grudge also use TV screens to great effect in their diegesis. The legacy left behind by the Onryo is important, as it shows a cruel, almost ironic turn of fate for her and what she stands for. For a split second, she became emblematic of the anxieties surrounding globalisation, but a few years and remakes later, she became just another commodity for the international film business to exploit. The Asia Extreme physical media label, for example, was the label that brought the films over to Western territories such as the UK and US, with some very bold marketing techniques. The founder of Tartan Films (owner of the label) was supposedly blown away by two landmark films in the J-Horror wave in Ringu and Audition, which inspired him to establish the label. Novelty items, problematic word association, and generating a sense of otherness and extremity linked to Asian filmmakers were some of the tricks used by the company to sell these films as aesthetically thrilling alternatives to what Hollywood put out. This had a lasting effect on the perceptions of violence in these films. For example, the horrific events that unfolded at the Virginia Tech University shooting in 2007 were discussed by the media as potentially motivated by a violent, action film from South Korea called Oldboy, solely based on the tenuous logic that two of twenty photographs sent by the perpetrator bore similarity to the film. This reflects two ideological problems in the way that Japanese horror, and perhaps Asian filmmaking more generally faced during this time when the West’s soft power was increasing globally. Imports were homogenised, stripped of their complexity and individuality. They were also marketed on whatever terms the West chose. In the years after Japanese horror’s millennial peak, the myth was appropriated by Hollywood with mixed effectiveness. The inevitable remakes largely were mediocre and lost the deeper meaning behind the originals. From the myth to the movie, these ghosts developed a lot in their look and ideology, evolving to represent a “prosthetic trauma” in Japan. Her popularity evoked a general agreement that Japanese culture was under threat and it was too late to do anything but cash-in. In a way, what the Onryo came to represent, she came to be through American media. She even made appearances in some video games and merchandising. Commodified and boxed up, the Onryo now comfortably lives in the pantheon of horror monsters, though her legacy is much deeper than that. Bibliography Antoni, Klaus. “Yasukuni-Jinja and Folk Religion: The Problem of Vengeful Spirits.” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, 1988, pp. 123–36. Balanzategui, Jessica. "6. The Prosthetic Traumas of the Internal Alien in Millennial J-Horror". The Uncanny Child in Transnational Cinema: Ghosts of Futurity at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018, pp. 185-216. Bingham, Adam. “JAPANESE HORROR CINEMA.” Contemporary Japanese Cinema Since Hana-Bi, Edinburgh University Press, 2015 Cagle, Robert L. “The Good, the Bad, and the South Korean: Violence, Morality, and the South Korean Extreme Film.” Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema, edited by Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Hong Kong University Press, 2009, pp. 123–44. Creed, Barbara. “HORROR AND THE MONSTROUS-FEMININE: An Imaginary Abjection.” The Monster Theory Reader, edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, University of Minnesota Press, 2020. Kawashima, Takeyoshi, and Kurt Steiner. “Modernization and Divorce Rate Trends in Japan.” Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 9, no. 1, 1960, pp. 213–39. Klemperer-Markham, Ayala, and Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni. “Socialist Egalitarian Feminism in Early Postwar Japan: Yamakawa Kikue and the ‘Democratization of Japan.’” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, no. 42, 2012, pp. 3–30. Parker, Helen S. E.. Progressive traditions : an illustrated study of plot repetition in traditional Japanese theatre. Boston, Brill, 2006. Shin, Chi-Yun. “The Art of Branding: Tartan ‘Asia Extreme’ Films.” Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema, edited by Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Hong Kong University Press, 2009 Shively, H. Donald, Hall, John Whitney. The Cambridge History of Japan. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1988. Tezuka, Yoshiharu. Japanese Cinema Goes Global: Filmworkers’ Journeys Hong Kong University Press, 2012 Walsh, Mike, “The Aesthetics of Shadow Lighting” Screening the Past http://www.screeningthepast.com/issue-38-reviews/the-aesthetics-of-shadow-lighting-and-japanese-cinema/ “Kabuki theatre” UNESCO https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/kabuki-theatre-00163#:~:text=Kabuki%20is%20a%20Japanese%20traditional,was%20particularly%20popular%20among%20townspeople. “Onryo” Yokai https://yokai.com/onryou/ “Nenbutsu” Encyclopedia https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/nenbutsu-chinese-nianfo-korean-yombul The-Noh https://www.the-noh.com/ Masuyama, Hiroko, Onryo: Japanese Grudge Spirit and Ghost Stories, 2017 https://www.patternz.jp/onryo-japanese-vengeful-spirits/#michizane

What do Girl, Interrupted, American Horror Story, and the work of Sylvia Plath have in common? Aside from being my teenage favourites, they all lay their scenes in mental health institutions during the 1960s. You’d think that this makes them all relatively similar works but the setting in these three works (and those associated) is complicated by genre and gender. For each of these works, there are what I’m calling ‘firsthand participants’ - the speaker or character the audience allies themselves to when first reading or watching - and ‘secondhand participants’, who hijack the text and manipulate thematic elements to benefit their directorial lens. In these instances, it just so happens that the firsthand participants are women (Susanna Kaysen, Lana Winters, and the speaker in Plath’s poetry) who have occupied the 1960s Asylum setting against their will. Can you guess from the title who the secondhand participants are? The 1960s asylum setting is fundamental to the second season of American Horror Story and is not exactly concerned with historical accuracy, as you can tell from the following endorsement from The Guardian: “Ask 100 people what scares them and you'll get 100 different answers. This show aims to cater for every one of that hundred, and many more besides, by throwing a dizzying variety of horror at the screen”. Obviously, there’s a number of speculative elements introduced into the setting which have to work within the context of the horror genre so the asylum becomes a place of abuse, mistreatment and dread rather than one of recovery care. In doing so, the audiences attention is draw towards Nazi doctors, aliens, and demonic posession instead of focusing on character experiences and what a modern audience would consider the actual horrific elements to be: electro-shock therapy, conversion therapy, medical malpractice by the Church, and lobotomising patients against their will. In addition to this, sex and sexual violence are used to further the plot without any investment in the repercussions. The main example of this is Lana Winters storyline, in which she is falsely imprisoned in Briarcliff Manor, then falsely imprisoned again when she tries to escape with her psychiatrist, the Bloodyface killer, who involuntarily impregnates her. As a result, her character undergoes round after round of mental, emotional and sexual trauma and the repeated violation of the female body to the extent that it becomes near impossible to separate womanhood and brutality. Carol Clover suggests that “if it is [...] the case that the act of horror spectatorship is itself registered a “feminine” experience - that the shock effects induce in the viewer bodily sensations answering the fear and pain of the screen victim - the charge of masochism is underlined”, which suggests that the price of prioritising the female narrative and firsthand participant is excessive violence as an unavoidable rite of passage. In doing so, series creators Murphy and Falchuk compound the liminality of the asylum setting with gendered trauma to divert the audiences’ attention away from the missed opportunities to discuss the ‘real life’ horrors in favour of the speculative ones. Unlike American Horror Story: Asylum, Girl, Interrupted straddles the line between memoir and narrative non-fiction as Susanna Kaysen recounts her lived experience of being institutionalised in McLean Hospital. Somewhat similar to Plath’s the Bell Jar, this is told through a series of pseudo-biographical vignettes where the author plays the role of subject and surveyor. However, the film adaptation restructures the source material in favour of plot and psychological drama and the fact that Susanna Kaysen herself remarks that “Girl, Interrupted is material [she] never wanted to fictionalize” implies that the film manipulates the past for the sake of profitability. The 1999 film takes the ‘series of narrative snapshots’ and creates a story that features Kaysen’s real friendships during her time at the institution, rather than revolving around them. One would think that by not choosing to capitalise on the acclaim attached to McLean Hospital - where the likes of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, Ray Charles and James Taylor all spent time - the director, James Mangold, would apply the same level of respect to the real patients and friends Kaysen wrote about. The casting of well-known actors also detracts from the vivid authenticity that the memoir was praised for, as the reader notes the impact and influence the patients have on each other throughout their stays because they’re ‘unknown’. While “Kaysen acknowledged that the change of her story was necessary for the change in medium”, the casting of Angelina Jolie - an undoubtedly international sex symbol - is almost disruptive and contradictory to this perception of the group as a whole, rather than Susanna and Lisa as main characters with A-List actors. The film adaptation almost does things in reverse in this sense: the asylum setting in the memoir is pre-established and the reader becomes aware of its notoriety while the ‘characters’ are remain ‘characters’ to the reader, as told by Kaysen herself. James Mangold’s adaptation springboards off of lived experience and, though you could argue that Susanna Kaysen does the same by monetising her account and the accounts of others, she does not employ hyperbole or fabricate events to do so. Her firsthand experience of the 1960s asylum is subsequently hijacked and overshadowed. With Sylvia Plath’s work, it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish her personhood from the subject of her work due to the nature of the confessional poetry genre. The use of vivid allusion and metaphor sometimes make it difficult to establish Plath’s work as anything but autobiographical, especially when it comes to how her work revolves around her relationship with her father, Otto, and her husband, Ted Hughes. Parvin Ghasemi even suggests that ‘her work [...] exhibits a rebellion against the confinement of ‘self’ in the bondage of conformity and subjection and suggests an outlet of expression which indicates the individual’s struggle to liberate ‘self’ from the bondage of social conformity and dispossession.’