The Death of Queen Elizabeth the First

[Music] when Queen Elizabeth II died a year ago now she had reigned for so long that it was unimaginable that anyone else could possibly sit on the throne of the United Kingdom during her long Reign the world went through a seismic Revolution and the late Queen's presence provided a fixed point of certainty and stability in a rapidly changing world the same could be said by people living in the first years of the 17th century when Queen Elizabeth the first died in March of 1603 she had been England's Sovereign for 44 years and the England she had inherited in 1559 from her Catholic Sister Mary was not the nation she left behind in 16003 by the early 17th century England had a growing Navy and the foundations were already laid for it to become a rich colonial power in the following centuries great debates over religious questions had split England apart in the 1530s 40s and 50s but Elizabeth I had kept a lid to a large degree on contentious matters of religion by not taking too extreme a standpoint the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and her great presence and show her strength at that time in which he crafted the image of a queen with kingly virtues cement Ed her position in the hearts of her people Henry VII her father had made it very clear that he considered England to be an imperial and self-determining Kingdom not under the authority of others but it was Elizabeth I who made that idea a reality now the transition between the reign of Elizabeth II and Charles II has been simple for the whole of the late Queen's Reign there has been an obvious air apparent waiting in the wings that was not the case in the early 17th centur Cy it was not immediately obvious who would inherit the English Throne from the childless Elizabeth and her courtiers expected her to make a firm decision on the matter there was considerable anxiety among the people that England would once again be thrown into the sort of political turmoil that had affected the kingdom in the 15th century or that a Catholic Sovereign might reignite the religious debates of the Reformation as Elizabeth the first got older and entered her late 60s that anxiety became somewhat acuter her father Henry VII and her brother King Edward v 6 had given clear directions on who should succeed them to the throne but even in the weeks leading up to Elizabeth's death it wasn't clear who she favored many people assumed it would be James I 6 of Scotland the son of Mary Queen of Scots and the great grandson of Elizabeth's Aunt Margaret chuda but there were other options too at the time of of her death Elizabeth the was fated as Gloriana the embodiment of the concept of albian and idealized England to others she was the Virgin Queen a near Immortal pure and almost goddess-like figure she was a clever politician and a great Survivor and she knew that as she entered old age and became physically weaker she had to work on crafting an Untouchable image and all the portraits of her in later life show an exaggerated image with her white painted features intended to emphasize a youthful complexion her gowns were made to be almost armor likee in form and she is shown dripping in Jewels the paintings project her untouchability her confidence and wealth and Express in turn the self-determination wealth and power of her kingdom however Elizabeth I was not a goddess nor nor was she Immortal and though people thought she would never die England's Empress Alban's Queen began to feel her mortality in the early months of 16003 and Alee and sicken and she was dead before the spring was out in this video I want to explore using contemporary sources what we know about the circumstances of the death of Elizabeth the and in the sequel to this video which will be released on Saturday I will look at her extraordinarily lavish funeral again through contemporary sources which expresses so much about her status how people understood her role and the significance she had in the lives of the English Nation so what sources are there that can give us an insight into those final weeks and months of Elizabeth's life well as well as the standard account of William Camden The Herald um who was the biographer if you like of Elizabeth and the Contemporary London Chronicle stripe there are a couple of key eyewitness sources that provide a very detailed narrative picture of the Queen's demise the first of these is an account in the Memoirs of Sir Robert kry who in the nextra would be created the first Earl of mommoth he was a close relative of the queen he was a grandson of Mary Belin the sister of Elizabeth's mother an bin he was also determined to be the first person to tell tell James I 6 of Scotland that he was King of England and he lurked around the palace in those last few days of Elizabeth's life and then Rod like Fury to Scotland as soon as the queen had died the second is a wonderful account written by Elizabeth southwell she was also a close relative of the queen she was the granddaughter of one of the great power couples of the Elizabethan age her maternal grandfather was the Lord High Admiral Charles Howard who you may better know as Lord Howard of Effingham but by this point he was the Earl of Nottingham and he was also a cousin of the queen her maternal grandmother a lady Nottingham was Katherine KY Sir Robert K's elder sister as well as being some of her closest kin the Earl en counters of Nottingham were among the Queen's closest confidants and Lady Nottingham was her principal Lady of the bed chamber until her death Elizabeth southwell through