Mirrors for Female Rulers: Elizabeth I and the Duchess of Malfi

The chapter investigates the way two female rulers, the real Elizabeth I and John Webster’s fictional Duchess of Malfi, establish a personal encounter with the mirror, bearing in mind that Elizabeth, “mirror of Grace and majesty divine”, in Spenser’s words, inevitably represented both the real and the model mirror in which theatrical female or male rulers had to look at themselves in Early Modern England. Both Elizabeth and the Duchess tried to fashion their identity as female princes in exceptional ways, ways that disregarded traditional notions of appropriate marital status or ideal female qualities such as silence and obedience. Through the complex relationship they established with mirrors and artistic replicas of themselves, the Queen and the Duchess explore composite female identities in unconventional ways, where motherhood (real or metaphorical) is not incompatible with political authority and their sense of inner worth as women and princes is not undermined by dissenting voices.