This study does not argue that any one premodern European woman of power and influence constitutes an exception—“a great woman of history”; nor indeed that her political and diplomatic agency represents some form of premodern female exceptionalism. Instead, it advances the idea that “good mother wit” and political acuity, nurtured by targeted early education from within domestic households, were essential ingredients in successful female political and diplomatic agency; an agency substantially underwritten by a cultivated ability to form and nourish strategically solid networks. Successful political and diplomatic agency relied significantly upon early education within households as well as models of gendered power developed and exercised within cognizant natal households and courts. The appearance of conduct books—mirrors or specula—some penned by women for women and observable examples and templates to emulate were provided to young people by male and female relatives and mentors.