October 28, 2025 • 36 mins
On her deathbed, the unmarried "Virgin Queen" Elizabeth I declared that her successor would be King James VI of Scotland. Or at least, that's the story that we've been told. In her new book THE STOLEN CROWN, historian Tracy Borman, Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, discusses the bombshell new discoveries that reveal that the Stuart Dynasty was built on a lie. (For more, here's Tracy for History Extra's Life Lessons from History)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. I'm so thrilled,
truly over the moon excited to be talking with Tracy
Borman today, chief historian of Historic Royal Palaces, Chief executive
of Heritage Education Trust, Chancellor and professor at Lincoln Bishop University,
(00:23):
author of the incredible new book The Stolen Crown, truly
one of my favorite books that I've read this year
so far, a new book that contains, I would say
a bombshell discovery about Elizabeth the First's deathbed confirmation that
the crown should go to her cousin, King James the
sixth of Scotland. The bombshell revelation that that deathbed declaration was,
(00:46):
let's just say, less straightforward than previously believed. We'll get
into that in this conversation, but before we do, just
welcome Tracy Borman. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh, thank you so much for having me back here.
Always lovely chatting with you, and I'm very excited to
be delving into the dark world of the Elizabethan succession.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So before we talk about that famous deathbed confession, let's
talk a little bit more broadly about the context. Queen
Elizabeth I had decided to be the virgin queen, obviously
a strategic decision, but one that left her with no heirs.
So what did that look like throughout her life? What
were the pros and cons of that decision.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, it was a very controversial decision, and it's one that,
as you say, she made from the very beginning of
her reign, declaring to her first Parliament that she would
live and die a virgin. And I think really, although
people reacted with shock, they didn't completely believe her. They thought,
perhaps she's just increasing her value on the marriage market,
you know, playing hard to get if you will, But
(01:54):
then became obvious she really did mean it. And as
she declared, and this is my favorite of all Elizabeth's quo,
she said, I will have but one mistress here and
no master, and she meant it. And I actually personally
think that in terms of Elizabeth's own reign, it was
the right call because it would have been very hard
to choose a husband that wouldn't be divisive. So her
(02:16):
sister Mary had proved how dangerous it was to marry
somebody from overseas, her marriage to Philip of Spain had
been deeply unpopular, sparking revolt and rebellion, and if she'd
married an English subject that would have been no less divisive, really,
and there was no simple choice. And also I think
Elizabeth has been put off marriage by the example of
(02:38):
her mother amberleyn and you know, one of her stepmothers,
and her early sort of life, So I can't blame her.
I think it was the right decision. But of course
the kind of payoff was the succession, because if she
didn't marry, then who on earth was going to come
to the throne after her? She was the last of
Henry Yate's children and the last of the Tudors. There
(02:59):
was nobody else, so it kind of raised the states
early on for what on earth was going to follow.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And one thing that Elizabeth did very cleverly, I would say,
is sort of dangle the prospect first of marriage that
she probably had no intention of ever following through. But
also who would be next in line? By not naming
an Air explicitly, she was able to use that promise
sort of strategically and diplomatically, So who were sort of
(03:29):
the options that she was playing with for who would
succeed her.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, and she was always wonderfully ambiguous about this. I
think she once said, when I am dead, they will
succeed that have most right. So she didn't even commit
to agenda in saying that, you know, and she was
very deliberately ambiguous. Of course, there were various people with
a very strong claim to her throne. If we're talking
(03:54):
blood alone, a blood tied to the Tudors throne, then
Elizabeth's kind of early reign. Then the strongest claimant was
her great rival, Mary, Queen of Scott's. She was descended
from Henry the seventh's eldest daughter, Margaret, and Margaret had
married into the Scottish royal family. But it's really important
to point out, given this is all about a stolen crown,
(04:16):
that Henry had actually banned the Stuarts from ever inheriting
the crown of England, and this was kind of glossed
over when later on James the sixth of Scotland came
to Elizabeth's throne, but he passed several different acts banning
the Scots and also named different heirs in his last
will and testament. The sisters of Lady Jane Gray, and
(04:38):
in fact they were also foremost rivals for Elizabeth's throne.
So we're talking about Catherine and Mary Gray. Poor Lady Jane,
of course had been executed by Elizabeth's sister Mary, and
they were descended from Henry the Seventh's younger daughter Mary.
Now age usually counted in the succession, so Margaret had
their advantage. But the fact that Henry the eighth disinherited
(05:00):
her descendants meant that that younger daughter Mary had the advantage.
