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The real reason Jane Austen never married
Jane Austen's literary heroines famously enjoyed romantic wedded bliss, yet Austen herself remained unmarried all her life. Here, expert David Lassman asks why…
One of the greatest writers in the English language, Jane Austen (1775–1817) is famed for her works of romantic fiction including Sense and Sensibility (1811); Pride and Prejudice (1813); Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Her present-day popularity derives chiefly from the fact her heroines, although two centuries old, act as romantic beacons for the modern age. With a universal message of marrying for love rather than money, they provide examples, albeit fictional, of women choosing husbands due to strings of the heart and not of the purse. If the old adage ‘write what you know’ is applied to Austen’s writing, then she should have had one of the happiest marriages in the history of matrimony. But here lies the paradox. One of the supreme purveyors of romantic love in English literature, and the creator of numerous blissful couplings in print, never took her own trip down the aisle. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/06/GettyImages-566460025-283185a-e1738752000230.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="The National Portrait Gallery attributed this unfinished portrait to Jane Austen’s sister, Cassandra, and dated it to circa 1810." title="The National Portrait Gallery attributed this unfinished portrait to Jane Austen’s sister, Cassandra, and dated it to circa 1810." /> The whitewashing of Jane's public persona began almost immediately after her death in 1817 with the autobiographical note her brother, Henry, wrote to preface the publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. This meant that the question as to why this was so never really entered the equation. The mere fact that Jane did not find a Mr Darcy in real life and so lived – it seemed – as a virtuous Christian ‘spinster’ was enough to satisfy Victorian curiosity. By the middle of the 20th century, however, this somewhat distorted view of the now much-admired and studied author began to be challenged. Literary critic QD Leavis protested in 1942, for example, against the “conventional account of Miss Austen as prim, demure, sedate, prudish and so on, the typical Victorian maiden lady”. Her essay was just one of many that would bring into question and then rewrite the received biography. And with this rewriting came the desire to know exactly why Jane Austen had remained single. Was Jane Austen gay? The most contentious hypothesis puts forward the assumption Jane Austen did not marry for the simple reason her sexuality was orientated towards other women. In other words, she was a lesbian. The evidence, however, is simply not there to support this. We know of the early romance with Tom Lefroy, who would later become Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, which was called off not by Jane due to any burgeoning doubt about her own sexuality, but by his family due to the penniless status of the would-be lovers. And this was the age, lest we forget, at least for the middling classes and above, when marrying for money was a fact of life and the yardstick by which all potential partners – male and female – were measured. There was also the mystery seaside rendezvous, where it is said Jane fell in love with a young clergyman and he with her. Their infatuation blossomed over several weeks during one of the Austen family’s regular summer breaks while they lived in Bath, and the lovers made arrangements to meet the following year. Sadly, when the time came for their reunion, news arrived saying that the clergyman had died during the intervening period. In 2009 Dr Andrew Norman named this clergyman as Samuel Blackall, but claims Blackall did not die but rather went on to marry someone else. And then, of course, there was an actual proposal of marriage and acceptance of it. While Jane and her sister, Cassandra, were staying with friends, the Bigg sisters, at their residence, Manydown, Hants, in December 1802, their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither (the additional surname having been adopted for males of the family during the late 18th century) took it upon himself to integrate the families further by one evening proposing to Jane. Although he was six years younger than her she accepted, but after what can only have been a dark night of the soul rescinded it the following morning and hastily bid a retreat by carriage back to Steventon and then to Bath. It could be argued that if there were any hint of lesbianism in Jane then surely she would simply have not accepted the offer in the first place, or else would not have changed her mind (enjoying the financial security the marriage brought, while at the same time free to enjoy her sexuality outside of the relationship). The reality is that any relations Jane did have with the same sex were either genuine friendships, or else those normally shared with relatives. Jane's relationship with her sister Cassandra Another theory was later put forward; that of an incestuous relationship. This ‘sisterly love’ theory, which suggested a sexual bond between Jane and her sister, Cassandra, came into public consciousness in 1995, the same year as Colin Firth’s shirt-drenched Darcy became lodged there; the former through a review essay by Terry Castle. Castle’s piece, which appeared in the London Review of Books, was a critique of the latest edition of Jane Austen’s collected letters. In the essay Castle pondered on the closeness of the sisters to the point where she mused about the true nature of their relationship and what had transpired between the sheets of the double bed she believed the sisters shared throughout their lives. It was of course Cassandra, in one of the greatest acts of literary vandalism in history, who burnt the majority of her sister’s enormous correspondence to her, thus depriving posterity of an insight into a more authentic character study of Jane, other than the whitewashed, virginal one that prevailed. The burning of Jane’s letters also gave rise to endless speculation as to what exactly they contained. Whether it was ever Castle’s intention to call into question the sisters’ sexual orientation – she later stated it was not – there was seemingly enough in the review to warrant a sub-editor on the periodical (with one-eye on circulation, no doubt) to title the review “Was Jane Austen Gay?” and then emblazon the headline on the front cover. The ensuing fallout from the article – which included a media maelstrom – made at least one thing certain: not the bedtime habits of the Austen sisters, but the reverence held for Jane by various devotees (or ‘Janeites’, as they are called) around the globe. Indeed, many fans were outraged at the mere suggestion that Austen could have been anything other than a heterosexual, virginal singleton. The final nail in the coffin of this theory seemed to come with the disclosure of an invoice. The whole episode had revolved around Castle’s assumption that the two women slept together in one double bed, but this assumption was completely shattered by a piece of paper that showed that Mr Austen, on his daughters reaching adolescence, had ordered a single bed for each of them. And let us not forget, either, that Cassandra herself was engaged to be married, before her fiancé died in 1797, leaving her bereft but determined to embrace spinsterhood out of respect for him and not through any sexual orientation towards other women. Is this the real reason Jane Austen didn't marry? With that contentious theory hopefully put to bed (no pun intended), we can come to the real reason, I believe, Jane Austen did not marry. It was because she already had developed a deep, lifelong relationship with her art – writing – and believed there was a good chance any gentleman she uttered the words ‘I do’ to would insist on that artistic expression ceasing forthwith. Jane Austen began writing at the age of 12 and did not stop until ill health forced it upon her, shortly before her death, at the age of 41. In between there were seemingly fallow years – in Bath – and even barren ones – in Southampton – but this did not mean she ceased in the development of her craft. There were voluminous letters to be written, so as to keep her wit and observations sharp, and large amounts of books devoured from circulating libraries or those of friends and relatives to stimulate her mind in readiness for an incredible six-year outpouring of literary creativity once ensconced at the cottage in Chawton. This ‘revelation’ and the whole mass of evidence that is slowly being recognised as supporting this theory is, in its own way, possibly even more contentious than any questions about Jane’s sexuality. Why? Because this suggests that she was not only a literary genius but a forward-thinking woman, an independent mind, an astute business person and a feminist pioneer – one who can easily take her place alongside such luminaries as Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft – rolled into one. And this at a time when women were supposed to love, honour and obey their husbands, and the only way for the majority of women – including Austen – to obtain financial security was to marry into it. Because God help them if they tried to make a living independently, say through the pen, as she chose to do! In hindsight, then, it is perhaps no wonder Jane’s brother, Henry, sought to soften the image of his sister, knowing a true portrait would most likely cause outrage in certain sections of the Regency, and then later Victorian, public. Possibly Tom Lefroy would have encouraged Jane’s writing aspirations, as might the mysterious seaside suitor, but she was certain that Harris Bigg-Wither would not and ultimately, in my mind, at least, that is why she declined his proposal. But let us consider for a moment the pressure that would have been on Jane throughout that December night in 1802 at Manydown. Her family, although not poor, were not well off, and the marriage would have brought security for all of them, or at least the females within it: Jane, Cassandra and their mother. I believe it was with a pragmatic mind that Jane accepted Bigg-Wither’s proposal. And then throughout the night, either within her solitary thoughts or in discussion with her sister, she pondered on what she might be losing herself, and changed her mind. It might have been the dutiful daughter who accepted the proposal, but it was the aspiring writer (and true artist) who descended the stairs the following morning, took Harris to one side, and declared she had made a mistake and the marriage was off. With this knowledge of Jane’s literary aspirations, it is perhaps no surprise that on her return to Bath she subsequently revised Northanger Abbey (or rather Susan, as it was originally titled) and successfully sought a publishing deal for it, which saw her achieve the goal of finally being paid for her writing. The fact that, for whatever reason, the publishing firm chose not to publish the work merely taught Jane a lesson about the industry and made her more determined to see her work in print, if not bearing her own name, certainly on her own terms. To this end, after revising Sense & Sensibility and once settled at Chawton, Jane used her own money to publish the book and saw a handsome return on her investment. And although she sold the rights to her next published novel, Pride & Prejudice, she quickly realised a mistake had been made and so subsequent books reverted back to this initial ‘business model’. The fact that Jane Austen remained single all her life, while her literary heroines enjoyed both romantic wedded bliss and financial security, is one of English literature’s greatest ironies. The simple fact is, though, that even if Jane had herself experienced a happy marriage with a husband only too obliging for her to continue writing, with the prospect of possibly a large family to bring up Jane may not have had the time to write to the extent she did and so develop her incredible talent that is so revered today. So, to reiterate, by not marrying, Jane allowed herself the time and space to develop her talent unhindered by domestic duties or conjugal obligations. She sacrificed financial security and matrimonial happiness in order to retain the freedom to write and develop as a true artist. It is perhaps because of that choice Jane Austen is considered one of the greatest literary talents of all time. The Regency | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | Join Dr Lizzie Rogers for our four-week course on Regency England – from the Georgian kings and Napoleonic Wars to the marriage market and the works of Jane Austen. Explore the course now This article was first published by History Extra in 2016
Edward Brooke-Hitching traces the story of love down the centuries, through a host of fascinating and often bizarre objects and stories
From prehistoric carvings and medieval spell books to grand romantic gestures and tokens of affection, throughout history there has been no shortage of ways to say those three little words. Speaking to Charlotte Hodgman, Edward Brooke-Hitching shares some incredible, and curious, stories of love through time – from ancient Mesopotamia to the modern day. View Green Video on the source website
Who was Saint Valentine and was he real? A history of the figure's origins
Valentine’s Day has been big business since the mid-19th century, when American merchants and printers transformed a religious folk tradition into a modern holiday. But, says Professor Lisa Bitel, few realise that the holiday began as a Christian feast day commemorating an ancient martyr named Valentinus. Here, she considers the real historical candidates for the figure who came to be the patron saint of love…
Practically everyone in the English-speaking world knows about Valentine’s Day. Celebrants buy more chocolates, flowers and jewellery on 14 February than on any other day of the year and only Christmas occasions more greeting cards. So what is the history behind this commercial celebration? What is Saint Valentine the patron saint of? Catholics still regard Valentine as the patron saint of engaged couples; happy marriages; love; and lovers. Yet a patron saint of love and lovers is not exactly compatible with Christian doctrine, which has always emphasised the joys of self-denial. Celibacy has been a requirement for priesthood since the Middle Ages, and virginity won sainthood for hundreds of women. Therefore, a saint who sponsors the exchange of candy and kisses between lovers seems doctrinally dubious. So where did this saint come from, and how did he become the impresario of sweethearts? Who was the real Saint Valentine? If you consult Wikipedia or Catholic Encyclopedia, or more popular digital publications such as Buzzfeed and History.com, you will read that Valentine lived in the third century, was either a priest or a bishop in Rome, and was jailed by the Roman emperor for being a Christian in the period when the religion remained illegal. Catholic news sites claim that Valentine’s crime was performing marriage rites for Christian lovers; alternatively, some say he carried messages between jailed Christians and, before he was executed, left a letter to a young woman signed “your Valentine”. But if you dig a bit deeper to read the ancient documents, another Valentine appears. In fact, it turns out there were quite a few Valentines in the Roman Empire. The name was popular among Christians and others because it means ‘powerful’ or ‘worthy’. It seems that three different martyrs named Valentinus died on 14 February during the reign of Emperor Claudius Gothicus (r268–270); none of whom married Christian couples or carried messages between jailed Christians. One was a general stationed in Africa. The martyrologies (lists of martyrs organised by death date) say only that “In Africa Valentini & militum viginti quatuor [He perished] in Africa with two dozen troops”. We know nothing more about him. The second was Bishop Valentinus of Terni, a town about 70 miles northeast of Rome; and the third was a Roman priest. According to the vitae (hagiographies) of the latter two, they both performed miraculous cures, debated with pagan jailors, and lost their heads in Rome. Bishop Valentinus of Terni: the real Saint Valentine? According to his fifth- or sixth-century hagiographer, Bishop Valentinus of Terni was summoned to Rome sometime in the 260s to cure the son of a rhetor [or orator] named Craton, who kept a school and housed visiting Greek scholars. His son Chaeremon, who was also a budding student of philosophy, had contracted a debilitating sickness that curved his spine and prevented him from walking, and Craton learned that the cleric had healed similar cases. But when he arrived, Bishop Valentine first tried to persuade Craton to become a Christian. Read more | Leading ladies in love: 6 historical movies to watch this Valentine’s Day Craton, trained in Hellenistic philosophy [Greek philosophy during the period running from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the end of the Roman Republic in 31 BC, known as the Hellenistic Age], found the tenets of Christianity to be illogical and ridiculous. “How can water, which washes filth off the body, clean away sins?!” he demanded. The debate dragged on as Chaeremon lay suffering and dying until Craton desperately struck a deal. If Valentine cured the boy, Craton’s entire household would convert. Valentine then spent the night praying alone with Chaeremon. The next morning, Chaeremon appeared hale and hearty. Everyone, including Craton, his family, servants, and the visiting Greeks, accepted baptism. When the Roman senate got wind of the business they promptly arrested Valentine, had him beaten, and then decapitated. The visiting scholars took the martyr’s body back to Terni to bury it. Unfortunately, Roman soldiers caught them and beheaded them as well. A third Valentinus The third Valentinus, according to his vita, was a priest of Rome also arrested for preaching Christianity in the time of Claudius Gothicus [Roman emperor 268–270]. As several modern scholars have pointed out, Claudius was hardly ever in Rome – he earned his name by fighting off invading Germanic barbarians up north – and he never ordered a persecution of Christians. Whatever the priest Valentinus did to annoy the government, he was supposedly hauled before Claudius and he took the opportunity to preach. Claudius seemed rather interested at first, but a prefect named Calpurnius warned the emperor: “You are being seduced into a false religion!” Claudius sent Valentine into house arrest at the home of an aristocrat named Asterius, who was promised riches if he could subdue the priest with arguments against Christianity. Of course, Valentine began preaching the minute he arrived at the house, discoursing on Christ as the light of the world. Asterius replied that he had a blind daughter, and said if Valentine’s god could open her eyes to the light of day, Asterius would become a Christian. Valentine lay hands on the girl’s eyes and prayed that she might see the light. When she opened her eyes and looked around her, Asterius fell to Valentine’s feet and begged to be saved. Valentine quickly began baptising everyone around him, making 44 new Christians from Asterius’s household. But Claudius soon found out and had them all thrown in prison. Valentine was beheaded, along with several others who became renowned as martyrs. Visiting Valentine as a cure for illness None of the three Valentine’s biographies was earlier than the fifth century – that’s at least 200 years after any of the saints supposedly lived. Neither written nor material evidence from the pre-medieval period associates any of these Valentines with love or lovers. The word ‘amor’, Latin for ‘love’, doesn’t appear in the texts. Even when promoting their God, the two better-known Valentines never spoke in terms of affection but only faith and illumination. Instead, they became known in subsequent centuries for curing those who suffered, as Chaeremon did, from “falling sickness” – that is, epilepsy. Pilgrims, lured by the legends, came to visit the graves of both Valentines for cures, not for love. Religious tourists made the rounds of martyrs’ burials, praying for the saints’ help with illness and for intercession with God. Some went to Bishop Valentine of Terni lying quietly in his Umbrian tomb outside the city of his birth. Others attended the Roman Valentine who was supposedly buried in a crypt near the site of his execution, just outside the city walls on the Via Flaminia of Rome. Devotees of Roman Valentine may have built a church over his grave as early as the fourth century, though more likely it was named after the much richer Valentine who funded it. They began calling the city gate there Valentine’s Gate (today it is known as the Porta del Populo.) Nineteenth-century excavations at the site revealed fourth- and fifth-century burials as well as fragments inscribed with Valentine’s name. After some centuries, either pilgrims sought other saints, or Valentine’s shrine declined when Pope Nicholas IV (died in 1292) ordered that Valentine’s body be moved to a new home at Santa Prassede, a flourishing parish centre where many other saints’ remains were housed. Throughout the European Middle Ages, Valentine remained no more or less popular than other ancient Roman martyrs. Every 14 February, church lectors across Europe read out the life of one or the other or both Valentines. Medieval writers sometimes mixed up their Valentines, attributing the miracles of one to another. When did Valentine become a saint? Eventually, some medieval scholars grew suspicious about the striking similarities between the stories of the bishop and the priest. They knew that after the empire dwindled, Rome had become a ruined pile of broken, nameless graves, where anyone might reclaim the bones of a ‘martyr’. Bishops and abbots eager for relics did not always properly authenticate the remains of bodies; the shreds of blood-soaked cloth; and the other objects hauled out of crypts and sent northward as relics. Hagiographers, sensing an opportunity, revised saints’ legends to advertise the presence of relics in their churches. One Breton bishop recorded the slew of miracles that enriched Valentine’s reputation at the end of the 11th century, when the saint’s skull somehow ended up in Roquemaure, where it was exhibited every year on his feast day. That same skull later went to Tarragona, while other bits of the Valentines turned up all over Europe: a skull remains on display in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome; Saint Anton’s church in Madrid has some bones, as does Santa Maria Assunta in Savona; and a Carmelite church in Dublin. There’s also a bone in Prague (SS. Peter and Paul); a chunk of skull in Chelmno (St Mary’s Assumption); and other slivers in: the parish church of the Oratory in Birmingham (England – look under the St Athanasius altar); Glasgow (Church of Blessed Saint John Duns Scotus); and in the Church of Metastasis of Virgin Mary in Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos. The Stephansdom in Vienna brashly claims to have the whole body. Neither inscriptions on reliquaries that housed his bones, nor sculpture or pictures betrayed Valentine’s association with love. Illuminations and sculptures of Valentine typically showed him as a bishop with staff or a tonsured monk holding a book. In early printed volumes of the 16th century, Valentine often bent over victims of epilepsy or plague. Other scenes depicted eager executioners chopping off his head. Not a single picture showed the saint passing messages or marrying lovers. Valentine himself appeared more stern than romantic. When did Saint Valentine become associated with love? Modern literary scholars credit one man for turning Valentine into the patron of love: Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales and other poetic works. Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules [aka Parliament of Fowls], an allegorical tale thought to have been written during the negotiations of Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia in 1380, mentioned “seynt Volantynys day/ Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make. [Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird comes there to choose his mate.]” Bird love apparently occurred on Valentine’s feast day at the start of the English spring. Chaucer may have read the hagiographies of Valentine in local English versions. He may have been aware, too, that yet another head of Valentine lay at Hyde Abbey, just outside the walls of Winchester, as literary scholar Jack Oruch has pointed out (‘Saint Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February’, Speculum 56:3 [1981]). But the love connection was Chaucer’s creation. Chaucer was a major influencer in his day – after him, everyone began calling their beloved “Valentine” and writing love poems on 14 February. Literary acquaintances of Chaucer were among the first to do so in print. Oton de Granson III (died c1397), for instance, wrote three long complainctes to Saint Valentine, as well as poems about the “Wish” and “Dream” of Valentine; while John Gower (died in 1408), who wrote copiously about love, referred to Valentine in two of his ballades. Across the water, Christine de Pizan in her Dit de la Rose described how French knights formed a fictional Order of the Rose on Saint Valentine’s Day. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/02/GettyImages-50696723-10e63c5-e1675694149798.jpg" width="619" height="412" alt="Geoffrey Chaucer (c1340-1400) depicted as a pilgrim on horseback in a detail from an early illuminated manuscript edition of 'The Canterbury Tales'. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)" title="Geoffrey Chaucer (c1340-1400) depicted as a pilgrim on horseback in a detail from an early illuminated manuscript edition of 'The Canterbury Tales'. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)" /> The religious studies scholar Leigh Schmidt has suggested that Valentine remained important to churchgoers and those who suffered epilepsy as a martyr who died on 14 February (‘The Fashioning of a Modern Holiday’, Winterthur Portfolio 28:4 [1993]). The Anglican Book of Common Prayer explained that Saint Valentine was “famous for his love and charity”, and thus a suitable sponsor of romance. When were the first Valentine’s cards? Valentine became more popular as a patron of love and lovers in two contexts: among aristocratic circles and in folk custom. Poets such as William Shakespeare and John Donne continued Chaucer’s tradition of using Valentine and his day as symbols of love. While they composed verses to honour the holiday, others exchanged gifts. In rural communities, meanwhile, men and women got together on Valentine’s Day to make merry and play games, such as drawing lots for Valentines sweethearts and divination – conjuring up the identity of one’s future spouse. By the 19th century, English consumers were ready and eager for Valentine's cards with poems already printed on them, preferably decorated with love birds, hearts and Cupid (rather than the image of a headless Roman bishop). The London Journal of 1858 supported the custom of exchanging observance love tokens on Valentine’s Day, declaring that it was both “natural” and “proper” that, at the start of spring, “the predominating sentiment in the human mind should be the sentiment of love; and to this accordingly the anniversary of our saint is directed”. However, the publication preferred home-made cards to mass-produced Valentines, about which the editors opined: “If we were to give a general character, we would say they are very trashy and not a little vulgar; and… the production of mercenaries for hire.” It’s probably a good thing that the Journal’s editors never saw today’s variety of Valentine advertisements, cards, decorations and gifts. Read more | Lewd, creepy and insulting: 9 surprisingly dark Valentine's Day cards from the past Are there ancient associations between Valentine and love? Despite the evidence for Chaucer’s transformation of Valentine’s Day, some scholars have continued to seek ancient causes for Valentine’s modern associations with passion and romance. In the 19th century, historians scoured the sources of classical history for evidence of celebrations in mid-February. They found Lupercalia, a holiday associated with Faunus or Pan, celebrated with a carnival on the Ides of February (15 February.) Colleges or clubs of young noblemen sacrificed goats or dogs on an altar in the cave where, according to legend, Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome, were suckled by the famous she-wolf. According to Plutarch, they cut strips for thongs from the bloody hides and ran half-naked around the Palatine hill of Rome, striking nubile women with their thongs to confer fertility. Supposedly, the young men also drew lots for sexual partners. Read more | A brief guide to ancient Rome and the Romans, plus 9 fascinating facts After Romans became Christians, Pope Gelasius I (d496) prohibited celebrations of Lupercalia and, according to these same modern scholars, substituted the more chaste celebration of a Valentine’s feast day. Other recent scholars have blamed instead Emperor Claudius, who allegedly banned young men from getting married in the third century. Claudius needed more soldiers for his campaigns, so the argument goes, hence soldiers were required by law to remain single while serving. In this version of Valentine’s saintly past, Valentine heroically resisted the emperor and married Christian couples. Yet in reality, Claudius never forbade marriage because he was too busy securing his eastern frontier to decree laws in Rome. These explanations for Valentine’s Day remain far more popular than the ‘Chaucer Theory’. Updated hagiographies of Valentine and church websites report as facts that an identifiable third-century bishop named Valentine offended the Roman emperor by marrying soldiers and their lovers, and/or passing notes among jailed lovers, and paid for it with his life. Mainstream digital publications claiming to reveal the “true story of the real Saint Valentine” tell similar stories (although those authors who research as far as Wikipedia mention Chaucer’s influence). How ironic that modern celebrants have chosen Cupid – Greco-Roman god of erotic love – as one of the major symbols of the day when Saint Valentine lost his head. Why was Valentine removed as an official saint? Unfortunately, Valentine’s revised legend probably caused his loss of saintly status in the modern Catholic church. The Vatican removed Valentine from its universal calendar of saints in 1969 because his legend lacked historical evidence. Catholics are still free to venerate the patron saint of epilepsy if they wish, but it is not a liturgical obligation. Like the rest of the world, devout fans of the saint are free to focus instead on choosing cards and gifts for their loved ones, although believers have found a way to honour the ancient saint and, at the same time, celebrate the holiday of love. At Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Dublin, the Franciscan church that claims to have relics of Valentine, petitioners leave notes to the saint begging for guidance, cures, and love. “Dear Valentine May I find a nice man to settle down with,” pleads one. “Saint Valentine may I please meet Annabelle again,” asks another (Irish Times, 8 February 2014). We don’t know who the real Valentine was, because our best evidence consists of legends – ancient Christian legends; legends of burials and relics; legends of mating birds and love lotteries; of pagan debauches and wholesome romance. No one is sure exactly who Valentine (or Valentines) was (or were); or why Christians of late antiquity came to revere him. Meanwhile, the myth-making continues. In 2017, a Brazilian forensic anthropologist used photos of the skull fragment kept in Santa Maria in Cosmedin and reconstructed the face of Saint Valentine (MailOnline, 13 February 2017) – but which one? View Green Video on the source website This article was first published in 2019 and updated in February 2024
From prehistoric carvings and medieval spell books to grand romantic gestures and tokens of affection, throughout history there has been no shortage of ways to say those three little words. Speaking to Charlotte Hodgman, Edward Brooke-Hitching shares some incredible, and curious, stories of love through time – from ancient Mesopotamia to the modern day. Edward Brooke-Hitching is the author of Love: A Curious History (Simon & Schuster, 2023) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones
5 British castles with romantic histories
We've rounded up five British castles with thoroughly romantic histories – from the site of Robert Dudley's lavish three-week proposal to Elizabeth I, to a 'castle' literally built for love…
Looking for somewhere to visit for Valentine’s Day? Why not explore one of these British castles… Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire Where Robert Dudley attempted to woo Elizabeth I Queen Elizabeth I never took a husband – but it certainly wasn’t through a lack of effort from the men in her life. She had dozens of suitors over the years, from Philip II of Spain to Archduke Charles of Austria. The queen’s long-time favourite, Robert Dudley, went to particularly spectacular lengths to woo the Virgin Queen. In July 1575, he embarked on a mammoth three-week proposal at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire – coming “closer than any other to making Elizabeth his wife”, according to historian Elizabeth Goldring. Read more | The history of Valentine's Day The Kenilworth proposal was Dudley’s final attempt at winning Elizabeth, following almost 15 years of trying. Over three weeks, Dudley entertained the queen and her staff with diversions ranging from music, masques and dancing to tilting, hunting and bear-baiting. The entire affair cost Dudley a small fortune, with building works alone setting him back around £60,000. Although he didn’t succeed in winning the queen’s hand in marriage, the festivities have gone down as being “the longest, most expensive party” of Elizabeth’s 44-year reign. Oxford Castle, Oxfordshire Where a pregnant wife saved her husband’s life When political revolutionary John Lilburne was imprisoned in Oxford Castle in 1642, it was his pregnant wife who came to his rescue. Lilburne was the leader of the Levellers, a radical political movement prominent during the Civil Wars of the mid-17th century. He was constantly in conflict with the authorities; in 1638, for example, he was fined, whipped, imprisoned and pilloried for illegally smuggling Puritan pamphlets into England. Read more | How to write a love letter: 6 tips from the historical figures who did it best Following the outbreak of the first Civil War between King Charles I and parliament, he was arrested for treason while defending a Parliamentarian position at Brentford in Middlesex. He was taken to Oxford Castle, where he was imprisoned alongside three of his associates and forced to await trial (and the possibility of being sentenced to death). On 13 December 1642 – a week before the trial was due to take place – Lilburne succeeded in smuggling a letter to the House of Commons explaining his predicament. It proposed that the House threaten to execute four royalist officers in retaliation if a sentence was carried out against Lilburne. Lilburne's wife Elizabeth delivered the letter personally to the House, who granted her permission to take their reply to Oxford on 17 December. Despite being three months pregnant, she took a horse and galloped overnight to the castle – arriving just in the nick of time. The trial was ultimately called off, and her husband was saved. Tintagel Castle, Cornwall Where legendary lovers met According to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, the warlord King Arthur was conceived within the walls of Tintagel Castle in North Cornwall. The story goes as follows: the legendary king Uther Pendragon was besotted with Igraine, the beautiful wife of his enemy Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. With the help of the wizard Merlin, he disguised himself as Gorlois and tricked his way into the latter’s castle at Tintagel. It is here, Geoffrey tells us, that Arthur was conceived. Geoffrey’s version of Arthur’s conception is not the most romantic of stories (Uther’s trickery is a pretty heinous and unforgivable act by both modern and medieval standards). However a later version of the story, written by the English writer Thomas Malory, does cast the tale in a softer light. In this version, Arthur is conceived only after Gorlois’s death, and his birth is later legitimised by the marriage of Uther and Igraine. As far as tales of legendary lovers go, Tintagel isn’t short of them: Cornish and Breton writers have also linked the castle to the story of Tristan and Isolde, a fictional knight and princess who began an adulterous affair after consuming a love potion. Large parts of their tale appear to be set at Tintagel, claims Mark Bowden, a senior investigator at Historic England. Of particular note is the castle’s chapel, which Bowden says bears a “remarkable resemblance” to one used by Tristan to evade capture in a version of the tale by the Norman poet Béroul. Dobroyd Castle, West Yorkshire A ‘castle’ built for love Dobroyd Castle isn’t actually a castle, but the story associated with the extravagant Yorkshire mansion makes its inclusion on this list worthwhile. The historic building was built in the latter half of the 19th century by John Fielden, the son of a wealthy industrialist, who had fallen in love with a local weaver called Ruth Stansfield. According to local legend, when John proposed marriage, Ruth replied that she would only marry him if he promised to build her a castle on a hill. The couple wed in 1857, and 10 years later the promised ‘castle’ materialised. The architect John Gibson designed and oversaw the construction of the build, which took place between 1866 and 1869 at a reported cost of £71,589. Penrhyn Castle, Gwynedd, North Wales Where a young girl harboured a forbidden love In 2012, staff working at Penrhyn Castle in North Wales cracked the mystery of a curious piece of graffiti etched into one of the tower windows. The phrase “essere amato amando” – scratched into the glass with an unknown instrument – had for years been considered a meaningless mixture of Latin words. It was only when the Italian Resi Tomat was hired as a learning manager by the National Trust property that a new meaning came to light. Read more | Leading ladies in love: 6 historical movies to watch this Valentine’s Day “Resi pointed out that the graffiti was actually in Italian, albeit with a few grammatical errors,” Clare Turgoose, house steward at the castle, revealed to BBC News. “It actually reads, 'to be loved, whilst loving'." Who would write such words, and why? One theory is that the phrase was etched by the teenager Lady Alice Douglas-Pennant, daughter of the wealthy industrialist and Conservative MP Lord Penrhyn, who lived at the castle more than 100 years ago. “We kept coming across the same story that as a young woman Lady Alice had fallen for one of the castle staff, possibly a gardener,” Turgoose told the BBC. "Such a crush would not have gone down well with her father… and the story goes that he forced her to stay in the nursery to keep her away from her love."
