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00:00:07,215 --> 00:00:11,367
In her last sickness, with the sense
of her end coming on fast,
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00:00:11,535 --> 00:00:15,448
Elizabeth I had the ring
she had worn since her coronation
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00:00:15,615 --> 00:00:18,334
filed away from the royal finger.
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00:00:18,495 --> 00:00:24,252
It was a tricky operation,
for the skin had grown in over the gold,
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00:00:24,415 --> 00:00:26,975
but then it was supposed
to be a tight fit.
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00:00:27,135 --> 00:00:29,968
This was, in a manner of speaking,
her wedding band,
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00:00:30,135 --> 00:00:34,447
put on when she had joined herself
to England, 45 years earlier.
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00:00:35,815 --> 00:00:38,966
Now it seemed
the two were to be put asunder.
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00:00:48,295 --> 00:00:51,207
She was supposed
to be immortal, of course.
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00:00:51,375 --> 00:00:55,846
And the odd thing was,
despite the garish auburn fright wig,
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the white face mask
and the wrinkled bosom,
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foreign diplomats who saw her
at court and had no reason to be gallant,
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swore they could still see the young
woman, no more than 20 years of age.
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It doesn't do to be too starry-eyed
about the Virgin Queen.
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00:01:20,535 --> 00:01:25,484
Elizabeth I was only too
obviously made of flesh and blood.
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She was vain, spiteful, arrogant,
she was frequently unjust,
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and she was often
maddeningly indecisive.
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But she was also brave,
shockingly clever,
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an eyeful to look at and on occasions
she was genuinely wise.
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In other words,
she had all the qualities it took
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to make the genius politician
she undoubtedly was.
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Just a few feet away from Elizabeth's
tomb in Westminster Abbey
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00:02:01,095 --> 00:02:04,531
lies the body of another woman,
Mary, Queen of Scots,
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who had haunted and fascinated
Elizabeth for so much of her life.
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No virgin, that's for sure.
No politician either.
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A complete disaster as a ruler,
you would have to say,
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00:02:18,735 --> 00:02:22,614
but Mary managed something
that eluded Elizabeth.
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She reproduced.
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00:02:25,375 --> 00:02:28,970
This is the story of two queens
and, more importantly,
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00:02:29,135 --> 00:02:32,923
two women - one a politician,
the other a mother.
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It's the story of a painful birth,
the union of England and Scotland,
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00:02:38,575 --> 00:02:40,566
the birth of Britain.
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A cherished tradition has it
that when Elizabeth heard the news
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that she was to become queen,
on November 17th, 1558,
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she was seated beneath
an ancient oak tree.
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00:03:36,615 --> 00:03:39,971
Her first words
were from Psalm 118,
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00:03:40,135 --> 00:03:44,208
"a domino factum est mirabile
in oculis nostris" -
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00:03:44,375 --> 00:03:48,812
"this is the Lord's doing
and it is marvellous in our eyes."
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00:03:50,095 --> 00:03:52,404
She was right, it was marvellous.
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In fact, it was little short of a miracle
that she had made it to that day alive.
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00:03:58,175 --> 00:04:03,329
Tudor royal politics were a bloody affair,
especially for Tudor women.
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00:04:08,215 --> 00:04:11,764
She had been only two, after all,
when her mother, Anne Boleyn,
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00:04:11,935 --> 00:04:15,689
had gone to the scaffold,
her sin, in Henry's mind at least,
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00:04:15,855 --> 00:04:17,846
being her failure to produce a son.
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00:04:18,015 --> 00:04:22,645
It must have been a body
possessed by others, by the devil.
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An unclean piece of flesh,
it had to be cut away.
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00:04:30,935 --> 00:04:34,484
So Elizabeth would never be free
from suspicion.
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00:04:34,655 --> 00:04:38,648
Out of her dark Boleyn eyes,
she watched herself being watched.
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00:04:39,735 --> 00:04:43,125
Inevitably, there were times
when her guard was down.
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00:04:43,295 --> 00:04:46,844
She was barely a teenager
when trouble first struck.
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00:04:48,415 --> 00:04:51,134
She was living with her guardian,
Katherine Parr,
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00:04:51,295 --> 00:04:54,412
Henry VIII's widow,
when Parr's new husband,
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00:04:54,575 --> 00:04:58,648
Thomas Seymour, started paying
playful visits to her bedroom.
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When Katherine Parr died,
a rumour started circulating
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that Seymour had his sights set
on marrying Elizabeth.
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To even think of such a thing
was treason.
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00:05:11,855 --> 00:05:18,454
Even worse, some wagging tongues said
that Elizabeth was pregnant with his child.
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00:05:19,695 --> 00:05:25,292
It took all of Elizabeth's already extraordinary
composure and self-confidence
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00:05:25,455 --> 00:05:29,334
to persuade Lord Protector Somerset
that she was innocent.
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My Lord,
there goeth rumours abroad
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00:05:33,895 --> 00:05:36,853
which be greatly against
my honour, which be these:
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That I am in the Tower
and with child by my Lord Admiral.
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My Lord,
these are shameful slanders.
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00:05:43,455 --> 00:05:45,446
I most heartily desire
your Lordship
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00:05:45,615 --> 00:05:49,210
that I may come to the court
and show myself there as I am.
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00:05:49,375 --> 00:05:53,288
Your assured friend
to my little power, Elizabeth.
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00:05:56,175 --> 00:05:59,053
She was, remember, just 14,
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00:05:59,135 --> 00:06:03,492
but there was already the fortitude,
the clarity and the courage.
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00:06:03,655 --> 00:06:08,285
Just as well, because she would need
these qualities five years later,
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00:06:08,455 --> 00:06:14,132
when facing the most traumatic
and dangerous crisis of her entire life.
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00:06:16,615 --> 00:06:20,085
When her Catholic half-sister,
Mary, came to the throne,
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Elizabeth found herself
in even deeper trouble.
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She found herself in the Tower
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00:06:26,455 --> 00:06:30,334
when a Protestant plot
to get rid of Mary backfired.
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Elizabeth managed to talk herself
out of being charged with treason,
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00:06:34,975 --> 00:06:37,933
but she remained
under close surveillance.
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Danger only turned to deliverance
five years later
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when Queen Mary died childless.
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So here she was,
Elizabeth, under the oak,
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about to be the Protestant queen.
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She had survived, just, but she must
have been full of dark knowledge
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00:06:58,455 --> 00:07:02,084
and experience about how difficult
it was all going to be.
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Her mother had been killed for producing
just a daughter and a stillborn,
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and her sister Mary's womb produced
only the tumour that killed her.
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00:07:12,895 --> 00:07:17,207
However dazzling Elizabeth looked,
however clever she was,
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00:07:17,375 --> 00:07:20,765
she must have known
how rough the road was going to be
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for a ruler of the wrong sex.
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The 25-year old Elizabeth
came into an inheritance
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00:07:36,895 --> 00:07:40,092
of high hopes and deep anxieties.
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The celebrations at her coronation
were carefully designed
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00:07:47,135 --> 00:07:50,923
to show off the young queen
as the paragon of virtue.
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This charade of piety, though,
was hardly enough to compensate
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00:07:55,375 --> 00:07:59,004
for the misfortune of having
another woman on the throne.
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All the same, the sceptics
must have been reassured
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00:08:02,935 --> 00:08:07,611
by Elizabeth's precocious self-possession,
the air of controlled energy
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00:08:07,775 --> 00:08:11,006
she exuded in public,
right from the start.
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00:08:12,375 --> 00:08:16,288
You might suppose that
her first appearances at the council
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would have been an ordeal,
but what the councillors saw
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was not some girlish ingenue,
but someone who seemed full,
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it was said, of manly authority.
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Elizabeth did all the things
women in 16th-century England
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weren't supposed to do - she looked
men in the eye and spoke out of turn.
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She had been schooled to it
by her tutor, Roger Ascombe.
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Ascombe was not
just another low-rent don.
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He was public orator at Cambridge University,
and it was his outlandish idea
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to teach the teenage girl
a discipline most people thought
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unsuitable for a woman: The art
of rhetoric, the art of public speech.
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This was Elizabeth's first and would
remain her strongest political weapon.
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00:09:11,575 --> 00:09:15,614
But Elizabeth brought something
to the management of sovereignty
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that was entirely her own;
something, for that matter,
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00:09:18,975 --> 00:09:22,285
which none of the princely
conduct manuals spelled out,
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00:09:22,455 --> 00:09:26,130
that statecraft was also stagecraft.
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00:09:27,295 --> 00:09:30,571
Her father and mother
had both known this instinctively.
