The Tudors, Part 2 of 2

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It is March the 17th, 1554,

and a barge is cutting its way along the River Thames.

As it passes under London Bridge, the heads of recently executed prisoners leer down from spikes set in the stones.

The boat holds a couple of court officials, keeping a watchful eye.

But by far the most important passenger in the vessel is a young woman.

Her fiery red hair tucked into her hood, she suppresses a shudder at the spectacle above her.

The oarsman, dressed all in black, does not meet her eye.

He has made this gloomy journey with many, but no one of this status.

The second daughter of the late, great King Henry VIII.

Twenty-year-old Lady Elizabeth sits stiffly, her hands curled into fists in the folds of her skirts.

The lanterns hanging from the vessel's prow light her pale face.

She holds her head high, only the tightening of her jaw betrays her fear as the vessel glides towards the imposing bulk of the Tower of London, which looms increasingly large on her left.

Along the castellated walls of the massive fortress, she can see the silhouettes of ravens, their watchful eyes taking in her arrival.

It is an ominous welcome to what will be her prison.

She is being brought here on the orders of her half-sister, Queen Mary, who fears that her younger sibling has been plotting against her.

Elizabeth has written to the Queen, protesting her innocence, but Mary has made a decision and will not be swayed.

Now the barge begins to slow as it nears the tower.

Elizabeth is all too aware that her mother, Anne Boleyn, made a similar journey before meeting her tragic fate within the prison's walls.

Not far ahead, she catches a glimpse of the water entrance known as Traitor's Gate.

Few who pass beneath its arch ever return.

But before they reach it, the barge scrapes to a stop near a flight of wet stone steps, a landing spot on Tower Wharf.

The oarsman gestures for her to stand, and yeoman warders move forward to receive her, their steel-tipped halberds clanking against the cobbles.

Elizabeth freezes for a second in fear, but then compels herself to move.

She will not be manhandled.

But as she steps from the barge onto the worn steps, she slips.

and falls to her knees, barely suppressing a cry of shock.

One of the yeomen bends to offer his hand.

It's a small gesture of kindness, but these are hard times.

So she takes it and allows him to help her.

Getting to her feet, she takes a steadying breath, then raises her chin.

She may have been stripped of her freedom, but she will face whatever comes next with dignity.

The later Tudor years were a time of turmoil, political intrigue, and national transformation.

Defined initially by crises of succession, bitter feuds within the highest echelons of nobility, and fundamental shifts in the religious landscape, the period also saw the reign of some of the most famous royal women in history: Mary I and her sister and rival, Elizabeth.

Under the 44-year reign of the latter, Britain experienced a golden age of culture, exploration, and defiance against Catholic Europe.

But why did Elizabeth excel as a sovereign in a way that far outshone her predecessors?

Did ordinary people in Tudor times care who was on the throne?

And how did the dynasty come to an end after only three generations?

I'm John Hopkins from the Noisen Network.

This is a short history of the Tudors, part two of two.

It is late January, 1547.

King Henry VIII, the towering tyrannical Tudor monarch, has just taken his final breath.

The Privy Council gathers his son, Edward, and his youngest daughter Elizabeth to tell them the news.

The nine-year-old boy runs to his teenage sister's arms to weep.

Less than a month later, he is crowned King Edward VI of England at Westminster Abbey.

Tracy Borman, OBE, is chief historian at historic royal palaces and the author of several historical biographies, including The Private Lives of the Tudors.

Edward VI was described by Henry VIII as his precious jewel.

He was the son who he'd gone to so much trouble for, you know, 30 years nearly of trying and three wives down.

And finally, wife number three, Jane Seymour, gives him a son, Edward.

So when Henry dies in 1547, Edward is only nine years old.

But Henry thinks there's no reason to suspect that Edward won't live a long, healthy life, have sons of his own, and secure the Tudor dynasty.

So he thinks he's left it in safe hands.

Another thing his father hasn't factored into his will is the provision of a Lord Protector who will rule the country while Edward is still a minor.

Henry's executors choose Edward Seymour, the orphaned king's uncle, via his mother, Jane Seymour.

The young King Edward is a serious young man, a devout Protestant, who begins every day with his prayers.

But he has time for frivolities too.

Like his father, Edward is fond of blood sports, fishing and hawking.

He keeps greyhounds, fighting bears and a pet monkey.

He retains his father's favorite fool.

But other roles change hands, including one of the most prized roles, the groom of the stool.

There are some intriguing positions in the private world of the monarch, and most of all being the groom of the stall, which on paper sounds like the worst job in history.

