Courting the Virgin Queen

Queen Elizabeth I And Her Suitors

Carol Ann Lloyd

• Publisher: Pen & Sword History
• Year: 2024
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399043441
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Examines Queen Elizabeth I's complex courtships, revealing how her romantic and political decisions shaped her reign as England's Virgin Queen The many courtships of the woman who became Elizabeth I began when she was an infant, displayed before foreign ambassadors who considered her as a possible clause of a contract between England and France. From such an unromantic beginning, Elizabeth grew to see her father marry multiple times and experienced frequent changes in stepmothers and status in the family. Eventually, she became the most eligible woman in Europe. From start to finish, her marriage prospects were as much political as they were personal. When she came to the throne in 1558, the primary question facing everyone from foreign monarchs to English nobles and ministers was which of her many suitors would finally win her hand. Through the longest Tudor reign, Elizabeth used courtship as a tool to consider foreign alliances, hold ambitious English courtiers in check, and navigate her role as a woman ruler in a world that considered her unnatural without a man at her side. Elizabeth was, in fact, always the 'Virgin Queen', from the early days as a twenty-five-year-old presenting herself as a potential royal bride to her final years as an ageing and unmarried woman who was destined to end the Tudor dynasty. Ultimately, she became the only monarch in England to rule as an adult and never marry. Through it all, as friends and potential lovers faded away, she clung to the one true love of her life: England.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: The Young Queen and the Changing World
• Chapter 1 Now but ‘My Lady Elizabeth’
• Chapter 2 The Queen’s Two Bodies, the Queen’s Two Beds
• Chapter 3 ‘An Inconsiderate Folly’ – Parliament and Marriage
• Chapter 4 ‘Everything Depends Upon the Husband This Woman May Take’
• Chapter 5 The Favourite and Court Favourites
• Chapter 6 Questions and Answers Answerless
• Part II: Politics, Courtly Love, and the Virgin Queen
• Chapter 7 The Widowed Queen of Scots
• Chapter 8 Kenilworth and the Pageantry of Proposals
• Chapter 9 ‘On Monsieur’s Departure’ and French Connections
• Chapter 10 Courtly Love – Changing the Rules of the Game
• Chapter 11 False Friends, Final Suitors, and Unforgiveable Betrayals
• Chapter 12 ‘Bound Unto a Husband, Which is the Kingdom of England’
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates