Why was Elizabeth 1 called "the virgin queen" yet..........?

Question

she has a rep for being, more or less a nymphomaniac.

Answer 1

because she never got  married or had children

Answer 2

Almost certainly not as described - lord Leicester etc - but she (or her speechwriters) did use the expression 'married to England'.  Remember that PR was almost important in Renaissance England as it is now - albeit with a narrower audience.

The 'Virgin Queen' reputation or myth was intended to give an air not only of devotion to country but of mystique.  It seems to have worked.  

Today's Royals also rely to a great extent on myth, mystique and downright bullshit - usually equally effectively.

Answer 3

Because that's how she posed herself.

There's a good chance that Elizabeth was, in fact, a virgin- not saying that she had no sexual adventures, she was definitely her father's daughter- but the odds that she would have risked her throne for a romp in the sack are pretty low. There are plenty of other things one can do without inserting tab a into slot b.

And I don't think nymphomaniac is really the word for good queen Bess. Yes, she had a healthy sexual appetite, but no more than her father or any of the other royals did. She got branded simply because she was a queen with no wish to marry.

Answer 4

Because she never married.  She was "officially" a virgin.

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Answer 5

She never married, however theres no proof that she was not a virgin too.

Answer 6

She never married and she never had children, so, surely, the public image was that she was a virgin.

I'm pretty sure Mary really was a virgin.  As I recall, she was married by proxy, and never even met her husband.

Answer 7

Basically the short answer is because she was neither married nor had children.

Social times would not have been able to openly accept that she was the 'single but somewhat randy old' Queen. It would have been improper and scandalous to say the least, and all the hypocrites in court and parliament would have risked a toppling of the power balance had they piped up about it, which was too great a risk for them to take from their own personal point of view.

So, everyone just turned a blind eye and got on with it as she was one of the rulers who was genuinely strong and fought to make England a great nation and force to be reckoned with.

It was a bit more complex than that, but basically it's what it boils down to, as usual, power and greed with a little bit of social conscience thrown in :)

Answer 8

she never got married thats why.  yes she had a rep for not being a virgin but who is going to stand up in that time and call out the queen of england and say you're not a virgin.

Answer 9

because she never got married ,i recoommend u watch the movie "Elizabeth"to understand it better

Answer 10

I never seen anything that suggested she was a nymphomaniac.  There were a variety of rumors as to supposed lovers, but they were just that: rumors.  Think of all the rumors you hear today about who is supposedly sleeping with who.  It's gossip.  It was also a tool for her enemies.  Suggesting that she was unchaste suggested she was impure.  It also suggested that she was under the control of her lovers (since women were generally seen as weak-willed and ill-suited to lead).

Evidence only points to a couple of potential lovers, and even they are not proven.  Elizabeth was clearly very fond of them and had deep emotional ties to them, but we have no proof that those relationships became physical.

It was always Elizabeth's staunch assertion that she was a virgin until her death, which is the only thing she could publically claim as an unmarried woman.

Answer 11

Queen Elizabeth I declared herself the Virgin Queen, when she married herself to England after she took the english throne. This was all a propaganda to settle the confrontations between the Protestants and the Catholics. Queen Elizabeth I was a conservative protestant, and she believed that the only way to establish peace between the two religions is to make herself appear as the "Virgin Mary" figure." The Parliament believed that this strategy will somehow ease the Catholics resentment towards Protestants and see that both religions share the same beliefs to a certain degree. It is only a symbol rather than a reality. The queen was probably not a virgin, and it was widely known that she and Robert Dudley were true lovers. She died on March 24,1603 with a love letter from Robert Dudley in her hands, and whispered his name when she breathed her last...