The Times June 17, 2006
Luv yr I's, xx Liz1@virginmobile
By Alan Hamilton
An exhibition reveals the code in the letters between the Earl of Leicester and his Gloriana
Queen Elizabeth I
Her lover Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
WHEN you have a reputation as the Virgin Queen to protect, the last thing you want is for the world to know that you have a lover.
Today’s lovebirds convey their sweet-nothings by mobile phone, using abbreviations and codewords in their text messages.
Elizabeth I and her long-time confidant Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, were not that different in their exchange of Tudor love dispatches, an exhibition at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire discloses.
Letters put on display yesterday to mark a £2.5 million conservation and facilities project by English Heritage show that the flame-haired Gloriana, writing to Dudley, referred to him as “Eyes”.
Contemporary paintings of Dudley show him to be a tall, strikingly handsome man with eyes penetrating enough to melt a daughter of Henry VIII. He certainly bore that look when the smouldering Joseph Fiennes played him opposite Cate Blanchett in the 1998 film.
He writes back to Elizabeth using the double @@ sign, so familiar in the e-mail addresses of a second Elizabethan age, to refer to his mistress’s pet name for him. One billet-doux from Dudley, dated February 17, 1571, reads: “Your great favour, thus oft and so far to send, to know how your poor @@ doth, is greatly beyond the reach of his thanks.”
You might get the symbols in 21st-century text messages, but you don’t get that flowery elegance of language. Think of the effort of tapping all those buttons on the keypad.
Tori Reeve, curator of the exibition, said yesterday: “The use of the symbols @@ to signify the Queen’s pet-name for Dudley proves that using codes in writing — nowadays known as text-speak — dates back to Elizabethan times.”
Up to a point, Ms Reeve. Dudley didn’t know the @ symbol; he was merely drawing an approximation of his peepers.
Had the first Elizabeth really been into texting, she would not have gone all the way to Tilbury to make a rallying speech as the Spanish Armada approached in 1588. She would have sent the following global to her subjects: “Know hv bdy of wk and fble wmn, but hv hrt and stmch of kng, and of kng of Eng 2. Luv Liz.”
She was certainly not employing code or abbreviations when she wrote to her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, at the opening of the latter’s trial at Fotheringhay on October 12, 1586.
“You have in various ways and manners attempted to take my life and bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded so harshly against you but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you and all made manifest.”
Got that, Mary? I’m trying to run a Protestant kingdom down here, and you’re giving me grief.
It was Mary, by contrast, who sent out coded letters to Roman Catholic supporters from her prison cell, only to have them intercepted by Elizabeth’s spies. It was a bit like the police combing the mobile networks, really.
Elizabeth and Dudley were constant companions, despite Dudley being married — more than once. The nature of their relationship remains a matter of speculation but when Dudley died of malaria in 1588 she is said to have shut herself away for days to grieve.
thetimesonline.co.uk
Luv yr I's, xx Liz1@virginmobile
By Alan Hamilton
An exhibition reveals the code in the letters between the Earl of Leicester and his Gloriana
Queen Elizabeth I
Her lover Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
WHEN you have a reputation as the Virgin Queen to protect, the last thing you want is for the world to know that you have a lover.
Today’s lovebirds convey their sweet-nothings by mobile phone, using abbreviations and codewords in their text messages.
Elizabeth I and her long-time confidant Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, were not that different in their exchange of Tudor love dispatches, an exhibition at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire discloses.
Letters put on display yesterday to mark a £2.5 million conservation and facilities project by English Heritage show that the flame-haired Gloriana, writing to Dudley, referred to him as “Eyes”.
Contemporary paintings of Dudley show him to be a tall, strikingly handsome man with eyes penetrating enough to melt a daughter of Henry VIII. He certainly bore that look when the smouldering Joseph Fiennes played him opposite Cate Blanchett in the 1998 film.
He writes back to Elizabeth using the double @@ sign, so familiar in the e-mail addresses of a second Elizabethan age, to refer to his mistress’s pet name for him. One billet-doux from Dudley, dated February 17, 1571, reads: “Your great favour, thus oft and so far to send, to know how your poor @@ doth, is greatly beyond the reach of his thanks.”
You might get the symbols in 21st-century text messages, but you don’t get that flowery elegance of language. Think of the effort of tapping all those buttons on the keypad.
Tori Reeve, curator of the exibition, said yesterday: “The use of the symbols @@ to signify the Queen’s pet-name for Dudley proves that using codes in writing — nowadays known as text-speak — dates back to Elizabethan times.”
Up to a point, Ms Reeve. Dudley didn’t know the @ symbol; he was merely drawing an approximation of his peepers.
Had the first Elizabeth really been into texting, she would not have gone all the way to Tilbury to make a rallying speech as the Spanish Armada approached in 1588. She would have sent the following global to her subjects: “Know hv bdy of wk and fble wmn, but hv hrt and stmch of kng, and of kng of Eng 2. Luv Liz.”
She was certainly not employing code or abbreviations when she wrote to her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, at the opening of the latter’s trial at Fotheringhay on October 12, 1586.
“You have in various ways and manners attempted to take my life and bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded so harshly against you but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you and all made manifest.”
Got that, Mary? I’m trying to run a Protestant kingdom down here, and you’re giving me grief.
It was Mary, by contrast, who sent out coded letters to Roman Catholic supporters from her prison cell, only to have them intercepted by Elizabeth’s spies. It was a bit like the police combing the mobile networks, really.
Elizabeth and Dudley were constant companions, despite Dudley being married — more than once. The nature of their relationship remains a matter of speculation but when Dudley died of malaria in 1588 she is said to have shut herself away for days to grieve.
thetimesonline.co.uk