Modern history

From “She-Wolf” to “Badass”: Remembering Isabella of France in Modern Culture

She-Wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,

That tear’st the bowels of thy mangled mate,

From thee be born, who o’er thy country hangs

The scourge of Heav’n.

—Thomas Gray, “The Bard.”

In 1757, Thomas Grey gave Isabella, queen of England, and wife of Edward II, a sobriquet which she has been unable to shake off.¹ The She-Wolf of France has become the title of dozens of novels, biographies, and blog entries about Isabella including Maurice Druon’s 1959 novel La Louve de France, Alison Weir’s biography Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England (2006), a scholarly article in 1936 by Hilda Johnstone, and—applying the term more generally to powerful pre-modern queens of England—Helen Castor’s book She-Wolves.² This vicious and animalistic image reinforced her negative reputation as the queen who overthrew her husband and ruled England (badly) in tandem with her lover, Roger Mortimer. In the words of Sophia Menache, “the she-wolf image, perpetuated in theatre, poetry or even in historical research” has worked to portray Isabella as “the archetypal faithless woman.”³

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the “She-Wolf” epithet in popular history and culture. Traditionally, it has been used in an anti-feminist sense, as seen in Gray’s epithet. But recent revisionism has gone some way towards reclaiming the tag in a feminist sense, as Isabella is recast as a “bad-ass,” as a heroine whose actions reveal an assertive, independent woman. But the “she-wolf” image is a stubborn one, and some interpretations refer to both traditions, admiring her as an independent woman while still casting her as a destructive force. Furthermore, modern attempts to recast her in a more positive image struggle to find a label to replace the “she-wolf”; expressions such as “badass” and “iron lady” all have problematic and potentially anti-feminist connotations.

The Making of a “She-Wolf”

The term “she-wolf” was used by Shakespeare about a different queen when, in Henry VI, part III, the Duke of York calls Margaret of Anjou “She-wolf of France, but worse than the wolves of France.”⁴ The phrase occurs in the context of a diatribe against her as a woman who dares take up power: “How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex/To triumph, like an Amazonian trull.”⁵ Sophia Menache traces the term back to Apuleius,⁶ and according to Carla Lord it was also applied to Blanche of Castile, who was identified with the figure of Dame Hersent, the adulterous she-wolf in the Roman de Reynard.⁷ By the nineteenth century, it was also applied to Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI, who was perceived—like Isabella and Margaret of Anjou—as an overly assertive queen to a weak king.⁸ Likewise, the fourteenth-century queen Johanna I of Naples has been described as a “She-Wolf” and has been through a similar process of historical reassessment.⁹ Although she was a regnant queen rather than a consort, she resembles Isabella in that she was accused of murdering a sexually inadequate husband.¹⁰ Bertolt Brecht continued the tradition in his 1924 adaptation of Marlowe’s work, The Life of Edward II. Isabella (named Anne in the play) declared “I’d become like a she-wolf/Hurtling through the bushes with teeth bared.”¹¹

Isabella enjoyed a measure of rehabilitation in the twentieth century. In 1936, Hilda Johnstone asked of Isabella’s overthrow of Edward II,

[o]ught we not to look back behind it for possible provocation, and beyond it for further activities? May we not view her in other connections? Surely we need not fix our whole and sole attention upon the grisly spectacle of the wolf tearing its prey.¹²

Johnstone pointed out humanising aspects of Isabella’s life that are revealed in the records, such as her caring for a Scottish orphan boy.¹³ However, she could not fully put aside the image of Isabella as unnatural. Discussing possible reactions of the queen to her husband’s probable homosexuality, Johnstone speculated that “[s]he might perhaps in time have adapted herself, or even joined Edward in a league of mutual perversity.”¹⁴

Writing in 1984, Sofia Menache drew attention to the difference between Isabella’s reputation and the accounts of some contemporaries: “The wide gap separating the she-wolf from the charming figure of the sources creates a paradox, even a challenge, which requires explanation.”¹⁵ Menache rejected the moralistic argument that Isabella had gained support as a wronged woman in 1326–1327 only to forfeit it as the lover of Mortimer,¹⁶ and emphasises her role as a peacemaker—“nutrix pacis (wet-nurse of peace)” in the words of the chronicler John of Trokelowe—for much of her husband’s reign.¹⁷

The “She-Wolf” in Popular History

Twenty-first-century popular history treatments of Isabella have often adopted the “she-wolf” term in their titles. Helen Castor’s 2011 work on English pre-modern queens She-Wolves (and the accompanying BBC television series) included a section on Isabella alongside studies of the Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Margaret of Anjou.¹⁸ Castor addresses the origins of the “she-wolf” label in her introduction. She criticises the label in feminist terms, locating it in misogynist discourses that were distrustful of female power:

The unease, if not outright denunciation, with which their rule was met has coalesced in the image of the she-wolf, a feral creature driven by instinct rather than reason, a sexual predator whose savagery matched that of her mate—or exceeded it, even, in the ferocity with which she defended her young.¹⁹

Castor frames her study of medieval queens of England retrospectively by reference to the Tudor period. The book’s subtitle is “the women who ruled England before Elizabeth”: the covers of both the U.S. and British editions feature a detail of the coronation portrait of Elizabeth I, and her first chapter begins with Edward VI’s nomination of Jane Gray as his successor, inaugurating England’s first period of rule by queens regnant.²⁰ This framing leads Castor a little towards anachronism, as she reads early modern disapproval of female authority (exemplified by Knox’s First Blast of the Trumpet)²¹ back into the Middle Ages to view powerful medieval queens as anomalous. She introduces “three … exceptional women—Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou.”²² Identifying them as “exceptional” misses the fact that it was common for queens consort to exercise authority in medieval England (and medieval Europe more generally), exemplified by figures such as Mathilda of Scotland, Mathilda of Boulogne, and Blanche of Castile, to name a few. To quote the editors of a recent volume that invites us to move beyond the “exceptionalism” model of medieval women, “elite women in positions of authority in the central medieval period were expected, accepted, and routine.”²³

