XXXV. There have been a thousand examples of princesses, who were
expert and able politicians. No age will ever forget the first woman,
whose true character history developed and rescued from the obscurity
of fable: I mean Semiramis, queen of the Assyrians, who in her infancy
was nursed by doves, but afterwards soared superior to the eagles:
she not only knew how to make herself blindly obeyed by the subjects
her husband had left her, but she also made subjects of all the
neighbouring nations, and by extending her conquests, she likewise made
neighbours of the most distant ones. Her empire extended on one side to
Ethiopia, and on the other to India. Nor can Artemisia, queen of Caria,
be forgotten, who not only maintained, during her long widowhood,
the respect and adoration of that kingdom; but, being invaded by the
Rhodians, she, in her own territories, by two singular stratagems, with
two attacks only destroyed the troops of her enemies; and, passing
suddenly from the defensive to the offensive, she invaded them in her
turn, and conquered and triumphed over the island of Rhodes. The two
Aspasias also will be ever remembered, to whose admirable management,
Pericles the husband of one of them, and Cyrus the son of Darius
Notho, gallant of the other, happily and successfully, confided the
government of their states; as will likewise the most prudent Phile,
daughter of Antipater, whom, while she was a child, her father advised
with concerning the government of the kingdom of Macedonia, and who
afterwards, by her wise stratagems and great address, extricated her
husband, the precipitate and flighty Demetrius, from a thousand
difficulties. Livia, of fertile invention, whose subtile cunning
seems to have been too deep for the penetration of Augustus, is
another instance of female ability, for she could never have had such
dominion over his mind, if he had known her. The sagacious Agrippina
is likewise another, although her arts, as she unhappily employed
them in promoting her son Nero to the throne, were fatal to herself
and the world. Amalethunsa also, is well deserving of being reckoned
among the women of great talents, in whom, her understanding all the
languages of every nation subject to the Roman empire, was esteemed an
inferior accomplishment, compared to the great skill and address, which
she displayed in governing the state during the minority of her son
Athalaricus.
XXXVI. Nor, passing over many others, and approaching nearer to our
own times, should we ever forget Elizabeth of England, in whose
composition, the influx of the three Graces concurred equally with
that of the three Furies. Her conduct as a sovereign, would ever
remain the admiration of Europe, if her vices were not so interwoven
with her maxims of government, as to make it impossible to separate
them; and her political image, will ever present itself to posterity,
coloured, or, to speak more properly, stained and blemished with the
blood of the innocent Mary Stewart, queen of Scots. Neither should
we forget Catharine of Medicis, queen of France, whose sagacity in
negotiating and maintaining a balance between the opposite parties of
Calvinists and Catholics, in order to save the crown from a precipice,
resembled the dexterity of a rope-dancer, who, mounted on a cord, by
his ready art and address at poising himself with the weights at the
ends of his poles, secures himself from falling, and delights and
amuses the spectators, by displaying the risque, at the same time that
he dextrously avoids the danger. Our own queen Isabella, would not
have been inferior to any of them in the business of administration
and government, if, instead of a queen consort, she had been a
queen-regent. Under all this disadvantage, when proper occasions
presented themselves, she manifested by her actions, that she was a
woman of consummate prudence and ability; and Lawrance Beyerlink in
his eulogium of her, says, that no great thing was done in her time,
in which she did not assist, or was wholly the author of. _Quid magni
in regno, sine illa, imo nisi per illam ferè gestum est?_ At least the
discovery of the new world, which was an event the most glorious for
Spain that had fallen out in the course of many ages, would certainly
never have been effected or accomplished, but for the magnanimity
of Isabella, who dispelled the fears, and vanquished the sloth of
Ferdinand.
XXXVII. In fine, and what seems to have more weight than all the rest,
it appears to me, although I am not very certain of the computation,
that among the queens who have reigned for any length of time as
absolute sovereigns, the greatest part of them, have been celebrated
in history for excellent governors. But the poor women, are still so
unhappy, as always to have trumped up against this train of illustrious
examples, a Brunequilda, a Fredegunda, the two Joans of Naples, and a
few others; but, by the way, the two first, although they abounded in
mischief, did not want understanding.
XXXVIII. Nor is the world so universally persuaded as some may think,
that a crown does not sit well on the head of a woman, because in an
island or peninsula, which is formed by the Nile in Ethiopia, called
Meroe, women, according to the testimony of Pliny, reigned for many
successive ages. Father Cornelius Alapide, speaking of Saba, who
was one of their queens, supposes, that her empire extended much
beyond the limits of Meroe, and that it might possibly comprehend the
greatest part of Ethiopia, grounding his opinion, upon an expression
of our Saviour, who called her Queen of the South, which words seemed
to imply, that she possessed vast dominions in that quarter. Thomas
Cornelius also tells us, that authors were not wanting, who asserted,
that Meroe was bigger than the island of Great Britain, and, if so, the
territories of those queens were not very confined, though they did not
extend beyond the limits of Meroe. Aristotle (Lib. 2. Polit. Cap. 7.)
says, that among the Lacedemonians, the women had a great share in the
political government; and that their being allowed it, is agreeable to
the laws given them by Licurgus.
XXXIX. In Borneo also, according to the relation of Mandeslo, which
may be seen in the second volume of Olearius, the women reign, and
their husbands enjoy no other privilege, than that of being their most
dignified subjects. In the island of Formosa, situated in the southern
part of the Chinese sea, those idolaters who inhabit it, have such
confidence in the prudent conduct of the women, that the Sacerdotal
function, together with every thing which relates to religious matters,
is confided wholly to them; and that, with regard to politics, they
enjoy a power superior to that of the senators, they being considered
as the interpreters of the will of their deities.
XL. Notwithstanding all this, the ordinary practice of nations is most
conformable to reason, as it corresponds best with the divine decree
notified to our first mother in Paradise, and to all her daughters in
her name, which enjoins a subjection to the men; and we should only
correct the impatience, which many people shew at submitting to female
government, when according to the laws of the land they should obey;
and we should also bridle that extravagant estimation for our own sex,
which carries us such lengths, as to prefer the government of a weak
child, to that of an able and experienced woman. The antient Persians
were drawn by this prepossession to such a ridiculous extreme, that the
widow of one of their princes happening to be left with child at the
death of her husband, and being advised by their magi, that she had
conceived a male, they crowned the belly of the queen, and before it
was born, proclaimed the fœtus king by the name of Sapor.