The groom of the stall, it becomes a popular post during the reign of Henry VII, so towards the end of the 15th century.

And really, the job of the groom of the stall was to accompany the monarch to the clothes stall or the toilet and to wait in there with him until he'd finished and then make sure he was clean before he went back out into the public court.

So you think, what a terrible job.

It was the most sought-after job in the Tudor Court because it's all about access to the monarch.

That's how you get ahead if you can see and spend time with the monarch.

And nobody does that more intimately or more regularly than the groom of the stool.

But though courtiers are in plentiful supply early on, Edward is deprived of the company of his older sisters, Mary and Elizabeth.

As the new king has no queen, It is not considered fitting for the unmarried young women to be present at court with no female household to serve.

So they are sent instead to Chelsea Manor to join their stepmother, the late king's widow, Catherine Parr.

For her part, Catherine, at 34, throws caution to the wind and marries her former love, Thomas Seymour,

another of the king's uncles and brother of his lord protector.

But the match proves disastrous.

Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth swiftly develops a crush on her stepmother's new husband.

Seymour, in turn, begins to behave inappropriately with his stepdaughter, visiting her bedchamber and behaving flirtatiously with her.

Things come to a head when a heavily pregnant Catherine walks in on her husband with his stepdaughter in his arms.

Furious, she sends Elizabeth away, where she is kept for a time in strict seclusion.

A later rumor emerges, albeit very likely unfounded, that the teenage Elizabeth now gives birth to a child, who was, in the words of one gossip, miserably destroyed.

Shortly after, with some semblance of marital harmony restored, Catherine moves to Sudley Castle in Gloucestershire to give birth.

She delivers a baby named Mary after her oldest stepdaughter.

But a few days after the birth, Catherine succumbs to puerperal fever.

It falls to her devout protégé, Elizabeth's cousin, Lady Jane Grey, to act as chief mourner.

After the death of his wife, it is widely rumored that the ambitious Thomas Seymour intends to marry Elizabeth.

Whether or not it's true, he does now focus his attentions more directly upon the young king, with designs on taking over his brother's position.

as Lord Protector.

Thomas starts to visit his young nephew in secret and showers him with gifts.

Then he comes up with a plan to force things along more quickly by attempting to kidnap the king.

Having obtained copies of the keys to the privy apartments at Hampton Court, he steals into the king's gardens at the dead of night in January 1549.

The intrusion startles one of Edward's spaniels.

and Thomas shoots the dog to silence it.

The alarm is raised and Thomas is apprehended with a loaded pistol in his hands.

It is a very bad look.

He is arrested on suspicion of high treason and thrown into the Tower of London.

Without recourse to a formal trial, he is convicted on 33 charges, including attempted kidnapping, raising troops unlawfully, bribery, and pursuing an unlawful marriage.

He is promptly beheaded.

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In the wake of the scandal, Elizabeth transforms her image.

Previously a fan of rich fabrics and colors, she adopts the simple black uniform of chastity and devotion favored by her cousin, Lady Jane Gray.

The lesson she has learned about the desires of men and the dangers they can unleash will stay with Elizabeth for the rest of her long life.

The king's uncle, Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, proves almost as much of a disappointment as his brother Thomas.

Initially popular, Seymour makes some bad decisions, particularly in his handling of foreign affairs and economic issues.

He pursues costly wars with Scotland and France, including the 1547 Battle of Pincky in Scotland.

Though a military success, it fails in its long-term goal of re-securing the promised marriage between the King and Mary, Queen of Scots, which was reneged upon some years previously.

Along with Lady Jane, Mary has long been a contender for the position of Edward's fiancée.

But at 11, his tender age means the matter is still up for discussion.

Edward Seymour's failure to address uprisings about religious and economic reform weakens his position.

Eventually, he is removed from power by his rivals, led by John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, whose son, Robert, is a close friend of both King Edward and his sister Elizabeth.

Taking control, Northumberland reverses Seymour's policies, stabilizing the economy.

He also furthers Protestant reforms, a matter close to the young king's heart.

The series of religious shifts during Edward's reign includes the introduction of English services through the Book of Common Prayer.

Many old Catholic rituals are also banned, such as the use of rosaries, the casting of holy water, and pilgrimage.

None of these reforms make Edward popular with Catholics.

They also drive a wedge between him and half-sister Mary, the daughter of the Catholic Spanish Princess Catherine of Aragon.

As the uprisings continue and chaos and disorder loom, Edward's health begins to fail.

Now, Edward, we often use hindsight and say he was a sickly child.

He was never a sickly child.

He was very robust as a young man.