And among her descendants were the sisters of Lady Jane Gray,
Catherine and Mary, and.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
There was of course poor Arabella as well.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Poor Albella Stuart, again descendant of that Princess Margaret, Henry
the seventh daughter. But she had the advantage over Mary,
Queen of Scott's and her son James, because she was
born in England, and that really mattered. Like today we
talk about the United Kingdom, England and Scotland are part
of the same kingdom, but they weren't at this time,
(05:37):
and there'd been this long standing hostility for centuries between
England and Scotland. They saw each other as foreigners. You know,
the people in England called Scott's people Aliens. You know,
they didn't want a Scott on the throne, so Arbella.
Yes she was of Scottish descent, but she was born
in England, so actually she gave Mary Quein of Scott's
(05:59):
and her son James a real run for their money
when it came to this race for Elizabeth's crown. And
I probably shouldn't have favorites, but among the claimants to
Elizabeth's throne, I think Olbella has to be mine because
it's such a tragic story. Hers really shows that when
it came to claimants to the throne, royal blood was
(06:20):
far more of a curse than a blessing. And ultimately
she ends up dying a prisoner in the tower, and
quite a few of the other claimants meet fairly awful
ends as well, because you know Elizabeth keeps them close.
She doesn't flinch from imprisoning them, putting them to death
in some cases. So it's actually quite dangerous to have
(06:41):
a right to the throne.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I think one thing you capture in your book so
well is the relationship between England and Scotland at this time.
I think now many readers might not quite understand, of course,
as you said, it's the United Kingdom. What difference would
it make if a scott married an English woman or
an english woman married a Scottish man, or vice versa.
But you capture quite well this sense that if a
(07:05):
Scottish man were to marry an English princess or an
English queen, there might be the sense that it was
Scotland absorbing England and not the other way around. Can
you speak to that tension a little bit?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Oh? Yeah, there was definitely attention because a number of
marriage alliances had been proposed over the years between England
and Scotland, notably between Henry the Yight's son Edward and
the future Mary, Queen of Scott's. Now Henry the eighth
was quite in favor of that alliance, but the Scottish
people weren't because whoever had the son, the assumption was,
(07:37):
you know, they would be the dominant one. And then
that was switched around when, of course, Henry the Seventh's
daughter Margaret, married the King of Scots, James the fourth,
and Henry the seventh had a lot of opposition from
his government saying, look, what's going to happen. Are they
going to be king and Queen of England, and that
means that the King of Scotland really.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Is going to be running the show one hundred years later.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
How right would they be exactly exactly? This marriage is
pivotal in the history of not just the Elizabethan succession
but the British monarchy as a whole. So Margaret of
England married James of Scotland in the year fifteen oh three.
She was just thirteen years old, James was thirty and
it'd be a few years before she had a child,
(08:19):
but she gave birth to that crucial son, James the fifth,
and it's his daughter that was Mary, Queen of Scott's,
So you can see how close Mary Queen of Scott's
was rather to the Tudor throne, and she had a
very very good pedigree. But as I say, you know,
Henry the eighth didn't think so much of the Stuarts,
and neither did Elizabeth's subjects really, so it was definitely
(08:41):
not straightforward. There is nothing straightforward about the race for
Elizabeth's throne. And I think that's a really crucial point
as well, in that for four centuries we've been kind
of sold this narrative of a smooth transition Tudors to Stuarts.
It's all very natural and predetermined, and now, of course,
with this new discovery, we know it was neither of
(09:03):
those things.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So throughout Elizabeth's life, was it sort of assumed that
James was the front runner or is that sort of
retroactive history.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I think it's definitely retroactive history. He was certainly one
of the lead contenders, and to be fair, Elizabeth showed
him an advantage that she showed none of the other
claimants at all.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Being a man, I imagine that gave him an advantage
as well.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
This is so depressing, but so true. It really counted.
You know, this was not an age where women were
supposed to rule. They weren't even supposed to rule their
own lives, led alone a kingdom, and yet England had
had three queens in succession in Lady Jane Gray, Mary, Elizabeth,
and one of Elizabeth's government actually said the people of
(09:52):
England are wishing no more queens. So great though Elizabeth was,
there was a sense that, yeah, we need king next.
