英國史第七集：The Body of the Queen（1558——1603）

[00:00.00]Welcome to Movie English! [00:05.36] [00:07.21]In her last sickness, with the sense of her end coming on fast, [00:11.36] [00:11.53]Elizabeth I had the ring she had worn since her coronation [00:15.44] [00:15.61]filed away from the royal finger. [00:18.33] [00:18.49]It was a tricky operation, for the skin had grown in over the gold, [00:24.25] [00:24.41]but then it was supposed to be a tight fit. [00:26.97] [00:27.13]This was, in a manner of speaking, her wedding band, [00:29.96] [00:30.13]put on when she had joined herself to England, 45 years earlier. [00:34.44] [00:35.81]Now it seemed the two were to be put asunder. [00:38.96] [00:48.29]She was supposed to be immortal, of course. [00:51.20] [00:51.37]And the odd thing was, despite the garish auburn fright wig, [00:55.84] [00:56.01]the white face mask and the wrinkled bosom, [00:58.48] [00:58.65]foreign diplomats who saw her at court and had no reason to be gallant, [01:02.69] [01:02.85]swore they could still see the young woman, no more than 20 years of age. [01:08.29] [01:15.37]It doesn't do to be too starry-eyed about the Virgin Queen. [01:20.36] [01:20.53]Elizabeth I was only too obviously made of flesh and blood. [01:25.48] [01:25.65]She was vain, spiteful, arrogant, she was frequently unjust, [01:31.44] [01:31.61]and she was often maddeningly indecisive. [01:34.81] [01:35.73]But she was also brave, shockingly clever, [01:39.20] [01:39.37]an eyeful to look at and on occasions she was genuinely wise. [01:44.36] [01:44.53]In other words, she had all the qualities it took [01:47.76] [01:47.93]to make the genius politician she undoubtedly was. [01:52.69] [01:56.89]Just a few feet away from Elizabeth's tomb in Westminster Abbey [02:00.93] [02:01.09]lies the body of another woman, Mary, Queen of Scots, [02:04.53] [02:04.69]who had haunted and fascinated Elizabeth for so much of her life. [02:10.48] [02:10.65]No virgin, that's for sure. No politician either. [02:15.64] [02:15.81]A complete disaster as a ruler, you would have to say, [02:18.56] [02:18.73]but Mary managed something that eluded Elizabeth. [02:22.61] [02:22.77]She reproduced. [02:25.20] [02:25.37]This is the story of two queens and, more importantly, [02:28.97] [02:29.13]two women - one a politician, the other a mother. [02:32.92] [02:33.09]It's the story of a painful birth, the union of England and Scotland, [02:38.40] [02:38.57]the birth of Britain. [02:40.56] [03:24.97]A cherished tradition has it that when Elizabeth heard the news [03:29.20] [03:29.37]that she was to become queen, on November 17th, 1558, [03:33.28] [03:33.45]she was seated beneath an ancient oak tree. [03:36.44] [03:36.61]Her first words were from Psalm 118, [03:39.97] [03:40.13]"a domino factum est mirabile in oculis nostris" - [03:44.20] [03:44.37]"this is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes." [03:48.81] [03:50.09]She was right, it was marvellous. [03:52.40] [03:52.49]In fact, it was little short of a miracle that she had made it to that day alive. [03:58.04] [03:58.17]Tudor royal politics were a bloody affair, especially for Tudor women. [04:03.32] [04:08.21]She had been only two, after all, when her mother, Anne Boleyn, [04:11.76] [04:11.93]had gone to the scaffold, her sin, in Henry's mind at least, [04:15.68] [04:15.85]being her failure to produce a son. [04:17.84] [04:18.01]It must have been a body possessed by others, by the devil. [04:22.64] [04:22.81]An unclean piece of flesh, it had to be cut away. [04:26.69] [04:30.93]So Elizabeth would never be free from suspicion. [04:34.48] [04:34.65]Out of her dark Boleyn eyes, she watched herself being watched. [04:38.64] [04:39.73]Inevitably, there were times when her guard was down. [04:43.12] [04:43.29]She was barely a teenager when trouble first struck. [04:46.84] [04:48.41]She was living with her guardian, Katherine Parr, [04:51.13] [04:51.29]Henry VIII's widow, when Parr's new husband, [04:54.41] [04:54.57]Thomas Seymour, started paying playful visits to her bedroom. [04:58.64] [05:00.65]When Katherine Parr died, a rumour started circulating [05:04.61] [05:04.77]that Seymour had his sights set on marrying Elizabeth. [05:08.89] [05:09.05]To even think of such a thing was treason. [05:11.77] [05:11.85]Even worse, some wagging tongues said that Elizabeth was pregnant with his child. [05:18.45] [05:19.69]It took all of Elizabeth's already extraordinary composure and self-confidence [05:25.29] [05:25.45]to persuade Lord Protector Somerset that she was innocent. [05:29.33] [05:30.93]My Lord, there goeth rumours abroad [05:33.73] [05:33.89]which be greatly against my honour, which be these: [05:36.85] [05:37.01]That I am in the Tower and with child by my Lord Admiral. [05:40.32] [05:40.49]My Lord, these are shameful slanders. [05:43.29] [05:43.45]I most heartily desire your Lordship [05:45.44] [05:45.61]that I may come to the court and show myself there as I am. [05:49.21] [05:49.37]Your assured friend to my little power, Elizabeth. [05:53.28] [05:56.17]She was, remember, just 14, [05:59.05] [05:59.13]but there was already the fortitude, the clarity and the courage. [06:03.49] [06:03.65]Just as well, because she would need these qualities five years later, [06:08.28] [06:08.45]when facing the most traumatic and dangerous crisis of her entire life. [06:14.13] [06:16.61]When her Catholic half-sister, Mary, came to the throne, [06:20.08] [06:20.25]Elizabeth found herself in even deeper trouble. [06:23.85] [06:24.01]She found herself in the Tower [06:26.37] [06:26.45]when a Protestant plot to get rid of Mary backfired. [06:30.33] [06:30.49]Elizabeth managed to talk herself out of being charged with treason, [06:34.80] [06:34.97]but she remained under close surveillance. [06:37.93] [06:38.09]Danger only turned to deliverance five years later [06:41.84] [06:42.01]when Queen Mary died childless. [06:45.21] [06:46.69]So here she was, Elizabeth, under the oak, [06:49.84] [06:50.01]about to be the Protestant queen. [06:53.13] [06:53.29]She had survived, just, but she must have been full of dark knowledge [06:58.28] [06:58.45]and experience about how difficult it was all going to be. [07:02.08] [07:02.25]Her mother had been killed for producing just a daughter and a stillborn, [07:07.72] [07:07.89]and her sister Mary's womb produced only the tumour that killed her. [07:12.73] [07:12.89]However dazzling Elizabeth looked, however clever she was, [07:17.20] [07:17.37]she must have known how rough the road was going to be [07:20.76] [07:20.93]for a ruler of the wrong sex. [07:23.89] [07:32.97]The 25-year old Elizabeth came into an inheritance [07:36.72] [07:36.89]of high hopes and deep anxieties. [07:40.09] [07:42.89]The celebrations at her coronation were