Queen_Elizabeth_I_and_the_Issues_of_Marriage

Christine Egger Eng. 122 November 23, 2010 Library Research Paper Queen Elizabeth I and Marriage Queen Elizabeth I of England was a monarch beloved by her subjects although she remained a virgin queen. She evaded the issue of marriage and procreation several times. History says that she didn’t care for the idea of spouse and children and was heard to say on a number of occasions that she never wished to marry even though her Privy Council continuously pestered her on the issue. At the age of eight, she told Dudley, her childhood friend and erstwhile suitor, that she would never marry. Why did she forgo the comforts of marriage and why did she remain in a virginal state' Elizabeth was the offspring of Henry Tudor, otherwise known as the notorious Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII had six wives. Catherine of Aragon was his first wife and the mother of a little son Henry who died several days after his birth. Eventually she had a daughter named Mary who ruled before Elizabeth and because she could not give him a living male heir, Henry had his marriage annulled. This also caused his break with the Catholic Church and Rome, because the pope refused to annul his marriage. Anne Boleyn was his second wife. She was one of the great ‘femme’s fatal” of the time (Starkey19). His third wife was Jane Seymour, who died after the birth of their son Edward VI, due to a childbed fever. Anne of Cleves was Henry’s fourth wife. It was not a happy marriage, so after six months, she gave him the divorce he asked for. Katherine Howard was executed and Catherine Parr was lucky enough to outlive him, so you can see that Henry VIII, Elizabeth’s father, was not the greatest example of marital bliss. Elizabeth was born on Sunday, September 7, 1533. Her mother, Anne flew in the face of tradition, choosing to breastfeed Elizabeth until she was old enough to be given her own household in Hatfield House at the age of three months. Elizabeth was the second of Henry’s three living children. Elizabeth was three when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed for treason in 1536 (Weir 12). Later on, her step-mother Katherine Howard, the fifth of Henry’s six wives and a cousin of Anne Boleyn, was executed 1542 in the same manner as her mother. Elizabeth very rarely spoke of her mother, so no one really knows how she felt about this or her father’s part in her mother’s death. The only real mother figure in her life besides her governess, Catherine Champernon, was Catherine Parr the last of Henry’s wives. After Henry’s death in 1547, Catherine Parr married Thomas Seymour, an ambitious, reckless man with little common sense. This lasted until Catherine became pregnant and Seymour’s indecent pursuit of the young adolescent Elizabeth became known (Muhlstein 27). After Catherine’s death in childbirth in 1548, Seymour, who managed to get in good with King Edward VI, Elizabeth’s brother, pursued Elizabeth yet again hoping to marry her secretly and therefore gain the crown. The Privy Council caught on to what he was up to and the end result of this was his summary execution for sedition. Elizabeth, because of her ties with Seymour, was questioned by the council to ascertain her involvement (Hibbert 32-33). Elizabeth was careful to stay aloof of any treasonous plots against Mary’s crown after that. It is possible that the sexual harassment that Seymour inflicted on the fifteen year old Elizabeth, might have soured her on the whole idea of marriage. Elizabeth’s relationship with her father, Henry VIII was complicated, although she was her father’s daughter. To Henry, Elizabeth was a pawn. “Whatever affection Henry may felt for his young daughter, she was primarily a piece to be moved on the political chessboard (Loades 31). After the death of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was in disgrace for being Boleyn’s daughter. For awhile, in the passion of Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour, Elizabeth was forgotten (Starkey 24). Jane however, went out of her way to be kind to the little princess. Once, having displeased her father for an undisclosed infraction, he banned Elizabeth from his presence for a year. This shows how mercurial Henry could be. Elizabeth’s education was not neglected. Under the tutelage of her governess, Kat Ashley, she learned math, history and geography. She also learned traditional female pursuits of sewing, dancing, deportment and riding. She was also taught principles of architecture and fundamentals of astronomy (Hibbert 25-26). Elizabeth was fluent in French, Italian, Spanish and Flemish. She also learned some Welsh as she had a woman in her household from Wales. She could also read, write