Original subtitles

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the story of the kings and queens of

England is more surprising than you

might

think it's a fine drama a thousand years

of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism

and cruelty of mysteries murders

tragedies and triumphs

and all these figure in the story I'm

telling now the story of the

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tuders above all though the story of

this great dynasty of rulers is a tale

of passionate love affairs and what

happens when love and high politics

collide

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The Story begins with Owen Tudor a

hugely ambitious and very handsome young

man his father was an outlaw hiding out

in the Welsh Hills but Owen managed to

get employed as a servant in the

household of the infant Henry V 6th now

this household was run by Henry's mother

Queen Katherine deoir a very sexy Widow

who fell for Owen

completely there's no record that they

ever got married but they did have five

children when Catherine died in 1437

Henry VI 6 was still only 13 and the

Barons who ran the kingdom in his name

put Owen in prison but when Henry came

of age he brought his stepfather Owen

chuda back to court and gave eroms to

his Step Brothers Edmund and Jasper

chudah Owen ensured Edmund's marriage to

a girl from Henry's

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family Edmund died very soon after the

marriage but his 13-year-old bride

Margaret bowett was already pregnant

their son was born at pemr Castle he was

named after the King Henry

Judah and Owen had a grandson with a

blood connection to the House of

Lancaster the family of the

king they weren't actually the

legitimate line Henry of Lancaster Henry

Bolingbrook had deposed his cousin

Richard II in 1399 to become Henry I 4th

the Thrones of his son and Grandson

Henry ith and 6th rested on that shaky

Foundation which crumbled in the wars of

the Roses when the true HS to the throne

the house of York began to battle for

their inheritance

Owen chuda stood squarely with the

Henry's the

lancastrians that after all was where he

had invested all his

hopes he fought for them and in 1461

died for them beheaded by yorkist in

Herford

Marketplace he was the last Tudor to

lose his head but as we all know the

Judas would take up this approach to

problem solving themselves you might say

with the

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Vengeance Edward of York seized the

throne Edward IV and Owen's

four-year-old grandson Henry chudah

began what would be Decades of living on

the run or as a

refugee but 3 years later King Edward

did something that would eventually give

Henry chuda everything Owen had wished

for he felt in love and that began a

chain of events which altered all

England's

history when Edward was about 20 he was

whay by an attractive Widow of about 25

who was trying to recover her late

husband's property Edward 6'3 tall and

really very goodlooking wanted to help

and he became

boted it seems she persuaded him to

secretly enter into a contract to marry

her her name was Elena Butler

about a year later in 1464 another

attractive Widow 26 years old pulled the

same stunt and Edward did it again

unbelievable this time the lady was

called Elizabeth Woodville and this time

it wasn't just a contract to marry it

was a full marriage to a

commoner when Elizabeth Woodville was

crowned in Westminster Abbey the whole

of Europe was scandalized

marriage was all about alliances of

power and property marrying a penniless

woman for love was simply disgusting the

negotiators trying to arrange a proper

Royal marriage were

humiliated and when Edward heaped

Honor's wealth and titles on Elizabeth's

relatives the rivers family the nobility

of England were outraged they were quite

frankly getting completely above

themselves if anyone had known about

Edward's promise to marry Elena but

things would have been even worse but

she was quietly shut up in a Convent and

died in

1468 as it was Edward lost so much

support that in 1470 he was actually

driven out of England and Henry V 6th

came back to the

throne a few months later Edward came

back into London and regained the crown

thanks to the strong support of London

Merchants to whom he owed money and even

more it was said of their wives and

daughters who really seemed to have

found him romantically inter interesting

which face it Henry V 6 certainly wasn't

unless you fancied an elderly saintly

scholar who'd lost his

mind in the battles that followed

Henry's son another itward was killed

and King Henry himself captured

disappeared into a prison and was never

seen

again the whole male line of the House

of Lancaster the descendants of the sons

of John of gaun was now extinct

except for one fragile thread Margaret

bord and her 15-year-old son Henry

chudah not that they had any claim to

the

crown of course the Lancaster Dynasty

had begun by simply usurping the throne

but on top of that Margaret's

grandfather was illegitimate a law had

been passed to make him legitimate but

it also barred him and his descendant

from the succession and that would

probably have been that if it hadn't

have been for Edward's little secret

which didn't emerge until Edward himself

was dead he was only 41 when he fell ill

and died his son the Prince of Wales

also called Edward was just 12 years

old everyone refers to this young man as

Edward V but he was never crowned

the dead King's will was clear Prince

Edward would be his successor of course

but he would be in the care of a

guardian and protector of the Kingdom

that person was Edward IV's Brother

Richard jke of

Gloucester we all know him as the most

evil King in English History the wared

and twisted Richard

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III Richard had been in effect King Ed

