Was Elizabeth I actually a man? Yes it is an old theory and many women believe this has been said because men don’t like powerful women. I'm not saying that I agree with this theory myself, but I stumbled across it and thought I’d put it here for us all to think about.
Was Queen
Elizabeth I actually a man? And more than that was Queen Elizabeth I actually Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester? Look at the next picture. On the left we see
Elizabeth as a girl - as a princess – and on the right she is a woman – a queen.
The two really look nothing alike. The girl on the left looks feminine but the lady on the right looks rather
masculine, don’t you think?
Robert was Queen Elizabeth’s closest advisor and friend (and arguably, lover) and she even attended his wedding to Amy Robsart. Robert’s father, John Dudley, was the man who attempted to make Lady Jane Grey Queen of England, instead of Mary Tudor. The plot failed and John and his brother, Guildford Dudley, were executed along with the tragic Lady Jane Grey.
Robert Dudley
was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his part in the conspiracy and he
only narrowly escaped death. Whilst he was imprisoned, in the Tower of London,
he was joined by another prisoner, the future Queen Elizabeth. It was there
where a friendship began.
Both were
eventually released and Robert Dudley sold some of his lands to help Elizabeth,
who was in need of financial help. Elizabeth never forgot the help that Robert
had given to her and rewarded his loyalty when she became Queen. At this point,
some believe Robert was involved in a plot to take the throne for himself, a
plot in which he and his supporters murdered Elizabeth and hence Robert Dudley
took on her appearance. This sounds ludicrous, but the likeness between the
Queen and the Earl is remarkable. Both had high foreheads, they had the same
eyes and if you remove his moustache they are almost identical. Look at the
picture at the top of the page. Can you tell which is which?
You could say it
was due to the style of paintings of the time and maybe that’s true, but there
are other reasons to back up the claims. Robert Dudley had many death threats and
maybe this was the only way to protect himself. He was also bitter about the
death of his father and uncle and he craved the power his forebears tried so
hard to get. Maybe he would have tried anything to get to the top?
Elizabeth and
Robert were extremely close but were never publically lovers and they had a
very odd and complex relationship. Is the real reason why they never became
lovers and married, because they were one and the same? Were they so close
throughout their lives because whenever Robert spent time with her, instead of
getting intimate with her, he was actually acting as her? It has been claimed
that the two of them shared the same birthday, the exact dates being a cause of
debate ever since. This comes from Dudley's contemporaries in the 16th century
who said he 'shared the same nativity' as the Queen - which means he would have
been born on the same day and perhaps even the same year as Elizabeth (7th September
1533). The word 'nativity' at the time would have been understood as an
astrological reference - that they would have shared the same placements of Sun
and Moon etc. At times when Robert Dudley was out of the country, it
appears that Elizabeth was also out of the country, on others matters of
course. When he was “Robert”, did somebody close to him impersonate the queen,
a decoy perhaps? Dudley was also given extremely high honours and real powers
so even when he could be himself, he was a powerful man. Between his two personalities,
Robert Dudley had such immense power, more than just a monarch alone.
Did Robert’s
wife, Amy Robsart die in mysterious circumstances (falling down the stairs)
because she opposed what her husband was doing? Was she a problem to be sorted?
Did Robert murder her like he murdered the queen? Did she know too much and was
therefore a threat? In 1578, Robert married Lady Lettice Knollys, widow of the
Earl of Essex and Queen’s Elizabeth’s cousin. Apparently Elizabeth was furious
with Robert but she eventually ‘forgave him.’ Were there suspicious minds? Did
Robert try to distance himself from his character of Queen Elizabeth I by
marrying her cousin? Were the people looking too closely at his presumed
‘relationship’ with the Queen that he was worried? Did he want to deflect the
attention elsewhere?
When Robert
Dudley eventually died in 1588, the Queen was oddly close to Robert’s son and
was until she died. Now there is a possible explanation - that maybe Robert didn't die after all.
After the death
of Robert, and after the death of the Queen, the town of Leicester, the town Robert was Earl of,
adopted a slogan. This wasn’t Robert’s slogan though; it was Queen Elizabeth
I’s slogan – ‘semper eadem,’ which translates to ‘always the same.’ Did Robert
as the Queen leave a motto to his town as a cryptic message of his true
identity?
The theory says that Robert Dudley,
Earl of Leicester, and Queen Elizabeth were semper eadem. They were always the
same. Look at the picture at the top again - on the left is Queen
Elizabeth on the right is Robert Dudley, minus a moustache.
Well it's an interesting theory and would need a lot more evidence. Like I said at the top, I'm not sure how credible it is, but is worth a debate. What do you think readers?
by Matthew Sibson
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