. However, I believe this passes the buck back to Plath herself as the only agent and executor of her own discontentment, when in reality this would be a naive suggestion to make in light of more modern understanding of mental health and institutionalisation. The year leading up to Plath’s suicide was particularly tumultuous, with her husband embarking on an affair with another woman while she was left to be a single mother. Despite this, Ted Hughes controversially inherited her assets and legacy as they were legally married at the time of Plath’s death and there is some argument to suggest that this enabled Hughes to doctor her works, letters and legacy to remove any allegations of wrongdoing on his behalf. The poem, Daddy, is often signposted as a conduit for Plath’s personal turmoil: ‘But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you,' This stanza briefly takes us through Plath’s life to the writing of the poem; the speaker’s suicide attempt is foiled as she is revived by doctors (‘they’) and apparently repaired, provoking her to replicate her complicated father-daughter relationship through her romantic relationship. The speaker recounts their life story, and it becomes apparent that their agency is dominated and therefore hijacked by two prominent authoritarian male figures. In summary, I would contend that the recounts of ‘first-hand’ participants in American Horror Story: Asylum, Girl, Interrupted and Plath’s confessional poetry are marginalised for the purpose of male gain. Though gender is an active factor in the way these depictions of 1960s asylums are presented, the second-hand accounts of setting bulldoze over ‘lived’ experience for profitability and reputation. In addition to this, it is particularly ironic that these accounts were taken during a crucial point in the Feminist Liberation Movement - when women were raising their voices for equality and intersectionality - yet still buried or piggybacked off by men in the decades to come. So while it is true that the 1960s asylum setting functions within multiple genres, it is hijacked by men for convenience and profit because, to the capitalist patriarchy we continue to exist in, the stories of women in crisis are more attractive than the recovery and rehabilitation of the women themselves. Further reading Primary Sources American Horror Story: Asylum, FX. October 2012 –January 2013 Girl, Interrupted, dir. James Mangold (Columbia, 1999) Kaysen, Susanna, Girl, Interrupted (Virage Press Ltd, 2003) Plath, Sylvia, ‘Daddy’, in Ariel. Faber and Faber, 1965. Secondary Sources Clover, Carol J. ‘Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film’, in Men, Women and Chainsaws (B.F.I. Pub.) 1992. p.61 Danker, Jared. 2003. ‘Susanna Kaysen, without Interruptions’, The Justice < https://www.thejustice.org/article/2003/02/susanna-kaysen-without-interruptions > [accessed 22 September 2023] Ghasemi, Parvin. 2008. ‘Violence, Rage, and Self-Hurt in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry’, CLA Journal, 51.3: 284–303 Johnson, Alex. 1994. ‘A Conversation with Susanna Kaysen’, Agni, pp. 99–107 O’Neill, Phelim, ‘American Horror Story – Box Set Review’, The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, 2014) [accessed 16 September 2023]

Glossary Pas de Deux - A duet danced between, traditionally, a man and a woman who can be a part of the principal group of dancers or the ensemble. Corps de Ballet - The group of dancers which make up the ensemble of the ballet, excluding the principal dancers. The end of the Habsburg dynasty was unexpected and tragic. What became known as the Mayerling Incident was a murder-suicide pact proposed by crown Prince Rudolf to his mistress Maria Vetsera, who was 17 years old at the time. What truly happened the night of their death remains a mystery, but the factors leading up to the moment of their deaths allow historians to create possible scenarios to what might have happened on that fateful night of the 30th of January 1889. While the prince and his young lover were the principals, the ensemble also played important parts throughout the years that preceded the incident. The women from Austria-Hungarian monarchy and aristocracy were some of the characters with most influence in this narrative. These women played central parts in the life of Rudolf and their actions influenced him more than others. Alongside the mystery of it all, these relationships are the reason why ballet choreographer Kenneth McMillan decided to adapt this dramatic part of history and create the ballet Mayerling in 1978. This article will explore each relationship through their representation as pas de deux and the women through their solos. Analysing how each ballet persona represents the women can lead to a better understanding of their participation and motivations in relation to the circumstances that led to the incident. Mayerling Playbill Meet our principals! Below is my version of a historical 'Playbill' where you have a quick introduction to the participants of our story - and the focus of our article. The Incident Crown Prince Rudolf and Maria Vetsera met in November 1888, which marked the start of a turbulent relationship that culminated in their deaths in January 1889. The couple was introduced by Countess Marie Larisch, cousin to the prince - who had been infatuated with him for some time. The couple quickly became infatuated with each other, even being seen together on social occasions. Although Baroness Maria Vetsera was brought up alongside her sister to be married to men of higher social standings, the match was untimely as the prince was already married to Princess Stephanie of Belgium. While the Baroness was certain that her bond with the Prince was unique, she was not the only one to whom he proposed the murder-suicide pact. Mizzi Kaspar, one of his many previous mistresses, received the same proposal but was against the idea and even threatened to expose the Prince to the authorities, though she never did. Nonetheless, the connection between Rudolf and Maria was a strong one; whether it was because of lust or true love it is uncertain, but they were committed to each other enough to die together. The day before the incident, Rudolf headed to the Mayerling lodge, located 30 km from Vienna, with the tale that he was going on a hunting trip with two friends - who would end up finding the bodies of the two lovers the following morning. How Maria Vetsera arrived there is uncertain. It is known that she was previously being chaperoned by Countess Larisch for a shopping trip, who noticed the young girl went missing in the middle of the day. What went on during that final night is known only to the two lovers. Maria’s body was found naked, shot in bed, whilst Rudolf was found sitting in a chair, also shot but in possession of a gun.. Some final letters were written by the couple; these were the only proof that Maria Vetsera agreed to die alongside her lover - even then still leaving room for many a conspiracy. The Ballet Created by renowned ballet dancer and choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, adapting songs from the masterful Franz Liszt, this three-act ballet was unlike any other that preceded it. Telling a 'real life story', Mayerling was one of the great successes of MacMillan's choreography career. As it was a retelling of a historical event, MacMillan took four years to complete the ballet, due to his extensive research alongside English writer (and not historian) Gillian Freeman. As with any piece of historical fiction, it is important to question the approach of the producers in regards to their accuracy. Freeman was asked if everything that is presented in the ballet could be verified, to which she replies, "Yes, absolutely, everything.". While they do not release the sources used, my research proved it was relatively easy to compare scenes from the ballet to chapters in the history books written on the moments featured throughout the piece. During their time researching the Mayerling Incident, Freeman describes how much easier it was to obtain the correct facts regarding the beginning of the story rather than their final moments as "[...] all Rudolf's effects were destroyed". The viewer, whether aware of the historical providence of the ballet or a complete beginner on the story is able to understand each relationship portrayed and the circumstances that lead to the final tragedy. Adapting history into a medium that tells the story in movements rather than verbally might be one of the hardest approaches to dramatisation, but MacMillan not only succeeded but also created a powerful ballet exploring the psychology of these historical characters through dance. Clement Crisp, ballet critic who closely followed the work of MacMillan, describes him as a "beautiful erotic poet in movement", especially when describing his pas de deux - a key part of the Mayerling ballet used to exploring the women and the nature of their relationship with the Crown Prince portrayed in the piece. The ballet follows a timeframe of eight years but with facts coming around much quicker than they did in real time. The celebrations of the marriage between Rudolf and Stephanie and the first meeting between the Prince and the young Baroness is separated only by one act, when in reality the wedding happened seven years before the ill-fated lovers became acquainted. This quick pace is excusable as the ballet requires the story to be told solely through the emotions portrayed by the dancers. MacMillan created seven pas de deux in this ballet, all exploring the relationships between Prince Rudolf and the women around him. Each dance represents his search for love and his failure to find it, time and time again. The Women This section will explore the women individually. It will discuss their portrayal in the ballet, and whether their pas de deux with Prince Rudolf and the solo performances are an accurate reflection of the real women which inspired these dancing dames. Finally, each section will attempt to establish whether their portrayal is positive for their individual narratives as women and if they are truly accurate to the facts and 'image' that they were portrayed as throughout history. Empress Elisabeth, the Distant Mother One of the most well known monarchs in Austrian history, Elisabeth of Bavaria is represented throughout Mayerling as a strong Empress and a distant mother. She married young and in love, and was not the biggest fan of court life. Whilst she did care for her children, she did so only from afar - especially when it came to her only son. He was sent away from a young age to be trained for military and imperial life. Elisabeth’s mother-in-law believed that the empress would be unable to raise the heir to the throne and thus distanced her from her son, something that would arguably lead to the development of Rudolf’s darker personality. Elisabeth, or Sissi as she was called by her family, grew up being encouraged by her parents to revel in the country and her creativity. Her love story with the Emperor-to-be was portrayed by many a movie through the years - with the 1955 picture starring Romy Schneider being one of the most famous, and romanticised. Nonetheless, her wondrous love story lost its strength as the years went by and imperial duties required her and Franz Joseph to spend time apart. Her relationship with Rudolf also became damaged as time went by due to the distance and lifestyle. During the first act of the ballet, there is a heavy focus on Rudolf's relationship with his mother. From her disappointment in finding him in a kiss with her niece to a heartbreaking pas de deux where we witness a desperate Rudolf looking for his mothers approval, understanding and love. Throughout the dance, Elisabeth is portrayed as a strong woman in her beliefs, not even letting her son’s cry for help affect her - at the very start of the choreography in this section she gently pushes away from his embrace. With the idea of a strong woman commonly being juxtaposed with the one of a good mother, throughout Elisabeth's narrative this is instead portrayed as joint aspects of her character. The Empress is portrayed as trying to be a good mother by maintaining her strength. One of her attempts to maintain Rudolf's image - as much of it was left to salvage anyway - is represented when she intensely charges towards her niece, Countess Larisch, when the woman is found in Rudolf's bedroom attempting once more to seduce her cousin. After all she could not have the prince having an affair with a married woman in court. Striking fear and stating her position in the dynamic allows the viewer to perceive her as a strong-willed woman that Sissi the Empress truly was. After this episode of "motherly love" the Empress is only seen in instances where the entire court is present - with a small focus on her alleged affair with Scottish hunter George 'Bay' Middleton, something that deeply bothered Rudolf. No matter how many affairs he had, how dare his mother cheat on his father? Her presence in the ballet is strong and memorable, much as the Empress herself was. Princess Stephanie of Belgium, the Neglected Wife Princess Stephanie met Prince Rudolf as a young girl. She was 15 when they fell in love, and the Austrian heir, who was already 20, proposed not long after their introduction. From the start of their relationship she was not favoured by the Empress, who did bless their union, but this was simply out of obligation. Despite this, the couple got married in 1881 and had a lovely start to their marriage - something that did not last for long. As time went by, the two realised just how little they had in common and Rudolf maintained many mistresses throughout their years