Elizabeth's Women

by Tracy Borman

  Kat was determined not to let him down, and committed an act of such audacity that she risked losing her position. Together with an associate in the privy chamber, Dorothy Bradbelt, she wrote to the Swedish chancellor in secret, urging him to persuade his master to come to England. She said that if he did so, he would be assured of success, for the Queen had confided to her and Miss Bradbelt that she wished him to renew his addresses in person. In order to dispel any doubts that the chancellor might have of their sincerity, they claimed that they “understood somewhat more than the common report is.”17 The letter was swiftly intercepted by Cecil, who ordered an immediate inquiry.

  The full extent of Kat’s meddling was soon uncovered. Such a gross transgression could hardly be overlooked, even in the Queen’s favorite attendant, who now once more faced imprisonment and dismissal. It was falsely reported by the Italian ambassador in September 1562 that some who “were formerly high in favour with the Queen, among them Mrs Asheley,” had been thrown in the Tower. In fact, Kat was kept under house arrest, along with her coconspirator, Dorothy Bradbelt. Much to the astonishment of contemporaries at court and abroad, she was released within the month and restored to her former position.

  The speed with which Elizabeth pardoned her chief gentlewoman could have been due simply to the esteem in which she held her. But a more likely explanation is that she herself had instigated the whole conspiracy. While she no doubt had little intention of going through with a marriage to the Swedish king, a crucial facet of her policy was to keep foreign suitors interested by giving them just enough hope of success without actually committing to them. She was no doubt aware that rumors of her relationship with Robert Dudley would have reached Eric XIV’s court and thought that the most effective way of dealing with this would be for the woman known widely as her closest confidante to dismiss them for her. If Kat had really acted without the Queen’s knowledge, there was more than enough evidence to condemn her. That she was restored to favor so quickly suggests that Elizabeth had used her to intervene on her behalf. Clearly Mistress Astley’s duties extended well beyond the privy chamber.

  As suitor after suitor was rejected by the English queen during these first few years of her reign, rumors began to circulate that there was more than just politics behind her reticence to marry. Her reproductive health had been an issue from the earliest days of her infancy. As a baby, she had been displayed “quite undressed” to the French ambassadors in order to prove that there were no impediments to her betrothal to Francis I’s third son, Charles, Duc d’Angoulême. Now that she was queen, the issue of her fertility became a matter of even greater diplomatic interest, for it seemed that the entire security of her regime rested upon her ability to produce heirs. Moreover, none of her prospective suitors wished to commit himself until he had been reassured that she was able to bear children. It was in the interests of her adversaries to prove that she could not—after all, this heretical bastard could surely not survive for long unless she produced an heir.

  Upon Elizabeth’s accession, the Scottish ambassador, Sir James Melville, was asked to deliver a proposal to her from the Duke of Casimir, son of the Elector Palatine. He declined the commission on the following basis: “I had ground to conjecture that she would never marry because of that story one of the gentlewomen of her chamber told me … knowing herself incapable of children, she would never render herself subject to a man.”18 This theme was taken up by Philip II’s envoy, Feria, who in April 1559 claimed: “If my spies do not lie, which I believe they do not, for a certain reason they have recently given me I understand she will not bear children.”19 His letter immediately sparked a rush of speculation, which became even more intense when, two years later, his successor, de Quadra, asserted: “It is the common opinion, confirmed by certain physicians, that this woman is unhealthy and it is believed that she will not bear children.”20 One of these physicians was Dr. Huick, who was said to have counselled the Queen that marriage and childbirth ought not to be attempted because of her “womanish infirmity.” This was reported by her first biographer, William Camden, who added that there were some “hidden causes, which many times stucke in her minde, did very much terrifie her from marying.”21

