Elizabeth I of England: Died a Virgin (or Did She?)

 

 

If you think you're gonna die a virgin, don't feel bad. Over the history of mankind, many great figures have died virgins. Such as Lewis Carroll, who wrote the Alice books (Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass), and Queen Elizabeth I of England.

At least rumor has it so. Nevertheless, virgin or not, no one can deny that Elizabeth Tudor was the greatest English monarch of all times (girl power, yay). Her reign came to be known as the Elizabethan Age.

Liz was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. A girl with daddy issues. She was a toddler when, in 1536, her father ordered that her mother was executed, on charges of adultery and other stuff (more about that story HERE).

Of course, Elizabeth's daddy issues did not stem from something as trivial as him having killed her mother. What really annoyed Little Liz was the fact that, soon after the execution, Henry went like, 'And now, annul my marriage with that dead bitch and declare our daughter illegitimate.'

The members of the Parliament went like, 'Wait, if your marriage is annulled, doesn't that render the charges of adultery which Anne was beheaded on invalid? I mean, the gal could not cheat on you if you two were not married to begin with.'

Henry glared at them, causing them to gulp. 'Who's the boss here, sweethearts?'

And so, poor Little Liz was declared illegitimate and lost her status as a princess.

'Welcome to the club, girl,' her older sister, Mary (who also had been declared illegitimate, when Henry's marriage with his first wife was annulled), lovingly consoled her.

A child prodigy, Little Liz learnt eight (!) languages: French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish and Irish.

And when our little child prodigy was not busy learning languages, she was busy being sexually harassed by her stepfather, Thomas Seymour, who was married to Catherine Parr, the last of King Henry's six wives. Surprisingly, Cathy often participated in the harassment! Until, one day, she decided that she wanted a relationship with her husband more traditional and less like the stories I write on Fanfiction Net when I'm bored, so she gave Little Liz the boot.

How far Seymour's advances went, we'll never know (though, for the record, the 14 year old Liz showed signs of pregnancy soon after she was banished from the Seymours' household). In any case, it is understandable that Elizabeth grew disgusted with any kind of sexual activity after that and decided to remain a virgin (or a born again virgin) for life.

However, Thomas wasn't just a creepy perv. He was also ambitious like hell. In fact, even after the above incidents with Elizabeth, he kept plotting to marry her, not only to ensure that there was a fresh, youthful pussy around for him to screw (especially since the provider of the old pussy, Catherine, conveniently died after childbirth), but also to eventually become the King of England. 

When, in 1549, Thomas was arrested on suspicion of trying to take his brother's place as the Lord Protector (King Edward VI was underage), Elizabeth was a suspect as well. And even though the interrogators believed she was involved in the scheme, nothing could be proven about her, so poor Thomas was the only one to lose his head. (Am I the only one who believes that Liz somehow trapped him to get back at him for the harassment?)

Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England in 1558, when her sister, Queen Mary, died.

Having been oppressed by Bloody Mary for years, the people of England had high expectations and hopes for the new queen, which Elizabeth fulfilled when, with the Act of Uniformity 1558, she went like, 'People of England, you have suffered enough in the hands of that narrow minded bitch who forced you to be Catholics. I'm way more progressive and open minded than her. No more oppression! From now on, no one is gonna force you to be Catholics anymore. From now on, you are forced to be Protestants and whoever does not attend Mass will be fined!'

 

An interesting theory, which Elizabeth used to her advantage, was the 'King's Two Bodies', according to which a monarch has two bodies, a physical one and an incorruptible, politic body. Therefore, it didn't matter that Elizabeth was a woman, because her politic body was... umm... dunno, genderless? Don't try to make any sense out of this! 😅

An outstanding issue during the whole reign of Elizabeth I was that of succession. Her advisors were worried about that and pressed her to marry. 'Okay, Your Majesty, you want to remain celibate for life because your stepfather abused you and all. But what about your subjects? What will happen to those poor people when your physical body and your politic body inevitably part ways? Who will keep forcing them to be Protestants and threatening to fine them unless they go to church once a week? Have you never thought about that? Besides, you need military allies against stronger nations.'

And yet, Elizabeth managed to turn even that issue to her advantage, often pretending to be on the verge of giving in to the pressure of one suitor or another, only to give them the middle finger in the end, turning one suitor against the other, thus forming alliances, keeping her kingdom safe from invasions and, most importantly, ensuring her place as the one and only sovereign of the country.

It is said that the only man she ever loved was her childhood friend, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

One of Her Majesty's greatest achievements was the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

You see, by that time, King Philip II of Spain had grown understandably annoyed at Elizabeth's habit of helping with the Dutch Revolt. He sent her an ultimatum, to which Liz responded in Latin, 'Ad graecas, bone rex, fient mandata calendas,' which, more or less, means, 'Fuck off, dude.'

Philip attempted to invade England, but it didn't go that well!

The Elizabethan Era was characterized by peace, prosperity and flourishing arts. That was the era when William Shakespeare wrote his plays (supposing he existed and he was not a transvestite or something, that is).

After her death, in 1603, Elizabeth was succeeded by James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. The dying queen had seemed cool with the prospect of him succeeding her. I mean, he was related to the Tudors (great grandson of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's sister), he was a Protestant and it sure didn't hurt that he had shown no hard feelings when Elizabeth beheaded his mother, Mary Stuart (more about that story HERE).

Anyway, that's all for today. Till next time, don't forget to buy my novels on Amazon (author page HERE) and share my novels/blog posts on social media.

PS- And now, some bad news. Unfortunately, I don't think that I'll be able to post again anytime soon. You see, I'll take my laptop for service this week, because there is a problem with the battery, which means I'll stay laptopless (wait, is this a word I made?) for a few days. Pass the time with my novels till the next time I'm back. 

See you next time!