Queen Elizabeth I and her Friends
Eunice H. Turner asserts that much has been written of Elizabeth’s male favourites; less is known of the devoted women friends who served her assiduously throughout her long existence
“Affection, madam,” Mary Fitton answered when the Queen asked what she represented in the masque at Ann Russell’s marriage, and received the response, “Affection! Affection is false!”. This unhappy and uncharacteristic outburst, however, came late in life and must be understood in the context of the Essex conspiracy when the Queen’s almost infallible judgment of men had failed her; it does not represent the considered opinion of a long and eventful life, which had indeed been full of affection and love, since the days when Lady Bryan had worried over the little girl’s teething troubles and lack of proper clothes, to the last moment when, a tired but triumphant woman, she had laid her head on her arm and slipped away in the early hours of the morning, surrounded and supported by devotion: all passion spent.
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