carefully designed [07:46.96] [07:47.13]to show off the young queen as the paragon of virtue. [07:50.92] [07:51.09]This charade of piety, though, was hardly enough to compensate [07:55.21] [07:55.37]for the misfortune of having another woman on the throne. [07:59.00] [08:00.01]All the same, the sceptics must have been reassured [08:02.76] [08:02.93]by Elizabeth's precocious self-possession, the air of controlled energy [08:07.61] [08:07.77]she exuded in public, right from the start. [08:11.00] [08:12.37]You might suppose that her first appearances at the council [08:16.28] [08:16.45]would have been an ordeal, but what the councillors saw [08:19.33] [08:19.49]was not some girlish ingenue, but someone who seemed full, [08:23.04] [08:23.21]it was said, of manly authority. [08:26.52] [08:29.05]Elizabeth did all the things women in 16th-century England [08:32.84] [08:33.01]weren't supposed to do - she looked men in the eye and spoke out of turn. [08:39.40] [08:40.01]She had been schooled to it by her tutor, Roger Ascombe. [08:44.21] [08:46.01]Ascombe was not just another low-rent don. [08:49.16] [08:49.33]He was public orator at Cambridge University, and it was his outlandish idea [08:54.36] [08:54.53]to teach the teenage girl a discipline most people thought [08:57.65] [08:57.81]unsuitable for a woman: The art of rhetoric, the art of public speech. [09:03.28] [09:03.45]This was Elizabeth's first and would remain her strongest political weapon. [09:09.53] [09:11.57]But Elizabeth brought something to the management of sovereignty [09:15.61] [09:15.77]that was entirely her own; something, for that matter, [09:18.81] [09:18.97]which none of the princely conduct manuals spelled out, [09:22.28] [09:22.45]that statecraft was also stagecraft. [09:26.13] [09:27.29]Her father and mother had both known this instinctively. [09:30.57] [09:30.73]Elizabeth had the actress's gift in spadefuls. [09:34.61] [09:34.77]She simply adored being adored. [09:38.68] [09:44.29]Adoration, though, wasn't the same thing as allegiance. [09:48.52] [09:48.69]For her most important advisor, her surrogate father, William Cecil, [09:53.53] [09:53.69]charisma was no substitute for the one thing [09:56.60] [09:56.77]which would secure the future of a Protestant England - an heir. [10:02.29] [10:05.21]Cecil knew that the majority of the country was still Catholic [10:09.44] [10:09.61]either actively or passively. He also knew how little it would take [10:13.81] [10:13.97]for the hard-earned gains of the Reformation to be undone. [10:18.09] [10:18.17]Though the queen kept telling everyone it was none of their business, [10:21.96] [10:22.13]Cecil constantly reminded her that the realm needed her to have a husband. [10:27.12] [10:29.29]Her body required it too, since in the 16th century [10:33.92] [10:34.09]prolonged virginity was thought to bring on the potentially toxic condition [10:38.72] [10:38.89]known as green sickness, the abnormal retention of female sperm. [10:44.68] [10:44.85]Marital copulation, then, [10:47.00] [10:47.17]was what the doctor ordered for the good of the realm. [10:50.72] [10:50.89]The problem, though, as Cecil was painfully aware, [10:54.80] [10:54.97]was that if he pushed Elizabeth too hard, she might just end up [10:59.09] [10:59.25]plumping for the man everyone assumed she really loved. [11:03.29] [11:03.45]That man was Cecil's rival on the council, Robert Dudley. [11:08.00] [11:12.17]Dudley was everything Cecil was not - flashy, gallant, a noisy extrovert, [11:17.85] [11:18.01]and not least, incredibly good-looking, especially on a horse. [11:21.76] [11:21.93]To a queen who liked being surrounded with lookers [11:24.73] [11:24.89]and was capable of dismissing those she thought physically unpleasing, [11:29.20] [11:29.37]this mattered a lot. [11:31.36] [11:31.53]They shared a past, the same tutors, the same childhood traumas. [11:36.68] [11:36.85]His father had been executed for treason, so both were orphans of the scaffold. [11:42.21] [11:42.37]In the grim years of Mary's reign, he'd sold lands [11:45.57] [11:45.73]to help Elizabeth out. That sort of thing she never forgot. [11:50.49] [11:54.05]But how much of a couple were they? [11:56.61] [11:57.57]Did they, as the gossips in Europe and the diplomats [12:00.88] [12:01.05]and movie-makers since have assumed, become lovers? [12:04.52] [12:08.29]In the way was Dudley's wife, but she had been ailing for years. [12:13.16] [12:13.33]When she died, Dudley would be free, [12:15.89] [12:16.05]and sleeping with your intended was not unusual in Tudor England. [12:19.84] [12:20.01]But this would have been outrageous for a queen who paraded her virginity [12:25.45] [12:25.61]at her coronation by leaving her hair down. [12:28.52] [12:29.89]When pressed about the rumours, she airily retorted [12:33.09] [12:33.25]that it was impossible when surrounded day and night by her ladies. [12:38.04] [12:38.21]With the example of the fate of her own mother before her, [12:42.49] [12:42.65]it would have been foolhardy to the point of insanity [12:45.21] [12:45.37]for her to sleep with Dudley. [12:47.36] [12:47.53]The politician in her was, as always, ruling the lover. [12:52.00] [12:56.25]Something then happened which did terrible damage to their relationship. [13:01.85] [13:02.01]Dudley's wife, Amy, was found at the bottom of a staircase [13:05.84] [13:06.01]dead from a broken neck. [13:09.08] [13:09.17]An accident seemed altogether too convenient to be credible. [13:14.01] [13:14.17]This was, after all, the golden age of gossip [13:17.61] [13:17.77]and gossip did not believe Amy had fallen but had been pushed. [13:23.32] [13:24.89]Elizabeth immediately sent Dudley away until cleared of suspicion. [13:29.36] [13:29.53]Officially he was, and though the queen always insisted [13:33.32] [13:33.49]that Dudley had been vindicated, it still cast a shadow [13:37.45] [13:37.61]over their relationship, just when they had become free to marry. [13:42.32] [13:42.49]Perhaps it was a case of, "Beware of wishing for your heart's true desire [13:47.12] [13:47.21]"lest you end by getting it". [13:50.33] [13:53.37]For the next few years, Elizabeth swung mercurially [13:57.05] [13:57.21]between endearment and exasperation, drawing up documents [14:01.00] [14:01.17]to make Dudley an Earl, only to shred them in front of him. [14:05.05] [14:05.21]And other times, especially when she felt nagged by the council, [14:08.96] [14:09.13]she would torment them by pretending their marriage [14:11.52] [14:11.69]was just about to happen. It never did. [14:15.05] [14:17.21]By 1563, Elizabeth had given up on the possibility of ever marrying Dudley. [14:24.37] [14:24.53]She was prepared to offer him to someone else - [14:27.68] [14:27.77]someone whose own marriage prospects