Elizabeth Vve Villes

In the work written by John Stubbes, the idea of marrying a Frenchman was harmful to England. “…in respect of the hurt to the Church of Christ: euery English hart, in respect of the detriment to England: and euery honest affectionate hart of anye her maiesties louing true seruant in relgard of the greate danger thereby coming to her royall Perlson: yet to thende our minds may be the more earnestlye stirled vp, by more particularly vveigning the euills of this matter, vve ville enter into the partes of thys practice and gage the verye bellye of this great horse of hidden mischiefs & falshoode meant to us.” Elizabeth, as a woman, was not free to make political alliances, marriage or not, without the advice from her Privy Council. One of her goals …show more content…
The belief that God “placeth he a woman vveake in nature, feable in bodie, softe in courage, vnskilfull in practice, not terrible to the enemy, no Shilde to the stynde, vvel, Virtus mea (saith he) in infirmitate pficitur.” Thus it is unsurprising that a strong-willed and determined woman of royal blood, with the pride that comes with such a background, was determined not to marry at all if she could not set the terms of marriage herself - which was impossible anyway for a woman in those times. Her ability to maneuver through playing the marriage card was always in tension with her councilors’ determination to settle the succession, and it was deliberate in design. It was a way for her to maintain her freedom and autonomy as a female ruler – something that was given as a birth right to her male princely peers, but denied her solely on the basis of her …show more content…
One of her greatest motivations was the personal desire for autonomy as a sovereign. Foreign threats in the form of religious institutions such as Catholicism in Spain and France, to the military threats posed by those same nations, Elizabeth's only hope for successfully securing and maintaining her rule as a female monarch, at a time when the world would not entertain such a notion of kingship was to feint, bluff, trick, and play off all the different factions against each other, thereby maintaining a complicated and delicate balancing act. Elizabeth chose not to marry because she wanted to exert control over her life. In a male dominated world Elizabeth was viewed only as smart as her husband. In a world that viewed succession as godliness, especially after the Henry VIII turmoil, her choice to stay celibate put the kingdom in jeopardy and susceptible to foreign rule. Susan Doran describes Elizabeth's plight best in her closing sentence: “Elizabeth was not the free agent that is so often supposed, but a shrewed operator who could turn circumstances outside her control to her best advantage. Elizabeth was a mass manipulator in a world of men who were trying to manipulate her and reduce the power that she held over them, the power that they were so afraid of. This in itself was the main reason that she did not marry for lover or political