So that did give James an edge, and also Elizabeth
gave him an edge because fun fact, they established a
correspondence that lasted longer than any two sovereigns in the
early modern period, so they wrote more letters over a
(10:15):
longer period of time than any other two sovereigns. Thirty
years their correspondence endured. James was just six when he
wrote his first letter to Elizabeth, and the letters are
all really on a theme. I mean, there are lots
of niceties and expressions of friendship, but Elizabeth is very
definitely trying to help James. She's advising him how to
(10:37):
be a good King of England. Effectively, you can't help
think she's kind of grooming him for the role. Sometimes,
although she never quite commits, she'll then kind of backtrack
and just casually mention Arbella or one of the other claimants,
leave James wondering if she really does want him as
the next king.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And of course there is the slight damper of the
fact that she had to execute his mother, Mary, Queen
of Scuds.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, it's the elephant in the room, isn't it, The
fact that she orders his mother's beheading, And that definitely
challenges this friendly relationship that you know, had endured for
many years up until this point, until fifteen eighty seven
when Mary was executed, and it was really fascinating actually
reading their correspondence at this point, because first of all,
(11:27):
Elizabeth tries to avoid the blame for this, saying anything
from oh, I didn't realize it was the warrant. I
was signing the execution warrant and then saying, yeah, but
I didn't mean it to be issued, and I never
gave the order for that. Actually she was on sure
ground with that. She never did give the order for
the execution warrant to be issued. But by then, you know,
her exasperated counselors like, just send the thing to fotheringate
(11:50):
and let it be done, because they waited so long
for Elizabeth to act against Mary. So she apologizes to James,
but she also tries to free herself blame James. Now
you might think he's going to be furious with Elizabeth,
and his subjects certainly are. In fact, you know, half
of Scotland is calling on James to go to war
against England to avenge his mother's execution. But James doesn't
(12:14):
really want to because he grew up not knowing his mother.
He was just months old when she fled to England
and he took over the crown of Scotland, and he
was raised by men very hostile to Mary, Protestant men,
And that's really important to point out, thank you, because
of course Mary is a great Catholic figurehead. One of
(12:36):
the reasons she's so dangerous to Elizabeth for so many
years is Elizabeth Protestant. So any English Catholics look to
Mary and they plot against Elizabeth to put Mary on
the throne. But now there's this difficult situation because James,
you know, personally speaking, doesn't have a strong connection to
his now dead mother, and yet his subjects are calling
(12:57):
on him to go to war, but also doesn't really
want to rock the boat because he desperately wants Elizabeth
to name him her heir. So there's this kind of
little dance that takes place in letter form between Elizabeth,
who's come of going down on bended knees begging his forgiveness,
and James, who has to kind of appear a little
(13:18):
bit cross that she's accidentally lapped his mother's head off,
but then remarkably quickly forgives her rather for the whole thing,
and they both sort of agree water under the bridge,
it's all in the past, we won't talk about it,
and let's just go back to our friendly letters, and
that's exactly what they did. Neither of them referred to
it ever.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Again, Oh that's like bygones, be bygones.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
What's a little execution between friends.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Another thing that you make very clear in your book
is that the throne of England really was a prize,
especially compared to the throne of Scotland. I think people here, well,
if you're a king, you're a king. But as you
mentioned in the book, I think I have in front
of me that it was. The income of the English
monarchy was nineteen times the income of the Scottish king.
(14:07):
England was far more cosmopolitan, many more cities. It was
a real prize that King James was fighting for.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
He really wanted England like he really wanted England. It
was the superior kingdom. I'm not saying that from an
Anglo centric point of view, obviously I live in England.
But it was superior in wealth, in its position in Europe,
you know, in being the envy of Europe, in terms
of this kind of glittering court that Elizabeth had established.
(14:37):
So it was a real player on the world stage
in a way that Scotland wasn't and it had riches,
as you's say, nineteen times the income of the Scottish crown.
So no wonder James was rather keen to get his
hands on that English crown. And you know he wasn't
terribly subtle about it. You know, he was constantly in
these letters that passed between London and Edinburgh pleading with Elizabeth. Look,
(15:02):
just name me your Air. Let's just settle this once
and for all. And Elizabeth was brilliant at what her
contemporary is called answers answerless, so you know she said
back this reply that was kind of an answer, but
actually didn't really give him what he wanted. And she
would always use the prospect that she might name him
(15:23):
Air as like a carrot that she would dangle in
front of him to to sort of make him behave
to make him a good ally to England. So he
was always very very conscious that he couldn't really upset
that delicate balance with Elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And of course he wouldn't want any physical harm to
come to her, because you know, once he was named Air,
then you know, heaven forbid if anything should happen to her,
it would be his further taking.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Right, then, that's funny you should say that because in
fifteen ninety eight, so Elizabeth well into her sixties by now,
this is sense that she's living on borrow time. But
to James it seems like the Queen of England is
just going on forever. She's never going to die, and
still she hasn't named him her successor. And there is
(16:13):
a little hint, more than a hint that actually in
fifteen ninety eight James lost patience because in that year
a man with the wonderful and almost false name of
Valentine Thomas, pretty sure it is a false name. He
was arrested on the Scottish border, and he was arrested
for stealing horses. But when the English authorities questioned him,
(16:37):
they got more than they bargained for, because Valentine Thomas
attested that he'd had several meetings with the King of
Scots in Edinburgh, during which he had agreed to James's
request that he rides south to England, and he murdered
Elizabeth and he would be paid very handsomely for it. Well,
(16:58):
Elizabeth was told of timed Thomas's confession, and she chose
not to believe it, and whether or not she actually did,
but she chose not to, but as a courtesy she
wrote to James just to kind of inform him of
the whole thing. But she said, look, I'm going to
cover it all up. Don't worry. Valentine Thomas's in prison.
