“Yea, to satisfie you, I have already joyned my self in Marriage to an Husband, namely, the Kingdom of England. And behold” (said she,) “which I marvell ye have forgotten, the Pledge of this my Wedlock and Marriage with my Kingdom.” (And therewith she drew the Ring from her Finger, and shewed it, wherewith at her Coronation she had in set form of words solemnly given herself in Marriage to her Kingdom.) Here having made a pause, “And do not” (saith she) “upbraid me with miserable lack of Children: for every one of you, and as many as are Englishmen, are Children and Kinsmen to me; of whom if God deprive me not (which God forbid) I cannot without injury be accounted Barren. But I commend you that ye have not appointed me an Husband, for that were most unworthy of the Majesty of an absolute Princess, and unbeseeming your Wisedom, which are Subjects born. Nevertheless if it please God that I enter into another course of life, I promise you I will doe nothing which may be prejudicial to the Commonwealth, but will take such a husband, as near as may be, as will have as great a Care of the Commonwealth as my self. But if I continue in this kind of life I have begun, I doubt not but God will so direct mine own and your Counsels, that ye shall not need to doubt of a Successour which may be more beneficial to the Commonwealth than he which may be born of me, considering that the Issue of the best Princes many times degenerateth. And to me it shall be a full satisfaction, both for a memorial of my Name, and for my Glory also, if when I shall let my last breath, it shall be graven upon my Marble Tomb, Here lieth ELIZABETH, which Reigned a Virgin, and died a Virgin.”
William Camden. The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth... (1688). I.27.
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