Queen Victoria is often cast as a foe of the women's movement - the sovereign who famously declared women's rights to be a 'mad, wicked folly'. Yet these words weren't circulated publicly until after the Queen's death in 1901. Beginning with this insight, this book reveals Victoria as a ruler who captured the imaginations of nineteenth-century feminists. Women's rights activists routinely used Victoria to assert their own claims to citizenship. So popular was their strategy that it even motivated anti-suffragists to launch their own campaign to distance Queen Victoria from feminist initiatives. In highlighting these exchanges, this book draws attention to the intricate and often overlooked connections between the histories of women, the monarchy, and the state. In the process, it sheds light on the development of constitutional monarchy, concepts of female leadership, and the powerful role that the Crown - and queens specifically - have played in modern British culture and politics.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2020, Choice Reviews.

'How did, could, and should women hold political power? Arianne Chernock ingeniously probes invocations and imaginings of Queen Victoria to deliver an entirely fresh account of British women’s rights. This elegant, perceptive book will be as valuable for historians of the Victorian era as it is resonant for anyone interested in how sovereignty and political activism work.'

Maya Jasanoff - Harvard University, Massachusetts

'A careful analysis of what two opposing political movements - women’s rights activists and social conservatives - saw when they looked at Victoria, and the uses to which each group tried to put the Queen. Chernock’s argument that anti-suffragists helped lay the foundation for Britain’s profoundly apolitical modern monarchy is provocative, new, and important.'

Susie Steinbach - Hamline University, Minnesota

'Chernock makes scrupulous use of myriad digital and original primary sources (periodicals, pamphlets, papers, letters, etc.) in this essential analysis of how the British women's movement, notwithstanding Victoria's silent opposition and the partisan manipulation of her name, gained the same parliamentary suffrage as men in 1918, when power politics aligned better with moral right.’

J. T. Mellone Source: Choice

‘Chernock’s excellent book deserves wide readership. This deeply researched, smart, and well-crafted work does more than explore the relationship of Queen Victoria to the women’s movement. It provides a valuable analysis of political movements and the power of representation more generally, and explains one of the most important developments in British politics in the nineteenth century. Its lessons resonate to this very day.’

Susan Kingsley Kent Source: The Journal of Modern History

'Chernock’s contribution is both entirely unique and offers a fascinating new interpretation of one aspect of the monarch’s life.'

Connor E. R. DeMerchant Source: Royal Studies Journal

‘Excellent as her discussion of feminist uses of Queen Victoria is, the most interesting and important aspect of this outstanding book is Charnock’s thorough and insightful analysis of the gendering of ideas about monarchy and the state by those who opposed women’s rights.’

Barbara Caine Source: Victorian Studies

‘Chernock provides an important analysis of the Victorian era women’s movement and how the representation of regnant queens participated in such a heated debate for the rights of Britain’s female citizens.'

Mindy Williams Source: Anglican and Episcopal History Review