Elizabeth I & Bloody Mary | A Tale Of Two Sisters | Real Royalty

[Music] two sisters two queens at first glance the daughters of Henry the eighth could not be more different the relationship between Elizabeth and Mary is a very difficult one to read there's an enormous age gap for one thing Mary's childhood was steeped in the Catholic Church everything about her life was about religion Elizabeth had a Protestant upbringing so Mary seemed probably somewhat old-fashioned diametrically opposed to have on issues of religion - to society at the time of their rule was ill-equipped to accept a female sovereign [Music] England is a patriarchal society women are believed to be ruled by their emotions rather than reason they're very much the weaker sex it was believed that they were incapable of ruling as effectively as men ones reign was short the others long one was Catholic the other Protestant one was allied to Spain the others greatest triumphs came in defying them there's no doubt that Elizabeth gets to learn from Mary's mistakes and borrow from her example Elizabeth's decision not to marry there's a pragmatic and calculated decision she's seen how wrong it can go with Mary is the kind of queen of spin before spin was invented and one of the things she was so successful at is raising Mary's legacy many people forget the fact that actually Mary was the first crowned queen of England one was reviled as Bloody Mary the other was celebrated as Gloriana the Virgin Queen but more unites these half sisters than many realize [Music] Mary was born in Greenwich on the 18th of February 15 16 her mother was Henry the eighth's first wife Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon was the aunt of the Holy Roman Emperor she was a Spanish lady she was deeply steeped in the truth Ollis ism of spain Catherine of Aragon had come from a family of very impressive women Katharine of Aragon's mother Isabella of Castile was a real warrior figure and she educated Catherine of Aragon and her children essentially on the battlefield I mean she was very very keen on educating all her children male and female and Catherine of Aragon was one of the most educated accomplished women in Europe although not the hoped-for son Mary was a relief to her parents they had been married almost seven years but a series of miscarriages and stillbirths had denied them as Mary was proof they could have children with Catherine only just 30 and Henry even younger there was still hope that a younger brother would one day join Mary as a child Mary was fair and ruddy cheek just like her father Henry loved children and doted on his daughter she had the finest education a girl could expect at this time Mary as far as Henry was concerned should be brought up to be a good wife but actually Mary's mother Catherine of Aragon didn't want to settle for that she was brought up very largely by her mother to be a Spanish speaking Spanish believing Spanish Catholic she's surrounded by an army of attendants the best tutors she's brought up to be able to turn dance to sing she's extraordinarily accomplished even by a very young age it's not really until 1525 when Mary is sent to Ludlow as the de facto Princess of Wales and goes to rule Wales effectively for her father that she gets a proper formal education in things like Latin and Greek and and strategy the things you need to be a monic Mary's education stood her an excellent stead she believed that she was just as intelligent as any man she believed that she had the abilities the intellect of her father and also the reflection the consideration and the religious knowledge of her mother above all her education was preparation for her future as a royal bride a princess was a valuable commodity in 16th century Europe arranged marriages could make or break treaties and alliances they could change the course of history if you were a king in the 16th century and you had children they had two functions if you had a son his function was to succeed you and be a strong male ruler if you had a daughter she was a bargaining chip and Mary was quite a valuable chip to put down on the gaming table every time Henry the eighth's decided to make a peace treaty or a train tree to another monarch he usually said you could have my daughter she can be a wife and she was an incredible prize she's betrothed that a number of times to different Valois princes she's married into the hapsburgs a couple of times but it's really just a political dynastic maneuver it's not necessarily going to be set in stone the first time she was betrothed was about to so so young but it was a symbol of an alliance and so right from a very very early age she was this pawn in a game of European diplomacy whaling during Mary's adolescence her life would change forever in 1625 her beloved mother Catherine turned 40 it only confirmed what had seemed likely for some time she would never give Henry the son he desired Henry had a fanatical desire for a son he was fixated on it but you'll understand why he'd been married since 1509 since the very beginning of his reign so that was several years of disappointments and we must remember Henry