But in the last year of his reign, in 1552, he contracted measles and that seems to have fatally weakened his immune system.

Knowing he may not have long, the teenage monarch has some difficult choices to make.

He is determined to prevent the accession of his half-sister Mary, who he justly fears will undo his religious reforms.

Elizabeth, now is believed illegitimate, is also not considered worthy of the crown.

But Edward is under some pressure to make these decisions from John Dudley, who has something to gain himself.

His son, Lord Guilford Dudley, marries Lady Jane Grey in May 1553.

So Edward was a devout Protestant, and he wanted to be absolutely sure that England would stay Protestant after his death.

So he diverted the succession away from the next in line, who was Mary, his elder half-sister, and he knew a staunch Catholic, to his cousin, Lady Jane Grey.

who was like him a devout Protestant.

And this was profound because for the first time, it introduced this destabilizing element into the succession.

Because now it wasn't just about hereditary right, it was almost as if the monarch could just name who they wanted.

So it gave free reign to rival claimants to say, Well, hang on, I've got a better claimant than him or her.

And it did create instability going forward.

On July the 6th, 1553, Henry VIII's beloved son and heir passes away.

Edward's untimely death at just 15 years old plunges England into uncertainty and chaos.

Just a few days later, Lady Jane Grey is proclaimed queen, as per the orders of the late king.

The diminutive 16-year-old enters the Tower of London with great ceremony and some reluctance.

Though she understands she is merely a pawn for her scheming father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, there's little she can do to defy him.

She even wears Italian-style chopins, or heeled shoes, at his request to enhance her stature and royal presence.

A furious Mary, seen by many to be the rightful heir, flees to one of her properties.

A search party is hot on her heels, but an uprising in her favor swells into wide support.

It is a warm night in mid-July 1553 and a crowd is gathering outside the thick stone walls of Framlingham Castle in Suffolk.

Clustering in knots, they stand murmuring to one another, the glow of torches lighting their determined faces.

They continue to arrive in twos and threes, then in dozens, then in droves.

Before long, the castle's outer walls are ringed with men.

The muttering rises into a restless cacophony.

It is a storm about to break.

Amid the crowd is a young Catholic farmer gripping a rusted pike.

In the other hand, he holds his rosary beads, their familiar shape, a comfort between his fingertips.

For years, during Edward's reign, he and his family had to keep them hidden, praying only at night when no informers could see.

But now, with Mary Tudor's banner raised above him, he knows he'll be in safe company.

The farmer was one of the first to appear when the call went out yesterday.

Mary, the rightful queen, has fled to Suffolk from London.

in fear of her life from the Duke of Northumberland's men.

As the night draws on, the crowd outside the castle swells with supporters.

Farmers with scythes, old soldiers with rusting blades, Catholic priests in long black cassocks.

A new arrival from London now spreads the word of what he's seen.

Lady Jane Grey, a pale, frail doll of a girl, being crowned in the tower.

A puppet queen, doing the bidding of her father-in-law Northumberland.

She has no army, no power, no people.

And the men here have no intention of living as her subjects.

Now comes the thrumming of hooves and the hubbub lessens as the men strain to see who approaches.

A great cheer goes up as the new visitors are identified as navy officers with a consignment of weapons.

The rebels set up camp and are told that inside inside the castle, Mary is writing letters, rallying lords to her cause.

As the days pass, plans are drawn up to defend her against Northumberland, who is marching with his own forces from London.

At last, a cry rings out.

The farmer spots a rider approaching at speed.

The news is that the Duke of Northumberland and his army are now close to Cambridge, halfway here from London.

It is time to march against him.

The plans are finally set in motion.

A large contingent of the men sets off to fight, while others, the farmer among them, are assigned to stay behind and guard Mary.

But there is a newfound confidence in the gathering now.

Rumors have it that Northumberland doesn't have the manpower to win this.

Another messenger approaches and disappears inside the castle, and a little later, a whisper passes through those who have stayed to defend, Mary herself will come and address them.

Within the hour, the royal lady appears from high on the battlements, a crimson cloak covering her shoulders.

In a proud voice, she confirms that the Privy Council has declared its support for her over Lady Jane Grey.

It is all over for the puppet Queen and Northumberland, who is now retreating with his army.

For a moment, there is silence.

Then a great roar surges up, proclaiming Mary as queen.

The Catholic farmer reaches for his rosary beads in thanks as the bells in the castle tower begin to toll in celebration.

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Faced with Mary's forces of 10,000 men, the Duke of Northumberland sees no way out and surrenders at Cambridge on July the 20th.