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00:09:30,735 --> 00:09:34,614
Elizabeth had
the actress's gift in spadefuls.
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She simply adored being adored.
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Adoration, though, wasn't
the same thing as allegiance.
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For her most important advisor,
her surrogate father, William Cecil,
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charisma was no substitute
for the one thing
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which would secure the future
of a Protestant England - an heir.
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Cecil knew that the majority
of the country was still Catholic
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either actively or passively.
He also knew how little it would take
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00:10:13,975 --> 00:10:18,093
for the hard-earned gains
of the Reformation to be undone.
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Though the queen kept telling everyone
it was none of their business,
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Cecil constantly reminded her that
the realm needed her to have a husband.
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Her body required it too,
since in the 16th century
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prolonged virginity was thought to bring
on the potentially toxic condition
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00:10:38,895 --> 00:10:44,686
known as green sickness,
the abnormal retention of female sperm.
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Marital copulation, then,
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was what the doctor ordered
for the good of the realm.
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The problem, though,
as Cecil was painfully aware,
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00:10:54,975 --> 00:10:59,093
was that if he pushed Elizabeth
too hard, she might just end up
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00:10:59,255 --> 00:11:03,294
plumping for the man
everyone assumed she really loved.
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That man was Cecil's rival
on the council, Robert Dudley.
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Dudley was everything Cecil was not -
flashy, gallant, a noisy extrovert,
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00:11:18,015 --> 00:11:21,769
and not least, incredibly good-looking,
especially on a horse.
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00:11:21,935 --> 00:11:24,733
To a queen who liked
being surrounded with lookers
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00:11:24,895 --> 00:11:29,207
and was capable of dismissing those
she thought physically unpleasing,
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this mattered a lot.
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00:11:31,535 --> 00:11:36,689
They shared a past, the same tutors,
the same childhood traumas.
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His father had been executed for treason,
so both were orphans of the scaffold.
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00:11:42,375 --> 00:11:45,572
In the grim years of Mary's reign,
he'd sold lands
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00:11:45,735 --> 00:11:50,490
to help Elizabeth out.
That sort of thing she never forgot.
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But how much of a couple were they?
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Did they, as the gossips
in Europe and the diplomats
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00:12:01,055 --> 00:12:04,525
and movie-makers since
have assumed, become lovers?
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00:12:08,295 --> 00:12:13,164
In the way was Dudley's wife,
but she had been ailing for years.
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When she died,
Dudley would be free,
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00:12:16,055 --> 00:12:19,843
and sleeping with your intended
was not unusual in Tudor England.
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But this would have been outrageous
for a queen who paraded her virginity
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00:12:25,615 --> 00:12:28,527
at her coronation
by leaving her hair down.
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00:12:29,895 --> 00:12:33,092
When pressed about the rumours,
she airily retorted
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00:12:33,255 --> 00:12:38,045
that it was impossible when surrounded
day and night by her ladies.
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00:12:38,215 --> 00:12:42,493
With the example of the fate
of her own mother before her,
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00:12:42,655 --> 00:12:45,215
it would have been foolhardy
to the point of insanity
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00:12:45,375 --> 00:12:47,366
for her to sleep with Dudley.
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00:12:47,535 --> 00:12:52,006
The politician in her was,
as always, ruling the lover.
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00:12:56,255 --> 00:13:01,852
Something then happened which did
terrible damage to their relationship.
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00:13:02,015 --> 00:13:05,849
Dudley's wife, Amy, was found
at the bottom of a staircase
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00:13:06,015 --> 00:13:09,087
dead from a broken neck.
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00:13:09,175 --> 00:13:14,010
An accident seemed altogether
too convenient to be credible.
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00:13:14,175 --> 00:13:17,611
This was, after all,
the golden age of gossip
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00:13:17,775 --> 00:13:23,327
and gossip did not believe Amy
had fallen but had been pushed.
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00:13:24,895 --> 00:13:29,366
Elizabeth immediately sent Dudley
away until cleared of suspicion.
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Officially he was, and though
the queen always insisted
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00:13:33,495 --> 00:13:37,454
that Dudley had been vindicated,
it still cast a shadow
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00:13:37,615 --> 00:13:42,325
over their relationship, just when
they had become free to marry.
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00:13:42,495 --> 00:13:47,125
Perhaps it was a case of, "Beware
of wishing for your heart's true desire
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00:13:47,215 --> 00:13:50,332
"lest you end by getting it".
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00:13:53,375 --> 00:13:57,050
For the next few years,
Elizabeth swung mercurially
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00:13:57,215 --> 00:14:01,003
between endearment and exasperation,
drawing up documents
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00:14:01,175 --> 00:14:05,054
to make Dudley an Earl,
only to shred them in front of him.
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00:14:05,215 --> 00:14:08,969
And other times, especially when
she felt nagged by the council,
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00:14:09,135 --> 00:14:11,524
she would torment them
by pretending their marriage
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00:14:11,695 --> 00:14:15,051
was just about to happen.
It never did.
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00:14:17,215 --> 00:14:24,371
By 1563, Elizabeth had given up
on the possibility of ever marrying Dudley.
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00:14:24,535 --> 00:14:27,686
She was prepared to offer him
to someone else -
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00:14:27,775 --> 00:14:33,168
someone whose own marriage prospects
were of tremendous significance
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00:14:33,335 --> 00:14:39,570
for the balance of power in Britain -
Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots.
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00:14:44,655 --> 00:14:47,692
Throughout the whole tortured
history of their relationship,
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00:14:47,855 --> 00:14:51,814
Elizabeth was eaten up
with curiosity about her cousin, Mary.
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00:14:51,975 --> 00:14:54,330
Trapped
in a neurotic beauty contest,
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00:14:54,495 --> 00:14:58,170
interrogating her ambassadors
as if they were mirrors on the wall
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00:14:58,335 --> 00:15:01,805
as to who was the taller,
fairer, wittier, the cleverer.
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00:15:01,975 --> 00:15:07,413
Elizabeth may have won for brains,
but from the few pictures we have of her,
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00:15:07,575 --> 00:15:11,887
Mary, with her heart-shaped face,
heavy eyelids and creamy complexion,
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00:15:12,055 --> 00:15:17,448
had the stuff to reduce grown men
to warm puddles on the floor.
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00:15:18,055 --> 00:15:20,091
She was more than just competition.
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00:15:20,255 --> 00:15:24,009
To Elizabeth,
Mary, Queen of Scots, was a menace.
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00:15:25,575 --> 00:15:28,772
The reason was obvious.
Mary was a Catholic
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00:15:28,935 --> 00:15:32,610
and a Catholic Church did not
recognise Elizabeth's right
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00:15:32,775 --> 00:15:34,367
to be Queen of England.
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00:15:34,535 --> 00:15:39,245
To them, she was a product of Henry VIII's
illegal marriage to Anne Boleyn.
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00:15:39,375 --> 00:15:44,529
In Mary's Catholic eyes, then,
Elizabeth was simply illegitimate.
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00:15:44,695 --> 00:15:47,767
How could Elizabeth
not take this personally?
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00:15:48,815 --> 00:15:53,093
Mary was not only a Stuart,
she was also a Tudor
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00:15:53,255 --> 00:15:55,815
through her great grandfather,
Henry VII.
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00:15:55,975 --> 00:15:58,443
So long as Elizabeth was childless,
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00:15:58,615 --> 00:16:02,369
Mary was next in line
to the English throne.
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00:16:07,735 --> 00:16:12,013
From the moment Mary arrived
in Scotland at the age of 18
200
00:16:12,175 --> 00:16:15,008
from the French court
where she had been brought up,
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00:16:15,175 --> 00:16:20,249
the relationship between the cousins
was tainted with mutual suspicion.
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00:16:20,415 --> 00:16:25,535
At the first opportunity, Elizabeth
behaved badly, almost irrationally,
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00:16:25,695 --> 00:16:29,165
denying Mary safe conduct
through England to her new realm
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00:16:29,335 --> 00:16:33,294
and forcing her to sail
the long way round to Scotland.
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00:16:33,455 --> 00:16:35,571
Though the injured party,
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00:16:35,655 --> 00:16:39,489
Mary's response already betrayed
the theatrical self-pity
207
00:16:39,655 --> 00:16:42,374
which so got up Elizabeth's nose.
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00:16:43,735 --> 00:16:46,533
I trust the wind will be
so favourable,
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00:16:46,695 --> 00:16:49,687
as I shall not need to come
on the coast of England.
