This historiographical review surveys studies by cultural historians of images of monarchs, including Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles I, and Victoria. These are not biographies, but analyses of the diverse and often contradictory representations of monarchs in their own times and afterwards. The review considers the variety of approaches in the field, from iconographical decoding to political history to the application of psychoanalysis to a national culture. It discusses the extent to which queens tend to be conflated to an enduring model of idealized femininity; how seriously we should take representations of monarchs as sacred; and the incorporation of sexuality in the royal image. It considers resistance as well as assent to the royal image, and how far the royal image as art object can become detached from the ideology which produced it. It concludes by observing our mixed motivations for interest in past ‘cults’ of monarchs, seeking in them at once the exotic difference of the past and comparisons with public figures of our own time.