He is imprisoned in the Tower of London and, like so many before him, tried and executed.

His sons are also imprisoned, including Robert Dudley.

the close childhood friend of Edward and Elizabeth.

On hearing that she has been deposed, Lady Jane, who never wanted to be queen in the first place, is said to simply ask, May I go home?

Tragically for her, the situation has become far too complex for that.

She and her husband Guilford are tried for high treason.

They are sentenced to death, but the victorious Mary is merciful and allows the couple to remain as prisoners in the tower for now.

Mary is crowned on October the 1st, 1553, at Westminster Abbey.

She had a lot of ground to cover and a lot of challenges to establish herself as a sole queen, as it was said, because we'd had queens, but mainly Queen's consort, the wife of the king, not a queen regnant who ruled in her own right.

So Mary, you could argue, much as I love Elizabeth, she did a lot of the hard work that then Elizabeth later benefited from, because there had to be a whole new way of doing things with a woman in charge.

This wasn't the age of queens.

And so Mary had a mountain to climb, really, and she did actually achieve quite a lot.

A devout Catholic, Mary immediately sets about reversing Edward VI's Protestant reforms.

She restores the power of the Pope as the Church's leader and reinstates Catholic Mass.

But it's her persecution of Protestants who refuse to conform that earns her the nickname of Bloody Mary.

The Bloody Mary title comes from the fact that she, as a very staunch Catholic, tried to return England to papal obedience.

So, you know, to make it part of Roman Catholic Europe again.

And in so doing, she rode roughshod over the wishes of her people.

Even many of England's Catholics didn't want this to happen, but Mary ignored them and she would not abide anybody who wouldn't convert to her faith.

And that's when she ordered the burning of heretics, Protestants who wouldn't renounce their faith.

And around 300 people were put to the flames during her brief reign.

And that has earned her the nickname Bloody Mary.

And it's stuck really for almost 500 years.

Hoping to strengthen Catholicism in England, Mary takes the advice of her cousin, the Habsburg Emperor Charles V, and agrees to marry his son and heir, Philip II of Spain, in 1554.

The news of the engagement sparks fear of England becoming a Spanish puppet state.

An uprising follows, led by respected nobleman and soldier Thomas Wyatt and others, including the father of Lady Jane Grey.

Though the conspirators don't intend to bring Lady Jane back to the throne, Her father's involvement convinces Mary that the teenager known as the Nine-Day Queen could be a figurehead for future rebellions.

Mary rescinds her earlier leniency and agrees to the immediate execution of Jane and her husband.

Though she sends priests in a final attempt to convert them to Catholicism before they meet their God, the devout couple refuse and go to the block as Protestants in February 1554.

The so-called Wyatts rebellion also proves dangerous for Mary's half-sister Elizabeth, currently residing at Ashridge House, a former monastery in Hertfordshire.

Seized by court officials and taken to Whitehall Palace, Elizabeth is then imprisoned in the Tower of London, following in the footsteps of her mother, Anne Boleyn.

Indeed, it is reported anecdotally that the princess is so convinced of her coming execution that she considers asking if she can die by the sword rather than the axe.

And her worst fears seem to be confirmed when a warrant for her execution comes through to the tower.

But in a stroke of luck for Elizabeth, the lieutenant of the tower seeks confirmation of the warrant's validity from Mary, who vehemently denies she has issued it.

Furious to discover it was the work of her Lord Chancellor, the Queen's attitude towards her sister softens.

Elizabeth is released released from the tower without charge in May, on the 18th anniversary of her own mother's execution.

That summer, Philip of Spain arrives in England and is appalled by the abysmal weather.

He also finds his betrothed, 11 years his senior, a disappointment.

At 37, Mary's health is not good.

and the Spanish prince does his best to hide his regret at his pale, emaciated fiancée.

But a promise is a promise, and so on July the 25th, the pair marry at Winchester Cathedral, with both bride and groom dressed in ostentatious gowns of rich gold fabric.

Mary adores her new husband despite his indifference, and soon there is the suggestion of a pregnancy.

But while Mary is thrilled, Philip's eye has already been caught by her half-sister Elizabeth, now a handsome young woman with striking red hair and the bewitching dark eyes of her mother.

Nothing comes of his interest, but it is bruising for Mary.

She is left more humiliated and heartbroken still when it's discovered she had been experiencing a phantom pregnancy, and no baby appears.

Not long after, Philip is called by his father to attend to imperial business in the Netherlands.

It's possibly a ruse on Philip's part to escape his melancholic wife, and he spends much of the rest of their marriage away from her.