and speak in Greek and Latin. Some of her notable teachers were John Cox, headmaster of Eton and later the Bishop of Ely. She was also tutored by William Grindal from Cambridge and the celebrated scholar from Cambridge, Robert Ascham (Weir 13). Ascham once said, “The illustrious Lady Elizabeth was his brightest star” (Hibbert 27). Part of her education was reading Cicero, and the tragedies of Sophocles and the orations of Socrates. She even read the New Testament in Greek. She was the equal of any man with her awesome intelligence. Elizabeth learned early on to keep her thoughts to herself and to keep her emotions in hand. She behaved with care in public so that her behavior was above reproach. However, she did not waver in her own personal convictions. Alison Weir, the author of The Life of Elizabeth I, writes: Always dignified and stately in her bearing, she could also be vain, dictatorial temperamental and imperious. Her sense of humor sometimes had a malicious edge to it, and she was capable of making sharp cutting remarks, yet she could be warm and compassionate when occasion demanded, particularly toward the old and sick, the bereaved and those who suffered misfortune. She had courage, both in her convictions and in the face of danger, and was not above metaphorically thumbing her nose at her enemies. Possessing an innate humanity, she was not normally cruel – unlike most rulers of her day – and many regarded her as unusually tolerant in that age of religious dogmatism (17). Elizabeth learned the wiles of the female sex, cleverly using her femininity as leverage. Pointing out her imperfections and even using tears; she also displayed skills most esteemed in men. Weir states, “She had wisdom, common-sense, staying power, tenacity which, along with the ability to compromise, a hard-headed sense of realism, and a devious, subtle mind” (Weir 17). Elizabeth ascended the throne on the death of her half sister, Mary Tudor in November of 1558. She was twenty-five at this time. She immediately put into place her choices on the council, most notably, William Cecil, her private secretary. Almost immediately her council was urging her to marry and marry quickly. Elizabeth was not of a mind for a quick marriage. Elizabeth had several suitors for her hand in marriage, most notably Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who as mentioned before, was a childhood friend. They were both prisoners in the Tower of London at the same time. Both were also avid hunters and riders. Dudley was a handsome, aspiring man, who attained status as “The Queen’s Favorite”. In fact they were carrying on to the point where it was almost scandalous. The only thing that kept Dudley from marrying the Queen was the fact he already had a wife, Amy Robsart and the suspicious circumstance of her death. An inquiry into her death however cleared Dudley. According to the website, Queen Elizabeth I: The immediate supposition after her death that Dudley murdered Amy so he could marry the Queen does not make any sense. There were only three conclusions to draw – first, that Amy knowing her own condition was depressed and angry at her husband; therefore she took her own life in an attempt to end her suffering and Dudley’s hopes to be king. Second, that one of Dudley’s enemies had murdered Amy in an attempt to discredit him and make marriage with the Queen impossible. Or third, that nothing so nefarious occurred and her death was completely accidental; she simply fell while walking down the stairs. On Elizabeth’s side, according to Weir, Dudley had one chief benefit that none of her other suitor’s had – he was already married to someone else. “She, [Elizabeth], could enjoy all the advantages of male companionship without having to commit herself either to marriage, the loss of her independence or the surrender of her body,” says Weir (73). Even after it became clear to Dudley that Elizabeth would never marry him, they still maintained deep bonds of devotion and loyalty that would never be broken. Weir records this thought in Elizabeth’s biography, “Elizabeth and Leicester behaved in fact like a long-married couple, sharing interests and offering each other affection and support” (289). Another of Elizabeth’s suitor’s was Archduke Charles of Austria, the third son of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand (Doran 73). Elizabeth was doing her best to keep religious unrest down to a minimum by taking a middle road between the Catholic and Protestants, Archduke Charles did not fit well. He was also misrepresented as being flexible in his views of Protestantism. That didn’t turn out to be the case, Charles was a staunch Catholic and his father, the Emperor Ferdinand didn’t want to marry Charles to a