What queens would England have had if firstborn daughters, not firstborn sons, had inherited the throne?

We may think of princesses as dutiful and elegant, wearing long flowing dresses, but the eldest daughters of England’s kings have been very different. Political intriguers. Abducted nuns who demanded divorces.

Murderers. It’s time we rediscovered the politicians we lost, the masterminds we see negotiating nunneries not armies, the personalities shining brilliantly even hundreds of years later: the queens who should have been. Let’s meet them.