A history of Valentine's Day celebrations – from fertility festivals to the first cards
Valentine's Day has become one of the key dates on the commercial calendar, but behind it lies a fascinating history that can be traced back to ancient Rome. Cultural historian Anna Maria Barry investigates why this annual celebration of love is anything but modern...
When was Valentine’s Day first celebrated? From 13 to 15 February, ancient Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. Many believe that the origins of Valentine’s Day can be traced back to this ancient fertility festival. To mark the occasion Roman men sacrificed goats before using their skins to whip women in the belief that this would make them fertile. Some historians have argued that at the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I declared 14 February to be Valentine’s Day in an attempt to reclaim this festival from the Romans and Christianise it. It’s not clear which Saint Valentine this day was initially dedicated to, as two saints with this name share the feast day of 14 February. Both of these saints were martyred in Rome; Valentine of Terni in around AD 197 and Valentine of Rome in around AD 496. Read more | In bed with the Romans: a brief history of sex in Ancient Rome Many legends have been recorded about the latter St Valentine, but these are most likely apocryphal. These include the story that Valentine himself fell in love with his jailor’s daughter while incarcerated for giving aid to prisoners. According to this tale, St Valentine wrote his inamorata a note signed “from your Valentine”: the first Valentine’s greeting. However, while this fanciful story is compelling, it is unlikely to be true. The next milestone in the history of Valentine’s Day came in 1382, when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his poem Parlement of Foules. This poem contains what is widely reported to be the first recorded instance of St Valentine’s Day being linked to romantic love. This reference can be found in the lines: For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery foul comyth there to chese his make. Not everyone agrees that Chaucer was referring to 14 February here, however. Some have argued that he was instead talking of May time, when birds are more likely to mate in England. This coincides with the feast of St Valentine of Genoa, which also falls in May. Nevertheless, the story of Chaucer’s connection with Valentine’s Day is often repeated. Roses are red: the first Valentine’s greetings In 15th-century France, 14 February became an annual feast day celebrating romantic love. Lavish banquets with singing and dancing were held to mark the occasion. It was also a 15th-century Frenchman who committed the earliest surviving Valentine’s greeting to paper. While imprisoned in the Tower of London following the 1415 battle of Agincourt, the Duke of Orleans wrote to his wife: Je suis desja d'amour tanné Ma tres doulce Valentinée This translates roughly as, “I am already sick of love, my very gentle Valentine”. This remarkable letter survives in the manuscript collections of the British Library, which also holds the oldest surviving Valentine’s letter in the English language. This dates from 1477 and was sent by one Margery Brews to her fiancé John Paston. In this letter Margery describes John as her “right well-beloved Valentine”. By the 17th century Valentine’s Day gets a mention in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, when Ophelia is given the lines: To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. However, it was in the 18th century that the most familiar Valentine’s poem made its first appearance. These lines, found in a collection of nursery rhymes printed in 1784, read: The rose is red, the violet's blue, The honey's sweet, and so are you. While this was the first appearance of the poem in this form, its origins reach back to Sir Edmund Spenser’s 1590s epic, The Faerie Queene. This featured the lines: She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew, And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew. When were the first Valentine’s cards? The first Valentine’s cards were sent in the 18th century. Initially these were handmade efforts, as pre-made cards were not yet available. Lovers would decorate paper with romantic symbols including flowers and love knots, often including puzzles and lines of poetry. Those who were less inspired could buy volumes that offered guidance on selecting the appropriate words and images to woo their lover. These cards were then slipped secretly under a door, or tied to a door-knocker. Read more | 5 British castles with romantic histories It was in Georgian Britain that pre-printed cards first began to appear, though these were not yet as popular as they were eventually to become. Perhaps the oldest surviving example dates from 1797: this card, held at York Castle Museum, was sent by one Catherine Mossday to a Mr Brown of London. It is decorated with flowers and images of Cupid, with a verse printed around the border reading: Since on this ever Happy day, All Nature's full of Love and Play Yet harmless still if my design, 'Tis but to be your Valentine. Victorian valentines The industrialisation of Britain in the early 19th-century brought with it rapid advances in printing and manufacturing technologies. It became easier than ever to mass-produce Valentine’s cards, which soon became immensely popular. It is estimated that by the mid 1820s, some 200,000 Valentines were circulated in London alone. The introduction of the Uniform Penny Post [a component of the comprehensive reform of the Royal Mail, the UK's official postal service, that took place in the 19th century] in 1840 bolstered the popularity of Valentine’s cards yet further: reports suggest that by the late 1840s the amount of cards being circulated doubled, doubling once again in the next two decades. Many Victorian Valentine’s cards survive, but most intriguing is a collection of more than 1,700 examples that is held at the Museum of London. This is the archive of the stationer Jonathan King, who ran a card-making enterprise in London. This collection, which has been digitised, demonstrates the huge array of designs, verses and sentiments that were popular with lovers in Victorian Britain. Cards tended to feature elaborate paper lacework, embossing and other intricate designs. The more expensive the card, the more elaborate the design would be. This meant it would be obvious how much your lover had spent on a card! Typical imagery included flowers, love knots and Cupid. Though hearts were sometimes used, Victorian cards did not feature the ubiquitous red hearts that are so typical of Valentine’s cards today. Read more | The 7 most romantic moments in history Lucy Worsley visited this collection in her October 2015 BBC series A Very British Romance. The programme featured the most elaborate card in the collection, which was made by Jonathan King himself for the woman he loved. This huge card boasts layer after layer of lace, decorated with embroidery, beads, ribbons and shells. It includes many lines of poetry, and even a secret concealed card featuring a paper chest of drawers. Each drawer lists a womanly virtue, but in the final drawer is a gold ring. This suggests that the card actually served as King’s proposal to his future wife. Happily, she accepted his offer, and this romantic couple went on to have 15 children, one of whom was appropriately named Valentine. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2016/02/GettyImages-577702469-4bd9690-e1675692084929.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="A remarkably elaborate hand-cut card made from white and pink paper, 1890. (Photo by JHU Sheridan Libraries/Gado/Getty Images)" title="A remarkably elaborate hand-cut card made from white and pink paper, 1890. (Photo by JHU Sheridan Libraries/Gado/Getty Images)" /> Not all Victorian Valentine’s cards were so romantic, however. The less loved-up were able to buy ‘Vinegar Valentines’ – cards designed to insult. These cards typically lampooned a man’s profession or a woman’s appearance. One example that survives in the collections of the University of Birmingham features a cartoon of a woman with a large nose. Under the title ‘Miss Nosey’ are the following lines: On account of your talk of others’ affairs At most dances you sit warming the chairs. Because of the care with which you attend To all others’ business you haven’t a friend. Sometimes men sent such cards to their male friends in order to mock them, with examples featuring taunts about baldness and alcoholism. It was clearly very insulting to receive a card like this, which possibly accounts for the fact that relatively few examples survive. Other unconventional cards were less vicious, however, and reveal the Victorian sense of fun. One example held at York Castle Museum features a shock of real human hair fashioned into a moustache. The card reads: For the New Woman! With St Valentine’s Heartiest Greetings and Best Hopes that she will receive another (moustache) – With A Man Attached. The humorous card would perhaps not look out of place in a 21st-century shop, where jokey cards remain a popular choice for those who are averse to romance. The commercialisation of Valentine’s Day In the mid-19th century the Valentine’s card travelled across the Atlantic. Cards rapidly gained popularity in America, where they were initially advertised as a British fashion. Advanced American technologies meant that more elaborate cards were produced cheaply, encouraging their popularity yet further. In 1913 Hallmark Cards produced their first Valentine’s card, representing a key development in the commercialisation of Valentine’s Day. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2016/02/GettyImages-464500439-f4f2bdd-e1675692023687.jpg" width="591" height="450" alt="Valentine cards with a golfing theme, 1911. The left card was for the US market, the right card for the British market. The more intimate nature of the card on the left was considered inappropriate at the time in the UK. (Photo by Sarah Fabian-Baddiel/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" title="Valentine cards with a golfing theme, 1911. The left card was for the US market, the right card for the British market. The more intimate nature of the card on the left was considered inappropriate at the time in the UK. (Photo by Sarah Fabian-Baddiel/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" /> Thanks in large part to marketing campaigns, Valentine’s Day has today become a time not only for sending cards, but for buying flowers, jewellery, perfume and chocolates. And now you know this annual celebration of love is anything but modern. Dr Anna Maria Barry is a writer, researcher and cultural historian who works at the Royal College of Music Museum in London. You can follow her on Twitter @DrAnnaBarry This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2015
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: was their union a marriage of misery?
