The Marriage Game (58 page)

She might not have married, but was she the Virgin Queen she claimed to be? The debate has been raging since the 1560s, and scurrilous rumors were rife throughout her reign, fueled by Elizabeth’s own behavior, which was often condemned by her more sober subjects as scandalous. She would allow Leicester to enter her bedchamber to hand her shift to her while maids were dressing her. She was espied at her window in a state of undress on at least one occasion, and in old age she had a French ambassador squirming in embarrassment for two
hours during a private audience by wearing a gown that exposed her wrinkled body to the navel.

Yet many ambassadors, at the behest of prospective royal husbands, made inquiries as to whether the Queen was virtuous, and in every case they concluded that she was. She herself could not understand why there should be so many racy tales about her, or claims that she had borne bastard children.

“I do not live in a corner,” she told a Spanish envoy. “A thousand eyes see all I do, and calumny will not fasten on me forever.” A French ambassador who knew her well claimed that the rumors were “sheer inventions of the malicious to put off those who would have found an alliance with her useful.” Perhaps most tellingly of all, in 1562, when Elizabeth believed she was dying of smallpox and was about to face divine judgment, she spoke of her notorious relationship with Robert Dudley and swore before witnesses that nothing improper had ever passed between them. It is unlikely that she would have jeopardized her immortal soul by telling a lie at such a time.

As a historian, I believe that Elizabeth was in all probability the Virgin Queen she claimed to be, technically at least—the evidence we have strongly suggests that she indulged in some intimacies with Dudley. However, in the prequel to this novel,
The Lady Elizabeth
, I explored the possibility that Thomas Seymour had actually seduced the adolescent Elizabeth, and that she had miscarried the child that resulted. The “what if” aspect of history is always fascinating, and there is some contemporary gossip on which to base this theory—had there not been, I would not have developed this story line. I know that some readers took issue with it, but having written it in the first novel, I felt obliged to remain with it in the second, and so in
The Marriage Game
, Elizabeth has reinvented herself as the Virgin Queen, and her aversion to marriage stems largely—but not wholly—from the Seymour scandal of her youth.

I think that scandal contributed crucially to Elizabeth’s resolve never to marry. It is intriguing to find that most of the men with whom she later became involved were dark and dashing, even a little dangerous, like Seymour. But in reality she kept a tight rein on her emotions
on hearing of his death, so we have no way of knowing how deeply it actually affected her. I do not believe she gave herself fully to Robert Dudley; the evidence suggests that their private relationship was much as it is portrayed in this novel. But I think there is enough to show that Elizabeth’s fears of marriage and sex were deep-seated, and I have developed that theme in this novel.

In 1604, after the Queen’s death, Leicester’s son, Robert Dudley, claimed that his parents had actually been married. Douglass Sheffield testified that the wedding had taken place before witnesses in 1573 at Esher, but her statement could not be supported because all the witnesses were dead. This was probably a ploy to secure an inheritance for Robert Dudley, even though Leicester had only ever referred to him as his “base son,” and both he and Douglass had married other people after they parted. So it is likely that they were never married at all.

George Wyatt’s memoir of Anne Boleyn was never finished, hence there is no dedication to a patron. There is also no direct evidence that Elizabeth asked him to write it, yet he implies that important persons encouraged him, and certainly no less a personage than John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, the close friend of the Queen, was one of them, replacing an earlier anonymous patron who had died; I have speculated that it might have been Lord Hunsdon. Thus it is possible that Wyatt’s sympathetic defense of Anne, written in response to Catholic calumnies, reflects Elizabeth’s own views.

I should like to thank my agent, Julian Alexander, and the historian Sarah Gristwood, for reading the first draft of this novel, and for their very helpful and encouraging advice. Warm thanks are especially due to my editors, Anthony Whittome and Susanna Porter, for creative suggestions that have undoubtedly made this a better book. Finally, I want to thank my amazing husband Rankin for being my mainstay and constant support while I was writing the novel—and indeed, all my books so far!

FICTION

The Marriage Game

A Dangerous Inheritance

Captive Queen

The Lady Elizabeth

Innocent Traitor

NONFICTION

Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World

Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster

Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England

Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

Henry VIII: The King and His Court

Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life

The Life of Elizabeth I

The Children of Henry VIII

The Wars of the Roses

The Princes in the Tower

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

A
LISON
W
EIR
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the novels
The Marriage Game
,
A Dangerous Inheritance
,
Captive Queen
,
The Lady Elizabeth
,
Innocent Traitor
, and many historical biographies, including
Elizabeth of York
,
Mary Boleyn
,
The Lady in the Tower
,
Mistress of the Monarchy
,
Henry VIII
,
Eleanor of Aquitaine
,
The Life of Elizabeth I
, and
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
. She lives in Surrey, England, with her husband.

www.alisonweir.org.uk
www.alisonweirtours.com