Elizabeth I / The Elizabeth Quartet, by Alison Plowden

[nwhyte]

I'd had this big book on Elizabeth I sitting on the shelves looking at me for some time, but when I eventually picked it up at the end of last month I realised that it is actually four separate books inside a single cover - Young Elizabeth (1971), Danger to Elizabeth (1973), Marriage with My Kingdom: The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth I (1977) and

Comments

[viomisehunt]

It depends on who was looking and writing. The dramatic presentation of the time--Elizabeth R on PBS did address all of those elements--and there is a lovely scene where she admits to be horrified that she will die in childbirth.

[unwholesome_fen]

I'm not sure 'stepfather' is the right word for Thomas Seymour, though he was married to Elizabeth's former stepmother, and brother of another of her former stepmothers of course. Foster father, perhaps, in modern terms?

[nwhyte]

I refer to the husbands of my wife's sisters as my brothers-in-law; Seymour was linked to Elizabeth's birth parents by a marital relationship, so I think "step-father" captures what was going on!

[unwholesome_fen]

Indeed, the earlier (and closer) link was when he was Henry's brother in law, so actually 'uncle' might be the more appropriate term - he was after all her half-brother's uncle by blood. Marrying Henry's widow introduces some ambiguity, admittedly.

I'm also not clear as to whether Elizabeth living with the Seymours would have been seen as akin to a parental relationship at the time - Lady Jane Grey was already living in the household, and her parents were still alive. They seem to have been operating as a sort of finishing school.

[nwhyte]

It seems to me that marrying her stepmother is a more direct relationship than your sister having been also briefly stepmother ten years earlier. In any case he was the male head of the household in which Elizabeth was living, so the relationship is at least that of foster-father rather than uncle, and as I said above stepfather is good enough shorthand for me.

[pwilkinson]

I find the question about the absence of foreign Protestant suitors an interesting one - I think I have most of a plausible answer to it, but some points in the answer involve quite a bit of background comparison or explanation.

The short answer is that, according to Wikipedia, Frederick II of Denmark was also a suitor at one point - but that otherwise there were almost no unquestionably eligible foreign Protestants. I admit that this last statement needs a lot of unpacking (including looking at and arguing through some apparent possibilities), and would even then be open to disagreement - I may try it sometime on my own LJ, but will have to leave it for now. The one point I can add here is that Elizabeth's room for manoeuvre on this will have been limited by her dubious legitimacy - a more secure monarch could have risked a slightly questionable marriage, but Elizabeth probably could not.

[nwhyte]

Hmm, I appreciate that more unpacking may be necessary, but some of the proposed Habsburg or French suitors were a pretty far stretch - were there really so few Protestants in similar situations?

And, Habsburgs apart, are there ever any German princelings mentioned in this context at all?