were of tremendous significance [14:33.16] [14:33.33]for the balance of power in Britain - Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots. [14:39.57] [14:44.65]Throughout the whole tortured history of their relationship, [14:47.69] [14:47.85]Elizabeth was eaten up with curiosity about her cousin, Mary. [14:51.81] [14:51.97]Trapped in a neurotic beauty contest, [14:54.33] [14:54.49]interrogating her ambassadors as if they were mirrors on the wall [14:58.17] [14:58.33]as to who was the taller, fairer, wittier, the cleverer. [15:01.80] [15:01.97]Elizabeth may have won for brains, but from the few pictures we have of her, [15:07.41] [15:07.57]Mary, with her heart-shaped face, heavy eyelids and creamy complexion, [15:11.88] [15:12.05]had the stuff to reduce grown men to warm puddles on the floor. [15:17.44] [15:18.05]She was more than just competition. [15:20.09] [15:20.25]To Elizabeth, Mary, Queen of Scots, was a menace. [15:24.00] [15:25.57]The reason was obvious. Mary was a Catholic [15:28.77] [15:28.93]and a Catholic Church did not recognise Elizabeth's right [15:32.61] [15:32.77]to be Queen of England. [15:34.36] [15:34.53]To them, she was a product of Henry VIII's illegal marriage to Anne Boleyn. [15:39.24] [15:39.37]In Mary's Catholic eyes, then, Elizabeth was simply illegitimate. [15:44.52] [15:44.69]How could Elizabeth not take this personally? [15:47.76] [15:48.81]Mary was not only a Stuart, she was also a Tudor [15:53.09] [15:53.25]through her great grandfather, Henry VII. [15:55.81] [15:55.97]So long as Elizabeth was childless, [15:58.44] [15:58.61]Mary was next in line to the English throne. [16:02.36] [16:07.73]From the moment Mary arrived in Scotland at the age of 18 [16:12.01] [16:12.17]from the French court where she had been brought up, [16:15.00] [16:15.17]the relationship between the cousins was tainted with mutual suspicion. [16:20.24] [16:20.41]At the first opportunity, Elizabeth behaved badly, almost irrationally, [16:25.53] [16:25.69]denying Mary safe conduct through England to her new realm [16:29.16] [16:29.33]and forcing her to sail the long way round to Scotland. [16:33.29] [16:33.45]Though the injured party, [16:35.57] [16:35.65]Mary's response already betrayed the theatrical self-pity [16:39.48] [16:39.65]which so got up Elizabeth's nose. [16:42.37] [16:43.73]I trust the wind will be so favourable, [16:46.53] [16:46.69]as I shall not need to come on the coast of England. [16:49.68] [16:49.85]And if I do, Monsieur L'Ambassadeur, [16:52.08] [16:52.25]the queen, your mistress, shall have me in her hands [16:56.45] [16:56.61]to do her will of me, and if she be so hard-hearted as to desire my end, [17:01.48] [17:01.65]she may then do her pleasure and make sacrifice of me. [17:06.17] [17:08.89]Perhaps things might be better between the two of them [17:11.72] [17:11.89]if Mary accepted Elizabeth's choice of a safe Protestant husband for her, [17:16.25] [17:16.41]in the winning form of Robert Dudley. [17:19.53] [17:20.49]One tiny problem with this plan, though. [17:22.92] [17:23.09]Mary had no intention of being told what to do by Elizabeth. [17:27.08] [17:27.25]Anyway, everyone knew that after the death of his wife, [17:31.08] [17:31.25]Robert Dudley was spoiled goods. [17:34.00] [17:37.13]Lord Henry Darnley, the handsome poster boy of Scottish nobility, [17:41.65] [17:41.81]seemed a much better prospect. [17:44.01] [17:44.17]One look at Darnley's shapely calves and Mary decided she must have him. [17:49.24] [17:49.41]It helped that he too had Tudor blood flowing through his veins. [17:54.12] [17:54.29]Unfortunately, a lot of whisky ran through them too. [17:58.25] [17:58.41]Too late, Mary discovered she had married a lazy, dissolute drunk, [18:02.37] [18:02.53]incapable of doing even the minimal things required of a co-sovereign. [18:06.84] [18:08.53]Stuck at Holyrood with the task of ruling Scotland without him, [18:12.41] [18:12.57]Mary increasingly relied on her private secretary, [18:16.09] [18:16.25]the Italian Catholic, David Riccio. [18:19.32] [18:19.49]Naturally, the Protestant nobles in Scotland [18:22.69] [18:22.85]were convinced that Mary was plotting to turn Scotland back into a Catholic country. [18:28.72] [18:29.37]So Darnley's increasing estrangement from his wife [18:33.28] [18:33.45]gave the lords most offended by Riccio's access to the queen [18:37.65] [18:37.81]the opening they were looking for. [18:40.69] [18:41.01]In 1566, a group of them approached Darnley [18:44.45] [18:44.61]and proposed what amounted to a violent coup. [18:47.73] [18:47.89]Get rid of Riccio, who was her lover, they said, not just her secretary. [18:53.92] [18:54.09]"Ah," thought Darnley, "That would explain why she's such a bitch. [18:58.32] [18:58.49]"I'll show her who's in charge." [19:02.01] [19:05.25]On March 7th, while she was dining, Darnley and his fellow plotters [19:09.77] [19:09.93]burst into Mary's chamber, tore the terrified Riccio from Mary's skirts [19:14.69] [19:14.85]and stabbed him to death in front of her. [19:17.57] [19:33.33]Between 50 and 60 wounds were discovered on his body [19:36.85] [19:37.01]after it was thrown down the privy staircase. [19:39.89] [19:40.05]At some point the murderers turned to Mary, [19:42.85] [19:43.01]pointing a pistol at her heavily pregnant belly. [19:46.24] [19:49.93]Perhaps at that moment, Mary knew how to turn terror into power, [19:54.80] [19:54.97]for in the months to follow, she milked the melodrama [19:58.09] [19:58.25]of the threatened womb for all it was worth. [20:01.16] [20:02.93]Instead of being reduced to a weeping wreck, Mary was strangely calm. [20:08.29] [20:08.45]She knew she could be strong because she was carrying [20:12.13] [20:12.29]her greatest weapon inside her womb. [20:15.52] [20:15.69]Whatever happened to her useless, drunken, homicidal, [20:18.73] [20:18.89]nitwit of a husband, she knew a baby would be born. [20:22.68] [20:22.85]Mother and child were going to survive. [20:26.16] [20:30.21]On June 19th, at Edinburgh Castle, Mary gave birth to the boy [20:34.76] [20:34.93]who would become James VI of Scotland. [20:37.73] [20:37.89]On hearing the news, Elizabeth's reaction was to cry, [20:41.85] [20:42.01]Alack, the Queen of Scots is lighter of a bonny son [20:47.08] [20:47.25]and I am but of barren stock. [20:50.61] [21:07.61]Mary was by now so consumed with contempt for Darnley [21:12.05] [21:12.21]that she resolved to be rid of him. [21:14.28] [21:14.45]Possibly all she meant was to be rid of him as a husband [21:18.08] [21:18.25]but there were some devotees, in particular the Earl of Bothwell, [21:23.17] [21:23.33]who took her sighs to mean something altogether more decisive. [21:28.12] [21:28.93]Bothwell, one of the great landowners of Scotland, [21:32.05] [21:32.21]was