A second phantom pregnancy, following a brief visit from Philip, is likely to be the beginnings of a cancerous growth in Mary's abdomen.

When the longed-for heir fails to materialize, She rallies sufficiently to visit her younger sister at Hatfield House.

There she is entertained in fine Tudor style, with singing, feasting and bear-baiting.

With her health in serious decline, this public show of togetherness is a signal to the world that her sister is now her likely heir.

One of the final disappointments of Mary's bitter reign comes towards its end with the eventual marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the eldest son of the King of France.

Edinburgh is rocked by Protestant riots at this Catholic alliance, and France seizes the moment to recapture Calais, the last piece of English territory on French soil.

Mary now worsens by the day.

Despite sending begging letters to her husband and gifts of his favorite game pasties, Philip refuses to visit his dying wife one last time.

She dies on November 17th, 1558, probably from ovarian cancer.

Though remembered for her bloody reign, she paves the way for future female monarchs.

First and foremost, Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth receives the news of her sister's death at Hatfield on November the 17th, 1558, as as tradition has it, seated under an ancient oak tree.

Her ceremonial procession through London and coronation the following January are carefully choreographed performances designed to reinforce her right to rule.

No one has forgotten, Elizabeth least of all, that her mother, Anne Boleyn, died a condemned traitor.

The Queen inherits a country divided by religion and isolated in European politics.

That alone is difficult for any monarch, but is substantially more challenging for a 25-year-old woman.

Sadly, women are universally viewed as second-class citizens in the Tudor period, so it's very hard for a woman to have any measure of independence.

They are expected to have their lives dictated by male relations, fathers, brothers, uncles, and of course husbands.

And people make a lot of comment about Elizabeth as a queen unmarried, unmarried, because how on earth can she govern a country without a husband to tell her what to do?

And that's so deeply ingrained that even Elizabeth herself, I think, she's often hailed as sort of a feminist icon, but she wasn't.

I think she agreed with that, that women were naturally inferior to men in every single respect, but she saw herself as a shining exception to the general rule.

Elizabeth is not short on marital office from the Holy Roman Emperor, Eric of Sweden, and even her sister Mary's widower, Philip of Spain.

And such offers continue coming throughout her life.

But while she is a passionate young woman who loves dancing and the company of men, from early in the reign, Elizabeth declares her intention never to marry.

There are practical reasons for this decision.

The Tudors expect a wife to submit to her husband on all matters, even if she is a queen.

But if she chose a husband from overseas, as her sister did, her deference to him could mean England's deference to a foreign power.

Besides, Elizabeth has her own way of doing things.

Keenly intelligent, with the restless energy of her father, Elizabeth promises in her first speech as queen to rule by good advice and counsel.

Early in the reign of this Protestant monarch, the so-called Elizabethan settlement offers a religious compromise, re-establishing re-establishing the sovereign supremacy over a Church of England, but retaining much Catholic ritual.

Even Elizabeth herself is not above hearing Mass in private when the mood takes her.

In a further compromise, Mary's counselors are retained at the heart of government, and Elizabeth is careful not to rush into expensive foreign wars like her father.

Instead, she cautiously promotes peace and compromise.

Critics might see it as passivity, but her reign becomes a masterclass in negotiation and PR.

She was fantastic at crafting her public image, and she was able to transform the widespread unease at having a virgin queen into a positive advantage.

And she was almost like a Virgin Mary figure to be worshipped on earth.

And she famously said, you know, I'm married to England, my people are my children, and she carried on this metaphor just superbly as her reign progressed.

And so that's how we think of her.

Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, even four and a half centuries later, after her death, it's still how we remember her.

Yet Elizabeth I is not without her favourites.

Chief among them is the man she calls her bonny sweet Robin, Robert Dudley, to whom she became particularly close during their shared imprisonment in the Tower of London.

Charismatic and good-looking, Dudley is now appointed the Queen's Master of the Horse.

They enjoy hunting together and dancing too.

The Queen is especially fond of the energetic volta, in which she is thrown several feet into the air by her partner.

She also has Dudley's bedchamber moved closer to her own, allowing for clandestine meetings.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the question that has persisted both then and now is whether the so-called Virgin Queen remained as she claimed.

Do you know, I have to say, I give a lot of talks and this is the number one question.

I can guarantee I will be asked it at pretty much every talk.

I once gave a presentation on the Norman Conquest and somebody asked me, was Elizabeth really the Virgin Queen at the end of it?

So

I'm used to this question, question, but it is a good one, I think.

It's valid.

Of course we want to know.

