Visualizing the executions of British queens in early modern Europe

Abstract The executions of British queens between 1536 and 1587 were sensational news events, both in the British Isles and on the Continent, and were visually represented in woodcuts, engravings and paintings well into the following century. While several of the sources that are examined in this article have been extensively studied by scholars, others remain understudied or ignored, which is surprising in view of the rich interdisciplinary potential of the subject: such visual representations appeared in a broad corpus of literary and historical sources that crossed national boundaries. Visual representations are a critical source for scholars not only on account of their insights into the ways in which artists creatively imagined the executions but because of the role they are likely to have played in disseminating knowledge of these shocking events to audiences both at home and abroad.