Original subtitles

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'It is 1559.

'England has a newly-crowned queen.

'Elizabeth has overcome extraordinary obstacles to gain the crown.

'But her struggle isn't over.

'There's one thing about her that will lead to scandal...

'that will compromise her power...

'threaten her security...

'and demand a terrible personal sacrifice.

'She is a woman.

'Elizabeth inherited a part

'that was traditionally played by two people -

'king and queen, male and female.'

A king was supposed to be strong-willed and assertive,

a decisive leader in war and peace.

The queen, on the other hand, embodied softer, more feminine virtues.

She was to be pious, merciful and charitable

but above all, she was a royal breeding machine.

It was her duty to get pregnant early and often.

So for Elizabeth to succeed

she'd to do something extraordinary, unnatural even -

she'd to be a royal hermaphrodite.

To rule like a man and a king

and to bear children like a queen and a woman.

'Elizabeth would have to fight to survive

'and in a man's world she would need men to help her do it.

'Her first task as queen was to establish her own court.

'Her council, who would be in charge of the everyday running of the country

'and her household staff who would look after her'.

'The old regime was Catholic, the new was largely Protestant,

'though a few favoured Catholics survived.

'Some councillors were old hands who had served under her father

'but the top job went to a younger man,

'William Cecil, who became her secretary of state.

'He was 38, serious, brilliant with an instinctive grasp of politics

'and a fierce loyalty to the Queen.

'In a flamboyant age, he dressed in black and he rode a mule

'because it was modest and good for his gout.

'There were also surprises in the new household.

'As Master of the Horse, the man responsible for the Queen's safety,

'Elizabeth appointed the son of a traitor duke.

'Robert Dudley's father had been executed for his treachery

'and the family remained tainted by the crime.

'Known disparagingly as "the Gypsy"

'because of his dark looks charm and cunning,

'Dudley's appointment raised more than a few eyebrows at court.

'Elizabeth and Dudley were the same age and had known each other in childhood.'

They may also have met in less happy circumstances

here in the Tower where they were both imprisoned early in Mary's reign.

Elizabeth was in fear of death.

Dudley had already seen his father, his brother

and his sister-in-law executed

and he was under sentence of death himself.

It was this common experience of imprisonment and imminent death

that lay at the basis of that unbreakable, instinctive bond of sympathy

that joined the Queen and her favourite.

'Elizabeth's choice of Cecil was about politics and duty.

'Her choice of Dudley was about pleasure and desire.

'Elizabeth had inherited from her sister Mary a nation that was bankrupt,

'militarily weak and hemmed in by enemies.

'In the parlance of the time, the country was a bone between two dogs -

'France and Spain.

'England needed friends.

'The obvious way to achieve it was an alliance through marriage.

'The Queen must marry...

'and soon.

'Parliament petitioned the Queen

'asking her to pledge herself to a suitable international marriage.

'Three days later, she gave her response.'

Now that the public care of governing the kingdom is laid upon me,

to draw upon me also the cares of marriage

may seem a point of inconsiderate folly.

Yea, to satisfy you,

I have already joined myself in marriage to an husband,

namely the Kingdom of England.

And for me it shall be a full satisfaction.

If, when I shall let my last breath,

it may be engraven upon my marble tomb,

"Here lieth Elizabeth

"which reigned a virgin

"and died a virgin."

(Starkey) 'But the Queen wasn't behaving like a virgin,

'as the Spanish ambassador insinuatingly observed.'

(Reader) "During the last few days,

"Lord Robert has come so much into favour

"that he does whatever he likes with affairs.

"It is even said that Her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night."

(Starkey) 'By the end of April, the ambassador reported

'that the Queen was in love with Robert and wouldn't let him leave her side.

'But the Queen's closeness to Dudley disturbed her courtiers.

'As a colleague, they could put up with him.

'As a potential king, he was intolerable.'

(Woman) I think William was very worried about Dudley.

He saw him as a huge threat

both to national prosperity, if he married the Queen

and also to his position at court.

He was the one man that he was fussed about.

'And I suspect there was a certain amount of jealousy.

'He adored the Queen and there was this guy he considered to be lightweight

'coming between him and her.

'He certainly did not want them to get married.'

(Starkey) 'Cecil stepped up the pressure

'for the Queen to marry a European prince.

'There was no shortage of candidates.'

King Philip?

'King Philip of Spain, Catholic and widower of Elizabeth's sister Mary.'

