Women Rulers Posters, pg 1/2
for the social studies classroom, home schoolers and theme decor.

Julia Vipsania Agrippina
c. 1st century AD, Roman Empire

Agrippina the Elder was one of the most powerful women in the Roman Empire. She was the daughter of Agrippa and his third wife, Julia the Elder (and thus the granddaughter of Augustus), and with Germanicus, her husband, the parents of Caligula and his sister, Agrippina the Younger, who was the mother of Nero.

Due to her attitude of privilage that challenged Tiberius, Agrippina the Elder was finally banished from Rome and died of starvation, possibly self inflicted.

• Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire

Eleanor of Aquitaine
b. 1122; Aquitaine
d. 4-1-1204; Fontevrault

Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe during the High Middle Ages, brought the ideals of courtly love from Aquitaine to the courts of France and then to England as Queen consort. Eleanor was deeply involved in the Second Crusade (1145–1149) as the French Queen and, as married to Henry II of England, the mother of both King Richard I and King John.

• World History Biographies: Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Queen Who Rode Off to Battle

Lucrezia Borgia
b. 4-18-1480; Italy
d. 6-24-1519; after child birth

Lucrezia Borgia was the daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI).

Her father appointed her governor of Spoleto and then gave her the power of administration of the Vatican and the Church at age 21.

• Lucrezia Borgia biography

Boudica
fl. 1st century; British Isles

Boudica (also Boudicca, Boadicea), as queen of the Brythonic Celtic Iceni people of Norfolk in Eastern Britain, led a major uprising of the tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.

• Boudica, Queen of the Iceni

Catherine the Great
b. 5-2-1729; Poland
d. 11-7-1796; suffered a stroke

Catherine II of Russia is better known as Catherine the Great: she ruled Russia for 34 years and epitomizes the description "enlightened despot".

Catherine II was born Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst in Poland to minor nobility. When she became wife to the prospective tsar — Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, and despite the intrigues of her social climbing mother, she had made up her mind “to do whatever seemed necessary, and to profess to believe whatever required of her”, in order to become qualified to wear the crown. When her husband was deposed, she was proclaimed Empress.

• Portrait Bust of Catherine the Great, Marie-Anne Collot
• The Memoirs of Catherine the Great

Queen Charlotte
b. 5-19-1744; Mirow, Germany
d. 11-17-1818; Kew Palace

Queen Charlotte, née Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the queen consort of George III under whose reign the Crown lost the Revolutionary War of the American Colonies, and that Great Britain and Ireland joined to become the United Kingdom.

Charlotte was a patron of the arts, having Johann Christian Bach as her music teacher and, at her request, a then eight year old Mozart dedicated his Opus 3 to her. Charlotte was also an accomplished amateur botanist whose work established what has become Kew Gardens, and proved a strong supporter of the health and education of women by establishing orphanages and a hospital for expectant mothers.

Charlotte, as directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese Royal House, has made a rally point for abolitionists.

Charlotte and George were the parents of six daughters in a family of fifteen children, the grandparents (through their son William) of Queen Victoria, and great-great-great-grandparents of Elizabeth II.

• George III: A Personal History

Christina of Sweden
b. 12-8-1626; Stockholm
d. 4-19-1689; only one of four women to be buried in St. Peter's Bascilia

Christina of Sweden was the ruler of Sweden from 1632 (age 6) to 1654 when she converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, abdicated the throne and spent the rest of her life in Rome and France devoting herself to art and science (with several forays into exploring the possibility of regaining a crown). She was noted for her wearing of men's clothes and masculine mannerisms; her father had ordered that she be brought up as a prince since both of her male siblings had died. FYI- The city of Wilmington, Delaware was founded as Fort Christina in the Swedish colony of New Sweden.

• Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric

Empress Dowager Cixi
b. 11-29-1835; China
d. 11-15-1908

Tz'u-Hsi ruled China from 1861 to 1908. She had been born into a relatively ordinary family, then selected as a concubine to the Emperor. Having produced the first male child she was able to rise in power, eventually becoming the ruler from "behind the curtain" and identified as the cause of the fall of Imperial rule in China.

• Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China

Cleopatra
b. January, 69 BC; Alexandria
d. 8-12-30 BC; Alexandria, by taking her own life with an asp (venomous snake).

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator was the last pharoah of Ancient Egypt, marking the end of the Ptolemic dynasty in the Hellenistic era and the beginning of the Roman era.

Much struggle and intrigue lead up to Cleopatra securing power in her name alone and she solidified her position by forming a liason with Julius Caesar. (It is told she had herself rolled up in a luxurious rug she was giving to Caesar and when it was unrolled, he was unable to resist the "invitation". When Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March Cleopatra then aligned herself with Marc Antony, a Roman general. Antony was defeated in a Roman civil war and when told that Cleopatra was also dead, he commited suicide. Cleopatra then took her own life by asp (venomous snake).

Cleopatra was a direct desendent of Ptolemy I Soter, the founder of the Ptolemy dynasty in Egypt. Ptolemy I was a close companion and general of Alexander the Great (and also possibly his half brother). Ptolemy is a Greek name, very common among the upper classes of Macedonia.

• Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth

Dido fl. 800 BC, was the name given by Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid to the founder and first Queen of Carthage.

According the the account set down by Virgil, when Aeneas left Troy with the mission of founding Rome, he was waylaided in Carthage by Dido's charms and lure of co-ruling Carthage (modern-day Tunisia on the Mediterran coast of north Africa). When the gods reminded Aeneas of his work he was forced to sneak away from Dido; she then built a funeral pyre, cursed Aeneas, commited suicide and fell into the flames, sealing the feud of Carthage against Rome. (FYI - Dido was from Tyre in Lebanon.)

Elizabeth I
b. 9-7-1533; Greenwich
d. 3-24-1603; Richmond Palace

Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry the VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn, was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Her reign of nearly 45 years, known today as the Elizabethan Age, was marked by the increase of English power and influence worldwide, tremendous religious turmoil within England, and a great outpouring of creative energy in the likes of William Shakespeare.

Elizabeth I is sometimes referred to as 'The Virgin Queen' (the colony of Virginia in North America is named for her), Gloriana, and Good Queen Bess. She was immortalised by Edmund Spenser as the Faerie Queene, and the story that Sir Walter Raleigh spread his cloak over a puddle so she wouldn't dirty her hem and slippers.

FYI - The nursery rhyme "Hey diddle diddle" may refer to Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester.

• Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth II
b. 4-21-1926; Mayfair

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as the first child of The Duke and Duchess of York was unlikely to become Queen, however the abdication of her uncle, Edward VIII, led to her father's Accession, and her becoming heir to the Throne. She was coronated on June 2, 1953.

• Queen and Country: The Fifty-Year Reign of Elizabeth II

Queen Hatshepsut
b. c 1508 BC
d. c. 1458 BC

Queen Hatshepsut, the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt, generally regarded as one of the most successful female pharaohs of Egypt, reigning longer than any other female ruler of an indigenous dynasty.

Hatshepsut dressed as a man and wore the traditional false beard of pharaohs to indicate that she was pharaoh and ruled Egypt in her own right. In June 2007 a mummy was identified as that of Hatshepsut through DNA.

Her Mortuary Temple complex, designed by Senemut, is considered to be among the great buildings of the ancient world.

• Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)

Jadwiga
b. 2-18-1374; Buda
d. 7-17-1399; Kraków, Poland

Jadwiga of Poland is also known as Saint Hedwig the Queen, the patron saint of queens.

• Jadwiga, Queen of Poland

Isabella of Castille
b. 4-22-1451; Castille
d. 11-26-1504; buried in Granada

Isabella of Castille's marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon politically unified Spain; together they drove out the Moors and presided over the notorious Inquisition, an ethnic cleansing of anyone not of Catholic faith, and earned the name the “Catholic Monarchs”.

Their youngest daughter, Catherine of Aragon, was the first wife of Henry the VIII (their daughter Mary I of England, became known as “Bloody Mary” for her persecutions of Protestants), another daughter, Juana (“the Mad”), was the mother of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

Isabella is also responsible for financing Columbus' voyage and later explorations to the New World. One could think that the conquistadors treatment of the indigenous peoples of the New World was an extention of the Inquisition.

• Queen Isabella: And The Unification Of Spain