Refusing to Marry - Guest Blogger Elizabeth Eckhart on Queen Elizabeth I
Scandalous Women is pleased to welcome Guest Blogger Elizabeth Eckhart. Her guest post on Elizabeth I seems appropriate on Elizabeth I's birthday (born 7 September 1533). Few are unaware of the great and famous Queen Elizabeth I, the legendary, fire-haired woman often considered to be England’s greatest monarch. Before her succession to the throne her father King Henry VIII made history in England by breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church, and establishing himself as head of the Church of England. Elizabeth was a product of his second marriage to Anne Boleyn, whom Henry Tudor had divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, in order to marry. Anne was cloaked in enough scandal herself, seducing the King who had already taken Anne’s sister, Mary Boleyn, as a lover. Anne, however, refused to become a mistress as Mary had. Her denial, and Henry’s desire for a legitimate son, convinced Henry to divorce Catherine, reject papal authority and in turn spur the English Reforma...