rich, promiscuous and dangerous. [21:35.33] [21:35.49]He could also turn on the gallantry, [21:37.85] [21:37.93]and in her distress Mary turned to him as protector, [21:41.97] [21:42.05]and Bothwell was only too happy to solve Mary's Darnley problem. [21:47.76] [21:50.37]On the evening of March 9th, 1567, while Mary was attending a ball, [21:56.61] [21:56.77]Bothwell supervised the lighting of a fuse [21:59.92] [22:00.01]that at two in the morning would detonate an immense quantity of gunpowder [22:04.16] [22:04.33]beneath the house where Darnley was asleep. [22:07.32] [22:12.25]The house was blown sky high. Darnley was dead, [22:17.17] [22:17.33]but not bumped off according to plan. [22:19.24] [22:19.41]Minutes before the explosion, he'd heard suspicious noises, [22:22.45] [22:22.61]and had himself lowered out of his bedroom window on a chair. [22:26.52] [22:26.69]Running through the garden in his night-shirt, he ran into the plotters, [22:31.45] [22:31.61]who promptly throttled him to death. [22:33.92] [22:43.05]Darnley's murder was a turning point in Mary's life. [22:46.80] [22:46.97]From now on, death followed Mary like a lady-in-waiting. [22:51.92] [22:52.85]She was already sick, vomiting black mucus. [22:56.29] [22:56.45]She needed help, and the unscrupulous Bothwell was at hand. [23:01.16] [23:01.33]His power over Mary made him reckless. [23:04.21] [23:04.37]He announced to the Scottish lords that for the proper government of the country [23:09.05] [23:09.21]it was necessary for Mary to have a husband. [23:12.60] [23:12.77]Very decently, he offered himself for the job. [23:16.89] [23:18.41]Bothwell's idea of a marriage proposal was to abduct Mary [23:22.53] [23:22.69]and take her to his grim castle in Dunbar. [23:26.00] [23:26.17]There he planted his flag as prospective King of Scotland [23:30.13] [23:30.29]by planting himself - violently, it was said - inside her body. [23:35.92] [23:36.73]Now he supposed the traumatised Mary would have to marry him, [23:40.64] [23:40.81]and, to most of the country's horror, [23:43.61] [23:43.77]Mary did just that, a few weeks later, at Holyrood. [23:48.29] [23:50.49]It was at this point that Mary lost it - lost control over her own body, [23:56.04] [23:56.21]lost the priceless political asset of her motherhood, [23:59.52] [23:59.69]soiled by her relationship with Bothwell. [24:02.97] [24:03.05]Lost Scotland, lost the whole damned shooting match. [24:06.25] [24:06.41]The thing is, it need never have happened. [24:09.29] [24:09.37]Had she been half the politician Elizabeth was, [24:12.33] [24:12.41]she would have distanced herself from Bothwell, not married him. [24:15.69] [24:15.85]Then she'd have come down like a ton of bricks on Darnley's murderers, [24:20.13] [24:20.29]professing herself to be shocked at the crime, truly shocked, [24:24.41] [24:24.57]then presenting herself to the people of Scotland [24:27.53] [24:27.69]as a doubly victimised mother. [24:29.68] [24:29.85]Instead, the mother let herself be turned into a whore. [24:34.56] [24:37.53]Mary now faced the rebel armies loyal to the murdered Darnley. [24:41.60] [24:41.77]But on the verge of battle, Bothwell conveniently [24:44.73] [24:44.89]disappeared to gather reinforcements, or so he said, [24:48.49] [24:48.65]leaving Mary to face the enemy on her own. [24:51.72] [24:51.89]It was the last she would ever see of him. [24:54.96] [24:55.89]Dragged back to Edinburgh, a captive, filthy and dishevelled, [25:00.25] [25:00.41]she appeared at a window, her dress torn from her shoulders, [25:04.16] [25:04.33]her breasts exposed, and was greeted by a mob howling abuse. [25:09.12] [25:10.13]Handbills featuring her as a mermaid began to appear, [25:13.88] [25:14.05]a mermaid being another name for a prostitute. [25:17.12] [25:17.29]Mermaids were not fit to sit on the throne of Scotland, [25:21.97] [25:22.13]so Mary was forced to renounce it in favour of her baby son. [25:26.33] [25:26.49]Her Protestant half-brother, the Earl of Moray, [25:29.61] [25:29.69]took charge of baby James and made himself Regent of Scotland. [25:33.60] [25:35.09]Mary was 25 years old. [25:38.56] [25:38.73]Her history seemed done, but of course it was not. [25:43.72] [25:54.89]She had one last weapon - her air of tragically damaged beauty. [26:00.65] [26:00.81]Incarcerated in Loch Leven Castle, in the middle of a deep, cold lake, [26:05.84] [26:06.01]she unleashed her seductive charm on her jailer, [26:09.08] [26:09.25]one of the usually hard-bitten Douglas clan, who melted in adoration. [26:14.93] [26:18.77]After ten months of imprisonment, in May 1568, [26:23.00] [26:23.17]Mary made a getaway across the loch. [26:26.53] [26:28.89]There was only one way to get her throne back - [26:32.41] [26:32.57]an appeal to her cousin Elizabeth. [26:35.48] [26:35.65]Her next journey, across the border, was to be in the nature of a temporary refuge. [26:41.44] [26:41.61]She must have supposed her stay would last a month, a year at the most. [26:46.60] [26:46.77]Had she known the real answer, 19 years, [26:50.60] [26:50.77]she would surely have avoided the passage across the Solway Firth. [26:55.40] [26:55.57]There she was, an exhausted, bedraggled figure, [26:59.69] [26:59.85]her hair cropped for disguise, sitting hunched in a small boat, [27:04.69] [27:04.85]her eyes fixed on the disappearing shoreline of Scotland. [27:10.08] [27:16.89]Mary's appearance on English soil threw Elizabeth into turmoil. [27:22.01] [27:22.17]Was Mary her heir or wasn't she? [27:24.92] [27:25.09]After all, Elizabeth wasn't getting any younger, 35 in 1568. [27:31.40] [27:31.57]The royal laundresses were still sending Cecil monthly evidence [27:35.64] [27:35.81]of her capacity to produce children, [27:38.12] [27:38.29]but she was no nearer to getting married. [27:40.72] [27:42.13]Would the fugitive Queen of Scots be treated like the next in line [27:46.81] [27:46.97]or at least as a fellow sovereign, a guest? [27:50.52] [27:50.69]Not exactly. Mary's first request to Elizabeth was for some clothes [27:55.21] [27:55.37]that befitted her status rather than the rags she had fled in. [28:00.52] [28:00.69]What she got, after much complaining, was a packet of linen. [28:06.05] [28:09.09]Just as well perhaps that she didn't know [28:12.13] [28:12.21]that Elizabeth was already wearing Mary's favourite pearls, [28:15.89] [28:15.97]stolen from Mary by her enemies and sent to the English queen. [28:21.25] [28:22.09]In fact, Elizabeth didn't know what to do with Mary. [28:25.53] [28:25.69]All her royal instincts were outraged by the humiliations and indignities [28:30.08] [28:30.25]heaped on her royal cousin. [28:32.68] [28:32.85]If Mary would agree to keep her hands off the English throne, [28:36.53] [28:36.77]Elizabeth