On Queen Elizabeth I

awabubbles:

sariagray:

Here’s the thing:

Elizabeth Tudor, the first Elizabeth to rule in her own right as Queen over England, et al. never once married.

Did she have sex? Well, that’s been a hot debate amongst historians for a while now. But it doesn’t matter – it is not the point. The point is that she never married.

Why would she never marry? A whole host of reasons. First, she saw how poorly it could go. Again and again and again. Her father had her mother beheaded, her sister’s mother left for dead, and his other wives divorced or beheaded. The one who got out of it the best was Anne of Cleves who, after Harry divorced her, never took with another spouse and lived out her days, in relative happiness, as the King’s Beloved Sister.

This alone would make any sane person question the point of matrimony. Now add that to the recoil of the public when Queen Mary married King Philip of Spain – Elizabeth could clearly see how well marriage to a foreign prince would go over; that is to say, it would not go over at all.

Finally, Elizabeth, as the daughter of a king (whether she was considered a bastard or a princess at the time) would have learned the royal lineage. She would have seen what came of raising an Englishman to that level of power. The nobles were still, essentially, divided into factions and it would be seen as favoritism no matter which man she might have chosen.

It was, essentially, a lose-lose situation.

Her decision not to marry was 75% political, 25% personal and 0% because she was spurned by a man.
Or alien.

And that is the problem I had with the 50th Anniversary Special of Doctor Who. Do you want to show me Elizabeth and the Doctor having some sort of delicious tryst? Okay! Want them doing some traveling through time and space? Oh God please do! How would she be made angry at him, then? By NOT taking her on an adventure that was promised her, of course.

But marriage? Especially marriage done without any political consideration? Ha! Never. Elizabeth was a cunning politician. She was her father’s daughter, but also had the benefit of learning from his mistakes. She did very little without careful consideration and would certainly not just jump into marrying A FOREIGN PRINCE without weighty consideration.

I am angry at this episode for completely eradicating what essentially made Elizabeth I so important. It is not that she didn’t marry, but WHY she didn’t marry that reveals her character.

I think I’m going to have to write fic to fix this.

fucking thank you. You captured all the reasons that portrayal of Elizabeth really ticked me off. Though I’m not surprised really Steven Moffat is fairly convinced that women NEED men. So obviously the reason one of the strongest women is history didn’t marry wasn’t because of her own choices it was because SHE WAS SPURNED OH WHAT A BROKEN HEART. ugh.

But hey I would love to read some fic that fixed that!