together. Something that helps historians better understand Stephanie's relationship with Rudolf and her life within the Austrian court is an autobiography. Stephanie wrote a book about her marriage - from the early days of their relationship until the Prince's death. Throughout it she discusses the first year of their marriage in a very impersonal way, something that makes clear just how much the couple distanced from one another as the years went by. More interesting aspects of her book are her relationship with the Empress, who was very open about her feelings towards Stephanie but still 'used' the princess as a stand-in for events she did not desire to attend, and how the Austrian court made no effort to include or even care for her after the Prince died. The undermining of the Princess by the court, while not shown in the ballet, deserves to be included in this analysis as it most likely happened due to her "inability to have an heir" - her sole task in the eyes of the court. While she did have a daughter with Rudolf, this failure to have a son is believed to be Rudolf's fault. Due to his many affairs, Rudolf contracted syphilis and, it is rumoured, passed it onto Stephanie who became infertile. This was not mentioned by Stephanie in her writing. The portrayal of their marriage in the ballet is not introduced with the initial happiness that the couple lived through. During the celebrations of their union, Rudolf is seen flirting and dancing with another woman: Stephanie's sister. This betrayal with her sister creates the image of Rudolf as someone that did not care for Stephanie or their marriage from the start - something fabricated by MacMillan to move the story in a faster pace. Stephanie, who has her own solo and a pas de deux with Rudolf at the end of Act 1, is only seen briefly during the second act when her husband takes her along to one of his nights of dalliances at a pub - which has a masterful choreography for the corps de ballet. After her escape from the unsolicited outing with Rudolf, she is no longer a focus for the ballet, or for her husband, who, that evening, is introduced to Maria Vetsera. Stephanie's solo and her pas de deux with Rudolf at the end of act one are meant to represent their wedding night, with striking differences between both. Throughout her solo, the princess is pictured waiting for her new husband, undressed by her ladies in waiting and practically floating through the stage with a sad aspect (but even then that could represent the initial bliss from the first year of their marriage). However, this quickly changes upon Rudolf's arrival, with an aggressive and nerve-wracking choreography taking place between the two. [TRIGGER WARNING: mention of Sexual Assault] Princess Stephanie dances a terrifying pas de deux with Prince Rudolf at the end of act one. From the end of her solo, which she dances peacefully to the encounter with her new husband which from the beginning of the dance shows his aggression towards her. Scaring Stephanie with a human skull and a gun - objects which the real Prince did have in his study - the dance evolves into a chase between prey and predator. With effortless lifts, in which the ballerina shivers her entire body so the audience understands just how afraid the Princess would have been, and forceful movements led by the male dancer, it is clear that the scene we are witnessing between the couple is one of sexual assault. MacMillan mentions in the 1978 documentary that the scene represents their wedding night and reflects on Rudolf's fascination with death and the pressure on him to produce an heir. The product of this was the strong and fearful rape scene in the ballet. Whether their relationship involved these sad moments is uncertain - it was never alluded by Stephanie in her book nor mentioned in Rudolf's farewell letter found after his suicide. It brings into question the necessity for such a strong scene to end act one. Could it be there to suggest the change of sentiment regarding their marriage or was it simply trying to make Rudolf a villain? The use of such a violent scene is a very deliberate artistic choice on MacMillan's part, especially by portraying such a moment in their wedding night, a time when the couple still believed their union would be a happy one. Overall, Princess Stephanie - whilst she is an important person to the narrative and history, in the ballet, she is simply the personification of the duties that Rudolf was meant to achieve - produce an heir, have a loving family as his parents ascend to the throne - and he failed in all of them. Nonetheless, for the one member of the Austrian court who produced a book about the incident (published in 1935), the princess seems to be as neglected in the ballet as she was in her marriage. The story she tells is simply of a victim who suffered from a wedding for political reasons, when it was originally in fact out of adoration for one another. Countess Marie Larisch, the Flirtatious Cousin Marie Larisch could be described as the instigator of the incident if Rudolf had not presented suicidal thoughts previously - but she was definitely a facilitator. She was the cousin who wished for his love but was denied it by Rudolf himself and his mother - who, upon realising this attraction, made sure to find a husband for her niece. Whether she stopped flirting with the prince it can not be said for certain - something the ballet portrays really well. Larisch herself was not known for her good manners, and was more noted for her “arrogant” attitude that drove much of the Austrian court away. She became an easy “target” for MacMillan to paint in the ballet with a negative light. She dances one of the first pas de deux of the ballet with Rudolf. Throughout it there is a duality in how the prince receives her approaches - from an initial acceptance to the attempts to push her away, represented by lifts, pirouettes and actual pushes woven into the dance. The section finishes with Larisch stealing a kiss and being caught by the Emperor and Empress who, while being represented as shocked, do not cause a scene as this was at the end of the wedding celebration, simply allowing Rudolf to walk away with his bride. The Countess returns several times throughout the ballet, being instrumental on the introduction of young Vetsera and the prince. In the ballet, she convinces the young girl that the couple are destined to be together with what seems to be a spread of tarot cards - making an exchange for the final card, representing their doomed future, as if the woman knew that the match would be fatal. Now, it is obvious that this was entirely fabricated by MacMillan. To predict that not only the murder-suicide pact would be proposed but accepted by Vetsera is something that in no way the Countess was capable of doing - but as they needed a "villain," and she paid this price. However, she was still blamed by the Empress for Rudolf's death and never saw her aunt again, having been banished by the Viennese court altogether. The final time we see Marie Larisch is during a pas de deux in Rudolf's bedroom, in which he is clearly ill - both in his physical and mental health. The Countess attempts to help the young man with whom she was infatuated, as she finds him soon after administering a dose of morphine (something to which he became addicted). Even then, at his most fragile state, Rudolf continuously tries to get rid of her, helped by his mother once she enters the room and discovers the Countess there. A woman who was denied the attention of the man she desired, Marie Larisch can be described - both in real life and at the ballet - as scorned. She was blamed for the tragic ending of the Habsburg dynasty, something that she could not control but the Viennese society made sure she was punished for it. Throughout the ballet, she is portrayed as slightly desperate, whether for love or lust, it is up for the audience to decide - though in real life she was most likely desperate for attention than anything else. She went on to work for the film industry, fueling them with information about the Habsburgs - even assisting with the production for a short period of time. Baroness Maria Vetsera, the Naïve Mistress Finally, it is time to discuss the otherwise unknown to history, Maria Vetsera. The young mistress who believed herself so in love with the Austrian prince that she accepted to end her life alongside him. Whether she was coerced to end her life or not, is a question that might never be answered, though in her farewell letter to her mother she states that "[...] I could not resist love [...] I am happier in death than life" making historians believe that she was in agreement with the pact. In the ballet, MacMillan represents the young Vetsera as a sensual, excited character with the prospect of being introduced to the prince. During the performance one forgets that she is meant to be a 17 year old girl as she is at times portrayed as a temptress. However, MacMillan representing Maria in such light also alludes to how the girl was perceived by the late 19th century Austrian society. Having a more "advanced" figure from a young age, she had always attracted the attention of men who would be unaware of the young age of the girl. Throughout the ballet, Maria can be seen as both the young and trusting girl who was in love with a prince and, at times, as the erotic lover that Rudolf lusted after. Very little is known about her real self other than the fact she was raised to aim for a fortuitous social match. Her family, even though they had connections with the royals, was not part of the court and Maria was therefore not a public person before the start of her affair with the crown prince. All of the pas de deux between the lovers are charged with sexual or romantic energy. At the beginning of their first dance together she arrives in his bedroom wearing a large coat that is quickly removed to reveal a sheer and loose fitting nightgown. This first duet is incredibly sensual, with the choreography alluding to sexual activity with different lifts and poses throughout it. Something very important about this section is the representation of Maria's lack of fear of Rudolf's unusual interests, represented by her playing with his gun and dancing with the human skull he keeps. Their final dance represents the moments before their deaths at Mayerling and, according to what is believed to have happened, Maria is the first to die. Beforehand however, their final moments together are represented in the last pas de deux. A very emotionally charged dance, they cling onto one another until the moment that they planned arrives. The public sees the couple together for a final time before hearing a gunshot and a distraught Rudolf comes back onto the front of the stage, doing a final tragic solo before joining his lover in death. This difference at the time of their deaths aligns with the way their bodies were found at the lodge - Maria's body already cold and Rudolf dead more recently. The reason for this is one of the many mysteries of the Mayerling Incident. In many ballets, the first and final scene are the same - for Mayerling it is no different. The first scene introduced to the audience is of a funeral, with no pomp and few people present. It is only at the end that we find out that the simple funeral was Maria's, but this simplicity was not because of her class, but to hide the truth of the Prince's death. While both of them requested to be buried together, to acknowledge the suicide of the heir to the throne would be not only be scandalous, but also would mean that he would not be granted the royal burial his parents wished for him. Therefore, they blamed his death on his weak health, something known to the Austrian public, and made sure to bury his mistress in a hidden and far away location. Her mother would not be told where Maria's body was for two years. Our finale Whether the ballet holds a feminist undertone to it, the answer is probably no - especially as the main character is Prince Rudolf; his relationships with these women simply guide the story. Their importance throughout is undeniable, with their ballet personas being most often similar to the reality of each of these 19th century women. Nonetheless, the fact that these women were well-portrayed through the ballet, regarding their personalities, status and character, is incredibly important for women's history. Even though they are not the focal point of the story and the ballet would definitely not pass the Bechdel Test, they are key parts of the portrayal of this moment in history. They are not only remembered but also introduced to different audiences - those who might be familiar with history, or who were drawn in simply by the status of a MacMillan ballet. These audience members will become aware of the story of each of these women and thus ensure that they are not forgotten or written out of this narrative. ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ If you're interested in watching the ballet in its entirety, the following streaming services (both with free trial periods) have professional recordings: MarqueeTV and Royal Opera House. Further reading Barkeley, Richard, and Phyllis Auty. 1959. ‘Review of the Road to Mayerling: Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 37.89: 543–46 Condé Nast. 2022. ‘The True Story behind Mayerling, Brought Back by the Royal Ballet This October’, Tatler Derek Bailey. 1978. ‘Mayerling: South Bank Special, Part 2, 1978.’, Www.youtube.com Hamann, Brigitte. 2012. The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Google Books (Faber & Faber) Parry, Jann. 2010. Different Drummer: The Life of Kenneth MacMillan, Google Books (Faber & Faber) Rezzutti, Paulo , and Cláudia Thomé Witte. 2022. Sissi E O Último Brilho de Uma Dinastia (Leya) Schönbrunn Group. [n.d.-a]. ‘CSI Mayerling – How Did the Crown Prince Really Die?’, Die Welt Der Habsburger - the World of the Habsburgs Schönbrunn Group . [n.d.-b]. ‘An Unhappy Union: Rudolf and Stephanie’, Die Welt Der Habsburger - the World of the Habsburgs