the eighth was only the second Tudor King he had a job to do in securing the dynasty this important that we think of the Tudor dynasty without hindsight and we understand that for a long time it was quite precarious Henry was surrounded by enemies Scotland Wales hated him Ireland France Spain the Holy Roman Emperor they all were vying to get their hands on the throne everything depended on succession the main job of a monarch was to preserve the dynasty to pass on the dynasty because otherwise there would be Civil War it's very important to Henry that he not only has a male heir but then he hopefully has two or three of them he became so obsessed with having a son it had consider everything anything and everything his whole mind was focused on having a child there was nothing else that mattered [Music] Henri's affections abandoned mary's mother he had become obsessed with one of the Queens ladies-in-waiting and Berlin the King had taken mistresses before but never like this Henry fell passionately in love with Anne he was convinced she would give him a son he had to marry her Catherine had to go catherine and henry had had a very happy marriage for 20 years but once she was beyond childbearing years their marriage really did fall apart henry became obsessed by the idea that he was cursed and he blamed the fact that catherine had been married to his brother who had died before he'd married to Henry Henry decided that this particular verse in the Book of Leviticus meant that his marriage was incest and that he should therefore be allowed to declare that the marriage was null and void that it had never taken place there were tremendous RG bargees about it between the various ecclesiastics involved Catherine refused to cooperate and the Pope was unwilling to grant an annulment the process dragged on for almost a decade the adolescent Princess Mary was caught in the middle determined to break Catherine's resistance in May 15 31 Henry banned Mary from seeing her mother they could see each other the King decreed only if both declared their support for the annulment it was a cruel thing for Henry to impose on a daughter he had once doted upon and it was ineffective Catherine still did not Bend this is heartbreaking for Mary Mary had a very difficult adolescence anyway she was often ill she suffered from low spirits so the fact was her father was trying to declare her illegitimate he was trying to divorce her mother and really push her aside and push her it seemed out of the line of the throne so nothing could have been worse for Mary and it really did form the woman she became it was a profound humiliation but it was also very very shocking to these two Spanish Catholics Catherine and Mary to watch the way out that Henry chose which was to side with the burgeoning movement of Protestantism something he'd always hated and denounced so determined was the king to secure his annulment the formerly devout Catholic Henry broke with a Roman Church he declared himself supreme head of the Church in England the new Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer soon granted him the annulment in January 1533 Henry married Anne Boleyn she was already pregnant that summer she was crowned Queen of England in a lavish coronation just weeks later and went into labour on the 7th of September she gave birth not to the son she had promised Henry but to a daughter Elizabeth despite this disappointment Elizabeth was a delight to her parents she was proved to the court to England and to all of Europe that Anne was fertile and that Henry seed was strong surely it would not be long before a son was born to the couple the arrival of a half-sister was no cause of celebration for Mary instead it heralded a new phase in her humiliation on the 7th of September 15:33 Henry the 8th second daughter was born at Greenwich palace she was named Elizabeth after the Kings mother and declared the high and mighty princess of England but the birth meant emotion and humiliation for Elizabeth's half-sister the seventeen-year-old Mary Berry was now pretty much a forgotten illegitimate daughter Henry orders for all of the sort of badges of honor to be removed from Marion house she loses that status she loses her own livery she has all of the trappings of a princess taken away from her not only was Mary displaced not only was she stripped of the title of Princess of Wales she was humiliated by her father she was made to join work as a maid of honor in her little sister's Court Elizabeth was the princess elizabeth was the heiress Elizabeth was the one who had the wonderful court and indeed Mary was increasingly used as Elizabeth's pretty much lady-in-waiting there was relentless pressure on the teenager to admit that she was illegitimate to recognize Anna's queen and Elizabeth as the heir it was a miserable time for Mary and things were about to get worse on the 7th of January 1536 her mother Catherine died at Kimball tanasul in Huntingdonshire her supporters suspected foul play rumors a poison swirled through the land but Catherine had been ill for some time to the very end she refused to recognize Henry's new marriage Catherine