Charles IX?

He is 16!

'Charles IX of France Catholic and a mere sickly boy.'

Charles of Austria?

'The Archduke Charles, the most promising candidate but still a Catholic.'

Erik of Sweden?

No...my Lord.

'Elizabeth was playing hard to get

'for reasons that were political as well as personal.

'She'd seen the problems

'created by her sister's disastrous marriage to Philip of Spain

'and she was determined to avoid them.'

But actually, that was easier said than done.

If she married a foreigner,

how could England avoid the disastrous foreign entanglements

which had led to the loss of Calais?

And if she married a Catholic, and almost all her suitors were Catholics

how would Protestant England cope with a Catholic king?

And finally, and above all,

how could she be happy if she married a man that she'd never seen?

Sometimes she must have reflected it was safer to follow her own inclination

and not marry at all.

(# Choral anthem)

'Elizabeth faced her second major challenge.

'She was a Protestant queen in a country that was still officially Catholic.

'Her sister had stamped Catholicism on England with extraordinary violence,

'burning at the stake over 300 Protestant men, women and children.

'Elizabeth had finally got Parliament

'to agree to restore Protestantism in England.

'Mary's Catholic bishops had fought her all the way

'and when they were ordered to swear an oath

'accepting the Queen as head of the new Church

'all but one of them refused.

'Her response was swift.

'On 20th May 1560 Thomas Watson, Bishop of Lincoln,

'was sent to the Tower.

'In the following weeks, many more bishops were arrested as well.'

As well as the ex-bishops,

the surviving Catholic members of Mary's council were also arrested.

But Elizabeth, unlike her sister Mary, didn't try to force them to convert.

It wasn't her business, she said to make windows into men's souls.

Elizabeth was subtler.

She insisted only on outward conformity.

'They had to acknowledge her supremacy

'and they were allowed to celebrate Mass only privately.

'The result deprived Catholicism of the publicity of martyrdom.

'Instead, it reduced it to something furtive,

'to be allowed, Elizabeth hoped, slowly to wither away.

'Whilst Catholicism was forced underground,

'England's new religion was given a bold public face.'

This is the rood screen.

Rood means cross

and originally an image of Christ hanging on the cross

stood in the centre of the screen

with the Virgin Mary on one side and St John on the other.

Under Elizabeth these images were torn' down

because they were seen as being idolatrous.

They were replaced with this painted, gigantic version of the royal arms.

Queen Elizabeth, the arms say, is God's direct representative here on earth.

Church and state are one.

'And when the congregation knelt to pray,

'they worshipped not only God but also the English nation

'as embodied in its Virgin Queen.

'But the Virgin Queen's relationship with Robert Dudley

'was by now a national scandal.

'Both court and public were appalled at his arrogance,

'offended by his brashness and suspicious of his motives.

'And there was another thing.

'He was married.

'Dudley's wife, Amy Robsart, was rumoured to be very ill.

'Gossip claimed that Dudley was simply waiting for her to die

'so that he could marry the Queen.

'Cecil was close to despair

'and confided in the Spanish ambassador.'

(Reader) "I met Cecil who said that the Queen was going on so strangely

"that he was about to withdraw from her service.

"He perceived the most manifest ruin impending over the Queen

"through her intimacy with Lord Robert.

"He had made himself master of the business of state

"and of the person of the Queen

"to the extreme injury of the realm,

"with the intention of marrying her.

"Last of all, he said there was a conspiracy to kill Lord Robert's wife."

It is late on the afternoon

of 8th September 1560 at Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire

the home of Lord Robert Dudley, the Queen's favourite

and Amy Robsart, his wife of five years' standing.

The house is unusually quiet

because the servants have been given the day off to attend a local fair.

When they return,

they find Lady Dudley's body at the foot of the staircase

dead and with her neck broken.

'Dudley's first reaction? Fear for his reputation.

'He was right to fear.

'A major scandal erupts at court -

'Queen's favourite murders wife to clear way to Queen's bed.

'Elizabeth, fearful for her reputation -

'she couldn't allow the scandal to besmirch her.

'Reluctantly, she banishes Dudley from court.

'The inquest exonerated Dudley by returning a verdict of accidental death.

'But his enemies were confident that his reputation was beyond repair,

'that he would never recover his all too intimate relationship with the Queen.

'It is October 1562.

'Queen Elizabeth has lain unconscious in a coma for the last 24 hours.

