Elizabeth 1: The Virgin Queen (Episode 2)

it is 1559 England is a newly crowned queen Elizabeth has overcome extraordinary obstacles to gain the crown but a struggle isn't over there's one thing about her that will lead to scalp that will compromise her power threaten her security and demand a terrible personal sacrifice she is a woman it is a birth 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 and bodied softer more feminine virtues she was to be pious merciful and charitable but above all she was a royal breeding machine was her duty to get pregnant early and often so for Elizabeth to succeed she to do something extraordinary unnatural evil she 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 a 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 favored Catholics survived some counselors were old hands who had served under her father but the top job went to a younger man William Cecil who became a 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 Douglas father have been executed for his treachery but the family remained tainted by the crime known disparagingly as the gypsy because his dark locks tom and coming doublers appointment raise more than a few eyebrows at court Elizabeth and ugly were the same age they'd known each other in childhood they may also have met in less happy circumstances here in the tower where they were both imprisoned at the same time early in mare is Rey 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 favorite Elizabeth choice of Cecil was about politics and duty a choice of Dudley was about pleasure 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 boon 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 fully ei 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 in graven upon my marble tomb here lieth Elizabeth which reigned a virgin and died a virgin but the Queen wasn't behaving like a virgin as the Spanish ambassador insinuatingly observed during the last few days Lord Robert has come so much into favor that he does whatever he likes with affairs and it is even said that Her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night 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 godly disturbed her courtiers as a colleague they could put up with him as a potential king he was intolerable I think that William was very worried about Dudley indeed he saw him as a huge threat both to national prosperity if he married the Queen and also to his own position at court I think he was the one man really he was fussed about and also I suspect was a certain amount of jealousy I mean he'd ordered the Queen and there was this guy he considered to be rather lightweight coming between him and her and he certainly did not want him to get married to her Cecil stepped up the pressure for the Queen to marry a European Prince there was no shortage of candidates King fed King Philip of Spain Catholic and widower of Elizabeth sister Mary Charles the ninth he is 16 Charles the ninth of France Catholic and a mere sickly boy Charles of Austria the Archduke Charles the most promising candidate but still a Catholic Eric 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 Mary's disastrous marriage to Philip of Spain and she was determined to avoid them but actually that was easier said than done for if she married a foreigner how could England avoid the kind of disastrous foreign entanglements would you led to the loss of Calais and if she married a Catholic and almost all the suitors for our hand 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 Elizabeth faced her second major challenge she was a Protestant Queen in a country that was still officially Catholic her sister Mary 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 the 20th of May 1560 Thomas Watson Bishop of Lincoln was sent to the tower in the following weeks many more bishops were arrested as well as one of 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 because Elizabeth was subtler she insisted only on outward conformity they had tried knowledge 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 in as abbath 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 rude means cross and originally an image of Christ hanging on the cross stood in the center of the screen with the Virgin Mary on one side and some John on the other under Elizabeth these images were torn down because they were seen as being idolatrous and they were replaced instead 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 a 1 and when the congregation knelt to pray they worshiped not only God but also the English nation as embodied in its virgin queen but the Virgin Queens relationship with Robert Dudley was by now a national scandal both Courtin public were appalled at his arrogance offended by his brashness and suspicious of his motives and there was another thing he was married Dublin's wife Amy Rob SOT was rumoured to be very ill Gossett claimed that Dudley was simply waiting for her to die so that he could marry the Queen sessile was close to despair and confided in the Spanish ambassador I met secretary 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 last of all he said there was a conspiracy to kill Lord Robert's wife is late on the afternoon of the 8th of September 1560 had come the place in Oxfordshire the home of Lord Robert Dudley the Queen's favorite and a mihrab SOT his wife of five years standing the house has been unusually quiet all afternoon because the servants have been given the day off to attend a local fair when they return they find Lady Dudley's body the foot of the staircase dead and with her neck broken you Douglas first reaction fear for his reputation he was right to fear a major scandal erupts at Cork Queen's favorite murders wife the clear way to Queens 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 to intimate relationship with the Queen it is October 15 62 Queen Elizabeth has lain unconscious in a coma for the last 24 hours the physicians have diagnosed smallpox which is not expected to live in a nearby room the Privy Council is in crisis it is three years into the rain 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 