Did you know that Queen Elizabeth I was obsessed with her hands?

When we think of Queen Elizabeth I, we think of the massive ruffs, the white face paint, and the fiery red hair. But foreign ambassadors at her court noticed something else entirely: her bizarre obsession with her own hands.

Elizabeth I was incredibly vain about her fingers. She possessed exceptionally long, slender fingers and tiny wrists—features that were considered the ultimate symbol of high-born noble breeding and refinement in the late Renaissance. And she wanted to make absolutely sure everyone noticed.

From constantly pulling off her gloves during diplomatic meetings to dramatically gesturing while speaking, Elizabeth spent her entire reign "flashing" her hands to court visitors. She even wore custom-designed gloves featuring exaggerated, extended finger gussets to make her hands look completely supernatural. But was this purely vanity, a tactical distraction from her pockmarked smallpox scars, or a deeply rooted insecurity from her childhood?

In this episode of History, but Strange, Vicky peels back the layers of the Virgin Queen's royal court to look at one of the strangest body obsessions in Tudor history.

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