'Her physicians have diagnosed smallpox

'and she's not expected to live.

'In a nearby room, the Privy Council is in crisis.

'It is three years into the reign

'but Elizabeth has neither married nor named a successor.

'If she dies, there will be a constitutional crisis

'possibly a civil war.

'And a new threat was waiting in the wings.

On 19th August 1561

a tall, striking-looking woman stepped ashore at Leith, near Edinburgh.

It was Mary, Queen of Scots returning to her kingdom.

There was a thick sea mist that morning.

Some later saw this as an evil omen

of the sorrow the darkness and the impiety

which Mary's return was to bring to Scotland.

'The 18-year-old Queen of Scots had been brought up in France

'and she'd not seen Scotland for 13 years.

'But even when she was back in Scotland

'her sights were set on another, greater kingdom -

'England.

'The Catholic Mary was Elizabeth's cousin

'and had a very strong claim to the English throne.

'She posed a double threat to Elizabeth.

'Protestantism was only recently established and still vulnerable

'and with Elizabeth unmarried childless and in poor health,

'the succession was dangerously open.

'But Elizabeth recovered and for the moment the crisis was over.

'Her first words on regaining consciousness

'were to command her council to appoint a Lord Protector

'in the event of her death.

'His salary, she specified, would be a staggering �20,000,

'more than was spent on the coronation.

'The man she named was Robert Dudley.

'The scandal of his wife's death had died away

'and Dudley's reputation had recovered.

'Now he was back in favour in spectacular style.'

Only three months after her illness Elizabeth faced a fresh ordeal.

Parliament had been summoned for January 1563

and everybody knew that a reluctant queen

would be forced once more to confront the issue of the succession.

The Parliament was opened with a sermon

preached in Westminster Abbey

by Alexander Nowell, the Dean of St Paul's.

And Nowell put into words what most people only dared think.

(Man) "All the Queen's most noble ancestors

"have commonly had some issue to succeed them.

"But Her Majesty yet none.

"The want of your marriage and issue is likely to prove a plague.

"If your parents had been of your mind, where had you been then?

"Alack, what shall become of us?"

I reckon that's pretty straight talking.

It was a very small part of the sermon

but this was almost before a state opening of Parliament.

Now I don't know if Dean Nowell had been put up to it

by Elizabeth's political advisors

or whether he was just speaking for himself

but I do think he was taking a bit of a risk.

Nowell would not have been the first churchman to be sent to the Tower.

He'd had a run-in at St Paul's the year before

when he'd given her a prayer book with pictures of saints

and she took exception to this.

This was a kind of idolatry that she'd forbidden.

So, he was playing with fire a bit but, clearly,

he was prepared to nail his colours to this particular mast.

(Starkey) 'Nowell's tough words set the tone for Parliament.

'But again, the Queen hedged and obfuscated.

'For her, marriage was simply not on the cards.

'Mary, though, showed no such reluctance

'and was entertaining the suits of several European Catholics.

'An alliance between Scotland and one of England's enemies

'could spell disaster.

'So Elizabeth requested diplomatic talks with the Scots.

'For nine days she entertained Mary's ambassador, Sir James Melville.'

(Melville) "She desired to know whether my queen's hair or hers was best

"and which of the two was fairest.

"I said she was the fairest queen in England

"and mine the fairest queen in Scotland.

"She inquired which of them was of highest stature.

"I said, 'My queen.' "'Then she is too high,' sayeth she,

"'for I, myself, am neither too high nor too low.'"

(Starkey) 'There was a final round in this game of diplomacy.

'Elizabeth offered an English candidate for the hand of the Queen of Scots -

'Lord Robert Dudley.'

(Melville) "Her Majesty called him her brother and best friend

"whom she could have married

"had she ever minded to have taken a husband.

"But being determined to end her life in virginity,

"she wished that the Queen her sister might marry him."

(Starkey) 'But did Elizabeth really intend to give the man she'd loved

'to Mary, Queen of Scots?'

Robert Dudley, who should have known, took her intentions seriously enough

to do everything he could to scupper the scheme.

But there was a lot to be said for it politically.

It would have solved the problem of Dudley.

He wouldn't have become king of England

but he would have become king as consort of Mary.

And it would've solved the problem of Mary.

She'd have been safely married to an Englishman

and away from a foreigner and the alliance

that the English so feared for their northern neighbour.

And it would have solved the problem of the succession -

any children would be recognised as heirs to the English throne.

