Late in life, Elizabeth is recorded as having made this remark when worried about the plotting and struggles for succession that went on towards the end of her reign. Her difficulty was the same as Richard II's had been; both rulers were childless, and having no obvious heir made them both targets for attempted overthrow. Elizabeth had been made wary by the plots of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, and the more recent rebellion led by the Earl of Essex. She dreaded ending like Richard, who had been murdered and had his throne usurped by his cousin Bolingbroke (Henry IV.)
For most of her reign, the "virgin queen's" unmarried state had been an advantage, since England had her undivided loyalty (her sister Mary's Marriage to Philip of Spain, by contrast, had caused much unease) but as she grew older, anxieties about the future increased. These were eventually resolved by the accession to the throne in 1603 of James I of England and VI of Scotland, son of the executed queen Mary.