Tracy Borman, who is teaching our new HistoryExtra Academy course, shares five surprising facts about life during the reign of the Virgin Queen
Elizabeth was certainly no feminist
Although she is often hailed as a feminist icon, Elizabeth I was deeply conventional in her views of the female sex. In the most famous of her speeches, delivered as the Armada threatened England’s shores, she regretfully observed: “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman.” She made many similar remarks during the course of her long reign and constantly referred to herself in masculine terms to assert her authority. For her contemporaries, this neatly explained the otherwise nonsensical idea that a woman was ruling over them – and doing a damned fine job of it: Elizabeth must have the body of a woman, but the mind of a man. There was even a rumour that she was really a man in disguise.
In part, of course, Elizabeth was playing her misogynistic courtiers at their own game, pretending that she shared their regret that a woman was ruling over them when everyone knew that men were the superior sex.
But if the Virgin Queen secretly prided herself on her own abilities, that did not extend to her view of the female sex in general. In 1597, when a foreign visitor to court complimented her upon her ability to speak many languages, she retorted: “It was no marvel to teach a woman to talk; it were far harder to teach her to hold her tongue.” She also strictly limited the number of women at her court. There was only room for one Queen Bee in the hive.
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Elizabethans kept themselves clean
Elizabeth I once declared that she would take a bath once a month “whether she needed it or no”. Her contemporaries considered this excessive. The leading physicians of the day cautioned against regular bathing in hot water because it opened the pores and allowed deadly diseases such as the sweating sickness to enter the body. This has led to the (understandable) assumption that the Elizabethans stank to high heaven.
In fact, personal hygiene was very important to Elizabeth and her subjects. To be considered respectable, one had to smell ‘sweet’, which meant that body odour was something to be dealt with, not ignored. Because of the perceived perils of bathing, people focused instead on keeping their clothes clean. Linen was the favoured material for undergarments because it drew the sweat, grease and dirt from the body. An early 17th-century verse, The Praise of Cleane Linnen, asserted that without it, “thou would’st stink above ground like a beast”.
Members of the royal family had dozens of linen undergarments and would change several times a day. So, if you approached the Virgin Queen herself, you certainly wouldn’t have to hold your nose.
The Elizabethan era wasn’t quite as golden as you might think
There is a tendency to see post-Armada England as a golden age, with ‘Good Queen Bess’ presiding over a time of peace and prosperity.
But the late 1590s were also marked by war-weariness, inflation, high taxation, poor harvests and plague. There was a corresponding rise in social unrest. Although she had gloried in her navy’s victory over the Spanish in 1588, Elizabeth was slow to pay the sailors and many of them resorted to begging on the streets.
Nor was everything rosy at the heart of royal power. “The court was very much neglected,” observed one of its members, “and in effect the people were generally weary of an old woman’s government.” Having outlived almost all of those who had served her in the early years of the reign, ‘Gloriana’ was surrounded by a new generation of courtiers – flatterers and ‘flouting wenches’ – who privately scoffed at the “crooked carcass” of the ageing queen.
When Elizabeth died in March 1603, there was widespread rejoicing among her subjects that a king now sat on the throne. They would soon realise the truth of the old adage: ‘Be careful what you wish for’.
All of Elizabeth’s most dangerous rivals were women
From the moment she took the crown, Elizabeth was besieged by the threat of rival claimants. She was, technically, illegitimate, as Henry VIII had annulled his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Her religion provided a further excuse for Catholic powers both within England and across Europe to try to supplant this ‘heretical’ queen with a candidate of their own.
Ironically, in this male-dominated age, all the leading contenders for the English throne were female. Descended from Henry VIII’s sisters, they were also cousins of the new queen. Foremost among them was Mary, Queen of Scots, granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret Tudor. Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret Tudor, was another potential claimant.
However, Henry had excluded this branch of his family from inheriting the throne, so it was the descendants of his younger sister, Mary, who at first seemed to
pose more of a threat. Elizabeth had already witnessed an attempt to place a member of this latter branch upon the throne. Lady Jane Grey, the ‘Nine Days Queen’, had briefly supplanted Elizabeth’s sister, Mary, but had paid with her head. She had left two sisters still living: Katherine and Mary Grey remained a thorn in Elizabeth’s side for years.
Elizabeth may not have wanted James to succeed her
Elizabeth doggedly refused to name a successor, fearing that as soon as she did, all eyes would turn to them and she herself would be neglected. According to the queen’s earliest biographer, William Camden, it was only on her deathbed that she settled the matter. When asked by one of her advisors if her closest blood relative, James VI of Scotland, should succeed her, she lifted her thin, wasted hand up to her head and slowly drew a circle around it to indicate a crown – and thus her assent.
This scene has been recounted numerous times, as has the smooth transition from the Tudor to the Stuart dynasty. But new analysis of Camden’s original manuscript conducted by the British Library has revealed that the real story was altogether more turbulent. Among the findings are that Elizabeth probably died without naming James (or anyone else) as her heir and that Camden rewrote his account to make the Stuart succession look more predetermined than it actually was.
In truth, Elizabeth wanted to keep her court and kingdom guessing not just up to, but beyond her last breath.
This article was first published in the April 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine. Tracy Borman teaches our HistoryExtra Academy course on the Elizabethans. Find out more
