These inspiring women in history flew in the face of patriarchal norms

After a years-long battle to secure her inheritance as heiress of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Maria Theresia arrived in Prague, the capital of what was then Bohemia, clutching the holy crown of St Wenceslas. Almost everyone assembled there agreed that she was indeed Bohemia’s rightful monarch, but they had never had a reigning queen before and there was no mechanism in place to accept one.

Finally, it was agreed that they would simply declare Maria Theresia to be a man, crowning her as king of Bohemia on 12 May 1743. She had similarly been crowned as king of Hungary two years before, with this ceremonial change of sex a neat solution to the problem of a female heiress.

There have been female monarchs for at least 5,000 years in various places across the globe, although they remain rare and, until the mid-20th century, largely unwelcome. In Women Who Ruled the World: 5,000 Years of Female Monarchy I wanted to look at how these women coped with a role that very much flew in the face of the patriarchal norms of the planet. I also wanted to bring their stories into view.

The first elected female heads of government (prime ministers) only begin to appear in the 1960s. The world’s first directly elected female head of state (president), Vigdís Finnbogadóttir of Iceland, is still alive. If we want to look at the history of female power before the late-20th century, we have to look at reigning queens. As the head of state themselves, unlike regents or consorts, they had no one to hide behind: it was their face on the coins.

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Some of the women featured in the book are household names, such as Catherine the Great, the German princess who took the crown of Russia in 1762 in a nighttime coup that removed her inept husband from the throne. Elizabeth I of England (r.1558–1603) was particularly adept at propaganda, presenting herself to the world as a flawless, unchanging, virgin queen (“She did not look ugly,” one contemporary unkindly put it a year before her death “when seen from a distance”).

Victoria (r.1837–1901), who ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen, travelled little further than the south of France, viewing her realms through the eyes of others. She entertained Queen Lili‘uokalani in London a few years before her Hawaiian counterpart would be swept from her throne in 1893 in a rebellion orchestrated by foreign settlers and aided by US troops.

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Many of the stories were tragic, such as Blanca II of Navarre, who was imprisoned and possibly murdered in 1464 on the orders of her father, Navarre’s king consort, who could not bear to relinquish power. Her younger sister, Leonor, was kept waiting for the throne for 15 years, only to die of natural causes two weeks after her coronation. Having a ‘male relative problem’ was a theme among reigning queens, with even the famous Cleopatra VII required to rule alongside a male family member throughout her reign.

Not all reigning queens were disenfranchised, however. Wu Zetian, China’s only reigning empress, dealt with the male relative problem by eliminating them or cowing them into submission. Born the daughter of a lumber merchant in 624 CE, Wu rose to become empress consort of the Emperor Gaozong (r.649–683), steadily growing in dominance. She reputedly ordered the executions of Gaozong’s first empress and his chief concubine by having their hands and feet cut off and leaving them to die slowly over several days in vats of wine.

On Gaozong’s death she compelled one of her sons to abdicate when he began to look alarmingly independent, before finally taking the throne in 690. Wu founded her own dynasty, of which she was the only member, but she remains a rather ambiguous figure in Chinese history today. Deliberately, the stone positioned outside her tomb, which should have listed her achievements, was left blank.

There is currently only one reigning queen alive and ruling today, Nga wai hono i te po. She was enthroned as the Māori queen in 2024. Many of the European dynasties, such as Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands have female heiresses, while Masalanabo Modjadji continues her fight to be recognised as the Rain Queen of the Balobedu in the South African constitutional courts.

These women retain their relevance due to their visibility and their guaranteed role on the world stage. Elizabeth II (r.1952–2022), was arguably the most famous face on the planet.  

Throughout history there has almost always been a woman – somewhere – wearing a crown. From Merneith, a reigning queen in Egypt 5,000 years ago, to the 20th and 21st centuries, these women are the visible face of female power.

Women Who Ruled the World: 5,000 Years of Female Monarchy by Elizabeth Norton is out now (Bonnier, £25).

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