Early modern queens consort and dowager and diplomatic gifts

Abstract

Queens consort and dowager queens played an integral role in maintaining amicable relations between rulers in the early modern period. This essay focuses on one specific means by which they influenced international relations: the diplomatic gifts they sent and received. Foreign rulers recognised queens consort as a source of influence and power at court; unsurprisingly they adopted gifting strategies designed to persuade the queens to support their proposals and/or to evoke the personal and political networks shared by the queen consort and themselves. The patterns of gifting of which queens consort were a part paralleled, complemented and complicated those in which their husbands were engaged. Diplomatic gifting created opportunities for queens consort to become more influential in shaping the direction of policy and might use their parallel, if inferior position, to make their own position on key foreign policy issues clear.