  When in June 1559 Elizabeth was bled by her physicians, this was taken as proof that something was wrong with her natural functions. “Her Majesty was blooded from one foot and from one arm, but what her indisposition is, is not known,” reported a Venetian agent. “Many persons say things I should not dare to write, but they say that on arriving at Greenwich she was as cheerful as ever was.”22 The theory was that the Queen had been bled in order to correct the imbalance in her body caused by her lack of periods. Elizabeth had suffered from irregular or absent periods for most of her life. Such a private matter was impossible to conceal, given the number of her close attendants and the fact that her clothes and sheets would have been washed by laundresses. Even if the latter were inclined to be discreet, it became common among foreign ambassadors to offer substantial bribes for information, which few could resist. Before long, the Queen’s menstrual cycle had become a matter of international concern.

  Elizabeth herself helped to fuel the rumors by dropping hints to her ladies that she was barren and declaring that she “hated the idea of marriage” for reasons that she would not divulge to a living soul.23 As the pressure on her to take a husband intensified, a note of hysteria crept into her responses, and many began to suspect that she harbored a deep-seated fear of childbirth as a result of her physical defects. Nevertheless, she was aware of how critically important it was to at least appear to encourage the advances of her various suitors, so she also expressed enthusiasm on the subject at times. This maintained her position as one of the most sought-after brides in Europe for more than twenty years.

  Foreign envoys and ambassadors therefore continued their discreet inquiries into the English queen’s physical health. Philip II ordered one of his emissaries to bribe Elizabeth’s laundress for details, and the woman reported back that her royal mistress was functioning normally as a woman. The fact that the Spanish king continued to view her as a potential bride suggests that he believed her. In 1566 the French ambassador, de la Forêt, quizzed one of the Queen’s physicians in order to ascertain whether she would be a suitable wife for the young French king, Charles IX. The physician’s reply was unequivocal: “Your King is seventeen, and the Queen is only thirty-two … If the King marries her, I will answer for her having ten children, and no one knows her temperament better than I do.”24

  Even as late as 1579, when Elizabeth was in her midforties—well past the usual age for childbearing in those times—the question of her fertility was still being discussed. Her suitor at that time was the youthful Duke of Alençon. An anonymous tract among the Venetian state papers claimed: “It is impossible to hope for posterity from a woman of the Queen’s age, and of so poor and shattered a constitution as hers.”25 This may have prompted William Cecil (now Lord Burghley), who had long favored a French alliance, to investigate the matter himself. He closely interrogated his royal mistress’s doctors, laundresses, and ladies-in-waiting, and recorded his findings in a private memorandum. “Considering the proportion of her body, having no impediment of smallness in stature, of largeness in body, nor no sickness nor lack of natural functions in those things that properly belong to the procreation of children, but contrariwise by judgement of physicians that know her estate in those things, and by the opinion of women, being more acquainted with Her Majesty’s body,” he concluded that there was a high probability “of her aptness to have children.” Another paper on the subject also claimed that the Queen was “of the largyest and goodlyeste statuer of well-shaped women … and one whome in the syght of all men natuer can not amend her shape in eny parte to make her more lykely to conceyve & bere chyldrene withowte perell.” Elizabeth herself proudly declared: “I am unimpaired in body.”26

  By the mid-1580s, when any hope of the Queen marrying and producing heirs had been aband
oned, rumors again began to circulate that she had been infertile all along. Mary, Queen of Scots, claimed that her former guardian, Bess of Hardwick, had told her that Elizabeth was “not like other women,” and that even if she had married, it could never have been consummated. To add weight to her claims, she added that an ulcer on the Queen’s leg had dried up at the same time as her monthly periods had ceased. In the following decade, Elizabeth’s godson, Sir John Harington, observed: “In mind, she hath ever had an aversion and (as many think) in body some indisposition to the act of marriage.” This theme was taken up by the poet and playwright Ben Jonson. He claimed that Elizabeth “had a membrana on her, which made her incapable of man … At the comming over of Monsieur [the Duke of Anjou], ther was a French chirurgion who took in hand to cut it, yett fear stayed her, and his death.”27 Written during the reign of her successor, this account was almost certainly intended to discredit the late queen, but it has been quoted time and again in subsequent accounts, and its widespread currency has lent it undue credibility. Even some modern writers have speculated that Elizabeth either had an abnormally thick hymen or suffered from vaginismus, a condition that makes sexual penetration extremely painful.