Unless fresh evidence comes to light, I think we'll never know for sure.

But for my money, she really was the Virgin Queen.

And I think really her turbulent childhood, her mother being executed on the orders of her father when she was the child, and then she sees another stepmother executed by her father.

And then she witnesses her sister's tragic history of phantom pregnancies and being abandoned by her husband.

And I think genuinely, Elizabeth had a terror of marriage.

Although Elizabeth is not able to speak about her disgraced mother in public, one of her most cherished possessions is a ring that opens to reveal two portraits, one of the Queen herself, the other of Anne Boleyn.

As for Robert Dudley, can we ever really know what happened in a royal bedchamber almost 500 years ago?

There's a tantalising clue that happened at Hampton Court very early in her reign.

She'd only been queen for four years when, in 1562, she fell ill with smallpox.

Now, that was a deadly disease at the time.

Survival rates were low.

Elizabeth thought she was dying, and so she summoned a priest, a very Catholic way of making a last confession, and she attested that nothing improper had ever passed between her and Robert Dudley.

Some of your cynical listeners may say, well, of course she would say that, but you wouldn't say that on your deathbed in this God-fearing age where you would believe you would be condemning your soul to eternal damnation.

So I think she spoke the truth, and I think she just wouldn't have taken the risk.

There is, after all, an undeniable obstacle that stands in the way of Elizabeth's relationship with Dudley.

he is already married.

His wife, Amy Robsart, is kept away from court in his Oxfordshire home.

Strangely, however, it is Robsart's sudden death, falling down a staircase, that causes Elizabeth to cool the relationship with Dudley.

Though it's almost certainly just a tragic accident, the finger of suspicion points at Dudley.

and then at Elizabeth herself.

While it's very unlikely that either had a hand in the accident, even if Elizabeth had been considering marriage to Dudley, it would now be a public relations disaster.

Once court gossip has moved on, in 1564 Elizabeth confirms the distance between her and her favourite by proposing him as a suitor for her greatest rival, her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots.

After the death of her husband, François, the King of France, in 1560, the Scottish Queen Queen returned to her homeland the following year to reclaim power from the regents who had been governing in her place.

Though she's now looking for a new husband, Mary is not keen on her cousin Elizabeth's suggestion, nor is Dudley, who proposes Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in his place.

Mary falls for Darnley's superficial charms and agrees to the match, and soon is rewarded with the the birth of a male heir, whom she names James.

But the marriage ends with Darnley's assassination and a political scandal that follows his mysterious murder.

Mary's subsequent marriage to the suspected culprit, the Earl of Bothwell, makes things even worse for her, sparking widespread outrage.

She is forced to abdicate in 1567 in favor of her infant son, who at just 13 months old becomes King James VI of Scotland.

We can't resist comparing her to Elizabeth because they are so opposite in pretty much every way.

Mary's Catholic, Elizabeth's Protestant.

Mary marries three times.

Elizabeth is the virgin queen.

Mary loses her throne in Scotland when she's 25.

At the same age, Elizabeth gains her throne in England.

So they are the mirror opposites of each other, but their lives are intertwined and fatally so because Mary has a very strong claim to Elizabeth's throne.

And for as long as Elizabeth remains unmarried, people are looking to Mary as the next queen.

Mary flees to England after being deposed, seeking Elizabeth's protection.

But considering her a danger to her own rule, her cousin instead has her imprisoned at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire.

Mary will remain under lock and key for the next 15 years, in a dilemma that will haunt Elizabeth's reign.

By the early 1570s, Elizabeth's authority is coming under increasing threat.

Attempting to capitalize on the discontent caused by Mary's arrival in England, the Pope excommunicates Elizabeth.

He declares the English Queen a heretic.

and encourages her Catholic subjects to rebel.

Unfortunately for Elizabeth, plenty of his devotees are willing to take up the challenge.

In 1571, her government uncovers what becomes known as the Ridolfi Plot, a scheme to replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots.

The conspiracy is masterminded by Italian banker Roberto de Ridolfi, who attempts to strengthen Mary's claim to the throne by marrying her to Elizabeth's powerful cousin, the Duke of Norfolk.

But the plot is discovered by the Queen's most trusted advisors, William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham, who is dubbed her spymaster.

Norfolk is swiftly executed.

Only the mercy of Elizabeth saves Mary, Queen of Scots, from death, this time.

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In all these years, Sir Robert Dudley remains single and hopeful.

But there is more competition than ever for Elizabeth's attention.

During the booming Elizabethan era, wealthy courtiers build spectacular, so-called prodigy houses to display their wealth, with wings devoted to the occasional royal visit.