was tempted to help her regain the Scottish crown. [28:41.13] [28:43.61]Elizabeth could also see the wisdom of the opposite view, [28:47.84] [28:48.01]that it was folly to restore a Catholic queen to the Scottish throne, [28:51.92] [28:52.09]giving a back door entry to Britain for the French and Spanish. [28:57.01] [28:57.69]There was a safe Protestant regime in Scotland now, run by Mary's enemies. [29:02.56] [29:02.65]Why rock the boat? [29:04.72] [29:04.81]So if Mary imagined she could rely on the sisterhood of queens, she was deluded. [29:10.60] [29:10.77]The first thing Elizabeth did was order an inquiry [29:14.29] [29:14.45]into the murder of Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, [29:17.41] [29:17.57]which turned into a trial in all but name. [29:20.48] [29:24.21]Now Mary could have no illusions that she was anything except a prisoner. [29:29.16] [29:29.45]She was shuttled from house to house [29:32.17] [29:32.33]under the watchful eye of the Earl of Shrewsbury, [29:34.97] [29:35.13]who got the unenviable job of being her jailer. [29:38.41] [29:38.57]Some of the houses were not much more than a damp ruin, [29:41.88] [29:42.05]others, like Wingfield here, were more tolerable. [29:45.80] [29:45.97]Wingfield is in Derbyshire, and that tells you something [29:49.96] [29:50.13]about the nervousness of her captors. [29:52.52] [29:52.69]Mary had to be kept a long way from any possibility of rescue, [29:57.68] [29:57.85]far away from Scotland, far away from London, far away from the coast. [30:02.32] [30:02.49]In fact, in the Midlands. [30:04.80] [30:04.97]But wherever she was, she had become maximum security problem number one, [30:11.05] [30:11.21]not just a headache but a magnet for conspiracy. [30:14.73] [30:23.29]There were many political heavyweights [30:26.09] [30:26.25]for whom Mary was a legitimate, attractive alternative to Elizabeth. [30:30.80] [30:30.97]They were not just a bunch of wild-eyed Catholic dreamers, [30:34.49] [30:34.65]but men close to the heart of Elizabeth's government. [30:38.36] [30:39.89]Their most ambitious plan was to annul the Bothwell marriage [30:43.41] [30:43.57]and marry the Queen of Scots to the premier duke of the realm, [30:47.04] [30:47.21]Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. [30:50.17] [30:50.33]Although Norfolk may have been a Catholic at heart, he was, like so many of this time, [30:56.12] [30:56.29]outwardly at least, a conforming Protestant. [30:59.60] [30:59.77]It was reasonable to see the marriage plot [31:03.40] [31:03.49]as a way of binding up the unhealed wounds of the Reformation, [31:07.88] [31:07.97]but the queen wasn't fooled for a moment. [31:11.49] [31:11.65]When the plot was exposed, she sent Norfolk to the Tower. [31:15.40] [31:22.33]The plot collapsed. [31:24.56] [31:24.73]There was, though, a different kind of fury waiting to happen, [31:28.01] [31:28.17]and this WAS burning with a Catholic flame. [31:32.08] [31:37.09]In the north, Catholicism had not only not been rooted out, [31:40.80] [31:40.97]it fed on the burning resentment and fierce independence [31:45.49] [31:45.65]of the great aristocratic families who ran things here. [31:50.09] [31:50.25]They'd been here for centuries, and weren't about to be pushed around [31:54.24] [31:54.41]by a bunch of Tudor bureaucrats. [31:56.48] [31:56.65]They weren't to be told what was what in their government and religion. [32:02.09] [32:02.25]So, for them, Mary Stuart was not just a successor, [32:06.64] [32:06.81]she was a replacement, as in immediate replacement. [32:11.44] [32:15.53]So the Catholic north fought the Protestant south. [32:19.24] [32:19.41]For a while it looked as though the North might win. [32:22.32] [32:23.77]As rebels swept through Lancashire, Yorkshire and Northumberland, [32:27.65] [32:27.81]it must have seemed that Catholic Britain had been reborn. [32:32.01] [32:32.09]Now Elizabeth's government really knew what it was up against, [32:37.12] [32:37.29]the latest act in the endlessly drawn out religious war that began [32:41.49] [32:41.65]when Henry VIII made himself Supreme Head of the Church. [32:45.33] [32:46.41]12,000 troops were mustered and the rebellion brutally crushed. [32:52.80] [32:57.49]Perhaps the brutality worked, because the northern rising [33:01.61] [33:01.77]was the last great rebellion to disturb Tudor England. [33:05.21] [33:05.37]It's tempting to feel the country settling at last [33:09.20] [33:09.37]into its Elizabethan finery, feeling fat, safe, comfortable. [33:14.73] [33:14.89]But it was always a jittery kind of grandeur. [33:18.80] [33:27.41]Elizabeth was 20 years into her reign and suitors had come and gone. [33:33.09] [33:33.25]There was always something the matter with them - too lowly, [33:36.45] [33:36.61]too Catholic, too stupid. [33:39.00] [33:39.17]And besides, now her suitors had rivals - [33:42.88] [33:43.05]millions of her subjects, who had become jealously possessive [33:46.84] [33:47.01]and thought that the queen was theirs alone. [33:50.40] [33:53.17]In the 1570s, they got her. [33:56.45] [33:56.61]The cult, the religion of Elizabeth, was spectacularly created. [34:01.68] [34:10.65]Her accession day became the greatest of national holidays, [34:14.77] [34:14.93]more sacred than all the heathen events on the papist calendar. [34:19.21] [34:30.57]Her image began to appear everywhere in allegorical pictures, [34:35.12] [34:35.29]Elizabeth as the sun who gave the rainbow its radiant hues. [34:40.16] [34:40.33]Even those on the inside, who could plainly see [34:44.80] [34:44.97]the elaborate scaffolding from which this image was projected, [34:48.76] [34:48.93]who knew that the pale moon glow of the queen's face [34:52.32] [34:52.49]was just pulverised eggshell, borax, alum and mill water, [34:56.85] [34:57.01]even these knowing types were total captives to the cult. [35:02.13] [35:03.13]She had this effect on all kinds of people, especially men, [35:06.28] [35:06.45]even when they got older and should have known better. [35:09.97] [35:10.85]They built huge prodigy houses in her honour. [35:14.40] [35:14.57]It was in its way a desperate need to impress, [35:17.37] [35:17.53]a sign of the culture's raw immaturity, [35:20.81] [35:20.97]its hunger for glitzy gorgeousness, [35:23.53] [35:23.69]Elizabethan razzle-dazzle, thigh-hugging hose, [35:27.21] [35:27.37]oak-panelled libraries with yards of unread classics, [35:31.44] [35:31.61]ballrooms as big as playing fields. [35:34.60] [35:42.33]You'd think devotees would be queuing for a glimpse of the national Madonna, [35:48.25] [35:48.41]but many knew that hosting the show came at a heavy price. [35:52.61] [35:53.81]If you were a burgess of the City of Warwick, [35:56.85] [35:57.01]it's hard to know which lot