Castor, in line with recent trends that reconsider the “she-wolf” stereotype, is sympathetic to Isabella. Isabella is presented as long-suffering in the face of insult: she “had done everything she could to be the perfect royal wife to a husband who had now demonstrated himself to be incorrigible,”²⁴ making her decision to rebel appear understandable. She is not the violent, impetuous she-wolf, but “a shrewdly intelligent young woman.”²⁵ However, Castor also romanticises Isabella’s alliance with Mortimer: while acknowledging that “[t]here is tantalisingly little evidence to document the private dynamics of this charged liaison,” Castor argues that “its emotional logic is instantly recognisable. Physical attraction there clearly was … Isabella at thirty was still a famous beauty, and Mortimer, though his looks are unknown [my emphasis], an athletic and compelling figure.”²⁶ Castor’s conclusion offers an oddly passive view of Isabela in retirement following “bloody events” of earlier years:

She had discovered, in violent and painful fashion, that the will to power could be its own undoing. But perhaps this royal retirement was a vindication of a different kind. The deference and luxury that were her due were now hers without question.²⁷

Alison Weir, a prolific author of both popular history and historical fiction, wrote a biography of Isabella in 2005 that was published in the United Kingdom under the title Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England.²⁸ Weir uses the term “she-wolf” frequently: Gray’s is one of the featured quotations in the front matter of the book, and the same expression—“She-Wolf of France”—is used as the subtitle for her introduction.²⁹ While Weir addresses the term’s origins in Shakespeare’s and Gray’s works, she does little to interrogate the term itself, focusing more generally on the unfair denigration of Isabella as an adulterous and vicious woman.³⁰

Despite her stated aim to rehabilitate Isabella, Weir frequently interprets Isabella’s actions in the most sensationalist way possible. Isabella’s biographer Kathryn Warner is particularly critical of Weir on this point, identifying a number of such examples. Weir “is the only modern writer” to support claims that Edward abandoned her on his retreat from Scotland in 1312 “despite having read Isabella’s Household Book which demonstrates that the story is completely unsupported by the queen’s own accounts.”³¹ Weir argues, based on highly speculative interpretation of primary sources, that Hugh Despenser the Younger raped Isabella—an accusation that originates not in any contemporary source, but in a twentieth-century work of fiction.³² She also presents the relationships between Edward, Isabella, and Mortimer in stereotypically gendered and heteronormative terms. Mortimer “appears to have been everything that Edward was not: strong, manly, unequivocally heterosexual, virile, courageous and decisive.” As for Isabella, “after surrendering herself to his embraces, she could feel nothing but profound revulsion for her husband.”³³

The “she-wolf” label is also used in the title of another popular history, Elizabeth Norton’s, She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of Medieval England, which (in the words of the blurb) tells the story of “the ‘bad girls’ of England’s medieval royal dynasties.”³⁴ Like Weir, Norton claims to seek to rehabilitate “accused queens,” asking “were these queens really as bad as their reputations suggest?,”³⁵ while also catching the reader’s eye with stereotypical references to “she-wolves,” “bad girls,” and “notorious queens.” Norton’s chapter on Isabella is, perhaps inevitably, titled “The She-Wolf of France.”³⁶ She is sympathetic to Isabella, arguing that she fulfilled the expected roles of queen and dowager for most of her life; “For years, Isabella attempted to play the role of a good and dutiful queen and it was only after years of provocation that she finally snapped.”³⁷ The exaggerated distinction between Isabella as a dutiful queen and Isabella as a rebel (a view partly shared by Castor) owes something to an outdated and stereotyped view of medieval queens as passive. Commenting on Isabella’s giving birth to a male heir, Norton writes, “By 1312 her career followed that of a traditional medieval queen and the birth of her son cemented her role.”³⁸

We therefore see popular historians striving to challenge the sexist image of the “she-wolf,” yet ultimately unable to escape its allure. The term is understood to be misleading and misogynist, yet Isabella’s life is still presented in terms of exceptionalism and sensationalism. The dramatic events of her seizure of power are contrasted with her years as a “traditional queen,” betraying a misunderstanding of medieval queenship as an institution that allowed the queen to exercise authority.

Maurice Druon’s Les Rois maudits, and Isabella in Fiction

Isabella features in Maurice Druon’s series of novels Les Rois maudits, particularly the fifth, which takes her infamous epithet as its title: La Louve de France (The She-Wolf of France). The series’ title—the Accursed Kings in English—alludes to the curse proclaimed on the Capetian dynasty by the last Templar Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, on the day of his execution by Philip IV. However, it is Isabella’s marriage to Edward of England that is the original sin, leading to the collapse of the Capetian dynasty. The first novel centres on the Tour de Nesle affair, when two of Philip IV’s daughters-in-law were imprisoned for adultery and a third condemned for enabling the affairs. In Druon’s version, Isabella put these events in motion by exposing her sisters-in-law, setting off a chain of events that leads to the death of her sister-in-law Queen Jeanne, the disinheritance of Jeanne’s daughter, and a disputed succession culminating in Edward III of England’s invasion of France. Isabella also endangers the dynasty in a less direct fashion; as the mother of Edward, she provides him with the hereditary claim to the French crown that leads to the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War. Druon has characters in the novel directly refer to her (anachronistically, of course) by her famous sobriquet; for example, when Hugh Despenser the Younger says, “You see, it’s your wife who has ordered this. It is she, that French she-wolf, who is the cause of it all. Oh, Edward, Edward, why did you marry her?”³⁹ Her lupine portrayal even extends to a description of “her fine little teeth” which “were clenched, sharp, carnivorous” and (on three occasions) references to “her little carnivore’s teeth.”⁴⁰ Sarah Hanley describes Druon’s Isabella as

vicious, manic, sex-crazed. … The ‘she-wolf’ with noticeably sharp teeth. …In Druon’s telling, the women are beautiful and narcissistic, lustful and naïve. … They are also the snarling she-wolf whose sharp little teeth go for the jugular, the blood-stained whore Isabella, more animal than human.⁴¹

