Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Question from Landon - Proof of Elizabeth I's alleged promiscuity

I just came here to ask, is there any proof to Queen Elizabeth I being sexually promiscuous? Did she sleep with any of her male courtiers, or is/was that just a rumor? (Btw, hopefully, I'm not asking something that's already been asked before).

Related threads (I think I found them all... Elizabeth's virginity feels like it has come up a lot more than this in the ~17 years this blog has been around, but I might also be remembering threads on my old email discussion list too!):

https://queryblog.tudorhistory.org/2008/01/question-from-lyra-henry-viiis-children.html https://queryblog.tudorhistory.org/2008/08/question-from-kelly-elizabeth-and.html https://queryblog.tudorhistory.org/2008/11/question-from-angie-elizabeths.html

1 comment:

Just Your Average Historian said...

Landon, most everybody has questioned this at point or another, but I think this is just another myth. Just because she was surrounded by good-looking, sexy men, does NOT necessarily mean she slept around with any of them, just as someone today, who is always with cute, sexy people of the opposite gender. (We all know that Charles II definitely slept with all his female courtiers, almost a century later, but that's another story). Need more proof, she never got pregnant and had any children of her own, it's almost, unfortunately, impossible, depending on whether the person wants to have/birth children, or not, not to become pregnant after doing "it", unless either or both the male and/or female have fertility issues. Yes, it's true she and/or one of her male courtiers could've used condoms/birth control methods, that existed back in Tudor/Elizabethan times, (btw, birth control methods aren't just a recent, modern day invention, they've been around for centuries), but still. Looking back, she just doesn't seem to be the type of queen that ever wanted multiple (sex) lovers, some kings/queens back then, definitely were, but she was not one of them.