Vice Regent in the north based in the

city of York and no one at that time

said anything bad about him at all but

the queen thought there was someone even

better to run her son's Kingdom her King

Edward IV had died at Westminster

Elizabeth immediately sent her brother

and other members of her household

rushing up to Ludo where Prince Edward

was staying the idea was to hustle him

to London and install him before Richard

even knew what was going on then she and

her family the rivers would have control

of everything Richard of course did find

out what was going on and said he would

meet up with the party as they brought

the prince through Northampton

okay

okay except that when he got to

Northampton he found that the rivers

didn't have the prince with them alarmed

Richard took them prisoner and found

their baggage stuffed with arms and

armor there was plainly an attempt being

made at a coup

Richard nipped it in the bud he found

they'd secreted the prince in Stony

Stratford Elizabeth's family

home this was before blue plaques had

been

invented Richard escorted the prince to

London and installed him in the Tower of

London while he set about organizing the

coronation and then came the

bombshell the dead King's contract to

marry Ellena Butler had been made in

front of a priest who now decided it was

time to speak oops if Edward really had

been betrothed to Ellena his marriage to

Elizabeth Woodville was bigamy and the

Young Prince couldn't be king because he

was

illegitimate was this

true this man Robert sington was no

ordinary priest Edward had promoted him

and trusted him making him a bishop and

Keeper of the privy seal and then

Chancellor of England but then

stillington became awfully ly with King

Edward's ambitious brother the Duke of

Clarence and Clarence could not be

trusted an inch if Edward's children

were

illegitimate Clarence would be next in

line to the throne Edward quickly had

his brother sentenced to death and

executed in private with no chance to

make a public statement instead the

world was told Clarence had drowned in a

butt of Momsy a barrel of sweet wine

such a sad accident

and stillington spent a year locked in

the tower after his release perhaps

nervous of the power of strong drink he

kept his mouth shut until Edward was

dead but now he spoke and Parliament

believed him with Edward's children

illegitimate and clarence's disinherited

when he was executed Richard was left as

the proper successor he reluctantly

accepted well he accepted

and the Tower of London changed from the

prince of wales's Palace into his prison

he shared it with his brother neither

was ever seen again did Richard have

them killed no one knows but later the

evidence was going to be shaped as far

as possible to make him guilty he's been

said to have personally killed Henry V 6

and Henry's son whose Widow he married

and done the dirty deed with Clarence

and the Momsy quite apart from the

murder of the princes in the

tower the picture of Richard that's come

down to us the hunchbacked Sinister and

ruthless Tyrant is a caricature painted

after he'd been deposed and immortalized

by the chuda's greatest propagandist

William

Shakespeare one of the buildings inside

the Tower of London was even given the

name the bloody Tower to associate it

with Richard's foul murder of the

princes though they almost certainly

were in a different building

anyway he'd certainly been a popular

figure in the north of England where his

brother had charged him with healing the

divisions of the wars of the Roses but

it only took four months for a rebellion

to emerge against

him the Rival candidate was of course

the boy across the water now not such a

boy Henry chuda

the house of York was now as extinct as

the House of Lancaster Henry chuda was

all there was for disappointed yorkists

as well as

lancastrians and there were plenty of

disappointed yorkists Richard gave

positions power and wealth to Men He

trusted whom he'd got to know in the

north of England leaving a lot of

Southerners out in the cold who thought

they could do much better under a more

sympathetic figure and now he came with

a force of 2,000 refugees and French

soldiers oen ud's grandson landed at

Milford Haven in Wales on the 1st of

August

1485 3 weeks later when he came to do

battle at Bosworth his Force had grown

by just 3,000

men Richard came to the battlefield as

rightful King of England before the

battle began he held a coronation

ceremony restating his right of true

succession to the crown a right which

Henry judor did not possess at

all actually given the fact that his

family was specifically barred from the

succession he had pretty much less claim

than anyone else there but that's not

how things were working out Richard III

was the last English king to die on a

battle the crown of England was found

lying under a bush at the end of the

battle of Bosworth and placed on Henry

judah's head and Henry understood how

you rule England not by winning over

great Nobles they'd pretty well all been

wiped out

but by winning over public opinion the

pen is mightier than the sword

especially when it tells the story of

what

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happened firstly he must not be accused

