Elizabeth I (1533-1603)


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Well, Elizabeth was described as a thin woman, so I doubt she had a big tummy.:p
 
lol, i guess we will never really know if she ever did have a child, the most we can do is speculate. But the painting is still damning evidence isnt it? Or do you think she wanted the painting done to see what she would look like pregnant? Or, it could be some sort of symbol, that she is pregnant and carrying England in her womb?
 
I've just found this thread which I find very interesting. I believe that Elizabeth was married to Leicester (compelling evidence to support this) and that Elizabeth was the biological mother of the great Sir Francis Bacon and the Earl of Essex whom she ultimately had executed. She was a great Queen and, like all successful, great rulers, put her obligation to the state above everything else. Or so I believe.

As for the painting, it's highly possible that it is Elizabeth. Whoever it is is certainly pregnant as Tudor fashion in Elizabeth's day was for tightly fitted clothes, all waisted, at least in every picture I've ever seen.
 
Queen Elizabeth's teapot sold for £1m

A Chinese teapot that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth I has been sold at auction in Hong Kong for more than £1m.
The 10-inch porcelain teapot, decorated with songbirds and trees, was purchased by British-based antique dealers Littleton and Hennessy, on behalf of an overseas collector.
According to Sotheby's, the queen gave the teapot to her chaplain, Bishop of Worcester Henry Parry, in the early 1600s.
 
This one of the tragic events of Queen Elizabeth I 's reign she her own cousin Queen Mary of Scots had planned to kill her so she could be Queen of England. Mary keep saying she was innocent but was found guilty and behanded that is a horrible way to die.
 
Polly said:
I've just found this thread which I find very interesting. I believe that Elizabeth was married to Leicester (compelling evidence to support this) and that Elizabeth was the biological mother of the great Sir Francis Bacon and the Earl of Essex whom she ultimately had executed. She was a great Queen and, like all successful, great rulers, put her obligation to the state above everything else. Or so I believe.
Click to expand...


What compelling evidence that says Elizabeth and the Lord Robert married? I find it very, VERY difficult to believe a woman like Elizabeth would marry secretely and then have children. You have to understand that in England at that time, women were seen as unfit to rule. They merely tolerated Elizabeth as Queen because they assumed she'd marry soon and whomever she married would take over as ruling the country. She saw what happened to her father's wives as soon as they married him and with her own sister, Mary. They lost a part of their own identity and at times, their lives. She wanted to be the ruler of England ("I'll have one mistress here, and no master!") and didn't want to share that power or give up that power with or to anyone else. She wanted to marry Lord Robert but knew she couldn't. She sacrificed her own personal happiness (she did want to marry and have children) in order to retain the power of her birthright.
 
What compelling evidence that says Elizabeth and the Lord Robert married?
Click to expand...

It seems to be fairly rife among Francis Bacon websites and societies, arguing that he should have been king after Elizabeth because he was a legitimate child (hence the need for her to have been married). The same websites also seem to believe there's no doubt that Francis Bacon was the author of Shakespeare's plays. I suppose it somewhat depends on your definition of "compelling."
 
Virgin queen and love triangle with Sir Walter

Putting matters of state before affairs of the heart earned Elizabeth I the title of the Virgin Queen
However, a Hollywood film is about to claim that she was so in love with Sir Walter Raleigh that she had one of her ladies-in-waiting seduce him so she could live out her own sexual fantasies.


Virgin queen and love triangle with Sir Walter | Uk News | News | Telegraph
 
I really think that that is ridiculous! I really feel that these scriptwriters should stop taking such license with history. One of my favourite royal films is Young Bess which does play around with history a bit but not in any major way I feel. It stays true to the substance of the life of the young Queen.

Regards,
Attaining Grace
 
msfroyste said:
i have a book that has some clothes that were supposed to belong to Elizabeth I in it, unfortunately i don't own a scanner. i believe it says they're in a private collection housed somewhere in England and were once in the Kensington Palace exibit at one time.
Click to expand...
What is the title of the book?
 
Elizabeth dying pure

Royal Fan said:
I Belive she lived and died "Pure"
Click to expand...