would have made you more nervous. [36:00.45] [36:00.61]The royal wanderers, after all, came with 200 carts of the queen's baggage, [36:06.85] [36:07.01]each pulled by a team of six horses. [36:10.00] [36:10.09]That's a lot of stable room to find, that is a lot of hay. [36:13.92] [36:14.09]Then, a week before the event, [36:16.52] [36:16.69]men from the office of purveyors would come and buy up [36:20.92] [36:21.09]everything in sight for the visit, at prices they decided were fair. [36:25.77] [36:25.93]Then the lords and ladies, so notoriously hard to please. [36:30.21] [36:30.37]Supposing they rolled their eyes at the entertainment, [36:34.05] [36:34.21]supposing they wrinkled their nose at the fair? [36:37.73] [36:37.89]Last of all, there was Queen Bess herself, [36:40.96] [36:41.13]a bejewelled apparition with a chalk-white face [36:44.88] [36:45.05]like some goddess on earth. [36:47.77] [36:47.85]But, like the immortals, she was evidently frightening as well as majestic. [36:53.80] [36:57.49]You could revel in the Elizabethan glamour show [37:00.37] [37:00.53]as long as you didn't think too hard about what was going on [37:04.49] [37:04.65]beyond the sceptr'd isle. [37:06.72] [37:06.81]For out there, in Europe, [37:08.80] [37:08.89]a total war between Catholic and Protestant powers was about to ignite. [37:13.52] [37:14.81]The rivalry between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth [37:18.49] [37:18.65]was no longer a girlie soap opera, [37:21.40] [37:21.57]it was right at the centre of that global struggle. [37:25.25] [37:25.41]In Rome, the Pope declared Elizabeth was to be considered a heretic. [37:30.36] [37:30.53]"Whoever sends her out of the world," the Pope decreed, [37:33.68] [37:33.85]"not only does not sin, but gains merit in the eyes of God." [37:39.05] [37:39.21]In response, England became a national security state. [37:43.73] [37:43.89]Infiltrators and double agents were recruited by the government. [37:48.12] [37:48.29]Gentlemen vigilantes were sworn to take out, in advance, [37:52.57] [37:52.73]anyone so much as suspected of plotting against the queen. [37:56.88] [37:59.01]At the heart of the operation was Elizabeth's chief spymaster, [38:03.37] [38:03.53]Francis Walsingham. [38:05.52] [38:06.01]"Intelligence is never too dear," was Walsingham's motto. [38:10.80] [38:10.97]His whole career was an applied demonstration that knowledge is power. [38:16.28] [38:17.89]But if Walsingham was ferocious, he was not paranoid. [38:22.20] [38:22.37]There were underground conspiracies, organised in France, Rome and Spain, [38:27.84] [38:28.01]all working to one end - the assassination of Elizabeth [38:32.69] [38:32.85]and the enthronement of Mary Stuart. [38:36.16] [38:38.29]Elizabeth might have been queasy about taking care of Mary, [38:42.28] [38:42.37]but Walsingham wasn't. [38:44.57] [38:44.65]It was his job to get his hands dirty for England, that's what spymasters do. [38:49.44] [38:49.61]But he knew well enough he couldn't just do her in. [38:52.76] [38:52.93]Elizabeth had to be free of suspicion of complicity in murder. [38:57.32] [38:57.49]On the other hand, the Mary problem could not be allowed [39:01.24] [39:01.41]to drag on for another 15 years. [39:04.32] [39:04.49]Walsingham realised he would have to force a solution. [39:09.36] [39:09.53]So he engineered a trap... and it was a gem. [39:14.40] [39:16.81]Mary may have been under house arrest, [39:19.40] [39:19.57]but she was allowed to lead the life of the country lady. [39:23.72] [39:23.89]Then, in December 1585, Walsingham made a change. [39:28.84] [39:30.61]Mary and her household were suddenly packed up [39:33.52] [39:33.69]and sent to close confinement at Chartley Manor, Staffordshire, [39:37.21] [39:37.37]where she was guarded by the unsmiling puritan, Amyas Paulet. [39:43.72] [39:44.65]As Walsingham had intended, Mary was furious, [39:48.44] [39:48.61]desperate to find a way out of her prison. [39:51.44] [39:51.61]So she was thrilled when she discovered an ingenuous means [39:55.60] [39:55.77]to smuggle coded letters to her supporters. [39:59.32] [39:59.49]The letters were secretly put in a watertight packet, [40:03.09] [40:03.25]slipped in the bunghole of beer casks, delivered to and from Chartley. [40:08.61] [40:10.49]What Mary didn't know was that this was a trap. [40:13.96] [40:14.13]Walsingham had set the whole thing up. [40:17.12] [40:17.29]The letters were intercepted. [40:19.60] [40:20.81]When Mary's latest champion, the rich merchant Anthony Babbington, [40:25.17] [40:25.33]supplied Mary with details of a plot to murder Elizabeth [40:28.64] [40:28.81]and put Mary on the English throne, Mary wrote back with encouragement. [40:33.88] [40:35.89]The trap was sprung. [40:39.01] [40:43.41]At Chartley, Mary felt the skies lighten. [40:45.97] [40:46.13]After nearly 20 years of unjust imprisonment, [40:49.09] [40:49.25]she could feel liberty at hand, so close she could practically taste it. [40:53.96] [40:54.13]One morning, unusually, Paulet allowed her to go riding, hunting. [41:00.29] [41:00.45]From a distance, she could see a group of horsemen approach. [41:04.57] [41:04.73]Mary must have imagined, [41:07.29] [41:07.45]"This is it -news from Babington. Freedom at last." [41:11.44] [41:13.25]But it was in fact the warrant for her arrest. [41:17.32] [41:17.69]Babington and his fellow plotters had been tortured and had confessed. [41:23.13] [41:24.69]Mary was taken away while her rooms at Chartley were searched, [41:28.92] [41:29.09]turning up hundreds of incriminating documents. [41:32.21] [41:34.89]In London, Elizabeth wrote an ecstatic letter to Amyas Paulet. [41:40.33] [41:41.09]Amyas, my most faithful and careful servant, [41:44.77] [41:44.93]God reward thee treble-fold for the most troublesome charge [41:48.92] [41:49.09]so well discharged. [41:51.16] [41:59.37]There was just one more stop, one more castle [42:02.60] [42:02.77]in the career of the wandering queen: [42:05.20] [42:05.37]Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire. [42:08.57] [42:08.73]It's just a grassy mound now, which is just as well, [42:12.36] [42:12.53]since no ruin, no standing building for that matter, [42:16.00] [42:16.17]could take the weight of the drama that was to follow. [42:19.40] [42:22.73]Anyone expecting Mary Stuart to crumble into tearful confession [42:28.01] [42:28.17]had seriously misjudged her. [42:30.68] [42:30.85]Up against it, [42:32.92] [42:33.01]she drew on something inside her long and mostly disastrous career [42:37.96] [42:38.13]which made her resolute and unnervingly lofty, [42:41.52] [42:41.61]as if she was above this squalid charade. [42:44.41] [42:45.53]From the moment of her arrest to the moment of her execution, [42:49.68] [42:49.85]she gave