The “Virgin Queen”: why Isabel I of England never wanted to marry

Dudley did not repair expenses. He invested US $ 1,400 per day -Millions in money today -and all extravagance was interpreted as an elaborate and expensive courtship; The equivalent of the 16th -century ruling class to hire an airplane today to wave a banner saying “get on me.”

“The festivities of 1575 were an attempt to court Isabel; marriage is a topic present in some of the acts,” Jeremy Ashbee, head of Conservation of Properties of English Heritage (a charity organization that manages more than 400 monuments, buildings and historical places in England) explains to the BBC.

Dudley's bet seemed to go stern, until everything changed. The culminating point of the stay was going to be a representation- on Wednesday, July 20.

However, it was not celebrated. Did it simply be due to the fact that the bad weather prevented it, according to the official version? Or is it that the monarch learned of the subject and bothered?

The show showed Diana, goddess of chastity, in search of one of her nymph castes, called Zabetta, a version of the name of Isabel.

He concluded with a messenger from Juno, a goddess of marriage, directing Isabel directly and imploring that he did not follow Diana's path, but married.

Dudley had a certain margin of maneuver with the queen, but perhaps this was to go too far.

Anyone that was the reason, the representation did not happen and the parties ended.

The queen remained in her rooms a few more days before leaving on July 27.

“I think it is incredibly interesting and that it is a great way to see how we treat women today. This event (which Dudley planned) in Kenilworth was destined to be a massive celebration for Isabel; it was destined to be decadent and enjoyable. Game “, a great sculptural installation in the castle.

“For powerful women like Isabel, refusing to marry or have children was a radical act of self -preservation and autonomy,” he adds.

Isabel I, daughter of Enrique VIII, is the only English queen who never married. He came to power in 1558, with 25 years, inheriting the religious, political and financial problems of his two predecessors, his stepbrother Eduardo VI (1537-1553) and his stepsister Maria I (1516-1558).

Advisors and members of the Parliament repeatedly urged her to marry to protect the security of England. A woman ruling alone? Inconceivable.

A queen needed to marry, she believed, not only to have a male heir to avoid succession disputes, but also for a man to take care of political and military affairs.

The pleas for married were incessant, and numerous marriage candidates were suggested. Isabel rejected them again and again. Because?

It is possible that the idea of having to obey a husband, any husband, will simply be intolerable. After all, it was very cultured (he learned five languages – francés, Italian, Spanish, Latin and flamenco – and had studied history and rhetoric), very intelligent, proud and fiery.

It is said that he declared: “Here I will only have a lover and no master”

In addition, Isabel knew that a woman could govern perfectly without a man looking over her shoulder. In the summer of 1544, in the Palace of Hampton Court, he witnessed how the scholar Catalina Parr, sixth wife of Enrique, ruled with full authority while the king was campaign in France.

Catalina was a regent more than capable, and Isabel seems to have felt deeply influenced to see her stepmother exercising power and accepting the humble deference of the powerful male ministers and courtiers.

In addition, his own family had also not provided a cheerful image about marriage. His father arrested his mother, Ana Bolena, under false accusations of adultery and conspiracy, and then, scandalically, decapitated her when Isabel was only three years old.

Some have suggested that Isabel could have been afraid of sex. Alison Weir, for example, in his book “Isabel, the Queen”, wonders if the monarch “could have made the equation that getting sexually involved was inextricably linked to death.”

According to the newspaper The Telegraphthe 2005 BBC series “The Virgin Queen” portrayed “a monarch terrified by sex.” Paula Milne, who wrote the script, said at the time: “If they asked me to write a work about a contemporary woman whose mother had been killed by her father, she would expect to examine the psychological impact.”

In fact, Isabel enjoyed the company of handsome men, and could be flirtatious with them. However, I had many reasons to fear pregnancy and childbirth.

Childbirth was a high -risk situation at the time of the Tudor. Jane Seymour, Enrique's third wife, died in childbirth, and Catalina Parr died of a disease shortly after giving birth, like Isabel's grandmother, Isabel de York.

But there were political reasons, in addition to personal, not to marry. Keeping the country free from the influence of foreign powers could have been consideration.

In addition, the perspective of Isabel's hand in marriage could have reinforced her negotiating position in her treatment with France, Spain and other nations.

Meanwhile, if he had married an English nobleman (and Dudley could have been a possibility if his wife, Amy Robsart, would not have died in somewhat suspicious circumstances in 1560), would have automatically offended another English nobleman.

So he kept everyone in expectation. It seems to have had an instinctive understanding of what we call public relations today, and he liked to present herself as totally dedicated to her kingdom.

From the beginning of his reign he cultivated the image of the Virgin Queen.

In 1559 he declared, in response to the deputies who asked him to marry, that over time “a marble stone will declare that a queen, having reigned so long, lived and died Virgin.”

In Shekhar Kapur's movie “Elizabeth”, the monarch – interpreted by Cate Blanchett – is transformed into purpose into the Virgin Queen and, all of Blanco, appears before her stunned cut, announcing “I am married … with England.”

Kapur's film plays with historical events, but this dialogue echoes the real statement of the queen, made in 1559, that he would not marry because he was already “united to a husband who is the kingdom of England.”

His sister Maria I – also known as María la Sanguaria – had affirmed something similar, but married Felipe II of Spain.

Isabel's decision not to marry has been a key element of her representation in popular culture. The connection between sex and death was established in the BBC series “Elizabeth R.”, winner of several Emmy awards in 1971.

The Isabel de Glenda Jackson says in the first episode: “I have not trusted any man since the day he was eight years old, and Queen Catalina Howard (Fifth wife of Enrique – decapitated) ran shouting for the galleries of the palace to beg the great Enrique … everywhere, the men had betrayed her … First there is the trust, then the passion, then the death.”

Isabel Caricaturesca of actress Miranda Richardson, who appears in the second season of the famous “Blackadder” British comedy, says in the first episode: “It seems that everyone gets married less me.”

But in the series he uses the promise of marriage to manipulate the character of Blackadder, and others, to do what she wants.

Had the true Isabel allowed Dudley thought she could have a chance? And what did the visit to Kenilworth for his relationship mean?

“I don't think he felt humiliated by her rejection of her proposition,” says Ashbee.

“He was glad that shortly after an official story of the festivities was published, and in his will stipulated that the castle remained exactly as it was. I have the impression that he considered 1575 as his” best moment. “Of course, he did not retire quietly to private life after 1575”.

Isabel was furious with Dudley for a while when she married Lettice Knollys in 1578, but forgave him. When he died, in 1588, she locked herself in her room for so long that her main counselor ordered that the doors force them to open them.

And when Elizabeth died in 1603, a note was found that Dudley had sent him shortly before he died, stored in a chest next to his bed. She had written on paper: “her last letter.”

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