Milli mála - 2015, Blaðsíða 186
MARGINALISED MONARCH
Milli mála 7/2015
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tant to meet me. She made me hope and yearn with all her letters and
promises to meet. But she is the crowned sovereign now, and I am
just a poor woman, without a crown, a country, a people. I can’t bear
it any longer. I wish she would kill me.” Mary’s existence is again
heavily measured against that of Elizabeth; she cannot function inde-
pendently from her English cousin in filmic dramatisations of her life.
3. Conclusion
In conclusion, as Thomas Betteridge aptly states, it seems that histor-
ians and filmmakers are still under Elizabeth’s spell (Betteridge 2003:
248). Elizabeth’s power and success are repeatedly glorified in film
adaptations of her story, and in some instances, as in Mary Queen of
Scots (1971), Mary’s portrayal suffers in comparison with Elizabeth’s
even though the main subject of the film is not Elizabeth. Perhaps this
can be partly explained by the twentieth century tendency to use
Elizabeth as a “quasi-feminist heroine” or a symbol of feminist inde-
pendence, as laid out by Moss and Latham (Moss 2006: 798; Latham
2011: 130). In this context, it is important that Elizabeth tends to be
seen in terms of a “‘masculine’ political culture” (Moss 2006: 810).
Thus, her “masculine” attributes denote political success, the mainte-
nance and implementation of power and, through these, the move
away from stereotypical notions of women as unable to rule effec-
tively. While Mary is presented as Elizabeth’s opposite in being femi-
nine, weak and a failure as queen, Elizabeth’s supremacy within this
frame of comparison is unassailable. A queen, who was in her day
and age seen as an “unnatural” woman, has now become a model of
success. More important, however, is the fact that the image of Glori-
ana is used by those “who wish to proclaim themselves inheritors of a
great cultural tradition” (Moss 2006: 803). Due to this, the notion of
English cultural superiority has become so heavily invested in the
myth of Gloriana that the marginalised Queen of Scots, presented as
feminine, emotional and politically ineffectual, has little chance of be-
ing in any way measured equally to her cousin in modern filmic por-
trayals of these two rival queens.