of killing a king So Richard III was not

King on the day of the battle of

Bosworth Henry chuda dated his Reign

from the day before the

battle it was Richard who'd been

fighting against the king not Henry

Henry was King it was Richard who was

the traitor got

that secondly he must deal with the

question of his legitimacy as a ruler so

he married Edward IV's daughter she was

the legitimate line of descent from

William the Conqueror a true plantagenet

their son when they had one would be the

legitimate Heir by every possible

standard well so long as Edward IV's

daughter was legitimate so that had to

be dealt with all documents relating to

the business of Edward's marriage to

Elizabeth Woodville being invalid were

destroyed all documents relating to the

illegitimacy of their children were

destroyed including the act of

Parliament that had spelled out why

Richard should be king these orders were

carried out so efficiently that only one

copy of the ACT has ever been found

that's how we know about it other

evidence may have existed destroyed even

more efficiently and if the children

were not illegitimate then of course

Prince Edwood had been the true king of

England and Richard was a regicide what

a

villain assuming of course that Richard

had been responsible for the boy's death

well he couldn't be alive because if he

were he and not Henry chuda would be the

rightful

King there are some nasty people who

suspect that if the prin is in the tower

were still alive before the Battle of

Bosworth Henry would have disappeared

them Richard III became the Saddam

Hussein of chudah propaganda never mind

the legitimacy of the war to destroy him

it did the world a

favor of course the consolidation of

power was not only a matter of creating

favorable propaganda it also involved

getting rid of a few

people Clarence for example the Momsy

drowner had a young son the Earl of

Warick a nephew of both Edward IV and

Richard III he had been barred from the

succession but so had the man now on the

throne so there was no security in that

he went straight into prison in the

Tower of

London but then a priest in Ireland

suddenly produced a 10-year-old boy who

he said was the rescued Earl the boy

looked right spoke right had all the

right manners he was solemnly crowned in

Dublin Cathedral as Edward V and a force

of Irish supporters backed by Flemish

troops then landed in the north of

England they were supported by the Earl

of Lincoln John de Lao who was also a

nephew of Edward IV and Richard III he

was their sister's

son in fact Richard III who had no

children had designated John as heir to

the

throne John knew perfectly well that the

child was an imposter called Lambert

simnel who had been carefully trained

for the project the rebels had obviously

assumed that Henry had killed the Earl

of Warick so wouldn't be able to prove

that simol was an impostor they were

wrong The Prisoner still alive was put

on public display and the rebels were

crushed but never missing a trick Henry

forgave the child and gave him a job in

the Royal Kitchen he grew up to be a

royal

Falconer another imposter appeared in in

1492 this time claiming to be the

younger of the princes in the tower

Richard Duke of York his real name was

Perkin warbeck and he stayed on the

continent collecting support from anyone

who fell out with

Henry Henry had persuaded Parliament to

set up a special Court to try members of

the nobility who were a threat to the

crown a number of warbeck supporters

suddenly found themselves arrested tried

for treason and facing

execution this court was to become the

notorious Court of the Star

Chamber Perkin was a constant irritant

first trying to invade from Ireland then

teaming up with the King of Scotland and

finally in 1497 he raised a rebellion in

Cornwall which Henry crushed and

promising leniency persuaded Perkin to

surrender Perkin was imprisoned in the

tower which of course already housed

clarence's son the Earl of

wari and of course it wasn't long before

evidence appeared that the pair of them

were plotting a joint escape and that

was the end of both of

them there was one other person with a

claim to the throne Henry chuda's mother

Margaret in fact whatever claim he had

she must have a better one but no woman

had ever ruled England in her own right

and Henry needed a son to inherit the

throne his eldest was named Arthur this

child of the blood Royal was to be

linked not just to the plantagenets but

to patriotic English Legends but Arthur

died in 1502 leaving his younger brother

Henry as the chudah

heir and in 1509 when the 52-year-old

King died Henry VII succeeded to the

throne

he was the perfect king a king out of

the story books he was 17 years old

extremely well educated extremely

good-look with polished manners and the

style and physique of an athlete he also

had an unchallengeable claim to the

crown and to secure the succession Henry

VII married the woman to whom he'd been

betrothed for seven years Katherine of

aragan his dead brother's

widow the Spanish worried that this was

against Church rules and so the hope

granted a

dispensation in fact this was all

rubbish while the Bible specifically

forbids a man from sleeping with his

brother's wife it'd actually insists

that he must marry his brother's

widow anyhow two years later Catherine

gave birth to a son but the infant soon

died so did the next in fact the

marriage only produced one child that

lived a girl called

Mary Henry was effectively all powerful

there were no great Barons anymore in

England and his father had left a well

stocked treasury Parliament consisted to

a large extent of men who depended one

way or another on Royal favor and the

countryside was controlled by justices

of the peace who served the

government you can see the change in the

very nature of power from the home of

Henry's

Chancellor 50 years earlier Edward IV

Chancellor had been a Neville the son of

the Earl of Salsbury in those days an

englishman's home had been his Castle

Middleton Castle

actually it was his father's home and

that great Lord had also been Chancellor

independently powerful men based in a

mighty fortified

Palace but under the chuds the great

power of the Nevels had been broken

Middleton Castle was in the hands of the

king when Henry VII's Chancellor woy

built himself a home it certainly wasn't

a castle it was This Magnificent Palace

Hampton Court

glass windows instead of Arrow slits and

chimneys instead of crenellations no one

needed a fortified house under the

protection of a great king and it was

all at Henry's pleasure if woy didn't

deliver what the king wanted he was

entirely dispensable and that of course

is what

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happened the Royal marriage was haunted

by the ghost of their dead Sons by the

end of the 1520s Katherine was in her

late 40s had stopped getting pregnant

and there was still no male Heir just a

daughter and England had never been

ruled by a woman Henry determined to

have a male air must get rid of his wife

then he would be free to take a younger

bride and make a baby boy the bride in

question and berin was already well

installed in Henry's life Henry who'