always insisted she was the true queen of England the King had also kept his word mother and daughter never met and Henry's cruelty towards Mary did not cease with her mother's death he refused her permission to attend Catherine's funeral as well it was an act of incredible cruelty from her father but he was a man who expected absolute submission and he didn't care how he got it when Catherine of Aragon died Mary was really the main figurehead for the old religion as it was called and so for as long as she stood out and refused to acknowledge her father's new marriage then the traditional Catholics had an advocate if she could be forced to submit to Henry that sort of loose cannon that Mary represented could have been neutralized a court the king and queen celebrated the death of Catherine the infant Elizabeth was proudly paraded in public but Ann's triumph was short-lived within months she had fallen from favour and power accused of adultery incest and treason and Berlin was executed at the Tower of London on the 19th of May 1536 ambolyn fell because she couldn't give Henry a son and increasingly Henry was weary of her all the things he'd found rather attractive in her as a mistress he didn't find the tractor and a wife having gone to great lengths to a null and then forcibly dissolve the marriage between Catherine of Aragon and himself and establish the Church of England he soon fell out of love with Anne Boleyn and is accused of adultery with her musician Mark Smeaton and a number of the nobles of court including her brother and they are all sent to the tower Henry he was looking for a way out at this point and was maneuvered by the factions at court ends up accepting those charges and of course Anne Boleyn is executed Henry was already in love with the woman who had become his third wife Jane Seymour they were married just days after the execution of Anne Boleyn it was at this time that Mary finally caved still mourning her mother she was desperate to regain the love of her father and she was frightened of what he might do to her she finally recognised Henry as head of the Church of England and acknowledged that she was an illegitimate child of incest Mary regretted it for the rest of her life the rewards for her sacrifice was slight she was allowed back to court but the new Act of Succession did not restore Mary as his heir instead it stripped Mary's half-sister the infant Elisabeth of her titles and status and it made any child of the new queen Jane Seymour next in line to the throne that child came in the autumn of 1537 Henry finally got what he had long craved a son Edward [Music] [Music] the new prince was born at Hampton Court Palace which was the ever-expanding home of King Henry the eighth's vast court [Music] he's delighted he's thrilled everything has been vindicated and the two sisters well they're pretty much forgotten for him they're irrelevant they're members of the court but he has no more interest in them the whole court was about Edward birth bed word is actually probably one of the best things that can happen to you Elizabeth and Mary because it takes the pressure off them Edwards birth was a source of unity for the two sisters they already had their illegitimate sea as Henry saw it in common but now they had a brother and there was every expectation that that meant neither sister would be queen so if they had felt some competitiveness between them that surely would have dissolved Elizabeth starts to receive a degree of education in her own household and indeed later on will join the household of her half-brother and receive a much better education and then for Mary she's invited back to court so she spends an awful lot more time at court with Jane Seymour she becomes reacquainted with her father so her fortunes take a massive upswing Queen Jane died soon after Edward's birth three other wives would follow for the king over the next decade but there were no more siblings for Mary and Elizabeth for the rest of their fathers life they shared the same uncertain status Henry the Eighth died on the 28th of January 1547 a new Act of Succession had passed a few years earlier Henry's two daughters though still officially illegitimate were restored to the line but first would come their young brother Edward Edward came to the throne when he was very young and he had what we call regencies protectorates pretty much a succession of powerful men pulling the strings though pushing the country of a Protestant way but also Edward himself was a very keen Protestant and a lot of what was happening during his reign was at his behest he was described as a lusty child well fed you only have to look at the early portraits of him to see he was thriving he was very sporty he was a good horseman he was a good athlete he aspired to as his father had done to fight in tournaments there's no evidence to suppose that he was a weakling in any way historians have increasingly identified that although Edward was still a boy king he gradually is becoming much more interested and able and keen to assert himself so the king remains an important figure even though he's a boy the reign of Edward the 