Original subtitles

[Music]

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 Tudors

[Music]

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

[Music]

the story begins with Owen Tudor a

hugely ambitious and very handsome young

man his father was an outlaw hiding out

in the world shills but Owen managed to

get employed as a servant in the

household of the infant Henry the sixth

now this household was run by Henry's

mother Queen Catherine de Valois 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 the

six 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 Tudor back

to court and gave earldoms to his step

brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor

Oh in insured Edmonds marriage to a girl

from Henry's family

[Music]

Edwin died very soon after the marriage

but his 13 year old bride Margaret

Beaufort was already pregnant their son

was born at Pembroke 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

Bolingbroke had deposed his cousin

Richard ii in 1399 to become Henry the

fourth the thrones of his son and

grandson Henry the fifth and sixth

rested on that shaky foundation which

crumbled in the Wars of the Roses when

the true heirs to the throne the House

of York began to battle for their

inheritance Owen Tudor 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 Yorkists in

Herefordshire CLIs he was the last Tudor

to lose his head but as we all know the

Tudors would take up this approach to

problem solving themselves you might say

with a vengeance Edward of York seized

the throne Edward the fourth and Owens

four-year-old grandson Henry Tudor began

what would be decades of living on the

run or as a refugee

but three years later King Edwin did

something that would eventually give

Henry Tudor everything Owen had wished

for he fell in love and that began a

chain of events which altered all

England's history when Edward was about

20

he was waylaid by an attractive widow of

about 25 who was trying to recover her

late husband's property

Edward six foot three tall and really

very good-looking wanted to help and he

became besotted

it seems she persuaded him to secretly

enter into a contract to marry her her

name was Eleanor 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 honors 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 Edwards promise to marry

Eleanor Butler things would have been

even worse but she was quietly shut up

in a convent and died in 1468 as it was

it would lost so much support that in

1470 he was actually driven out of

England and Henry the sixth 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 interesting which

vasive Henry the sixth and it wasn't

unless you fancied an elderly saintly

scholar who'd lost his mind in the

battles of Hollow Henry's son another

Edward 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 Gaunt

was now extinct except for one fragile

thread Margaret Beaufort and her

fifteen-year-old son Henry Tudor

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 descendants from the succession and

that would probably have been that if it

hadn't have been for Edwards 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 the

fifth but he was never crowned the dead

Kings 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 the fourths

brother Richard Duke of Gloucester we

all know him as the most evil King in

English history the warped and twisted

Richard the third Richard had been in

effect King Edward's 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

being ahead with the fourth had died at

Westminster Elizabeth immediately sent

her brother and other members of her

household rushing up to Ludlow 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 North Hampton 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 cool

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 Kings contract to marry Eleanor

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 Eleanor

a prince couldn't be king because he was

illegitimate was this true this man

Robert sterlington 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

sterlington became awfully friendly 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 but of momsie a barrel of

sweet wine such a sad accident and

stilling ttan 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 Edwards

children illegitimate and Clarence is

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 the

sixth and Henry's son whose widow he

married and done the dirty deed with

Clarence and the momsie quite apart from

the murder of the princes in the tower

the picture of richard has come down to

us the hunchbacked

sinister and ruthless tyrant is a

caricature painted after he'd been

deposed and immortalized by the Tudors

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 Tudor the House of York was

now extinct as the House of Lancaster

Henry Tudor 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 leading 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 Owen Tudors grandson landed at

Milford Haven in Wales on the 1st of

August 1485 three 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

yelled at coronation ceremony restating

his right of true succession to the

crown a rite which enrich Judah 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 the

third 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 Tudor'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 happened firstly he must not be

accused of killing a king so Richard the

third was not King on the day of the

Battle of Bosworth Henry Tudor 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 the fourth 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 it were the

fourth daughter was legitimate so that

had to be dealt with all documents

relating to the business of Edwards

marriage to Elizabeth Woodville being

invalid were destroyed all documents

relating to the illegitimate II 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 but 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

