Original subtitles

good afternoon I'm John Andrews

executive director of the Washington

branch of the English speaking union and

on behalf of everyone associated with

our organization I'd like to welcome you

to a very special occasion today we have

as our speaker a wonderful biographer in

fact she has been described by The

Sunday Times of London as one of

Britain's finest biographers and she is

going to be with us today to talk about

a new book called Elizabeth and Mary

it's a book about Queen Elizabeth the

first of England and Mary Queen of Scots

and it's it's a book whose narrative

flow is quite remarkable I was talking

with Jim Dunn a few minutes ago and was

suggesting to her that this really ought

to be a major motion picture so let's

let's hope that that merchants and ivory

are paying close attention before we

begin I wanted to say just a few words

of thanks first of all to our friends at

Alfred a Knopf and Random House for

making this occasion possible

they are the publishers for the us of

this wonderful new book and our friends

at Olsen's books and records who are

handling the book sales here in

Washington our friends at the Women's

National Democratic Club who are making

this facility this beautiful Club

available for us Jane Dunn is the author

not only of Elizabeth and Mary but of

several other biographies

she's probably best known for a book

about Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell

she is also the biographer of Mary

Shelley and of Antonio white she is

coming to us today or

she has come to us today from her home

in bath one of the most beautiful

settings in a beautiful country and we

are absolutely delighted that she has

made time out of her busy schedule to

share with us some thoughts about two of

the most fascinating women in British

history Jane well thank you John that's

a terrific home lead-up and it's always

enormous ly good fun for me to come to

America and I particularly love coming

in election year and there's so there's

so much I'd like to be asking you

actually about the cyclical battle for

power that you're now engaged in but I

have to talk to you instead about a

different struggle for power between as

John has as John has explained Elizabeth

the first of England and Mary Queen of

Scotland this is a fascinating story on

many levels it most simply it's the

story of the greatest rivalry one of the

compelling tragedies of our history and

for many of you with your English Irish

and Scottish ancestors it's your history

as much as mine but my book Elizabeth

and Mary is also about two very

different types of woman with opposing

attitudes towards queenship and their

own place in the world it's a contrast

in stars of leadership a contrast in

priorities as a female monarch was one a

queen first or a woman ordained by God

was one detached from the people or

ultimately dependent on their goodwill

the relationship between Elizabeth and

Mary fascinates us even now there are

regular phone poles in Great Britain

about who are the greatest Britons and

she is always in the top ten amongst

Churchill Shakespeare Darwin

whoever Elizabeth is always there and

there's no doubt mrs. Thatcher saw

herself as a modern Elizabeth and she

did she did and her rhetoric is is

slightly more clunking than Elizabeth's

but suddenly the Falklands campaign you

see was her own personal Armada against

the Spanish kept course the Portland's

against the Argentinians but that was

you know as good as the same but so this

relationship of the Queen's has

particular resonance in your election

year for Elizabeth and Mary make us

think about women and power as

autocratic queens they wielded more

power than even your president does of

you over the United States yet in the

running for president here and now in

this great democracy this land

opportunity and aspiration

where are your women this to an outsider

is such an interesting question because

we see American women as being the most

modern of women smashing through all

sorts of glass ceilings in industry and

business and the media but it seems the

top job is still closed and it makes me

wonder whether women aspiring to

ultimate power even 450 years later

whether they still have similar

prejudices to overcome as Elizabeth and

Mary had and do they have almost as much

to overcome in themselves to to really

believe that a woman is worthy to

compete for the ultimate prize without

conforming every aspect of herself to

the conventional hierarchies of power

let's see how Elizabeth the first and

Mary Queen of Scots fared with their

ambitions the story of the

interconnected lives is so full of drama

it would be unbelievable as fiction it

becomes a tragedy when both queens

threaten each other's lives and one ends

up

executing the other but it is this very

drama that has made these complex women

into caricature queens carrying the

passions and prejudices of centuries

Elizabeth as the cold calculating

Protestant virgin and and Mary as

anything from a sexy dimwit to a

murderess or a Catholic martyr but of

course they are much more complex and

interesting than that in the book I have

taken 1558 to be the pivotal year for

both these queens the point from which

their ambitions for their lives were

defined 1558 was the year mary 815

already Queen of Scotland married her

French prince the sickly boy who became

francis ii of france by becoming

fleetingly queen of france she fulfilled

all her family's highest ambitions and

set her course as a woman whose destiny

was linked to whom she married she was

young and she had conformed to what was

automatically expected of any young

princess that she make a dynastic

marriage and produced at least one son

and heir 15:58 was also the year when

Elizabeth aged 25

fulfilled her own personal ambitions and

succeeded at last to her father's throne

after a long and dangerous

apprenticeship she became what she had

always wanted to be queen of England but

from the start she had little interest