Likewise, Colette Beaune criticised Druon’s representation of women, classifying the female characters in Les Rois maudits into three categories: “Machiavellians, submissive women, and prostitutes!” (les machiavéliques, les soumises et les prostituées!).⁴²

While Hanley is correct to criticise Druon’s depiction of women, his Isabella is a little more complex than a “sex crazed” whore, falling more into Beaune’s first category, the Machiavellian. Her manipulations begin in the very first scene of the series of novels, as she plots the downfall of her sisters-in-law. As an adulterous woman, she could also be classified in the third category (prostitute), but her relationship with Mortimer is presented more in romantic than sexual terms. In fact, she evolves from being an asexual figure to a woman who falls under the spell of romantic love when she meets Mortimer. When we first meet her at court in England, she is portrayed as authoritative, cold even—the stereotypical ice-queen. She flirts with Robert of Artois at their first meeting, before deciding she must place duty before love. Later, Isabella, far from being “sex crazed,” professes her love for Mortimer in chivalric terms in a section titled “Isabella in love.”⁴³ Despite being a key agent in earlier events, she becomes curiously passive following her overthrow of Edward II, and the Mortimer becomes the active party in the overthrow and killing of Edward.

Although Druon’s portrayal of Isabella is problematic from a feminist perspective, her character is still able to inspire excitement among readers as a strong female character, reflected in online responses. A tweet by Laetitia Noel about her reading Druon’s La Louve de France is accompanied by the hashtags “#girlpower #femmefatale,”⁴⁴ reflecting, perhaps, the contradictory portrayal of Isabella by Druon, as well has how the “femme fatale” she-wolf image can coexist with a more feminist reading.

A similar desire to have the best of both worlds—drawing on Isabella’s scandalous reputation while also sympathizing with her as a woman—can be seen in the French graphic novel Isabelle, la Louve de France⁴⁵ in the series Les Reines de Sang, which also includes works on Eleanor of Aquitaine, Jeanne the Lame (wife of Phillip VI), the Frankish queen Fredegund, and the Chinese dowager empress Cixi—all of them women who were perceived to have exercised authority beyond that appropriate to their sex. The titles of both book and series play up the sensationalist approach to the material. The publisher’s description of the Isabella books follows Druon in blaming her for the Hundred Years’ War: “Isabella brought fire and blood to Europe during the greatest medieval war that Europe knew, the Hundred Years’ War.” (Isabelle met l’Europe à feu et à sang durant la plus grande guerre médiévale que l’Europe ait connue, la guerre de Cent Ans.)⁴⁶ It also follows Druon in beginning the story with the execution of the Templars and Jacques de Molay’s curse of Philip IV. Yet it also sympathises with her as a “wronged woman, free woman” (femme meurtrie, femme libre).⁴⁷ A sample page on the same website presents her sympathetically, as she reflects of her marriage to Edward that “I have sacrificed my happiness as a woman for politics … and I am alone” (j’ai sacrifié mon bonheur de femme à la raison d’état … et je suis seule).⁴⁸

Isabella features in many other works of fiction about her and Edward’s lives. Kathryn Warner (the biographer of both Edward and Isabella) provides a tongue-in-cheek survey of some of them, showing that there has been a backlash against the “she-wolf” image of Isabella since Druon’s novels appeared:

Generally, the rule in Edward II/Isabella fiction over the last forty years or so has been to portray Isabella as a long-suffering tragic neglected victim of her nasty cruel heartless gay husband who is later miraculously transformed into a strong empowered feminist kick-ass heroine; … that whole ‘She-Wolf’ thing went out of the window long ago.⁴⁹

Neither “she-wolf” nor “tragic neglected woman” do justice to the reality of Isabella as a medieval queen and replace one sexist stereotype (the scandalous woman) with another (the passive victim).

Online Re-evaluations

Finally, we can see a re-evaluation of the “she-wolf” label by online writers who portray Isabella as an assertive, proto-feminist woman. Jason Porath’s Rejected Princesses—a cartoon blog with accompanying book,⁵⁰ based on his work about historical women who would be too assertive to be chosen as Disney princesses—devotes a chapter to Isabella, who was “maligned for centuries as the She-Wolf of France.”⁵¹ Porath’s work also addresses similarly maligned women, including Elisabeth Báthory, and the archetypal wicked queen, Jezebel. Isabella is presented sympathetically as a girl groomed for an arranged, dynastic marriage, but disappointed following rejection by her husband. Porath repeats the myth (based on a misreading of the Pauline Annals)⁵² that Edward gave her wedding jewels to Gaveston. He emphasises Isabella’s active role as political supporter of Edward before he alienated her, and the dangers in which she was placed by his ineptitude in war. She is presented as the wronged party during the rise of the Despensers: she “fought to save her marriage” but “Despenser turned Edward’s violence to her.” Her rebellion against Edward and her affair with Mortimer are also presented sympathetically: “She took happiness into her own hands by taking a lover into her bed.”⁵³ Her failings as a ruler are not airbrushed, but Porath presents them as the errors of a woman hardened by suffering: “She’d suffered years of a world with no regard for imperfect women. She would show it no regard in return.”⁵⁴ The older Isabella, in enforced retirement in a house of the Poor Clares, is presented as a pious peacemaker and lover of family.