Queen Victoria married her husband of 21 years, Prince Albert, on 10 February 1840 in St James’s Palace chapel, in what was the first marriage of a reigning queen of England since Mary I in 1554. To the outside world, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were the golden couple, exemplars of traditional family values. Yet, as Jane Ridley reveals, behind the romanticised veneer, Albert's thirst for power was putting the marriage under intense pressure…
After the sudden and tragic death of Prince Albert in 1861, the grief-stricken Queen Victoria dedicated herself to memorialising her marriage as a perfect union. She herself composed large parts of the first biography, The Early Years of the Prince Consort (1867). At Frogmore, the royal burial ground at Windsor, she built a mausoleum and commissioned the sculptor Marochetti to create effigies of herself and the prince lying side-by-side – though it would be another 40 years before she would take her place beside her beloved Albert. Thanks, in part, to the queen’s efforts, her marriage to Albert, prince of the German duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, came to be seen as one of the great love matches of all time, celebrated (with varying degrees of accuracy) in films such as The Young Victoria and, more recently, the ITV drama Victoria. As Queen Victoria’s journal shows, from the moment she saw the prince arriving at the foot of the staircase at Windsor in 1839, she was smitten. Five days later she summoned him to her blue closet and proposed to him. But the marriage was not the romantic happy-ever-after story that Victoria constructed. It was far more complex than that. Why did Victoria and Albert marry? Like all dynastic marriages, this was an alliance with a political agenda. As the second son of a minor German duke (Coburg is smaller than the Isle of Wight) and a mere Serene Highness, the lowest grade in the royal hierarchy, Prince Albert was Victoria’s poor relation, although the two were first cousins. But what he lacked in rank and wealth, he made up for with education and self-confidence, and he had been trained from his teens by King Leopold of Belgium, the cousins’ mutual uncle, to marry Victoria and take over the British throne. Listen to a recorded version of this article: Albert began his quest for power immediately after the marriage. Within months he had moved his writing desk next to the queen’s. At first, Victoria resisted Albert’s attempts to remove her trusted governess, Baroness Lehzen, from control of the court. But as one pregnancy followed another in quick succession – seven of Victoria’s nine children were born in the first 10 years of the marriage – the queen was in no condition to resist. Albert fired Lehzen and assumed control of the household, introducing much-needed reforms and economies. Did Albert become king when he married Victoria? In November 1840, when her first child was born, Victoria gave Albert the key to the cabinet boxes. He started to attend meetings with ministers, dealing with the queen’s correspondence and drafting business letters for the queen to copy out. At dinners with politicians, Albert could be heard prompting Victoria in German before she spoke. By now he had become her private secretary. In 1850 he described his position thus: “As the natural head of [the queen’s] family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs, sole confidential adviser in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers of her government, he is, besides, the husband of the queen, the tutor of the royal children, the private secretary of the sovereign, and her permanent minister.” Not only was Albert king in all but name but he intervened in politics, pursuing an active role in foreign policy. The monarchy with Tracy Borman Member exclusive | In this five-part series, historian Tracy Borman charts the changing fortunes of the monarchy, from the bloody Norman conquest of 1066 through the upheaval of civil war in the 17th century to the reign of Elizabeth II. Watch all episodes now Victoria declared herself grateful to Albert for relieving her of the tiresome work of the sovereign. Women, she believed, were not fit to rule. “It is a reversal of the right order of things which distresses me much and which no one, but such a perfection, such an angel as he is – could bear and carry through.” But Victoria had a vein of steel, and her commitment to her birthright was absolute. She was torn between her passionate desire to be a perfect ‘Victorian’ wife to Albert – an angel in the house, all sweetness and light – and her Hanoverian inheritance. How did Prince Albert craft the image of their marriage? The image of the Victorian monarchy, crafted by Albert, and projected in paintings such as Winterhalter’s The Royal Family in 1846 was one of a child-centred bourgeois family on the throne. But the fact was that the royal marriage was unlike any other. It took place within the peculiar context of the court. As a young maid of honour in Victoria’s court in the 1850s, Mary Bulteel would watch the door silently close on the queen’s private apartments. How she longed to get to know the queen, her employer, but Victoria barely spoke to her. View oEmbed on the source website The withdrawal of the royal family from the public space of the court into the private apartments was Albert’s doing. It meant that Victoria’s life was no longer bounded by the court, as it had been in the early days of her reign, when her court was a Camelot, famed for its parties and youthful high spirits. The creation of a private sphere – of a space dedicated to domestic life – was one of the most far-reaching changes made by Albert in his drive to reform the monarchy. Disliking London with its late nights, and sneered at by the aristocracy as a German beggar, Albert persuaded Victoria that her enjoyment of society was wrong. True happiness, he claimed, was to be found in the country with her beloved prince and her young family. Albert designed the new family home at Osborne on the Isle of Wight, safely inaccessible from a prying public. Even more remote was Balmoral, the castle he created in the Scottish Highlands, 500 miles from London. At Osborne House or Balmoral, the family could live the simple outdoors life that Victoria later depicted in her Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands. Victoria believed her “happy domestic home” made her more popular than any other sovereign and gave a good example to her subjects. At court, Albert introduced new rules, distancing the royal family from the household – that is, the courtiers and officeholders such as the Lord Chamberlain. He ordered that no man was to sit in the presence of the queen. Throughout Victoria’s reign, prime ministers stood during audiences; only two were accorded the special privilege of sitting in the queen’s presence – her favourite Disraeli, who declined the offer, and Lord Salisbury, who was too heavy to stand. The hated Gladstone was never asked to sit, even in his eighties. Albert forbade maids of honour from sitting in his presence or speaking to him unless spoken to. He went everywhere attended by an equerry, thus emphasising his royal status. In his relations with the courtiers of the household, Albert was cold and stiff. “His way of giving orders and reproofs was rather too like a master of a house scolding servants to be pleasant for those who were bound to listen in silence,” wrote Mary Bulteel. People noticed that the prince made not a single friend among ministers or the household. Such reserve in so young a man was “unpleasant”, thought Mary: “It implied something of the cold egotism which seems to chill you in all royalties.” Memoirs of ladies-in-waiting concur that Albert was “detested” because he was “so stiff”, especially with women. Victoria, on the other hand, was adored because of her disarming frankness and her unquenchable curiosity and interest in the affairs of everyone around her. Albert’s cold manner derived in part from his upbringing at the small German court of Coburg. When Mary Bulteel visited Coburg in 1860, she found the court far stiffer than in Britain, and the equerries and household much more “collapsed before these little sovereigns than we are before the queen”. One result of withdrawing from the court was that the royal couple were closer to their ordinary servants than they were to the aristocratic courtiers of the household. This is perhaps why, after Albert’s death, Victoria became intimate first with her Highland servant John Brown, and later with her Indian servant Abdul Karim – relationships that the courtiers found especially upsetting because they overturned the protocol of the court. Did Victoria have hysterical tantrums? Behind the closed doors of the private apartments, Victoria was often irritable and moody. She bitterly resented what she called “the shadow side of marriage”, meaning pregnancy and childbirth, and she suffered from postnatal depression. She disliked babies, who she thought were “mere little plants for the first six months” and “frightful when undressed” with their “big body and little limbs and that terrible frog-like action”. Victoria’s ‘nerves’ became worse during the 1850s. Her last two pregnancies were marked by hysterical scenes. Albert was advised by the royal doctors that the queen’s mood swings and violent Hanoverian tempers were symptoms that she had inherited the madness of her grandfather George III. Rather than engage, he walked away and, as his wife stormed out of the room in a fury, the prince composed letters reprimanding her for unreasonable behaviour. “If you are violent I have no other choice but to leave you… and retire to my room in order to give you time to recover yourself, then you follow me to renew the dispute and have it all out,” he wrote. Victoria kept a notebook in which she recorded her tempers, her selfishness, and her loss of self-control. Albert would read her confessions and issue her with a ‘certificate’ of improvement, reviewing her behaviour as he might a child. Albert’s intentions were no doubt good. He was certainly a loyal and faithful husband. Victoria’s adoration of her beloved was undimmed. But she was made to feel that she was inadequate, his intellectual and moral inferior. “I owe everything to dearest papa,” she told her daughter. “He was my father, my protector, my guide and adviser in all and everything, my mother (I might almost say) as well as my husband.” This was not a marriage of equals. It was as if the only way the couple could live with the anomaly (as they saw it) of Victoria being a woman on the throne and superior in rank to her husband was by making her feel that she was Albert’s inferior in every other respect. This artifice imposed unbearable stresses upon them both. Little wonder Victoria lost her temper now and then. Albert’s reaction was to escape into work. In the 1850s he consistently rose early in the morning to deal with his growing amount of paperwork. His meddling in politics made him unpopular in the country, and he became a lonely, unhappy figure. Photographs show him prematurely aged, balding and careworn. Queen Victoria’s tragedy was that Albert’s death, aged 42, meant that these tensions were never resolved. Jane Ridley is professor of history at the University of Buckingham and author of several works on the Victorian era, including Victoria (Allen Lane, 2015) This article was first published in the September 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine
The marriages of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren: how the dynasty shaped Europe
With more than 30 grandchildren growing up in palaces across the continent, Queen Victoria long understood the importance of dynastic marital alliances to extend royal influence. Writing for HistoryExtra, historian Deborah Cadbury examines Queen Victoria’s remarkable European vision and the marriages of her crowned descendants...