  The truth of the matter is that for every account of Elizabeth’s infertility and fear of sex, there is at least one claiming that she regularly slept with her male courtiers and had several bastards by them. The earliest such rumor had appeared in 1549 in the aftermath of the Thomas Seymour scandal. As queen, there were many tales of her bearing Robert Dudley children, and in 1587, a young man going by the name of Arthur Dudley persuaded the king of Spain that he was their illegitimate offspring.28 Meanwhile, a widow named Dionisia Deryck claimed that Elizabeth “hath already had as many children as I,” although only two of them had survived into adulthood. Even Ben Jonson, who asserted that Elizabeth was “incapable of man,” added that she had “tryed many.”29 Another contradictory account was by Sir James Melville. Having claimed that the English queen was infertile at the beginning of her reign, he went on to boast that he had tried to scare her off childbirth by relating how painful Mary, Queen of Scots’ labor had been. If he had truly believed her to be barren, he would have had no need to do so.

  It is interesting to strip away the rumors and counter-rumors and examine the evidence that exists about Elizabeth’s physical state. The medical examinations that were carried out as part of the various marriage negotiations almost all confirmed that she was perfectly healthy and able to bear many children. These were corroborated by the laundresses’ accounts. However, we know that Elizabeth displayed a number of symptoms that might suggest that she would have had difficulty conceiving or giving birth. For a start, there was the irregularity of her periods. “She has hardly ever the purgation proper to all women,” observed the papal nuncio in France.30 On its own, this does not prove that she was infertile. Indeed, its cause may have been the fact that she ate sparingly and was often described as being “very thin.” She also sometimes appeared very pale—“the colour of a corpse,” according to one account—which suggests that she could have been anemic.31

  Nevertheless, Elizabeth’s family history would not have given her a great deal of confidence about her ability to bear children. Her mother had suffered two, possibly three miscarriages, and had been unable to bear another healthy child after her firstborn. Her half sister, Mary, had endured the humiliation of two phantom pregnancies. Moreover, she, like Elizabeth, had suffered from frequent stomach pains and nausea, which had often laid her low for several days at a time. Although Elizabeth liked to boast of her physical vigor, she regularly experienced gastric attacks. “Her Majesty [was] suddenly sick in her stomach,” reported William Cecil on one such occasion, “and as suddenly relieved by a vomit.”32

  Recent commentators have speculated that the Queen might have suffered from androgen insensitivity syndrome. This theory was first put forward by Michael Bloch, the Duchess of Windsor’s biographer, who in the 1980s drew comparisons between Elizabeth and the Duchess, a known sufferer of the syndrome. Victims of this condition are born with male XY chromosomes but develop outwardly as female, owing to the body’s failure to produce male sex hormones. Depending on the severity of the symptoms, the female reproductive organs can either be impaired or entirely absent, making sexual intercourse difficult or impossible. Women with this condition tend to be tall and lithe, with “strident personalities,” thanks to the dominance of testosterone in their bodies. Elizabeth certainly fits this outward description: She was unusually tall for a woman, and was very slim and small breasted. That she had a forthright manner is beyond question. This chimes with sixteenth-century medical opinion, which claimed that “Such [women] as are robust and of a manly Constitution” were likely to be sterile.33 And yet there is little evidence, apart from Jonson’s dubious testimony, that she had any of the internal symptoms. Indeed, even the outward ones could have been the result of genetics rather than the syndrome. Her father had been very tall, and her mother had had a slight frame and small breasts. Interesting though the theory is, it is at best only speculative.34

