Personal life of Elizabeth I Tudor
Elizabeth Tudor
Films, TV series, books - so many things have been filmed and written about Elizabeth Tudor. Her personal life interests the average person even more than her political career. We will talk about the latter in the next article. Today I propose to walk through the personal life of perhaps the most famous virgin in history. stories.
Virgin Queen
The queen's personal life is surrounded by rumors. There is still an opinion that she remained a virgin. This seems to be true, and there are several arguments in favor of it.
Firstly, Elizabeth Tudor forbade embalming her body after death. There is an opinion that she did not want everyone to know about her virginity.
Secondly, the queen may have been afraid of married life. Before her eyes was a vivid example of her father, Henry VIII. The king changed six wives during his life, executed several of them, including Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn. Henry had many women, he cheated on his wives with courtiers. In general, he could not be called an exemplary husband. Although at that time almost all monarchs were famous for their mistresses.
Thirdly, Thomas Seymour, the uncle of her half-brother Edward and the second husband of Catherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, could have provoked an aversion to marriage. Although Elizabeth became very close friends with Katherine, even lived in their house, her relationship with Thomas was strange. It is very likely that Seymour was attracted to the young girl, who was 14 years old at the time. He could come to her room early in the morning when she was wearing only a nightie.
History knows a case when Thomas, Catherine and Elizabeth were together, the couple did not like the girl’s dress, and Thomas cut it with scissors in front of his wife. Elizabeth seemed to be trying to stay aloof, but, according to some sources, the girl liked the flirting. And soon Katherine Parr moved her to another house. After Parr's death, Thomas wooed Elizabeth, but she rejected all proposals, fearing some kind of intrigue. And she turned out to be right - soon Seymour was executed for high treason.
Fourthly, Elizabeth understood that she was not beautiful. The girl suffered from smallpox and began to go bald early, so she wore wigs all her life. Due to her illness, she whitened her face very much, so in portraits she looks as if she was smeared in plaster. Perhaps she had a complex about this, and it seemed to her that no one would love her.
One of the versions is why Elizabeth didn’t get married and didn’t have affairs with men—the norm in England at that time. The Queen adhered to Protestantism, and in this faith the man is always in charge. Elizabeth might have been afraid that she would have to obey a man not only in the family, but also in state affairs.
Although many prominent men of that time wooed her. One of them was Ivan the Terrible. She refused him, but a warm relationship remained between them - he called the queen his sister. She was the only woman with whom he corresponded.
Philip, the ex-husband of her half-sister Mary the Bloody, also asked for Elizabeth’s hand. But he demanded to accept Catholicism, which did not suit the Protestant queen.
As a result, she did not get married.
At her coronation, Elizabeth said:
“My husband is England, my children are subjects.”
Then everyone decided that she was joking. And only then the last of the Tudor dynasty asked that “She lived and died as a queen and a virgin” be written on her tomb.
Elizabeth's only love
Elizabeth is in many ways similar to our Catherine the Great - contemporaries called the reign of both one of the best in the history of their countries, a bright foreign policy, each had faithful assistants, ruled for several decades, there were many favorites. But Catherine was loving, and her favorites were her lovers. Elizabeth liked them, but there was nothing between the queen and them.
Perhaps her only love is Robert Dudley, whom she knew since childhood. There is even an assumption that the Spaniards found a son they had in common with Robert. But it is still unclear whether this is true, or an attempt by the Spanish crown to undermine power in England.
Robert Dudley
She sat in the Tower with Dudley, became very close friends, and fell in love. But there were two reasons why she could not marry this man.
First of all, he was married. Although his wife later died under mysterious circumstances, falling down the stairs. Suspicions of her death fell on Robert, but he was still acquitted. Elizabeth did not dare to marry him because the shadow of this death could fall on her.
Secondly, as we said earlier, among Protestants the man is the head of the family. And Elizabeth didn’t want to let Dudley get ahead of herself. Having ascended the throne, Elizabeth made Robert her groom, then her privy councilor, Earl of Leicester, and presented him with gifts. At the very least, they remained good friends. She once told the ambassador from France:
I can't do without my Lord Robert because he's like my little dog.
Be that as it may, Elizabeth firmly entered world and English history.
Perhaps she remained a virgin, which was unusual for monarchs of that time. No one knows about this for certain. And we, like our contemporaries, directors, historians, can only guess about it.
But I will say for sure that the queen, unlike her father, separated her personal life from politics. Perhaps this is why her reign became one of the most successful in the history of England.
Information