6th would prove a difficult time for the two sisters the teenage Elisabeth was placed in the household of Henry's last wife Catherine Parr there it is thought she was sexually abused by Parrs new husband Thomas Seymour Mary meanwhile clashed with her brother's government over its religious reforms she refused the new English prayer books per household maintained the traditions of the old religion she's at loggerheads with the council for much of Edwards reign over her right to have Catholic Mass said in her household Edward is saying you know you will submit to me I am king and Mary says you know you're my little brother I'm certainly not gonna take orders from you so they have these really quite full-on spats Murray was not a softly-softly sort of person and there was a terrible Christmas when they had a stand at rau in front of the whole court and both of them burst into tears over religion over the fact that Mary disbelieved Mary thought what he was doing was wrong and he thought what she was doing was wrong and the Catholic Mass there was no way of finding common ground between them the reign of Edward the sixth would be a short one early in 1553 he fell ill on the 6th of July that year the 15 year old King died the death was kept secret by his government for days there was a plan to fix the succession Deadwood was more than aware Mary was waiting in the wings and had every intention of restoring Catholicism so all the work that had been done in establishing the Protestant church would be immediately undone Edward doesn't have time to go to Parliament he's too ill so in the April before his death he writes the device for the succession which excludes both of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth from the line of succession we change the succession to ensure his first cousin once removed Lady Jane Grey who happened to married to the son of his protector the Great and Powerful Northumberland she was a girl that really no one had really heard of and that he thought was secure succession it would be a Protestant country forever and ever the Lady Jane Grey accession was a Protestant coup that was the point word of the Kings death spread from her vast estates in East Anglia Mary began raising an army England was on the brink of Civil War in the summer of 15:53 England was in crisis its boy King Edward the 6th had died but who would rule after him in his dying days Edward had anointed his teenage cousin Lady Jane Grey as his successor the Protestant King hoped to exclude his Catholic sister Mary from inheriting the crown about three days before Edward's death Aerys riding to court to see her brother and believing that you know he's been unwell he's now better and she's been invited to cook she was going to be seized and imprisoned so that Lady Jane ascends the throne they had fundamentally underestimated Mary she got as far as hartfordshire and she got a tip-off from call from a supporter at court saying do not come there's a plan basically to catch you she didn't have much good luck in her life but this was good luck one of her supporters rode like billiards through the night and got to her and told her that she was the queen of England she turns around and ride with all of her retainers into East Anglia and starts to muster her troops it was an area in which Mary held extensive estates so she could call on a great deal of support she thought that this is her chance God has protected her through all of her life to take her place on the throne and to restore Catholicism so this was absolutely her divine mission Mary was absolutely determined and prepared to fight for her throne if she needed to and that's where this childer pigheaded stubborn how to chew comes in [Music] on the 10th of July Edwards Council led by the ambitious Duke of Northumberland declared Lady Jane Queen of England the council seemed to hold all the cards they had London its tower and its armoury Northumberland set about raising forces to apprehend Edwards sisters Mary and Elizabeth the minute he left all the people started saying hmm is that me a good idea the Privy Council suddenly starts to panic when she's proclaimed Queen as there's a stony silence around London it's sort of an eerie experience that nobody's cheering for Queen Jane they saw her for what she was she was a user albeit an unwilling one they wanted the daughter of Henry the 8th to be queen the people wanted the correct person to be queen and that was Mary there would be no civil war no armed conflict at all as the frightened Jane waited in the Tower of London people across the country declared their allegiance to Mary instead even Northumberland himself was soon forced to face the inevitable 6 days after leaving London to arrest Mary he recognized her as Queen at once Mary marched on London to begin her reign her sister Elizabeth was left in a precarious situation she was Mary's heir she could be an ally or a threat in early August Elizabeth met her sister outside London accompanying her were a thousand horsemen her gentleman dazzled in green and white to delivery it was a statement of support for Mary but also a reminder of Elizabeth's