"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," a popular saying from the poem, The Mourning Bride by William Congreve, refers to a woman who has been wronged causing her to become angry and dangerous. Imagine the rage of a woman who has had everything stolen from her. A woman who was abused as a pawn in a game of political ambitions, and treated as if her life was of little consequence. A survivor of scandal, danger, and great loss, Elizabeth I, had overcame many obstacles on her journey in becoming Queen. As Queen, she was under constant pressure to marry and produce an heir. As a female ruler, she faced unrelenting scrutiny by foreigners and her countrymen alike. The people in her life who were to love, protect, and support her were often times her biggest threat. The psychological and emotional scars that Elizabeth endured throughout her life must have taken a toll on her. The pains of loss and instability suffered at the hands of her family would be enough to drive anyone to seek retribution. Her father ordering the execution of her mother and the deaths of two of her stepmothers after childbirth, shrouded her reputation in scandal resulting in accusation of treason by her own family. Her only comforts in life were her education and her only stable motherly figure, a woman named Kat Ashley. Kat, was on multiple occasions, wrongfully taken from Elizabeth and placed in the Tower of London. A place that Elizabeth only associated with pain and death, as it is where her mother and stepmother were executed. So, with everything she cared about being taken from her what was left? Revenge, perhaps? Some form of passive aggressive political retribution as payment for all the pain she had suffered? .
Historians have looked at the issues faced by Elizabeth and painted a picture of a helpless little girl who becomes a great queen. They often build their theories using the traumatic events as causation for why the Queen never married, nor provided an heir to the throne.