Nothing's going to come of this. And this is one
(17:19):
of many occasions when James really should have listened to
Elizabeth's advice, because he never did, and I should have
made that clear. All of those letters really were in vain.
James just thought, what does she know, She's just a woman.
So he kind of besieged Elizabeth with letter after letter,
outraged that he'd been named in this plot and protesting too,
(17:41):
blumming much that he had had nothing to do with it,
and saying no, no, wasn't me and never met the man.
And he did it so many times that Elizabeth got
really suspicious of him and thought, h why is he
doing this? And then James went even further and he
insisted that Elizabeth publish a proclamation to the people of
(18:03):
England clearing his name of the Valentine Thomas assassination plot.
But of course all this did was to make the
people of England aware of the plot and to make
them suspect that James really had been involved.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It's a tudor example of the barber streisand effect. Don't
draw people's attention to this.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Exactly if you don't want them to know about it,
really don't protest about it. It's exactly the barber stress
under fate. I thought of that very thing when I
was writing the book. It's like, come on, James, ah,
just listen to Elizabeth. And it really did damage his
standing in England and with Elizabeth. And I think Elizabeth
was just whether or not she was really suspicious of him.
(18:45):
She was exasperated with him. She's like, just come on,
this needs to just go away. But James wouldn't let
it go away, and it was to his cost.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Skipping or just a little bit, to Elizabeth's deathbed. The story,
as it's been popularly understood, largely from an account by
a man named William Camden, is that on Elizabeth's deathbed
she pretty explicitly named James as her heir. But as
you reveal in this book, that might not have exactly
(19:21):
been the case.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
That's exactly so. Now this fascinating new research by a
student called Helena Rotovska working with the British Library, and
she was studying the original manuscript of William Camden's Annals
of Elizabeth, his history of Elizabeth, which runs into several volumes.
By the way, the manuscript itself hadn't been really looked
(19:44):
at that much by historians because and I count myself
in this, we've all relied on the published version, which
arrived a few years after Elizabeth's death. But looking at
the original manuscript it became obvious how much it had
been altered. There were lots of crossings out. But also
what research has noticed was that many pages had been
pasted in covering Camden's original text, two hundred pages actually,
(20:10):
and then they found that in sixteen oh eight. So
when James had been king for five years, he actually
got in touch with Camden and he ordered him to
rewrite his manuscript because Camden had written his complete history
of Elizabeth up to and including her death, but he
hadn't intended to publish it. He didn't want to because
(20:31):
it's a bit tricky publishing an account of a queen
who's now dead and then there's somebody else on the
throne and new dynasty, so he kind of buried it.
But James heard about it, and he ordered Camden to
take up his quill and to rewrite certain sections of
his history of Elizabeth in his favor. And we know
this from Camden's correspondence because Camden he sometimes gets a
(20:54):
bad press, but actually he was a meticulous historian, and
he was very careful about his sources. He really did
strive to produce a faithful account, faithful to truth. In fact,
he included an ode to truth in this book. And
what it was clear that he was being made to
do was to alter it, amend it, rewrite it on
(21:18):
James's orders. And he actually complained to a friend King
James must need revise it himself. And many things were
altered and many things were crossed out, and so he's
getting these installments that he sends to James back like
covered in the equivalent of kind of read ink, you know,
and James is saying, no, no, you need to alter that.
(21:40):
And some bits were so sensitive then rather than just
cross them out, Camden's pasted over his original text, and
they include the Valentine Thomas controversy, interestingly, which Camden had
told in full in his original part, but now on
James's orders, rather than James having been suspected of wanting
(22:03):
to assassinate Elizabeth. That was changed to James just felt
some ill affection towards Elizabeth, so the whole thing was sanitized. Mary,
Queen of Scott's was totally rewritten. She'd been presented as
a traitor in the first draft. Now, of course she's
mother of the king, so she's much more positively written.