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00:16:49,855 --> 00:16:52,085
And if I do, Monsieur L'Ambassadeur,
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00:16:52,255 --> 00:16:56,453
the queen, your mistress,
shall have me in her hands
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00:16:56,615 --> 00:17:01,484
to do her will of me, and if she be
so hard-hearted as to desire my end,
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00:17:01,655 --> 00:17:06,171
she may then do her pleasure
and make sacrifice of me.
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00:17:08,895 --> 00:17:11,728
Perhaps things might be better
between the two of them
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00:17:11,895 --> 00:17:16,252
if Mary accepted Elizabeth's choice
of a safe Protestant husband for her,
216
00:17:16,415 --> 00:17:19,532
in the winning form
of Robert Dudley.
217
00:17:20,495 --> 00:17:22,929
One tiny problem with this plan,
though.
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00:17:23,095 --> 00:17:27,088
Mary had no intention of being
told what to do by Elizabeth.
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00:17:27,255 --> 00:17:31,089
Anyway, everyone knew
that after the death of his wife,
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00:17:31,255 --> 00:17:34,008
Robert Dudley was spoiled goods.
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00:17:37,135 --> 00:17:41,651
Lord Henry Darnley, the handsome
poster boy of Scottish nobility,
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00:17:41,815 --> 00:17:44,010
seemed a much better prospect.
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00:17:44,175 --> 00:17:49,249
One look at Darnley's shapely calves
and Mary decided she must have him.
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00:17:49,415 --> 00:17:54,125
It helped that he too had Tudor
blood flowing through his veins.
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00:17:54,295 --> 00:17:58,254
Unfortunately, a lot of whisky
ran through them too.
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00:17:58,415 --> 00:18:02,374
Too late, Mary discovered
she had married a lazy, dissolute drunk,
227
00:18:02,535 --> 00:18:06,847
incapable of doing even the minimal
things required of a co-sovereign.
228
00:18:08,535 --> 00:18:12,414
Stuck at Holyrood with the task
of ruling Scotland without him,
229
00:18:12,575 --> 00:18:16,090
Mary increasingly relied
on her private secretary,
230
00:18:16,255 --> 00:18:19,327
the Italian Catholic, David Riccio.
231
00:18:19,495 --> 00:18:22,692
Naturally, the Protestant
nobles in Scotland
232
00:18:22,855 --> 00:18:28,725
were convinced that Mary was plotting
to turn Scotland back into a Catholic country.
233
00:18:29,375 --> 00:18:33,288
So Darnley's increasing estrangement
from his wife
234
00:18:33,455 --> 00:18:37,653
gave the lords most offended
by Riccio's access to the queen
235
00:18:37,815 --> 00:18:40,693
the opening they were looking for.
236
00:18:41,015 --> 00:18:44,451
In 1566, a group of them
approached Darnley
237
00:18:44,615 --> 00:18:47,732
and proposed what amounted
to a violent coup.
238
00:18:47,895 --> 00:18:53,925
Get rid of Riccio, who was her lover,
they said, not just her secretary.
239
00:18:54,095 --> 00:18:58,327
"Ah," thought Darnley, "That would
explain why she's such a bitch.
240
00:18:58,495 --> 00:19:02,010
"I'll show her who's in charge."
241
00:19:05,255 --> 00:19:09,771
On March 7th, while she was dining,
Darnley and his fellow plotters
242
00:19:09,935 --> 00:19:14,690
burst into Mary's chamber, tore
the terrified Riccio from Mary's skirts
243
00:19:14,855 --> 00:19:17,574
and stabbed him to death
in front of her.
244
00:19:33,335 --> 00:19:36,850
Between 50 and 60 wounds
were discovered on his body
245
00:19:37,015 --> 00:19:39,893
after it was thrown down
the privy staircase.
246
00:19:40,055 --> 00:19:42,853
At some point the murderers
turned to Mary,
247
00:19:43,015 --> 00:19:46,246
pointing a pistol
at her heavily pregnant belly.
248
00:19:49,935 --> 00:19:54,804
Perhaps at that moment, Mary
knew how to turn terror into power,
249
00:19:54,975 --> 00:19:58,092
for in the months to follow,
she milked the melodrama
250
00:19:58,255 --> 00:20:01,167
of the threatened womb
for all it was worth.
251
00:20:02,935 --> 00:20:08,293
Instead of being reduced to a weeping
wreck, Mary was strangely calm.
252
00:20:08,455 --> 00:20:12,130
She knew she could be strong
because she was carrying
253
00:20:12,295 --> 00:20:15,526
her greatest weapon
inside her womb.
254
00:20:15,695 --> 00:20:18,732
Whatever happened to her useless,
drunken, homicidal,
255
00:20:18,895 --> 00:20:22,683
nitwit of a husband,
she knew a baby would be born.
256
00:20:22,855 --> 00:20:26,165
Mother and child
were going to survive.
257
00:20:30,215 --> 00:20:34,766
On June 19th, at Edinburgh Castle,
Mary gave birth to the boy
258
00:20:34,935 --> 00:20:37,733
who would become
James VI of Scotland.
259
00:20:37,895 --> 00:20:41,854
On hearing the news,
Elizabeth's reaction was to cry,
260
00:20:42,015 --> 00:20:47,089
Alack, the Queen of Scots
is lighter of a bonny son
261
00:20:47,255 --> 00:20:50,611
and I am but of barren stock.
262
00:21:07,615 --> 00:21:12,052
Mary was by now so consumed
with contempt for Darnley
263
00:21:12,215 --> 00:21:14,285
that she resolved to be rid of him.
264
00:21:14,455 --> 00:21:18,084
Possibly all she meant
was to be rid of him as a husband
265
00:21:18,255 --> 00:21:23,170
but there were some devotees,
in particular the Earl of Bothwell,
266
00:21:23,335 --> 00:21:28,125
who took her sighs to mean
something altogether more decisive.
267
00:21:28,935 --> 00:21:32,052
Bothwell, one of the great
landowners of Scotland,
268
00:21:32,215 --> 00:21:35,332
was rich,
promiscuous and dangerous.
269
00:21:35,495 --> 00:21:37,850
He could also turn on the gallantry,
270
00:21:37,935 --> 00:21:41,974
and in her distress
Mary turned to him as protector,
271
00:21:42,055 --> 00:21:47,766
and Bothwell was only too happy
to solve Mary's Darnley problem.
272
00:21:50,375 --> 00:21:56,610
On the evening of March 9th, 1567,
while Mary was attending a ball,
273
00:21:56,775 --> 00:21:59,926
Bothwell supervised
the lighting of a fuse
274
00:22:00,015 --> 00:22:04,167
that at two in the morning would detonate
an immense quantity of gunpowder
275
00:22:04,335 --> 00:22:07,327
beneath the house
where Darnley was asleep.
276
00:22:12,255 --> 00:22:17,170
The house was blown sky high.
Darnley was dead,
277
00:22:17,335 --> 00:22:19,246
but not bumped off
according to plan.
278
00:22:19,415 --> 00:22:22,452
Minutes before the explosion,
he'd heard suspicious noises,
279
00:22:22,615 --> 00:22:26,528
and had himself lowered out
of his bedroom window on a chair.
280
00:22:26,695 --> 00:22:31,450
Running through the garden in his
night-shirt, he ran into the plotters,
281
00:22:31,615 --> 00:22:33,924
who promptly throttled him to death.
282
00:22:43,055 --> 00:22:46,809
Darnley's murder
was a turning point in Mary's life.
283
00:22:46,975 --> 00:22:51,924
From now on, death followed Mary
like a lady-in-waiting.
284
00:22:52,855 --> 00:22:56,291
She was already sick,
vomiting black mucus.
285
00:22:56,455 --> 00:23:01,165
She needed help, and the unscrupulous
Bothwell was at hand.
286
00:23:01,335 --> 00:23:04,213
His power over Mary made him reckless.
287
00:23:04,375 --> 00:23:09,051
He announced to the Scottish lords that
for the proper government of the country
288
00:23:09,215 --> 00:23:12,605
it was necessary for Mary
to have a husband.
289
00:23:12,775 --> 00:23:16,893
Very decently,
he offered himself for the job.
290
00:23:18,415 --> 00:23:22,533
Bothwell's idea of a marriage
proposal was to abduct Mary
291
00:23:22,695 --> 00:23:26,005
and take her
to his grim castle in Dunbar.
292
00:23:26,175 --> 00:23:30,134
There he planted his flag
as prospective King of Scotland
293
00:23:30,295 --> 00:23:35,927
by planting himself - violently,
it was said - inside her body.