as good as she got. [42:52.05] [42:54.21]As a sinner, I am truly conscious of having often offended my creator. [42:59.89] [43:00.05]I beg him to forgive me. [43:02.88] [43:02.97]But as queen and sovereign, [43:05.12] [43:05.29]I am aware of no offence for which I have to render account [43:09.08] [43:09.25]to anyone here below. [43:12.00] [43:14.69]Her second tactic was to lie her head off, [43:17.57] [43:17.73]denying all knowledge of the Babington plot, [43:20.37] [43:20.53]though she was on stronger ground when she accused Walsingham [43:23.81] [43:23.97]of having set up the whole thing to get rid of her. [43:27.01] [43:29.85]Elizabeth did not see it exactly in this way. [43:34.00] [43:34.17]She wrote to Mary as if the Queen of the Scots [43:36.60] [43:36.77]had been an ungrateful house guest who'd made off with the towels. [43:41.21] [43:43.21]You have planned to take my life and ruin my Kingdom by shedding blood. [43:47.76] [43:47.93]I never proceeded so hastily against you. [43:50.92] [43:51.09]On the contrary, I have maintained you and preserved your life [43:55.08] [43:55.25]with the same care which I use for myself. [44:00.24] [44:05.13]On the 15th of October, 1586, the formal trial began. [44:10.65] [44:10.81]In a typical gesture, half plea, half threat, [44:14.77] [44:14.93]Mary warned her prosecutors to look to their consciences. [44:18.92] [44:19.09]"Remember," she said, "the theatre of the world [44:22.56] [44:22.73]"is wider than the realm of England." [44:24.72] [44:24.89]It was to that audience, world-wide and across the ages, [44:29.12] [44:29.29]that she now took centre stage. [44:32.17] [44:34.69]Mary hobbled into the room, by now painfully infirm, [44:39.00] [44:39.17]dressed head to foot like a glamorous Mother Superior, [44:42.29] [44:42.45]in swathes of black velvet and a white headdress. [44:45.92] [44:46.09]Deprived of any lawyer, she turned to the big guns [44:49.32] [44:49.49]of the Privy Council facing her. [44:52.48] [44:52.97]There is not one, I think, among you, [44:56.36] [44:56.53]let him be the cleverest man in the world, [44:59.04] [44:59.21]who would be capable of defending himself [45:02.49] [45:02.65]if he were in my place. [45:04.93] [45:07.29]Of course, it wouldn't have mattered what she said. [45:10.76] [45:10.93]The trial resumed in London without her [45:13.65] [45:13.81]and passed swiftly to her conviction. [45:17.17] [45:19.49]All her adult life, Elizabeth had been spooked [45:22.96] [45:23.13]by her fascinating, infuriating cousin, [45:25.93] [45:26.09]who seemed to personify all the cliches about women [45:29.61] [45:29.77]which Elizabeth had rejected. [45:31.97] [45:32.13]Now she had a precious opportunity to get Mother Mary off her back. [45:36.81] [45:36.97]Parliament was impatient to be rid of her, [45:39.17] [45:39.33]the people were positively baying for Mary's blood. [45:43.37] [45:43.53]Yet, somehow, Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to do the deed. [45:47.49] [45:47.65]It wasn't that she was sentimental about Mary, it was that she was scared - [45:51.80] [45:51.97]scared to be seen by the world to have her fingerprints on the axe. [45:57.49] [46:00.05]This is what was robbing Elizabeth of her sleep, [46:03.36] [46:03.53]the tormenting question, whether by killing Mary [46:07.16] [46:07.33]she was getting rid of trouble or inviting it. [46:10.64] [46:12.97]On February 1st, 1587, Elizabeth finally put her signature [46:19.00] [46:19.17]on Mary's death warrant. [46:21.68] [46:37.21]All the chaos, squalor, reckless adventuring, rash conspiracies, [46:42.89] [46:43.05]pathetic delusions, histrionic bouts of self-pity, all the escapes and rescues, [46:48.84] [46:49.01]they had all led her to this one supreme moment. [46:52.80] [46:52.97]She would be a Catholic martyr. [46:56.33] [47:02.61]When Mary was told she was to be executed the next morning, [47:07.29] [47:07.45]by a weeping Scottish courtier, she told him to be joyful instead, [47:12.52] [47:12.69]"For the end of Mary Stuart's trouble," she said, "is now done." [47:17.81] [47:19.89]Carry this message from me and tell my friends that I died [47:24.25] [47:24.41]a true woman to my religion [47:26.69] [47:26.77]and like a true Scottish woman and a true French woman. [47:30.16] [47:40.81]When she undressed for the executioner, [47:43.40] [47:43.57]the demure black gown fell away to reveal a crimson petticoat, [47:48.56] [47:48.73]the blood-red hue of the martyr. [47:51.53] [47:52.57]Mary's eyes were bound with a white silk handkerchief, [47:56.28] [47:56.45]embroidered with gold, [47:58.76] [47:58.85]and she lay with such utter stillness on the block [48:02.40] [48:02.49]that it actually unnerved the executioner. [48:05.53] [48:18.81]His first blow cut deep into the back of her head, [48:22.25] [48:22.41]the second severed it but for a hanging thread of flesh. [48:27.20] [48:29.37]Even now, Mary contrived to remain centre stage. [48:33.81] [48:33.97]For 15 minutes after the last blow of the axe, [48:37.09] [48:37.25]the lips on her severed head, so witnesses reported, [48:40.88] [48:41.05]continued to move as if in silent prayer. [48:45.04] [48:52.89]When the executioner, by now probably wanting to die himself, [48:57.09] [48:57.25]held up the head to the spectators, [48:59.24] [48:59.41]he made the mistake of grasping it by the mass of auburn curls... [49:03.56] [49:03.73]but that was a wig. [49:06.37] [49:06.45]To general horror, Mary's skull, the hair cropped into short grey stubble, [49:11.00] [49:11.17]fell from his grip and rolled along the floor. [49:15.13] [49:23.93]At that moment a terrible howling [49:26.44] [49:26.61]came from the crimson, blood-soaked petticoat. [49:31.00] [49:31.17]Mary's lap dog had to be taken away from the wreckage of her mistress. [49:37.01] [49:37.17]They tried and tried to scrub it clean of the clotted blood. [49:40.88] [49:41.05]They did so, but it wouldn't eat, it languished, it died. [49:45.41] [49:45.57]It was just another martyr to Mary's pathetic, tragic life. [49:50.60] [49:50.77]Perhaps that little dog was the first mourner, [49:53.28] [49:53.45]it certainly was not going to be the last. [49:56.73] [50:00.29]Among the mourners, astoundingly, was Queen Elizabeth, [50:04.97] [50:05.13]in deep denial of what she had done. [50:08.25] [50:09.29](MAN) When she heard, her countenance changed, her words faltered [50:13.89] [50:14.05]and with excessive sorrow she was in a manner astonished, [50:17.88] [50:18.05]in so much as she gave herself over to grief, [50:20.41] [50:20.57]putting herself into mourning weeds and shedding abundance of tears. [50:24.93] [50:40.37]Some of Elizabeth's anguish may have been genuine remorse, [50:44.20] [50:44.41]some of it was downright fear - and she was right