Edward had been the true king of England

and Richard was a regicide what our

villain assuming of course that Richard

had been responsible for the boy's death

where he couldn't be alive because if he

were he and not Henry Tudor would be the

rightful king there are some nasty

people who suspect that if the princes

in the tower were still alive before the

Battle of Bosworth Henry would have

disappeared them Richard the third

became the saddam hussein of judah

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

favourable propaganda it also involved

getting rid of a few people Clarence for

example the marzi drowner

had a young son the earl of warwick a

nephew of both Edward the 4th and rich

at the third he had been barred from the

succession but so at 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 ten-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 the sixth 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 la Pole

who was also a nephew of Edward the

fourth and Richard the third he was

their sister son in fact Richard the

third who had no children had designated

John as heir to the throne John knew

perfectly well that the child was an

impostor called Lambert Simnel who had

been carefully trained for the project

the rebels had obviously assumed that

Henry had killed the Earl of Warwick so

wouldn't be able to prove that symbol

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 impostor appeared 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 at 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 Burke into

surrender her kin was imprisoned in the

tower which of course already housed

Clarence's son the Earl of Warwick

and of course it wasn't long before

evidence appeared that the pair of them

were plotting a joint escape at bat was

the end of both of them

there was one other person with a claim

to the throne Henry Tudor'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 Plantagenet but

to patriotic English legends but Arthur

died in 1502 leaving his younger brother

Henry as the Tudor heir

and in 1509 when the 52 year old King

died Henry the eighth succeeded to the

throne he was the perfect king a king

out of the storybooks he was 17 years

old extremely well educated extremely

good-looking 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

the eighth married the woman to whom

he'd been betrothed for seven years

Catherine of Aragon his dead brother's

widow the Spanish worried that this was

against church rules and so the Pope

granted a dispensation in fact this was

all rubbish while the Bible specifically

forbids a man from sleeping with his

brother's wife it 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 favour 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 the

fourth Chancellor had been a Neville the

son of the Earl of Salisbury 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 Tudors the great

power of the Neville's had been broken

middleton castle was in the hands of the

king when Henry the eighth's Chancellor

Wolsey 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 Wolsey didn't deliver what the king

wanted he was entirely dispensable and

that of course is what happened the

royal marriage was haunted by the ghosts

of their dead sons by the end of the

1520's catherine 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 heir 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 Berlin was

already well installed in Henry's life

Henry who'd already enjoyed her sister

as his mistress at would and with

enthusiasm he married her in 1533

her coronation didn't seem to impress

Londoners they're entwined initials on

the banners produced shouts of ha ha

she was visibly pregnant and gave birth

to a child track another girl she was

named Elizabeth and little Mary was

declared Lea illegitimate the legality

of this marriage must be sorted out

before her next baby that was Woolsey's

job he had to persuade the Pope that his

predecessor should never have allowed

the marriage to Katherine Henry fancied

himself as a theologian he'd written an

attack on Luther which became a

best-seller 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 fit death so he told

Wolsey 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 of 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 continued

trading with him 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 shebang as Henry the Eighth 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 they

weren't all that many people in them

less than 10,000 over the whole country

but there may have been 10 times that

number dependent on them and in areas

such as Lincolnshire Northumberland

there was armed rebellion one of the

rebel leaders was John Neville from that

great old family of ferren's but the

Neville's were no threat to the modern

crown the rebellions were crushed and

[Music]

monastic lambs were sold off sheep to

bolster the treasury make Henri more

popular and allow successful businessmen

to turn themselves into grateful country

Gentry who would loyally support the

crown 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 Becket 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 was in charge now Hey

what's more in 1536 Catherine of Aragon

died meaning that the problem of the X

queen had gone away he in ambolyn

dressed in bright yellow to celebrate

but four months later he was told that

Anne had committed adultery

Henry was surrounded by courtiers

jockeying for influence forming

alliances factions to do down those who

might damage them and Anne became a

victim of an organised 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 it's 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 and 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 eighteen days