My gut feeling is the same. There were spies all over the palace. How on earth good Elizabeth hide not only one but two pregnancies from her ladies in waiting and the court? There was also the matter of her personal linen being washed and observed by laundresses. I think she went as far as she could without having intercourse with Robin Dudley, but marriage? No, she would never let any man have the upper hand. Her position and her crown were uppermost in her mind. There was a movie with Bette Davis about her jealousy of ElizabethThrockmorton wanting to marry Raleigh, I do not know if Elizabeth was in love with him or just enjoyed his flattery. As far as Essex being her son, I thought he was the child of her cousin Lettice Knollys. Had he been her son she would never have executed him.
 
However, there is a difference between chastity and pregnancy. Just because Elizabeth may never have had a child doesn't mean she was a virgin. Considering all the times she was closeted with her favorite courtiers, that gave her time for romantic affairs. Certain contraceptives were available at the time, which, if she did have relations, Elizabeth probably would have used to ensure she didn't get pregnant.
 
selrahc4 said:
Elizabeth's father Henry VIII had an illegitmate son who was not in the succession, so I think it's safe to say that that was also the case then.
Click to expand...

Henry FitzRoy, by Henry's then mistress, Elizabeth Blount. He was styled the Duke of Richmond. Unfortunately he died in his teens of what we now call TB. At one point, there were rumours that Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn, was responsible for his death. Something absurd about witchcraft.

Elizabeth was passionate about jewellery, especially pearls, and owned some of the most spectacular collections. I'd love to know where they went. Mary Stuart's son, James, became King on Elizabeth's death. I suppose at least some of her jewellery would have gone to his queen and James' favourites.

The speculation about Elizabeth being a virgin or not is typical of what would have been said of a woman in a position of power in her time. Lone female rulers were rare. And unmarried queens, baring widows, were unheard of. Considering her father's miserable domestics and the fact that Elizabeth took great pains to learn from history, I don't doubt for a minute that she did die Regina Intactus.
 
Last edited:
Russophile said:
Polly, where did you find that info. on Elizabeth Rex? That is very interesting!
Click to expand...

I have quite a few references. Of course, some are circumstantial, but to this C16 & C17 scholar, quite convincing.

The fact of Francis Bacon's Parentage--the legitimate son of Queen Elizabeth and therefore the legal heir to the Throne---is indubitable, supported as it is , not only by a mass of circumstantial evidence but by such direct testimony as Leicester's letter to King Philip of Spain, which Mme Deventer von Kunow discovered among the Spanish State Archives, begging King Philip to use his influence with Queen Elizabeth to secure his public acknowledgment as Prince Consort........No one can possibly follow Mme D. von Kunow's revelations and remain unconvinced.--Williard Parker in the Foreword to Francis Bacon, Last of the Tudors

The 1895 edition of British "Dictionary of National Biography" Vol.16 p114 under the heading "Dudley" :
"Whatever were the Queen's relations with Dudley before his wife's death, they became closer after. It was reported that she was formally betrothed to him, and that she had secretly married him in Lord Pembroke's house, and that she was a mother already." &emdash; January, 1560-1.
"In 1562 the reports that Elizabeth had children by Dudley were revived. One Robert Brooks, of Devizes, was sent to prison for publishing the slander, and seven years later a man named Marsham, of Norwich, was punished for the same offence."

And there is much more, but for the sake of brevity.....

A.L. Rowse, in "The Elizabethan Renaissance", vol.1:

"Of course, in the country and abroad, people talked about the Queen's relations with Leicester. In 1581 Henry Hawkins said that my Lord Robert hath had five children by the Queen, and she never goeth in progress but to be delivered." Other such references occur in the State Papers."

A.L. Rowse was an eminent, prolific and prestigious Oxford and Huntington history scholar and the world's leading Elizabethan expert. I would never lightly discount his works. If Rowse says that there's reference to this in State Papers, then I believe him!

And,

'As a boy, and as a young man, Bacon was always persona grata at Court, although he had no official position and no title. In The Life of Francis Bacon,the first published biography of Bacon, by Pierre Amboise, 1631, he writes:

"Francis Bacon saw himself destined one day to hold in his hands the Helm of the Kingdom. He was born of the purple."


I'm quite interested in all of this myself, Russophile, but as it's probably only of fleeting interest to many on this board, I'd be happy to continue the discussion via PM, should you wish.

​
 
Early Elizabeth I portrait fetches $5.3 million

LONDON (Reuters) - The earliest known full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, thought to have been commissioned to help the English monarch "advertise" herself to potential suitors, sold on Thursday for 2.6 million pounds ($5.3 million).
Early Elizabeth I portrait fetches $5.3 million
 
Pregnancies of Queen Elizabeth

"Of course, in the country and abroad, people talked about the Queen's relations with Leicester. In 1581 Henry Hawkins said that my Lord Robert hath had five children by the Queen, and she never goeth in progress but to be delivered." Other such references occur in the State Papers."


