Queen Elizabeth I was known to be an all-powerful monarch, a warrior who defeated the Spanish Armada, a leader loved by her subjects and a muse for Shakespeare. The late Queen of England and Ireland - who ruled from 1558 until her death in 1603 - was so legendary that her reign was officially crowned the Elizabethan era, its very own epoch of the famed Tudor period. But one rumour has threatened to crack her tenable legacy, leading doubters to ask whether the Virgin Queen was the fiercely independent leader that history claims her to be.