The horoscope of Queen Elizabeth I is an interesting one. The “Virgin Queen”s Sun is actually in constellation Virgo. It’s also in an interesting aspect pattern I’m researching I call “The Rack” (See chart) Here the Sun in very tense aspect to her Nodes, Neptune and the Vertex.
Elizabeth’s Sun is in the 8th and she was known to be into the occult with her close spiritual adviser, wizard and Astrologer John Dee. The Sun represents also her status as Monarch.
I have a theory that Racks are about accelerated spiritual growth because you are stretched to your limits by the planets involved. Life can be torturous at times, and occasionally a person with a rack can also be the torturer and inflict this speed-ed up growth into others. This could take the form of karmic revenge.
Elizabeth became Queen aged just 25 to a country in tatters. Her realm was split into Catholics V Protestants. She was left to clear up the mess her fanatical sister “Bloody” Mary left behind. In doing so, she was forced to dish out that karmic revenge. One way was beheading her Catholic couson Mary Queen of Scots.
All the while Elizabeth’s advisers were desperately trying strike political deals by attempting to marry her off to various European Princes. At the risk of falling into civil war, the stubborn young Queen held firm and kept her power.
Elizabeth had the classic exiled Lilith childhood. Banished to a obscure Castle away from her father King Henry the 8th, she was brought up by governesses and tutors. Having lost her mother at an early age she sought nurturing from the womb of her library. (3rd house Moon) There she found solace in reading, music and quiet study, developing her incredible mind.
Mercury dynamically squares the AC. She was an outstanding scholar, Mercury is fueled by a trine from Mars, so driven to study. In the Mercurial 3rd she also has her Lilith corridor, through knowledge she will make magic. And Mercury rules magicians. This should balance her intellect very well as 3rd house is said to be left-brain logical thought while Lilith is right-brain intuitive thinking.
Virginal Lilith
Mean Lilith conjunct Chiron is pure priestess energy, truly virginal in it’s original meaning “beholden to no man” Her True Lilith (10 degs Aries) is opposed Mercury which is quite asexual it also shows her needing to be free of male dominance. And this IS a hugely independent Lilith for this opposition is T-squared Uranus (With this time powerfully angular) and on clever but tricky “Evil” twin Pollux in Gemini which gives her intuitive flashes and genius. Genius she most certainly was, by age 11 she was able to speak six languages fluently. Later she also spoke almost all European languages plus Latin. Multi-lingual is totally Mercurial.
This Mercury/Lilith/Uranus T square looks like a questionable sexuality, bi-sexual? There are all sort of rumours surrounding her, that she had secret children and was very promiscuous on the one hand and her being a man or born without a womb on the other hand. (I think her son-hungry dad would’ve noticed if she was a he!!)
Of course this might also reflect that she felt a failure being born a woman. Imagine being disowned because you were born a Princess rather than the yearned for Prince and having your mother killed because of it. No wonder she has a rack involving her Sun and a Yod with Sun and Saturn. How much did she need to prove herself to her father?!
Which leads us to the fixed star Algol on the IC. Generally the 4th house is the father, but it is also roots and heritage. Algol is traditionally associated with beheading so it would lend me to think the 4th would be representing her Mother Anne Boleyn. We also have Ceres the mother in that house. Ceres of course is about loss, mourning and separation. She has Ceres trined Venus in the 8th house of death. It shows a great love of the memory of her mother and it’s actually the tightest aspect in her whole chart. It also describes the later abundance of England’s wealth under her reign and the opulence of her court.
Her father Henry is shown by the trine from Saturn to her MC and the quincunx from Lilith. Saturn in the 7th, open enemies? The Lilith exiled. In later life Henry’s last wife convinced Henry to bring her back to court along with her sister Mary. Apparently Henry grew to love his little redhead. Saturn love takes time to bloom.
Bellatrix
What of her infamous temper and iconic Warrior Queen status? Her Mars is conjunct Bellatrix the female warrior/Amazon star in Orion. With Mars “Strength, energy, success as soldier” [3] Pluto in her first house explains her birth “after very dangerous travail” [4]
And describes her intense and powerful presence. She is also a bit of a mystery, reports of her character vary. We get the Plutonic ruthlessness and Mercury double-dealing. She was said to have had a rapier wit but a cruel tongue. Also jealous, petulant, irritable and deceitful. But wasn’t her father just a much of a brat?
As a female monarch she would have to be extra tough and after the childhood she had, there was sure to be an immense rage inside her which she had to vent out somehow. (Mars trine Mercury) Yet “in the management of public affairs she was a woman of extraordinary talent and sagacity, combining, in a very remarkable degree, a certain cautious good sense and prudence with the most determined resolution and energy.”. [4]
Despite the “death sentence” to her mother for Elizabeth being born a mere dame, this Queen went on to become the most iconic and successful British monarch of all time while her sickly brother died aged 14. The irony of it!
The chart I used for Elizabeth is the Solar fire one for 7th Sept 1533. It’s B rated at 3.30pm [5]