Protestant (Doran 74). Katherine Culbertson writes in Elizabeth I: The Most Elusive Bride in History, “Elizabeth knew that marriage to the Archduke would further split a nation already divided on the merits of the union.” In any case, Elizabeth was using the marriage negotiations to keep Phillip II of Spain and the French guessing as to her intent, while avoiding war. Above all, Elizabeth wanted to stay out of the religious wars plaguing Europe. Another of her major suitors was the French Duke of Alencon. These negotiations were entered into to form an alliance with the French against the Spanish. Alencon was said to be smart, witty, and unlike his brother, one of Elizabeth’s former suitors, not a steadfast Catholic. William Cecil, who had been elevated to Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s chief councilor, endorsed the match (Hibbert 191-2). Elizabeth’s English subjects were against the match because Alencon was Catholic and was sad to be immoral. It was rumored that the Guise family from which Alencon descended was riddled with syphilis. The English people thought that their Queen could do much better on the marriage market than Alencon. There was also a deep distrust of the French and Catholics in particular. The Council itself was deeply divided on the issue of a French marriage for their Queen. Finally it was recommended that the Queen should turn down Alencon’s offer of marriage because of strong opposition to the marriage (Hibbert 198). Elizabeth told the French commission that a formal alliance was agreeable to her and the Privy Council without the need for binding it with marriage. This came to no surprise to Phillip II as he had always known how these negotiations would turn out, having known the Queen for many years. The Queen considered all of her options, but never committed to any (Elizabeth I). Elizabeth’s final suitor was Robert Devereux the Earl of Essex. He was the step-son of Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s long-time friend and beau, and Lettice Knollys, the Queen’s cousin who earned the Queen’s ire by marrying Dudley in a secret ceremony. Elizabeth never thought of marrying Essex but he captured her interest none the less. “He was undoubtedly highly intelligent and articulate, and it was probably his aptitude for uninhibited intellectual conversation that was one of his main attractions for Elizabeth,” writes David Loades, in his book, Elizabeth I. Loades also writes of Devereux’s character: In truth Essex was a deeply flawed character, lacking the substance that Robert Dudley had had, even as a young man. He was both proud and vain: proud of his ancient lineage and vain of his talents. He accepted his success with the Queen as a kind of birthright, and believed that he had the capacity to be a great soldier and statesman. He was also a slave to passionate emotions that he could neither control nor conceal. He made all the mistakes which an impulsive young man could be expected to make, but never learned from them; always choosing to regard the adverse reactions which he evoked as evidence of a deep-laid personal conspiracy against him (259). He quarreled openly with Elizabeth, storming out of court and sulking. Sometimes Elizabeth let him sulk and other times summoned him back to court. His big mistake was thinking he could manipulate Elizabeth at will. He also sadly underestimated Elizabeth on the point of letting him gain any power. He was becoming more paranoid, blaming all his failures on William and Robert Cecil. The coup de grace was backing a seditious plot against the Queen and assembling a mob to overthrow said Queen. There was no explaining his way out of this one. He was arrested for high treason and executed. Some of Elizabeth’s lesser suitors included the very persistent King Erik of Sweden and the Duke of Alecon’s brother the Duke of Anjou. King Erik was madly in love with Elizabeth even though she made it crystal clear she wasn’t in the least bit attracted to him. Marriage negotiations to Anjou were another ploy to ally France and England against Spain. King Phillip II of Spain presented himself as a suitor reluctantly after his period of mourning to Mary Tudor. It was decided as he had been wedded to Elizabeth’s sister Mary, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to wed Elizabeth. Elizabeth for her part wasn’t impressed with him. Elizabeth’s father Henry VIII tried to broker political marriages for Elizabeth too: When she was sixteen months old in January 1535, he opened discussions for her marriage with the Duke of Angouleme, the third son of Francis I, in order to foster a closer alliance with France (Doran 13). Francis was agreeable to the marriage because he recognized Henry’s second marriage