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Some of the most famous women of anicent times👑
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Early in her reign Elizabeth said that she would never rule as her sister did, but she keenly adapted symbolism that Mary had applied to herself. It was Mary who first emphasised that she was a virgin queen. She also said that she was married to her kingdom and that she loved her subjects as a mother loves her brood of children. Mary’s speech addressed to her subjects in February 1554, during Wyatt’s rebellion, was an example of brilliant rhetoric, one that appealed to Elizabeth:
“What I am, loving subjects, ye right well know—your Queen, to whom at my coronation ye promised allegiance and obedience! I was then wedded to the realm, and to the laws of the same, the spousal ring whereof I wear here on my finger, and it never has and never shall be left off … And this I say on the word of a prince. I cannot tell how naturally a mother loveth her children, for I never had any; but if subjects may be loved as a mother doth her child, then assure yourselves that I, your sovereign lady and Queen, do as earnestly love and favour you.”
Elizabeth borrowed heavily from Mary’s speech and fashioned herself as the Virgin Queen espoused to England and the mother of her subjects. In Elizabeth’s case, this symbolism was more potent since she never married and had no children. Like Mary, Elizabeth also often spoke of her coronation ring, declaring in 1561: “I am married already to the realm of England when I was crowned with this ring, which I bear continually in token thereof.” In fact, Elizabeth invoked this symbolism so often that when, shortly before her death, her coronation ring had to be sawn off because it was “so grown into the flesh, that it could not be drawn off”, it was read by her courtiers as “a sad presage, as if it portended that the marriage with her kingdom, contracted by the ring, would be dissolved”.
- Sylvia Barbara Soberton, Rival Sisters: Mary & Elizabeth Tudor
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historicwomendaily celebration week: Favourite Matriarch
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (German: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands, and Parma. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress.
Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, had sixteen children, including the Queen of France (Maria Antonia/Marie Antoinette), the Queen of Naples and Sicily (Maria Carolina), the Duchess of Parma (Maria Amalia) and two Holy Roman Emperors, Joseph II and Leopold II. Out of the sixteen, nine of them did not make it to adulthood. She had eleven daughters and five sons. Though she was expected to cede power to Francis and Joseph, both of whom were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled by the counsel of her advisers. Maria Theresa promulgated financial and educational reforms, with the assistance of Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz and Gerard van Swieten, promoted commerce and the development of agriculture, and reorganised Austria’s ramshackle military, all of which strengthened Austria’s international standing.
Pictured: Maria Theresia (Ausschnitt), Werkstatt des Martin van Meytens (1745)
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Did you know that modern C sections were invented by African women— centuries before they were standard elsewhere?
Midwives and surgeons living around Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria perfected the procedure hundreds of years ago. When a baby couldn’t be delivered vaginally, these healers sedated the laboring mother using large amounts of banana wine. They tied the mother to the bed for safety, sterilized a knife using heat, and made the incision, acting quickly as a team to prevent excessive blood loss or the accidental cutting of other organs. The combination of sterile, sharp equipment and sedation made the procedure surprisingly calm and comfortable for the mother.
After the baby was delivered, antiseptic tinctures and salves were used to clean the area and stitches were applied. Women rarely developed infections, shock, or excessive blood loss after a cesarean section and the most common problem reported was that it took longer for the mother’s milk to come in (an issue that was solved with friends and relatives who would nurse the baby instead).
In Uganda, C sections were normally performed by a team of male healers, but in Tanzania and DRC, they were typically done by female midwives.
The majority of women and babies survived this, and when questioned about it by European colonists in the mid-1800s, many people in Uganda and Tanzania indicated that the procedure had been performed routinely since time immemorial.
This was at a time when Europeans had only barely started to figure out that they should wash their hands before performing surgery, when nearly half of European and US women died in childbirth, and when nearly 100% of European women died if a C section was performed.
Detailed explanations of Ugandan C-sections were published globally in scholarly journals by the 1880s and helped the rest of the world learn how to save mothers and babies with minimal complications.
So if you’re one of the people who wouldn’t be alive today without a C-section, you have Ugandan surgeons and Tanzanian and Congolese midwives to thank for their contributions to medical science.
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On 4 September, Querini met her for the first—and, most probably, last—time. He was:
taken to a chamber where the most serene king of the Romans was keeping company with the queen his daughter-in-law, dressed in black velvet and with a fairly good complexion given the illness she has had. And it seemed to me, although it was night, that she was very beautiful, and she had the air of a wise and prudent lady. I made my reverence to her majesty in the name of your sublimity and spoke a few good words well adapted and appropriate to the time and place where we were … and these were amiably reciprocated by her majesty.
- Gillian B. Fleming, Juana I. Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile
therealcalicali reblogged
Early in her reign Elizabeth said that she would never rule as her sister did, but she keenly adapted symbolism that Mary had applied to herself. It was Mary who first emphasised that she was a virgin queen. She also said that she was married to her kingdom and that she loved her subjects as a mother loves her brood of children. Mary’s speech addressed to her subjects in February 1554, during Wyatt’s rebellion, was an example of brilliant rhetoric, one that appealed to Elizabeth:
“What I am, loving subjects, ye right well know—your Queen, to whom at my coronation ye promised allegiance and obedience! I was then wedded to the realm, and to the laws of the same, the spousal ring whereof I wear here on my finger, and it never has and never shall be left off … And this I say on the word of a prince. I cannot tell how naturally a mother loveth her children, for I never had any; but if subjects may be loved as a mother doth her child, then assure yourselves that I, your sovereign lady and Queen, do as earnestly love and favour you.”
Elizabeth borrowed heavily from Mary’s speech and fashioned herself as the Virgin Queen espoused to England and the mother of her subjects. In Elizabeth’s case, this symbolism was more potent since she never married and had no children. Like Mary, Elizabeth also often spoke of her coronation ring, declaring in 1561: “I am married already to the realm of England when I was crowned with this ring, which I bear continually in token thereof.” In fact, Elizabeth invoked this symbolism so often that when, shortly before her death, her coronation ring had to be sawn off because it was “so grown into the flesh, that it could not be drawn off”, it was read by her courtiers as “a sad presage, as if it portended that the marriage with her kingdom, contracted by the ring, would be dissolved”.
- Sylvia Barbara Soberton, Rival Sisters: Mary & Elizabeth Tudor
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I know how much you like historical posts, so… another part with interesting women 🌄🌄🌄
therealcalicali reblogged
history | powerful women
therealcalicali reblogged
history | powerful women
therealcalicali reblogged
Queen Anna Nzinga (d.) (1583-1663) was a 17-th century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms, in present-day Angola. She is remembered today for her brilliant military tactics, as well as her diplomacy and political skills.
She was the daughter of the king, and first became an ambassador for her country’s relations with the Portuguese, and later with the Dutch, with whom she established an alliance. Today, a major street in Angola’s capital, Luanda, bears her name.