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon’s “Scandalous Women” blog (which, like Rejected Princesses, has also spawned a book) devotes an entry to Isabella “She-Wolf of England.”⁵⁵ Mahon’s purpose is explicitly revisionist and feminist: she employs Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s famous saying “Well-Behaved Women don’t make History” as a tagline for her blog, and describes her work as “herstory.” The discredited story of Edward giving Isabella’s bridal gems to Gaveston is repeated; the recurrence of this motif in these blogs can probably be explained by the fact that it sets up the image of Isabella as the wronged wife from the very inception of their marriage. Mahon presents a fairly dispassionate telling of Isabella’s life, although she does include the story of Edward’s supposed death by red-hot poker. Like Porath, she presents the older Isabella as pious and “[a] doting mother and grandmother.”⁵⁶

These online treatments of Isabella bring some nuance to the portrayal of her life (e.g. addressing her role as a pious queen) but share some of the shortcomings of treatments in other media. They perpetuate discredited myths, such as the claim that Edward gave Isabella’s jewels to Gaveston, and present Edward and Isabella’s relationship in personal rather than political terms, with Isabella as a romantically wronged woman.

“Iron Lady”

If the term “she-wolf” has become a sexist cliché, have any of our featured authors succeeded in providing a better alternative? One interesting candidate is “Iron Lady,” which Castor uses as the subtitle for the section devoted to Isabella in her book.⁵⁷ Many readers—especially those who grew up in the United Kingdom in the 1980s—will immediately see in this a reference to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman Prime Minister (1979–1990). The nickname was first coined in print by the Soviet writer Yuri Gavrilov in January 1976,⁵⁸ and Thatcher herself embraced the label enthusiastically in a speech to Conservatives in her Finchley constituency:

I stand before you tonight in my Red Star chiffon evening gown. (Laughter, Applause), my face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved (Laughter), the Iron Lady of the Western world. A cold war warrior, an amazon philistine, even a Peking plotter. Well, am I any of these things? … Yes I am an iron lady.⁵⁹

The “iron lady” label compared Thatcher to male authority figures, limiting its usefulness as a feminist alternative to “she-wolf.” The Soviet journalist Melor Sturua associated her with “the image of the ‘iron’ German Chancellor Bismark [sic].”⁶⁰ When Thatcher reappropriated the “Iron Lady” nickname, she did so by comparing herself to a great male general and statesman, the Duke of Wellington: “Yes I am an iron lady, after all it wasn’t a bad thing to be an iron duke.”⁶¹

A notable cultural portrayal of Isabella as an “iron lady” is far from positive in its representation of female authority: Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of her in Derek Jarman’s 1991 film adaptation of Marlowe’s Edward II.⁶² The film was made in the context of a Conservative government (still headed by Thatcher when the film went into production, although she was removed as prime minister by the time of its release) that was attacking LGBTQ+ rights. Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988 banned local councils and state schools from “intentionally promot[ing] homosexuality or publish[ing] material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” and “promot[ing] the teaching … of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”⁶³

As such, Edward symbolises LGBTQ+ rights and human liberation more generally (his partisans are portrayed as gay rights protestors in conflict with riot police), while Isabella is part of the repressive heteropatriarchy. With her elaborate hairstyles and dresses, Isabella is more reminiscent visually of Eva Perón than Margaret Thatcher, but the parallels with the Conservative prime minister are still clear. For example, Mortimer and Isabella’s supporters are shown seated around a table with red dispatch boxes in front of them, a scene obviously modelled on British cabinet meetings around the notorious “coffin-shaped table” of 10, Downing Street’s Cabinet Room.⁶⁴

“Badass”

An alternative, and more demotic, variation is to rechristen Isabella a “badass.” Ben Thompson’s blog “Badass of the Week” grants that title to Isabella. He plays up the sensationalist aspects of her image—“her crazy, insane life smashing peoples’ [sic] asses across the British countryside would include giant booze-laden parties, face-crushing vengeance, and wild monkey sex”—but also celebrates her resolve and challenges negative stereotypes:

Despite being a vengeful, hate-filled asskicker, it should be noted that Isabella was actually pretty well-liked by the general populace, and was known for helping the poor and donating money to support institutions that cared for the sick and the needy. So yeah, basically anybody who wasn’t in the process of having their shit wrecked by her pretty much thought she was alright.⁶⁵

Thompson concludes “don’t fuck with Isabella.”⁶⁶

He repeats the discredited story that Edward gave away her jewels to Gaveston, wrongly attributes to Isabella a role in the latter’s killing, and stereotypes medieval queens as “measured solely based on their abilities to successfully produce human male children.”⁶⁷ Likewise, an incident where Isabella confronted Margaret de Clare over being denied entry to Leeds castle is cited as evidence of the queen’s badassery, even though Menache argues the episode served Edward’s purposes more than Isabella’s.⁶⁸

Most of the “badasses” featured on the index to Thompson’s site are men (fifty-nine vs. nine women), and the nature of the few women selected is also interesting. Most are violent in some way or at least participated in conflict: World War Two spy Virginia Hall, Irish rebel leader Constance Markievicz, medieval pirate Jeanne de Clissone, female samurai Nakano Takeko, seventeenth-century swordswoman Julie d’Aubigny, and Zhou dynasty Chinese empress Wu Zetian (who is described on the site as a “tyrant”). Only the journalist Nelly Bly represents women involved in more pacific pursuits.