own status and power together the two sisters rode into London London had been waiting they'd swept the streets they covered the buildings with tapestries and Mary came in looking every inch a queen she is dressed all in purple royal regal colors she's force tuned with jewels and pearls she's really presenting herself in the most spectacular fashion so that people immediately understand that she is the center of attention Mara didn't have a stage presence she was awkward she was shy but nevertheless it was a magnificent spectacle as this rightful queen who was going to restore unity and peace came into London followed by the statuesque tall by now strangely a serially beautiful sister Elizabeth both married Elizabeth had a very keen sense that they were both Henry's daughters there was a real sort of sense of Tudor legitimacy flowing through their veins now this was a show of solidarity that's what it was intended as to show off the strength of the Tudor dynasty but there was an awful lot more simmering beneath the surface of this display in Lizabeth was above all a politician and she wanted political influence for herself and to protect her interests and she knew the best way was to throw herself behind her sister when she wrote him yes it was all about marrying the queen but it was all about Elizabeth behind her the second in line to the throne Mary was crowned on the 1st of October she started as she meant to go on it was a Catholic service she made it clear from the outset she wanted England to forget that little blip of Protestantism and return to being a Catholic country when she comes to the throne mass is still illegal you can't celebrate a Catholic Mass but over the next few years she's pushing quite gently actually for the reintroduction of Catholic practices the chief obsession of Mary Tudor was to restore the Catholic faith to England and it was that aim which determined all her political life all her foreign policy everything they were going back to the Catholicism of her youth Britain was now a Catholic country and everyone had to obey that and if did not obey that you would be punished but if the Catholic faith was to be restored in England permanently Mary would need a child for that she needed a husband her choice stunned advisors and the nation he was to be Prince Philip of Spain heir to the Habsburg dynasty which ruled much of Europe they married on the 25th of July 1554 they had met just two days earlier ma'am is always facing a difficult position when she has to choose a bridegroom she can't easily marry a subject in englishmen because he will be elevated above her so the rest of the nobility won't be happy to follow him and if she marries a foreign prince she essentially puts England into the hands of a foreign power so she's really damned if you do and damned if you don't merely to have Spanish support when she had been excluded from the throne she wants to pay them back and above all she wants to make this great dynasty to be like her mother her mother the Spanish princess tamale once more into Spain create this unity just like her father and mother in some ways it's very sensible it's a strong dynastic match with a Catholic power Philip himself isn't a bad prospect either a very advantageous marriage treaty was drawn up what we might describe as a prenup these days which basically said Philip had very little role in government he couldn't introduce new languages into government he couldn't you know make appointments he couldn't take Mary out of the country England couldn't it just naturally be drawn into his Wars however many people feared the marriage to Spain when Mary was a woman would basically mean England getting swallowed up in the Spanish Empire and that Philip would end up running the show poor Mary never grasps this fact she never dropped how important it was in the eyes of her subjects and in the eyes of the ruling class how important it was not to have foreigners ruling England the horror of England being subservient to a Catholic country to a foreign power to a very powerful foreign power who had links to the Holy Roman Empire well that was just too much a plot was hatched to force Mary from the throne and replace her with her half-sister Elizabeth led by Sir Thomas Wyatt it was a group of very very determined Protestants who wanted Mary off the phone Wyatt gets two to three thousand people who are all willing to fight for Elizabeth but everything else sort of collapses nobody else really raises any troops they were repelled at getting into London and they were put down by the Queen's forces the ringleaders of the rebellion are all sentenced to death and executed very publicly to show the power of Mary's regime the rebellion may have only briefly threatened Mary's grip on power but its failure was a far graver threat to Elizabeth many suspected her involvement in the plot what we don't know is how much Elizabeth knew about it certainly the Wyatt rebellion had approached many of those around her some of her confidence and it may have been the news to get back to her it was believed that she was at the very least aware of what was going on and had been informed by the rebels of their plan Elizabeth was in a very awkward position where because she was the champion of her father's reformed religion and she was the figurehead that the more extreme Protestants were going to use against Mary so she had to play a very delicate game she's questioned repeatedly by the Privy Council and she protests her innocence repeatedly and vehemently Elizabeth appeared in the tower and she was put in the same apartments that her mother Anne Boleyn had had before she was executed she knows said it's really only hair's breadth that holds her off from having the same fate mary's advisers had a warrant drawn up for Elizabeth execution and it said that Mary almost signed it her hand was hovering over the warrant when she had an attack of conscience mery spared her sister perhaps she was moved by the letter Elizabeth sent begging for mercy or perhaps Mary did not wish to inflame divisions in the country further by ordering her execution instead she imprisoned Elizabeth for a few months before releasing her Mary after all had other pressing matters to attend to by the end of 1550 for the people of England had been formally absolved from their break from Rome Catholic doctrine reappeared in English churches religious orders were re-established and heresy acts returned allowing the trial and execution of Protestants Mary have gone down in history as Bloody Mary she said many hundreds of Protestants to the flames but was she more brutal and her peers her predecessors I don't think so the sixteenth century isn't noted for kindly monarchs Mary isn't alone in having killed people for their religious faith what was notable about Mary's reign is the porosity of the burnings the persecution period was small and over a few years 287 men women and children were burned Mary hadn't expected that she'd need to burn so many she really felt that a few would set an example to the rest there's this belief in the sixteenth century that if you allow heretic to live then you will be damned alongside them so Mary has a responsibility and a duty to remove these heretics from England it's not considered bloodthirsty it's considered a necessity in late 1554 Mary fell pregnant the following spring she summoned Elizabeth to court so she could witness the birth it was a child who would displace Elizabeth from the line of succession and confirm England as a Catholic nation everything was going Mary's way it was a moment of great misery for Elizabeth for all the Protestants because they really felt that Mary was going to gain what she wanted a Catholic succession and England Catholic forevermore but of course it doesn't turn out as planned and this assumed pregnancy turns out to be a phantom pregnancy it went on and on and on and everyone waited at the court for the expected due date but no baby arrived Mary Ben has to emerge from her bedchamber and face the humiliation of saying oh I wasn't actually pregnant even though the whole of England the whole of Europe had been holding its breath waiting for an announcement of an heir Mary had never enjoyed good health there are many reports of her having stomach pains often feeling faint feeling sick even from her early childhood now it's very possible that in fact Mary was suffering from ovarian cancer towards the end of her life this would have explained the swelling and her stomach that was taken for pregnancy poor Mary was humiliated was heartbroken and Elizabeth well she was back in the game the false pregnancy changed everything Mary's Spanish husband Philip withdrew he left England to deal with other crises in the Habsburg Empire in September of 1555 he leaves England and he'll only returned really a few months before Mary dies for a brief spell and it really marks the end of their marriage which is painful I think for Mary it was perfectly obvious to everyone except herself that he didn't love her and that he was bored by her Mary adored Philip she was obsessed with him but her feelings weren't reciprocated and he waited around for the baby and once he found there was not one he was pretty angry pretty embarrassed and stormed off back to Spain to look at his ships instead so Mary was doubly humiliated it was far from the only setback for Mary she had hoped to Catholic England would be welcomed back into the embrace of Rome instead the country was increasingly isolated Habsburg wars in Italy had made Mary's husband Philip an enemy of the Pope the austere and authoritarian Paul the fourth Mary's dream of an England United with Rome lay in tatters she was nearing 40 she was childless and her husband was absent England's future seemed certain it was the Protestant Elizabeth who would be queen Catholicism was once again under threat Mary entered a mental and physical decline by mid 1558 her ill health was widely known increasingly she's unable to do as much as she did in the early years of her reign because her health isn't allowing her to do so I think you can see her judgment going she couldn't accommodate people of different points of view she didn't know how to play one person off against another she was beginning to lose it the