in fulfilling the next part of her

dynastic duty which was to marry a

prince and assure the succession she

considered herself instead to have

wedded her people in one of her first

speeches to Parliament she stretched out

her hand with a coronation ring upon her

married her marriage finger and she said

when I received this ring I solemnly

bound myself in marriage to the realm

and it will be quite sufficient for the

memorial of my name and my glory if

when I die an inscription be engraved

upon a marble tomb saying here lieth

Elizabeth which reigned a virgin and

died a virgin this was a revolutionary

decision all her schooling and she was a

very learned young woman pointed to the

intellectual and spiritual inferiority

of women the great classical authors she

and Mary both read and the biblical

texts which were the bedrock of her

Renaissance education asserted time and

again that it was unnatural dangerous

even to elevate women over men to give

them power was to court disaster if

through some misfortune a state should

end up with a female monarch as its head

at its head she must marry promptly and

acquire the necessary masculine hand on

the tiller of the great ship of state

and then of course everyone could relax

because it was in masculine hands again

despite all her Minister's efforts to

get her to marry the statement often

reiterated by Elizabeth that she was

disinclined to do so and instead had

made her contract with her Kingdom was

one of the great secrets of her success

she never underestimated the importance

of her popular following and she courted

it throughout her life she believed her

people loved her and in return she made

them believe that she loved them too by

remaining unmarried of course she risked

a messy succession she risked civil war

they feared should she unexpectedly die

but she never diluted the emotional

connection with her subjects she claimed

what were considered the masculine

virtues of courage and intellect while

casting herself in the female role of

mother and wife to her people

there are many eyewitness accounts of

her first entry into London as Queen and

they show this remarkable common touch

in a

one of them reads all her faculties were

in motion and every motion seemed a well

guided action her I was set upon one

person her ear listened to another her

judgment ran upon 1/3 to 1/4 she

addressed her speech her spirit seemed

to be everywhere and yet so entire in

herself as it seemed to be nowhere else

I think this shows that extraordinary

combination she had of absolute majesty

because here was an autocratic queen who

knew how to dress the part she dressed

to the nines she was extraordinarily

dramatic to see and yet in the and her

grandest processions her people would be

shouting out to her sometimes rippled

jokes Elizabeth had a very salty turn of

phrase and she would shout back in a way

that even our modern monarchy

today would absolutely never have that

sort of casualness and in carmalit ii

she was also very short-sighted and i

like to think if any of you have seen

someone you care for and short-sighted

how close they have to hold something

they're not wearing their glasses

there's a realtor poignancy and

tenderness about it and Elizabeth would

wheel her horse in the middle of these

grand processions if she was on

horseback she'd with her horse or if

she's in her carriage she had order her

her carriage driver over to somebody who

was holding out a little bunch of herbs

or a plea of books clemency or whatever

and she'd get really really close and so

I think for those people who saw this in

action this wonderful mixture of majesty

and intimacy you never forgot it it was

a very compelling combination

15:58 also saw the beginning of the

deadly rivalry between Elizabeth and

Mary a rivalry which would overtake them

both with the inexorable force of Greek

tragedy on Elizabeth's accession to the

throne

Mary's father-in-law henry ii of france

claimed the english and

Irish crowns as Mary's rightful

inheritance this was a direct challenge

to Elizabeth already insecure about her

own legitimacy for the Catholic powers

did not recognize Henry the eighth's

break with Rome his divorce from his

first Queen Catherine of Aragon and his

subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn they

considered an to have been merely the

Kings whore and Elizabeth his bastard

child

they didn't mince matters in those days

Mary Queen of Scots on the other hand

could claim an unquestionable legitimacy

she was a great granddaughter of Henry

the seventh founder of the Tudor dynasty

this rival claimed to Elizabeth's throne

made concrete by her father-in-law and

continually asserted by Mary herself

right to her death propelled the tragedy

of their story the relationship between

these Queens was the most important of

their lives it was one relationship they

did not choose and could not escape even

in death it affected them politically

and personally blood cousins their

solidarity as rare female modern

monarchs was undermined by their rivalry

for the same throne and yet they never

met this was at the dramatic heart of

their story for a rival you never meet

grows in the imagination fueled by your

fantasies and fears and fed by the

stories of others in this way a rival

can become superhuman inhuman even and

therefore easier to kill by discussing

Elizabeth and Mary in relation to each

other

certain illuminating contrasts and

symmetries in their lives and natures

occur they were continually compared by

their ambassadors and were equally

fascinated themselves by each other

until scandal overtook her Mary was

considered the good tractable queen

while Elizabeth was contrary awkward and

resistant to conventional ideas of

womanly duty but the initiative kept

shifting between them later when

Elizabeth appeared to hold all the best

cards Mary could still play those she

had to devastating effect there is so

much in this book of the dynamic between

