The Puritan MP Peter Wentworth had warned Elizabeth that if she did not name a successor, she would remain unburied at her death. This was not an idle threat. Elizabeth’s officials could keep their wands of office only until her funeral; if she did not name an heir the funeral had to be delayed until a successor was chosen and crowned, something that could take weeks or even months. Elizabeth, however, had laid a plan to force a prompt burial. She left instructions that her body was not to be disemboweled. By tradition her body had to be attended by her ladies, day and night, and Councilors would have to consider the unpleasantness and dangers to them in attending on a rapidly decomposing corpse. The attendants were, after all, their own wives, daughters and granddaughters.
Elizabeth’s order was public knowledge but the reasons for it could only be guessed at. Ben Jonson teasingly suggested that she wished to hide that she “had a membrane on her which made her incapable of man, though for her delight she tried many.” Stories that Elizabeth was physically incapable of sex had been commonplace for years. Harrington had repeated the rumors in his tract, and they have since led to all sorts of exotic theories. One medical historian has claimed that Elizabeth represented a case of testicular feminization – that she was in fact a man!
In 1603 such enjoyable speculation distracted attention from the real problems that Elizabeth’s order posed. James [I, of Scotland] could not be crowned [King of England]until he had made the long journey to London […]
[…]
In the absence of a strict legal right the council wanted to reinforce James’s dynastic credentials. They also made the decision that Elizabeth’s funeral would not be held for a month [hopefully giving James enough time to travel to his coronation]. What then were they going to do about Elizabeth’s rotting body?
Distressing rumors were leaking out that the corpse had been left unguarded at Richmond and that “mean persons” had access to it. It appeared Elizabeth’s body had been forgotten – but there is an explanation for the seeming indifference of the Council. According to Elizabeth’s young Maid of Honor, Elizabeth Southwell, Cecil countermanded Elizabeth’s orders that she was not to be disemboweled. Contravening her instructions had to take place in secret, which explains why Elizabeth’s body was left unguarded and the “mean persons” in all probability were the embalmers.
But it proved to be a mistake to leave them to work on their own. They were not well paid and without anyone to watch over them they had pocketed some of the money they were given to buy cerecloth [to wrap the body]. Consequently it was reported that Elizabeth’s body was wrapped “very ill.” This was a grim irony when, at the same time, the huge value of Elizabeth’s Wardrobe was the talk of the town.
tl;dr:
Queen Elizabeth I famously died refusing to name a successor to her throne, preferring to leave the decision to her Council after her death. She couldn’t be buried until a successor had been crowned, but didn’t want the Council to take too long, so as an incentive she decreed that they couldn’t embalm her (meaning that they’d be desperate to make the decision so as to bury her before she rotted too much). This was especially important because some of the family of the Councilors were forced to basically sit next to the body until it was buried (tradition!).
One court official decides the whole situation is ridiculous, and has the Queen’s body secretly embalmed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t pay the embalmers very well, and they pocket some of the money they were going to use to buy burial wraps. The final irony is that, because of that, the Queen who always went out of her way to look magnificent in life ended up looking absolutely horrendous in death.
Oh, and why did she not want to be embalmed? There are tons of additional theories out there, including that she was really… a man!
gasp!
Source:
Lisle, Leanda De. "Lots Were Cast Upon Our Land" After Elizabeth: The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England. New York: Ballantine, 2005. 129, 130. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
R. Bakan, Medical Hypothesis, 17 (3): pp. 277-84.
Manningham, Diary, p. 223.
Chamberlain, Letters, p. 189.
Further Reading:
Elizabeth I of England / The Virgin Queen / Gloriana / Good Queen Bess
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