I still cannot believe this. How could she have been pregnant 5 times, even on progress to give birth, without anyone noticing? There was always gossip about her sex life, that was only natural at the time (or at any time when an unmarried woman is in a position of power), but 5 times? How could she have hidden a pregnancy even once from her ladies in waiting and more importantly her maids and laundresses? Where could she have given birth without anyone knowing about it? How could she hide her physical condition, including early pregnancy morning sickness with nausea and vomiting in the early months. How could she have successfully reigned and received foreign dignitaries with an obvious pregnancy? How could she have concealed milk in her breasts from her laundresses? I am sorry, I just don't buy it.
 
When she was a child, her mother chose all of her clothes. William Loke made Elizabeth's clothing. Her clothing later in life was in keeping with her status. I am not aware of any displays, most of what we know about what she wore comes from potraits.
Lexi
 
I don't like that portrait as well as the Coronation portrait that my avatar is based off of.

In this later portrait, Elizabeth already looks wizened.
 
ysbel said:
I don't like that portrait as well as the Coronation portrait that my avatar is based off of.

In this later portrait, Elizabeth already looks wizened.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know what happend to the crown she wore for her coronation? Is it on display somewhere?
Lexi
 
Hi lexi,

The crown that Elizabeth I wore for her coronation was the original St. Edward's Crown that crowned Edward the Confessor in 1042 so by the time Elizabeth was crowned it was already over 500 years old!

The original St. edward's crown was destroyed by Cromwell's men in the English Civil War in the 1600s all except for an anointing ampulla and the rest had to be rebuilt for the coronation of Charles II.

The present St. Edwards Crown was crafted for Charles II's coronation in the 1660s and was the crown that the present queen Elizabeth II was crowned with.
 
ysbel said:
Hi lexi,

The crown that Elizabeth I wore for her coronation was the original St. Edward's Crown that crowned Edward the Confessor in 1042 so by the time Elizabeth was crowned it was already over 500 years old!

The original St. edward's crown was destroyed by Cromwell's men in the English Civil War in the 1600s all except for an anointing ampulla and the rest had to be rebuilt for the coronation of Charles II.

The present St. Edwards Crown was crafted for Charles II's coronation in the 1660s and was the crown that the present queen Elizabeth II was crowned with.
Click to expand...

Ysbel,
Hi! Thank you so much for the information. I had no idea!
Lexi
 
Elspeth said:
It seems to be fairly rife among Francis Bacon websites and societies, arguing that he should have been king after Elizabeth because he was a legitimate child (hence the need for her to have been married). The same websites also seem to believe there's no doubt that Francis Bacon was the author of Shakespeare's plays. I suppose it somewhat depends on your definition of "compelling."
Click to expand...

Yes, I guess it does. And those website and societes do not fit my definition of compelling. I can't think of one single, serious scholar who gives credence to any myths about Elizabeth's marital status or whether she actually gave birth. If Elizabeth is to be considered married than I would say she was married to England.
Lexi
 
I read a novel (a not very good one) that was based on the claims that a man made that he was a bastard son of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley. Apparently he made these claims during Elizabeth's lifetime and he died in the Inquisition on something unrelated.

Apparently Elizabeth covered up the later stages of her pregnancy saying it was smallpox and Robert's sister who was her lady in waiting covered up for her.

The problem came when Elizabeth later actually did get smallpox (you can only get it once) and Robert's sister also got it and was disfigured for life.

I don't know how reliable this legend is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

HMTLove23
George I (1660-1727)
2
Replies
55
Views
16K
CyrilVladisla
CyrilVladisla
ysbel
Lady Jane Grey, Nine Day Queen (1537-1554)
2 3 4
Replies
110
Views
26K
CyrilVladisla
CyrilVladisla
norwegianne
1905-2005, February biography: Haakon
Replies
11
Views
10K
CyrilVladisla
CyrilVladisla
EliseLadyofLancaster
The Anglo-Saxon and Danish Kings of England and their Consorts 802-1066
2 3 4
Replies
90
Views
27K
An Ard Ri
An Ard Ri
J
Queen Elisabeth Of The Belgians (1876-1965)
2 3 4
Replies
98
Views
45K
An Ard Ri
An Ard Ri

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom