Elizabeth: Killer Queen

Heavy on speculation, no evidence that Elizabeth I was involved in the death of Amy Robsart exists. Whether the death of the Countess of Leceister was an accident or murder will never be known "beyond reasonable doubt." But to suggest that the Queen may have plotted her death is mere speculation and assumption. Given Elizabeth's personal history, the execution of her mother by her father and her very possible molestation as an adolescent at the hands of Thomas Seymour, I think that her ambivalence towards men is understandable, and would preclude the serious intent to enter any marriage.

If, on the other hand, Leceister connived at the death of his wife to further his ambition to marry Elizabeth, history has shown that he greatly miscalculated. Perhaps his greatest attraction for Elizabeth was the sheer impossibility of ever making him her husband. In fact, after the death of his wife, she put him forward as a suitor for Mary, Queen of Scots.

Elizabeth preserved her autonomy by staying unmarried, and enhanced her international prestige through her availability to princely suitors. Far from being a killer queen, her reign was marked by far fewer executions than her immediate predecessors (Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I), a cessation of civil strife, and a period of prosperity.