hermaphrodite?
http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=queen+elizabeth+I+hermaphrodite%3f&d=5000752091759496&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=ts3Ry9NNYVPiFE1CQDYZyBffPW9RPABD
"Here's to the losers"
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As ridiculous as it seems, it would actually explain quite a bit.
"Here's to the losers"
No, I don't believe it.
In her final days she commanded that no disrobing of "her" person take place, taking her secret with her to the grave.
Possible, right?
"Here's to the losers"
She had attendants helping her dress her entire life. It's more likely that she was distressed by the deterioration of her body over the years and didn't want it seen by men. She was a proud and vain woman.
shareOf course you're probably right, but still... makes you wonder...
What about never marrying and having children? Having an heir was paramount among Kings and Queens. Her advisers begging her to marry. Beseeching her to continue her line.
There's also, don't forget, the claim that the 10 year old Princess Elizabeth died from illness and was replaced in a panic, by her care-takers, with a boy.
http://www.elizabethfiles.com/the-bisley-boy/3255/
Ridiculous? Quite. But at the same time it's quite... strange... that Queen Elizabeth does nothing to keep the throne for the Tudors. Does nothing period.
Except, perhaps, to hide her... secret.
"Here's to the losers"
I've heard the Elizabeth died young and they replaced her in a panic but i don't see why they would. She was 3rd in line and generally seen as illegitimate. I don't think they would worry. It wasn't Edward after all. And if she had both parts Anne and Henry would of saod she was a boy.
Elizabeth was simply a strong minded woman who was terrified of marriage and in love with the power she had without having a man at her side. Although she held the utmost respect and love for her father, he also showed her the horrors of marriage. Dont blame her really. Too bad she didn't reproduce maybe we would of had another her!
"I can't be let off the hook because I might just get the notion that it's ok to keep running"
And if she had both parts Anne and Henry would of said she was a boy.
But Elizabeth wasn't a boy. She was a strong, intelligent queen who wasn't willing to allow herself to be seen as less of a ruler because she was a woman. I think she was more likely to have been afraid of pregnancy. Childbirth fever was a common cause of maternal death in the late 1500s in that era. In her lifetime, she'd seen both Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn viewed as disappointments for failing to produce a healthy male heir. And then there was Jane Seymour, who died in childbirth. If Elizabeth had died as a young woman, Mary Queen of Scots would have inherited the English throne, England would have been ruled by a Scot, and England would have returned to Catholicism.
Very good point.
"Here's to the losers"
I don't think she would have been under much pressure to have a male heir.She was Queen in her own right so it is not like her husband would have treated her the way her father treated his wives. But I do agree that she probably feared dying during childbirth. When her most serious courtship had taken place she was 46 so that added even more danger to the idea of having an heir,l if she even became pregnant at all.
shareI've had this conversation over and over so here I go again. I think Elizabeth suffered from "Androgen insensitivity syndrome. Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is when a person who is genetically male (who has one X and one Y chromosome) is resistant to male hormones (called androgens). As a result, the person has some or all of the physical traits of a woman, but the genetic makeup of a man.Sep 11, 2014-medlineplus.gov
That means that an AIS female from birth looks female, and it's usually during puberty that people realize that there is a problem. Elizabeth had the standard temperament of an AIS female and the standard look of one as they have model like builds and rather calm shrewd personalities.
Also it's very historically inaccurate to think she'd have not married beacuse of her parents. That's such a modern view that doesn't fit with the time period or her role as monarch. Even now the royals have to have heirs and feel that pressure. Imagine the pressure then. With her father's history of trying to have a boy why didn't Elizabeth give more attention to it? She knew that God wanted her line to rule, so why did she blatantly go against God in such an important matter?
Also if she were that afraid of men it would have shown in other parts of her life. Trauma has never been so easy to hide especially for royals, so why did she have such close male friends?
As for power God was the backing for her power. It seems more so that her sister's Mary's lack of power was do to a great many factors like her hysterical pregnancies and her loving a man that seemed repelled by her than her simply being married. Elizabeth may have lusted for power, as all monarchs did, but having a baby was part of that power.
I think the evidence points to an odd situation.
I see no reason to believe that QE1 was anything but a physiologically normal woman. She didn't marry when she was young because her family didn't arrange a marriage for her, and she didn't marry as a monarch because she chose not to. Obviously the reluctance to give her monarchical powers to a husband was part of that, but there were personal motives as well and we will never know what those were as she did not confident in any historians.