already enjoyed her sister as his

mistress had woed Anne with enthusiasm

he married her in

1533 her coronation did didn't seem to

impress londoners their entwined

initials on the banners produced shouts

of

haha she was visibly pregnant and gave

birth to a child trat another

girl she was named Elizabeth and little

Mary was declared illegitimate the

legality of this marriage must be sorted

out before her next baby that was W's

job he had to persuade the Pope that his

predecessor should never have allowed

the marriage to Catherine

Henry fancied himself as a theologian

he'd written an attack on Luther which

became a bestseller and the pope had

declared him a defender of the faith a

proud boast which he stuck on the

coinage and has remained there ever

since every English Monarch is FID

death so he told Woolsey exactly how the

argument should be put to the pope

Wolsey could probably have swung it if

he'd been left alone as it was he failed

and lost his job and the Pope had also

failed so Henry the defender of the

faith filed the pope to achieve this

drastic act having himself legally

declared the Supreme head of the church

in England required an extraordinary

shift in

power he had to find a way of giving the

nation a voice so that it could say what

he

wanted that way was through

Parliament the church's wealth and power

was hugely unpopular the notion of no

longer paying Church taxes to Rome was

really very

cheery but it wasn't as simple as that

some people believe that the pope really

did represent Divine

Authority and for many others there was

a fear that the pope might excommunicate

their customers on the continent if they

continue trading with them with the

effective help of a new chief minister

Thomas Cromwell and a new Archbishop of

Canterbury Thomas cranmer parliament

passed the necessary acts by the end of

1534 the king of England had become

legally the total overall supreme ruler

of the whole

shibang once Henry VII had become head

of the church in England he was a new

kind of king one immediate consequence

of the New Order was that he had control

of the fabulous wealth of the English

church it wasn't just the pope who got

the

sack he closed down all the monasteries

and nunneries there weren't all that

many people in them less than 10,000

over the whole whole country but there

may have been 10 times that number

dependent on them and in areas such as

Lincolnshire and Northumberland there

was armed

Rebellion one of the Rebel leaders was

John Neville from that great old family

of Barons but the Nevels were no threat

to the modern crown the rebellions were

crushed and monastic lands were sold off

cheap to bolster the treasury make Henry

more popular and allow successful

businessmen to turn themselves into

grateful country Gentry who would Loy

support the crowd the old struggle for

power between the papacy and the

monarchy had now been decisively settled

Becket the 12th century Archbishop whose

defense of church power had led to his

martyrdom had been the most popular

Saint in England Henry ordered Beck it

to be declared no saint to be tried and

convicted of treason and for his bones

to be burned and the dust scattered in

the air who's in charge now

eh what's more in 1936 Catherine of

aragan died meaning that the problem of

the ex Queen had gone away he and

amberin dressed in bright yellow to

celebrate but four months later he was

told that Anne had committed adultery

Henry was surrounded by courters

jockeying for influence forming

alliances factions to do down those who

might damage them and Anne became a

victim of an organized campaign by those

who felt endangered by her

faction whether it was true or not no

one knows because Henry's Fury was so

total that her trial and those of her

supposed lovers was a travesty she might

indeed get pregnant with a boy but then

its parentage would be in doubt and she

