minervacasterly: Tudor Trivia and Curiosities! Queenly Jealousy.After Queen Elizabeth I found
minervacasterly:Tudor Trivia and Curiosities! Queenly Jealousy.After Queen Elizabeth I found that one of her ladies, Mary Shelton, married without her permission, she flew into a rage and punished her by breaking her finger. Talk about cat fight 16th century style! Her privy councilors tried to hush it up saying that Mary broke her finer with a candlestick but everyone knew what happened.Elizabeth got more paranoid as she got older and she had good reason to be. People began to mock her for her aging looks and with the war against Spain raging on, she feared that if she let people mock her it would make her look weak and encourage her enemies to act against her. Because what kind of a Queen was she if she let her ladies do whatever they wanted, when they wanted, and nobody did anything about it. And there was also an element of jealousy. By the time of Mary’s marriage, Elizabeth was no longer the young woman everyone had looked forward to seeing her crowned when her sister was Queen, and had cheered for when she was. She was also beyond the age of childbearing and seeing one of her ladies happily married and with a child on the way reminded her of what she had sacrificed for her country. -- source link
#history#elizabeth i#queens#16th century