them but I can only give you two very

sketchy examples I'm afraid in the time

we have a great fundamental difference

between the queens was in the

experiences of childhood and early

adulthood and how this affected their

view of duty and personal happiness Mary

became this Queen of Scotland in 1542

when she was only six days old she never

knew any other condition and aware

always of her preeminence she was proud

of her status as Queen but sadly and

taking it for granted

she never truly valued what she had nor

realized it could be taken from her at

the age of six she was sent to France to

be brought up as a French princess at

the center of the richest and most

glamorous Court in Europe she was it's

beautiful cosseted star intelligent full

of energy and vivacity Mary could have

been educated to be the ruler she was

born to be but instead she was schooled

to be merely the charming accomplished

consort of a French king her Scottish

inheritance was barely valued beyond as

possible usefulness in providing the

back door for a French invasion of

England her early life and her brief

year as Queen of France was more about

pleasure and flattery courtly

accomplishments and grand expenditure

than statecraft

and self-discipline this lack of hard

experience was too fatally undermine her

when in 1561 she did return to Scotland

as a widow to rule her own people at

most inexperienced she was still only 18

we forget how young these people are and

in thrall to her powerful Nobles she

lacked the necessary authority and the

tools to assert her will she expected to

be loved and relied and had relied so

far on her extraordinary mixture of

beauty and charismatic charm to get her

what she needed she learnt too late the

lessons of kingship Elizabeth on the

other hand was neglected rather than

spoiled in a review in England Sirois

strong points out that Elizabeth is the

sort of Cinderella figure compared to

Mary's pampered princess in all this

Elizabeth had to endure great reversals

of fortune in her youth disinherited by

her father that's the old monster Henry

the eighth's of course and then

reinstated as one of his heirs again

before he died but even at the best of

times as a child she was only ever third

in line to the throne becoming Queen was

never a certainty during the white

rebellion in 1554 when Elizabeth was

only twenty years old she was imprisoned

in the terrifying Tower of London by her

sister this is Bloody Mary Mary the

first and under threat of death she had

learned very early how best to conduct

herself how much her fate was in her own

hands how unpredictable was life and

monarchy how much the support of the

people mattered isolated and disregarded

as a girl she decided that watchfulness

and equivocation was safer than

spontaneity and reckless action despite

the differences in their childhood

experiences both Elizabeth and Mary

Queen of Scots had remarkable mothers

who for different reasons were lost to

them history anyway is not good at

giving credit to the women to the

mothers an Berlin was an intellectual

woman

who had radical Protestant sympathies

she was courageous and spirited but she

was executed when Elizabeth was not yet

three and so was never known to her

daughter it is also dangerous but it was

also dangerous religious to be allied in

any way with a mother who'd been accused

of treason incest and witchcraft so

memory even was denied her in public it

was to her father's memory that

Elizabeth allied herself compared

herself and yet in private she showed

protectiveness towards her mother's name

and loyalty to her Berlin family there

exists a ring where there's a hidden

compartment which has a portrait of

Elizabeth and a portrait of her mother

face to face so it's nice to think that

she honored her mother if only in

private

similarly mary's mother was lost to her

to a French noblewoman Mary of geese was

her daughter's Regent in Scotland and as

an intelligent and redoubtable ruler was

an excellent role model model for her

daughter but sadly Mary and her mother

were separated and never really knew

each other for Mary of geese stayed on

in Scotland to safeguard her daughter's

inheritance and Mary growing up in

France pursued her dynastic destiny

there they only met one more time and

Mary never had a chance to see her

mother's careful rule she knew better

her mother's family in France the geese

her a band of charismatic and powerful

brothers very influential in court and

in Mary's life and in some respects

they're very like the young Kennedys

they were extremely glamorous they were

very tall actually much taller than the

Kennedys and they were perhaps the

Kennedys with knobs on because the

Dukakis was the eldest was a stupendous

military commander that even his enemies

thought was just brilliant and of course

the younger brother was the Cardinal of

Lorraine so they had church and army

tied up in gi's hands but these

glamorous uncle

reinforced her early experiences that

men were the executive force in a world

made for men probably the most

significant contrast between Elizabeth

and Mary came with their differing

responses to the challenge of having a

favorite accused of murder

Elizabeth faced this first only two

years into her reign she was at the

height of her love affair with Lord

Robert Dudley he later became the Earl

of Leicester and was possibly even

toying with the romance of marrying him

his young wife Amy Rob's art was found

dead at the bottom of a very short

flight of stairs her neck was broken

although Lord Robert was nowhere near

the scene of death at the time rumor

immediately implicated him with her

murder

he was already disliked for his

overweening ambition and his obvious

desire to marry the Queen

the scandal gathered so much force it

threatened to taint Elizabeth too

she recognized immediately that she

could not afford any shadow to fall on

her reputation as a popular but insecure

Queen she could not risk alienating her

