Elizabeth I, England's Virgin Queen

Danger for a Protestant Queen with Catholic Subjects

Oct 28, 2009

After Elizabeth, known as the Virgin Queen, became monarch of Protestant England in 1558, she was immediately in danger from her Catholic enemies.

They considered her illegitimate both as woman and queen because of the circumstances of her parents’ marriage. Elizabeth was born in 1533, the daughter of the Tudor monarch, King Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn whose marriage eight months earlier came about after the King took drastic action to facilitate the ceremony

After the Pope in Rome refused him a divorce from his first wife, the Spanish Catherine of Aragon, Henry removed his realm from the pontiff's jurisdiction. He then pronounced himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, declared his marriage to Catherine dissolved, and so freed himself to marry Anne. However, in Catholic Europe the marriage was not recognized as valid and as the child of that marriage, Catholics asserted that Elizabeth had no legal right to be queen and ought to be removed from her throne

The Marriage of the Virgin Queen

This put Elizabeth and England in a dangerous situation. The only answer, the Queen’s advisers told her, was for Elizabeth to marry and produce heirs whose right to inherit the throne of England would prevent would-be claimants, whether Catholic or Protestant, from disrupting the country.

However, the marriage solution was itself a danger to Elizabeth’s position and the security of England

Who Could Elizabeth Safely Marry?

Obviously, as a member of the Tudor royal family, Elizabeth could not enjoy a free choice. The trouble was, though, that neither of the likely alternatives was suitable for a reigning queen nor were they free of risk

First of all, Elizabeth could not choose a husband from among the English nobility, the descendants of the Plantagenet dynasty the Tudors had displaced in a bitter civil war, the Wars of the Roses. When the Wars came to an end in 1485, several surviving Plantagenets had their own claims to Elizabeth’s throne, which they had lost after decimating themselves in a struggle between two rival branches of their dynasty, the Houses of York and Lancaster

A major cause of the Wars had been the ambitions of over-mighty subjects, the nobles who had married into the Plantagenet family as a means of accessing royal power for themselves. For Elizabeth to marry a member of the nobility meant raising one of her own subjects to royal eminence, and that would have seemed tantamount to repeating a fearful history.

Philip of Spain, a Disastrous Foreign Husband

Yet, if Elizabeth could not safely marry a noble, there was even less security in marriage to the only alternative, a foreign prince. Several foreign suitors presented themselves as candidates for the hand of the Virgin Queen, including King Philip II of Spain who had once been married to Elizabeth’s late half-sister, Mary I. Like Philip, most of Elizabeth’s suitors were Catholics and therefore unacceptable as consorts for a Protestant queen

Even more perturbing was Philip’s own record as King-Consort of England: between 1554 when he married Queen Mary and 1558 when she died, Philip had used England like a milch-cow, as a source of manpower, weaponry and supplies for his European wars. For centuries, the English had fiercely objected to foreigners assuming power and influence in England and Philip’s marriage to Mary had prompted a full-scale popular rebellion.

Elizabeth Marries Her Kingdom

Elizabeth was canny enough to realize that her one and only advantage in a hostile world full of Catholic enemies and unsuitable would-be husbands was the love and support of her subjects for their Virgin Queen.

Rather than risk losing either, Elizabeth eventually decided not to marry at all. Instead, she declared herself married to England, the only husband who could be trusted not to betray her.

Doran, Susan, Queen Elizabeth I (British Library Historic Lives (New York, New York University Press, 2003) ISBN-10: 0712348026/ISBN-13: 978-0712348027

Ross, Josephine, The Men who Would be King: Suitors to Queen Elizabeth I (Blaine, Washington, Phoenix Publishing 2005) ISBN-10: 0753813336/ISBN-13: 978-0753813336

The copyright of the article Elizabeth I, England's Virgin Queen in Tudor History is owned by Brenda Ralph Lewis. Permission to republish Elizabeth I, England's Virgin Queen in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.