# Radigund — The Faerie Queene character guide

> Radigund in The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0079-canto-v

## Snapshot

The warrior queen of the Amazons, who defeats Artegall in single combat and forces him to wear women's clothes and spin among her maids.

## Who they are

Radigund rules a city of women who have sworn to subject men to their law, and she meets Artegall — the knight of Justice — in the field and beats him. Rather than kill him she enslaves him, dressing him in feminine garb and setting him to women's work, a reversal that humiliates the very figure of masculine justice. Her reign forces the poem to ask whether justice can be gendered, and her defeat becomes one of Britomart's defining deeds.

## Relationships

### [Sir Artegall](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faerie_queene_se/characters/sir_artegall)

_rivalry_

Radigund, the Amazon queen, defeats and enslaves Sir Artegall, forcing him into submission and creating a dynamic of captor and captive.

## In the story

### [Canto IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faerie_queene_se/chapters/canto-iv)

The Amazon queen who captures and humiliates knights; Artegall vows to challenge her.

### [Canto V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faerie_queene_se/chapters/canto-v)

The Amazon queen who defeats Artegall in battle, imprisons him, and later confesses her love for him to Clarinda.

### [Canto VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faerie_queene_se/chapters/canto-vii)

The proud Amazon queen who enslaved knights; fought and slain by Britomart.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faerie_queene_se/characters/radigund
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faerie_queene_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faerie_queene_se/characters