Chapter 19 - Estelle Paranque

Royal Representation through the Father and Warrior Figures in Early Modern Europe


During the early modern period, monarchs had to fashion their representation around two important images, that of a father and of a warrior, in order to appear as strong rulers. Being a skillful warrior was particularly praised as an important attribute to rulership. Furthermore, as Robert Filmer explained the king was the father of a kingdom. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the significance of the father and warrior figures in rhetorical representations and how such representations were intertwined with religion, humanist ideas, as well as being used during war time or more peaceful time: achieving different purposes. This chapter offers a comparative approach, examining Charles I of England’s rhetoric alongside with Henry III of France’s, which allows to expose the complexities and fragilities behind such images and which offers a more comprehensive understanding of what it meant to be a monarch in early modern Europe.

By Estelle Paranque


Estelle Paranque

Estelle Paranque is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the New College of the Humanities and Research Fellow within the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at Warwick University. She received her PhD in early modern history from University College London in 2016. She is a published author and her books include, Elizabeth I Through Valois Eyes: Power, Representation, and Diplomacy in the Reign of the Queen, 1558-1588 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and the co-edited collections Colonization, Piracy, and Trade in Early Modern Europe: The Roles of Powerful Women and Queens (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and Forgotten Queens in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Political Agency, Myth-Making, and Patronage (Routledge, 2018). She is currently working on her two next projects on queens and mistresses.

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Related Chapters

Laura Fábián: The Biblical King Solomon in the Representations of Western European Medieval Royalty (See Chapter 4)

Hélder Carvalhal: Kingship and Masculinity in Renaissance Portugal (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries) (See Chapter 18)

Theresa Earenfight & Kristen Geaman: Neither Heir nor Spare: Childless Queens and the Practice of Monarchy in Pre-Modern Europe (See Chapter 30)

Emily Ward: Child kings and guardianship in North-Western Europe c.1050-c.1250 (See Chapter 32)