her grandparent was appointed in 1599 a maid of honor to the queen and was 16 or 17 when the queen died and was present with her to the very end the original manuscript of southwell's account which survives at Stony Hurst College uh is among the papers of a Jesuit priest called Robert Parsons and was only first published in its full form in 1996 by Katherine Lumis we don't know precisely how Parsons got hold of the document but with such a sensational account of the Queen's demise that he seems to have used it in a redacted form as anti-protestant propaganda on the continent until Dr Lumis Tracked Down the original document we knew the content of it entirely from a copy of Parson's redaction in the cottonian manuscripts in the British Library it became well known as it was published along with K's Memoirs in 1788 in a wonderful collection of resources called the progresses and public processions of Queen Elizabeth by an antire called John Nichols given both krie and southwell's close relationship with the queen their intimate access to the Queen's privy chamber and to her person and that so much of the detail they include in their accounts seems to agree we can probably conclude that the material is reliable broadly speaking the southw account begins with a couple of curious stories that imply that Foul Play or witchcraft might have been involved in the Queen's demise and it is probably The Sensational aspect of this part of the account that made the document of interest for the propaganda seeking Parsons and thus ensured that it has survived for us the first story involves Sir John stup who is a gentleman of the privy chamber who southwell saves gave to the queen in February of 16003 a curious piece of gold a medallion decorated with curious markings that made it resemble superficially a coin called an angel stup said that the uh piece had been left to the Queen by an old Welsh woman who had lived to the age of 102 and accounted the object as the reason for her longevity and that she wanted the queen to benefit from that too the queen southwell says Put The Medallion immediately medely around her neck and and southwell says that the Queen's decline in health which was rapid began immediately when she started to wear this gold piece and she implies that the queen had been cursed by it she also suggests that there was some other witchcraft of thoughts that might account for the rapid decline in the Queen's usually robust Constitution and that a couple of the Queen's ladies in Waiting had discovered on the bottom of the queen's chair a playing card of the queen of hearts with a nail knocked through the forehead William Camden The Herald and chronicler records that the Queen's decline was indeed pretty rapid and that she was in good health until only 3 months before her death the queen he says had always enjoyed Health without impairment but that from January of 16003 she began to suffer from weakness and indisposition feeling herself weakening and in order to refresh herself Camden tells us that the queen and the court left whiteall Palace for her favorite Palace at Richmond to the west of the capital moving the cour round was never an easy task and the move was made during a particularly wet and cold spell in January suggesting that the move was considered urgent Queen Elizabeth the would never return to the capital again alive southwell says that the Queen's decline first manifested itself through a loss of appetite she stopped eating and then rapidly lost weight she says that a couple of weeks into this notable decline the queen asks for a Looking Glass something southwell said she hadn't requested for nearly 20 years the reality of her appearance and the anger that people had flattered her appearance for so long made matters worse and led to a further decline in her spirit and the onset of a deep Melancholy southwell says that during the final weeks of her life the queen was off often loathed to move and at one time she sat for three days and three nights fully dressed upon her stool I assume she means the closed stool the toilet southwell says that at some point during her 3 days on the stool she was brought to her feet but that she refused to walk and simply stood there for 15 hours eventually the Lord High Admiral the ear of Nottingham coaxed her to eat some broth car's account of the Queen's decline agrees that there is a descent into Melancholy but that it's not simply a consequence of vanity and appearance when he arrives at Richmond the queen summons Carrie to her presence and he finds her lying on a pile of cushions in one of her withdrawing rooms Carrie says she called me to her I kissed her hand and told her it was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety and in health which I wished might long continue she took me by the hand and rung it hard and said no Robin I am not well and then discoursed with me of her indisposition and that her heart had been sad and heavy for 10 or 12 days and in her discourse she fetched not so few as 40 or 50 great size while Carrie is with her something of the cause of her Melancholy is revealed to him she expresses a deep remorse at the death of Mary Queen of Scots he says that even on the Sunday while he was with her the queen remained Seated on her cushions rather than attend worship and she sat beside her private closet door her private Chapel where she could hear Divine service according to both Carrie and southwell Elizabeth couldn't be persuaded by any of the privy counsel to go to bed the ear of Nottingham tried hard to get her to do so but she in a soft