ABSTRACT
When Elizabeth Tudor came to the English throne in 1558, none of her subjects knew that their new queen would rule for over forty years and that she would remain unmarried. Historians have since wrestled with the problems presented by the rule of a single woman in a society where gender norms dictated that men rule and women obey.1 Some scholars have focused on how Elizabeth attempted to overcome her female “handicap” by creating – or accepting – the notion of the Virgin Queen and Gloriana.2 Other historians have looked at Elizabeth’s masterful use of marriage negotiations in order to gain political and personal goals.3 Yet the topic of illicit sex at the court of Elizabeth has not received much scholarly attention to date, with one exception: in an article published in 2000, Paul Hammer draws some preliminary conclusions about the effect of illicit sex among Elizabeth’s courtiers on her ability to rule. 4 Hammer correctly argues that Elizabeth viewed the illicit sex among her courtiers as a challenge to her royal authority and that the increasing number of cases of illicit sex among her courtiers during the last decade of her reign is evidence of a decline in the queen’s authority among her courtiers. However, Hammer admits that his article only “offers some preliminary and rather impressionistic comments about aristocratic promiscuity and its impact on the court.”5 He does not fully explore the gendered dynamics in the relationships between Elizabeth and her courtiers, both male and female, and he also does not address the nature of and the circumstances around the punishments meted out by the queen. Instead, Hammer and others have focused primarily on Elizabeth’s ability or inability to rule because of her gender and single status. While I certainly address that aspect, I turn the tables and focus
1 The most famous early modern expression of the issues around female rule is John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558). The reformer Knox’s position can be easily gleaned from the title of his work, but he initially directed it against Elizabeth’s Catholic sister Mary. John Aylmer defended female rule in Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjects (London: 1559). For a good summary of the contemporary arguments surrounding female rule, see Constance Jordan, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990).
