WI: Elizabeth I elopes in the 1560s to Robert Dudley or another suitor.

[fashbasher]

IIRC part of the reason she retained her virginity is that she feared a revolt if she married her true love, Robert Dudley. What if she had married him in secret (perhaps agreeing to abdicate and resulting in an earlier start to the Stuart dynasty a la Edward VIII) or had selected one of her suitors to "get it over with", regardless of what the court thought? It sounds like she to some extent had to choose between her kingdom or her marriage, and she chose the kingdom.

 

[desmirelle]

She marries Dudley, she confirms the rumors that he or she had his wife murdered. It ruins her reputation among the clergy, the nobility, and the common folk alike - she's married a man of much inferior status in a time when a man's status determines the status of the relationship. While marrying a higher-status woman can raise a man (especially if she's an heiress!), wedding a lower-status man brings a woman down to his level - legally.

Liz the first had a fear of marriage (perhaps intimacy as well) and it was well-founded. Her mother was convicted and executed by her father before she was three; she saw what happened to Anne of Cleves (because Daddy didn't like her); Catherine Howard (because Daddy believed her to be like her mother - we're not going into facts, just what a child sees); Kathryn Parr (nursemaid) and sees what happened to sister Mary in her marriage. Marriage also put a woman under a man's command and she saw the negotiations to prevent this to Mary (regarding the control of England). It's not surprising that she avoided getting married.

Had Elizabeth abdicated to marry, there would probably be the instituting of some sort of Salic Law or an elected Monarchy in England. (No Victoria, no Liz II) Selecting a suitor invited trouble; it would have been easier for her had her brother or sister 'found' her a husband, that way she could play the "I didn't choose him, Eddie/Mary did, but he's my hubby and I'm stuck with him" card (which would be the safest solution).

 

[desmirelle]

I say that her abdicating to marry would cause a reaction against women ruling because her abdicating would indicate that she was unable to do as a King: wed and run the country, too; coming just after "Bloody Mary" and her Spanish husband, it would be too much.

 

[fashbasher]

I say that her abdicating to marry would cause a reaction against women ruling because her abdicating would indicate that she was unable to do as a King: wed and run the country, too; coming just after "Bloody Mary" and her Spanish husband, it would be too much.

Yeah. Liz I was in a damn tough position; she was under great pressure to marry for the first part of her reign, but there probably wasn't a man in Europe who would have been satisfactory both to her and the court after what had happened to recent queens (divorced, beheaded, divorced, beheaded, extremely controversial).

 

[desmirelle]

She was the second ruling Queen after her half-sister, that was her difficult position. She, like Mary before her, needed to marry a 'suitable' man, someone of enough rank not to degrade her 'position'. Mary's example (both marital and religious) are part and parcel of why Lizzie was so canny with her advisors and suitors.

Dudley, once married, was just a delicious flirtation. And that was perfect. But when Amy died, flirtation was dangerous (to her reputation); and then he went and married her damn cousin!

 

[Tyler96]

Abdicating to marry also has the added complication of who she's abdicating in favour of- if it's in the early 1560s (after Amy Robsart's death) then Catherine Grey might already be in the Tower, with a Seymour kid who is legally a bastard; Mary Grey is hunchbacked or whatever; Mary Queen of Scots (who is Catholic and therefore unacceptable; James VI/I is yet to be born).

The only men are teenage Darnley, the infant Stanley kids of Margaret Clifford (only child of Eleanor Brandon), and the aforementioned bastard Seymour baby. Hastings (Earl of Huntingdon) was supposedly floated as a candidate when Elizabeth had smallpox in the 1560s, but his claim to the throne is incredibly flimsy (his mother was Catherine Pole, great-granddaughter of George Duke of Clarence).

 

[DrakeRlugia]

Marrying Dudley is only going to make tongues wag further regarding the suspicious death of his wife. Elizabeth I was quite mindful of her position as Queen of England. I don't dispute that she probably was in love with Robert Dudley, but she also knew that she would never be able to marry him. He was a courtier and her Master of the Horse—if she were to marry him, she would be the laughing stock of Europe, the queen who married her stable boy. The match really had no support within England or at court, either. Dudley could be a really foul fellow, and he really had no base of support. The Queen's councilors wanted her to marry—but not him.

Yeah. Liz I was in a damn tough position; she was under great pressure to marry for the first part of her reign, but there probably wasn't a man in Europe who would have been satisfactory both to her and the court after what had happened to recent queens (divorced, beheaded, divorced, beheaded, extremely controversial).

What? Despite her irregular position, she had plenty of suitors when she came into her inheritance. Philip II proposed marriage before Mary Tudor's body was even cold. There were long standing suggestions throughout the 1560s that she marry the Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor. The Austrian match was particularly championed by her councilors. Prince Erik, later the King of Sweden proposed marriage, as Adolf, the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. There was also James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran, among others. Even in the late 1570s she was still seen as a potential marriage partner, when she nearly married the Duke of Alençon—though at the time, it was an unpopular match.

