This collection examines the afterlives of early modern English and French rulers. Spanning five centuries of cultural memory, the volume offers case studies of how kings and queens were remembered, represented, and reincarnated in a wide range of sources, from contemporary pageants, plays, and visual art to twenty-first-century television, and from premodern fiction to manga and romance novels. With essays on well-known figures such as Elizabeth I and Marie Antoinette as well as lesser-known monarchs such as Francis II of France and Mary Tudor, Queen of France, Remembering Queens and Kings of Early Modern England and France brings together reflections on how rulers live on in collective memory.

Considers how early modern rulers have been remembered and reimagined in literature and popular culture

1. Introduction: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Power of Memory.- Part I Reputation in Premodern Literature.- 2. Boudicca and Elizabeth Rally Their Troops: "Two Queens Both Alike in Dignity".- 3. Princess, Duchess, Queen: Mary Tudor As Represented in a Seventeenth-Century French Love Story.- 4. Virtue Betray'd: Women Writing Anne Boleyn in the Long Eighteenth Century.- 5. "Of Hopes Great as Himselfe:" Tudor and Stuart Legacies of Edward VI.- 6. Chivalry, Nobility, and Romance: Richard Hurd and the Ideal Elizabethan Past.- Part II Reinterpretation in Art.- 7. Charles IX of France or the Anti-King: His Legacy in Plays and Chronicles in Seventeenth- and Long Eighteenth-Century France.- 8. Remembering-and Forgetting-Regicide: The Commemoration of the 30th January, 1649-1660.- 9. Henrietta Maria, "Queen of Tears"?: Picturing and Performing the Cavalier Queen.- 10. Romantic Recreations: Remembering Stuart Monarchy in Nineteenth-Century Fancy Dress Entertainments.- Part III Reincarnation in Popular Culture.- 11. She-Wolf or Feminist Heroine? Representations of Margaret of Anjou in Modern History and Literature.- 12. Reincarnating the Forgotten Francis II: From Puerile Pubescent to Heroic Heartthrob.- 13. Daenerys Targaryen as Queen Elizabeth I's Spiritual Daughter.- 14. 50 Shades of Elizabeth; or, "Doing History" in Pop Fiction.- 15. Conniving Queen, Frivolous Wife, or Romantic Heroine? The Afterlife of Queen Henrietta Maria.- 16. "Let them eat cake, she says": Assessing Marie-Antoinette's Image.