The Spanish Monarchy in Mary Hays’s Biographical Works

Abstract

[Abstract] English writer Mary Hays published two collections of women’s biographies: Female Biography (1803) and Memoirs of Queens (1821). There are few Spanish queens in either text, and most of them appear as queen consorts and regents in other European courts. Of note, however, is the biography of the mythical Catholic Queen Isabella of Castile, who was a Spanish queen by birth and right. Given the exogamic dimension of monarchy throughout history, some other Spanish sovereigns, including Charles V and Philip II, are also present in these texts. Accordingly, this study intends to analyse the Spanish monarchs in Hays’s biographical works, in that they operate as a convenient site for negotiating Hays’s most valued assumptions, such as vindicating women’s capacities—in this case the capacity to rule—and also some of the ubiquitous convictions of the Romantic period involving Spain, particularly those related to religious intolerance.