Elizabeth I - a hermaphrodite

[SerendipityJane]

it seems.

Or so someone posting in a discussion has just claimed.

There's a lot of speculation as to why Elizabeth I never married. One
theory is that she had a developmental sexual disorder (aka intersex)
which rendered her infertile and incapable of normal sexual intercourse.
That's the sort of thing which would, once, have been colloquially
referred to as being a hermaphrodite. Another theory is that she was a
lesbian. Neither of these has any significant support by historians.
Although, if she was a lesbian, that would actually explain some of the
rumours which circulated in her lifetime that she had a physical
deformity, as in the culture of the day the idea that a woman would
actually prefer physical intimacy with her own sex was considered
unthinkable.

Am I a little behind the times here ? My recollection was remaining unmarried was much more to prevent herself becoming eclipsed by her husband or (more likely) any male heir she delivered.

I am quite prepared to be enlightened. However somehow I can't see it.

I can't see it either.😠

Well Henry the 8th was very confident she was female. He wouldn’t have needed to chop Anne Boleyn’s head off if Elizabeth had only had a winky.

But she might have been a boy! 'Tis a miracle, a boy without a winky!!

It’s bollocks. About as credible as the Bisley Boy nonsense. It’s only interesting in that it shows the desperation of some people to recast powerful independent women as men, or at least not fully female.

Yep. If you are a powerful woman, surely you must be a man.

Having seen her father’s marriages I’m sure it might have put me off! There’s the whole Seymour business and Amy Dudley affair. And actually when she became Queen she was starting to get on a bit - not as much as Mary though!

I'm pretty sure that if she had a dsd that somebody might have brought it up at Anne Boleyn's 'trial' as proof of something witchy

But in all seriousness, and not channelling Nursey - I think it's perfectly possible that she had love affairs with Robert Dudley, Walter Raleigh etc but never married because a) she didn't want to be subordinated and b) the country had just come out of decades of civil war where elevating any other family to the monarchy might have disrupted the delicate balance where the Tudors were the compromise between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions.

Perhaps she just didn’t fancy the idea of marriage having had a fairly poor role model in her father?

It's extraordinary isn't it that a clever, powerful woman needs to have something wrong with her if she chooses to remain unmarried in a sexist, misogynistic, culture.

It's been a theory for a long time. Alongside the one about possibly a pregnancy coming from Thomas Seymour assaulting/raping her when she was a young teenager living with him, or a pregnancy from relations with Robert Dudley that led to the myth of a midwife called to a house in the dead of night to a woman she never saw the face of. And other theories.

She was known to have menstrual problems, her sister also was known to have awful menstrual and conception problems, likely for both of them due to living with severe trauma and endless, often lifethreatening anxiety through their teens and early adulthood, not to mention the obvious issues for a girl who knew her mother (and cousin, and stepmother) died horribly due to getting involved with men, seeing her sister abused and controlled by the man she married, and knowing if she ever did attach herself publicly to a man he would become king and she would immediately lose her power to him. Queen Victoria had similar issues, albeit much reduced to the immediacy and severity of Elizabeth's as by then husbands were consorts not kings, and the late Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh weren't immune to it ether. Even consorts were causes of difficult situations.

God it annoys me when people apply the thinking & choices of today to the past without thinking

she knew very well that in marrying she risked giving up her freedom plus who would she marry? Queens regnant have limited choices. An English nobleman would have caused rifts in England, a foreign prince would have demanded equal status with her, a foreign king (I believe Phillip II did make an offer) and you’re subordinate because kings out rank queens hence the invention of the rank of prince consort for England/Britain’s later queens

I mean speculation but a tiny weeny bit of evidence would be nice

Yes, I think it is much more likely that it was politically advantageous for her to not marry.

There are plenty of rumours about her lovers.

Who is this "someone"?

Yes - you would have thought that if there had been any ambiguity that made her sex difficult to determine, they would have decided she was a boy.

God it annoys me when people apply the thinking & choices of today to the past without thinking

You are not alone.

Indeed - very easy way out of a problem

Yes, massive eye roll that it's so hard to believe that a powerful woman might actually choose not to marry, that she must have been not really female!

She certainly had close, possibly intimate, relationships with men, and used potential suitors to manage diplomatic and political alliances abroad. When you look at what potential European husbands were on offer however, you can quite understand her choice. She also saw what happened to Mary Queen of Scots, who demonstrated quite a salutary lesson on what happened to queens who married within the kingdom and produced a male heir - suddenly surplus to requirements.

I opened this thinking someone was going to have taken the "heart and stomach of a king" bit literally...

I prefer the more common-sense explanation I learned at school: she was an intelligent woman who could see marriage might have dangerous political consequences.

Elizabeth I was 25 when she became Queen. As was Elizabeth II, incidentally. I wouldn't describe either lady as 'starting to get on' at the time of her accession.

Occams razor.

She was 25 when she ascended the throne, I don’t think even the Tudors thought that was getting on a bit!

if she ever did attach herself publicly to a man he would become king and she would immediately lose her power to him. Queen Victoria had similar issues, albeit much reduced to the immediacy and severity of

What are you referring to here?

Yes it's the same "Joan of Arc was non-binary" type nonsense.