QE1 - Virgin?

There is much written in the Elizabethan age about 'The Virgin Queen'. There are some thoughts that in her time the term 'virgin' was used more loosely (to create an oxymoron!) - that it implied 'never been married'.  Bess was certainly never married, but a true 'virgin'?  Certainly she wanted it to be her persona, but, well, here are some facts about her.  Certainly her heart belonged to 'Robin'.  You draw your own conclusions:

From the Daily Mail, U.K. - June 2006

Virgin Queen Rumours
There were rumours of affairs even during her lifetime - the majority of which surrounded her intense friendship with Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, a cousin of the Queen's and a friend from childhood.

Although Dudley married a woman called Amy Robsart - a union of convenience between two wealthy families - he and Elizabeth remained close in adulthood. In 1559 she had his bedchamber moved next to her personal apartments, further igniting rumours of a sexual liaison (while imprisoned at the Tower of London, they also had adjacent cells).

In a famous encounter, reported at the time, the Queen's childhood governess Katherine Ashley begged her to prove she was still chaste and not involved with Dudley.

So worried were courtiers of an illicit relationship that William Cecil, the Queen's most trusted adviser, wrote at the time that he feared the pair were planning to marry, and predicted the "ruin of the realm".

"To say it was a platonic love is to use 21st-Century notions to describe 16th-Century practices," says Doherty. "In the 16th Century, sex was seen as the expression of love, of chivalrous love and I don't think Elizabeth was against that. She would have seen it as a logical conclusion."

Gossipgathered speed a year later on September 8, 1560, when Dudley's wife Amy died in suspicious circumstances at the couple's Oxfordshire home, House, near Abingdon. Earlier that day she had sent all the servants out for the day to a local fair and shortly after was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs, her neck broken. The scandal tarnished Dudley's reputation and put paid to any likelihood of him marrying the Queen.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-390593/Did-Virgin-Queen-secret-love-child.html#ixzz12RXZBKxP

Virginity Proven?

However, Bess did consent to marry the Duke D'Anjou in an effort to bring ease political tensions between the Protestants and Catholics.  She would have had to have been examined by her court doctor, Dr. Lopez to ensure she was still of child bearing years and that she was still a 'virgin.'  However, what member of the Queen's staff would dare say she was not?  At 46, she was certainly at a point where childbearing was not likely...   She actually did show affection to the Duke, calling him her, "frog".   It should. be noted that the Duke was 24 at the time.  Can you say, "Cougar Queen?"

Her Great Loves - And Lust

In some beautiful writings from Lyndon Orr in  http://www.authorama.com/famous-affinities-of-history-i-3.html we learn more about the good Queen's passions:

There were many whom she cared for after a fashion. She would not let Sir Walter Raleigh visit her American colonies, because she could not bear to have him so long away from her. She had great moments of passion for the Earl of Essex, though in the end she signed his death-warrant because he was as dominant in spirit as the queen herself.

Readers of Sir Walter Scott’s wonderfully picturesque novel, Kenilworth, will note how he throws the strongest light upon Elizabeth’s affection for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Scott’s historical instinct is united here with a vein of psychology which goes deeper than is usual with him. We see Elizabeth trying hard to share her favor equally between two nobles; but the Earl of Essex fails to please her because he lacked those exquisite manners which made Leicester so great a favorite with the fastidious queen.

Then, too, the story of Leicester’s marriage with Amy Robsart is something more than a myth, based upon an obscure legend and an ancient ballad. The earl had had such a wife, and there were sinister stories about the manner of her death. But it is Scott who invents the villainous Varney and the bulldog Anthony Foster; just as he brought the whole episode into the foreground and made it occur at a period much later than was historically true. Still, Scott felt–and he was imbued with the spirit and knowledge of that time–a strong conviction that Elizabeth loved Leicester as she really loved no one else.

There were many whom she cared for after a fashion. She would not let Sir Walter Raleigh visit her American colonies, because she could not bear to have him so long away from her. She had great moments of passion for the Earl of Leicester's stepson, the Earl of Essex, though in the end she signed his death-warrant because he was as dominant in spirit as the queen herself.

Readers of Sir Walter Scott’s wonderfully picturesque novel, Kenilworth, will note how he throws the strongest light upon Elizabeth’s affection for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Scott’s historical instinct is united here with a vein of psychology which goes deeper than is usual with him. We see Elizabeth trying hard to share her favor equally between two nobles; but the Earl of Essex fails to please her because he lacked those exquisite manners which made Leicester so great a favorite with the fastidious queen.

Then, too, the story of Leicester’s marriage with Amy Robsart is something more than a myth, based upon an obscure legend and an ancient ballad. The earl had had such a wife, and there were sinister stories about the manner of her death. But it is Scott who invents the villainous Varney and the bulldog Anthony Foster; just as he brought the whole episode into the foreground and made it occur at a period much later than was historically true. Still, Scott felt–and he was imbued with the spirit and knowledge of that time–a strong conviction that Elizabeth loved Leicester as she really loved no one else.

There is one interesting fact which goes far to convince us. Just as her father was, in a way, polygamous, so Elizabeth was even more truly polyandrous. It was inevitable that she should surround herself with attractive men, whose love-locks she would caress and whose flatteries she would greedily accept. To the outward eye there was very little difference in her treatment of the handsome and daring nobles of her court; yet a historian of her time makes one very shrewd remark when he says: “To every one she gave some power at times–to all save Leicester.”

Which brings us to Shakespeare...

Had Bess actually met Will one fine evening, she would likely to have flirted with him shamelessly,would have enjoyed swapping wit and wisdom of the arts and found folly in the bold, shameless statements Shaw has ascribed to him in his "Dark Lady of the Sonnets."