In 1559, in a speech to parliament, Elizabeth I declared that ‘this shall be for me sufficient that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.’
Elizabeth I began her reign on 17th November 1558 as a young woman of only 25 years of age. However, by the time Elizabeth gave her first speech to Parliament in early 1559 she declared that it would be ‘sufficient’ for her to ‘live and die a virgin.’ On 24th March 1603, Elizabeth did in fact die in this precise manner at the age of 69. Therefore, within this article I will analyse several key events before Elizabeth’s succession to suggest why it was ‘sufficient’ for a young woman of 25 to make such a bold statement within months of succeeding, especially when her very role of monarch was to marry and produce an heir.