294
00:23:36,735 --> 00:23:40,648
Now he supposed the traumatised
Mary would have to marry him,
295
00:23:40,815 --> 00:23:43,613
and, to most of the country's horror,
296
00:23:43,775 --> 00:23:48,291
Mary did just that,
a few weeks later, at Holyrood.
297
00:23:50,495 --> 00:23:56,047
It was at this point that Mary lost it -
lost control over her own body,
298
00:23:56,215 --> 00:23:59,525
lost the priceless political asset
of her motherhood,
299
00:23:59,695 --> 00:24:02,971
soiled by her relationship
with Bothwell.
300
00:24:03,055 --> 00:24:06,252
Lost Scotland, lost the whole
damned shooting match.
301
00:24:06,415 --> 00:24:09,293
The thing is,
it need never have happened.
302
00:24:09,375 --> 00:24:12,333
Had she been half the politician
Elizabeth was,
303
00:24:12,415 --> 00:24:15,691
she would have distanced herself
from Bothwell, not married him.
304
00:24:15,855 --> 00:24:20,133
Then she'd have come down like a ton
of bricks on Darnley's murderers,
305
00:24:20,295 --> 00:24:24,413
professing herself to be shocked
at the crime, truly shocked,
306
00:24:24,575 --> 00:24:27,533
then presenting herself
to the people of Scotland
307
00:24:27,695 --> 00:24:29,686
as a doubly victimised mother.
308
00:24:29,855 --> 00:24:34,565
Instead, the mother
let herself be turned into a whore.
309
00:24:37,535 --> 00:24:41,608
Mary now faced the rebel armies
loyal to the murdered Darnley.
310
00:24:41,775 --> 00:24:44,733
But on the verge of battle,
Bothwell conveniently
311
00:24:44,895 --> 00:24:48,490
disappeared to gather
reinforcements, or so he said,
312
00:24:48,655 --> 00:24:51,727
leaving Mary
to face the enemy on her own.
313
00:24:51,895 --> 00:24:54,967
It was the last
she would ever see of him.
314
00:24:55,895 --> 00:25:00,252
Dragged back to Edinburgh,
a captive, filthy and dishevelled,
315
00:25:00,415 --> 00:25:04,169
she appeared at a window,
her dress torn from her shoulders,
316
00:25:04,335 --> 00:25:09,125
her breasts exposed,
and was greeted by a mob howling abuse.
317
00:25:10,135 --> 00:25:13,889
Handbills featuring her
as a mermaid began to appear,
318
00:25:14,055 --> 00:25:17,127
a mermaid
being another name for a prostitute.
319
00:25:17,295 --> 00:25:21,971
Mermaids were not fit
to sit on the throne of Scotland,
320
00:25:22,135 --> 00:25:26,333
so Mary was forced to renounce it
in favour of her baby son.
321
00:25:26,495 --> 00:25:29,612
Her Protestant half-brother,
the Earl of Moray,
322
00:25:29,695 --> 00:25:33,608
took charge of baby James
and made himself Regent of Scotland.
323
00:25:35,095 --> 00:25:38,565
Mary was 25 years old.
324
00:25:38,735 --> 00:25:43,729
Her history seemed done,
but of course it was not.
325
00:25:54,895 --> 00:26:00,652
She had one last weapon -
her air of tragically damaged beauty.
326
00:26:00,815 --> 00:26:05,843
Incarcerated in Loch Leven Castle,
in the middle of a deep, cold lake,
327
00:26:06,015 --> 00:26:09,087
she unleashed
her seductive charm on her jailer,
328
00:26:09,255 --> 00:26:14,932
one of the usually hard-bitten
Douglas clan, who melted in adoration.
329
00:26:18,775 --> 00:26:23,007
After ten months of imprisonment,
in May 1568,
330
00:26:23,175 --> 00:26:26,531
Mary made a getaway across the loch.
331
00:26:28,895 --> 00:26:32,410
There was only one way
to get her throne back -
332
00:26:32,575 --> 00:26:35,487
an appeal to her cousin Elizabeth.
333
00:26:35,655 --> 00:26:41,446
Her next journey, across the border,
was to be in the nature of a temporary refuge.
334
00:26:41,615 --> 00:26:46,609
She must have supposed her stay
would last a month, a year at the most.
335
00:26:46,775 --> 00:26:50,609
Had she known the real answer,
19 years,
336
00:26:50,775 --> 00:26:55,405
she would surely have avoided
the passage across the Solway Firth.
337
00:26:55,575 --> 00:26:59,693
There she was,
an exhausted, bedraggled figure,
338
00:26:59,855 --> 00:27:04,690
her hair cropped for disguise,
sitting hunched in a small boat,
339
00:27:04,855 --> 00:27:10,088
her eyes fixed on the disappearing
shoreline of Scotland.
340
00:27:16,895 --> 00:27:22,015
Mary's appearance on English soil
threw Elizabeth into turmoil.
341
00:27:22,175 --> 00:27:24,928
Was Mary her heir or wasn't she?
342
00:27:25,095 --> 00:27:31,409
After all, Elizabeth wasn't
getting any younger, 35 in 1568.
343
00:27:31,575 --> 00:27:35,648
The royal laundresses were still
sending Cecil monthly evidence
344
00:27:35,815 --> 00:27:38,124
of her capacity to produce children,
345
00:27:38,295 --> 00:27:40,729
but she was no nearer
to getting married.
346
00:27:42,135 --> 00:27:46,811
Would the fugitive Queen of Scots
be treated like the next in line
347
00:27:46,975 --> 00:27:50,524
or at least
as a fellow sovereign, a guest?
348
00:27:50,695 --> 00:27:55,211
Not exactly. Mary's first request
to Elizabeth was for some clothes
349
00:27:55,375 --> 00:28:00,529
that befitted her status rather
than the rags she had fled in.
350
00:28:00,695 --> 00:28:06,053
What she got, after much complaining,
was a packet of linen.
351
00:28:09,095 --> 00:28:12,132
Just as well perhaps that she didn't know
352
00:28:12,215 --> 00:28:15,890
that Elizabeth was already wearing
Mary's favourite pearls,
353
00:28:15,975 --> 00:28:21,254
stolen from Mary by her enemies
and sent to the English queen.
354
00:28:22,095 --> 00:28:25,531
In fact, Elizabeth didn't know
what to do with Mary.
355
00:28:25,695 --> 00:28:30,086
All her royal instincts were outraged
by the humiliations and indignities
356
00:28:30,255 --> 00:28:32,689
heaped on her royal cousin.
357
00:28:32,855 --> 00:28:36,530
If Mary would agree to keep
her hands off the English throne,
358
00:28:36,775 --> 00:28:41,132
Elizabeth was tempted to help
her regain the Scottish crown.
359
00:28:43,615 --> 00:28:47,847
Elizabeth could also see
the wisdom of the opposite view,
360
00:28:48,015 --> 00:28:51,928
that it was folly to restore
a Catholic queen to the Scottish throne,
361
00:28:52,095 --> 00:28:57,010
giving a back door entry to Britain
for the French and Spanish.
362
00:28:57,695 --> 00:29:02,564
There was a safe Protestant regime
in Scotland now, run by Mary's enemies.
363
00:29:02,655 --> 00:29:04,725
Why rock the boat?
364
00:29:04,815 --> 00:29:10,606
So if Mary imagined she could rely on
the sisterhood of queens, she was deluded.
365
00:29:10,775 --> 00:29:14,290
The first thing Elizabeth did
was order an inquiry
366
00:29:14,455 --> 00:29:17,413
into the murder
of Mary's husband, Lord Darnley,
367
00:29:17,575 --> 00:29:20,487
which turned into a trial
in all but name.
368
00:29:24,215 --> 00:29:29,164
Now Mary could have no illusions
that she was anything except a prisoner.
369
00:29:29,455 --> 00:29:32,174
She was shuttled
from house to house
370
00:29:32,335 --> 00:29:34,974
under the watchful eye
of the Earl of Shrewsbury,
371
00:29:35,135 --> 00:29:38,411
who got the unenviable job
of being her jailer.
372
00:29:38,575 --> 00:29:41,885
Some of the houses were not
much more than a damp ruin,
373
00:29:42,055 --> 00:29:45,809
others, like Wingfield here,
were more tolerable.
374
00:29:45,975 --> 00:29:49,968
Wingfield is in Derbyshire,
and that tells you something
375
00:29:50,135 --> 00:29:52,524
about the nervousness
of her captors.
376
00:29:52,695 --> 00:29:57,689
Mary had to be kept a long way
from any possibility of rescue,
377
00:29:57,855 --> 00:30:02,326
far away from Scotland, far away
from London, far away from the coast.
378
00:30:02,495 --> 00:30:04,804
In fact, in the Midlands.
379
00:30:04,975 --> 00:30:11,050
But wherever she was, she had become
maximum security problem number one,
380
00:30:11,215 --> 00:30:14,730
not just a headache
but a magnet for conspiracy.
381
00:30:23,295 --> 00:30:26,093
There were many
political heavyweights
382
00:30:26,255 --> 00:30:30,806
for whom Mary was a legitimate,
attractive alternative to Elizabeth.
383
00:30:30,975 --> 00:30:34,490
They were not just a bunch
of wild-eyed Catholic dreamers,
384
00:30:34,655 --> 00:30:38,364
but men close to the heart
of Elizabeth's government.
385
00:30:39,895 --> 00:30:43,410
Their most ambitious plan
was to annul the Bothwell marriage
386
00:30:43,575 --> 00:30:47,045
and marry the Queen of Scots
to the premier duke of the realm,
387
00:30:47,215 --> 00:30:50,173
Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk.
388
00:30:50,335 --> 00:30:56,126
Although Norfolk may have been a Catholic
at heart, he was, like so many of this time,
389
00:30:56,295 --> 00:30:59,605
outwardly at least,
a conforming Protestant.
390
00:30:59,775 --> 00:31:03,404
It was reasonable
to see the marriage plot
391
00:31:03,495 --> 00:31:07,886
as a way of binding up
the unhealed wounds of the Reformation,
392
00:31:07,975 --> 00:31:11,490
but the queen wasn't fooled for a moment.
393
00:31:11,655 --> 00:31:15,409
When the plot was exposed,
she sent Norfolk to the Tower.
394
00:31:22,335 --> 00:31:24,565
The plot collapsed.
395
00:31:24,735 --> 00:31:28,011
There was, though, a different kind
of fury waiting to happen,
396
00:31:28,175 --> 00:31:32,088
and this WAS burning
with a Catholic flame.
397
00:31:37,095 --> 00:31:40,804
In the north, Catholicism
had not only not been rooted out,
398
00:31:40,975 --> 00:31:45,491
it fed on the burning resentment
and fierce independence
399
00:31:45,655 --> 00:31:50,092
of the great aristocratic families
who ran things here.
400
00:31:50,255 --> 00:31:54,248
They'd been here for centuries,
and weren't about to be pushed around
401
00:31:54,415 --> 00:31:56,485
by a bunch of Tudor bureaucrats.
402
00:31:56,655 --> 00:32:02,093
They weren't to be told what was what
in their government and religion.
403
00:32:02,255 --> 00:32:06,646
So, for them, Mary Stuart
was not just a successor,
404
00:32:06,815 --> 00:32:11,445
she was a replacement,
as in immediate replacement.
405
00:32:15,535 --> 00:32:19,244
So the Catholic north
fought the Protestant south.
406
00:32:19,415 --> 00:32:22,327
For a while it looked
as though the North might win.
407
00:32:23,775 --> 00:32:27,654
As rebels swept through Lancashire,
Yorkshire and Northumberland,
408
00:32:27,815 --> 00:32:32,013
it must have seemed
that Catholic Britain had been reborn.
409
00:32:32,095 --> 00:32:37,123
Now Elizabeth's government
really knew what it was up against,
410
00:32:37,295 --> 00:32:41,493
the latest act in the endlessly
drawn out religious war that began
411
00:32:41,655 --> 00:32:45,330
when Henry VIII made himself
Supreme Head of the Church.
412
00:32:46,415 --> 00:32:52,809
12,000 troops were mustered
and the rebellion brutally crushed.
413
00:32:57,495 --> 00:33:01,613
Perhaps the brutality worked,
because the northern rising
414
00:33:01,775 --> 00:33:05,211
was the last great rebellion
to disturb Tudor England.
415
00:33:05,375 --> 00:33:09,209
It's tempting to feel
the country settling at last
416
00:33:09,375 --> 00:33:14,733
into its Elizabethan finery,
feeling fat, safe, comfortable.
417
00:33:14,895 --> 00:33:18,808
But it was always
a jittery kind of grandeur.
418
00:33:27,415 --> 00:33:33,092
Elizabeth was 20 years into her reign
and suitors had come and gone.
419
00:33:33,255 --> 00:33:36,452
There was always something
the matter with them - too lowly,
420
00:33:36,615 --> 00:33:39,004
too Catholic, too stupid.
421
00:33:39,175 --> 00:33:42,884
And besides,
now her suitors had rivals -
422
00:33:43,055 --> 00:33:46,843
millions of her subjects,
who had become jealously possessive
423
00:33:47,015 --> 00:33:50,405
and thought that the queen
was theirs alone.
424
00:33:53,175 --> 00:33:56,451
In the 1570s, they got her.
425
00:33:56,615 --> 00:34:01,689
The cult, the religion of Elizabeth,
was spectacularly created.
426
00:34:10,655 --> 00:34:14,773
Her accession day became
the greatest of national holidays,
427
00:34:14,935 --> 00:34:19,213
more sacred than all the heathen
events on the papist calendar.
428
00:34:30,575 --> 00:34:35,126
Her image began to appear
everywhere in allegorical pictures,
429
00:34:35,295 --> 00:34:40,164
Elizabeth as the sun who gave
the rainbow its radiant hues.
430
00:34:40,335 --> 00:34:44,806
Even those on the inside,
who could plainly see
431
00:34:44,975 --> 00:34:48,763
the elaborate scaffolding
from which this image was projected,
432
00:34:48,935 --> 00:34:52,325
who knew that the pale moon glow
of the queen's face
433
00:34:52,495 --> 00:34:56,852
was just pulverised eggshell,
borax, alum and mill water,
434
00:34:57,015 --> 00:35:02,135
even these knowing types
were total captives to the cult.
435
00:35:03,135 --> 00:35:06,286
She had this effect on all kinds
of people, especially men,
436
00:35:06,455 --> 00:35:09,970
even when they got older
and should have known better.
437
00:35:10,855 --> 00:35:14,404
They built huge
prodigy houses in her honour.
438
00:35:14,575 --> 00:35:17,373
It was in its way
a desperate need to impress,
439
00:35:17,535 --> 00:35:20,811
a sign of the culture's
raw immaturity,
440
00:35:20,975 --> 00:35:23,535
its hunger for glitzy gorgeousness,
441
00:35:23,695 --> 00:35:27,210
Elizabethan razzle-dazzle,
thigh-hugging hose,
442
00:35:27,375 --> 00:35:31,448
oak-panelled libraries
with yards of unread classics,
443
00:35:31,615 --> 00:35:34,607
ballrooms as big as playing fields.
444
00:35:42,335 --> 00:35:48,251
You'd think devotees would be queuing
for a glimpse of the national Madonna,
445
00:35:48,415 --> 00:35:52,613
but many knew that hosting
the show came at a heavy price.
446
00:35:53,815 --> 00:35:56,852
If you were a burgess
of the City of Warwick,
447
00:35:57,015 --> 00:36:00,451
it's hard to know which lot
would have made you more nervous.
448
00:36:00,615 --> 00:36:06,850
The royal wanderers, after all, came
with 200 carts of the queen's baggage,
449
00:36:07,015 --> 00:36:10,007
each pulled by a team of six horses.
450
00:36:10,095 --> 00:36:13,929
That's a lot of stable room to find,
that is a lot of hay.
451
00:36:14,095 --> 00:36:16,529
Then, a week before the event,
452
00:36:16,695 --> 00:36:20,927
men from the office of purveyors
would come and buy up
453
00:36:21,095 --> 00:36:25,771
everything in sight for the visit,
at prices they decided were fair.
454
00:36:25,935 --> 00:36:30,213
Then the lords and ladies,
so notoriously hard to please.
455
00:36:30,375 --> 00:36:34,050
Supposing they rolled their eyes
at the entertainment,
456
00:36:34,215 --> 00:36:37,730
supposing they wrinkled
their nose at the fair?
457
00:36:37,895 --> 00:36:40,967
Last of all,
there was Queen Bess herself,
458
00:36:41,135 --> 00:36:44,889
a bejewelled apparition
with a chalk-white face
459
00:36:45,055 --> 00:36:47,774
like some goddess on earth.
460
00:36:47,855 --> 00:36:53,805
But, like the immortals, she was evidently
frightening as well as majestic.
461
00:36:57,495 --> 00:37:00,373
You could revel
in the Elizabethan glamour show
462
00:37:00,535 --> 00:37:04,494
as long as you didn't think
too hard about what was going on
463
00:37:04,655 --> 00:37:06,725
beyond the sceptr'd isle.