people she banished Lord Robert to his

country estates she initiated the legal

inquiry which of course exonerated him

and he was quickly back in her favour

but she knew from that moment that her

people and her nobility would not allow

her to marry him even should she wish to

and were not certain that she

necessarily did although he was the love

of her life interestingly Mary faced

exactly the same dilemma but chose a

quite different course from which all

the calamities of her life then flowed

her second husband Lord Donnelly was

murdered in 1567 after her rapid

marriage to him had rapidly turned sour

the man who seemed to dominate her

affections at the time

Earl of Bothwell was also the main

suspect in the Kings murder there was

immediate popular outrage against them

both Elizabeth seemed to be less

exercised as to whether her cousin was

guilty or not of complicity in her

husband's murder but she did care

passionately about Mary's reputation and

by association the fragile reputation of

all Queens

Rickett recognizing the danger of her

cousin situation she she writes the most

urgent sisterly letter of advice and she

writes in French because of course that

was Mary's natural language bind by now

and she didn't want her to miss any

nuance Madame she writes my ears have

been so deafened and my understanding so

grieved and my heart so affrighted to

hear the dreadful news of the abominable

murder of your mad husband and my killed

cousin she's referring of course to Don

Lee who was a cousin both to Elizabeth

and to Mary but it's I think wonderful

that he's you're mad husband and my

killed cousin that I scarcely have the

Wits to write about it I exhort you I

counsel you and I beseech you to take

this thing so much to heart that you

will not fear to touch even him whom you

have nearest to you she means both well

that no persuasion will prevent you from

making an example out of this to the

whole world that you are both a noble

princess and a loyal wife Mary was

outraged she should be so patronized by

this elder cousin and but both of them

knew that the world was watching and I

mean by the world I mean Europe it was

Mary's tragedy that she not only ignored

this good advice but she defiantly

married the man after a show trial had

done nothing more than stoke the fury

against them posters in the streets of

Edinburgh denounced Bothwell as a

murderer and

marry in the guise of a mermaid as his

whore the threat of Civil War her

resultant imprisonment forced abdication

escape and exile all followed from this

folly but throughout her life Mary was

capable of great physical courage and

adventurousness that amazed even her

contemporaries even the tough old Scots

when her blood was up she was game for

any enterprise and was much more

impetuously bellicose than Elizabeth on

more than one occasion she rode with her

men booted and spurred like them some

said in male clothing and with a pistol

tucked into her saddle she was also

recklessly emotional in her judgments

even in her first miserable imprisonment

in the middle of Loch Leven Mary refused

to denounce both well reported as

declaring she will live and die with him

if it were put to her choice she would

leave her Kingdom and dignity to live as

a simple Demoiselle with him and that

she will never consent that he shall

fare worse or have more harm than

herself to a romantic and modern

sensibility this is an admirable

sentiment but to a pragmatist like

Elizabeth who passionately believed that

a queen was elevated to her preeminent

role by God and owed her crown every

care such reckless disregard with for

her position and sacred duty was

contemptible Mary's eventual escape from

Loch Leven brought her to England to

Fleet England instead of to France

was another of her disastrous emotional

decisions it placed both her and

Elizabeth in an impossible situation

there began the last long and dangerous

act of the tragedy of these two queens

Mary's seventeen years of confinement in

various northern castles turned into as

much of a bondage for Elizabeth as it

was for her prisoner

I am NOT free Elizabeth said on one

occasion I am a captive to Mary had

desperately sought refuge and help from

Elizabeth to reclaim her Scottish throne

but Elizabeth could neither forced the

Scottish Lords to take her back as Queen

nor could she allow her to go into exile

in France her claim on Elizabeth's

throne was too powerful to give her

freedom of action in such hostile

territory and yet Elizabeth knew that

there was something oppressive and

illegal in keeping her fellow Queen

prisoner

however duplicitous Elizabeth may be it

mattered to her that she at least it

appeared to be honorable and above all

just Mary's prodigious energies now

became focused on dreams of rescue and

plots for escape she also spent quite a

lot of time doing very aggressive

embroidery if any of you have seen some

of it its emblems which showed Elizabeth

in very bad light either as extremely

crossed

tabby cat playing with a mouse which was

meant to be Mary or a wonderful pillow

that she embroiders for the Duke of

Norfolk when she's hoping he's going to

marry her and spring her to freedom in

one of the many plots where she's got a

vine that has a two branches one is

fruitful and one is barren and she

embroiders this hand with a pruning

sickle cutting off the barren the barren

vine so obviously exhorting Norfolk to

go and do his duty and destroy Elizabeth

and put the fruitful Mary in her place

these plots increasingly involve the

dispatch even the destruction of

Elizabeth and the replacement of the

Protestant Queen with the Catholic Mary

on her English throne mary became the

focus for any discontent at home and for

foreign interests hostile to Elizabeth

abroad as the English Queen's life

seemed increasingly imperiled she was

under mounting pressure begged by her

Lords to do away with this troublesome

prisoner there it's really interesting

there are at least two occasions when