to Anne Boleyn as a legal union. However, there were several items of contention. One was that Henry wanted a public statement of Francis I’s support of the Boleyn marriage, and the second was he wanted Angouleme to be educated in England until the ceremony of espousal was completed. The third matter of contention was that Francis wanted, as a part of Elizabeth’s dowry, to put an end to the monies paid to the English monarchy as a pension from the French. Elizabeth felt that marriage and the succession was really not anyone’s business but her own but she also didn’t want to be at odds with Parliament. She used evasion as her favorite way of dealing with marriage negotiations. Katherine Culbertson, author of Elizabeth I: The Most Elusive Bride in History, says this: Bluffing was indeed Elizabeth’s favorite tactic. Courtship, and all the manipulation and wiles it entailed, brought her greater gains than its end, marriage. Knowing that, in feigning indecision, she lured suitors who believed they could prey on that indecision and win her over, thereby inviting a multitude of courtships, but no marriages. Many didn’t believe that she would remain unmarried. They believed that it was a necessity for her to marry. Marriage would be three-fold, it would alleviate her of the burdens of ruling alone and provide an heir to carry on the Tudor line and thirdly, husband and children would provide the glorification, she was entitled to (Tesdal). Being a female monarch in the sixteenth century wasn’t a widely accepted thing. Women were considered the weaker sex and not fit to rule in their own right. Besides Elizabeth, there was only two other female monarchs which were Catherine de Medici of France and Queen Christina of Sweden. All of these women ruled in their own right, but only Elizabeth and Christina remained virgin and unwed. Luke Tesdal writes in his paper, The Rhetoric of Mortality: Elizabeth’s Use of Death: Lacking gendered authority of her late father, Elizabeth could not force obedience or ignore male counsel: her gender did not immediately allow for political dominance even if her desires were expressed in the appropriate modes. While she invoked her femininity at times to demonstrate her motherly love for her people and other related applications, it was not directly her most powerful or fundamental trope. Further, he writes that men have the power of life and death over the women: “Husbands could beat their wives for disobedience and, in some cases, kill them if they suspected adultery or infanticide” (Tesdal). Her father, Henry VIII’s track record with his wives did nothing to improve Elizabeth’s fear of domination; the women in his household lived or died at his whim. Women in this period were replaceable; their principle purpose was procreation, preferably male children to carry on the succession, although female children could be bartered in the marriage market for a match that would work to the family’s advantage. Elizabeth made herself accessible to her subjects. Her progresses through the realm were primarily the way she was able to be in contact with her people. Their loyalty to her was the backbone and safeguard of her reign. According to Christopher Hibbert in his book, The Virgin Queen Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age, “She seems to have behaved on these occasions with a nicely calculated mixture of regal condescension, good humor and dignified approachability … taking a mayor or alderman aside to flatter him by a private word, going out of her way to talk to people in the crowd, sometimes entering a house to accept a drink or a piece of cake, making sure that if any accident occurred the sufferers were compensated and her generosity made known” (136-137). She distributed alms to the poor and generally did things to help those in need. Thus, Elizabeth kept the welfare of her people first and foremost. The subject of marriage for Elizabeth was a sore one. “The new queen always had a low opinion of marital happiness, and saw little reason to change her mind” (Elizabeth I: Biography). The difficulties in finding a suitable husband were legion: A foreign match would have dragged England into the morass of European politics, with possibly the same disastrous results of Mary’s marriage. But marriage to an Englishman would have given too much power to one political faction or the other (Elizabeth I: Biography). Elizabeth’s aversion to marriage became a wise political move on her part. Her hesitance to undertake marriage was talked about endlessly by her council, much to her dismay. None of them ever thought that maybe a woman of her intelligence and independence would eschew marriage. There was no thought whatsoever that maybe she would rather remain a