Post
by EC2 » Tue August 24th, 2010, 4:03 pm
[quote=""MLE""]Elizabeth I is among the best-documented people of her era, so it is fairly easy to guess what she would have done. I couldn't say whether she was virgin in the sense of NEVER having had sexual intercourse, nor that she was innocent in the sense that she refrained from getting satisfaction from her lover or lovers in non-impregnating ways. But I would bet quite a lot on her never putting herself in the way of losing her reputation or her crown once she had reached mental maturity. Which for her was probably very early.
The woman had tremendous self-control and a very keen sense of what was good for her in the long run. Whatever makes people think that she would do something so risky, for such a short-term benefit?[/quote]
Very well said MLE. I think today with our sexualised culture, we often find it difficult to believe that our ancestors could be celibate by choice and by necessity if circumstances demanded it. I know full well that people in past eras had sex lives, often fulfilling ones, and that one size didn't fit all in terms of attitude, but their thought processes were formed of different criteria and lessons from birth. I sometimes read sensationalised historical novels - a certain recent one about Eleanor of Aquitaine comes to mind, and I wonder either how an author could get the mindset so wrong, or is it that the celebrity personages from the past are being treated like the tabloid celebrities of now, with various lurid theories and rumours touted as fact, because salacious speculation sells better than truth? The latter I suspect.
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard nI chasront
'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'
Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal
www.elizabethchadwick.com