In Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, Bel-Imperia was the daughter of the Duke of Castile. Even as Bel-Imperia was blue-blooded and aristocratic, she was bound by the same suffocating gender restrictions that fettered any number of women in Elizabethan England.
Even Elizabeth I, the queen regnant of England and Ireland, whose supreme reign inspired an entire age being named after her, was forced to use Machiavellian plotting to have her way with the nation. Elizabeth I projected herself as “a king of England” even though she had “but the body of a woman”. In this manner, she portrayed herself as a monarch, instead of a woman ruler, in order to make her reign more palatable to her subjects. Elizabeth I’s gender was also a shortcoming when was not allowed to take the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England, which many thought unacceptable for a woman to bear. Instead, she was forced to accept the more muted title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
While Bel-Imperia did have the luxury of making some preliminary choices in love, by showering it, of her own volition, on Andrea and then Horatio, and then challenging her father and brother’s opposition in this matter, the fact remains that she was merely a pawn in a very vast and complex patriarchal game, right up to the bloody, gruesome end.
Admittedly, we witness Bel-Imperia as free and eager to speech, characteristics quite uncommon to the lot of women in Elizabethan England. Bel-Imperia is also able to decisively make preliminary choices in love, first with Andrea, and then upon Andrea’s death, with Horatio, whom she quickly dubs her “second love”. This rapid shifting of affections is revealing, and the revelation startling: she chooses to love Horatio to spite her first love Andrea’s killer, Balthazar. However, it is worth noting that despite her best machinations, her father, brother, and even her uncle, the king of Spain, scuttle her love enterprise and deal with her like chattel to further their own ambitions. This was indeed the lot of most women in Elizabethan England.
Even Elizabeth I, the queen regnant of England and Ireland, whose supreme reign inspired an entire age being named after her, was forced to use Machiavellian plotting to have her way with the nation. Elizabeth I projected herself as “a king of England” even though she had “but the body of a woman”. In this manner, she portrayed herself as a monarch, instead of a woman ruler, in order to make her reign more palatable to her subjects. Elizabeth I’s gender was also a shortcoming when was not allowed to take the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England, which many thought unacceptable for a woman to bear. Instead, she was forced to accept the more muted title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
While Bel-Imperia did have the luxury of making some preliminary choices in love, by showering it, of her own volition, on Andrea and then Horatio, and then challenging her father and brother’s opposition in this matter, the fact remains that she was merely a pawn in a very vast and complex patriarchal game, right up to the bloody, gruesome end.
Admittedly, we witness Bel-Imperia as free and eager to speech, characteristics quite uncommon to the lot of women in Elizabethan England. Bel-Imperia is also able to decisively make preliminary choices in love, first with Andrea, and then upon Andrea’s death, with Horatio, whom she quickly dubs her “second love”. This rapid shifting of affections is revealing, and the revelation startling: she chooses to love Horatio to spite her first love Andrea’s killer, Balthazar. However, it is worth noting that despite her best machinations, her father, brother, and even her uncle, the king of Spain, scuttle her love enterprise and deal with her like chattel to further their own ambitions. This was indeed the lot of most women in Elizabethan England.
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