might not she'd miscarried at least

twice since Elizabeth's birth without a

legitimate son it had all been for

nothing Anne was imprisoned in the Royal

lodgings in the Tower of London Henry

had extended them before their

coronation and now she was occupying

them for the first time not as his wife

but as his

prisoner after 18 days she was beheaded

and Henry married Jane

Seymour England after the death of

amberin was a kingdom like no other

Henry ruled in England as head of the

church as well as king like some Pagan

priest king he was the judge of heresy

as well as crime he held the keys to

heaven as well as to Earthly promotion

that chap in the Vatican was now just

referred to as the bishop of

Rome to even think the wrong thoughts in

this Kingdom could be treason that was

how the new Chancellor Thomas Moore

found himself imprisoned in the bell

tower of the Tower of

London not for what he did or even what

he said but for thinking that the king

should not be head of the

church he was publicly executed on Tower

Hill

Henry was terrifying magnificent

generous dangerous and in most people's

eyes the best King England had seen in a

very long time and Jane had a son

Edward sadly she died in childbirth but

the throne was safe his only problem was

abroad and by 1539 it did begin to look

as though the bishop of Rome might be

lining up some muscle against him but

there were now wellest established and

Powerful Protestant princes in Germany

and on the fine old principle that my

enemy's enemy is my friend Henry married

into their world he got Anne of cleaves

for a wife the defender of the faith

intellectual scourge of the lutherans

had married

one actually neither of them was much

interested in theology or in each other

Henry now fat with an ulcerating leg and

a vicious temper thought his 23-year-old

wife was plain Melly and lacking in all

The

Graces he called her a flanders's mayor

and they both quickly agreed the

marriage was a terrible

mistake fortunately it was soon

discovered that she had a pre-contract

of marriage with someone else and so

there never had been a valid marriage to

Henry the only casualty was Thomas

Cromwell who'd set the whole thing up

and who now went to the block well him

and one of Anne's ladies in Waiting

Katherine Howard

her destruction began when Moors

ended she was a kind of well-connected

Monica Linsky figure a teenager with sex

on her mind who wanted to seduce the

most powerful man around and he fell for

her and married

her and when she carried on being sexy

and had sex with other men he flew into

another tempestuous rage and had her

beheaded her Lover's heads were mounted

on

Bridge Henry then decided to marry John

Neville's Widow Katherine par she was

extremely nervous but had no choice she

worked hard at trying to keep Henry's

temper in check moderating his ferocity

towards people he thought were traitors

or Heretics and persuading him to

acknowledge Mary and Elizabeth as his

legitimate

children his death four years later in

1547 was obviously a huge relief

[Music]

Henry had succeeded in leaving a son but

only just Jane's son Edward the 6 9

years old was a sickly child he was

educated as a Renaissance Prince a

humanist and as a Protestant far more so

than his

father he was only a child and

government was in the hands of a council

but in a world of Royal tyranny this so

John had been talking things over with

his Royal little highness and they

cooked up this bizarre proposal to hand

the throne to John Dudley's

daughter-in-law the 15-year-old Jane

gray she was Edward's first cousin once

removed not exactly next in line for the

throne but

Protestant the hereditary principle was

a bit well a bit medieval don't you

think

give that girl a

crown Jane knew absolutely nothing about

what was being planned for her and when

she found out that she was to be Queen

She fainted in shock England had been

swindled and knew

[Music]

