Beauty is Imperfection

Here’s an awful article by the Mail Online, which, as you know, trades in awful articles the same way numismatists trade in cob coins. The paper disingenuously promotes a theory Elizabeth I was a man, mainly to promote what looks like an awful book.

The proof seemingly is that there have been other conspiracy theorists on the subject, namely Bram Stoker, not that any historians were actually consulted. Supposedly, Elizabeth died 470 years ago of plague while still in her teens. Her handlers were so afraid that her father would punish them with slow, painful death that they found a boy to take her place, and they taught him to live life as a princess, then later a queen, all to hide the original lie. She grew into “the Virgin Queen” and was cloistered from society, all to hide her manhood.

Of course, in truth, Elizabeth I had plenty of boyfriends and did want to marry one of them but couldn’t for political reasons. If that’s not enough to persuade you she was a woman, maybe it would be the fact that she lived rather transparently in front of a full court, plenty of whom could have exposed her masculinity but instead focused on the fact that she was kind of slutty, vain and had a filthy mouth. Still not enough? How about you consider that by the date of her supposed “death” in 1543, she wasn’t even really a contender for the throne. She came in last for succession behind her younger brother, her older sister, and any other children they might have had, not to mention any new male children her stepmother might have had with the king. In other words, she wasn’t remotely important enough at that point for a “Weekend At Bernie’s” type fraud.

I’m trying to decide what I find so distasteful about what is obviously a tongue-in-cheek article by a saucy tabloid that only wants to excite my basal ganglia with fun gossip. Is it a feminist reaction to the Mail’s suggestion that no woman could have possibly defeated the Spanish Armada and turned England into a world power? Nah. Is it the fact that conspiracy theorists are so able to supply filigreed detail to their suppositions without creating a plausible basic narrative? Nah. Is it that spreading this shit is a quick way to make friends, and that it has likely been that way for 500 years? Yeah. That’s the one.

Lies are more rugged as memes. They propagate faster than truth because they somehow forge local bonding, a trend that behooves us as primates, to close ranks against interlopers. Truth, meanwhile, is unhelpful. It is complicated. While we sit contemplating truth, we are often paralyzed by the analysis it requires. That makes us helpless to act, and as we are stuck in reflection, introspection and narcissism, meanwhile our group is easily preyed upon by hyenas and tigers and honey badgers.

Still, if I can recommend a highly paralyzing read, I’d point you to Carolly Erickson’s books on this subject, “The Great Harry,” “The First Elizabeth” and “Bloody Mary.” As for the Daily Mail, I recommend that you limit yourself to its Kate Upton pictures. That is, if you can trust that she’s female.