A female ruler: Parliament, marriage and the succession
A Woman on the Throne
A queen ruling alone was unusual in sixteenth-century Europe. Most political theorists, churchmen and Members of Parliament assumed that a woman should be guided by her father, husband or king. The Scottish reformer John Knox had even written a pamphlet in 1558 attacking the ‘monstrous regiment of women’. Elizabeth therefore inherited a problem that her father, Henry VIII, had never faced: many of her own subjects believed her sex unfitted her for the role. How she handled Parliament, the question of marriage, and the succession defined her authority for the next 35 years.
Parliament: Useful but Pushy
Elizabeth needed Parliament. Only Parliament could grant taxation (subsidies) to fund the Crown, and only an Act of Parliament had the legal weight to settle religion or change the law of succession. Yet Parliament also held views Elizabeth disliked. Many MPs were strongly Protestant and wanted further religious reform; many were anxious about the unmarried queen and pressed her to choose a husband or name an heir. Elizabeth’s answer was to call Parliament rarely — only ten times in 45 years — and to limit what it discussed.
Two clashes show the pattern. In 1566, MPs led by Paul Wentworth demanded that Elizabeth either marry or name a successor. She replied that the matter was a matter of prerogative — her decision alone — and forbade discussion. In 1576, Peter Wentworth (Paul’s brother) argued that Parliament had a right to free speech on any subject; he was sent to the Tower. Elizabeth let Parliament grant her money, but on her terms.
Elizabeth called Parliament only ten times between 1559 and 1601. She accepted its right to grant taxation and pass laws but ruled that the queen’s marriage and the succession were matters of royal prerogative and not for MPs to debate.
The Marriage Question
From the day she became queen, ministers and ambassadors expected Elizabeth to marry. A husband would, they assumed, give her political guidance, military support and an heir. Suitors lined up for almost two decades. Philip II of Spain (her dead sister’s husband) proposed within months. Archduke Charles of Austria was considered seriously through the 1560s. King Erik XIV of Sweden sent expensive gifts. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was her favourite at home but was suspected of murdering his wife and could never be openly courted. Last in line was Francis, Duke of Anjou, the French king’s brother, who came close to a deal in 1581.
Elizabeth said she preferred to remain the Virgin Queen. Each potential match brought drawbacks: a Catholic husband risked the religious settlement; a foreign prince risked drawing England into European wars; a domestic noble risked civil war between rival factions. Delay was, for Elizabeth, almost always safer than commitment. By the late 1570s she was past the typical age for childbirth, and by 1581 the marriage question was effectively closed.
Elizabeth used marriage negotiations as diplomacy. While Spain and France believed she might still wed their candidate, neither dared invade. Negotiations with the Duke of Anjou in 1581, for example, helped delay open war with Spain by several years. The image of an ‘available’ queen was politically useful even when the reality was that no marriage would happen. Historians treat this deliberate ambiguity as a policy in its own right.
The Succession Problem
No marriage meant no obvious heir. The senior Catholic claimant was Mary, Queen of Scots, the queen’s cousin. After Mary’s execution in 1587, the heir most ministers favoured was her Protestant son James VI of Scotland. Elizabeth refused to name him publicly. Naming an heir, she argued, would attract plotters — people would ‘set their eyes on the rising sun’. Yet the silence created the opposite anxiety: that her death might trigger civil war.
The risk grew through the 1590s. In 1595 the Catholic exile Robert Persons published a book arguing for the Spanish royal family’s right to the English throne. Robert Cecil therefore opened a secret correspondence with James VI, encouraging him to be patient and assuring him of support. When Elizabeth died on 24 March 1603, James was proclaimed king within hours. The succession was settled peacefully — but only because Cecil had quietly prepared the ground while the queen herself stayed silent.
The succession debate involves Mary, Queen of Scots — Elizabeth’s Catholic Stuart cousin who was held in England from 1568 and executed in 1587. She is not Mary I (Elizabeth’s Tudor half-sister), who died in 1558 before this depth study begins. Confusing the two Marys turns a correct point into a wrong one, so check which Mary you mean every time.
Elizabeth refused to name an heir to avoid creating a focus for plots. After Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in 1587, Robert Cecil secretly prepared the way for Mary’s Protestant son, James VI of Scotland, who was proclaimed King James I within hours of Elizabeth’s death in March 1603.