it Jane came to London as Queen but was

she everyone's eyes turned to

Mary throughout all that had happened

since Henry had disowned her Mary had

very publicly maintained her Catholic

faith and the public celebration of the

mass she'd become a symbol of resistance

to tyranny and whenever she appeared in

public she was mobbed and

cheered and now Mary announced that she

was the proper heir to the throne and

she was going from her home in

framlington in some to be crowned in

London the journey Was A procession

through Villages and towns filled with

cheering crowds she entered London to

the greatest Street party the city had

ever seen the dancing drinking and bell

ringing went on all

night after just 9 days as the first

woman to rule England Jane was placed

under arrest by her own father who was

supposed to be her Chief Defender she

was imprisoned and Mary felt a obliged

in the end to have Jane

executed it didn't help that her father

joined a rebellion against Mary but by

then six months after her Triumph many

people were ready to rebel against

Mary the defiant woman who'd stood

against tyranny was now on the tyrant's

throne the English didn't actually like

the papacy but Mary did the English

didn't like Spain but Mary did she

married its King Philip II and the

English didn't like being forced to

subscribe to religious beliefs on pain

of death Mary had 277 people burned

alive because of their religious

opinions Bloody

Mary unable to have children a bitter

invalid England's second queen died in

1558 42 years old the most detested

ruler in all England's history there

were celebrations almost as fervent as

had greeted her arrival 5 years before

[Music]

her sister Elizabeth came to sit in that

terrible seat and be crowned by the

grace of God Queen of England France and

Ireland defender of the faith and

supreme head of the Church of England

and Ireland even though there was not a

single yard of French soil actually

ruled by England C England last little

piece of France had been lost just

before Mary's death England had become

an island and its Queen would have to be

an island

too she couldn't marry because that

would create a king who would be either

a foreigner like philli or an

opportunist courtier who' come trailing

faction and enemies in his wake she

would be both queen and king the Virgin

Queen ruling from a tyrant's throne over

a people whose support was

essential monarchy in England was a

paradx

and Elizabeth's solution to the Paradox

was wholly

bizarre the tudah monarchy had been

shaped by the need to create a line of

valid legitimate male

successors that had not materialized and

now Elizabeth would choose to have no

child at

all how would the crown

survive Elizabeth succeeded to the

throne when she was 25 years old by that

age women would generally Married with

Children but Elizabeth had never had any

intention of doing that her father had

killed her mother his behavior towards

his other wives had been equally

Dreadful at 14 Elizabeth had announced

that she would never

marry in fact her survival through

Mary's Reign had depended on her being

free of any association with anyone else

the slightest hint of her involvement

with other people could have made her

seem to be connected with plots against

Mary and would have led to her execution

she stayed mute giving no sign of a

religious political or emotional

attachment that might destroy her by the

time she came to the throne the

persecutions of her predecessors had

left it a stark and lonely

Place nine Bishop Ricks were vacant

there was only one Duke Left Alive and

the treasury was

empty she had no close relatives Left

Alive the heir to the throne was her

aunt's granddaughter Mary Queen of Scots

a Roman

Catholic no one knew whether Elizabeth

was a Roman Catholic or a Protestant the

first test came over the oath of

Allegiance Elizabeth insisted that like

her father people must acknowledge her

as head of the church the Bishops Roman

Catholics appointed by Mary said that in

that case none of them would allow her a

coronation well all except for the

bishop of carile he did the honors and

the popular acclamation for the new

Queen was terrific and she shouted back

God have mercy good

people Elizabeth interpreted her

religious role in a new way she declared

that she didn't mind whether her

subjects were catholic or Protestant so

long as they were

loyal she' survived by being very

careful about what she said and did and

that was how she coped with

sovereignty she dared not marry or be

touched by Scandal but her every move

was watched like any modern Royal maybe

more

so to the extent that her laundresses

were bribed by ambassadors who wanted to

know whether her periods had stopped in

case she was

[Music]