I am frankly disappointed with those who want to make her out as male is some way, there's no physical, historical, or even anecdotal evidence for that. If QE1 seemed different from other women, it was IMHO she was the INLY woman of her age to realize her full personal potential. 90% of English women if her era were illetterate and few had any economic powers, Elizabeth was the one woman given access to wealth and power in her own right, and enough of an education to handle it.
Her reluctance to mArry was very likely influenced by the problems her sister Mary, and her cousin MAry, Queen of Scots, had both had as mArried queens regnant. Also, finding the right man was difficult. She was very keen on Robert Dudley, but could not marry him due to the scAndal over the death of his wife. And many people did not like the idea of her marrying a subject. None of ther foreign suitors were sAtisfactory for one reason or another. And she was reluctant to share her power.
The idea that Elizabeth could have been replaced by a boy without anyone noticing is quite ridiculous. Her father was not the most affectionate of parents to her, but even he would have noticed if his daughter had been replaced by a boy. besides, her death would not have been that big a deal. Edward was the cherished heir, not Elizabeth.
I never heard it before now or thought of it but I don't know why anyone would react so harshly against it or think it couldn't be true. It isn't exactly uncommon.
Congratulations, San Francisco! You've ruined pizza!
No. She was examined by physicians during her marriage negotiations, and they confirmed that she wAs fit to beAr children. hd she been an hermaphrodite, someone would have noticed.
shareJust for fun... if she was a hermaphrodite or a boy and if someone found out, what do you think would happen to that person?
Exactly! CHOP!
"Here's to the losers"
foreign powers would have found out pretty quickly, they had numerous agents working in england. elizabeth could not have done anything to them. i think it was the Spanish ambassador for instance who bribed elizabeth's laundry maids to report on the state of her sheets, so he would know if she was menstruating.
and had she died as a child, the likelihood of finding another child who resembled her enough to fool anyone AND who was educated to Elizabeth's very high standards, seems unlikely. even if her father hadn't noticed, her tutors undoubtedly would have, Elizabeth was considered excdptionally bright, and she was already fluent in a number of languages for instance. it is also extremely unlikely that her sister mary would not have noticed, and even less likely that she would have kept quiet about it. edward, another very bright child, would certainly have noticed that his sister had been replaced by someone else.
I think it's ridiculous. The reason she never married is that as she never in her life saw a happy marriage, especially with a queen regnant. Equally important, as long as she was unmarried she could act as though she might marry any of the eligible royal bachelors. As long as she kept flirting she had many potential alliances available and fewer enemies. It meant she had an heir problem, but it stabilized her rule.
shareMarriage was a great way to seal an alliance between two kingdoms but it was also a delicate contract. Alliances can get broken easily. When the Archduchess Maria Antoinette was betrothed to Dauphin Louis-Auguste, it was an act of friendship and loyalty between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of France which was at the time considered the grandest country in continental Europe. Eventually the alliance fell apart when Queen Marie Antoinette's brother ordered the invasion of her kingdom. Queen Elizabeth I knew what alliances were truly worth in the long run. She learned about the downside of her father's alliances and how angry he would get when allies did the "say one thing do, another" method of handling international affairs. It was a waste of her time and energy to consider one, so having children was out of the question. But it wasn't a lost cause for her because her throne was inherited by Queen Mary of Scots' son Prince James who eventually formed a personal union between the crowns of England and Scotland. Elizabeth I had an option, that's probably why she refused to sign the order for the execution of her cousin's daughter.
shareNo.
Kinda sexist theory, if you think about it. Clearly a WOMAN wasn't England's best, strongest, most intelligent monarch -- and God forbid a woman might never MARRY! Why, she must be a man! ;)
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From reading about her more, people seem to think she was more lucky than anything. She wasn't as bright as people thought and was very stubborn and overly emotional. I think her lack of marriage was due to her being indecisive and possibly infertile, but we will never know.
shareIt was great reading everyone's theories on why she didn't marry. But why can't it be something simple? Like, she didn't want to have a husband! She didn't want to answer to anyone else. She didn't want to be a baby farm. She choose to live her life as she wished. As soon as she married, poof, all of that gone. Her husband would have total control over her. And over England. She would be made to give an heir. Do her duty. Well, she did a sang good job without a man.
If it were me, lol, don't know if I would marry either.
No.
If there was ANY chance that she had enough male organs to have a hope of producing sperm, she would have been named "Henry" and married to a healthy girl at 14. Henry was too desperate for a male heir to be picky about things like an intersexed kid, and the bride would be that told she wasn't picky either.