464
00:37:06,815 --> 00:37:08,806
For out there, in Europe,
465
00:37:08,895 --> 00:37:13,525
a total war between Catholic
and Protestant powers was about to ignite.
466
00:37:14,815 --> 00:37:18,490
The rivalry between
Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth
467
00:37:18,655 --> 00:37:21,408
was no longer a girlie soap opera,
468
00:37:21,575 --> 00:37:25,250
it was right at the centre
of that global struggle.
469
00:37:25,415 --> 00:37:30,364
In Rome, the Pope declared Elizabeth
was to be considered a heretic.
470
00:37:30,535 --> 00:37:33,686
"Whoever sends her out of the world,"
the Pope decreed,
471
00:37:33,855 --> 00:37:39,054
"not only does not sin,
but gains merit in the eyes of God."
472
00:37:39,215 --> 00:37:43,731
In response, England became
a national security state.
473
00:37:43,895 --> 00:37:48,127
Infiltrators and double agents
were recruited by the government.
474
00:37:48,295 --> 00:37:52,573
Gentlemen vigilantes were sworn
to take out, in advance,
475
00:37:52,735 --> 00:37:56,887
anyone so much as suspected
of plotting against the queen.
476
00:37:59,015 --> 00:38:03,372
At the heart of the operation
was Elizabeth's chief spymaster,
477
00:38:03,535 --> 00:38:05,526
Francis Walsingham.
478
00:38:06,015 --> 00:38:10,805
"Intelligence is never too dear,"
was Walsingham's motto.
479
00:38:10,975 --> 00:38:16,288
His whole career was an applied
demonstration that knowledge is power.
480
00:38:17,895 --> 00:38:22,207
But if Walsingham was ferocious,
he was not paranoid.
481
00:38:22,375 --> 00:38:27,847
There were underground conspiracies,
organised in France, Rome and Spain,
482
00:38:28,015 --> 00:38:32,691
all working to one end -
the assassination of Elizabeth
483
00:38:32,855 --> 00:38:36,165
and the enthronement
of Mary Stuart.
484
00:38:38,295 --> 00:38:42,288
Elizabeth might have been queasy
about taking care of Mary,
485
00:38:42,375 --> 00:38:44,570
but Walsingham wasn't.
486
00:38:44,655 --> 00:38:49,445
It was his job to get his hands dirty
for England, that's what spymasters do.
487
00:38:49,615 --> 00:38:52,766
But he knew well enough
he couldn't just do her in.
488
00:38:52,935 --> 00:38:57,326
Elizabeth had to be free of suspicion
of complicity in murder.
489
00:38:57,495 --> 00:39:01,249
On the other hand, the Mary problem
could not be allowed
490
00:39:01,415 --> 00:39:04,327
to drag on for another 15 years.
491
00:39:04,495 --> 00:39:09,364
Walsingham realised
he would have to force a solution.
492
00:39:09,535 --> 00:39:14,404
So he engineered a trap...
and it was a gem.
493
00:39:16,815 --> 00:39:19,409
Mary may have been under house arrest,
494
00:39:19,575 --> 00:39:23,727
but she was allowed to lead
the life of the country lady.
495
00:39:23,895 --> 00:39:28,844
Then, in December 1585,
Walsingham made a change.
496
00:39:30,615 --> 00:39:33,527
Mary and her household
were suddenly packed up
497
00:39:33,695 --> 00:39:37,210
and sent to close confinement
at Chartley Manor, Staffordshire,
498
00:39:37,375 --> 00:39:43,723
where she was guarded by
the unsmiling puritan, Amyas Paulet.
499
00:39:44,655 --> 00:39:48,443
As Walsingham had intended,
Mary was furious,
500
00:39:48,615 --> 00:39:51,448
desperate
to find a way out of her prison.
501
00:39:51,615 --> 00:39:55,608
So she was thrilled when she discovered
an ingenuous means
502
00:39:55,775 --> 00:39:59,324
to smuggle coded letters
to her supporters.
503
00:39:59,495 --> 00:40:03,090
The letters were secretly
put in a watertight packet,
504
00:40:03,255 --> 00:40:08,613
slipped in the bunghole of beer casks,
delivered to and from Chartley.
505
00:40:10,495 --> 00:40:13,965
What Mary didn't know
was that this was a trap.
506
00:40:14,135 --> 00:40:17,127
Walsingham
had set the whole thing up.
507
00:40:17,295 --> 00:40:19,604
The letters were intercepted.
508
00:40:20,815 --> 00:40:25,172
When Mary's latest champion,
the rich merchant Anthony Babbington,
509
00:40:25,335 --> 00:40:28,645
supplied Mary with details
of a plot to murder Elizabeth
510
00:40:28,815 --> 00:40:33,889
and put Mary on the English throne,
Mary wrote back with encouragement.
511
00:40:35,895 --> 00:40:39,012
The trap was sprung.
512
00:40:43,415 --> 00:40:45,975
At Chartley,
Mary felt the skies lighten.
513
00:40:46,135 --> 00:40:49,093
After nearly 20 years
of unjust imprisonment,
514
00:40:49,255 --> 00:40:53,965
she could feel liberty at hand,
so close she could practically taste it.
515
00:40:54,135 --> 00:41:00,290
One morning, unusually, Paulet allowed her
to go riding, hunting.
516
00:41:00,455 --> 00:41:04,573
From a distance, she could see
a group of horsemen approach.
517
00:41:04,735 --> 00:41:07,295
Mary must have imagined,
518
00:41:07,455 --> 00:41:11,448
"This is it -news from Babington.
Freedom at last."
519
00:41:13,255 --> 00:41:17,328
But it was in fact
the warrant for her arrest.
520
00:41:17,695 --> 00:41:23,133
Babington and his fellow plotters
had been tortured and had confessed.
521
00:41:24,695 --> 00:41:28,927
Mary was taken away while her rooms
at Chartley were searched,
522
00:41:29,095 --> 00:41:32,212
turning up hundreds
of incriminating documents.
523
00:41:34,895 --> 00:41:40,333
In London, Elizabeth wrote
an ecstatic letter to Amyas Paulet.
524
00:41:41,095 --> 00:41:44,770
Amyas, my most faithful
and careful servant,
525
00:41:44,935 --> 00:41:48,928
God reward thee treble-fold
for the most troublesome charge
526
00:41:49,095 --> 00:41:51,165
so well discharged.
527
00:41:59,375 --> 00:42:02,606
There was just one more stop,
one more castle
528
00:42:02,775 --> 00:42:05,209
in the career
of the wandering queen:
529
00:42:05,375 --> 00:42:08,572
Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire.
530
00:42:08,735 --> 00:42:12,364
It's just a grassy mound now,
which is just as well,
531
00:42:12,535 --> 00:42:16,005
since no ruin, no standing
building for that matter,
532
00:42:16,175 --> 00:42:19,406
could take the weight of the drama
that was to follow.
533
00:42:22,735 --> 00:42:28,014
Anyone expecting Mary Stuart
to crumble into tearful confession
534
00:42:28,175 --> 00:42:30,689
had seriously misjudged her.
535
00:42:30,855 --> 00:42:32,925
Up against it,
536
00:42:33,015 --> 00:42:37,964
she drew on something
inside her long and mostly disastrous career
537
00:42:38,135 --> 00:42:41,525
which made her resolute
and unnervingly lofty,
538
00:42:41,615 --> 00:42:44,413
as if she was above this squalid charade.
539
00:42:45,535 --> 00:42:49,687
From the moment of her arrest
to the moment of her execution,
540
00:42:49,855 --> 00:42:52,050
she gave as good as she got.
541
00:42:54,215 --> 00:42:59,892
As a sinner, I am truly conscious
of having often offended my creator.
542
00:43:00,055 --> 00:43:02,888
I beg him to forgive me.
543
00:43:02,975 --> 00:43:05,125
But as queen and sovereign,
544
00:43:05,295 --> 00:43:09,083
I am aware of no offence
for which I have to render account
545
00:43:09,255 --> 00:43:12,008
to anyone here below.
546
00:43:14,695 --> 00:43:17,573
Her second tactic
was to lie her head off,
547
00:43:17,735 --> 00:43:20,374
denying all knowledge
of the Babington plot,
548
00:43:20,535 --> 00:43:23,811
though she was on stronger ground
when she accused Walsingham
549
00:43:23,975 --> 00:43:27,012
of having set up the whole thing
to get rid of her.
550
00:43:29,855 --> 00:43:34,007
Elizabeth did not see it
exactly in this way.
551
00:43:34,175 --> 00:43:36,609
She wrote to Mary
as if the Queen of the Scots
552
00:43:36,775 --> 00:43:41,212
had been an ungrateful house guest
who'd made off with the towels.