And when the Queen comes to stay, wildly expensive entertainments are staged in her honor.

After many years of wooing Elizabeth, Dudley still hasn't secured her as his wife.

While he's been waiting, he's even enjoyed a secret dalliance or two with her ladies in court, including the Queen's pretty cousin, Lettis Knowles.

But in the summer of 1575, Dudley makes one final, very grand attempt to win the ultimate prize of Elizabeth's hand on a royal visit to his home, Kenilworth Castle.

It is a sultry summer evening in July 1575 at Kenilworth Castle in the English West Midlands.

Music ripples over the Great Mere, an enormous man-made lake that surrounds the castle.

At the lake's shores, a crowd has gathered, locals who have been invited to witness tonight's extraordinary spectacle.

Among them is an 11-year-old boy named William, who squeezes between the villagers, eager for a better view.

As he gets closer to the front of the crowd, on the edges of the mere, he gasps at the water shimmering in the light of hundreds of lanterns.

A woman he recognizes from church lets him pass and, pointing to the opposite shore, asks if he's seen the queen yet.

The boy follows her gaze, and there she is, Queen Elizabeth, perched on a throne upon a raised platform.

Though she is a small figure from this distance, her gown gleams with pearls in the softening evening light.

Next to her sits Sir Robert Dudley, the Queen's friend and host at Kenilworth.

But it is the Virgin Queen thousands of eyes are watching most closely.

The woman tells the boy that Dudley is spending a thousand pounds a day on the Queen's three-week visit.

The sum means nothing to the boy.

William is more more of a words person.

But he's heard local talk of Dudley restocking his land with deer for the Queen to hunt, planting a new garden in her honor, and preparing a luxury apartment for her and her ladies.

A blast of trumpets announces the official beginning of the night's festivities.

The chattering crowd falls silent.

On the lake, a glittering vessel appears, a vast float shaped like a dolphin, with music rising from its body.

On the deck, figures move around, dressed like the Greek gods from old stories, their voices lifting in song.

One actor, clad in robes of deep sea green, calls out to introduce himself as Proteus, the ancient sea god.

His voice rings out across the water as he sings the queen's praises.

William is captivated by the spectacle.

He has never seen anything on this scale.

As the twilight fades away, fireworks above the castle burst into life, scattering bright embers across the night sky.

The crowd gasps at the pyrotechnics, and William is dumbstruck.

For the longest time, he can't stop thinking about the astonishing theatrical show.

So much so, in fact, that many years later, when he is better known by his surname, he will recall it in the writing of one of his masterworks,

A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Some historians believe that a young Shakespeare from nearby Stratford-upon-Avon may well have witnessed the lavish entertainment put on for the Queen at Kenilworth.

But even if he didn't see it firsthand, as a local boy, the bard would have heard of the legendary spectacle.

Yet, in spite of Elizabeth's delight at the entertainment at Kenilworth, she still refuses to commit to marriage.

In private, Dudley continues his affair with Lettis Knowles, but things take a less frivolous turn when she falls pregnant.

The pair marry in a clandestine ceremony in Wansted, Essex, but the secret eventually leaks out at court.

The Queen's reaction is explosive.

She flies at Lettis, boxes her ears, and banishes her cousin from her presence.

Although she eventually forgives Dudley, it takes a long time for their relationship to regain its old intimacy.

In the meantime, still smarting, Elizabeth considers her latest marital offer from the Duke of Anjou, the youngest brother of the French king.

Though the approach is made for political reasons, the 45-year-old queen is quite taken by the 23-year-old Duke.

In turn, the young Duke presents her with a diamond worth 5,000 crowns, and the two prove inseparable on his visit to her in Richmond Palace.

But fearing backlash from Spain at this alliance, Elizabeth's counsellors argue against the match, and Anjou's sudden death from a fever not long afterwards puts an end to the matter.

In her later years, Elizabeth leans more than ever into symbolism borrowed from the Virgin Mary or the chaste classical goddess Diana.

In a portrait painted by Nicholas Hilliard, the queen shimmers in pearls, which signify her chastity.

The pelican of her brooch is chosen to represent her sacrifice, as the mother pelican is believed to feed her own blood to her young.

Elizabeth is seen to be married to England, a mother to her people.

Two events in the 1580s strengthen Elizabeth's position further, though one in particular causes the Queen more than a little heartache.

First, in 1586, her spy master Walsingham hears of the so-called Babington plot to assassinate Elizabeth and put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne.

Walsingham fashions an elaborate trap.

