Date of Award

Spring 5-3-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History

First Advisor

Lauren Jannette

Second Advisor

Garret McDonald

Abstract

This Honors thesis - “Mary Beatrice of Modena: Royal Reproduction, Catholic Conspiracy, and the Question of Queenship” - is about gender and religion in late seventeenth-century Britain. I have chosen to focus on the Glorious Revolution (1688-89), when the last Catholic king of England and Scotland was deposed and replaced with a permanent Protestant regime. It was the last act of the Reformation in Britain. More specifically, this thesis focuses on Mary Beatrice of Modena, the queen consort of the deposed king and the matriarch of the Jacobite cause (pro Catholic monarchy) for the following decades. The importance of the seventeenth century in Britain has traditionally been evaluated through the male monarchs. However, women in the Stuart court played an important role in shaping and cultivating political and religious participation during this period, particularly the Catholic queen consorts, the last three of whom made considerable attempts to bring Catholicism back to the core of monarchical power and thus exact Catholic influence over the nation. The last of these consorts, Mary Beatrice of Modena, is of particular importance as she was the only one who produced a Catholic heir to the throne, and thus intensified Protestant anxieties about the continuation of a Catholic monarchy in England. As such, this thesis emphasizes Mary Beatrice's role in the Glorious Revolution, characterized by her identity as a Catholic female ruler, in both popular perceptions and practice. This line of investigation is particularly fruitful due to the contested visions of early modern Catholic womanhood centered around politics and popular discourses of royal reproduction. In the context of popular discourse, how did Mary Beatrice exercise power during her marriage to King James VII and II? How did she and that power evolve during her time as queen consort, queen-in-exile, and regent-in-exile of England and Scotland?

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