they write that the lords have tears

coursing down the

cheeks as they big Elizabeth to do

something and they obviously concern for

her life and obviously concerned also

for themselves and the state of square

but it makes me think that before the

Victorians got their dread hand on the

English character we were a much more

expressive Bunch than than we're allowed

to be by by legend now but only with

incontrovertible proof could they

persuade Elizabeth to act when Sir

Francis Walsingham set a trap for Mary

she lept into it with both feet in what

became known as the Babington plot the

last great plot of her career

the letters between Mary and a young

Catholic zealot Anthony Babington were

intercepted and deciphered the invasion

of England by Spain the uprising of

disaffected English Catholics their

sassa nation of Elizabeth and

installation of Mary as the next Queen

of England was all part of the lurid

plan that Mary enthusiastically endorsed

while out stag hunting with her jailer

Mary saw a group of horsemen come over

the brow of a distant Hill her heart

lept here were the long-promised

conspirators who would spring her to

freedom at last her despair and fear on

realizing that instead they were

Elizabeth's commissioners come to arrest

her on the capital charge of treason

marked the low point from which she

would arise set on Redemption she was

not to show any real public dismay again

Mary never accepted any responsibility

or knowledge even of the plots against

Elizabeth's throne or life she

maintained her claim that she was

persecuted for her religion alone she

had determined that she would die not as

a conspirator in treason but as a martyr

for her faith she conducted herself

throughout the trial with haughty

composure she and Elizabeth were locked

in a battle for the moral high ground

she defended herself with great

intelligence and assured

and received her sentence of death with

an ecstatic expression a contemporary

described her lifting her hands and eyes

up to heaven and giving God thanks for

it

rejoicing in her heart that she was

taken to be an instrument for the

re-establishing of religion in these

islands this disconcerted and enraged

Elizabeth who was struggling herself

with a terrible responsibility of having

to sign her cousin's death warrant she

feared the morality of it of a queen

killing a fellow Queen even more she

feared the political consequences

England was still an impoverished small

nation surrounded by the much more

powerful and prosperous Catholic powers

of Spain and France

what vengeance would be unleashed by

this act of regicide Elizabeth feared

she might even lose Scotland's precious

neutrality on her vulnerable northern

border to the French ambassador who had

come to plead for clemency

elizabeth burst out with it is

impossible to save my own life if I

preserve that of the Queen of Scots but

if you ambassadors can point out any

means whereby I may do it consistent

with my own security I shall be greatly

obliged to you never having shed so many

tears at the death of my father of my

brother King Edward of my sister Mary as

I have done for this unfortunate affair

the relationship now had its own

momentum that meant that for one Queen

to live the other had to die it was Mary

who went to her death in the dark cold

month of February 1587 she was 44 she

conducted herself with nobility and a

terrific sense of theater by insisting

she was a martyr not a traitor

she not only rescued her reputation from

the wreckage of her life she quickly

entered the realms of sainthood and

mythology as her star shot heaven woods

Elizabeth's plummeted

in guilt and fear the English queen

turned on her immediate ministers and

accused them of having tricked her into

signing the death warrant she blamed

everyone she ranted and railed and

threatened with imprisonment banishment

even death then she slipped into a

melancholic depression Mary's death was

the nadya of Elizabeth's life but it

also became the means by which she rose

phoenix-like

to become our greatest Queen Elizabeth

as Gloriana the catalyst for this

transformation was the long feared

aggression of Spain during the previous

years the Spanish had been deleted

diligently amassing their great Amada

now with Mary's death philip ii was

propelled at last into vengeful action

against England the following summer of

1588 a great Spanish fleet was heading

for the coast intent on invasion an

eyewitness report of the magnificent and

terrifying sight is so eloquent and such

a brilliant example I think of the best

of Elizabethan prose that I thought had

read your tiny bit of it

the Amada consisted of a hundred and

thirty ships and called by the arrogant

name of invincible the galleons with

lofty turrets like castles were spread

out before us in a crescent spreading

for about seven miles they were sailing

very slowly there with full sails the

winds being as it were tired with

carrying them and the ocean groaning

under the weight of them it's such a

brilliant image of those top-heavy

massive boats and the slow progress they

made because they were so heavy

in fact the weather good luck small fast

English ships and cheeky seamanship

managed to disperse this great threat

Elizabeth was asked by Lord Robert

Dudley now the Earl of Leicester to

address the troops who were waiting to

repel any invaders at Tilbury which is

near the mouth of the Thames and of

course the Thames was the great river

that would lead them straight up to

London and the heart of power she wrote

among her men wearing a breastplate of

Steel it was said some said it was gold

perhaps there was no breastplate at all

but that is how they saw their warrior

queen here she gave the greatest speech

of her life and it's one of the most

compelling speeches in English language

in England we grew up with it and I'm

sure many of you know it but it's a

tiniest bit again that I can give you

because of time but it's some it's

rather again rather wonderful

