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

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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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#5) Elizabeth I And Robert Dudley Played Flirtation Games To Make Each Other Jealous

  When Elizabeth was unhappy with Robert Dudley, she let him know it. When Elizabeth began flirting with Thomas Heneage, Dudley became jealous and confronted the queen, who dismissed him. In despair, Dudley withdrew for four days. He rebounded though and took up a flirtation of his own, giving attention to Lettice Knollys, a daughter of one of Elizabeth's attendants and her own distant cousin. Elizabeth got so jealous that she flew into "a great temper" at Dudley's perceived betrayal, according to an ambassador from Spain.

  In 1578, Dudley later married Lettice, who had been widowed two years earlier. This was perhaps a reaction to the queen's reassertion that she would never marry, crushing Dudley's hopes of a wedding to his longtime love. After Dudley and Lettice were wed, the latter was banished from court. The queen herself allegedly called her a "she-wolf" and "bad woman." By all accounts, Lettice looked very much like Elizabeth.
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  (#2) Her Step-Uncle, Thomas Seymour, May Have Tried To Take Advantage Of Her When She Was 14

  Elizabeth's relationship with Thomas Seymour, brother to Henry VIII's third wife Jane Seymour, has raised a lot of questions over the years. Seymour was not only Elizabeth's former uncle (Jane Seymour perished soon after giving birth to the future King Edward VI in 1537), but was also married to Henry VIII's widow, Katherine Parr.

  After Elizabeth's father passed away in 1547, Thomas Seymour asked Elizabeth to marry him, although she was only about 14 at the time. Seymour was 25 years older than her and Elizabeth politely declined (there is some speculation that she may have been infatuated with him). He soon became engaged to Katherine Parr, the surviving wife of Henry VIII, with whom he'd previously been involved. Parr and Seymour were married in 1547 and established a household where Elizabeth spent much of her time.

  That didn't last long, however. Seymour would visit Elizabeth's bedchamber early in the mornings, playfully spanking her on "the back or the buttocks" and joking that he should have his way with her. He tried to kiss her and tickled her on different occasions, and while there's no evidence of Elizabeth's reaction, the nature of his relationship with the much younger princess was deemed inappropriate. After a final incident in which Parr found her husband and her step-daughter in an embrace, she sent Elizabeth away to her governess's brother's house in 1548. Elizabeth was secluded there, leading to speculation that she was pregnant with Seymour's child.

  There's some evidence that Seymour's advances were unwanted by Elizabeth. She supposedly wrote, "Thou, touch me not,” then deleted it, and wrote instead, “Let him not touch me," on the outside of a letter she once sent him. 

  Parr passed away in 1548, but it's not known whether her demise factored into Seymour's imprisonment and subsequent execution for treason in 1549 - although his plot to capture King Edward VI didn't help his chances for survival.

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