553
00:43:43,215 --> 00:43:47,766
You have planned to take my life
and ruin my Kingdom by shedding blood.
554
00:43:47,935 --> 00:43:50,927
I never proceeded
so hastily against you.
555
00:43:51,095 --> 00:43:55,088
On the contrary, I have maintained you
and preserved your life
556
00:43:55,255 --> 00:44:00,249
with the same care
which I use for myself.
557
00:44:05,135 --> 00:44:10,653
On the 15th of October, 1586,
the formal trial began.
558
00:44:10,815 --> 00:44:14,774
In a typical gesture,
half plea, half threat,
559
00:44:14,935 --> 00:44:18,928
Mary warned her prosecutors
to look to their consciences.
560
00:44:19,095 --> 00:44:22,565
"Remember," she said,
"the theatre of the world
561
00:44:22,735 --> 00:44:24,726
"is wider than the realm of England."
562
00:44:24,895 --> 00:44:29,127
It was to that audience,
world-wide and across the ages,
563
00:44:29,295 --> 00:44:32,173
that she now took centre stage.
564
00:44:34,695 --> 00:44:39,007
Mary hobbled into the room,
by now painfully infirm,
565
00:44:39,175 --> 00:44:42,292
dressed head to foot
like a glamorous Mother Superior,
566
00:44:42,455 --> 00:44:45,925
in swathes of black velvet
and a white headdress.
567
00:44:46,095 --> 00:44:49,326
Deprived of any lawyer,
she turned to the big guns
568
00:44:49,495 --> 00:44:52,487
of the Privy Council facing her.
569
00:44:52,975 --> 00:44:56,365
There is not one,
I think, among you,
570
00:44:56,535 --> 00:44:59,049
let him be the cleverest man
in the world,
571
00:44:59,215 --> 00:45:02,491
who would be capable
of defending himself
572
00:45:02,655 --> 00:45:04,930
if he were in my place.
573
00:45:07,295 --> 00:45:10,765
Of course, it wouldn't
have mattered what she said.
574
00:45:10,935 --> 00:45:13,654
The trial resumed in London
without her
575
00:45:13,815 --> 00:45:17,171
and passed swiftly
to her conviction.
576
00:45:19,495 --> 00:45:22,965
All her adult life,
Elizabeth had been spooked
577
00:45:23,135 --> 00:45:25,933
by her fascinating, infuriating cousin,
578
00:45:26,095 --> 00:45:29,610
who seemed to personify
all the cliches about women
579
00:45:29,775 --> 00:45:31,970
which Elizabeth had rejected.
580
00:45:32,135 --> 00:45:36,811
Now she had a precious opportunity
to get Mother Mary off her back.
581
00:45:36,975 --> 00:45:39,170
Parliament
was impatient to be rid of her,
582
00:45:39,335 --> 00:45:43,374
the people were positively baying
for Mary's blood.
583
00:45:43,535 --> 00:45:47,494
Yet, somehow, Elizabeth couldn't
bring herself to do the deed.
584
00:45:47,655 --> 00:45:51,807
It wasn't that she was sentimental
about Mary, it was that she was scared -
585
00:45:51,975 --> 00:45:57,493
scared to be seen by the world
to have her fingerprints on the axe.
586
00:46:00,055 --> 00:46:03,365
This is what was robbing
Elizabeth of her sleep,
587
00:46:03,535 --> 00:46:07,164
the tormenting question,
whether by killing Mary
588
00:46:07,335 --> 00:46:10,645
she was getting rid
of trouble or inviting it.
589
00:46:12,975 --> 00:46:19,005
On February 1st, 1587,
Elizabeth finally put her signature
590
00:46:19,175 --> 00:46:21,689
on Mary's death warrant.
591
00:46:37,215 --> 00:46:42,892
All the chaos, squalor, reckless
adventuring, rash conspiracies,
592
00:46:43,055 --> 00:46:48,846
pathetic delusions, histrionic bouts
of self-pity, all the escapes and rescues,
593
00:46:49,015 --> 00:46:52,803
they had all led her
to this one supreme moment.
594
00:46:52,975 --> 00:46:56,331
She would be a Catholic martyr.
595
00:47:02,615 --> 00:47:07,291
When Mary was told she was
to be executed the next morning,
596
00:47:07,455 --> 00:47:12,529
by a weeping Scottish courtier,
she told him to be joyful instead,
597
00:47:12,695 --> 00:47:17,815
"For the end of Mary Stuart's trouble,"
she said, "is now done."
598
00:47:19,895 --> 00:47:24,252
Carry this message from me
and tell my friends that I died
599
00:47:24,415 --> 00:47:26,690
a true woman to my religion
600
00:47:26,775 --> 00:47:30,165
and like a true Scottish woman
and a true French woman.
601
00:47:40,815 --> 00:47:43,409
When she undressed
for the executioner,
602
00:47:43,575 --> 00:47:48,569
the demure black gown fell away
to reveal a crimson petticoat,
603
00:47:48,735 --> 00:47:51,533
the blood-red hue of the martyr.
604
00:47:52,575 --> 00:47:56,284
Mary's eyes were bound
with a white silk handkerchief,
605
00:47:56,455 --> 00:47:58,764
embroidered with gold,
606
00:47:58,855 --> 00:48:02,404
and she lay with such utter stillness
on the block
607
00:48:02,495 --> 00:48:05,532
that it actually unnerved the executioner.
608
00:48:18,815 --> 00:48:22,251
His first blow cut deep
into the back of her head,
609
00:48:22,415 --> 00:48:27,205
the second severed it
but for a hanging thread of flesh.
610
00:48:29,375 --> 00:48:33,812
Even now, Mary contrived
to remain centre stage.
611
00:48:33,975 --> 00:48:37,092
For 15 minutes
after the last blow of the axe,
612
00:48:37,255 --> 00:48:40,884
the lips on her severed head,
so witnesses reported,
613
00:48:41,055 --> 00:48:45,048
continued to move
as if in silent prayer.
614
00:48:52,895 --> 00:48:57,093
When the executioner,
by now probably wanting to die himself,
615
00:48:57,255 --> 00:48:59,246
held up the head to the spectators,
616
00:48:59,415 --> 00:49:03,567
he made the mistake of grasping it
by the mass of auburn curls...
617
00:49:03,735 --> 00:49:06,374
but that was a wig.
618
00:49:06,455 --> 00:49:11,006
To general horror, Mary's skull, the hair
cropped into short grey stubble,
619
00:49:11,175 --> 00:49:15,134
fell from his grip
and rolled along the floor.
620
00:49:23,935 --> 00:49:26,449
At that moment a terrible howling
621
00:49:26,615 --> 00:49:31,006
came from the crimson,
blood-soaked petticoat.
622
00:49:31,175 --> 00:49:37,011
Mary's lap dog had to be taken away
from the wreckage of her mistress.
623
00:49:37,175 --> 00:49:40,884
They tried and tried to scrub it clean
of the clotted blood.
624
00:49:41,055 --> 00:49:45,412
They did so, but it wouldn't eat,
it languished, it died.
625
00:49:45,575 --> 00:49:50,603
It was just another martyr
to Mary's pathetic, tragic life.
626
00:49:50,775 --> 00:49:53,289
Perhaps that little dog
was the first mourner,
627
00:49:53,455 --> 00:49:56,731
it certainly was not
going to be the last.
628
00:50:00,295 --> 00:50:04,971
Among the mourners,
astoundingly, was Queen Elizabeth,
629
00:50:05,135 --> 00:50:08,252
in deep denial
of what she had done.
630
00:50:09,295 --> 00:50:13,891
(MAN) When she heard, her countenance
changed, her words faltered
631
00:50:14,055 --> 00:50:17,889
and with excessive sorrow
she was in a manner astonished,
632
00:50:18,055 --> 00:50:20,410
in so much as she gave herself
over to grief,
633
00:50:20,575 --> 00:50:24,932
putting herself into mourning weeds
and shedding abundance of tears.
634
00:50:40,375 --> 00:50:44,209
Some of Elizabeth's anguish
may have been genuine remorse,
635
00:50:44,415 --> 00:50:49,808
some of it was downright fear -
and she was right to worry.
636
00:50:49,975 --> 00:50:53,604
Even before Mary's execution,
King Phillip of Spain
637
00:50:53,775 --> 00:50:57,450
had accelerated his plans
for the "enterprise" of England,
638
00:50:57,615 --> 00:51:01,403
and with Mary now dead,
there would be no stopping him.