Today’s European Union, and its predecessor the European Economic Community (EEC), formed in 1957, emerged from the crucible of two world wars. But a century before that, there was another dream of European unity, born out of the ravages of the Napoleonic Wars in which up to 6 million people lost their lives. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a plan that they hoped might play a part in steering Europe from a potential battlefield to a haven of peace and prosperity. After the Napoleonic Wars, British foreign policy aimed to achieve a balance of power in Europe; no single country should become sufficiently dominant to unleash such destruction across the continent ever again. In the mid-19th century, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria believed that dynastic marriages between their nine children and European royalty would provide a further safeguard. Each marriage was a form of soft power: a path to help spread British liberal values across the continent, and perhaps even push back against the destabilising forces of republicanism, revolution and war. Prince Albert glimpsed the possibility of a federal Europe, in which a series of strong, independent countries, stable under their own constitutional monarchies (and ideally modelled as closely as possible on the British constitution), could be united by common goals and interests. Victoria and Albert: a marriage of misery? Their grand scheme began to take shape in the autumn of 1855, when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert invited the handsome second heir to the Prussian throne, Prince Frederick, to Balmoral. Although their beloved oldest daughter, Vicky, was just 14, they had long planned a great dynastic marriage for her. “Fritz” was looking very “manly”, the queen confided to her diary on 15 September, and she found the visit “makes my heart beat… as it probably will decide the fate of our dear eldest child”. Sure enough, the romantic feelings of their daughter obligingly developed over a two-week courtship to mirror Albert’s political and strategic vision of Europe. When the Prussian prince plucked some white heather from the moors and proposed, Vicky accepted. Who were Queen Victoria’s children? Everything you need to know about her sons and daughters <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/GettyImages-804449124202-6cee13d.jpg" width="623" height="482" alt="'Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with Five of their Children', 1846. Family portrait of Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and Prince Albert (1819-1861) and offspring." title="Queen Victoria and Prince Albert surrounded by some of their children at Windsor Castle. In the group are Princess Victoria; the future King Edward VII (as a young prince); Prince Alfred, Princess Alice and Princess Helena. (GL Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> The ‘threat’ of a unified Prussian power In the 1850s, Prince Albert grasped the potential of Protestant Prussia to unite all the German states under its banner, and the power this new country could wield in Europe. He did not want a newly unified Germany under Prussian domination to exert its influence as a military dictatorship or autocracy. Vicky’s brilliant marriage to the future Prussian heir aimed at nothing less than to fashion the political development of Prussia-Germany along British lines and then to facilitate an Anglo-German alliance to keep the peace. The young princess was to nurture the seed of enlightened, liberal thinking on Prussian soil and help steer the new state towards a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Her marriage in 1858 was not just a question of her health and happiness, Albert warned. At stake was “the future of your country and people and thereby, one might almost say, the welfare of Europe”. British people shared these high hopes, lining the streets despite the heavy January snowfall to cheer as Vicky departed for Prussia: “God Save the Prince and Bride! God keep their lands allied.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/GettyImages-530198471-c99083d.jpg" width="1678" height="2400" alt="Portrait of Princess Victoria, daughter of Queen Victoria, and Prince Frederick William of Prussia" title="Portrait of Princess Victoria, daughter of Queen Victoria, and Prince Frederick William of Prussia, on their wedding day in 1858. From an engraving by John Sartain. (Photo by P. L. Sperr/Getty Images)" /> Queen Victoria’s renewed mission When Prince Albert died on 14 December 1861, his inconsolable wife and eldest daughter both felt charged with a renewed mission to carry out his wishes. Suitable dynastic matches had already been identified for Albert and Victoria’s next two children. Queen Victoria’s second daughter, Alice, married another German prince, Louis of Hesse, while her oldest son, the wayward Prince Albert Edward, or ‘Bertie’, married a Danish princess, Alexandra. These matches soon brought connections to the royal houses in Denmark, Greece and Russia. What killed Prince Albert? Prince Albert: the death that rocked the monarchy Four more of Queen Victoria’s younger children would later marry into German royal houses. Each royal union seemed to hold great promise, a potential statement of allied national interests and ideas, bringing hope to the cheering masses – well before there was any concept of a ‘European Union’. As the years passed, Queen Victoria had no fewer than 42 grandchildren and, in the second half of the 19th century, she watched the progress of the next generation flourish into a cousinhood so large it formed a unique network – “the royal mob” as she called it – which occupied a singular place at the top of European society. Queen Victoria came to acquire an exclusive status in Europe; she was the great matriarch, the universal ‘mother figure’, her modest 4ft 11ins tall frame somehow growing in stature with Britain’s rising supremacy and known across the continent simply as ‘the queen’. And as her grandchildren reached maturity, she felt her own union with her beloved Albert took on even greater significance as royal connections could be extended and secured still further. But even as the royal family reached the zenith of its power, an unconsidered human element was making its destructive way into Albert’s perfect plan. Although Germany was unified by 1871, Albert’s ‘noble’ vision that had inspired Vicky’s marital alliance unravelled in ways that her father could never have envisaged. Traumatised and isolated in the German court, Vicky poured out her heart in her revealing correspondence to her mother. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/GettyImages-515305684-d99cbfb.jpg" width="2400" height="1605" alt="The two royal families of Great Britain and Russia" title="The two royal families of Great Britain and Russia sit for a portrait during Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight in 1909. It is not possible here to convey the scale of the tragedy that would engulf these royal first cousins or to describe all the events that would sweep away the Europe of their youth, says Deborah Cadbury. (Bettmann/Getty Images)" /> The world’s most exclusive dating agency While Vicky’s experiences influenced Queen Victoria’s views on grand foreign alliances, her enthusiasm for matchmaking remained undimmed. The queen’s grandchildren gained automatic entry into what amounted to the world’s most exclusive dating agency, where one good-looking princess might find herself sought after by the heirs to several thrones. The queen felt uniquely placed to orchestrate the selection process and help her grandchildren navigate the mysteries of the European royal marriage market. Yet for all their purported obedience to ‘Grandmama Queen’, Victoria’s grandchildren often had plans of their own, fuelled by strong wills and romantic hearts. Researching in the royal archives at Windsor Castle and reading the correspondence between the queen and her grandchildren, I came across a compelling cast of central characters in this family saga. Queen Victoria’s oldest British grandson, Prince Albert Victor, or ‘Eddy’, was the second heir to the British throne at the height of its power; in the words of his Aunt Vicky in Germany, of all the princes in Europe, Eddy was “first prize”. The trouble with Prince Eddy: Britain’s fascinating ‘lost’ king But rumours of a most indelicate and unwelcome nature were beginning to wend their way down the corridors of Balmoral and Windsor. Eddy was accused of various unspecified ‘dissipations’ the records of which were destroyed by his Aunt Beatrice after the death of Queen Victoria. There were rumours of liaisons with ‘ladies of low standing’ or perhaps even affairs with men – a claim that has never been proved. Although Eddy knew how to charm the queen, she was not fooled. Her investigations revealed a young prince who was far removed from being a carbon copy of his namesake, the illustrious Prince Albert. The young man on whose shoulders the whole great edifice would eventually descend had to be taken in hand. Friends, family and rivals: Queen Victoria and the European empires The queen found much to concern her, too, in Eddy’s younger brother, Prince George (the future King George V). George’s most marked enthusiasms were for stamp collecting and shooting – neither pursuit enhanced by female company. Indeed, at first there appeared to be no princess available whose main interests quite matched those of George, whose daily life was agreeably free of the need to marry anyone. The queen soon alighted on a solution to the problem of Prince Eddy in her favourite German granddaughter: Princess Alexandra or Alix. With her great beauty and sound education (which had been personally supervised by the queen), she appeared to have the very attributes that made her the ideal consort. But the queen encountered opposition from Alix’s older sister, Elisabeth of Hesse, or ‘Ella’. Ella herself did the exact opposite of what her grandmother advised, even when the queen wrote quite bluntly that her own proposed match “will be her ruin”. Ella’s choices would have implications for her younger sister and to my delight, there was correspondence in the royal archives that shed light on just how Alix came to turn down the heirs to both the British and Russian thrones. The queen was strongly opposed to her marrying the Russian tsarevich, and Alix turned Nicholas down twice before changing her mind and reaching her final ill-fated decision. Queen Victoria’s views were not easily ignored; her authority among the princes of Europe sometimes extended far beyond her role as head of the family as she juggled potential matches. To the surprise of those involved, she thought nothing of interfering in long-held arrangements, breaking off an engagement, seeking an annulment to an unsuitable match and even encouraging one prince to marry his dead brother’s fiancé. The last days of the Romanovs: what happened? A vision for stability The 19th-century vision at the heart of Victoria and Albert’s matchmaking did not end with her death, but collided increasingly with an overwhelming and urgent impetus for change. Their wonderful dream of constitutional monarchies spreading across the continent, bringing order, peace and a stable form of political governance, was irresistible. It was an idyll somehow tinged with all the innocence of village England, the sound of leather on willow, the puritan work ethic and British stiff upper lip. But in the early 20th century, this vision clashed with something altogether more brutal and immediate in which moderation was swept away by an overpowering impulse for change. The once distant threat of war could no longer be ignored as her grandchildren ascended Europe’s thrones in Germany, Russia, Norway, Spain, Greece and Britain. The seventh and last to accede to a throne became Queen Marie of Romania on 10 October 1914, “at a moment when the whole of Europe was on fire and flames were licking our every frontier”, Marie wrote in her memoirs. Could Queen Victoria have prevented World War I? It is not possible here to convey the scale of the tragedy that would engulf these royal first cousins or to describe all the events that would sweep away the Europe of their youth. Queen Victoria’s crowned descendants found themselves pitched not just cousin against cousin, but husband against wife and sister against sister. Drawing on intimate letters and diaries, I explored how these seven grandchildren came to be elevated to their European thrones and how their marriages shaped history. At the heart of it all is Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment; determined queen empress the next. Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking by Deborah Cadbury travels through the glittering, decadent palaces of Russia and Europe, weaving in scandals, political machinations and family tensions, all set against the backdrop of the tumultuous years in the lead up to the First World War (Bloomsbury, £25). Listen to Deborah discussing Queen Victoria the matchmaker on the HistoryExtra podcast This article was originally published by History Extra in January 2018
7 of the most memorable couples in history
History is full of extraordinary couples. Some are remembered for their long-lasting romances, while others are defined by their tragic downfalls. But who were the most iconic? From Antony and Cleopatra to John and Jackie Kennedy, we examine seven of the most remarkable relationships from the past – as voted for by HistoryExtra readers