But the scheme did fail.

Not because of Elizabeth

but because of Mary's contempt for the man that she called

"Elizabeth's horse keeper".

'Mary had her own ideas about love.

'Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley,

'was 18, tall, handsome and a fine lute player.

'Mary described him as the lustiest and best proportioned long lad

'she had ever seen.

'When he fell ill, she nursed him.

'They fell in love.

'It was a whirlwind romance

'and four months later, in the Chapel Royal at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh,

'they were married.'

(Bells tolling)

'The effect on Elizabeth was dramatic.

'Within a few days, it was reported that she and Robert

'had become inseparable again.

'If the young Queen of Scots could marry for love,

'why couldn't England's queen do the same?

'But the return of the rumour of marriage brought new and fierce resistance.

'The Duke of Norfolk the most powerful noble in the land,

'was the Queen's closet male relative

'and was bitterly opposed to the prospective match.

'Norfolk had always resented the rise to power of the upstart Dudley.

'A resentment intensified by his own failure to gain high office.

'He became the focus of the anti-Dudley camp.

'Their rivalry split the court.

'Dudley's side took to wearing purple ribbons...

'and Norfolk's, yellow.

'The two factions roamed the corridors of power, armed and angry.

'The Queen intervened to slap both sides down.

'When Dudley objected to the Queen's flirtation with a young, pretty courtier,

'she lashed him with her tongue loud enough for the whole court to hear.'

"I will have here but one mistress and no master."

(Starkey) 'Norfolk, too, found himself in disgrace.

'At a Privy Council meeting,

'he raised the matter of marriage and the succession.

'She flew into a rage, calling him a traitor

'and adding that she would not name a successor

'as she had no wish to be "buried alive".

'For good measure, she also threatened to have the Duke arrested.

'But her tough words could not resolve the tensions at court.

'Behind the bickering lay the real problem - the succession.

'Until Elizabeth married and produced an heir,

'the crisis would never go away.

'While Elizabeth fought to hold the men of her court together,

'Mary enjoyed a female triumph.

'On 19th June 1566 in a tiny room in the castle at Edinburgh,

'Mary fulfilled her duty as a woman and as a queen.

'She had a child.'

Her labour was long and hard

but the baby was healthy and it was a boy.

They christened him James.

Scotland now had an heir and Mary, Queen of Scots a son.

When the English ambassador saw the baby a few days later

he reported that he was likely to prove a goodly prince.

'The news was far from goodly for Elizabeth.

(Man) "She burst out to some of her ladies

"that the Queen of Scots was mother of a fair son

"while she was but of barren stock."

(Starkey) 'But Mary's triumph did not last.

'The initial euphoria of marriage had faded

'as Darnley's true nature emerged.

'He was violent, an arrogant drunk,

'a lout with all the makings of a psychopath.

'Darnley had become insanely jealous of David Rizzio,

'Mary's Italian secretary,

'whom he suspected of having an affair with the Queen.'

A group of Protestant Scottish lords also hated Rizzio

because he was a Catholic and the Queen's favourite.

So the two groups of Rizzio's enemies came together

and signed a contract to murder him.

On the night of 9th March 1566

the conspirators burst in here, the Queen's smallest chamber

where they found Rizzio having a t�te-�-t�te with the Queen.

He was dragged outside and stabbed 57 times.

The conspirators thoughtfully left Darnley's dagger

sticking in Rizzio's belly.

'Less than a year later, Darnley himself was dead.

'The house where he was staying was blown up.

'Darnley was found strangled in the orchard.'

Everything suggested that the man responsible for the crime

was James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell,

who was one of Mary's leading supporters.

Still worse, the finger of suspicion also pointed at Mary herself.

'And, as Elizabeth told her bluntly,

'her behaviour was making a bad situation worse.'

"Madam, my ears have been so astounded

"and my heart so frightened

"to hear of the horrible murder of your former husband, our mutual cousin,

"that I have scarcely spirit to write.

"Yet I cannot conceal that I grieve more for you than for him."

(Starkey) 'But there was still worse to come.

'Mary was abducted, taken by force to Dunbar and raped.

'The perpetrator was James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell.

'Two weeks later, they were married.'

"Madam, how could a worse choice be made for your honour

"than in such haste to marry a subject who, besides other notorious lacks

"public fame has charged with the murder of your late husband?"

(Starkey) 'Within a few weeks, Mary paid a terrible price for her folly.

