Elizabeth I paternity

[rjt]

Hey, all. My Western Civ instructor insists that Elizabeth I was the product of the purported incest of her mother with her brother. I was under the impression that this accusation had been fairly well disproved. It drives me crazy when she repeats this, but I'm definitely not all that knowledgeable about the Tudors. Can anyone provide assistance in helping me show her the error of her ways? Thanks in advance!

[bell_the_cat]

Hey, all. My Western Civ instructor insists that Elizabeth I was the product of the purported incest of her mother with her brother. I was under the impression that this accusation had been fairly well disproved. It drives me crazy when she repeats this, but I'm definitely not all that knowledgeable about the Tudors. Can anyone provide assistance in helping me show her the error of her ways? Thanks in advance!

Hi rjt!

Quite honestly I wouldn't bother - she's obviously made her mind up! You might refer her to Henry VIII's will which put Elizabeth third in the line of succession after Edward and Mary. Henry obviously was certain that Elizabeth was his daughter.

[Yseult]

I´m quite shocked about your post...

I´m not an expert...but I´m sure that Nan Boleyn never commited incest with her brother George viscount Rochefort. Tne acussations against the queen of the thousand days...high treason to the king, having sexual relationships with a number of members of the court...included an incest with George because it was the kind of repugnant things used to justify the downfall and judicial murder of a woman. If I´m not confused, poor queen Marie Antoinette of France was accused, too, of incest with her own son the Dauphin.

[Kimberly]

WHAT....you mean she wasn't the daughter of Smeaton.....oh my, (FYI that was sarcasm)

[bell_the_cat]

I forgot to mention that Elizabeth strongly resembled Henry (hair colour etc.)

[imperial angel]

This really just an old silly rumour. She was said to be the daughter of Smeaton as well. Anne, although she had many enemies, and sometimes didn't make the wisest choices in the world, never committted incest with her brother. It's also very unlikely she ever had relations with anybody else. These were just accusations that supported her execution, which Henry wanted. If someone believes this, and is supposed to be teaching it, they're out there.

[Lady_Aurora]

The whole teacher spewing off nonsense thing is sadly very common.  Some of my own favorite teachers tend to do that.  Another rumor, which may be true but I don't know because I don't have actual textual evidence, is that Anne's brother was actually into men.  And most people believe the adultry charges against Anne to be false and most deffinately believe that Elizabeth was the rightful daughter of Henry.  Though isn't there the belief that Anne was pregnant with Elizabeth before the marriage? Or at least pregnant?  I think I read that somewhere....or someone said something.  


Oh and on a slightly amusing note:  I went to a Renaissance Faire this weekend and they had King Henry VIII and the queen with him was...Anne Bolyn... my friend and myself had to walk away because all we could think about is "we know how this ends."  I wonder why they chose her....oh my.

[Prince_Lieven]

Anne was pregnant with Elizabeth when she married Henry - 5 months pregnant!

[ilyala]

Anne was pregnant with Elizabeth when she married Henry - 5 months pregnant!

yep. after years of resisting him she finally gave in without being married to him... i wonder why... maybe he was reaching the end of his patience. the pregnancy added a little to the haste with which catherine of aragon was gotten rid of.

as for reasons why elizabeth wasn't george's daughter, i'd say the strongest comes from anne's personality. she could have easily been like her sister, gone to bed with the king, get married off safely to some courtier and then have a dozen lovers. but she didn't because she wanted more for herself: she wanted to be queen. she wanted it so bad that she used everything she had to get that. she was the clever, calculated person. sleeping with your brother just doesn't fit the picture. not to mention that had henry heard anything of it, that would have been it for her chances of being queen...

[bell_the_cat]

Oh and on a slightly amusing note:  I went to a Renaissance Faire this weekend and they had King Henry VIII and the queen with him was...Anne Bolyn... my friend and myself had to walk away because all we could think about is "we know how this ends."  I wonder why they chose her....oh my.

Because she was the most interesting and most attractive of the wives!

[imperial angel]

Anne was the most attractive of the wives, at least by modern standards. In that day, perhaps she would not have been considered so. Yes, the Tudor court was a small place, and Anne, if she slept with her own brother before marrying Henry, would have been more stupid than Catherine Howard who actually did fool around with other men. Anne would have known Henry might hear, or that her enemies would dig it up, and she had packs of enemies. Doing this doesn't fit anything that's known of Anne. Besides that there are defintely good reasons why Elizabeth was Henry's daughter, but some people seem to have alternative history.

[Kimberly]

Henry and Anne's "romance" went on for years before it was consumated. She "gave in" to him with perfect timing and surely had no reason to doubt his fertility, so why sleep with someone else at this point of the relationship. She was far too intelligent a woman to do this. As for sleeping with her own brother....well I think that belongs to the realms of Helen A's favourite (not) author.

[Lady_Aurora]

Anne was very smart and seemed lucky except she couldn't control the gender of her child, of course knowing what we know about how amazing Elizabeth was it's a good thing (to some) that Anne didn't have a son instead of a daughter.  Anne always, to me at least, appeared to be way too focused to let anything get in the way of her becoming the king's queen and once she was there i don't believe she would have jeapordized that for anything...especially since she fought for so long to gain her position.  

[imperial angel]

That is defintely true, Anne was too intelligent and too wanting what she had waited years for to go and be silly and do somthing out of character for her normally, but especially at this point in her life. Anne ws smarter than some people say, she was sexy, and beautiful, very much a modern woman. She wasn't like her cousin poor, naive Catherine Howard. Anne was not naive. Later on, these were convenienent accusations for Henry, which doesn't make them true. We all know who Elizabeth's father was.

[rjt]

Okay, so obviously there's no absolute proof that Elizabeth was indeed the daughter of Henry. It just irritates me to hear idiocies like that repeated as fact. I'll do my best to persuade her that she's repeating charges that are generally believed to be fabricated and see where we go from there. I'll probably even bring up that Henry married Jane a mere 11 days after Anne's execution. In a rush much?

Along the same lines, wanna hear something else that just burns me? In the textbook it describes Nicholas II as "slightly stupid." Just...argh!

Thanks everyone.

(And now I even know who Smeaton is.)