the 19th of August 1561 a tall striking-looking woman stepped ashore leaf 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 made his return was to bring to Scotland the 18 year old Queen of Scots have 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 what ostent ISM 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 twenty thousand pounds more than was spent on the coronation the man she named was Robert Dudley the scandal of his wife's death a died away and Dudley's reputation had recovered now he was back in favor in spectacular style only three months after her illness Elizabeth faced a fresh ordeal Parliament had been summoned for January 15 63 and everybody knew that a reluctant Queen will be forced once more to confront the issue of the succession the Parliament was opened with a sermon preached in Westminster Abbey by Alexander no the Dean of st. Paul's and Nowell put into words what most people only dared think 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 now I reckon that's pretty straight talking it was a very small part of the sermon but this if you like was almost before a state opening of parliament now I don't know if Dean Knoll 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 no would not have been the first churchmen to be sent to the tower he'd had a bit of a run-in at some polls the year before when he'd given her a prayer book you know 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 NOLs tough words set the tone for the Parliament but again the Queen hedged and obfuscated her marriage was simply not on the cards Mary though showed no such reluctance 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 nine days she entertained met his ambassador Sir James Melville she desired to know of me whether my Queens heir and hers was best to which of the two was fairest I said she was the fairest queen in England and my in the fairest queen in Scotland she inquired which of them was of highest stature I said my queen then she is too high saith she for I myself am neither too high not too low 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 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 a life in virginity she wished that the Queen her sister might marry him but did Elizabeth really intend to give the man that she'd love to Mary Queen of Scots well Robert Dudley who should have known to her intention seriously enough to do everything that he could to scupper the scheme but actually there was a lot to be said for it politically would have solved the problem of what to do with Dudley he wouldn't have become King of England but he would have become King as consort of Mary Queen of Scots but it was solve the problem of what to do with Mary she'd have been safely married to an Englishman and so kept out of the clutches of a foreigner and the foreign alliance of the English so feared for their northern neighbor and it will solve the problem of the succession there have been no difficulty about recognizing the children of the marriage 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 Stuart Lord Darnley was 18 tall handsome define lute player Mary described him as the lust hist and best proportioned long glad 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 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 in Glyn's Queen do the same but the return of the rumor of marriage brought new and fierce resistance the Duke of Norfolk the most powerful mobile in the land was the Queen's closest 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 Douglas side took to wearing purple ribbons norfolk's yellow the two factions roam 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 Norfolk tooth found himself in disgrace at a Privy Council meeting he raised the matter of the Queen's marriage and the succession she flew into a rage calling him a traitor and adding that she would not name a successor and she had no wish to be buried alive for good measure she also threatened to have the Duke arrested but a tough words could not resolve the tensions of court behind the bickering lay the real problem the succession until Elizabeth matted and produced an air the crisis would never go away while it is above Fort Hill the men of her court together Mary enjoyed a female triumph on the 19th of June 1566 in a tiny room in the castle at Edinburgh Mary fulfilled her duty as a woman it was a queen he had a child her labor 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 she burst out to some of her ladies but the Queen of Scots was mother of a fair son while she was but a barren stock but Mary's triumph did not last the initial euphoria of marriage had faded as dawn his true nature emerged he was violent an arrogant drunk a lout with all the makings of a psychopath Donley 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 ritsu because he was a Catholic and the Queen's favorite so the two groups of ritzy as enemies came together and signed a contract to murder him on the night of the 9th of March 1566 the conspirators burst in here into the Queen's smallest chamber where they found RIT CEO having one of his late-night tete-a-tete with the Queen he was dragged outside and stabbed 57 times conspirators thoughtfully left Donna's dagger sticking in ritzy OHS belly less than a year later Donnelly himself was dead the house where he was staying was blown up and Donnelly 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 behavior was making a bad situation worse madam my ears have been so astounded my heart so frightened to hear of the horrible and abominable 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 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 honor than in such haste to marry a subject who besides other notorious lacks public fame has charged with the murder of your late husband within a few weeks merely 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 a husband Bothwell negotiated a safe conduct for himself from the field of battle Mary was defeated and abandoned mara was brought as a prisoner here to the island fortress of Loch Leven where she miscarried of twins then broken in body and mind under