2014高考英语二轮复习之阅读理解专练8.docVIP

2014高考英语阅读理解二轮精英训练精品题（8）及答案 【2014高考英语湖北省武昌区调研试题】 I will never many, the future Elizabeth I declared at the age of eight, age of eight, and, to the terror of her people, the Great Queen kept her word． For four centuries, historians have guessed why Elizabeth never married．In her own day, her decision to remain single was considered absurd and dangerous．A queen needed a husband to make political decisions for her and to organise and lead her military camp4gns．More important, she needed male heirs to avoid a civil war after her death． There was no shortage of suitors for the Queen, both English courtiers （） and foreign princes, and it was confidently expected for the best part of 30 years that Elizabeth would eventually marry one of them．Indeed, although she insisted that she preferred the single state, she kept these suitors in a state of permanent expectation．This was a deliberate policy on the Queens part, since by keeping foreign princes in hope, sometimes for a decade, she kept them friendly when they might otherwise have made war on her kingdom． There were, indeed, good political reasons for her avoiding marriage．The disastrous union of her sister Mary I to Philip II of Spain had had an unwelcome foreign influence upon English politics．The English were generally pr0udiced against the Queen taking a foreign husband, particularly a Catholic one．Yet if she married an English, jealousy might lead to the separation of the court． There were other, deeper reasons for Elizabeths unwillingness to marry, chief of which, I believe, was her fear of losing her autonomy as Queen． In the 16th century, a queen was regarded as holding supreme dominion（）over the state, while a husband was thought to hold supreme dominion over his wife．Elizabeth knew that marriage and motherhood would bring some harm to her power． She once pointed out that marriage seemed too uncertain a state for her． She had seen several unions in her immediate family break down, including that of