639
00:51:01,575 --> 00:51:07,684
Suddenly, Elizabethan England
looked very small, very vulnerable.
640
00:51:12,295 --> 00:51:18,325
This was Elizabeth's worst nightmare,
a full-scale Catholic invasion,
641
00:51:18,495 --> 00:51:21,487
and now Phillip was launching one.
642
00:51:22,375 --> 00:51:27,403
The Spanish admirals, however,
were deeply pessimistic of success.
643
00:51:27,575 --> 00:51:33,093
They knew English ships had a massive
edge in speed and manoeuvrability.
644
00:51:33,255 --> 00:51:36,372
The miracle was not
that England was saved
645
00:51:36,535 --> 00:51:39,971
but that the Spanish
came so close to pulling it off.
646
00:51:40,135 --> 00:51:42,285
Only a few miles of the Channel
647
00:51:42,455 --> 00:51:46,164
and an unhelpful wind direction
made the difference.
648
00:51:46,335 --> 00:51:49,964
The weather, as usual,
batted for England.
649
00:51:55,295 --> 00:51:57,650
But it was a close thing.
650
00:51:57,815 --> 00:52:01,967
The English were right to be scared
in the summer and autumn of 1588.
651
00:52:04,575 --> 00:52:08,648
What do you do when weepy
and terrified? You cry for Mummy.
652
00:52:08,815 --> 00:52:12,444
That, courtesy of Robert Dudley -
dying of cancer now,
653
00:52:12,615 --> 00:52:15,766
but still the great impresario
of Elizabeth's shows -
654
00:52:15,935 --> 00:52:20,292
is how she appeared to the troops
at the armed camp at Tilbury -
655
00:52:20,455 --> 00:52:24,243
the mother at last,
the virgin mother of England
656
00:52:24,415 --> 00:52:27,725
and the kind of mother
you'd want on your side,
657
00:52:27,895 --> 00:52:30,807
a mother dressed
in a breastplate of steel.
658
00:52:33,015 --> 00:52:37,691
Everything Elizabeth had ever learned
came together at Tilbury.
659
00:52:37,855 --> 00:52:41,609
Charisma in a costume,
the shell burst of oratory,
660
00:52:41,775 --> 00:52:45,848
and, perhaps most importantly,
what all mothers know instinctively,
661
00:52:46,015 --> 00:52:49,690
that there's no substitute
for being there.
662
00:52:49,855 --> 00:52:54,246
And there, on August
the 8th and 9th, she certainly was,
663
00:52:54,415 --> 00:52:59,773
arriving in a gilded coach,
escorted by 2,000 ecstatic troops.
664
00:52:59,935 --> 00:53:05,009
And what she produced for
the expectant crowds was pure gold,
665
00:53:05,175 --> 00:53:09,407
the first great speech
by a queen, recorded in history.
666
00:53:09,575 --> 00:53:12,806
This is where
the real event of 1588 happened,
667
00:53:12,975 --> 00:53:17,048
not out on the high seas,
but on the soapbox at Tilbury.
668
00:53:19,455 --> 00:53:26,770
My loving people, I come among you,
not for my recreation and disport,
669
00:53:26,935 --> 00:53:31,213
but being resolved in the midst
of the heat of the battle,
670
00:53:31,375 --> 00:53:38,645
to live and die amongst you all,
to lay down for God and my Kingdom
671
00:53:38,815 --> 00:53:45,254
and for my people, my honour
and blood even in the dust.
672
00:53:46,535 --> 00:53:50,687
I know I have the body
of a weak and feeble woman,
673
00:53:50,855 --> 00:53:57,488
but I have the heart and stomach
of a king and a King of England too,
674
00:53:57,655 --> 00:54:03,173
and think foul scorn that Spain
or any prince of Europe,
675
00:54:03,335 --> 00:54:06,884
should dare invade
the borders of my realm
676
00:54:07,055 --> 00:54:12,925
to which rather dishonour
I myself will take up arms.
677
00:54:17,975 --> 00:54:24,528
It's spin and hype, but hype for England
and it did make a difference.
678
00:54:24,695 --> 00:54:28,688
Just like Churchill's rhetoric
made a difference in 1940.
679
00:54:28,855 --> 00:54:33,724
Instinctively, the queen knew
what it was her people needed to hear.
680
00:54:33,895 --> 00:54:38,093
"Look," she said, "I may be a goddess
but I'm also flesh and blood,
681
00:54:38,255 --> 00:54:43,090
"your flesh and blood. Whatever you go
through, I'll go through it with you."
682
00:54:43,255 --> 00:54:47,214
That made the difference
between terror and determination,
683
00:54:47,375 --> 00:54:50,526
that is what we have queens for.
684
00:54:53,255 --> 00:54:56,565
You couldn't top that
and Elizabeth couldn't.
685
00:54:56,735 --> 00:55:01,411
The euphoria of 1588
was short-lived.
686
00:55:01,575 --> 00:55:04,043
In the closing years
of the Tudor century,
687
00:55:04,215 --> 00:55:07,924
famine across the country
triggered food riots.
688
00:55:08,095 --> 00:55:10,529
Cut-throats and beggars
prowled the roads.
689
00:55:10,695 --> 00:55:16,452
The Irish, spoken of as savages,
were driven into a nine-year war.
690
00:55:17,135 --> 00:55:24,086
For the queen, the distance between
the mythology of her ageless body
691
00:55:24,255 --> 00:55:28,453
and the shrivelled reality,
became more glaring.
692
00:55:28,975 --> 00:55:32,684
Thoughts inevitably
began to turn to her succession.
693
00:55:32,855 --> 00:55:39,727
Everybody knew that would be James,
son of Mary, Queen of Scots.
694
00:55:43,575 --> 00:55:46,851
In the end, was it Mary,
Queen of Scots, the mother,
695
00:55:47,015 --> 00:55:51,327
who had triumphed from the grave
over her rival, Elizabeth?
696
00:55:52,615 --> 00:55:57,325
Elizabeth had one comfort -
James had been brought up a Protestant,
697
00:55:57,495 --> 00:56:03,047
forced to disown his own mother
after her disgrace.
698
00:56:04,175 --> 00:56:11,729
But still, he was Mary's child,
the fruit of her womb, not Elizabeth's.
699
00:56:13,255 --> 00:56:16,930
When Elizabeth died in 1603,
700
00:56:17,095 --> 00:56:20,690
nearly half a century
after that day under the oak,
701
00:56:20,855 --> 00:56:25,246
as gently as an apple falling
from a tree, someone said,
702
00:56:25,415 --> 00:56:28,407
and when her underthings
were taken from her body,
703
00:56:28,575 --> 00:56:32,648
it was seen that they still fitted
the contours of the virgin -
704
00:56:32,815 --> 00:56:37,331
wasp-waisted,
slim-hipped, long-limbed.
705
00:56:37,495 --> 00:56:41,534
It was a body which, according to some,
had not fulfilled the purpose
706
00:56:41,695 --> 00:56:46,086
for which God had fashioned it,
to have joined itself to a husband,
707
00:56:46,255 --> 00:56:52,091
to have grown his seed, to have
given him and the country posterity.
708
00:56:52,255 --> 00:56:54,450
She had done none of this.
709
00:56:54,615 --> 00:56:58,210
But no one thought
that she had failed her people.
710
00:56:58,375 --> 00:57:01,447
She had been different, that's all.
711
00:57:05,775 --> 00:57:09,484
When the ring which united
Elizabeth to her country
712
00:57:09,655 --> 00:57:16,333
was removed from her finger, it was
carried 400 miles north to Scotland.
713
00:57:16,495 --> 00:57:21,888
Now it would symbolise a new
marriage, one between two nations.
714
00:57:23,735 --> 00:57:27,887
Elizabeth and Mary Stuart
never met.
715
00:57:28,055 --> 00:57:32,333
It took James I to bring
the two women together at last,
716
00:57:32,495 --> 00:57:36,204
closer in death
than they'd ever been in life.
717
00:57:36,855 --> 00:57:41,724
There was an old, wonderful joke
doing the rounds in the 1560s,
718
00:57:41,895 --> 00:57:44,455
that all their problems
would be solved
719
00:57:44,615 --> 00:57:48,130
if only Mary and Elizabeth
could marry each other.
720
00:57:48,295 --> 00:57:50,729
In one sense they had.
721
00:57:50,815 --> 00:57:54,933
For at least, together, at a terrible price
and with so much pain,
722
00:57:55,015 --> 00:57:57,210
they had had a baby.
723
00:57:57,295 --> 00:58:03,291
It was a little thing with a big name,
Magna Britannia - Great Britain.