the immediate threat of physical force she was compelled to abdicate in favor 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 her Liberty perhaps after all there was wisdom in living and ruling alone to be led from the place of arraignment to the Tower of London and from thence to the gallows at Tyburn and they're to be hanged and to being half-dead to be cut down under bowels to be taken out of the belly and thrown into the fire and the heads 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 our for the Tudors treason was the worst of crimes which deserved the worst of punishments it is a birth had personal experience of its terrors because she 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 it's 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 honor and dignity instead some of them wanted real power which Elizabeth was reluctant to give them and above all there were the great unsolved questions of the succession and her marriage it was a combustible mixture needed only a spark to set it alight in May 1568 nary escaped from her Island prison thousands of troops flocked to join her standard but once again she was defeated in battle at 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 even support Engel Elizabeth dispatched one of her counselors to Carlisle to convey Mary to a place of refuge and to treat her with all honor as befitted her status as a queen in reality she was a prisoner Mary's arrival in England was a disaster for Lizabeth 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 the eighth now insurrection was brewing again the population had remained largely Catholic and that little loyalty to the Protestant Queen far away in London the northern Earl's 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 Earl's looked to Norfolk for leadership Norfolk was not a natural rebel he too was aggrieved and disaffected ripe for rebellion in June 15 68 marah's envoi approached the Duke of Norfolk with an extraordinary suggestion he proposed that 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 his and Mary's children will be the natural heirs of England also attractive but dangerous Norfolk had in his pocket a commission from Elizabeth in which he said that anybody marrying Mary will be forthwith 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 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 who overthrow her norfolk's suddenly left the queen's summer progress and returned here to the charter house his London residence he agreed to join in a plot hatched by the Earl's of Westmoreland and Northumberland the Earl's would raise the north liberate Mary Queen of Scots and bring about her marriage to Norfolk all the north Northumberland boasted will repel at his command Thomas Percy the Earl of Northumberland had his own reasons for rebellion it was partly about religion the Percy's had remained story Catholic but at heart it was about power Northumberland forty 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 I mean Cecil didn't like the power of the Percy's in the north and 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 obviously close to Mary Queen of Scots that presented a serious problem to the crown Thomas could have had a very easy life he was wealthy enough to maintain his life in Northumberland he loved country pursuits he had a wonderful wife he had four beautiful children he risked everything basically 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 the 9th 1569 churches all over the north rang their bells backwards as a signal the rebellion to begin on the 10th of November the rebel oils enter the city of 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 armor 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 URLs by bullying them like her fathered his worst he had pushed them over the edge their goal was obvious to rescue Mary from captivity nanny was imprisoned a tough brain staffordshire if they managed to reach her it would hold not only half of England they would have alternative queen Elizabeth acted decisively she had her cousin move further south to Coventry when inside the Protestant Heartland and beyond the rebels reach she also ordered the rapid deployment of an armed force to the north to intercept them our orders the rebel Earls had advanced south confidently expecting that other noblemen would join them so when they heard instead 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 not the stuffing out of the rebellion their troops melted away and the Earl's 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 he 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 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 Protestant supporters the north of England would never be the same again Norv 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 the seal Norfolk's fate but the Queen could not bring herself to execute England's only Duke a closest 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 Thomas Duke of Norfolk late of kenning Hall in the county of Norfolk on judgment with this day a radiation fled from the place of arraignment at the Tower of London and belts should be drawn and his body divided into four parts and his head and out of his Baptist to be sent off are disposed and his head to be cut off which matters positive ID to every person that committed treason yet we being moved to pity of our grace a please to change such manner of execution to cause only that his head to be smitten from his body at the tower hill we accustomed place of execution given under our signet at our Palace of Westminster the 13th year of our reign Elizabeth our on the morning of the 2nd of June 1570 to Norfolk was led to the scaffold for studious to the last he rearranged the straw note down stretched out his neck and then as a crowd murmur Lord Jesus 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 marry and religion that divided her country and her Catholic enemies abroad were muscling their forces Elizabeth and her Protestant people will be plunged into war

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Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 24 2014