Thompson is not alone in applying the label “badass” to Isabella; it is a popular descriptor for her online. An article by Jacopo della Quercia on the Cracked website in 2011 identifies (in a spirit similar to that behind Porath’s Rejected Princesses) “5 Real Princesses Too Badass for Disney Movies.”⁶⁹ Number five is “Isabella, the She-Wolf of France”; “Princess Isabella was so damn deadly that she eventually earned the nickname ‘She-Wolf of France’ for all the new assholes she tore England.”⁷⁰ Isabella also makes the list of “10 Most Badass Princesses in History” on the Beyond Society website⁷¹: “Called the ‘She-wolf of France,’ Isabella had it hard from the beginning when she was married to her, presumably homosexual husband, Edward.”⁷²

The term “badass” is not entirely gendered female, as we have seen from the example of Thompson’s website, where most “badasses” are men, but it has frequently been used in recent years to describe strong women and promoted as a non-sexist way of describing female authority. In 2015 article by Megan Garber in The Atlantic analysed “How ‘Badass’ Became a Feminist Word,” arguing that it was once applied to tough male TV and movie heroes, such as Chuck Norris and Clint Eastwood, but had been redefined to refer to strong women:

The badass is, per one definition [from The Urban Dictionary], “the epitome of the American male.” Someone who “radiates confidence in everything he does, whether it’s ordering a drink, buying a set of wheels, or dealing with women.” … Today, “badass” describes not just men, but the ladyfolk. It doubles as an endorsement of a woman who is particularly strong, who is particularly cool, who is particularly swaggery. It’s a term of acclamation and aspiration, both for women and for a culture that is finally giving them their due.⁷³

Karrin Vasby Anderson discusses the use of “badass” as a descriptor for Hillary Clinton:

I assess key moments in [Hillary] Clinton’s two presidential campaigns—moments in which she was framed as a “bitch” and a “badass.” Both frames foregrounded Clinton’s strength; however, “bitch” characterized that strength as deviant and dangerous, whereas “badass” presented her as cool and unassailable.⁷⁴

Attempts to move beyond “she-wolf” to “badass” for Isabella seem to reflect a similar desire to reassess her female authority in more positive ways. After all, “she-wolf” is, at a very literal level, the same as “bitch”—a canine female.

There are, however, problems with attempts to redefine “badass” as a feminist term of approbation. Anderson advises moving beyond both “bitch” and “badass”:

‘Badass’ recognizes women’s capacity to lead but does so in a way that deflects attention away from the persistence of sexist stereotyping and cultural misogyny … as depictions of political women become increasingly complex and varied, fictional characters and actual women are beginning to move beyond the bitch and badass frames.⁷⁵

Conversely, there has been a reaction against “badass” on feminist grounds, with several mass-media articles published in 2019 that challenged its use. On International Women’s Day Hanna Watson in PR Week asked us to “[s]top describing powerful women as ‘badass’; it’s just patronizing”:

“Fierce” and “badass” seem to be the terms of choice, used by both male and female communicators alike to refer to powerful, influential women.

These terms are almost never prescribed for male panelists or speakers, but solely reserved for describing women, which is problematic and frustrating ….

I cannot imagine a time when we might describe a panel of men as fierce or badass, making these words highly gendered.⁷⁶

Likewise, Emma Brockes in the Guardian’s online section declared, “My heart sinks every time I hear women called ‘gutsy’ or ‘badass.’” Like Anderson she focuses on Hillary Clinton, but objecting to the “badass” label applied to her, as well as Clinton’s own claiming of similar terms:

[F]or some reason, when I hear badass and its synonyms, my heart sinks. I get the same mild squeamishness when I read about Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s anthology, The Book of Gutsy Women. It’s partly that descriptors like “gutsy” seem to protest too much, partly that they feel slightly infantilising, and mainly, I think, that they have become disembodied marketing terms used to launder self-promotion as somehow socially useful.⁷⁷

In this light, we can see the creation of a “badass” Isabella as a way of masculinising her. She is celebrated for her “male” prowess as a warrior and rebel, rather than in the more pacific (but still authoritative) roles of a medieval queen as advisor, peacemaker, or intercessor. Consider the linguistic choices of Ben Thompson in his “Badass of the Week” feature on Isabella: “exciting and bloody”; “crazy, insane life smashing peoples’ asses”; “face-crushing vengeance”; “vengeful”; “a vengeful, hate-filled asskicker”; “a crazy, bloodthirsty bitch-o-rama.”⁷⁸ All these emphasise violence and (especially) vengeance. The one phrase that is gendered female (“bitch-o-rama”) returns to the she-wolf/bitch stereotype to describe her governance alongside Mortimer. Her actions are admirably violent when in rebellion, but once she is in a position of rulership, her authority is suspect and that of a “bitch.”

Conclusion

Although attempts to present Isabella in a positive light may be motivated by a desire to challenge sexism and place women at the centre of history, they are also problematic from a feminist perspective. The focus on outstanding “badass” women rests on a stereotypical assumption that medieval women were otherwise downtrodden baby-makers and, in Weir’s words, “placid adornments of their husbands.”⁷⁹ To cite Kathryn Warner, “[p]raise is heaped on women of the past who are believed to have been liberated in an approved twenty-first century fashion and to have broken the bonds of custom and followed their own path.”⁸⁰ So when a woman like Isabella is seen not to match the stereotype, she is assumed to be exceptional. The more sensationalist aspects of her life (the “Treachery, Adultery, and Murder” in the subtitle of the U.S. edition of Weir’s book) are foregrounded, but those which show her fulfilling the roles expected of a medieval queen—not just dynastic marriage and production of male heirs, but also taking part in foreign diplomacy and acting as an intercessor at home—tend to be neglected. As Victoria Thompson remarked on Facebook, “Badass, like feisty, is just another way of saying ‘she’s so cute when she’s angry.’”⁸¹

The “she-wolf” label has been both embraced and challenged in popular cultural portrayals of Isabella. It is eye-catching and dramatic, making it attractive for titles of novels and popular histories, but carries misogynistic associations. Thus, authors of fiction, popular history books, and websites have somewhat awkwardly attempted to simultaneously use and challenge the “she-wolf” concept, attempting to reframe Isabella as a symbol of female empowerment. As such, alternative labels have been suggested, from “iron lady” to “badass,” but all are problematic as they continue to reflect gendered stereotypes.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

1. Anonymous. “Annales Paulini, 1307–1340.” In Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, edited by William Stubbs, 253–370. 2 volumes. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1882–1883.

