Random Things Of Queen Elizabeth I's Personal Life That Was So Intense (13 items)

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  (#4) Elizabeth May Have Equated Sexuality With Death

  Elizabeth's mother was beheaded by her father on trumped up charges of adultery, and she saw subsequent step-mothers suffer through similar experiences. As historian Allison Weir noted, she may have had a "mental aversion" to sexuality as a whole.

  The pain of childbirth alone may have been enough to prevent her from engaging in intercourse, especially since it could be life-threatening to the monarch. Avoiding marriage and avoiding pregnancy could do wonders for prolonging a woman's life during the Tudor period. Elizabeth's step-mother Jane Seymour perished soon after giving birth, as did Katherine Parr.
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  (#1) She Had A Longtime 'Friendship' With Robert Dudley That May Have Produced A Love Child

  Princess Elizabeth found great comfort in her friendship with Robert Dudley, the son of the Duke of Northumberland. The two were companions and shared a bond that only intensified when they were both imprisoned in the Tower of London by the newly installed Queen Mary in 1553. Elizabeth and Dudley spent so much time together that there was speculation about them being lovers, even though Elizabeth swore that while she loved him, "nothing unseemly had ever passed between" the pair.

  The uncertainty of Elizabeth and Dudley's relationship, especially after she became queen in 1558, only fed into the rumors about the couple. A young man named Arthur appeared in Madrid in 1587 and claimed to be the love child of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, furthering the intrigue. Arthur Dudley claimed that after his birth in 1561, he was taken into the care of Robert Southern, who raised him as his own. Arthur said he did not learn about his true parentage until 1583, when Southern confessed to his adopted son on his deathbed.

  The timing of Arthur's birth, estimated to be around 1561, coincided with a period in Elizabeth's life when she was ill and removed from the public eye. At least one person claimed Elizabeth was "swelling extraordinarily" around this time.

  At the time, Dudley was engaged in a controversy of his own - his wife, Amy Robsart, perished under suspicious circumstances in 1560. One of the arguments in support of the idea that Arthur was Elizabeth and Dudley's child is that he had no reason to lie. His admission only made his life more dangerous. An argument against the notion of a secret love child is that Elizabeth would not have been able to hide a pregnancy from all of her companions, courtiers, and attendants.
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  (#6) Elizabeth Announced She Would Marry The Duc D'Anjou But Changed Her Mind Literally Overnight

  One of Elizabeth's last serious considerations for a possible husband was Francois, Duc d'Anjou. In 1578, 10 years after the Netherlands revolted against Spain, Elizabeth was looking to find ways to continue her support to the Protestant cause but also wanted to prevent France from taking the Netherlands as their own in the aftermath. One option was to bring France into a matrimonial agreement that would prevent them from intervening, so she sought a marriage to Francois, brother to French King Henry III. 

  Elizabeth reached out to Francois and negotiations were conducted between the late 1570s and early 1580s. Elizabeth was in her 40s. Francois was only 23 years old, but he visited London at least twice in order to win over the queen. They exchanged letters for years and there seems to have been affection between them. She called him her "frog" - testament to his Frenchness - but there was resistance within England for her to marry a Catholic outsider. 

  When Francois visited London in 1581, Elizabeth met with her future husband and declared publicly that she would marry him. She gave him her ring, kissed him on the mouth, and gave every indication that she would finally go through with a betrothal. The next day, however, after apparently having second thoughts, she made another announcement - that the marriage would not take place.
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  (#10) Elizabeth Announced On Numerous Occasions That She Would Never Marry

  Elizabeth supposedly told Robert Dudley when she was just 8 years old that she would never get married. She had just seen her third step-mother, Catherine Howard, executed. Given that and what had happened to her mother, Anne Boleyn - the "whore" who brought about the end of her father's first marriage and led to a break with the Catholic Church - Elizabeth probably didn't have a lot of warm feelings toward the institution. Her own legitimacy was canceled out after her mother's passing, again skewing her views on marriage and family.

  Elizabeth was surrounded by marriages that were political in nature, strategic, and managed through manipulation and fatality. The continued pressure she felt to get married - before becoming queen and most definitely after she took the throne - led to her playing the game, entering into marriage discussions on numerous occasions, but she most likely intended to stand by her earlier assertion. In 1559, she told Parliament that her mind was made up and famously announced that she was, in fact, married to England:

  Concerning Marriage, which ye so earnestly move me to, I have been long since perswaded, that I was sent into this world by God to think and doe those things chiefly which may tend to his Glory. Hereupon have I chosen that kind of life which is most free from the troublesome Cares of this world, that I might attend the Service of God alone. From which if either the tendred Marriages of most Potent Princes, or the danger of Death intended against me, could have removed me, I had long agone enjoyed the honour of an Husband. And these things have I thought upon when I was a private person. But now that the publick Care of governing the Kingdom is laid upon me, to draw upon me also the Cares of Marriage may seem a point of inconsiderate Folly. Yea, to satisfie you, I have already joyned my self in Marriage to an Husband, namely, the Kingdom of England.
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  (#8) Elizabeth Pretended To Consider Marrying Phillip II Of Spain Just To Negotiate A Peace Treaty

  Elizabeth's former brother-in-law, Philip II of Spain, proposed to her in 1559. When Philip was married to Elizabeth's sister, Queen Mary, in 1554, the Catholic alliance between the two countries unified the two kingdoms in combating Protestantism in Europe; however, the marriage never produced an heir. Philip was over a decade younger than his bride and spent very little time in England while Mary was desperate for her husband's affection and for a child but was prone to phantom pregnancies.

  Mary passed away in 1558, at which time her Protestant sister Elizabeth became queen of England. This precarious situation left Spain vulnerable. Philip, who in 1555 became king of Spain, the Netherlands, and all of Spain's holdings in Italy and the Americas, wanted to remain close to England. Philip asked Elizabeth to marry him, hoping to bring her into the Catholic fold while simultaneously forming an alliance against France, and she took her time considering his offer. She used the possibility of an alliance with Spain to negotiate a peace treaty with France and to keep Catholics in England pacified long enough to move forward with her religious reforms. Ultimately, she refused his proposal, arguing that she could not marry her sister's widower nor could she return England to Catholicism.
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  (#9) She Entertained A Proposal From Charles Of Austria To Placate Parliament

  The issue of succession was always a concern when it came to Elizabeth and her unmarried status. Parliament was particularly concerned that Elizabeth did not have an heir and, upon her passing, the throne would be in the hands of her Scottish kinsman, James. As a result of the pressure Parliament, European leaders, and society put on her, the queen did her best to consider - or at least pretend to consider - marriage proposals when they arrived.

  One of the many proposals she received came from Archduke Charles of Austria in 1563. She even sent negotiators to Vienna to discuss a marriage agreement after both the House of Lords and the House of Commons entreated her to marry him. Elizabeth's men reported back to her that Charles was not deformed - she'd heard from French diplomats seeking to undercut the alliance that he was - but that he wanted her to pay his expenses and provide her own dowry. Elizabeth considered the demands, but once Charles demanded to be king of England, she rejected the match. The whole process lasted three years, and when all was said and done, one of Charles of Austria's negotiators commented that the queen was so cunning and difficult that she "must have a hundred thousand devils in her body."

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