“There is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man, and there is no reason she cannot master every technicality of the art”. - Alice Guy-Blaché Like many industries today, the film industry has been subject to much scrutiny over gender discrimination, sexism and predatory behaviours within the last decade. For good reason a light has been shone on the institutional mistreatment of women - a culture that has been allowed to exist due to decades of male control within the hegemony of the large, market-leading studios. Since 2017, the #MeToo movement has been pivotal in initiating awareness and justice for victims of predators within Hollywood and the wider industry. Along with equality and diversity policies and earlier feminist efforts, the attention on the industry’s systemic gender issues is creating a platform for more women to claim positions of power and influence. This progress is perceived today as pushing the film industry forward in its inclusion of women in directorial, production-based and corporate roles. However, to talk about progress is to insinuate that the film industry of the past excluded women and forced them into positions of inferiority. While this was partly the case for a long time, the formative years of the film industry were shaped by many women who pioneered the practice and dared to experiment with the burgeoning technology of the time. For over a century these women’s contributions to cinema history have been all but forgotten. Their works have been lost, overlooked and miscredited. It’s time that these women are restored to their former glory and remembered for their valuable influence on the film industry and its future. The mother of narrative film: Alice Guy-Blaché Towards the end of the 19th century, many inventors, engineers, and entrepreneurs were caught up in the race to develop the leading method of filming and exhibiting moving pictures. Ultimately, the Lumière brothers are widely credited as the ones to do this in Paris, France, in March 1895 when they showcased their invention the Cinématographe. The Lumières’ films were essentially documentaries: minute-long depictions of ordinary life made purely to show off their new technology. While the earliest film exhibitions did attract crowds, this was based more on the aesthetic and sensational appeal of moving pictures and their novelty as a relatively new medium of entertainment. It wasn’t until later that the potential of narrative film was realised. Twenty-two year old Alice Guy was in attendance at that first commercial film screening. Secretary to Léon Gaumont (who went on to found Gaumont Film Company which became the first film studio in the world), she had developed interest and expertise in cameras through her dealings with clients and a handful of engineers. Excited by the potential of film, Guy asked Gaumont if she could make her own film, to which he agreed (as long as it didn’t interfere with her secretarial work). With the creation of La Fée Aux Choux / The Cabbage Fairy (1896), narrative film was born. Like many early films, the original version perished; Guy’s 1900 remake, depicting a fairy who conjures babies out of cabbage patches, is the version most familiar to audiences today. From 1896 to 1906, Guy was the only woman in the world creating films, making her the first female filmmaker. Gaumont soon made Guy head of production for the entire company, solidifying her significance in the history of film. She held this position until she departed to the United States in 1907 with her husband Herbert Blaché. They relocated because Herbert, who also worked for the Gaumont company, was transferred to Flushing, New York to oversee the studio there. Due to disputes over technology and film distribution rights involving Thomas Edison, by 1910 operation at the Gaumont plant had essentially ended. Seeing the opportunity presented to her, Alice Guy-Blaché established her own production company on the Gaumont site, thus founding the Solax Company. Guy-Blaché’s films at Solax are characterised by their on-location shooting and preference for realism, which differed from the convention of studio-shooting; a sign telling actors to “Be Natural” hung on one studio wall. By 1912 the Solax Company had raised enough funds for Alice (who was pregnant) and Herbert to build their own studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Fort Lee was emerging as a centre for early silent film production so Guy-Blaché’s presence among industry leaders signifies her success as a filmmaker. The studio successfully moved from only producing shorts to also releasing feature-length films, however growing costs and the ever-growing appeal of the West Coast later caused trouble for Solax. Alice Guy-Blaché is believed to have written, directed and produced around 1,000 films during her career. Unfortunately, only 150 are currently known to have survived; others may have been attributed to other directors, but Guy-Blaché worked tirelessly to reclaim many of her works before her death in 1963. One of her notable films from her Solax years was In The Year 2000 (1912), a remake of her 1906 Gaumont production Les Résultats du Féminisme. These films depict a world in which male and female gender roles are reversed (I'm sure Alice would've loved Greta Gerwig's Barbie). She also created a handful of female action films, which were a timely response to the ‘serial queens’ trend in silent cinema. The ‘serial queens’ were well-loved stars of serialised short films about the adventures of female action heroes, including serials like The Perils of Pauline (1914) and The Hazards of Helen (1914-1917). Guy-Blaché is also recognised for directing one of the first films with an all-black cast, if not the first. A Fool and His Money (1912) is by no means progressive in its representation of race, but its cast represents a significant piece of cinema history. After her divorce from Herbert and handling the bankruptcy of the Solax Company in 1922, Guy-Blaché returned to Paris where she began lecturing in film. Despite assisting her ex-husband on three films in Los Angeles, Alice was largely uninvolved in the booming Hollywood scene of cinema, and her name was omitted from many historical accounts of the early cinema industry. Towards the end of her life she became focused on reclaiming her name and tracking down lost works, endeavouring to have herself remembered as the pioneer she was. Slowly, she received some film accreditation, however it was not until 1968, some years after her death, that feminist film scholars acknowledged Alice’s existence and her role in cinema history was rightfully recognised. Pamela B. Green’s 2018 documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is a tender and informative exploration of Guy-Blaché’s work I absolutely recommend to anyone interested in learning more . America’s first female director: Lois Weber Lois Weber’s film career began in New York, where she had worked in theatre with her husband, Phillips Smalley, before working with the Rex Motion Picture Company. In 1913, the couple relocated to the ever-growing film community in Los Angeles where they signed contracts to write and direct under Universal studios. Before long, Weber, often publicly known as Mrs. Smalley, was a leading director at Universal Pictures. An early pop-culture ‘power couple’, the Smalleys collaborated on films together, but by 1916 it was evident that Lois was the dominant force in their filmmaking partnership. She wrote their scripts and directed many of their works. Phillips understood his wife’s expertise to such an extent that he was frequently observed turning to Lois for advice on important decisions. Her knowledge and artistic authority was evident in their working relationship. Weber experienced the height of her success in the mid-1910s. In these years she was often mentioned in print as one of the top Hollywood talents, considered with key filmmakers like D.W. Griffith (director of the racist film Birth Of A Nation (1915)), and Cecil B. DeMille, who later directed Sunset Boulevard (1950). In 1916 she was also the first and only woman elected to the Motion Picture Directors Association, remaining the only woman to do so before the association made way for the Screen Actors Guild in 1936. Throughout her career, Weber fostered not only her own successful career, but also the careers of various rising stars by supporting them in their journey to becoming Hollywood actresses. Following her successful years at Universal, Weber established her own company called Lois Weber Productions, in 1917. Here she was able to forgo the thematic constraints Universal placed on her (they thought the films she wanted to make were too ‘domestic’) and began making the most intimate films of her career. Under the name of her own studio she endeavoured to write more complex parts for women. She was aware of Hollywood’s inclination to prescribe women one-dimensional labels like ‘flapper’ or ‘wife.’ Weber always had a tendency to write and direct films speaking to the social issues of her time. Films such as John Doe (1916), Where Are My Children? (1916) and Shoes (1916) discussed the abolition of capital punishment, legalisation of birth control, and urban poverty, demonstrating her penchant for social commentary in her filmmaking. One of the earliest proponents for film as a powerful medium for narrative drama, Weber hoped for her films to “have an influence for good on the public mind”, distinguishing herself from other (male) filmmakers whose aim for film was to associate it with highbrow culture in order to validate itself as an artform. Like her contemporaries, Lois used new filmmaking techniques, such as split-screen (Suspense, from 1913, or over-exposure effects (Where Are My Children?), but in some cases before they did. These are elements of their filmmaking that have long been praised by film historians and early film fans. However, Weber’s recognition as an experimenter has not been well documented. After only a few years, Lois Weber Productions began to struggle and Weber’s output slowed from 1922. Some have noted that the end of her marriage that year was partly to do with this, citing her dependence on Phillips in the business-side of the company as more necessary to her success than she had led people to think. However, she was not the only person or company to struggle at this time; in fact, Lois did continue making a few more films after her divorce- something that her ex-husband never attempted. More important than the divorce to her eventual decline was the changing structure of the Hollywood film industry which favoured the mass-production and investment only the large studios could afford. Many independent studios could not compete. It is commendable that Lois’ career weathered the transition from silent to sound cinema after 1929 with her final feature White Heat (1934). Remaining as early Hollywood’s only female director during the, Weber’s films took on a low cultural value. Her work was marketed as ‘women’s films’, no longer perceived with the prestige and quality