2. Le Baker, Geoffrey. The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker. Translated by David Preest and edited by Richard Barber. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012.

Secondary Sources

1. Anderson, Karrin Vasby. “Introduction.” In Women, Feminism, and Pop Politics: From “Bitch” to “Badass” and Beyond, edited by Karrin Vasby Anderson, 3–34. New York: Peter Lang, 2018.Crossref

2. Anonymous. Joan of Arc, or, The Study of a Noble Life. Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1871.

3. Brecht, Bertolt. Edward II. A Chronicle Play, translated by Eric Bentley. New York: Grove Press, 1966.

4. Castor, Helen. She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth. New York: Harper, 2011.

5. De Boisbaudry, Hervé, and Philippe Verdin. Maurice Druon: le partisan. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2014. Kindle edition.

6. Druon, Maurice. La Louve de France. Paris: Del Luca, 1959.

7. ———. The She-Wolf. Translated by Humphrey Hare. London: Harper, 2014.

8. ———. Le Roi de fer. Paris: Del Duca, 1955.

9. Evans, Michael R. “Queering Isabella: The ‘She-Wolf of France’ in Film and Television.” In Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers, edited by Janice North, Karl C. Alvestad, and Elena Woodacre, 263–282. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.Crossref

10. Fitzgerald, M. S. The Kings of Europe, Past and Present, and their Families. London: Longmans Green, 1870.

11. Johnstone, Hilda. “Isabella, the She-Wolf of France.” History 21 (1936): 208–218.Crossref

12. Gloris, Marie, Thierry Gloris and Jaime Calderón. Isabelle, la Louve de France. 2 vols. Paris: Delcourt, 2012, 2014.

13. LoPrete, Kimberly. “Gendering Viragos: Medieval Perceptions of Powerful Women.” In Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Women 4: Victims or Viragos?, edited by Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless, 17–38. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005.

14. Lord, Carla. “Queen Isabella at the Court of France.” In Fourteenth Century England, II, edited by Chris Given-Wilson, 45–52. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002.

15. Menache, Sophia. “Isabelle of France, Queen of England—A Reconsideration.” Journal of Medieval History 10 (1984): 107–124.Crossref

16. Norton, Elizabeth. She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of England. Stroud: The History Press, 2008. Kindle edition.

17. Parr, Harriet. The Life and Death of Jeanne d’Arc, called The Maid. 2 volumes. London: Smith, Elder, 1866.

18. Porath, Jason. Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics. New York: Dey Street Books, 2016.

19. Tanner, Heather J., ed. Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400. Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.Crossref

20. Tanner, Heather J., Laura L. Gathagan and Lois L. Huneycutt. “Introduction.” In Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400. Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate, edited by Heather J. Tanner, 1–18. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.Crossref

21. Warner, Kathryn. Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen. Stroud: Amberley, 2016. Kindle Edition.

22. Weir, Alison. Queen Isabella. Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. New York: Ballantine, 2005.

Online Sources

1. “10 Most Badass Princesses in History.” Beyond Science, 9 October 2017. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.beyondsciencetv.com/2017/10/09/10-most-badass-princesses-in-history/.

2. Addley, Esther, “‘Thatcher Loved It’: Spitting Image Victims on Being Lampooned.” The Guardian, 28 September 2019. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-victims-on-being-lampooned-livingstone-currie-kinnock.

3. Brockes, Emma. “My Heart Sinks Every Time I Hear Women called ‘Gutsy’ or ‘Badass’.” The Guardian, 16 November 2019. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/16/badass-gutsy-women-hillary-clinton-outspoken-achievers.

4. Della Quercia, Jacobo. “5 Real Princesses Too Badass for Disney Movies.” Cracked, 20 October 2011. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.cracked.com/article_19478_5-real-princesses-too-badass-disney-movies.html.

5. Fisher, Max. “‘Irony Lady’: How a Moscow Propagandist Gave Margaret Thatcher Her Famous Nickname.” The Washington Post, 8 April 2013. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/08/irony-lady-how-a-moscow-propagandist-gave-margaret-thatcher-her-famous-nickname/.

6. Garber, Megan. “How ‘Badass’ Became a Feminist Word.” The Atlantic, 22 November 2015. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/11/how-badass-became-feminist/417096/.

7. Gray, Thomas. “The Bard: A Pindaric Ode.” The Poetry Foundation. Accessed 14 June 2018. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44298/the-bard-a-pindaric-ode.

8. Hanley, Sarah. “Imagining the Last Capetians.” Fiction and Film for French Historians: A Cultural Bulletin. Accessed 3 July 2015. http://h-france.net/fffh/classics/imagining-the-last-capetians-maurice-druon-the-accursed-kings/.

9. Mahon, Elizabeth Kerri. “Isabella of France; She-Wolf of England.” Scandalous Women (blog), 31 July 2012. Accessed 1 February 2020. http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/2012/07/isabella-of-france-she-wolf-of-england.html.

10. Martyris, Nina. “‘Badass’: The One Word That Has Become a Lightning Rod for Many Female Chefs.” Food for Thought, NPR, 11 November 2019. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/11/777620171/badass-the-one-word-that-has-become-a-lightning-rod-for-many-female-chefs.