country doesn't like a sickly weak walnut could they feel as if it's judgment on them and because they thought she was dying that meant that everyone began to think maybe it's time to move our loyalties over to Elizabeth and Mary could even see this happening people look to you know the rising rather than the Setting Sun and so you see courtiers kind of moving to Hatfield trying to ingratiate themselves with the new expected monarch people were intelligent enough to work out which way the power was going to go and so Elizabeth has a growing number of people paying court to her she's gathering her supporters around her just five years after her triumphant entry into London Mary died on the 17th of November 1558 she was 42 Elizabeth was well prepared with her secretary Robert Cecil she put her plans into action it was the most peaceful transition of power England had seen in more than a century Elizabeth would rule for the next 45 years she would reject the advances of Mary's widower Philip she would beat back the Armada after she turned against Spain and she would oversee a golden age of cultural expression Elizabeth the first rain saw a kind of printing revolution a cultural revolution a revolution in ideas a revolution in the way in which ideas are communicated it was the glory age of our literature it produced Edmund Spenser Sir Philip Sidney William Shakespeare Christopher Marlowe John Donne she was just the best ruler this country has ever had there's no question about it of course what Elizabeth doesn't do is marry and so she fashions a whole different identity over time of an unmarried monarch which managed to be fashioned or spun in a way that was a sign of strength when you look at the way that between Elizabeth ruled the absolute authority with which she confronted the problems of her day you can see that this was the role that she'd been made for Elizabeth glorifies herself by making her own image bigger brighter and shinier than anything that's gone before history often tries to make us see a clean break which we never Sabbath and Mary but really Elizabeth inherited a lot certainly the dull important things like fiscal reform and the development of the Navy this is all stuff that Mary is beginning she lays all of the groundwork Mary was very very interested in expanding British explorers she encouraged them to go to Russia and the Baltic she wanted them to go to America she was keen on the northern explorations Northwest Passage and things like that Elizabeth took what her sister Mary had started and made it her own but during the course of her reign she never married and never had children the dynasty begun by her grandfather ended with her there were no more Tudor monix the crown instead passed peacefully to Elizabeth's cousin the Scottish King James the sixth this first Stuart King of England saw to it that the two sisters the two queens Mary and Elizabeth were buried together they lie in a monumental tomb in Westminster Abbey but the two women different in so many ways share more than just a final resting place each had been a celebrated heir to the kingdom each had been a child denied by their father each had struggled through a siblings reign and each had faced the challenge of ruling as a woman it was Mary that actually first articulated female sovereignty who talked about a queen being the mother of the nation all things that are sort of later attributed to Elizabeth even though she wasn't a shining example she had that kind of hard initial work to do in order to convince the people of England that Queens weren't a bad thing Mary passes a law that says that regnant Queens have all the authority of kings Elizabeth benefits from that you know be questions have power and authority because her sisters already been there and established what a regnant queen can and cannot do both of them showed as a woman could do the job just as well as a man and they were just as clever and they were just as open to political intrigue and to political deception without them you don't get Victoria you don't get Elizabeth the second you would always have that idea that a woman would be lesser than a man when it came to you the monarchy it can be easy to assume when we look at the current British monarch that a queen is commonplace but the familiarity of a ruling female monarch can be traced back to the groundwork which was set nearly 500 years ago by Mary and Elizabeth two extraordinary sisters [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Real Royalty

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Keywords: bloody mary, mary tudor, bloody mary real story, royalty family, the royalty family, queen elizabeth, united kingdom, royal family, prince charles, princess diana, prince william and kate middleton, prince william and harry, prince harry and meghan markle interview, the crown season 3, the crown trailer, the crown season 3 trailer, the crown, monarch conspiracies, elizabeth i, elizabeth the first, elizabeth the virgin queen, mary and elizabeth tudor, Good Queen Bess

Id: nqLcxzv2_-o

Length: 43min 32sec (2612 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 14 2020