'A large party of the Scottish nobility

rose up in arms against their scandalous queen.

'The two sides joined in battle

'but Mary's troops melted away without striking a blow.

'Even her husband Bothwell negotiated a safe conduct for himself

'from the field of battle.

'Mary was defeated and abandoned.

'Mary was brought as a prisoner here,

'to the island fortress of Lochleven where she miscarried of twins.'

Then, broken in body and mind, under the immediate threat of physical force,

she was compelled to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James.

She was never to see him again.

'Mary had married unwisely, for love and for lust

'and as a consequence she had lost her crown, her son and her liberty.

'Perhaps after all there was wisdom in living and ruling alone.'

(Elizabeth) "To be led from the place of arraignment to the Tower of London

"and thence to the gallows at Tyburn.

"And there to be hanged and being half-dead

"to be cut down and the bowels to be taken out of the belly

"and thrown into the fire.

"And the head to be cut off

"and the body to be divided into four parts

"and the head and four quarters to be set up and disposed at our pleasure.

"Which manner of execution is due to every person

"that committeth treason.

"Given under our signet at our palace of Westminster,

"Elizabeth R."

'For the Tudors treason was the worst of crimes

'which deserved the worst of punishments.'

Elizabeth had personal experience of its terrors

because she'd been imprisoned in the Tower on charges of treason herself.

When she became queen she hoped that the moderation of her rule

would make treason and its terrible penalties a forgotten memory.

But a decade after her accession these hopes were fading.

Catholicism hadn't withered away as she'd hoped.

The nobility were no longer content simply with honour and dignity.

Instead, some of them wanted real power

which Elizabeth was reluctant to give them.

And above all there were the unsolved questions

of the succession and her marriage.

It was a combustible mixture that needed only a spark to set it alight.

'In May 1568 Mary escaped from her island prison.

'Thousands of troops flocked to join her standard.

'But once again she was defeated in battle.

'This time the defeat was final.

'She escaped from the field of battle but she was now alone and desperate.

'She fled to the only place

'that might offer her safety, protection and even support -

'England.

'Elizabeth dispatched one of her councillors to Carlisle

'to convey Mary to a place of refuge and to treat her with all honour

'as befitted her status as a queen.

'In reality, she was a prisoner.

'Mary's arrival in England was a disaster for Elizabeth.

'Until now, the Queen had kept Catholicism under control.

'But Mary gave English Catholics, especially those in the north,

'a figurehead round whom they could rally and even rebel.

'The north of England had been the scene

'of the biggest rebellion against Henry VIII.

'Now insurrection was brewing again.

'The population had remained largely Catholic

'and felt little loyalty to the Protestant Queen far away in London.

'The northern earls were Catholic too.

'They had been prepared to put up with Elizabeth

'providing she left them alone.

'But slowly, the government was nibbling away at their independence.

'The earls looked to Norfolk for leadership.

'Norfolk was not a natural rebel

'but he too was aggrieved and disaffected - ripe for rebellion.'

In June 1568 Mary's envoy approached the Duke of Norfolk

with an extraordinary suggestion.

He proposed the Duke should marry Mary, Queen of Scots

and retake Scotland.

Norfolk would then exchange a ducal coronet

for the Royal Crown of Scotland

whilst their children would be the natural heirs of England also.

Attractive but dangerous.

Norfolk had in his pocket a commission from Elizabeth

which said that anybody marrying Mary would be adjudged a traitor.

And Norfolk himself was convinced of Mary's guilt

as a murderer and an adulterer.

But ambition brings strange bedfellows.

'Rumours of this dangerous conversation reached Elizabeth

'and she summoned Norfolk to court.

'But her cousin denied the charge.

'She gave him two more chances to come clean.

'Twice more came denial.

'His denials roused her suspicions.

'This was more than just a covert marriage plan,

'it was a plot to overthrow her.

'Norfolk suddenly left the Queen's summer progress

'and returned here to the Charrterhouse his London residence.'

He agreed to join in a plot

hatched by the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland.

The earls would raise the north liberate Mary, Queen of Scots

and bring about her marriage to Norfolk.

All the north, Northumberland boasted would rebel at his command.

'Thomas Percy, the Earl of Northumberland

'had his own reasons for rebellion.

'It was partly about religion - the Percys had remained staunchly Catholic -

'but at heart it was about power.

'Northumberland thought he had a right to share in power.

'Elizabeth was prepared to share power with no one.'