Elizabethan prose my loving people she

began let tyrants fear I have so behaved

myself that under God I have placed my

chieftess strength and safeguard in the

loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects

she is calling in all those years of

loyalty from Queen to people and people

to Queen where for I am come among you

at this time but for my recreation and

pleasure being resolved in the midst and

heat of battle to live and die amongst

you all to lay down for my God and for

my kingdom and for my people mine honor

and my blood even in the dust I know I

have the body of a weak and feeble woman

but I have the heart and stomach of a

king and a king of England too now she

had no speech writers she had no spin

doctors but she was brilliant at

propaganda and her best speeches were

pretty quickly printed and distributed

and it's nice to think that perhaps

Shakespeare who was starting out in his

career might have read one of those

crumpled puts a paper in the dust and

been inspired so the Transfiguration of

both Queens was complete through the

tragedy of her death mary had become the

noble and saintly queen and thereby I

raised the shadows of the murder of her

husband the loss of her son the

discarding of her Kingdom the complicity

in treason against her

Queen and by and by becoming a warrior

Queen Elizabeth managed to cast off the

habit of her two-faced indecision and

the trauma of having killed a fellow

queen through action she had transformed

herself into the great monarch she had

always wanted to be at Elizabeth's own

death in 1603 400 years ago the contrary

ambitions of these two remarkable queens

were united at last with the accession

to Elizabeth's precious throne of Mary's

son James the six of Scotland as James

the first of England he ruled over a

United and Protestant Great Britain

representing both Stuart and Tudor

ideals

Thank You Jane for a truly eloquent

presentation I hope everyone who had the

opportunity to hear these remarks will

now go out and buy the book because this

is just a taste of what the book has to

offer I'm also delighted I was

acknowledging a number of people as we

began the program I forgot to mention

that this program is being shared with

the national audience through c-span I

only wish that the people watching this

program on c-span have the opportunity

as they often do on c-span programs to

call in with their questions

unfortunately that will not be the case

but I'm sure there are plenty of good

questions in the audience we have here

today yes John why France wasn't more

heavily involved in the defense of Mary

it's it's really interesting she

absolutely lost all support in France

over the whole debacle of the Darnley

murder and her lack of judicious action

over both well don't forget also

catherine de medici was then really in

Parmenio son who was it was King but she

she had become at last after all those

years of waiting

she had come into her own and Catherine

was never a fan of Mary's they both the

Spanish and papacy and the and the the

French monarchy had were very shocked by

the whole terrible carrying on in in

Edinburgh during that murder of Don Lee

and running off with Botsford Boswell

episode and it was only Elizabeth

interestingly who supported Mary

Elizabeth was particularly outraged that

a populous could rise up against their

monarch she saw this as outrageous thing

to to to have happen and of course it

threatened her

own insecure position to some extent

because if if people could think that

they could get rid of their their queen

or king then that could happen to her

too

but you're absolutely right it is

surprising that she was very much

abandoned by the Catholic powers at that

time yeah the ultimate legacy in her new

to me the ingrained believe in English

Exceptionalist that is superior in all

faiths and governance to the constant

well when she first came to the throne

England was very impoverished of Henry's

Wars had abroad had been Wars of

aggrandizement where he's trying to sort

of live up to the Magnificent Francis

the first of France who he was a very

very he was almost a twin actually

within age this is part of Elizabeth's

horror of war was seeing just the

depredation of the country and of the

coffers that war involved then of course

there was the absolute sort of Cataclysm

of Edwards extreme Protestantism ed with

the sick who inherited after Henry the

eighth's

and then Mary switching the whole

country around back into very fanatic

Catholicism with philip ii of spain sort

of or the spanish driving that

particular switch

so when Elizabeth's reign started this

was a pretty to moralize little country

but the years she allowed of peace

allowed for prosperity and this growing

sense of self and ant nation hood as

well as a real flowering of creative

energy because if you're going to war

all the time your energies are being

dispersed your young men are being

killed this was just a most wonderful

period for them to have decades of peace

and that's when the great Renaissance

flowering of Elizabethan culture

adventurism piracy could could happen so

it was really only as her reign

progressed I think that there was this

very strong sense of how to be English

was to be best

sorry my process Hamrick natural pushing

the blood very unencumbered

what is now very good yes didn't marry

not intend to spark a rebellion and it

is that meet out any punishment to

marriage supporters me

initially the I think Mary was still so

much expecting Elizabeth to welcome her

with open arms because in Lizabeth

because of Elizabeth's support of her

during the uprising of her Nobles

against her Mary had been lulled into

this sense of solidarity without

realizing because she in sense lacked a

political sense she didn't realize that

her presence in on English soil was

actually a terrible catch-22 for

Elizabeth so in it Mary was still

agitating like mad to meet Elizabeth and

they nearly met at York but it also it

