Are there any examples in recorded history dating back to ancient times of a Queen wresting control of a kingdom from her husband (the king) either by regicide (killing the king) or otherwise?
Throughout history did Queens ever co-rule with their husbands with equal power and say so?
William and Mary of Britain pretty much co-ruled. Given the ordinary everyday sexism of the era, Mary probably didn’t rule equally, but at least nominally, she was a reigning queen.
That’s the first example that comes to mind… I’m sure there are plenty of others!
Catherine the Great started out in life as a simple Prussian princess who, at the tender age of 16, was married to the heir to the Russian throne. In due course she became Empress (as the wife of the Emperor Peter III). After a few months she organised a coup in which her husband was killed, after which she reigned as Empress for 34 years.
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were another famous example. Spain had been divided up in separate kingdoms. Ferdinand was the heir to the Kingdom of Aragon and Isabella was the heir to the Kingdom of Castile. Their marriage was intended to unite the two kingdoms.
A famous example would be Isabella of France, who was effective co-ruler of England.
Isabella was the daughter of King Philip IV of France and was married off at a young age to Edward II the King of England. Edward II was not cut out to rule England and his foibles alienated many people and eventually Queen Isabella herself. It has long been rumoured that Edward II was homosexual, and if true that would’ve likely alienated Isabella further.
Isabella became a powerful figure in England, due in part to her powerful relatives on the continent, her position as Queen of England and mother of the Prince of Wales and her own force of personality. Whilst estranged from Edward in France she started an affair with Roger Mortimer, a powerful English rebel Baron who at that time was in exile.
Isabella and Mortimer successfully invaded England and deposed Edward II in favour of his son Edward III. Edward II died in captivity, rumoured to be murdered on the orders Isabella and Mortimer. Isabella became regent for her teenage son and during the regency Isabella and Mortimer were the de facto rulers of England. But this came abruptly to an end when the still young Edward III asserted himself, having Mortimer executed and scaling back his mother’s power and effectively forcing her into retirement.
Edward II has the misfortune of being a poor ruler whose inadequacies history has magnified in that his reign fell between two of the Universally recognized greatest Kings of England (Edward I, his father and Edward III, his son)
But she didn’t gain her position by regicide, and certainly not by her own initiative. Her husband invaded England, on the request of opponents of James II. After James fled, the throne was offered jointly to William and Mary by Parliament. James lived for several years afterwards.
Who did Isabella kill to obtain the throne?
You missed the second question in the OP, in which no killing is involved:
Fair enough. Never mind.
Various rumors suggest that Eddy got it from having, depending on who you believe, either a hot poker or molten lead inserted into his rectum while hung upside down. They supposedly used a funnel to ensure there were no external burn marks visible.
Also…
Empress Matilda (aka Maude) 1102-1167 was the daughter of King Henry, and fought her cousin Stephen of Blois for control of England after her daddy bit the big one with no male heirs. She never actually won outright, but the 30 years of chaos is the backdrop for the novel “Pillars of the Earth”.
She actually passed up on the opportunity to kill Stephen when she managed to capture him once. She traded him for her husband, which lead to her eventual defeat.
Mary, Queen of Scots, wacked her second husband, but he wasn’t king or anything …
<nitpick> Stephen named Matilda’s son as heir … which is what she wanted … and Henry II founded the Plantagenet dynasty … a brilliant win I would say … </nitpick>
She traded him for her half-brother Robert, Earl of Gloucester ( who had been rumored to have been considered a candidate to succeed by his father and others, but his illegitimacy got in the way ). At that point Mathilda’s brief ascendancy was already on the wane as she had been forced out of London by the hostile populace. Robert was her most important and capable adherent and considered vital to upholding her claims, hence the trade. She probably would have had no chance at all in England if Stephen had had a little more political sense. The fact that she didn’t even try contesting the throne by force until a few years into Stephen’s reign when his character flaws had created an opening shows the kind of uphill climb she faced.
Her husband Geoffrey was never captured - he was busy on the mainland conquering Normandy, which he largely succeeded in doing by 1144, a decade before Stephen died. So while Mathilda’s cause floundered in rough stalemate in England for decades, the continental half of her inheritance was secured by her husband far earlier.
Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra was the key power while her husband was alive, and ruled as Regent after his death. She has been implicated in both the assassination of her husband, King Odaenathus, and in the killing of her husband’s assassin, Maeonius.
Several Queens in Britain were more influential than their husbands, e.g. Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI.
Many other famous Queens may not qualify by OP’s criteria but are still worth mention:
Boadicea, widowed Queen of the Iceni, was famous for destroying a huge Roman army.
Mary I of England had Queen Jane, her rival for the throne, killed. Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth I, had Mary Queen of Scots (rightful heir to England given Elizabeth’s illegitimacy) killed.
Gudit is a famous Queen of Ethiopia, perhaps semi-legendary, who secured her throne by killings.
Catherine de’ Medici had no power as wife of France’s King Henry II, but became very influential after his death. She is especially notorious for the Massacre of the Huguenots.
Mary of the William and Mary, Glorious Revolution team was formally co-Sovereign, but in practice she had little interest in being a Queen Regnant and preferred living in her husband’s shadow.
Nefertiti may have ruled as co-pharaoh with her husband during Egypt’s 18th dynasty, and some scholars think she may have ruled briefly as the sole pharaoh after his death (although her entire biography is a matter of intense debate).
The 8th-century Chinese emperor Zhongzong was traditionally said to have been poisoned by his wife, who wanted to be empress in her own right; her reign ended up lasting mere weeks before she was deposed and killed.
In the third century B.C., the Seleucid Laodice apparently murdered her ex-husband the king and his new wife, although she then established her son on the throne rather than taking it herself directly.
Livia, the wife of Augustus Caesar is widely suspected to have killed Augustus by poisoning him and while she was never Queen or empress herself she had immense power during the reign of her son Tiberius.
As portrayed rather famously in the “I Claudius” books and BBC series and also in Colleen McCullough’s “Masters of Rome” series of books.
Catherine was a simple ***Prussian ***princess, born Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. Her marriage was an arrangement between Prussia and Russia, with a side note that her family was also the source of Kings of Sweden.
Byzantine Empress Irene of Athens overthrew her son Constantine VI in 797. On her orders he was blinded and imprisoned, later dying of his wounds. Irene reigned as sole Empress from 797 to 802 when she was deposed in a palace coup by Nicephorus the Logothete.
Is that not what I said?
There is no ‘probably’ about this - the 1689 Bill of Rights made it clear that, ‘the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in and executed by the said prince of Orange in the names of the said prince and princess during their joint lives’. Mary therefore exercised formal political power only when acting in his name when he was out of the country.
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Mary, Queen of Scots, wacked her second husband, but he wasn’t king or anything …
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Actually, Darnley did have the title of King of Scots as Mary’s ‘king consort’.
Francesco, Duke of Cádiz, husband of Isabella II of Spain, similarly had the title of King of Spain.
Catherine I of Russia, wife of Peter the Great, became Empress in her own right after his (natural) death.