Keeping the plot under careful covert surveillance, he allows it to run its course until the Scottish Queen reveals her support for it in writing.

After much hesitancy and personal anguish, Elizabeth finally orders her royal cousin's execution in the privacy of Fotheringay Castle.

But if Mary's death in 1587 is hoped to bring an end to Catholic conspiracy, it achieves the opposite effect.

Mary becomes a Catholic martyr, and her execution aggravates Elizabeth's enemies abroad, most of all Philip II of Spain.

The old antagonism between Protestant England and Catholic Spain is not helped by Francis Drake attacking and looting the Spanish fleet in Cadiz Harbor.

In 1588, Philip sends a great Spanish armada, a fleet of around 130 ships carrying around 30,000 men to overthrow Elizabeth.

While it's on its way, the Queen travels to Tilbury in Essex to address her troops.

I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, the Queen proclaims in one of the most famous speeches in royal history, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.

The great Spanish Armada is defeated by the smaller, more maneuverable ships of the English Navy, led by Drake and Charles Howard, with the help of some bad weather.

It is Elizabeth's finest hour and marks a major victory for England.

But after the triumph that sees her now celebrated as Gloriana, Elizabeth suffers one of the most painful losses of her life with the death of Dudley.

And of all the collections in the National Archives, my absolute favourite is a letter, the last letter that Robert Dudley ever wrote to Elizabeth, just after the Armada, actually, in 1588, when he was dying.

And it was a fairly inconsequential letter.

He was just asking after her health, thanking her for some medicine that she'd sent him.

But this letter was the last one he ever wrote to her, and Elizabeth has inscribed it on the back, his last letter, and she kept it in a locked casket for the rest of her life, right by her bedside.

The last years of Elizabeth's reign are a little anticlimactic.

By 1598, both of her spy masters are dead, succeeded at court by Cecil's son Robert and the increasingly powerful figures of Walter Raleigh and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

But these later courtiers don't always have the acumen of their their predecessors.

While they battle for influence amid accusations of bribery and corruption, poorly resourced military campaigns lead to defeats in Spain, France, and Ireland.

Elizabeth dies at Richmond Palace after a short illness in the early hours of March the 24th, 1603, aged 69.

She is buried in Westminster Abbey.

She leaves no heir and never formally named a successor, but James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, has the strongest claim to the English throne.

His coronation as James I creates the union of the crowns.

Though England and Scotland will remain functionally separate for another century, they now share a sovereign for the first time.

But as James hails from the ancient noble house of Stuart, his accession also marks the end of the Tudor dynasty.

By the end of Elizabeth's reign, England has undergone a profound transformation from the early days of the Tudor dynasty when Henry VII's victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field ended the Wars of the Roses.

Though her sister before her attempted to restore Catholicism, by the end of Elizabeth's rule, England is firmly established as a Protestant nation.

She oversaw a flourishing of culture, trade and exploration.

However, a darker legacy also took shape during her reign.

The exploits of sailors such as Drake, Raleigh and John Hawkins evolved into colonization in the Americas and beyond.

laying the foundations for the British Empire and the burgeoning slave trade, a lasting stain on the Tudor legacy.

The Tudor Age was, above all, a time of extraordinary change, one that still captures the world's imagination.

From books to television dramas to blockbuster films, our appetite for Tudor history remains insatiable.

But what is it that draws us back to this period again and again?

Now it's the million dollar question, isn't it?

We're all still obsessed with the Tudors.

I say long may it continue because this is the reason I became a historian.

I think really when it comes to the Tudors, you couldn't make it up.

It's got all the drama of a soap opera, the king who marries six times, the Virgin Queen, Shakespeare.

It's a very self-confident age with the overseas exploration.

And I think crucially as well, we feel closer to it thanks to art as well.

Literature, architecture, lots of Tudor buildings still exist.

So I think suddenly the past seems a bit closer than it did before.

And for good reason, it tends to be called the early modern age.

So there's a divide between medieval and then the Tudors.

They usher in this beginning of modernity, really.

But for me, it's all about the larger-than-life personalities and the sheer drama.

Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of the real greatest showman.

What always comes to the surface is Barnum's idea of just making sure whatever he does gives people the opportunity to experience something they wouldn't have otherwise had and let them find joy in whatever that might be.

That transcends borders.

You know, that transcends nationalities and language.

He absolutely had the intuitive skill of marketing and promotion.

And because his name slowly becomes iconic in the world, you know, becoming a living legend at the world, everybody will think about P.T.

Barnum.

That's next time.

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Head to www.noiser.com forward slash subscriptions for more information.

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