Elizabeth had plenty of proposals. She was just very good at frustrating them and putting them off—making extreme demands that many princes sought unseemly, such as demands that they come court her in person, or extreme financial/territorial demands. During the negotiations with Alençon, for instance, she made absurd demands that Calais be restored to her as a dowry, and that the English seminary at Reims be shut down. She knew that no one would accept these crazy requests, and it was an easy way to end them. Elizabeth didn't wish to marry, as marriage would've entitled giving up her power: any husband of hers would've been entitled to reign alongside her, and that is one reason that her council was adamant to see her marry, and marry soon: they wanted to put an end to her dreaded petticoat government. But Elizabeth was quite schrewd—her hand in marriage made a great bargaining chip, though quite often she was able to get what she wanted out of foreign negotiations without having to submit to marriage.

 

[David T]

Even if Amy Robsart died a totaly non-suspicious death, I have serious doubts Elizabeth would have married anyone, even someone she liked as much as Robert Dudley. To quote Richard Rex (*The Tudors*, p. 185), "The Tudor age was not sentimental about marriage, and Elizabeth was shrewd enough to draw reasonable conclusions from what she saw around her. Her own mother's marriage had ended on the block, and the rest of her father's matrimonial record would hardly have filled her with enthusiasm for the holy state. The one wife of Henry's with whom she had established a close relationship, Catherine Parr, had died in labour. Her elder sister's marriage was a palpable disaster. Nor was her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, conspicuously well-served by the immature boy, the feckless youth, and the reckless adventurer with whom she successively linked herself...Elizabeth herself knew well enough the authority that contemporary opinion vested in husbands over their wives, and was probably reluctant to imperil her sovereign position by submitting to any man in any degree. Mary Tudor had looked on marriage as her destiny. Elizabeth certainly did not, and given her inclinations and her experience, her decision not to marry was in many ways a coolly sensible one." https://books.google.com/books?id=oEchnmfzL4MC&pg=PT491

 

[desmirelle]

Elizabeth's main object was Elizabeth and her mantra the Queen song "Keep Yourself Alive" - this colored all her entire life. And even if there had been witnesses to the fall that killed Amy Dudley, there would have been the degrading her royal estate with the "Master of the Horse" rumors along with rumors that the witnesses were paid to testify as they did.

As I've pointed out on other threads, marriage for "love" is a recent idea. Before then, marriages were limited by social class, family needs, country requirements, religion. Mores of the times determined who one could and could respectably be introduced to - very critical for young women wanting a suitable marriage, women's reputations could be irredeemably ruined by rumor, being seen in the wrong company, or completely accidental situation that would today be only embarrassing.

The above applied triply to Elizabeth I. The fact that she learned early to "think like a man" may have saved the concept of a woman ruler (especially after Mary) for England. So, unless she weds the Duke of Kalamazoo or the second son of the King of Narnia (both with a marriage contract stipulation that they won't become King if she takes the throne), she'd better off not wedding as OTL.

If Mary had been as clear thinking and calculating as her younger sister, she'd have wed Liz off, send her to live with her husband (who will be English and not a Duke), get Parliament to pass another succession law that allows Queen Mary to select her heir and probably leave the throne to Mary, Queen of Scots - a fellow Catholic. While Elizabeth is English, there is still a bad taste in many's mouth about the circumstances of her mother's marriage and most view her as a bastard; by wedding her to a Marquis or Earl and making NO provision in Elizabeth's marriage contract about inheriting the throne, Mary has ensured enough in-fighting to allow Mary a chance to establish herself. (And, hopefully, will bring her down well before her death to present her as heiress.) Maybe not......

 

[The Professor]

I can't see Bess giving up her status and god ordained right to power over sentimentality.
Any husband needs to be of princely status and incapable of usurpation.

 

[desmirelle]

I can't see Bess giving up her status and god ordained right to power over sentimentality.
Any husband needs to be of princely status and incapable of usurpation.

My thought exactly, BUT....I don't see her doing anything other than she did OTL because she liked (loved?) being in charge of her own life after a pre-ascension life of her father, her brother, her sister 'arranging' things for her. A husband would be more of the same - by law and by church.

That's why I suggested if she's to wed, it should be BEFORE she ascends, when she's not in charge and might grow to like/love the guy enough to keep him around. If she doesn't even like him, once she's on the throne, he's going to be the ambassador to Japan or some such, I suspect. And always away.

 

[The Professor]

My thought exactly, BUT....I don't see her doing anything other than she did OTL because she liked (loved?) being in charge of her own life after a pre-ascension life of her father, her brother, her sister 'arranging' things for her. A husband would be more of the same - by law and by church.

That's why I suggested if she's to wed, it should be BEFORE she ascends, when she's not in charge and might grow to like/love the guy enough to keep him around. If she doesn't even like him, once she's on the throne, he's going to be the ambassador to Japan or some such, I suspect. And always away.

That too.