11. Porath, Jason. “Isabella of France (c.1295–1358): The She-Wolf of France.” Rejected Princesses. Accessed 17 June 2018. http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/isabella-of-france.

12. Shilóvska, Tatiana. “Russia Pays Tribute to the ‘Iron Lady.” Russia Beyond, 13 October 2013. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.rbth.com/business/2015/10/13/russians_pay_tribute_to_the_iron_lady_50035.html.

13. Thatcher, Margaret. “Speech to Finchley Conservatives (Admits to Being an ‘Iron Lady’).” Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102947.

14. Thompson, Ben. “Isabella of France.” Badass of the Week (blog), 14 May 2009. Accessed 1 February 2020. http://www.badassoftheweek.com/isabella.html.

15. Warner, Kathryn. “Edward II, Piers Gaveston and Isabella’s Jewels That Weren’t.” Edward II (blog), 18 July 2014. Accessed 1 February 2020. http://edwardthesecond.blogspot.com/2014/07/edward-ii-piers-gaveston-and-isabellas.html.

16. ———. “So You Want To Write A Novel About Edward II And Isabella…?.” Edward II (blog), 31 March 2010. Accessed 1 February 2020. http://edwardthesecond.blogspot.com/2010/03/so-you-want-to-write-novel-about-edward.html.

17. Watson, Hannah. “Stop Describing Powerful Women as ‘Badass’; It’s Just Patronizing.” PR Week, 7 March 2019. Accessed 1 February 2020. https://www.prweek.com/article/1578229/stop-describing-powerful-women-badass-its-just-patronising.

Footnotes

Thomas Gray, “The Bard: A Pindaric Ode,” The Poetry Foundation, accessed 14 June 2018, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44298/the-bard-a-pindaric-ode.

Maurice Druon, La Louve de France (Paris: Del Luca, 1959); Alison Weir, Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005); Hilda Johnstone, “Isabella, the She-Wolf of France,” History 21 (1936): 208–218; Helen Castor, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (New York: Harper, 2011).

Sophia Menache, “Isabelle of France, queen of England—A Reconsideration,” Journal of Medieval History 10 (1984): 120.

Shakespeare, III Henry VI, 1.4.551; Johnstone, “Isabella, the She-Wolf of France,” 208.

Shakespeare, III Henry VI, 1.4.553–554.

Menache, “Isabelle of France,” 121 n.6.

Carla Lord, “Queen Isabella at the Court of France,” in Fourteenth Century England, II, ed. Chris Given-Wilson (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2002), 45 n.2.

See M. S. Fitzgerald, The Kings of Europe, Past and Present, and their Families (London: Longmans, Green, 1870), 161; Harriet Parr, The Life and Death of Jeanne d’Arc, called The Maid, 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder, 1866) 1:52; Anonymous, Joan of Arc, or, The Study of a Noble Life (Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1871), 22.

See Elizabeth Casteen, From She-Wolf to Martyr: The Reign and Disputed Reputation of Johanna I of Naples (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).

Casteen, From She-Wolf to Martyr, 1, 14.

Bertolt Brecht, Edward II. A Chronicle Play, trans. Eric Bentley (New York: Grove Press, 1966), 46.

Johnstone, “Isabella, the She-Wolf of France,” 208.

Johnstone, “Isabella, the She-Wolf of France,” 212.

Johnstone, “Isabella, the She-Wolf of France,” 209.

Menache, “Isabelle of France,” 107.

Menache, “Isabelle of France,” 112.

Menache, “Isabelle of France,” 114–115.

Castor, She-Wolves.

Castor, She-Wolves, 31.

Castor, She-Wolves, 5–24. The television series moves into the Tudor period, with the last of three episodes devoted to Jane Gray, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. She-Wolves, episode 3, “Jane, Mary and Elizabeth,” directed by Lucy Swingler/presented by Helen Castor, aired 21 March 2012, on BBC 4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxmRco4P0bk&t=8s.

Castor, She-Wolves, 31–32.

Castor, She-Wolves, 30.

Heather J. Tanner, Laura L. Gathagan and Lois L. Huneycutt, “Introduction,” in Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400. Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate, ed. Heather J. Tanner (London: Palgrave, 2019), 1–3.

Castor, She-Wolves, 283.

Castor, She-Wolves, 284.

Castor, She-Wolves, 294. The tendency to reflect on the good looks of medieval figures whose appearance is unknown to us is a common feature of popular history. See Michael R. Evans, Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 62, 149–150 on such speculation about another medieval queen of England.

Castor, She-Wolves, 319–320.

Weir, Isabella: She-Wolf of France; published in the U.S.A. as Queen Isabella. Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England (New York: Ballantine, 2005). My references are to the U.S. edition.

Weir, Queen Isabella, vii, xvii–xxi.

Weir, Queen Isabella, xviii–xxi.

Weir, Queen Isabella, 63–64; Kathryn Warner, Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen (Stroud: Amberley, 2016), chapter 7; chapter 3, n. 28. Kindle edition.

Weir, Queen Isabella, 149; Warner, Isabella of France, chapter 7, n. 80.

Weir, Queen Isabella, 196; Warner, Isabella of France, chapter 1, n. 5.

Elizabeth Norton, She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of England (Stroud: The History Press, 2008). Kindle edition.

Norton, She Wolves, 6.

Norton, She Wolves, 138–155.

Norton, She Wolves, 138.

Norton, She Wolves, 155.

Maurice Druon, The She-Wolf, trans. Humphrey Hare (London: Harper, 2014), 343.

Druon, The She-Wolf, 45, 51, 185, 345.

Sarah Hanley, “Imagining the Last Capetians,” Fiction and Film for French Historians: A Cultural Bulletin, accessed 3 July 2015, http://h-france.net/fffh/classics/imagining-the-last-capetians-maurice-druon-the-accursed-kings/.

