I was catching up on reading last weekend’s Times magazine (and listening to some Laura Branigan, but that’s another story!) and I dipped into a column that I have not read for quite sometime – Things You Only Know If You’re Single written by the fabulously single Hannah Betts.
(For those of you who don’t know, I am, once again, a single girl – again, another story, and unrelated to Laura Branigan.)
Anyway, the topic of singledom was this – that “Elizabeth I was the original career single”. Intrigued, I read on.
Betts includes some supporting quotes (which I will share here as if you want to read the column on-line for yourselves, The Times in their commercial wisdom, will now make you pay to read their stuff) such as,
“Better beggar woman and single than queen and married”
which, while I don’t subscribe to being the marrying kind, seems a little blinkered and/or extreme; and one which is entirely up my street:
“I will have here but one mistress and no master”
When she ascended the throne in 1558, England was an impoverished country torn apart by religious squabbles. When she died at Richmond Palace on the 24th March 1603, England was one of the most powerful and prosperous countries in the world. (http://www.elizabethi.org)/)
But Betts is right – Elizabeth I is absolutely a true hero among ‘lone ranger’ icons.
Gidday from the UK 