And what will they say of me? I am not like other women. I did not seek to subjugate myself to men. I demanded their submission to me. I have been a good queen because I loved my people and my people returned my love. But men will say, Why did she not marry? There must be some reason why she refused us all. There was, but they will not believe it, because all people judge others by themselves. So many of them are so overwhelmed by the importance of the sexual act, that they cannot believe that it is of little importance to others. I had no desire to experience it. This they will never believe, but it is so. I enjoyed having men about me because I liked them as much as—if not more than—women. I wanted them to court me, to compliment me, to fall desperately in love with me. Did they not have to do that to win my favor?—except, of course, the brilliant ones whose minds I respected. I wanted perpetual courtship, for when the fortress is stormed and brought to surrender, the battle is lost. The relationship between men and women is a battle of the sexes with the final submission of the woman to the man. The act itself is the symbol of triumph of the strong over the weak. I was determined never to give any man that triumph. The victory must always be mine. I wanted continual masculine endeavor, not triumph. I wanted, during every moment of my life, to be in absolute control. All physical appetites were unimportant to me. I had to eat and drink for my health's sake, but I always did so sparingly. I did not want that momentary satisfaction which comes from the gratification of appetite in whatsoever form it is.
So I was always in control of my men unlike my poor Mary of Scotland, and consequently I had come to the end and could say with gratified resignation Nunc Dimittis, and pass on.
It has amused me to hear some say that I was, in fact, a man. Yes, that makes me laugh. I have been a good queen, a wise queen; I have brought my country into a far happier and more prosperous state than it was in at my accession. I have tried to be tolerant. I have failed in this on one or two occasions, but that was only because I feared it would be dangerous to be lenient. Therefore men say: “No woman could attain so much, so she must have been a man! Only a man could be so great and wise.” So in spite of what I believe to be my excessive femininity they say: “She was secretly a man.”
They hint that there was something strange about me, that I was malformed, that I could not have children and that was why I remained a virgin.
They are wrong, all of them… except Mary of Scotland's Ambassador Melville all those years ago. I shall never forget his words.
“I know your stately stomach. Ye think gin ye were married ye would be but Queen of England and now ye are King and Queen baith…ye may not suffer a commander.”
He had the truth there. And I kept my determination to remain the commander of them all… and not even Robert could tempt me to share my crown with anyone.
My crown and my virginity…I was determined to keep them both, and I did.
I can feel the end coming nearer. I was born on the eve of the day which is celebrated as the nativity of the Virgin Mary. I wonder if I shall die on the festival of the annunciation. It would be appropriate for the Virgin Queen.
Now I lay down my pen, for the end is coming very near.
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