Cited in Hervé de Boisbaudry and Philippe Verdin, Maurice Druon: le partisan (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2014), chapter 3, Kindle edition.

Druon, The She Wolf, 129–221.

Laetitia Noel (@LaetitiaNoel), “#Vendredilecture avec La Louve de France de Maurice Druon,” Twitter, 6 October 2017, https://twitter.com/laetitianoel/status/916228450557587458.

Marie Gloris, Thierry Gloris and Jaime Calderón, Isabelle, la Louve de France, 2 vols. (Paris: Delcourt, 2012, 2014).

“Les reines de sang—Isabelle, la Louve de France,” Bedetheque, accessed 16 June 2018, https://www.bedetheque.com/BD-Reines-de-sang-Isabelle-la-Louve-de-France-INT-TT-Isabelle-La-Louve-de-France-219004.html.

“Les reines de sang—Isabelle, la Louve de France.”

Kathryn Warner, “So You Want to Write a Novel About Edward II And Isabella…?” Edward II (blog), 31 March 2010, accessed 1 February 2020, http://edwardthesecond.blogspot.com/2010/03/so-you-want-to-write-novel-about-edward.html.

Jason Porath, Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics (New York: Dey Street Books, 2016).

Jason Porath, “Isabella of France (c.1295–1358): The She-Wolf of France,” Rejected Princesses, accessed 17 June 2018, http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/isabella-of-france.

Author, “Annales Paulini, 1307–1340,” in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1882–1883), 1: 262; Kathryn Warner, “Edward II, Piers Gaveston and Isabella’s Jewels That Weren’t,” Edward II (blog), 18 July 2014, accessed 1 February 2020, http://edwardthesecond.blogspot.com/2014/07/edward-ii-piers-gaveston-and-isabellas.html.

Jason Porath, “Isabella of France.”

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, “Isabella of France; She-Wolf of England,” Scandalous Women (blog), 31 July 2012, accessed 1 February 2020, http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/2012/07/isabella-of-france-she-wolf-of-england.html.

Mahon, “Isabella of France; She-Wolf of England.”

Castor, She-Wolves, 231–321.

“Maggie, the ‘Iron Lady’.” The Sunday Times 7963 (25 January 1976), 3.

“Margaret Thatcher, Speech to Finchley Conservatives (admits to being an “Iron Lady”),” Margaret Thatcher Foundation, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102947. This was Thatcher’s first use of the term “iron lady,” but not the first occasion when it was used about her in Britain.

Tatiana Shilóvska, “Russia Pays Tribute to the ‘Iron Lady,’” Russia Beyond, 13 October 2013, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.rbth.com/business/2015/10/13/russians_pay_tribute_to_the_iron_lady_50035.html

“Margaret Thatcher, Speech to Finchley Conservatives.”

I discuss this more fully in my article Michael R. Evans, “Queering Isabella: The ‘She-Wolf of France’ in Film and Television,” in Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers, eds. Janice North, Karl C. Alvestad, and Elena Woodacre (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 263–282.

Local Government Act 1988 (England and Wales) s 28, accessed 1 February 2020, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/9/section/28/1991-02-01. In a speech against Section 28 in 1988, the actor Ian McKellen compared supporters of the law to “the sort of person who tried to stop me acting in Edward 2 at the Edinburgh Festival in 1969” a reference to “the late Councillor John Kidd [who] took offence to this show of male affection, particularly as it took place on a stage erected within the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland.” Ian McKellen, “Section 28,” Ian McKellen Official Home Page, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.mckellen.com/writings/activism/8807section28.htm; McKellen, “Edward II,” Ian McKellen Official Home Page, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.mckellen.com/stage/edward/index.htm.

Evans, “Queering Isabella,” 270.

Thompson, “Isabella of France.” Badass of the Week (blog), 14 May 2009, accessed 1 February 2020, http://www.badassoftheweek.com/isabella.html.

Thompson, “Isabella of France.”

Menache, “Isabelle of France,” 109.

Jacobo della Quercia, “5 Real Princesses Too Badass for Disney Movies,” Cracked, 20 October 2011, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.cracked.com/article_19478_5-real-princesses-too-badass-disney-movies.html.

Della Quercia, “5 Real Princesses Too Badass for Disney Movies.”

“10 Most Badass Princesses in History,” Beyond Science, 9 October 2017, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.beyondsciencetv.com/2017/10/09/10-most-badass-princesses-in-history/.

“10 Most Badass Princesses.”

Megan Garber, “How ‘Badass’ Became a Feminist Word,” The Atlantic, 22 November 2015, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/11/how-badass-became-feminist/417096/.

Karrin Vasby Anderson, “Introduction,” in Women, Feminism, and Pop Politics: From “Bitch” to “Badass” and Beyond, ed. Karrin Vasby Anderson (New York: Peter Lang, 2018), 4.

Anderson, Women, Feminism, and Pop Politics, v, 2.

Hannah Watson, “Stop describing powerful women as ‘badass’; it’s just patronizing,” PR Week, 7 March 2019, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.prweek.com/article/1578229/stop-describing-powerful-women-badass-its-just-patronising.

Emma Brockes, “My heart sinks every time I hear women called ‘gutsy’ or ‘badass’,” The Guardian, 16 November 2019, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/16/badass-gutsy-women-hillary-clinton-outspoken-achievers.

Thompson, “Isabella of France.”

Weir, Queen Isabella, xxi.

Warner, Isabella of France, 500–1.

Victoria Thompson, 18 June 2018, comment on “Guy Halsall—Historian,” Facebook, accessed 1 February 2020, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1830618560601180/?multi_permalinks=1966207683708933&comment_id=1966351527027882&notif_id=1529341969946451&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic. Thompson writes and publishes as Victoria Whitworth.

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