But the most crucial bit, and the discovery that inspired
(22:27):
my whole book, was what happened on Elizabeth's deathbed, And
what the research has found was that in William Camden's
original draft of this deathbed scene, he, like the couple
of other eyewitnesses we have records of, said that Elizabeth
just died without naming anybody her heir. And then he's
(22:48):
been made to go back on James's orders and rewrite
it so that now he says that almost with her
last breath, Elizabeth speaks the words, I will have none
but the King of Scots to succeed me. And that
was history rewritten in favor of the one who was
now in power. It's so cynical, it's so shocking, and
(23:13):
it completely changes everything we thought we knew about the succession,
and as I said, this kind of smooth, natural transition
from Elizabeth to the absolute odds onsert front runner, who
was James, sixth of Scotland.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And was it a smooth transition?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
In fact, it's a great question because again, if you
believe James's pr absolutely by lawful and undoubted succession, the
proclamation of his reign had been drafted by James's ally
on Elizabeth Council, Robert Cecil, many weeks before. And really
I think we should be calling Robert Cecil a kingmaker,
(23:57):
because that's why James was able to take the throne
in sixty three. He'd made this alliance, this deal with
Robert Cecil, Elizabeth's chief minister, that you know, if you
smoothed my path to the throne, you'll benefit when I'm king.
And Cecil certainly did. He was made at Lord Salisbury
(24:18):
and given huge power in James's government. But really, without Cecil,
I'm not sure James would have been able to claim
the throne at all. And was it actually as smooth
as we've been told? Well, we're told a lot about
the rejoicing of the English people. We're told less about
some evidence that I uncovered when researching the Stolen Crown,
(24:39):
which is that there were actually riots in a number
of English cities against the coming in of the Scottish king.
As they put it, they still saw him as a foreigner,
you know. They didn't want a Stewart on the English throne,
so people did object to it. Some mayors, you know,
the kind of very high updignitary, refused to declare James
king even they were ordered to do so, So that
(25:01):
it wasn't quite as smooth as we've been led to believe.
And I think it wouldn't have happened at all, as
I say, if it hadn't been for that very intensive
groundwork that Robert Cecil had been preparing for a number
of years before Elizabeth's death.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Is there anything that James did specifically to sort of
renounce his Scottishness to sort of bolster up his English
bonafidees as it was.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, it's interesting because very early on in his reign,
almost within days, commissioned a family tree that really bigged
up his relationship to the Tudors. It's almost like the
Scottish side was kind of left out, and it's like
this is my English heritage right here, and he kind
of repeated that in his speeches, always calling to attention
(25:50):
his close links to the Tudors and how he had
Tudor blood in his veins, and so yes, he sort
of went out of his way to make himself seem
more English, but then in his actions he did the
exact opposite. Because it was a very very brief honeymoon
for James in England, the rejoicing was short lived, and
(26:11):
actually James quickly lost patients with the people of England.
He didn't really like the way Elizabeth Court had been run,
with all of its show and its glamour and its ceremony.
One of many pieces of advice to James had been
to play the king, you know, put on a good show.
The people of England like that in their monarch. James thought,
(26:32):
I'm not going to do that is pointless and time consuming,
so instead he locks himself away with just a handful
of male favorites, and of course that causes some consternation
as well. It's a very brief love affair between James
and the people of England, and very soon there is
opposition to James. There's a plot just within weeks of
(26:53):
his accession followed by another plot, and then, of course
two years later we have the most famous terror plot
in history, certainly in British royal history, and that is
the Gunpowder plot, led by a group of disaffected Catholics
who wanted to quote blow the Scottish king to the heavens.
So James is losing control within a really short space
(27:17):
of time of unlawfully inheriting elizabeths throne.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
So despite the fact that he is unfortunately in this
case Scottish, he was a male heir at this point,
I believe he had two surviving sons, which also makes
someone appealing as an heir. It makes a dynasty seem
like a hes longevity. In your opinion, do you think
there was another heir that was more appealing.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Well, you're absolutely right to point out that James came
with already made dynasty. So he had two sons, Henry
and Charles. In fact, Henry would die young and wouldn't
make it, but we would have a king Charles the
first and he had a daughter, Elizabeth. Actually did improve
James's standing. Before Elizabeth died, you know, the people of
England were like, okay, well he might be Scottish, but
(28:07):
there isn't going to be a succession crisis if he
comes to the throne. However, there were others, and if
we're purely talking about the law, who would have been
the next lawful successor to Elizabeth? It would have been
the eldest son of Lady Catherine Gray. That was according
to the succession Acts of Henry the eighth and his
(28:27):
last Wood and Testament, both of which still stood in
sixteen oh three when Elizabeth died. We would have had
a King Edward the seventh in sixteen oh three rather
than in nineteen oh one when Queen Victoria died. So yeah,
Edward Seymour As I said that the eldest son of
Lady Catherine Gray, he was the next legal successor after.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And he was a descendant of Henry the Eighth's younger.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Sister, exactly so, his younger sister Mary, whom Henry the
eighth had actively favored when it came to the succession.