all started really relatively amicably

and was only as the rain progressed that

increasing disaffection amongst English

Catholics started to focus on this

extremely poignant and appealing image

of the sort of wrongly imprisoned Queen

when I say imprisoned of course was more

a house arrest most of the time she had

her court she was able to go hunting she

was able and unless there was any

uprising in the country in which case

she was more closely contained but no

there was no there was no punishment of

her supporters at that point it just

became as the rain progressed more

perilous for Elizabeth's life and that's

when some of the more draconian laws

came in against practicing Catholicism

openly and priests who were coming in

from the continent would be turned back

or imprisoned and in extreme cases

tortured

you've written about a variety of women

how do you choose the topic of your

biography and also looking at the craft

of writing how much time do you spend

researching for the first writing mobile

well those are marvelous questions and I

could go on forever you're absolutely

right the choosing of the topic is so

important because it is like a marriage

in a sense you are living with these

people for years on end and so you need

to be able to keep your interest alive

for all that period of time I the this

pairing of women is one of the most

fascinating relationships of women and I

am interested in in women's

relationships my one of my previous

books was about Vanessa Bell and

Virginia Woolf er the sisters and that I

see I see this book as a sort of

progression out of that one as for how

long one spends researching and writing

you could spend your lifetime

researching and this is the real problem

is that there comes that point where you

have to say I need to start writing and

that's always the most scary part of it

so I would say this book took me about

five years probably three of that was

researched but then the research goes on

while you're writing as well because you

don't know till the whole thing starts

to unfold quite where you want it to go

it has a life of its own - you can't

know it absolutely how you're going to

impose your patterns on it although you

know pretty clearly when you start so

it's it's a long process and it is a

sort of it does take a dedicated sort of

affection to do it I seem to recall when

I was in Westminster Abbey that Mary's

two

that's right and I was surprised suppose

she would be entitled to it for a number

of reasons acquit James's mother actors

and children to say but how did how did

that happen it took a long time to get

there and it was

you're quite right it was James who who

made that beautiful to when she lies

side by side with with Mary with

Elizabeth she yes she was she was

initially they were so frightened when

they executed her about the sort of

force I think that many go very shocked

by what happened and the force of

emotion around this whole episode that

all remnants of her were removed quickly

and she was buried at Fotheringay they

scrubbed every splash of blood and got

rid of every piece of furniture and

cloth that had been used in the whole

process because they didn't want it to

become a sort of relic and therefore to

fuel this martyrdom and this mythology

she then in in it was dug up and

reburied and initially at Peterborough

and then was brought down by James and

and and given this proper beautiful -

yes and quite rightly side-by-side I

think because oh oh in my life I wasn't

following visions about

seven how much input was very ill for

time how much input does he have in that

selection and what's that selection

inevitable missus of gems James that the

the six Hooper big who yes who inherits

it she became reconcile turd I'm and and

in fact was in quite a lot of

correspondence with James towards the

end of her life and he'd certainly been

groomed for it

and he was the obvious choice and he was

a man and it was in perhaps perhaps it

was also a sort of sort of something

just about it also that he was marries

Mary's son and he was a tutor and a

steward I mean he's he'd come down

through the the tutor line as well

although the direct one from Henry the

eighth's had died out with Elizabeth but

he was he was he was schooled for it and

it was inevitable but you're quite right

she resisted naming a successor all her

life because she had been so horrified

by what had happened during her sister

Mary the first string when disaffection

for Mary had had sort of focused on

Elizabeth and as Mary Lay Dying the

courtiers lepton their horses and

galloped down the road to Hatfield to be

there when Elizabeth was proclaimed

Queen and that always horrified her and

she always felt that's not something she

wanted to happen to her you were you

were talking about the imprisonment of

Mary

Elizabeth's reaction to that in a way

that suggests that Elizabeth was almost

a prisoner as well under relationship

could you talk just a bit more about

that well III think that Mary coming

into England really was the last thing

that Elizabeth wanted and it was an

impossible situation she she tried to

send her back to Scotland but this but

the Scottish Lords had absolutely no

intention of taking her back as Queen

and unless Elizabeth were going to do it

with force there was no way she could

get Mary back on the Scottish throne

which is what Mary wanted she also as I

said could not possibly let her go to

France which would be a natural home for

her she loved her French relations and

all her life sort of thought of France I

think as the the certainly the country

of her use the country of her happiness

but this she would not give up this

claim and it's a powerful claim because

the whole of Catholic Europe which is

most eclectic Europe rightly saw her as

the legitimate heir and Elizabeth as an

illegitimate so she couldn't let her go

with this fantastic claim in her pocket

into such hostile territory as France so

Elizabeth was in a very difficult