  Although she later succeeded in making a virtue of her virgin state, in the early years of her reign, Elizabeth was strongly criticized for refusing to marry. Without a legitimate heir born of her own body, how could she hope to hold on to her crown? In fact, there were sound political reasons why Elizabeth was reluctant to take a husband. In the sixteenth century, for the vast majority of women, marriage involved complete subordination to their husband’s will. If he proved violent, abusive, or adulterous, they were expected to endure it. Furthermore, wives would relinquish any property they held and would have precious few legal rights over their husbands. As queen, Elizabeth stood to lose a great deal more than most women. Even though her half sister’s marriage treaty had strictly defined the powers of her new husband, the reality had been rather different, and Mary herself had encouraged Philip to take the reins of government. But Elizabeth was far more independent than Mary had been, and with her formidable intellect and indomitable will, it would have been difficult for her to submit to the authority of any man. When she told Sir James Melville that she was resolved never to marry, he shrewdly replied: “Your Majesty thinks, if you were married, you would be but Queen of England; and now you are both King and Queen. I know your spirit cannot endure a commander.” In a similar vein, Heironimo Lippomano, the Venetian ambassador in France, commented upon “the ambition which the Queen has by her nature to govern absolutely without any partner.” As if to corroborate this, when provoked by her overbearing councillors, Elizabeth angrily declared: “I will have but one mistress here, and no master!”35

  Yet Elizabeth’s determination to remain single went beyond political reasoning. She occasionally showed flashes of profound unease when the subject of marriage was raised. In the mid-1560s, she told the French ambassador that she would leave herself entirely vulnerable if she took a husband, as he could “carry out some evil wish, if he had one.” A German envoy was taken aback when she snapped that “she would rather go into a nunnery, or for that matter suffer death,” than marry.36 She went even further a few years later, fiercely declaring that she hated the idea of marriage every day more, for reasons that she could not divulge to a twin soul, if she had one, much less “to a living creature.”37

  The executions of her mother, Anne Boleyn, and stepmother, Katherine Howard, had brought home to Elizabeth in the most horrifying manner possible just how dangerous royal marriage could be. Perhaps she had equated it with violent death from that time forward; she had certainly grown to appreciate that love must never be allowed to come before affairs of state. In 1561, when conversing with an envoy from Scotland, Elizabeth admitted that certain events in her youth had made her afraid of marriage. In view of this, it is hardly surprising that she should exclaim: “So many doubts of marriage was in all hands that I stand [in] awe myself to enter into marriage, fearing the controversy.”38

  It is perhaps going too far to conc
lude that the events of Elizabeth’s childhood had caused a deep-seated fear of love and sex, a frigidity that would make the idea of marriage seem abhorrent to her when she became queen. If this had been true, she would probably have shown a general antipathy toward men, and this was far from being the case. Elizabeth was one of the most notorious flirts in history. At times, her behavior toward some of her male courtiers was so outrageously suggestive that many believed she must be having affairs with them. She famously tickled Robert Dudley’s neck during the ceremony to make him an earl. She even personalized her relationships with her councillors by giving them pet names: Cecil was “Sir Spirit,” Dudley “Eyes,” and Hatton “Lids.” She delighted in being at the center of a game of courtly love that she herself had created, and loved to show herself off to her courtiers and foreign dignitaries as both a queen and a woman. Alluring and flirtatious one moment, she was cruel and aloof the next, which drove her adoring male courtiers to distraction. Edward Dyer warned Hatton, one of her greatest admirers: “First of all you must consider with whom you have to deale, & what wee be towards her, who though she does descend very much in her Sex as a woman, yet wee may not forgett her Place & nature of it as our Sovraigne.”39 This was exactly what Elizabeth had intended: She would flirt with her courtiers to her heart’s content but would never let them forget her supremacy as queen. They flattered her with poetry and prose, wore her colors as they jousted, and fought each other for her favors. But they were never allowed to get too close.