of her earlier releases. Upon her death at age 60 in 1939, Lois Weber’s eulogy described her as only a “star maker”, remembered not for her own successful and celebrated career, but for her ability to begin other actresses’ careers. Tragically, her 25 years in the film industry and writing and directing credits on 40 features and 100 shorts were omitted. Fading to obscurity Towards the end of the 1920s, many filmmakers and performers failed to hold the same prestige in the film industry that they had experienced at the peak of their silent film careers since the early 1900s. Anyone who’s seen Singin’ In The Rain (1952) will understand the difficulties many careers faced during this shift to synchronised sound. Most production had moved to Hollywood, capitalist studios were beginning to hold the monopoly on distribution and exhibition, and positions within studios were becoming increasingly gendered, pushing women out of executive roles. At the beginning of their careers, female filmmakers had been relatively free to contribute to the new medium behind the scenes as no expectations of what the commercial film industry should be, or what it would become, existed. Women’s ‘moral superiority’ was actually used as a legitimation force, assuring audiences of the virtue of the new means of entertainment. As time progressed and a small collection of studios consolidated their power over the entire industry, men asserted themselves in positions of authority, while the artistic qualities associated with women and their femininity were no longer a hallmark of quality filmmaking, seen rather as excessive and outdated. Lois Weber was essentially written out of history while she was still an active filmmaker; her male contemporaries cemented their legacy while she battled to find work. Themes of being lost, disregarded, and unappreciated arise when considering early film’s female pioneers. MacMahan has named Alice Guy-Blaché “the lost visionary of cinema” and her work a “lost garden”, while Weber was “forgotten with a vengeance” according to Richard Koszarski. In fact, the presence of women within the dominant Hollywood film industry was all but nothing until many decades later, and even then it is debatable whether that has changed enough. Dorothy Arzner is regarded by many as the only female director in the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, with this title remaining well into the twentieth century. Remembering film’s female pioneers When elevating contemporary women within the film industry we should draw attention to their predecessors, who not only were a part of this burgeoning craft, but influenced the conventions we associate with commercial cinema today. Alice Guy-Blaché told The Moving Picture World in 1914 that “there is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man, and there is no reason she cannot master every technicality of the art”. These words have never felt truer than today, when more women’s voices are being heard as they claim positions of artistic authority. There was never any inevitability that men would dominate filmmaking. In fact, the women active in the earliest version of the film industry held a significant share of the workload. In the act of bringing more women to the forefront today, we can also lift up these women of the past who did so much to put their mark on the history of cinema. It’s also worth noting that I’ve only mentioned two women in this article. Ruth Ann Baldwin, Nell Shipman, and the first Black female filmmaker Maria P. Williams are just a few of the incredible women whose works have been lost and unappreciated over the last 100 years. By recognising them as not only women who were trailblazers, but also as pioneering filmmakers in their own right, we challenge contemporary representations of historical women. These women’s personal achievements and names should be recognised for their importance to film history alongside other well-documented visionaries in the story of film. Further reading: Dargis, Manohla, ‘Overlooked No More: Alice Guy-Blaché, the World’s First Female Filmmaker’, The New York Times, 2019, via Gaines, Jane and Radha Vatsal, ‘How Women Worked in the US Silent Film Industry’, Women Film Pioneers Project, 2011, via McMahan, Alison, ‘Alice Guy-Blaché’, Women Film Pioneers Project, 2018, via The Moving Picture World, 11 July 1914 O’Hara, Helen, Women Vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film (London: Robinson, 2021) Photoplay, 1913, p. 73 Rose, Steve, ‘Why was pioneering director Alice Guy-Blaché erased from film-making history?’, The Guardian, 2020, via Stamp, Shelley, ‘Lois Weber’, Women Film Pioneers Project, 2013, via Lois Weber in Early Hollywood (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), via Filmography A Fool and His Money, dir. by Alice Guy-Blaché (The Solax Company, 1912) Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, dir. by Pamela B. Green (Zeitgeist Films, 2018) Danse Des Papillons, dir. by Alice Guy-Blaché (Gaumont, 1897) In The Year 2000, dir. by Alice Guy-Blaché (The Solax Company, 1912) La Fée Aux Choux/ The Cabbage Fairy, dir. by Alice Guy-Blaché (Gaumont, 1896) Les Résultats du Féminisme, dir. by Alice Guy-Blaché (Gaumont, 1906) The People vs. John Doe, dir. by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley (Universal, 1916) Shoes, dir. by Lois Weber (Universal, 1916) Suspense, dir. by Lois Weber (Universal, 1913) Where Are My Children?, dir. by Lois Weber (Universal, 1916) White Heat, dir. by Lois Weber (Pinnacle Production Company, 1934)

Lucy Dacus famously said "always an angel never a god" and perfectly encapsulated the feeling of never quite being at the forefront, always cast into the shadows. Is it the eternal plight of women then, to be erased from the textbooks, the movements, from history itself? The Negritude movement, an anti-colonial cultural and political movement attributed to Leopold Sedar Senghor, Aime Césaire, and Leon Damas, was a truly revolutionary movement of 1930s, 40s and 50s Paris. Widely considered as the inauguration of Black humanism, this literary, cultural, and intellectual movement also signalled the birth of a Pan-Africanist philosophy. The movement was a cornerstone in the rejection of colonialism. It called for a widespread Black community of all those who lived under the lasting impacts of colonialism including the seemingly perpetual dependence on the west, and its far reaching impact is unquestionable. Though the impact of the movement cannot be understated, it is also important to acknowledge the erasure of the women vital in its creation. The androcentricity and heavy reliance on traditional gender roles evidenced in all of the ‘founding fathers’ works must also be acknowledged. Though a movement based on inclusion, the erasure of women’s work from the movement, including Suzanne Césaire’s work which this article will focus on, reveals the hostilities rampant in the movement’s foundational ideals and the wider francophone world at the time. This article focuses on the work of Suzanne Cesaire; writer, scholar, anti-colonialist, feminist, and a vital figure in Martinican literature. Written out of the Negritude movement and history as a whole due to her marriage and later divorce from Aime Césaire. Her male counterpart wrote of Martinique as a mute and sterile land with an exoticized and eroticized feminine topography. Césaire wrote of Martinique as a vibrant place of potential, of social, socio-economic and cultural complexity, and as a place of women who were far from passive and rather connected the nation's history with an evolving future. At a time when Martinican intellectuals were focussed on Blackness in Africa, Césaire looked to the US liberation movement for inspiration. Now termed the 'Madonna' of francophone modernism by recent critics for her open embrace of the cultural diversity and vitality of the Black Americas, it is some 50+ years since her death that she is being recognised as more than a footnote in her husband's works. So, why is it that for so long she was forgotten? Born in 1915 on the then French colonial territory of Martinique, Suzanne Roussi completed her schooling on the island in the French education system. She then studied literature in Toulouse and successfully made her way to the highly selective École Normale Supérieure, where she would meet fellow student and future husband Aime Césaire in 1936. They married in 1937 and had their first child in 1938 before returning to Martinique to teach. Co-founding the Martinican literary journal Tropiques in 1941, Césaire would publish seven essays in the four years the journal was active. Tropiques has been hailed as one of the, if not the most influential francophone Caribbean journal of the time and a source of opposition to the Vichy government that ruled Martinique at the time. She would, however, be written out of works surrounding Tropiques, with the focus from both critics and the public almost entirely placed on her husband instead. The end of Tropiques in 1945 also served as the ending for Suzanne Césaire’s career as a writer, now a mother of six and the wife of the deputy to the French National Assembly for Martinique. The expectations of unquantified labor that now faced her were immense, and it is fair to assume that this is likely one of the overarching reasons why she stopped writing. There is almost nothing written on Suzanne Césaire between 1945 and 1963, when she divorced Aime Césaire. It is only in recent years following the publication of T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting’s ‘Negritude Women’ in 2002 that her works have been examined since her death in 1966. Unfortunately, with almost none of her works translated to English or accessible online, she still remains a figure in the shadows. A comparison of her work to that of fellow Negritude writers reveals the depth that their work lacked, and the reliance the men of the movement placed on gender roles, an uncomfortable truth that went against their motto of inclusivity. In Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, Aime Césaire’s most notable publication, the narrator invokes “the male thirst and the stubborn desire” and women are depicted as nothing more than vessels of the future: “come the ovaries of the water where the future wriggles its tiny little heads”. In comparison is the work of Suzanne Césaire, in which she writes “here too, people are born, live, and die; here, too, the whole drama plays itself out”. Her works include complex female characters, and whilst the land is still feminized, it is with a complexity and depth that was not seen in the works of her male counterparts. The male voices of the movement heavily relied on gender stereotypes to tell tales of rebellion against the allegory of colonial force, and yet gave little space for female voices in rebellion. 19th century France, following its defeat in the Haitian revolution turned to the Black female body in order to rearticulate notions of true masculine national identity. France concentrated on the construction of Blackness in order to reconstruct Whiteness. By objectifying and constructing Blackness as something that was comedic yet hypersexual, the French attempted to reinvigorate their own identity that was based on white masculine prowess and strength. The story of Saartjie Bartman, who became known as the “Hottentot Venus” is the epitome of the relationship between colonial exploitation, White masculinity and Black femininity. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Negritude movement, born in Francophone countries, relies on similarly reductionist expectations of gender in its pledge for liberation. Whilst the objective may have been to emancipate African culture and promote a shared consciousness, the archetypal gender roles upon which the literature is expanded mean the liberation that is spoken of is only achievable through the subsequent erasure of female agency. The very fact that Suzanne Césaire was a Black woman meant her experience was entirely different from that of her male counterparts, and that she could speak of a world that would perhaps negate the tales that they told as if they were absolutes. Though her work was ground-breaking and her wider role in the founding of the Negritude movement unquestionable, the agency that Suzanne Césaire gave the women in her writing and distancing from gendered roles did not fit into the formula of liberation that the male heads and faces of the movement imagined. The reduction of Suzanne Césaire to a footnote in the stories of Aime Cesaire’s life and stripping of her agency is reflective of the forceful removal of agency of Black women as a whole in history. It highlights the need to return to what we ‘know’ to re-examine the voices that may have been erased from the wider story. Further reading Emily C. Sheffield, ‘The Unsung Mothers of Negritude: An examination of the efforts of Women behind the movement’, Global Africana Review, 2, (Spring 2018), pp.2-10 Jacqueline Couti, ‘Am I My Sister’s Keeper? The Politics of Propriety and the Fight for Equality in the Works of French Antillean Women Writers, 1920s-40s’, in Felix Germain, Silyane Larcher, Black French Women and the Struggle for Equality, 1848-2016’, (Nebraska, 2018), pp.129-144 Kara Rabbitt, ‘In search of the missing mother: Suzanne Cesaire, Martiniquaise’, Research in African Literatures 44:1, 2013, pp.36-54 Shiera S. el-Malik, ‘Intellectual work ‘In the world’: Women’s writing and anti-Colonial thought in Africa, Irish studies in International Affairs, 24, 2013, pp.101-120 T Denean Sharpley-Witing, Negritude Women, (Minnesota, 2002). Sall, Korka, ‘Negritude Feminisms: Francophone Black Women Writers and Activists in France, Martinique, and Senegal from the 1920s to the 1980s’, (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2021). Cuadra, Bridget, ‘”We Were but Women, Real Pioneers”. La Depeche Africaine, La Revue du Monde Noir, and the Women-Centered Origins of the Negritude Movement’ (Proceedings of the National Conference on undergraduate research, Kennesaw State University, 2019). Emily Eyestone, ‘Cannibalizing Paradise: Suzanne Cesaire’s Ecofeminist Critique of Tourist Literature’, Island Studies journal, 17:2, 2022, pp.52-73

