INTRODUCTION

This book re-opens the question of Elizabeth I’s attitude to marriage and the place of her various courtships in the political and religious history of the reign. Too often in the past, biographers and historians dismissed the queen’s courtships as ‘empty charades’, ‘political dalliance’ or ‘diplomatic games’, which had no chance of success because of her intransigent opposition to marriage.1 Instead of anachronistically dooming each matrimonial scheme to failure, this work will treat seriously all those marriage negotiations that were taken seriously by Elizabeth and her contemporaries, and place them within the context of court politics, religious developments and international diplomacy in order to assess their historical significance.