Elizabeth I : in bed with the Queen

Fascinating talk by Anna Whitelock at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the role of the bedchamber and the women of the bedchamber in Elizabethan England.

She discussed the importance of Elizabeth’s body to the state and how it was presented but also the importance of the women who spent so long with her to help create this image of the Queen. She described a feminised court where women were in a strong political position because of the access they had to the queen.

She also described the role the women of the bedchamber played in upholding the queen’s virtue at a time when rumours of her possible indiscretions where circulating in Europe.

 

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