But Elizabeth not so much. Elizabeth hated the sisters of
Lady Jane Gray. She persecuted them, she imprisoned both of them,
made their lives a misery. And it was said, although
again this is Camden, that when she was on her
(29:15):
deathbed and Edward Seymour's name was mentioned. She ranted that
she would have no rascal on her throne, and everybody
understood that by rascals she meant Edward Seymour. But again
that's in Camden's rewrite, so maybe it says more about
how threatened James felt about his close rival.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It seems a little bit reading your book that King
Henry the Eighth opened something of a can of worms
by passing laws that allowed him personally as king, to
determine what the line of succession would be.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Oh what account of worms? That was. Absolutely it did,
because until then it had been pretty straightforward in the
English succession. The crown passed to the eldest legitimate male
heir in the absence of them, and if they really
couldn't find anybody else, it would go to the female heirs.
(30:09):
But Henry, mostly thanks to the fact he married so
many times, he kept changing the succession in favor of
his latest wife and their child. Of course, he only
ever had one child by any of his wives three
children in total from six marriages, so one son and
two daughters he had. But it did introduce this element
(30:31):
of uncertainty the fact that Henry used a bit of
personal choice in the succession, and that went further still
when his son Edward inherited his throne in fifteen forty seven,
when Henry died, because Edward only reigned for six years,
he was on his deathbed aged fifteen, and he was
(30:52):
persuaded by his powerful advisers to change the succession.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Again, well, if his dad could do it, he could
do it too.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Yes, he's tars to do it. He doesn't want his
sister Mary on the throne because Edward is Protestant, and
of course Mary the First as we now know her,
Bloody Mary is Catholic. And also his advisors persuade him
that he really should disinherit Elizabeth as well because she's illegitimate,
And so Edward changes the succession in favor of his cousin,
(31:24):
very much a Protestant, lady Jane Gray. But again that's
destabilizing because if it doesn't just go on blood alone,
then there's all sorts of choice, There are all sorts
of candidates, and who knows who's going to win the
race for the throne.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So I'm asking you to speculate a bit here in
your opinion if Elizabeth had not made this deathbed declaration
in favor of James, and if Camden had not written it,
and the people hadn't understood that that was the case,
what do you think might have happened.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, I think this lie that began the Stuart dynasty
would have devastating consequences. Despite Camden, I should say that Camden,
you know, good historian that he was, he kind of
had the last laugh because although James had made him
falsify history, he took his time over it. So you
see the correspondence and James is like breathing down his
(32:21):
next saying, come on, finish this book, and Camden's like, well, no,
I just need to do a few more tweets. He
delays publication until sixteen fifteen.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Oh, so James has already been king for a good
long while.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And that's only the first installment that only goes up
to the execution of Mary, Queen of Scott's. The second installment,
that includes the succession, is only published in sixteen twenty five,
by which time both Camden and James are dead. So actually,
this rewrite doesn't help James in his lifetime, but it
(32:55):
has helped him in the centuries afterwards to be seen
as the rightful king, and it did help his son, Charles,
who came to the throne, you know, uncontested, because by
then people believed that Elizabeth had named his father her successor.
So that got Charles's reign off to a good start,
but of course it didn't continue.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
The end of charles reign wouldn't be a good ending.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
No, not at all. So I think the truth will
out and there had been this clash between the Stuarts
and the Tudor way of doing things, because if only
James had listened to Elizabeth's advice, I think things would
have turned out very differently. I think that is the
intriguing What if if he had taken on board advice
such as play the king, such as work in partnership
(33:39):
with parliament, not against it, don't just use it to
impose your royal will. And of course Charles the first
did exactly the latter, and he just dissolved parliament whenever
it disagreed with him, until Parliament rose up against him
and plunged England into a bitter series of civil wars
that resulted in the execution of the king. The end
(34:01):
of the monarchy. It's so intriguing to trace it all
back to, as I say, that lie that started the
Stuart dynasty in England.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
The moral of the story is we should have listened
to Elizabeth the First.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It's always the moral of my story. I actually wrote
a piece for written BBC History Magazine and maybe your
listeners would like to look it up because it's basically
life hacks from history and I wrote the life hack
for Elizabeth the First and the kind of advice that
I tend to follow, among many other pieces of advice
that you know, Elizabeth left behind in that she was
(34:36):
the mistress of procrastination, you know, just delaying things until
the right thing became clear. And so she was always
you know, putting off things like marriage and the succession.
