Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen. Elizabeth’s carefully crafted image of chastity couldn’t drown out the gossip about her sex life. From her youth, Elizabeth was championed as an embodiment of chaste maidenhood and so a highly desirable marriage prospect. As she aged and moved beyond her childbearing years, but remained unmarried and childless, Elizabeth was styled ever more spectacularly as the Virgin Queen. She had sacrificed herself to the realm, and her body, fused with that of the state, remained impregnable. In countless images she is adorned with pearls symbolising chastity, and is represented as the vestal virgin Tuccia in portraits, and the Virgin Mary in pageants, images and other entertainments. Yet from the earliest months of the reign there was much talk at home and abroad that the queen was behaving in a manner that challenged this image of chastity. Foreign ambassadors’ reports