to worry. [50:49.80] [50:49.97]Even before Mary's execution, King Phillip of Spain [50:53.60] [50:53.77]had accelerated his plans for the "enterprise" of England, [50:57.45] [50:57.61]and with Mary now dead, there would be no stopping him. [51:01.40] [51:01.57]Suddenly, Elizabethan England looked very small, very vulnerable. [51:07.68] [51:12.29]This was Elizabeth's worst nightmare, a full-scale Catholic invasion, [51:18.32] [51:18.49]and now Phillip was launching one. [51:21.48] [51:22.37]The Spanish admirals, however, were deeply pessimistic of success. [51:27.40] [51:27.57]They knew English ships had a massive edge in speed and manoeuvrability. [51:33.09] [51:33.25]The miracle was not that England was saved [51:36.37] [51:36.53]but that the Spanish came so close to pulling it off. [51:39.97] [51:40.13]Only a few miles of the Channel [51:42.28] [51:42.45]and an unhelpful wind direction made the difference. [51:46.16] [51:46.33]The weather, as usual, batted for England. [51:49.96] [51:55.29]But it was a close thing. [51:57.65] [51:57.81]The English were right to be scared in the summer and autumn of 1588. [52:01.96] [52:04.57]What do you do when weepy and terrified? You cry for Mummy. [52:08.64] [52:08.81]That, courtesy of Robert Dudley - dying of cancer now, [52:12.44] [52:12.61]but still the great impresario of Elizabeth's shows - [52:15.76] [52:15.93]is how she appeared to the troops at the armed camp at Tilbury - [52:20.29] [52:20.45]the mother at last, the virgin mother of England [52:24.24] [52:24.41]and the kind of mother you'd want on your side, [52:27.72] [52:27.89]a mother dressed in a breastplate of steel. [52:30.80] [52:33.01]Everything Elizabeth had ever learned came together at Tilbury. [52:37.69] [52:37.85]Charisma in a costume, the shell burst of oratory, [52:41.60] [52:41.77]and, perhaps most importantly, what all mothers know instinctively, [52:45.84] [52:46.01]that there's no substitute for being there. [52:49.69] [52:49.85]And there, on August the 8th and 9th, she certainly was, [52:54.24] [52:54.41]arriving in a gilded coach, escorted by 2,000 ecstatic troops. [52:59.77] [52:59.93]And what she produced for the expectant crowds was pure gold, [53:05.00] [53:05.17]the first great speech by a queen, recorded in history. [53:09.40] [53:09.57]This is where the real event of 1588 happened, [53:12.80] [53:12.97]not out on the high seas, but on the soapbox at Tilbury. [53:17.04] [53:19.45]My loving people, I come among you, not for my recreation and disport, [53:26.77] [53:26.93]but being resolved in the midst of the heat of the battle, [53:31.21] [53:31.37]to live and die amongst you all, to lay down for God and my Kingdom [53:38.64] [53:38.81]and for my people, my honour and blood even in the dust. [53:45.25] [53:46.53]I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, [53:50.68] [53:50.85]but I have the heart and stomach of a king and a King of England too, [53:57.48] [53:57.65]and think foul scorn that Spain or any prince of Europe, [54:03.17] [54:03.33]should dare invade the borders of my realm [54:06.88] [54:07.05]to which rather dishonour I myself will take up arms. [54:12.92] [54:17.97]It's spin and hype, but hype for England and it did make a difference. [54:24.52] [54:24.69]Just like Churchill's rhetoric made a difference in 1940. [54:28.68] [54:28.85]Instinctively, the queen knew what it was her people needed to hear. [54:33.72] [54:33.89]"Look," she said, "I may be a goddess but I'm also flesh and blood, [54:38.09] [54:38.25]"your flesh and blood. Whatever you go through, I'll go through it with you." [54:43.09] [54:43.25]That made the difference between terror and determination, [54:47.21] [54:47.37]that is what we have queens for. [54:50.52] [54:53.25]You couldn't top that and Elizabeth couldn't. [54:56.56] [54:56.73]The euphoria of 1588 was short-lived. [55:01.41] [55:01.57]In the closing years of the Tudor century, [55:04.04] [55:04.21]famine across the country triggered food riots. [55:07.92] [55:08.09]Cut-throats and beggars prowled the roads. [55:10.52] [55:10.69]The Irish, spoken of as savages, were driven into a nine-year war. [55:16.45] [55:17.13]For the queen, the distance between the mythology of her ageless body [55:24.08] [55:24.25]and the shrivelled reality, became more glaring. [55:28.45] [55:28.97]Thoughts inevitably began to turn to her succession. [55:32.68] [55:32.85]Everybody knew that would be James, son of Mary, Queen of Scots. [55:39.72] [55:43.57]In the end, was it Mary, Queen of Scots, the mother, [55:46.85] [55:47.01]who had triumphed from the grave over her rival, Elizabeth? [55:51.32] [55:52.61]Elizabeth had one comfort - James had been brought up a Protestant, [55:57.32] [55:57.49]forced to disown his own mother after her disgrace. [56:03.04] [56:04.17]But still, he was Mary's child, the fruit of her womb, not Elizabeth's. [56:11.72] [56:13.25]When Elizabeth died in 1603, [56:16.93] [56:17.09]nearly half a century after that day under the oak, [56:20.69] [56:20.85]as gently as an apple falling from a tree, someone said, [56:25.24] [56:25.41]and when her underthings were taken from her body, [56:28.40] [56:28.57]it was seen that they still fitted the contours of the virgin - [56:32.64] [56:32.81]wasp-waisted, slim-hipped, long-limbed. [56:37.33] [56:37.49]It was a body which, according to some, had not fulfilled the purpose [56:41.53] [56:41.69]for which God had fashioned it, to have joined itself to a husband, [56:46.08] [56:46.25]to have grown his seed, to have given him and the country posterity. [56:52.09] [56:52.25]She had done none of this. [56:54.45] [56:54.61]But no one thought that she had failed her people. [56:58.21] [56:58.37]She had been different, that's all. [57:01.44] [57:05.77]When the ring which united Elizabeth to her country [57:09.48] [57:09.65]was removed from her finger, it was carried 400 miles north to Scotland. [57:16.33] [57:16.49]Now it would symbolise a new marriage, one between two nations. [57:21.88] [57:23.73]Elizabeth and Mary Stuart never met. [57:27.88] [57:28.05]It took James I to bring the two women together at last, [57:32.33] [57:32.49]closer in death than they'd ever been in life. [57:36.20] [57:36.85]There was an old, wonderful joke doing the rounds in the 1560s, [57:41.72] [57:41.89]that all their problems would be solved [57:44.45] [57:44.61]if only Mary and Elizabeth could marry each other. [57:48.13] [57:48.29]In one sense they had. [57:50.72] [57:50.81]For at least, together, at a terrible price and with so much pain, [57:54.93] [57:55.01]they had had a baby. [57:57.21] [57:57.29]It was a little thing with a big name, Magna Britannia - Great Britain. [58:03.29] [58:05.29]The End! [59:18.29]

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