virgin and single than give up the freedom so dear to her rather than enter into a marriage, which was considered the norm for women. Hibbert writes that, “Some said that the Queen would brook no master, relishing as she did the exercise of her sole authority; others that so long as she had no husband she could use the possibility of taking one in diplomatic maneuvers…” (Hibbert 78). The question of Elizabeth being capable of bearing children as one reason she never married. No one has been able to prove the truth of this. “Elizabeth was a healthy, robust woman who long retained her youthful looks” (Muhlstein 221). Good money was paid to the laundry ladies for information about the regularity of her menstrual periods by foreign officials. She must have had some fear of child birth, as her step-mother Catherine Parr died from a fever, less than two weeks after giving birth. Elizabeth understood that she could die delivering a child for her husband or she could die by her husband’s hand if he so chose. Her attitude on childbirth, writes Tesdal was this: She acknowledged the danger to herself and said she was willing to marry when the time is right, but behind the more pleasant veneer lay the same message: pregnancy is life-threatening and marriage is one step away; she would risk neither unless absolutely imperative. The mortality rates in the sixteenth century were high. Not only did Catherine Parr die from fever after childbirth, so did Jane Seymour, another of Henry’s wives, and her grandmother, Elizabeth of York. The Queen’s physician, Dr. Huick, succeeded in scaring her altogether by telling her that childbirth might not be easy for her (Weir 47). Young brides in this time period could marry, have a child and be dead within a year. Elizabeth, in many biographies is accused of being irresolute. Her very indecisiveness is what saved her from being pushed into a marriage that she didn’t want. “But if she was really that indecisive, she would have followed the line of least resistance: fudged her religious settlement to have retained most of the ‘old religion’, held back from Scotland; and probably, sacrificed Cecil to the indignation which his actions over the ‘Spanish’ treasured had aroused”, writes Loades (178). This shows that Elizabeth had a cunning mind when it came to political maneuvering. Although, no one can say for sure what exactly was in Elizabeth’s heart when it came to the subject of marriage. The men in her life left her with a negative connotation of matrimony, beginning with her father, Henry VIII and continuing with the experience of being molested by Seymour. Some of her suitors had some serious personality flaws and were weak in character. One might deduce that she never had a relationship with any man that she felt comfortable with as a consort. Elizabeth placed a great deal of importance on improving the life of her subjects. She became an exemplary monarch bringing her country out of debt and out from the shadow of religious wars and in to the Golden Age, truly, she was beloved by her people. Elizabeth would not gamble her country or her people’s welfare by sharing her monarchy with those who were not worthy of that position. In her entire life, Elizabeth never had a personal alliance with anyone that satisfied her personal needs and her desire for being a good monarch. Indeed, one would also wonder whether a man would be pursuing her for love or for the power and prestige being the royal consort would bring. Count de Feria, minister to Phillip II of Spain, once said of Elizabeth: “She is very much wedded to her people”, and so she was (Culbertson). Elizabeth placed a greater value on the lives of her subjects, than on her need for a martial partner. Works Cited Culbertson, Katherine E. “Elizabeth I: The Most Elusive Bride in History”. Hanover College. nd. Web. 10 October, 2010. Doran, Susan. “Monarchy and Matrimony, the Courtships of Elizabeth I”. New York: Rutledge. 1996. Print. “Queen Elizabeth I”. Queen Elizabeth I: Biography, Portraits, Primary Sources. Web. 10 October, 2010. Hibbert, Christopher. “The Virgin Queen Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age”. Reading: Perseus. 1991. Print. Loades, David. “Elizabeth I”. New York: Hambledon and London. 2003. Print. Muhlstein, Anka. “Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart the Perils of Marriage”. Trans. John Brownjohn. Great Britain: Haus. 2007. Print Starkey, David. “Elizabeth. The Struggle for the Throne”. New York: Harper Collins.2001. Print. Tesdal, Luke. “The Rhetoric of Mortality: Elizabeth I’s Use of Death” .Early English Studies. Vol. 1. University of Texas – Arlington. 2008. Web. 15 October, 2010. Weir, Alison. “The Life of Elizabeth I”. New York: Ballantine. 1998. Print.