SOURCE: Jankowski, Theodora A. “‘As I Am Egypt's Queen’: Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, and the Female Body Politic.” In Assays: Critical Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Texts, Vol. V, edited by Peggy A. Knapp, pp. 91-110. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Jankowski identifies the similarities and differences between Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare's Cleopatra, and notes that although both women used their bodies for political purposes, Cleopatra should not be viewed as a direct allegorization of Elizabeth. Jankowski also claims that the parity between the two women reveals Shakespeare's interest in the difficulties Elizabeth faced as a woman attempting to be an effective ruler in patriarchal England.

In his 1558 pamphlet, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, John Knox argued that no woman could be a sovereign ruler because

the immutable decree of God … hath subiected her to one membre of...