'Richt honorabill' ladies: Noble Power and Aristocratic Women in Sixteenth-Century Scotland.

This essay began as a talk given in October 2023 to inaugurate an annual public lecture in honour of Jenny Wormald. It takes its inspiration from her work on noble power, re-examining how noblewomen in sixteenth-century Scotland employed that power. Visual and cultural evidence has been prioritised in the essay which is organised around two settings: the royal court and noble country seats. As the Stirling Heads show, noblewomen formed part of the public face of the Scottish court. They also exploited their right of access to the monarch to further their own and family interests. The arrival of renaissance country houses expanded noblewomen's central duty of running their residences, sometimes including managing the family estates. 'Holding hous' required the provision of hospitality and of the new country-house culture. Noblewomen formed a vital communication system linking the regions to the capital and court. Their informal networks helped negotiate the inter-relationships of birth and marital kindreds, of friendships and alliances. The female contribution to the success of noble families suggests a broader definition of Scottish noble power is required. Further exploration might also place that experience within the European context of the development of aristocratic elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]