As the Journal records on 4 February, there were ‘arguments that a request may be made to the Queen’s Highness for marriage’ ( Journals of the House of Commons, i. However, once the formalities of the state opening were completed, it took just four sittings before another issue entirely was raised in the House of Commons, one which Elizabeth herself did not wish to be discussed. Urgent business in the opening days included a new settlement for the Church of England, and a bill recognising the Queen’s right to the throne, a sensitive topic given her periodic removal from the royal line of succession and her supposed illegitimacy – the fruits of her tumultuous early life. The first Parliament summoned by Elizabeth I opened on 25 January 1559 with a packed agenda. To mark Women’s History Month, Dr Paul Hunneyball, assistant editor of our Lords 1558-1603 section, recalls the first public statement by the ‘Virgin Queen’ that she had no plans to marry, and the incomprehension with which her (male) subjects reacted…
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