Anne of Denmark – even the name historians use to popularly refer to the queen consort of James VI and I of Scotland, England, and Ireland is a misnomer. History has not been kind to the woman known for most of her life as Anne of Denmark. Since the time her husband took the English throne, men who disliked Anna’s influence and James’s inheritance started rewriting Anna’s story, beginning with Anglicising her name to Anne. Unfortunately, Anna’s history was buried under anti-Stuart anti-Scottish sentiments in England that would continue in the decades following her death. Her son lost his throne in the English Civil War, and although her grandson would regain it, within nearly a hundred years of Anna’s passing, the Stuarts no longer reigned. Winners write history, and Anna’s family did not win. Her reputation was easily sacrificed as a new royal dynasty looked to further decry the old, and Anna was reduced to a caricature of a timid, silly, superfluous queen. Few historians bothered to challenge the predominant image of Anna that emerged following her death, and so she has remained confined to the recesses of histories of her husband’s reign. Maurice Ashley’s work on the Stuart’s calls her a “dumb blond”, a sentiment that echoes William Lloyd McElwee’s assessment of Anna as a woman of “very little intelligence” whose “placid stupidity” meant “the more remote she was kept from politics the better.” Unfortunately these mens’ misogynistic and overly-simplistic assessments of Anna’s character were not isolated, and within historical records her negative reputation solidified. She became Queen Anne, the frivolous, unintelligent woman who made a mess of politics when she bothered to meddle with them. Queen Anne whose husband often preferred the company of his male favourites. Queen Anne whose character became so passive and one-dimensional she was hardly worth mentioning at all. But Anna of Denmark was a political force in her own right, intelligent, quick-witted, and utterly determined. Anna understood how to use her royal influence to chart her own course. It has taken the rise of gender history, the reconsidering of the role of queen consorts, and a deeper understanding of Scottish politics to uncover this other side of Anna’s life. Utilising work in this vein by historians like Maureen Meikle, Susan Dunn-Hensley, and Amy Juhala as well as the letters the flooded in and out of the Scottish court during Anna’s time there, this article contributes to revising Anne to tell the story of Anna, Queen of Scotland. A Princess Meets a King Anna was born in Denmark in 1574 at Skanderborg Castle. Her father was King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway and her mother, Sophia, was the daughter of a German Duke. She was the second eldest daughter of her parents' seven children. She would spend her early life in Germany with her maternal grandparents before returning to Denmark where she received a humanist education, learning German, Danish, and French. Her father’s court was a cultural centre known for its Northern Renaissance architecture, theatre, and music, providing Anna the privilege of a culturally rich childhood. Growing up surrounded by elaborate culture had a lasting impact on Anna who would go on to utilise masques, celebrations, and culture as political tools, especially in England. Anna would also remain forever proud of her Danish heritage and the fact that she was the daughter, sister, and later the wife of a king. Anna grew up with a strong sense of her royal prerogative and place in the world, and this would only grow with time as she became a confident young queen. The first mention of a marriage between Anna and James appear in documents in 1588. James was 22 and had been King of Scotland since 1567, when at only a year-old, his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate by rebelling Scottish lords. There were earlier negotiations for a Danish match between James and Anna’s elder sister, Elizabeth, but these were complicated by Anglo-Scottish-French politics that saw Catherine of Navarre proposed as an opposing match. James’s cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England favoured the match with Catherine because it allowed her to show English support for French Protestants during civil unrest caused by deep religious divides in France. Meanwhile, Elizabeth faced increased pressure from her advisors to execute James’s mother Mary, who was continually being implicated in Catholic plots to seize the English throne. Elizabeth finally relented in 1586, reluctantly signing Mary’s execution warrant, sparking a period of unrest between Scotland and England that stalled James’s marriage negotiations. Eventually, tempers cooled, and James could look for a wife again, but by that time, Anna’s elder sister Elizabeth had been promised to the Duke of Brunswick, and Denmark offered Anna as a match instead. It is rumoured that James prayed over who to take as a wife for three days. In the end, the 23-year-old Scottish King chose the 14-year-old Danish Princess over the 30-year-old Princess of Navarre. Perhaps, however, James was praying for forgiveness from his first lover, the recently deceased Earl of Lennox whom many argue James had a romantic relationship with at as young as 13. Not only was Anna younger, and reportedly more beautiful than Catherine, but a Danish alliance brought James distinct advantages his French match lacked. Denmark, like Scotland, was a Protestant nation in a time of deep religious divide throughout Europe. Denmark also controlled important shipping lanes Scottish merchants hoped to gain access to, not to mention Denmark had never fully revoked their claim on the Orkney and Shetland islands granted to Scotland as part of the Danish Princess Margaret’s dowry when she had married James III in 1469. Alongside a sizeable dowry, Anna and James’s marriage contract finally saw Denmark declare both islands part of Scotland. The marriage was a victory for Scotland, and finally in August of 1589 Anna married James by proxy in a lavish ceremony at Kronborg Castle. Unfortunately, Anna’s voyage to join her new husband would prove ill-fated, with storms forcing her fleet of ships to take refuge near Oslo, Norway. James, impatient to meet his new wife, ignored the warnings of his advisors and sailed to Norway to bring Anna to Scotland. Nearly four months after their marriage by proxy, James found Anna’s fleet and the two finally met. They would marry for a second time a few days later to more banqueting and gift giving, with James granting Anna the charter to Dunfermline Abby as a wedding present. By all contemporary accounts, the two quickly became an affectionate, intimate pair. Any journey back to Scotland was delayed once more due to weather, and in late December the two instead travelled back to the Danish court at Kronborg. There they spent an extended honeymoon where James, an only child, got to experience living as a part of Anna’s large family. The period was joyous and harmonious with the couple spending nearly all their time together enjoying lavish entertainment. It was not until April 21st 1590 that Anna and James would travel back to Scotland, landing in Leith, just outside of Edinburgh on May 1st to an elaborate welcome ceremony. Anna was anointed as Queen of Scotland on May 17th at Edinburgh’s Holyrood Abbey. She brought immediate change to the Scottish court which had not had a queen living in its borders since the ill-fated reign of Anna’s mother-in-law. Anna restricted access to James’s bedchamber, frustrating many courtiers who had grown used to unlimited access to their “child” King even now that he was in his majority rule. However, James was no longer a child, and he and Anna were clearly trying to start a family of their own, as Anna tragically suffered her first miscarriage in September of 1590. A Queen Learns to Politick Unsurprisingly, Anna’s first foray into politics involved navigating the relationship between her native Denmark and Scotland. Anna spent much of 1590 and early 1591 getting a handle on the operation of Scottish politics alongside learning Scots and English, although she already spoke the official Scottish court language of French. Queen consorts were expected not just to solidify peace between their home courts and those they married into, but to help maintain these relations throughout their marriage, with both sides expecting preferenial treatment through her intercessions. Anna quickly provided Scottish merchants with letters of introduction to Danish trade and in her first major political interaction with England in 1591, Anna aided a Danish merchant who had been a victim of English piracy. Anna was smart to intervene so early in her reign. She quickly proved her political worth in successfully fullfilling one of the major duties expected of her which delighted both her husband and the Danish Council. The Queen Consort’s unofficial role as diplomat was reinforced again in 1602 when she was quick to warn her brother Christian IV, by then King of Denmark, that the Swedes were buying Scottish mercenaries to prepare for war. Anna would continue to provide a political link between Scotland and Denmark throughout her life, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the two kingdoms. Anna intervened in international politics again in 1592, once more involving herself in affairs with England. Maintaining the Anglo-Scottish relationship during this time was a careful balancing act. Mary’s death left James as the closest heir to the English throne. His great-grandmother Margaret Tudor was Queen Elizabeth’s aunt, the sister of Henry VIII. Not only that, but unlike his mother, James was a Protestant, making him a more acceptable heir to the English government. While James undoubtedly looked to benefit from this connection, he also had an independent political agenda for Scotland that at times put him at odds with Elizabeth. Not to mention any ill-feelings James harboured about Elizabeth’s execution of his mother. So, while it was important to often appease the more powerful English Queen, conflict between England and Scotland was arguably inevitable. Anna, however, quickly showed she was adept at mitigating tensions with England. In 1592 fighting broke out between two families on the Scottish border where feuds over territory lines were common. Theft was equally commonplace here as thieves, known as border reivers, could evade authorities by crossing into the other kingdom. On this occasion, it was the Kerrs of Cessford and the Kerrs of Ancrum whose blood feud had sparked again along the border. Anna personally intervened with James to halt the feuding, restoring calm to the tumultuous region. The English ambassador wrote to Elizabeth that Anna intervened “thinking to do her majesty some pleasure” for “which she worthily deserves great thanks.” Anna proved she could navigate