WI: Elizabeth has a bastard

"But by the end of 1561 Elizabeth was confined to bed with a mysterious illness.
According to witnesses she was suffering from dropsy - now known as oedema - an abnormal swelling of the body due to a build-up of fluid.
The Spanish ambassador reported she had a swelling of the abdomen, and Doherty insists it is not too much of a jump to imagine this might also have been due to a pregnancy. After all, it is known that several ladies-in-waiting at the Queen's court successfully concealed their own pregnancies at the time."

A pregnancy perhaps?

Probably not. Mary I had suffered from a false pregnancy in 1554-1555 and while it's usually attributed to her overwhelming desire for a child, a genetic reason is not out of the question. True Mary was 10 years older at the time than Elizabeth was in 1561, but it's certainly more likely than a hidden pregnancy.
 
If Elizabeth was capable of conceiving....

she would have unquestionably married to ensure the child was born legitimate, it didn't really matter who she married, he could be disposed of later if necessary but there would be no logic in a childless unmarried Queen having a bastard child, when that child, provided they were born within a legal marriage, would unquestionably be heir to the throne.

Elizabeth was too pragmatic to allow an opportunity like this to pass her by, after all Elizabeth was herself conceived prior to her parents marriage.
 
Would a Bastard son be accepted as the Heir to the Throne of England, or would James VI of Scotland still make a play for the throne leading to a succession issue?[/FONT][/COLOR]

Bastards were known to be able to rule...William the Conqueror was, in his time, known as William the Bastard as he was one...his father made his barons swaer to uphold his son in succession and he got a papal bull i think as well to make him legal...Elizabeth, as head of the church, could legitimize him if she got parliament on her side
 
Bastards were known to be able to rule...William the Conqueror was, in his time, known as William the Bastard as he was one...his father made his barons swaer to uphold his son in succession and he got a papal bull i think as well to make him legal...Elizabeth, as head of the church, could legitimize him if she got parliament on her side

Neither Elizabeth, nor her sister Mary were deemed legitimate by their father in his will, their right of succession was based upon his personal wish, not their legitimacy.

Henry treated the succession as very much his prerogative, he granted his illegitimate daughters succession rights above the legitimate descendants of his two sisters and he accorded higher rights to the descendants of his younger sister Mary than those of his older sister Margaret.
 
Bastards were known to be able to rule...William the Conqueror was, in his time, known as William the Bastard as he was one...his father made his barons swaer to uphold his son in succession and he got a papal bull i think as well to make him legal...Elizabeth, as head of the church, could legitimize him if she got parliament on her side
A monarch could try whatever s/he wanted. Actually making it happen? Ask Edward IV about his kids, or (more recently) Edward VI about what happened to poor Lady Jane Grey.

Queen Elizabeth having a bastard is going to seriously undermine her legitimacy (especially considering all the rumors about her mother) at the very time she would need to have unquestioned authority to ram such a reform through.
 

NothingNow

Banned
she would have unquestionably married to ensure the child was born legitimate, it didn't really matter who she married, he could be disposed of later if necessary but there would be no logic in a childless unmarried Queen having a bastard child, when that child, provided they were born within a legal marriage, would unquestionably be heir to the throne.

Elizabeth was too pragmatic to allow an opportunity like this to pass her by, after all Elizabeth was herself conceived prior to her parents marriage.

That is a good point. Maybe a reasonably popular and respected member of the lesser nobility who could play prince consort.

Humphrey Gilbert perhaps? He would be about the right age in the late 1550s-early 60's (a nice and virile twenty something,) and certainly close enough to the throne.
Admittedly he wouldn't be as obvious as Robert Dudley but he also wouldn't have the same issues.

If Dudley hadn't married Amy Robsart, or if she hadn't died under such suspicious circumstances (literally anything other than what had occurred,) he'd be the bloody obvious one, but given that, it's a bit more difficult to work. If Dudley's wife had died in childbirth, or from a fever, or something other than a fall down the stairs, it'd be much easier to pull off, and few would question an otherwise-suspiciously timed pregnancy on Elizabeth's part.
 
A monarch could try whatever s/he wanted. Actually making it happen? Ask Edward IV about his kids, or (more recently) Edward VI about what happened to poor Lady Jane Grey.

Queen Elizabeth having a bastard is going to seriously undermine her legitimacy (especially considering all the rumors about her mother) at the very time she would need to have unquestioned authority to ram such a reform through.

Edward VI was a special case; the will of an underage king was not about to trump both his father's will and an Act of Parliament, especially given that Edward was virtually the only person in 1553 England to sincerely view Mary as illegitimate.

As for Elizabeth - had she borne a bastard it would not have been known. Abortion was considered "women's matters" and was hardly the hot-button issue it is now.

If Dudley hadn't married Amy Robsart, or if she hadn't died under such suspicious circumstances (literally anything other than what had occurred,) he'd be the bloody obvious one, but given that, it's a bit more difficult to work.

If Dudley hadn't married Amy Robsart he would have married Jane Grey.
 
Elizabeth lived her life in full view - she was surrounded by gossiping ladies and maids of honour and court life in late Tudor England was not restricted in terms of access to the Queen's person.

She was an unmarried Queen Regnant and her council, her parliament and the foreign diplomats at her court were desperately and intrusively interested in her fertility and everything that surrounded that as they tried without success to drag her to the marriage bed.

For her to conceal a pregnancy would have been extremely difficult if not completely impossible.

In the early days of her reign it would have destroyed her - ironically her Catholic subjects might have been a little less intolerant about an illegitimate child than her extreme Protestants who would have abhored such sexual immorality in a woman.
She was already the subject of rumours of impropriety around European courts over Dudley in her first few years on the throne.

In fact many said she was proving why a woman should not govern - and compared her unfavourably to Mary Stuart - their positions only reversed following Elizabeth's careful handling of Amy Dudley's death and Mary's own poor behaviour with her disastrous marriage to Darnley and then Bothwell.
 
I rather agree that she'd either conceal the pregnancy or marry as soon as she found out she was pregnant.

Are there any plausible mates, though? She can't marry Leicester, the likely father, who is tainted by the death of his first wife.
 
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