And she just used this very skillfully saying, you know,
just a woman, I can't make decisions. You're going to
have to go away and give me a moment. And
(34:57):
she used this very deliberate delay tactic time and time again,
and things had a way of working out. So always
we should listen to Elizabeth. That's my number one takeaway
from her life hacks.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
If you're going to procrastinate, do it right.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Just procrastinate. It's great.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Thank you so much for speaking with us today. Tracy Borman,
author of the phenomenal new book The Stolen Crown, just
so readable. If you're a listener of this podcast, I
think you'll absolutely love it. Thank you again, so so much.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Oh, it's been such a pleasure talking to you again.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,
Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Milani. The show is
edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima
(36:03):
il Kaali and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and
Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. I'm so thrilled,
truly over the moon excited to be talking with Tracy
Borman today, chief historian of Historic Royal Palaces, Chief executive
of Heritage Education Trust, Chancellor and professor at Lincoln Bishop University,
(00:23):
author of the incredible new book The Stolen Crown, truly
one of my favorite books that I've read this year
so far, a new book that contains, I would say
a bombshell discovery about Elizabeth the First's deathbed confirmation that
the crown should go to her cousin, King James the
sixth of Scotland. The bombshell revelation that that deathbed declaration was,
(00:46):
let's just say, less straightforward than previously believed. We'll get
into that in this conversation, but before we do, just
welcome Tracy Borman. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh, thank you so much for having me back here.
Always lovely chatting with you, and I'm very excited to
be delving into the dark world of the Elizabethan succession.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So before we talk about that famous deathbed confession, let's
talk a little bit more broadly about the context. Queen
Elizabeth I had decided to be the virgin queen, obviously
a strategic decision, but one that left her with no heirs.
So what did that look like throughout her life? What
were the pros and cons of that decision.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, it was a very controversial decision, and it's one that,
as you say, she made from the very beginning of
her reign, declaring to her first Parliament that she would
live and die a virgin. And I think really, although
people reacted with shock, they didn't completely believe her. They thought,
perhaps she's just increasing her value on the marriage market,
you know, playing hard to get if you will, But
(01:54):
then became obvious she really did mean it. And as
she declared, and this is my favorite of all Elizabeth's quo,
she said, I will have but one mistress here and
no master, and she meant it. And I actually personally
think that in terms of Elizabeth's own reign, it was
the right call because it would have been very hard
to choose a husband that wouldn't be divisive. So her
(02:16):
sister Mary had proved how dangerous it was to marry
somebody from overseas, her marriage to Philip of Spain had
been deeply unpopular, sparking revolt and rebellion, and if she'd
married an English subject that would have been no less divisive, really,
and there was no simple choice. And also I think
Elizabeth has been put off marriage by the example of
(02:38):
her mother amberleyn and you know, one of her stepmothers,
and her early sort of life, So I can't blame her.
I think it was the right decision. But of course
the kind of payoff was the succession, because if she
didn't marry, then who on earth was going to come
to the throne after her? She was the last of
Henry Yate's children and the last of the Tudors. There
(02:59):
was nobody else, so it kind of raised the states
early on for what on earth was going to follow.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And one thing that Elizabeth did very cleverly, I would say,
is sort of dangle the prospect first of marriage that
she probably had no intention of ever following through. But
also who would be next in line? By not naming
an Air explicitly, she was able to use that promise
sort of strategically and diplomatically, So who were sort of
(03:29):
the options that she was playing with for who would
succeed her.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, and she was always wonderfully ambiguous about this. I
think she once said, when I am dead, they will
succeed that have most right. So she didn't even commit
to agenda in saying that, you know, and she was
very deliberately ambiguous. Of course, there were various people with
a very strong claim to her throne. If we're talking
(03:54):
blood alone, a blood tied to the Tudors throne, then
Elizabeth's kind of early reign. Then the strongest claimant was
her great rival, Mary, Queen of Scott's. She was descended
from Henry the seventh's eldest daughter, Margaret, and Margaret had
married into the Scottish royal family. But it's really important
to point out, given this is all about a stolen crown,
(04:16):
that Henry had actually banned the Stuarts from ever inheriting
the crown of England, and this was kind of glossed
over when later on James the sixth of Scotland came
to Elizabeth's throne, but he passed several different acts banning
the Scots and also named different heirs in his last
will and testament. The sisters of Lady Jane Gray, and
(04:38):
in fact they were also foremost rivals for Elizabeth's throne.
So we're talking about Catherine and Mary Gray. Poor Lady Jane,
of course had been executed by Elizabeth's sister Mary, and
they were descended from Henry the Seventh's younger daughter Mary.
Now age usually counted in the succession, so Margaret had
their advantage. But the fact that Henry the eighth disinherited
(05:00):
her descendants meant that that younger daughter Mary had the advantage.