the turbulent game of Anglo-Scottish politics, bringing peace to the pleasure of both monarchies. Anna would work throughout her time in Scotland to maintain good relations with Elizabeth, writing to her often and even commissioning a portrait of her, a sign of high regard. In the end, Anna’s manoeuvring would help ensure Elizabeth and James maintained a working relationship, keeping the Scottish royal couple in Elizabeth’s good graces so they could continue to benefit from their filial connection. In 1603 Elizabeth would indeed name James as her successor. While in reality, Elizabeth had little choice - James being her most direct blood relation with the correct religious leanings - they still required Elizabeth’s public favour to ensure the English public accepted their rule. Anna’s efforts to smooth over any unease or insult James’s political manoeuvrings might cause the English Queen clearly assisted in maintaining Elizbeth’s support for her young cousin. Anna was clearly part of James’s efforts to ensure a smooth succession to the English throne, playing her political part in building a relationship with Elizabeth. Let the Factions Begin By 1593, it became clear that not only could Anna handle international politics, but she had a more than operational understanding of Scottish domestic politics too. Anna had spent three years in Scotland, observing how courtiers and nobles formed factions around different political issues, and how James navigated these factional politics to suit his own agenda. The Scottish court was a complex mix of nobles who came and went from their own territories, permanent politicians and courtiers, and James’s and Anna’s households made up of both prominent and lower ranking servants. Anna exhibited a pattern of political manuevueres throughout her reign, proving she could navigate this complex court nexus of shifting alliances. In 1593 John Maitland of Thirlestane was one of the most prominent men in the Scottish court, having served as James’ Chancellor for six years. It was Chancellor Maitland who held Dunfermline Abbey, which James had granted Anna as a wedding gift. Yet nearly four years later Maitland still held the Abbey. Anna, tired of waiting for Maitland to hand over the land, formed a faction around herself to oppose the Chancellor and put pressure on both Maitland and James to ensure she received her wedding gift. Anna did not hold back in her factional conflict with Maitland, going so far as to align herself with the Earl of Bothwell, one of James’s notorious enemies. Bothwell and James were cousins, but they had gotten into a disagreement in 1591 and tensions had run high ever since. Anna was making an incredibly daring move. She had only been in Scotland for three years, but the bonds that tied and frayed the ever-changing alliances of the Scottish court spanned back centuries in some cases. Anna was taking a huge risk in interfering in such complex relationships, especially with a man who had so recently fallen out of the King's grace. Clearly, this was not a woman who, as Roy Strong suggests, looked to avoid politics. Instead, shortly after her arrival at all of 18 years-old, Anna threw herself head first into Scotland's factional nobility to make an incredibly brave and bold political move that paid off. Anna successfully leveraged Bothwell’s noble standing, land, and royal kinship to strengthen her faction all while maintaining her relationship with James. Further, Anna proved her ability to work across religious differences. It was in 1593 that Anna first started exhibiting Catholic sympathies. She continued to practise Protestantism in public throughout her life, as was expected of her as a queen of a Protestant kingdom, but in private she would become a professed Catholic. Bothwell on the other hand was a virulent Presbyterian, illustrating Anna’s determination to accomplish her aims in spite of any personal or religious differences. In the end, Anna’s faction grew so strong that Maitland fled the court, with the English Ambassador writing that he refused to return until “he might be restored to her good countenance…to serve the King.” In the same letter, the ambassador also details how “sundry ministers have travailed…with the Queen to pacify her wrath against the Chancellor.” Yet Anna was immobile, and throughout the year ambassadorial reports continued to detail that good relations would only prevail if “the Chancellor…turn[s] to the course thus liked by” Anna. While some historians like Lee and McElwee have denounced Anna for bearing harsh grudges and prejudices in such instances, Anna had a clear reason to hold strong against Maitland. In this period, holding land equated to increased power and wealth, and Anna’s household was consistently running over budget. Anna needed the income Dunfermline could provide, and she was determined to secure it. Maitland did eventually bend to Anna’s desires, vacating his hold on Dunfermline to secure his political career. Anna proved in 1593, at only 18-years-old, that she was a force to be reckoned with, controlling the political career of a much older man contemporaries considered second in power only to the King. Yet men making such statements overlooked the power of their Queen who managed to put Maitland in his place, securing her land by any means while maintaining her relationship with James. One of the reasons Anna may have retained James’s favour throughout her political battles with Maitland was that in late 1593, she could tell James that she was pregnant. Their first child, Henry, duke of Rothesay was born on February 19th, 1594. In the Scottish royal tradition, Henry had an elaborate baptism at Stirling Castle on 29th August attended by his foreign royal family as well as Scottish nobility. The mood was celebratory, and the couple were overjoyed by the birth of their first son and heir. But their harmonious atmosphere quickly splintered when James decided to align with Scottish royal tradition, appointing the Earl of Marr as Henry’s guardian. The prince would be raised at Stirling Castle as his father had been, taking him away form his family-oriented mother. James felt this was safer for his son, as he had been constantly under threat as a child. However, there was no Danish precedent for such parental separation, and Anna’s own mother had directly overseen her children’s upbringing and education. Further, Henry, unlike James, had two living, non-imprisoned parents. Anna was, unsurprisingly, horrified that her firstborn was to be raised in another household. If James thought Anna’s anger would blow over, he was sorely mistaken. Anna was determined that she would raise her son. As early as the end of 1594, Anna was forming another faction around herself to support her bid to regain custody of Henry. Anna would even briefly ally herself with Chancellor Maitland in 1595, proving she could put aside past differences to accomplish her aims. Anna was intelligent and knew how to pull those in power to her cause with her faction growing strong enough to dominate Scotland’s prominent Edinburgh political scene while James’s faction was based around Stirling itself. By July 1595, Anna’s faction had such power that James, to retain his authority, had to issue a royal edict that no one, including Anna, was allowed to remove Prince Henry from Stirling. James had to be worried about Anna’s political strength and wit if he was pushed to the extremes of issuing such a public proclamation barring his wife. Still, Anna in all her determination would not be dissuaded, and the fighting continued. Tensions grew so high that by August 1595 the Kirks in Edinburgh were holding fasts to pray for the reunification of the King and Queen. Anna’s savvy ability to successfully divide Scotland’s political elite in direct opposition to her King to dominate the Kingdom’s geographical political centre proves Anna was an astute politician, unwavering in her political goals. James was almost persuaded to change his course for his love of the queen. A courtier writing in early August of 1595 noted that while “a faction for the King and another for the Queen” had formed, “The King bears so great an affection for her that no man dare deal with him in what concerns her, and so he ‘perrels’ both himself and such as love him.” However, James managed to hold strong. Although James and Anna were shortly reunited after Anna temporarily backed down, Henry’s custody was a continual sore spot as James refused to remove Henry from Stirling. Factional politics over the prince would flare up throughout Anna and James’s time in Scotland, and Anna would always throw everything she could at James to regain custody of her son. In return, James often had to use every weapon in his arsenal, including having Anna’s mother and Queen Elizabeth pressure her in letters, to get Anna to back down. Henry’s custody was a major crack in what was formerly a quite happy marriage. Indeed, the conflict only found closure when James was called to England after Elizabeth’s death in 1603. When Anna was eventually instructed to come to England herself, she went first to Stirling and refused to leave Scotland unless Henry came with her. It was only then that James begrudgingly curtailed to her wishes, and Anna left for England with her firstborn. However, every time emotions ran high over Henry’s custody and Anna took to political scheming, she always found a way back into James’s good graces. It is clear she knew how to play the game of Scottish politics, even turning her great mind against her own husband, when necessary, all while maintaining her influence and position as James’s Queen Consort. By October 1595 courtiers commented “the King and the Queen are in very kind terms and countenance together, either of them so pleasing others as either of their factions…chiefly the King’s side doubt their meanings.” By December, Anna and James appeared an united pair with Anna blaming the conflict on the recently deceased Maitland, effectively and efficiently offloading her culpability in the political turmoil she caused. Even if their marriage had irrevocably shifted in the course of their first major conflict, Anna managed to restore her proximity to James, and the power that brought her. The couple must have been effectively reconciled by the end of 1595 because by August 1596, just when Anna was once again managing a careful political situation, she gave birth to her second child. Princess Elizabeth was born at Dunfermline, on the land Anna had fought hard to win. To Have a Friend in the Queen 1596 was another big year for Anna, full of both triumph and tribulation. As discussed, in the early 1590s Anna started exhibiting Catholic tendencies. Anna was raised Lutheran in Denmark, but when she arrived in Scotland it was James who appointed her household from amongst the families of trusted and high-ranking nobles and courtiers. Despite its Protestant reformation, Scotland remained a country of mixed religion, and many of those that came to surround Anna as key members of her household and her closest friends were Catholics. Indeed, when Elizabeth was born, her guardianship was awarded to the Catholic Lord Livingstone and her godmother was the Catholic Countess of Huntley. Anna had no contest to this appointment, as Lady Livingstone was attached to her own household, allowing Anna to visit her daughter at her leisure. Such appointments illustrates the power Anna and her network of women had in Scottish politics. Being connected to Anna and her household could advance a whole family and prove a savvy and beneficial political connection. Moreso, Anna treated those she trusted within her household as family, fiercely protecting and looking after them, expecting the same undying loyalty in return. This again may have been influenced by Anna’s Danish upbringing, as her parents were also well-known to give lavish gifts and support to those in their household who proved loyal servants. One of the most notable Catholics in Anna’s household in 1596 was the Countess of Huntley, Henrietta Stewart. The countess was James’s third cousin and the daughter of his rumoured former lover, the Earl of Lennox. She was married to another known Catholic, George Gordon, the Earl of Huntley. The two had James’s protection for most of his reign despite their opposing religions. The Earl of Huntley controlled considerable territory in Scotland’s Northern Highlands and as a long-time friend of James, provided the King with covert contact to continental Catholic powers. Henrietta equally was protected by her familial relationship