Thomas was really driven to rebellion by Elizabeth

and Cecil in particular.

Cecil didn't like the power of the Percys in the north.

The fact that they were Catholic as well -

and a lot of the people in this area were Catholic -

meant that there was a power base in the north,

close to Scotland close to Mary, Queen of Scots

that presented a serious problem to the crown.

Thomas could have had an easy life.

He was wealthy enough to maintain his life

he loved country pursuits,

he had a wonderful wife he had four beautiful children.

He risked everything, basically.

(Starkey) 'But the risk was too much for Norfolk.

'He wrote to Northumberland begging him to cancel the rising.

'But it was too late.

'Midnight on November 9th 1569.

'Churches all over the north rang their bells backwards.

'It was a signal for the rebellion to begin.'

On 10th November the rebel earls entered Durham

and broke open the doors of this great cathedral.

And here they performed an act of calculated defiance -

they tore up and burned the Protestant bibles and prayer books,

the symbols of the new religion.

And they celebrated the central mystery of the old

by attending a Catholic Mass.

They had crosses on their armour and they carried the badge and the banner

of the five wounds of Christ.

It looked like a holy war, a crusade.

'The loss of Durham was a catastrophe.

'The city was a fortress to stop an invasion from Scotland.

'Now it had fallen to the rebels and could be turned against the Queen.

'Elizabeth was paying a heavy price for her mishandling of the northern earls.

'By bullying them, like her father at his worst

'she had pushed them over the edge.

'Their goal was obvious - to rescue Mary from captivity.

'Mary was imprisoned at Tutbury in Staffordshire.

'If they managed to reach her, they would hold not only half of England,

'they would have an alternative queen.

'Elizabeth acted decisively.

'She had her cousin moved further south to Coventry,

'well inside the Protestant heartland and beyond the rebels' reach.

'She also ordered the rapid deployment of an armed force to the north

'to intercept the marauders.

'The rebel earls had advanced south confidently,

'expecting that other noblemen would join them.'

So when they heard that the southern lords were marching against them

with royal troops in overwhelming numbers, they were taken off guard.

They decided to retreat to fight on their own territory.

But the retreat knocked the stuffing out of the rebellion

their troops melted away and the earls fled towards Scotland.

Elizabeth was exultant.

By behaving like her father she'd helped to provoke the rebellion.

Now she actually outdid him

in the savagery with which she punished the rebels.

"Spare no offenders. We are in nothing moved to spare them.

"The bodies to remain till they fall to pieces where they hang."

(Starkey) '700 men were put to death, including the Earl of Northumberland.

'No village was without at least one execution.

'Lands were seized

'and distributed amongst Elizabeth's Protestant supporters.

'The north of England would never be the same again.

'Norfolk was arrested

'but there wasn't enough evidence to execute him for treason.

'But, whilst under house arrest he became involved in a new plot

'masterminded by the Italian banker Ridolfi.

'The conspirators were careless.

'English spies captured incriminating letters

'and the plotters were rounded up.

'It was more than enough to seal Norfolk's fate.

'But the Queen could not bring herself to execute England's only duke,

'her closet male relative.

'Three times she signed, the execution warrant

'three times she called it back and destroyed it.

'For five months she procrastinated.

'She was staving off the inevitable.'

(Elizabeth) "Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,

"late of Kenninghall in the county of Norfolk...

(Voices overlapping)

"...led to the Tower of London and his head to be cut off...

"..and his body to be divided into four parts...

"..his head and four quarters to be set up and disposed...

"..and his head to be cut off...

"which manner of execution is due to every person

"that committeth treason.

"Yet we, being moved to pity of our Grace,

"are pleased to change such manner of execution.

"To cause only that his head be smitten from his body

"at the Tower Hill the accustomed place of execution.

"Given under our signet at our palace of Westminster,

"the thirteenth year of our reign, Elizabeth R."

(Starkey) 'On the morning of 2nd June 1572

'Norfolk was led to the scaffold.'

Fastidious to the last

he rearranged the straw, knelt down, stretched out his neck

and then as the crowd murmured

"Lord Jesu have mercy on thy soul,"

the executioner cut off his head with a single stroke.

'Elizabeth had reigned for 14 years.

'She had beaten off rebellion

'she had resisted the pressure to marry

'and she had survived alone.

'But Mary and religion had divided her country

'and her Catholic enemies abroad were marshalling their forces.

'Elizabeth and her Protestant people would be plunged into war.'

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