pregnant she made herself look Splendid

held magnificent pageants and eventually

seemed to be holding the kingdom

together without the rebellions

persecutions and massacres that had

become regular features of English life

she managed this in partnership with

with an immensely loyal and capable

Minister William CLE and constantly

teasing the world with a showy

flirtation with the Earl of Lester

Robert

Dudley but the love affair she really

encouraged was to have the nation adore

her in poetry paintings and theat she

was Gloriana the magical Beauty to whom

loyalty and love were equally due and

who had no lover or husband to distract

her gaze the main threat facing her was

the possibility of a Catholic plot to

replace her with with one of the

grandchildren of Henry VII's Sister

Margaret either Mary Stewart Queen of

Scots or Henry Stewart The Earl of

darnley both of them had a valid claim

as Not only was Elizabeth excommunicated

she was arguably

illegitimate they were carefully

encouraged to maneuver themselves into

helplessness Mary was the more dangerous

she'd been queen of France until her

husband's death and a ruler of Scotland

who had French backing would be a danger

to England even without the religious

issue but Mary's education had been

unlike Elizabeth's she'd not lived in

fear of her life but in the indulgent

French Court this was not a good

preparation for life in Britain a land

of conspiracies and

killings Darley was a weak man in a weak

position a good-look unstable lout what

happened next looks like a cunning

plan Elizabeth pretty much obliged the

19-year-old Darley to visit the 22

year-old Widow Mary having ordered him

not to marry her the result was totally

predictable and Darley was a total

liability to Mary dimwitted and

resentful of his lack of power he was

also furiously jealous and when he

thought her adviser Rito was having an

affair with Mary he joined a plot that

had Rito murdered in front of her she

now viewed darnley the paty in all this

with hatred and contempt

and was herself complicit in the plot

that murdered him with an

explosion she ended up fleeing her own

kingdom and throwing herself on

Elizabeth's Mercy ultimately a bad place

to

be Elizabeth was half the time sure that

Mary should be executed to deprive

Catholic plotters of a candidate for the

throne and half the time sure that she

should do no such thing ruling queens

were rarer than hen teeth for one to

kill another really wasn't good she

signed the death warrant but in a state

of real

distress Mary and darnley had a son

James and he was now the virtually

incontrovertible heir to Elizabeth's

Throne she wrote to him confirming that

and apologizing for what she'd done to

his mother the very idea that it was

legitimate to kill a crown Sovereign was

extremely dangerous Elizabeth was deeply

concerned with the rights and Powers the

prerogatives of The

Sovereign she was very wary of

parliament which in her view treated

every request for taxes as a blackmail

opportunity to give itself powers of

government so she tried very hard not to

ask for taxes and her government was

parsimonious mean as possible and then

some she was determined to protect Royal

Authority she refused to allow

Parliament to refer to England as a

state she said it sounded too much like

something something to do with the

states General the Parliamentary body

that ruled the Dutch

Republic that Republic born out of a

rebellion against the king of Spain was

in Elizabeth's eyes an unfortunate

novelty it was her Ally in her struggle

to keep England out of Spain's clutches

but she was nervous that its political

ideas might be

catching England was a kingdom it

happened to be ruled by a queen but as

she famously said one who had the heart

and stomach of a king

of course Elizabeth's greatest moment

was when she managed to see off the

Spanish Armada when philp iI by far the

most powerful ruler in the world

assembled a vast Fleet to collect an

invasion Army from the low countries and

bring England back into the Roman

Catholic

Church the English Fleet genuinely

patriotic genuinely daring skillfully

harried the Armada to prevent it finding

a safe Anchorage where it could make

contact with the landing Force

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when the Spanish decided to sail home

they were hit by strong winds and Heavy

Seas that were too much for many of

these Mediterranean cargo vessels so far

as the English and the Dutch were

concerned God had blown them away Philip

himself saw it as a baffling defeat that

meant God was not on his side but

Elizabeth was still not prepared to ask

Parliament for the money to pay her

Victorious sailor's wages they were not

due to be paid until they came ashore so

their queen left them rotting at anchor

and when Messengers came to court to

plead for the starving men who'd saved

England they arrived in the middle of

extravagant celebrations of the Victory

and were turned away Elizabeth died the

grandest of all England's rulers in

16003 her successor was Mary's son James

Stewart already ruler of Scotland he had

inherited Glory but with it an empty

Treasury and an isolated Kingdom in the

next program we'll see what the Stuarts

did with this poisoned

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Chalice on to the Stewarts tonight at 10

and to test your knowledge of Henry the

eth and his Six Wives Sky digital

viewers press R coming up on UK TV

history decisive weapons at aenor and in

the Faulkland the longbo and the harri

Jet

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