Explore seven of the most memorable couples in history, as voted for by HistoryExtra readers... Antony and Cleopatra Arguably the most famous lovers in history, the story of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra VII has been retold for more than 2,000 years. Popularised by Shakespeare, the lovers were later portrayed in the 1963 film Cleopatra by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Antony and Cleopatra’s affair took place amid a power struggle in the Roman republic. In 41 BC Antony, who was in dispute with Julius Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, over the succession to the Roman leadership following Caesar's assassination, began both a political and romantic alliance with Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. Cleopatra bore Antony three children – two sons and a daughter. In 31 BC Antony and Cleopatra joined their armies to tackle Octavian's forces in a great sea battle at Actium, Greece. Beaten by Octavian, the couple fled to Egypt. Octavian pursued them, and the following year captured the Egyptian capital, Alexandria. With his soldiers deserting him, Mark Antony took his own life. He was followed by Cleopatra, who committed suicide on 12 August 30 BC. The face of Cleopatra: was she really so beautiful? Churchill and Clementine The course of love ran considerably smoother for the next couple in our list. Meeting briefly at a ball in 1904, Winston Churchill was “transfixed and tongue-tied; Clementine [Hozier] unimpressed”, according to the official website of the wartime prime minister. The pair did not meet again for another four years. In August 1908, just four months after meeting for the second time, Churchill invited Clementine to his birthplace, Blenheim Palace, and as they took shelter from a rainstorm in an ornamental Greek temple during an afternoon walk, he proposed. The pair married on 12 September. The announcement devastated Violet Asquith, to whom Churchill later admitted he was “practically engaged to” before proposing to Clementine. Churchill’s greatest speeches Why Churchill’s reputation is still on the line According to WinstonChurchill.org: “Churchill could be very charming but he also was known to be quite difficult at times. He had such a presence and reputation that there were very few men who would stand up to him. There was however one very strong willed woman who always would – his wife. “They wrote to one another whenever apart, and sometimes communicated important feelings by letter even when under the same roof. “Theirs was a great romance but, as importantly, Clementine would dispense wise advice on all of the matters of the day. He relied heavily on her for her unwavering support and for her always-sage advice.” Churchill famously told Clementine: “I do not love and never will love any woman in the world but you." Victoria and Albert Queen Victoria married her German first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, at St James’s Palace on 10 February 1840. It was the first wedding of a reigning queen in England since 1554. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: what was their relationship like? Over 17 years, nine children were born: four boys and five girls. But historian Jane Ridley explains that while to the outside world their family seemed the embodiment of domestic bliss, the reality was quite different. Writing for History Extra, Ridley says: "Behind the closed doors of the private apartments, Victoria was often irritable and moody. She bitterly resented what she called 'the shadow side of marriage', meaning pregnancy and childbirth, and she suffered from postnatal depression. She disliked babies, who she thought were 'mere little plants for the first six months' and 'frightful when undressed' with their 'big body and little limbs and that terrible frog-like action'." Albert "began his quest for power immediately after the marriage," says Ridley. "This was not a marriage of equals. It was as if the only way the couple could live with the anomaly (as they saw it) of Victoria being a woman on the throne and superior in rank to her husband was by making her feel that she was Albert’s inferior in every other respect. This artifice imposed unbearable stresses upon them both." Love before Albert: Queen Victoria’s suitors Queen Victoria’s children Nevertheless, it is said that Victoria never fully recovered from Albert's death in 1861, and she remained in mourning for the rest of her life. She withdrew from public life shortly after his passing, and did not return until the late 1870s and 1880s. In 2014 Julia Baird announced that, while working on a biography of Queen Victoria, she had found evidence of a later affair between the queen and her servant. In an unpublished diary extract of the monarch’s trusted doctor, Sir James Reid, held by Reid’s descendants, the doctor recalls how on Thursday 22 March 1883 he opened the door to Victoria’s room to find her flirting with John Brown as she “walked a little”. Brown says to her, lifting his kilt: “Oh, I thought it was here?” She responds, lifting up her dress: “No, it is here.” Writing for the New York Times, Baird says it is unclear from the note exactly what “it” might be, but that the diary entry reveals an extraordinary level of intimacy that exceeded not just what was normal for a lady and her servant — let alone a queen — but also for male and female friends. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn No list of famous couples would be complete without mention of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn: two of history’s most captivating figures whose romance-turned-tragedy is known the world over. When Anne first joined the English court in 1522 (as lady-in-waiting to Henry’s wife, Catherine of Aragon), the king had in his sights another Boleyn girl – Anne’s elder sister, Mary. It wasn’t until four years later that his attention turned to Anne, but, as Tudor historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb explains, Henry “wouldn’t have been bowled over by her good looks. The surprising thing about Anne is that she wasn’t considered to be a great beauty.” It was her “character, intelligence and charm” and her “cosmopolitan glamour” that drew the king to her. In January 1533, with Anne pregnant (with the future Elizabeth I), she and Henry were married in a secret ceremony and Henry broke with the Catholic church. Anne was crowned queen of England in a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey in June. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn: the lovers who changed history Historian Elizabeth Norton explains: “Within months of their wedding Henry was unfaithful, informing Anne that ‘she must shut her eyes, and endure as well as more worthy persons, and that she ought to know that it was in his power to humble her again in a moment more than he had exalted her’. “When Anne miscarried a son shortly after Catherine of Aragon’s death in January 1536, Henry declared ominously that ‘he would have no more boys by her’. He had already fallen in love with Jane Seymour, and was soon looking to end his marriage. “On 30 April 1536, under torture, a musician named Mark Smeaton confessed to a sexual relationship with Anne. Two days later the queen was arrested for adultery and incest, and taken to the Tower of London. Anne, her brother, Smeaton and three other men were convicted on trumped-up charges, with the men executed on 17 May. That same day, the royal marriage was annulled. “On 19 May 1536, Anne Boleyn walked to a scaffold on Tower Green. After making a short speech, she knelt as a French swordsman – sent for as a small act of mercy by the king – stepped up behind her and severed her head with one blow.” The final days of Anne Boleyn: why was she sent to her death? Napoleon and Josephine They met at a dinner party in Paris in October 1795: Josephine de Beauharnais a 32-year-old widow, and Napoleon Bonaparte a short, marginalised Corsican soldier six years her junior. Yet they went on to become a power couple. As historian Kate Williams explains: “Josephine, the fabulous hostess and skilled diplomat, was the perfect consort to the ambitious but obnoxious Napoleon. With her by his side, he became the greatest man in Europe, the Supreme Emperor; and she amassed a jewellery box with more diamonds than Marie Antoinette’s.” But while Napoleon famously wrote Josephine passionate love letters during their partings, their relationship was marred by affairs – reportedly on both sides – and “as his fame grew, Napoleon became increasingly obsessed with his need for an heir and irritated with Josephine's extravagant spending”. In 1810 Napoleon had his childless marriage to Josephine annulled and married Marie Louise, the daughter of the Austrian emperor. A son, Napoleon (who became known as Napoleon II), was born a year later. What killed Napoleon Bonaparte? John and Jackie Kennedy With their good looks, charisma and charm, JFK and his wife, Jackie, brought glamour to American politics in the 1950s and 60s. To the outside world their relationship looked nothing short of perfect. But in reality the president had numerous affairs including, most famously, with Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy biographer Robert Dallek describes JFK as a “compulsive womaniser” who had an insatiable urge for sexual conquests. In 2014, the authors of a new book about Jackie claimed the couple were heading for divorce when the president was shot dead in November 1963. In Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams, Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince from Blue Moon Productions said the first lady, fed up with her husband’s philandering, told her confidantes that she wanted out. Her anger had intensified after Marilyn Monroe's ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ performance on 19 May 1962. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/E0W1RD_0-b81eaac.jpg" width="623" height="484" alt="President Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, after the christening of their son John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr in 1960. (© Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy)" title="President Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, after the christening of their son John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr in 1960. (© Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy)" /> Richard III and Anne Neville Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, is probably one of the world’s best-known monarchs following the discovery of his skeleton underneath a Leicester car park in 2012. But what of his wife, Anne Neville? Anne was made a widow at just 15 after her husband, Edward of Westminster, the only son of Henry VI, was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471 – a clash that saw the Yorkists reign victorious over the Lancastrians. The following year, Anne married Richard of Gloucester, the future Richard III. Expert Philippa Gregory says: “Some people like to think that Richard of Gloucester [who was around five years older] added to his many apocryphal crimes by kidnapping the young widow and forcing her to marry him. Some like to think that their childhood friendship blossomed into love. Did Richard III murder the princes in the Tower? You debate The 7 most romantic moments in history “I think it most likely that Anne judged rightly that nobody could protect her from the greed and jealousy of the House of York but a brother of the House of York, and wisely and bravely ran away from her sister’s house to marry Richard. [Her sister Isabel was married to Richard’s brother, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, who opposed the marriage – most likely because he didn't want to divide his wife's inheritance with his brother. Clarence and Isabel therefore ‘scooped up the girl (Anne) and took her into their keeping. It was probably a form of house arrest’]”. Anne was crowned alongside her husband on 6 July 1483. Two years later, on 16 March 1485, just 28 years of age and heartbroken after the death of her only child (a boy), Anne died, perhaps from TB. Richard was killed just five months later, on 22 August, at the battle of Bosworth. Professor Michael Hicks offered a fascinating insight into the pair’s relationship when, writing for History Extra, he said: “While we might argue that Richard wanted to be buried at Westminster with his queen, there is some evidence that he tried to replace her before she died.” Emma Mason is Digital Editor at HistoryExtra This article was first published by History Extra in 2015 and has since been updated
Robert Dudley: Queen Elizabeth I's great love
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The 'Virgin Queen' never married, but one suitor came closer to her than any other. Tracy Borman explores the complex and sometimes scandalous relationship between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley
Elizabeth I is remembered in history as the Virgin Queen. She was the daughter of Henry VIII by his second wife Anne Boleyn and in stark contrast to her much-married father, she famously declared: “I will have but one mistress here, and no master.” During the course of her long reign, she was besieged by many suitors but gave each one nothing more than “fair words but no promises”. Yet it is generally accepted that there was one man who, more than any other, tempted Elizabeth to relinquish her single state. Robert Dudley (1532/33–88), was the fifth son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. The duke had wrested power during the minority of Edward VI (who became king aged nine on Henry VIII’s death), but was executed for putting his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne after the young king’s death in 1553. His son Robert led troops in support of the coup, but was swiftly defeated by Queen Mary I and was thrown into the Tower of London. Robert Dudley and Elizabeth I's relationship Robert Dudley’s sojourn in the Tower coincided with that of the new queen’s half-sister, Elizabeth (who Mary suspected of plotting against her). They had been friends since childhood, Dudley having been among her brother Edward’s companions. Close in age, Elizabeth and Dudley had shared the same tutor, Roger Ascham, who had been greatly impressed by his precocious young pupils. It was in Dudley that the eight-year-old Elizabeth had confided upon the execution of her third stepmother, Catherine Howard, in 1541, vowing: “I will never marry.” He would always remember the conversation, and it may have been the reason he decided to marry Amy Robsart nine years later. During the years that followed, Robert kept his wife away from court – mindful, perhaps, that it might damage his relationship with Elizabeth. The years of uncertainty during Mary Tudor’s reign (1553–58), when Elizabeth lived in constant fear for her life, brought her ever closer to Dudley. He remained loyal to her throughout, even when it risked his own safety. They spent many hours together and had a great deal in common, sharing a love of hunting, dancing and lively conversation. This sparked endless gossip among the princess’s household, particularly given that Dudley was a married man. His loyalty was rewarded when Elizabeth became queen in 1558, at the age of 25. She immediately appointed Dudley to be her Master of Horse, a prestigious position that involved regular attendance upon his royal mistress. But it was no longer easy for the couple to meet in private. As queen, Elizabeth’s every move was scrutinised not just by her people, but by the whole of Europe. “A thousand eyes see all I do,” she once complained. Nevertheless, Elizabeth made it clear that she had no intention of giving up her favourite. If anything, she found ways to spend even more time with him. A year after her accession, she had Dudley’s bedchamber moved next to her private rooms in order to facilitate their clandestine meetings. Before long, their relationship was causing a scandal not just in England, but in courts across Europe. The obvious intimacy between them provoked endless speculation about just how close their relationship was. Elizabeth’s chief rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, was in no doubt that Elizabeth and Dudley were lovers, and later told the noblewoman Bess of Hardwick that he had visited the queen’s bed numerous times. It is unlikely that Elizabeth, who had seen so many powerful examples of the perils of sex and childbirth, would have risked the throne she had fought so hard for by sleeping with her favourite. But their friendship probably charted a careful course between platonic and sexual. The rumours flared up again in 1587, when a young man going by the name of Arthur Dudley arrived at Philip II’s court in Madrid, Spain, claiming to be the illegitimate child of the English queen and her favourite, Robert Dudley. His age placed his conception at 1561, which coincided with Elizabeth being bedridden with a mysterious illness that caused her body to swell. The account therefore had an air of credibility, made more so by the fact that Arthur was able to name a servant who had allegedly spirited him away from the royal palace of Hampton Court (near London) as soon as he was born and raised him as his own, only confessing the truth on his deathbed in 1583. There is no firm evidence to corroborate the story, but it suited King Philip’s interests to discredit the English queen. Elizabeth I's love life: was she really the 'Virgin Queen'? The death of Amy Robsart Ironically, the death of Dudley’s wife in 1560, at her residence Cumnor Place, removed any hope that Elizabeth may have privately cherished of one day marrying him. The circumstances were suspicious. Amy insisted that all her servants attend a local fair. When they returned, they found her at the bottom of a short flight of stairs, her neck broken. Whether it was an accident, suicide or murder has never been resolved beyond doubt. The finger of suspicion pointed at Dudley, whom his enemies claimed would not have flinched from having his own wife put to death so that he could realise his ambitions of marrying the queen. Mary, Queen of Scots quipped that the queen of England was about to marry her “horsekeeper” who had killed his wife in order to make way for her. Elizabeth was also in the frame: many believed that her passion for Dudley had driven her to have his wife murdered so that she could have him at last. Listen | Nicola Cornick discusses the life and mysterious death of Tudor gentlewoman Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley Yet it is extremely unlikely that Dudley or Elizabeth had any hand in Amy’s death. They would hardly have taken such a risk, especially as they would have known that it would prove counterproductive to any plans they may have had to marry. The scandal reverberated not just around the kingdom but across the courts of Europe, so that Elizabeth was obliged to distance herself from Dudley in order to avoid being implicated any further. But in private, the queen refused to give up her favourite. Now that the scrutiny of the court was even more intense, she was obliged to go to even greater lengths to conceal their meetings. In November 1561, for example, she disguised herself as the maid of Katherine Howard (later Countess of Nottingham) in order to enjoy the secret pleasure of watching Dudley shoot near Windsor Castle. Another attempt at discretion was less successful. When her close friend and attendant Lady Fiennes de Clinton helped Elizabeth escape court in disguise to meet Dudley at his house for dinner, Philip II of Spain’s envoy heard of it and immediately reported it to his master. In the letters that Queen Elizabeth and Dudley exchanged, they used the symbol ‘ôô’ as code for the nickname of ‘Eyes’ that she had given him. Elizabeth kept her favourite’s letters, along with his portrait, in a locked desk next to her bed. On a visit to court in 1564, the Scottish ambassador Sir James Melville spied the portrait as Elizabeth was searching for one of his own royal mistress. When he asked if he could borrow it to show the Scottish queen, Elizabeth immediately refused, “alleging that she had but that one picture of his”. Spying Robert Dudley in a corner of the bedchamber, Melville slyly observed that she should not cling so to the portrait, since “she had the original.” As her reign progressed and the pressure to marry grew ever more intense, Elizabeth pretended to consider numerous potential suitors. But she would never commit to any of them. The Venetian ambassador shrewdly observed: “She has many suitors for her hand, and by protracting any decision keeps them all in hope.” Meanwhile, now that the scandal of his wife’s death had faded, Robert Dudley stepped up his campaign to make Queen Elizabeth his wife. He besieged her with protestations of his undying affection, all of which his royal mistress received with obvious pleasure but with no firm promises. By 1575, Dudley was growing desperate and decided to make one last, spectacular attempt to persuade Elizabeth to marry him. Pulling out all the stops, he invited her to his Warwickshire estate, Kenilworth Castle, and staged several days of extraordinarily lavish entertainments at a huge cost. The queen loved every minute of her visit there, but would not be dazzled into acquiescence. Genuine though her affection for Robert was, she knew that marrying him would court disaster in her kingdom, sparking such intense opposition from Dudley’s rivals that it might even spill out into civil war. Read more about Robert Dudley’s three-week marriage proposal to Elizabeth I For all his desperation to marry the queen, Dudley had been secretly courting one of her ladies-in-waiting, Lettice Knollys. Described as being one of the best-looking women of the court, she was of royal blood, being the great-niece of Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn. This no doubt added to her attraction for Dudley, who had enjoyed a flirtation with Lettice for the previous 10 years. Now that his last-ditch attempt to persuade Elizabeth to marry him had failed, he took Lettice as his mistress. For a time, Elizabeth was blissfully unaware that her favourite was betraying her. But three years into the affair, Lettice became pregnant. She was not a woman to be set aside and insisted that Dudley marry her. Fearing the inevitable backlash from his royal mistress, he agreed only to a secret ceremony, which took place in 1578. The bride was said to have worn “a loose gown” – a coded reference to her pregnant state. It was not long before the secret leaked out at court. Read more about the Tudor love triangle: Lettice Knollys, Robert Dudley and Elizabeth I When Elizabeth learned that her cousin had stolen the only man she had truly loved, she flew into a jealous rage, boxing Lettice’s ears and screaming that “as but one sun lightened the earth, she would have but one queen in England”. She then banished this “flouting wench” from her presence, vowing never to set eyes on her again. Although she eventually forgave Dudley, their relationship had lost the intimacy that had defined it for so many years. But towards the end of Dudley’s life, they grew close once more. In 1586, he went to command her forces in the Netherlands. Missing him, she wrote an affectionate letter, which she signed: “As you know, ever the same. ER.” “Ever the same” or “semper eadem” was her motto, but she and Dudley knew how much more it signified in their relationship. The following year, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots at Elizabeth’s orders threw her into turmoil and it was to her old favourite that she turned for comfort. Dudley was also by Elizabeth’s side through the Armada crisis of 1588 (the Spanish navy’s failed attempt to invade England, thwarted by the English fleet). By now he was gravely ill but did not hesitate to accept the post of ‘Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen’s Armies and Companies’. He walked beside her horse as his royal mistress delivered her famous speech at Tilbury on 8 August 1588, while inspecting the troops that had been assembled to defend the Thames Estuary against any incursion up-river towards London: “I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king and of a king of England too.” View Riddle on the source website He stayed with the queen in the immediate aftermath of the Armada, wishing to be certain that the danger had passed. One of the last recorded sightings of the pair together was at a palace window, watching a celebratory parade staged by his stepson, the Earl of Essex. By now in poor health, Dudley took his leave of Elizabeth. He, at least, must have known that it would be for the last time. A few days later, he wrote to Elizabeth from Rycote in Oxfordshire, ending the letter: “I humbly kiss your foot… by Your Majesty’s most faithful and obedient servant.” These were probably the last words ever written by Robert Dudley. Five days later, on 4 September 1588, he breathed his last. Elizabeth was inconsolable at the loss of “sweet Robin”, the only man whom she had ever truly loved. Their relationship had survived almost 50 years of trials and tribulations, and Elizabeth was lost without him. In the days immediately after his death, she kept to her room, unable to face her court or council. The brief note that he had sent her from Rycote now became her most treasured possession. She inscribed it “His last letter”, and kept it in a locked casket by her bed for the rest of her life. For years afterwards if anyone mentioned Robert Dudley’s name her eyes filled with tears. Who were the other contenders for Elizabeth I's heart? Eric XIV of Sweden (1533–77) Realising that marrying a home-grown candidate was fraught with difficulty, Elizabeth’s ministers focused upon suitors from overseas for most of her reign. One of the earliest was King Eric XIV of Sweden, who had started to make overtures towards Elizabeth before she was queen. He continued to pursue her for several years and even made plans to visit her. Horrified, she wrote him a polite but firm letter, telling him to stay away and assuring him: “We have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone.” Philip II of Spain (1527–98) Even while he had been married to her sister Mary I, Philip II of Spain had made overtures towards Elizabeth, beguiled by her youthful charms. When Mary died, Philip – who had been styled ‘King of England’ for his wife’s lifetime only – was reluctant to give up his English kingdom and so sent a proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. He urged the new queen to consider the advantages of having the protection of Spain. Elizabeth employed what would become her customary tactic of delaying, but eventually told Philip that she could not marry her sister’s widower, and that his Catholicism would not be acceptable to her people. Thenceforth, they were enemies. François, Duke of Alençon and Anjou (1555–84) Elizabeth’s last serious suitor was François, the Duke of Alençon and Anjou, and the youngest son of King Henry II of France. He had first been proposed as a husband in 1578, when he was 23 and Elizabeth 45. Despite the considerable age gap, the pair became very close, aided by the fact that the duke was the only one of the queen’s many suitors to court her in person. Calling him her “frog”, Queen Elizabeth showered the young duke with affection, and he gave every appearance of returning her love. But it all came to nothing, and François eventually returned to France in 1581. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1565–1601) Robert was the son of Elizabeth’s rival Lettice Knollys with her first husband Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex. He was 30 years younger than Elizabeth but gave every appearance of being passionately in love with her. She was beguiled by his darkly handsome looks and swaggering self-confidence, which made him take greater liberties with the queen than anyone else dared. Painfully aware that age had ravished her looks, she was fiercely possessive of his attentions. But Essex had already proved false. In 1590, he had incurred her wrath by secretly marrying Frances Walsingham, daughter of the secretary of state. He later led a rebellion against Elizabeth’s regime and was executed in 1601. Professor Tracy Borman is joint chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces and an expert on the Tudor period. You can follow Tracy on Twitter @BormanTracy or visit her website www.tracyborman.co.uk. This article first appeared in BBC History Magazine's 'Royal Dynasties' bookazine, in January 2016. Think you know Elizabeth I? Test your knowledge with our Elizabeth I quiz Discover more content from week one of the HistoryExtra Academy Elizabethans course The Elizabethan Court, with Professor Tracy Borman – watching time 15 mins 7 things you (probably) didn't know about Tudor fashion – reading time 5 mins Where history happened: Tudor courtiers with Suzannah Lipscomb – reading time 13 mins Elizabeth I's personality: the unfathomable queen – reading time 9 mins In conversation: Tracy Borman on Queen Elizabeth I – watching time 16 mins Princely pleasures at Kenilworth: Robert Dudley's three-week marriage proposal to Elizabeth I – reading time 6 mins Elizabeth I's Accession Day Celebrations – reading time 7 mins