she was beheaded and Henry married Jane

Seymour

England after the death of amberlynn was

a kingdom like no other

Henry ruled in England as head of the

church as well as king like some pagan

priests 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 More 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

well-established and powerful Protestant

Prince's in Germany and on the final

principle that my enemy's enemy is my

friend

Henry married into their world he got

Anne of Cleves for a wife the defender

of the faith intellectual scourge of the

Lutheran's 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 smelly and lacking in all

the graces

he called her a Flanders 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 denry the only casualty

was Thomas Cromwell who set the whole

thing up and who now went to the block

well him and one of Ann's

ladies-in-waiting Catherine Howard her

destruction began when mores ended she

was a kind of well-connected monica

lewinsky 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 I beheaded her lover's heads were

mounted on London Bridge

Henry then decided to marry John

Neville's widow Catherine Parr 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 Henry had succeeded in leaving a

son but only just

Jane's son Edward the sixth

nine-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 Joe

John had been talking things over with

his royal little highness and they

cooked up this bizarre proposal to have

the throne - John Dudley's

daughter-in-law the fifteen-year-old

Jane Grey

she was Edward's first cousin once

removed

not exactly next in line for the throne

but Protestant the hereditary principle

was a bit world 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

it

[Music]

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 our

home in Framlingham in Surrey 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 nine 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 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 tyrants throne the English didn't

actually like the papacy but Mary

the English didn't like Spain but Mary

did she married its King Philip the

second and the English didn't like being

forced to subscribe to religious beliefs

on pain of death

Mary had two hundred and seventy seven

people burned alive because of their

religious opinions Bloody Mary unable to

have children a bitter invalid England

second Queen died in 1558 42 years old

the most detested ruler in all England's

history there were celebrations almost

as fervent as it greeted her arrival

five years before her sister Elizabeth

came to sit in that chair able 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 Calais

England's last little piece of France

have 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 Philip or an opportunist courtier

who'd come trailing faction and enemies

in his wake she would be both Queen and

King the Virgin Queen ruling from a

tyrants throne over a people who support

was essential monarchy in England was a

paradox and Elizabeth's solution to the

paradox was wholly bizarre the Tudor

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

were 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

ix bishoprics 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 a 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 Carlisle he did the honours

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'd 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 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 an

immensely loyal and capable Minister

William Cecil and constantly teasing the

world with a showy flirtation with the

Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley but the

love affair she really encouraged was to

have the nation adore her in poetry

paintings and theater she was Gloriana

the magical beauty to whom loyalty and

love were equally gieux 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 one of the

grandchildren of Henry the eighth's

sister Margaret either Mary Stuart Queen

of Scots or Henry Stuart 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 there it

was the more dangerous

she'd been Queen of France until her

husband's death and the 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 Darlie was a

weak man in a weak position a

good-looking unstable lout what happened

next

looks like a cunning plan Elizabeth

pretty much obliged the 19 year old

Darlie to visit the 22-year old widow

Mary having ordered him not to marry her

the result was totally predictable and

Darlie was a total liability to Mary

dim-witted and resentful of his lack of

power

he was also furiously jealous and when

he thought her advisor writ Co was

having an affair with Mary he joined a

plot that had writ Co murdered in front

of her she now viewed Darlie the Patsy

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 ends teeth

for one to kill another really wasn't

good she signed the death warrant but in

a state of real distress

Mary and Darlie 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 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 to do with the state's 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 it's 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 Phillip the second 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 hadn't 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 sailors 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 of 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 1603 her successor

was Mary's son James Stuart 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 Stewart's did with

this poisoned chalice

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on to the Stuart's tonight at 10:00 and

to test your knowledge of Henry the

eighth's and his six wives sky digital

viewers press read coming up on UK TV

history decisive weapons at a jingle and

in the Falklands the longbow and the

Harrier jet

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you