Why didn't Elizabeth get married?

• Doesn’t need to - stronger just as a single queen (she could have lost considerable power)
• Marrying a foreigner would have caused all sorts of problems, internally (social) and external (England’s standing globally)
• Marrying in the country would have decreased her personal power as a king would mean that people would listen to him over her, despite not having royal blood
• Her control over her privy council and such relied on her femininity and flirting with her advisors - a husband would have stood in the way of this
• Her privy council could never agree on a suitor - no matter what choice she made she would be angering someone; could cause rebellion? No one suitable - religion/age gaps/reputation
• Her sisters and fathers marriage showed her it was a miserable affair - particularly for the women involved

  • Anne boleyn - her mum - was executed
  • Mary was made miserable from Philip - he was never there
  • Arranged marriages - LJG
  • Association with execution/unrest
• Likely that she feared childbirth - two of her stepmothers, her grandmother and several acquaintances had died in childbed (trauma); moreover, in pregnancy she was bound to lose her grip on affairs
• Trauma - Thomas Seymour, may have sexually abused Elizabeth (step-uncle)

  • She was 13 he would go to her room and 'tickling' her or possibly undressing her - when he was told to stop he made a comment on bum and at 14 he tried to marry her
  • After once going to her bed and there is conspiracy she was impregnated and lost the baby through miscarriage or it was taken away