with the King. Henrietta was most likely a central figure in introducing and converting Anna to Catholicism, as she had considerable access to the Queen as her Chief Lady. By 1596, Anna was fully maintaining a dual confessional identity as a public Protestant and private Catholic. Anna’s Catholicism was admittedly useful to James, allowing him to stay informed of Catholic activity in Scotland and on the Continent through his wife’s efforts. This would again becfome pertinent in 1596 when the Kirk was pushing James to persecute the Earl of Huntley who had fled the country in March of 1595 after murdering the Protestant Earl of Moray. Anna would plead for her friend’s cause, hoping to convince James to allow Huntley’s return to Scotland. James had little interest in persecuting his friend – he could ill afford such an expensive venture that could risk Catholic or territorial uprisings. However, he also could not afford to upset the Kirk, leaving him in precarious straits. Henrietta had been barred from court after her husband fled, leaving to the country to manage the Gordon lands. Anna, hoping to return both of her friends to their former positions, would continually plead for Huntley’s return. She interceded with James just days after giving birth to Elizabeth, at which point James did allow Henrietta’s return to court as she attended Elizabeth’s November baptism in 1596 to serve as the baby’s godmother. In late December of the same year, the Countess came to court again, this time disguised as a serving woman. Henrietta crept into Holyrood House to see Anna, and together the two came up with a plan to see James and plead in unison for Huntley’s return to Scotland. This time, James was moved to renege and risk the Kirk’s wrath, granting Henrietta and Anna’s pleas and letting Huntley return to Scotland. In the end, Anna’s connections and determination to intervene in domestic politics saw her become a powerful ally for those who proved loyal friends, as she clearly knew how to leverage her connection to the King to benefit those in her favour. James and Anna had much to celebrate on New Year’s Eve 1596 – the healthy birth of a new princess, the return of the Earl of Huntley to Scotland, and their reunion, however temporary. Anna had even more to celebrate than James that year, as in 1593 she had employed a group of men who came to be known as the Octavians, who by 1596 had successfully balanced the Queen’s household’s finances. The Scottish state had been impoverished by the drawn out religious and Marian conflicts of the mid 16th century, and the royal couple struggled to live within their household budgets. Anna turned to a group of Scottish courtiers and statesmen to help her get a handle on her financial affairs. It was difficult for the Scottish Queen to economise, but by 1596 accounts were balanced, and Anna, ever-loyal to those who served her well, planned to promote the Octavians to James’s household. European monarchy in the 16th century was a personal affair, and the closer access you could get to the body of the monarch, the greater the potential to increase your influence. Anna, when she could maintain her relationship with James, arguably had the most unfettered access to the King, giving her a great amount of influence which she wielded with careful precision to maintain her own influence. The Octavians knew of the opportunities that came with the Queen’s employ, and they reaped the benefits of her connections. During the New Year’s Eve celebrations, Anna publicly gifted James 600 of the 1,000 pounds the Octavians had saved her over the course of 1596. Anna was bold, stylishly and carefully leveraging public spectacle so that by the end of the night, she had convinced James to take the Octavians into his employ to manage his own woeful over-spending. In one night, Anna managed to propel the Octavians into some of the most coveted positions in James’s household, granting them control over the King’s finances. Unfortunately for the Octavians, their promotion would be short lived, as two years later they had all lost their positions. Balancing a king's finances was an easy way to make enemies. Scottish politics relied on royal grants of patronage and gifts in return for political loyality and favours. Anna, ever-attuned to Scottish politics, knew how to play this game of royal gift-giving and had successfully raised her favourites in promoting the Octavians in return for their political service to her household. But, as a result of the restrictions the Octavians placed on the King’s funds, James could not reward and promote his own favourites as before. Thus many courtiers used to James lavish affection resented the restrictions the Octavians placed on the King’s ability to dole out gifts. However, all the Octavian’s remained in James’s employ in other capacities within his court and household, many retaining other prominent positions and even earning grants of title. For instance, James awarded the Octavian Alexander Seton guardianship of Prince Charles in 1600 before appointing him Chancellor of Scotland in 1604, and naming him Earl of Dunfermline in 1605. Anna was the queen on the chess board who could make or break your career in her wily manoeuvring, providing a connection to James that could give you a massive leg-up in Scottish politics if you proved yourself worthy of her favour. Lying in Wait Anna’s political ventures continued during her next few years in Scotland, as both kingdoms waited rather impatiently for the English succession to finally be decided. The couple fought intermittently over Henry’s custody, putting a strain on their relationship, but they were a united front in their efforts to stay in Queen Elizabeth’s good graces. Anna also maximized her political connections to convince continental powers that James would be the best successor for Catholicism, hinting to the Pope in letters that James was sympathetic towards the religion. In between political battles, Anna and James would continue to have children. Princess Margaret was born on 24th December 1598, but she would only survive for two years before tragically passing away while Anna was pregnant. Anna and James always mourned their childrens passings greatly, and Anna was heartbroken by the loss. Prince Charles, the Duke of Albany was born in November of 1600, in Dunfermline. Though born a second son, Charles would one day rule England, Ireland, and Wales as Charles I. It was also during Anna’s pregnancy with Charles that she was shocked with news of the infamous Gowrie plot led by two brothers, Alexander and John Ruthven. As avowed Presbyterians, the Ruthvens’ disliked the monarchical control James tried to exhibit over the Church. Additionally, James owed the family a royal debt of around 40,000 pounds. So the brothers tricked James into coming to Gowrie House, intent to assassinate him. The plot failed spectacularly with both brothers dying in the attempt, but it caused huge upheaval nonetheless with James viciously persecuting the remaining Ruthvens and declaring both brothers guilty of treason posthumously. The events not only frightened the pregnant Anna but forced her to part with a treasured member of her Household, Beatrix Ruthven. Anna, ever loyal, fought for Beatrix to stay, though James would force her to let her friend go. Still, Anna remained obstinate and continued to stay in contact with Beatrix throughout her life, aiding her as she could. Anna would always bravely defend and support those in her household who served her well, even in exile. From 1600 on, Anna fully came into her own in Scotland, understanding the weight of her impact as a Queen. She continued to exert more and more influence over her household and its appointments and continued her interventions in both domestic and international politics. Anna would also have one more child in Scotland in 1602, Prince Robert, Duke of Kintyre. However, Robert too would live for just four months before passing. Anna and James were once more heartbroken by another child’s death, refusing to attend funerals for the rest of their lives after Robert’s service. Anna had two more daughters in England who would both also tragically die young. In total, she would lose five living children, Prince Henry dying just months short of his 19th birthday in 1612. These tragedies coupled with a disparate English political landscape made Anna’s time there quite different. But the story of Anna in England is one for another time. For now, our story ends in 1603 when James received word that Queen Elizabeth had died, and he would ascend to the English throne. He travelled to England alone, as Anna was once again pregnant, though she would again lose the child prematurely. Eventually arrangements were made for Anna to come to England herself, and after the aforementioned battle to take her son with her, she departed from Edinburgh with both Henry and Elizabeth on June 1st, 1603. Anna would never return to Scotland, spending the rest of her life in England, but she would forever carry with her the lessons, family, and friendships she made on Scottish soil. Anna’s time as Queen of Scotland was definitive in shaping the path of her life. Beyond learning the intricacies of the Scottish court, she perfected her diplomatic role in her affairs with Denmark, England, and Catholic Europe. She mastered the careful game of factional politics, out-witting and out-playing men second in power to the King to accede to her will, and she fiercely protected and promoted those that served her well, making powerful friends and in turn enemies on the Scottish political landscape. Anna was a woman of incredibly bravery, intelligence, conviction, and loyalty. Far from a weak and foolish woman, Anna proved the strength of her character again and again as she navigated the Scottish political landscape. It would be erroneous to ignore the impact of her political manoeuvrings during the 13 years she spent in Scotland. Further Reading Ashley, Maurice. 1980. The House of Stuart: its Rise and Fall. London, Melbourne, Toronto: J.M. Dents & Sons. Barroll, Leeds. 2001. Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Barroll, Leeds. 1991. "The First Court of the Stuart Queen." In The Mental World of the Jacobean Court, by Linda Levy Peck, 191-208. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunn-Hensley, Susan. 2017. Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria: Virgins, Witches, and Catholic Queens. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Fields, Jemma. 2020. Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts, 1589-1619. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Juhala, Amy L. 2017. "'For the King Favours Them Strangely'; The Rise of James VI's Chamber, 1580-1603." In James VI and Noble Power in Scotland 1578-1603, by Miles Kerr-Peterson and Steven J. Reid, 155-169. London: Routledge. McElwee, William Lloyd. 1975. The Art of War: Waterloo to Mons. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Meikle, Maureen. 2000. "A Meddelsome Princess: Anna of Denmark and Scottish Court Politics, 1589-1603." In The Reign of James VI, by Julian Goodare and Michael Lynch, 126-140. East Linton: Birlinn Ltd. Meikle, Maureen. 1999. "'Holde Her at the Oeconomicke Rule of the House': Anna of Denmark and Scottish Court Finances, 1589-1603." In Women in Scotland c.1100-1750, by Elizabeth Ewan and Meikle M. Maureen, 105-111. Phantassie: Tuckwell Press. Meikle, Maureen M. 2019. "Once a Dane, Always a Dane? Queen Anna of Denmark's Foreign Relations and Intercessions as a Queen Consort of Scotland and England, 1588-1619." The Court Historian 24 (2): 168-180. Meikle, Maureen M., and Helen Payne. 2008. "Anne [Anna, Anne of Denmark]." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. January 03. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-559?rskey=HtoiTh&result=2#odnb-9780198614128-e-559-div1-d2119765e1444. Pearce, Michael. 2019. "Anna of Denmark: Fashioning a Danish Court in Scotland." The Court Historian 24 (2): 138-151. Strong, Roy. 1986. Henry, Prince of Wales, and England's Lost Renaissance. New York City: Thames & Hudson. Whitelock, Anna. 2018. "Reconsidering the Political Role of Anna of Denmark." In Queenship and Counsel in Early Modern Europe, by Catherine Fletcher, Joanne Paul and Helen Matheson-Pollock, 237-258. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Wormald, Jenny. 2014. "James VI and I." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 25. Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-14592?rskey=244wrN&result=2#odnb-9780198614128-e-14592-div1-d2270e1833.