FOR ALL OF the available scholarship on Mary and Elizabeth, there is surprisingly little on them as princesses apart from their educations, and there is no one study that examines their joint experiences as princesses without exploring it from the angle of either their father or one of their mothers. This chapter turns to the traditional offering of book and manuscript dedications to Mary and Elizabeth before they became queens to examine what kinds of books the sisters received and how dedicators perceived them as princesses and demoted royal ladies. It will also serve as contextualization for the later discussion of Elizabeth's own dedications to her family members in the third chapter. This chapter suggests book and manuscript dedications as a new avenue for comparing the sister princesses and offers insight as to how each of these women were treated as daughters of the king, potential heirs to the throne, and disinherited ladies. Specifically, this chapter covers the periodicity of the dedicated books and manuscripts, the type of books dedicated to the sisters, and finally how dedicators perceived the sisters’ importance within the royal family. I suggest that prior to their accessions, dedicators perceived Mary and Elizabeth very differently, with Mary assumed to have influence at court and means to give patronage, while Elizabeth was perceived to be irrelevant to court politics and have little or no patronage power.

Dedication Dating

Over the course of their lifetimes, Mary and Elizabeth received over 250 manuscript and printed book dedications. Before Mary became queen she received nineteen total dedications (eight print and eleven manuscript), many more so than each of her royal siblings received, with Edward receiving five and Elizabeth receiving seven (four print and three manuscript). Most likely this is because Mary did not inherit the throne until she was thirty-seven, compared to Edward being nine and Elizabeth being twenty-five. Yet age was not the only factor. Not only was Mary the elder daughter, but she was also generally considered to be more legitimate than Elizabeth because of the reputations of their respective mothers. Over the course of her lifetime Mary was also a princess and disinherited, but she was still considered to be the rightful heir for most Catholics, so she received much more attention than Elizabeth.