voice said that if he knew what she had seen in her bed he would not persuade her to go there she had a troubled conscience so Robert cile her principal secretary whom she affectionately called her pygmy asked if she had seen any Spirits while in her bed and whether that was troubling her she hadn't lost her spark even then and told him off round ly for asking such an impertinent question the southwell records cil's response and her retort to that and these remarks are perhaps the most well-known aspect of the deathbed Narrative of Queen Elizabeth the cile tells her that to content her people she must go to bed Elizabeth had not lost her wit nor her sense of sovereign determination even in her frail condition and she responded quickly little man the word must is not to be used to princes according to southwell she then rebuked him further saying that his father Lord Burley would never have dared say such a thing to her and that her imminent demise had made CLE far too presumptuous eventually only a few days before she dies the ear of Nottingham succeeded in persuading the queen to go to her bed southwell tells us that in the final week of her life the queen found it increasingly difficult to speak as she had a worsening sore throat Camden says that she had lumps in her throat that made it difficult for her to speak Carrie says that on the 23rd of March she was rendered entirely mute and that one of her last acts was to summon the privy Council that day and acknowledge the king of Scots as her Heir which he had to do through hand gestures alone southwell's account somewhat contradicts car in this matter and she's more likely to been present at the scene she says that when the privy Council were called Elizabeth held up her finger to indicate the choice between the king of France and the king of Scots she also relates that the name of Edward seamer Lord beum of hatch the son of Lady Katherine gray and the nephew of Lady Jane gray was also suggested as a possible successor too he was indeed a claimant to the throne under the provisions of both Henry VII's and Edward I 6 will as a senior male descendant of Mary Juda Henry's sister however when sema's name was mentioned Elizabeth then spoke and dismissed his claim in no uncertain terms I will have no Rascal son in my seat but one worthy to be a king southwell tells us that despite her conscience troubling her Elizabeth kept the Archbishop of Canterbury and her Chapel clergy at some distance in the week before her death knowing the end was near on the 23rd of March she finally allowed them in the Archbishop of cter John wit gift examined her in her faith and she answered him Carrie says by lifting her eyes and holding up her hand after a while the Archbishop Rises to leave the queen but she requested him to remain and he prayed for some time longer with her Elizabeth the first died early in the morning of the 24th of March 16003 in her bed in the privy chamber at Richmond Palace according to southwell as soon as she was dead Robert kry the other eyewitness was on his horse riding hard to Scotland and he would be the first to break the news to James I 6 that he was now King James the first of England too what did Elizabeth die off the fact that she seemingly lost her appetite wasted away and developed lumps in her throat could be the consequence of many ailments from cancer to the quinzy recently it has been suggested that she developed pneumonia commonly fatal in the old and by chuda standards age 69 she was old of course Elizabeth southwell suggests that some element of Foul Play or witchcraft might have been involved however I think we can dismiss those stories as just the work of a youthful imagination the clear cloud of melancholy the queen was afflicted with what we might refer to now as depression May well have been brought on by the death of many of her close friends and companions one of those lost in early 16003 just before the queen began her final decline was her kinswoman and Confidant Katherine the Countess of Nottingham Elizabeth had lost many of her friends and contempories and the years before and must have felt Left Behind to some extent the loss of recent favorites must have weighed heavy on her heart too the indictment and execution of Robert Deo the Earl of Essex the year before and the disc consent evident from the younger members of her court at her government policies weighed heavy on her the most likely explanation for her death is that Elizabeth was simply wearied by life and tired of government and with a heavy conscience she simply gave up but we will never know in the next video which will be released on Saturday we move from the relative intimacy and privacy of Richmond Palace to the public glare of London as I look at Elizabeth's funeral the procession from whall Palace to her grave in Westminster was an extraordinary event if you're interested in learning more about the Palace of whiteall the center of English Court life and and the reign of Elizabeth the why not get a hold of this month's issue of the antiy magazine using contemporary Visual Evidence I piece together some of the history of this extraordinary lost Royal Palace in the heart of London this month has a real Tuda theme to it as I also look at Stained Glass by Henry VIII's Court Glazier and the significance of the heraldic display seen at Royal and Noble funerals thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Allan Barton - The Antiquary

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Length: 19min 54sec (1194 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023