situation and it was a sort of bondage

- it's absolutely right she made it

worse hmm

and I'm amazed that you could treat

various sympathetic says you to it well

I think I think if you understand her

character in a way you realize that she

was not a reflective person she was not

somebody who looked ahead at the

consequences of her actions or looked

back she lived in the present she was a

woman who lived by her feelings and by

her senses and so adventure was

necessary for her you know she was

always expressing herself outwardly she

would Elizabeth imprisoned her in for 18

years would become the greatest scholar

of the Renaissance because she was a

much more introverted personality in a

sense Mary it drove her mad because she

needed to be this extrovert expressive

person and so it's almost inevitable

that she will it get involved in any

madcap scheme that comes away because

that's where her energy has to go so

that's how I felt for her we're seeing

that in a way with her nature how could

she be peaceful or submissive or

compromised her her claim in any way

yeah so that she was accused of treason

murder on witchcraft as long as there

was any my new public record of the

trial is it for me Abilene Abilene was a

fuse of witchcraft Mary no sat me

oh yes the records of Mary's trial exist

and and they are very impressive and

she's very impressive in it she she she

shows a real grasp of her status her

situation no it was an Berlin which was

a terrible trumped-up charges of incest

with her brother and with all sorts of

men of the court and witchcraft which of

course was a terrible taint and it

tainted Elizabeth because the child of a

witch had a real black mark against her

so that's really why in many respects

Elizabeth never mentioned her mother's

name in public yes

she was the child of the marriage that

was supposed to propagate a vanity to

their mind it elicited Elizabeth ever

cool like personal satisfaction like

kind of benches mothers trumped up

charges and execution person it's so

hard to tell because she really does not

mention her mother at all I think there

was real satisfaction that she became

such a much-loved queen I think that she

very much reinforces us in so many of

her speeches and you saw it in their

modest speech where she's sort of you

know she says it your loyalty my loyalty

here we are together it's bits it's a

huge mystery about her feelings about

her mother and I think the ring actually

is all that we have that actually shows

that she had a very warm spot for her

but never expressed not in public anyway

yes she must've felt when the Sun really

was a treasure

oh not Mary sir James yes absolutely no

she was she was furious she was furious

but of course James had never known his

own mother I mean he he was aristocratic

and and noble families didn't really

bring their children up in close

proximity with their mothers because

mothers had to go on breeding and said

they were quickly given to the wet nurse

breasts were bound up back into the

breeding program again and James was

quickly sent away and then of course his

mother was imprisoned and had to

abdicate and he was made King of

Scotland before he was two years old and

from then on he was brought up by the

Protestant Lords strictly Protestant

well-schooled to be the sort of King

they wanted and quite quickly he was a

clever man he realized in his teens that

he was much better off allowing himself

with Elizabeth than with Mary she was

outraged angry resentful and vengeful

what I found so surprising was that her

will when she died left her rights to

the English throne antis and an to

Scotland even though she had been forced

to abdicate to the Spanish unless James

became a Catholic and that I think was a

sort of no it's it's really it's a quite

remarkable thing but the the paper

exists and of course she had no power to

do this but it was a sort of moral and

emotional slap or a modernist slap to

her son so it's um she didn't she didn't

forgive that

one point I'm spoken about is the Whaley

totally different situation of the true

Queens and the way they have all the

churches in their respective realms Mary

as are called

lost complete control of the be Scottish

Presbyterian Church whereas in this

fifth Catholic Church and being on a

fairly tight rein when they vote they

both actually were extremely tolerant

religiously I mean they both obviously

Mary was a Catholic she was born and

bred a Catholic she was not a fanatic in

any respect

she was relatively devout but not even

excessively so except in Midland

middle-aged and quite understandably

given that she was imprisoned and and

was facing death

Elizabeth similarly Elizabeth actually

was probably much more conservative than

what she was certainly more conservative

from religious point of view than her

ministers who were distinctly Protestant

she probably was still as most of her

country actually an old-fashioned

Catholic because you don't quickly

switch a whole people around but she

very much knew that presentism was the

coming religion and that this was state

religion and she didn't mind what people

did as long as they kept the right face

only in the latter part of her reign

when it really was getting dangerous did

some of the more draconian laws come in

against practicing Catholicism openly

and priests coming in and trying to

convert and so they both were actually

extremely tolerant and you're right Mary

had to be because she had an external

she had a much more radical Protestant

nobility she also had John Knox who was

one of the most amazingly powerful

orator and he would weekly her rang her

and use the most abusive language about

her and her and her religion and she she

was reduced to tears by this man at

times I mean he was he was like taking a

scouring sort of pad to a took two to

two ones ones heart but a magnificent

and orator and proponent of his extreme

brand of Protestantism

so they were basically tolerant women