The royal that Jane Austen is most often connected with is the Prince Regent, or the future King George IV, as he requested a copy of her novel for his library. However, there is a different royal from history that Austen much preferred to “Prinny”. 

A fifteen-year-old Austen wrote The History of England in 1791; the satirical history textbook covers England’s monarchs from King Henry IV through to King Charles I. While it does mock the tone that historians would often take in eighteenth century texts, the short text does show off Austen’s detailed knowledge of England’s monarchs. 

However, it is a certain Scottish monarch that clearly takes the top title for Austen- none other than Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Austen frames Queen Elizabeth I as somewhat of a villain- one who had “the peculiar Misfortune… to have bad Ministers” but one who was ultimately responsible for bringing “this amiable Woman to an untimely, unmerited, and scandalous Death.”

The teenaged author not only highlighted Mary’s charming personality but the personal toll that captivity took on her. 

“This betwitching Princess… who was abandoned by her son, confined by her Cousin, abused, reproached and villified by all, what must not her most noble mind have suffered when informed that Elizabeth had given order for Death! Yet she bore it with a most unshaken fortitude; firm in her mind… with a Magnanimity that could alone proceed from conscious Innocence,” Austen wrote.

While the “partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian” admits her bias from the very start, her decision to spend much of Elizabeth I’s words on Mary is a strong choice.