And among her descendants were the sisters of Lady Jane Gray,
Catherine and Mary, and.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
There was of course poor Arabella as well.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Poor Albella Stuart, again descendant of that Princess Margaret, Henry
the seventh daughter. But she had the advantage over Mary,
Queen of Scott's and her son James, because she was
born in England, and that really mattered. Like today we
talk about the United Kingdom, England and Scotland are part
of the same kingdom, but they weren't at this time,
(05:37):
and there'd been this long standing hostility for centuries between
England and Scotland. They saw each other as foreigners. You know,
the people in England called Scott's people Aliens. You know,
they didn't want a Scott on the throne, so Arbella.
Yes she was of Scottish descent, but she was born
in England, so actually she gave Mary Quein of Scott's
(05:59):
and her son James a real run for their money
when it came to this race for Elizabeth's crown. And
I probably shouldn't have favorites, but among the claimants to
Elizabeth's throne, I think Olbella has to be mine because
it's such a tragic story. Hers really shows that when
it came to claimants to the throne, royal blood was
(06:20):
far more of a curse than a blessing. And ultimately
she ends up dying a prisoner in the tower, and
quite a few of the other claimants meet fairly awful
ends as well, because you know Elizabeth keeps them close.
She doesn't flinch from imprisoning them, putting them to death
in some cases. So it's actually quite dangerous to have
(06:41):
a right to the throne.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I think one thing you capture in your book so
well is the relationship between England and Scotland at this time.
I think now many readers might not quite understand, of course,
as you said, it's the United Kingdom. What difference would
it make if a scott married an English woman or
an english woman married a Scottish man, or vice versa.
But you capture quite well this sense that if a
(07:05):
Scottish man were to marry an English princess or an
English queen, there might be the sense that it was
Scotland absorbing England and not the other way around. Can
you speak to that tension a little bit?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Oh? Yeah, there was definitely attention because a number of
marriage alliances had been proposed over the years between England
and Scotland, notably between Henry the Yight's son Edward and
the future Mary, Queen of Scott's. Now Henry the eighth
was quite in favor of that alliance, but the Scottish
people weren't because whoever had the son, the assumption was,
(07:37):
you know, they would be the dominant one. And then
that was switched around when, of course, Henry the Seventh's
daughter Margaret, married the King of Scots, James the fourth,
and Henry the seventh had a lot of opposition from
his government saying, look, what's going to happen. Are they
going to be king and Queen of England, and that
means that the King of Scotland really.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Is going to be running the show one hundred years later.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
How right would they be exactly exactly? This marriage is
pivotal in the history of not just the Elizabethan succession
but the British monarchy as a whole. So Margaret of
England married James of Scotland in the year fifteen oh three.
She was just thirteen years old, James was thirty and
it'd be a few years before she had a child,
(08:19):
but she gave birth to that crucial son, James the fifth,
and it's his daughter that was Mary, Queen of Scott's,
So you can see how close Mary Queen of Scott's
was rather to the Tudor throne, and she had a
very very good pedigree. But as I say, you know,
Henry the eighth didn't think so much of the Stuarts,
and neither did Elizabeth's subjects really, so it was definitely
(08:41):
not straightforward. There is nothing straightforward about the race for
Elizabeth's throne. And I think that's a really crucial point
as well, in that for four centuries we've been kind
of sold this narrative of a smooth transition Tudors to Stuarts.
It's all very natural and predetermined, and now, of course,
with this new discovery, we know it was neither of
(09:03):
those things.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So throughout Elizabeth's life, was it sort of assumed that
James was the front runner or is that sort of
retroactive history.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
I think it's definitely retroactive history. He was certainly one
of the lead contenders, and to be fair, Elizabeth showed
him an advantage that she showed none of the other
claimants at all.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Being a man, I imagine that gave him an advantage
as well.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
This is so depressing, but so true. It really counted.
You know, this was not an age where women were
supposed to rule. They weren't even supposed to rule their
own lives, led alone a kingdom, and yet England had
had three queens in succession in Lady Jane Gray, Mary, Elizabeth,
and one of Elizabeth's government actually said the people of
(09:52):
England are wishing no more queens. So great though Elizabeth was,
there was a sense that, yeah, we need king next.
So that did give James an edge, and also Elizabeth
gave him an edge because fun fact, they established a
correspondence that lasted longer than any two sovereigns in the
early modern period, so they wrote more letters over a
(10:15):
longer period of time than any other two sovereigns. Thirty
years their correspondence endured. James was just six when he
wrote his first letter to Elizabeth, and the letters are
all really on a theme. I mean, there are lots
of niceties and expressions of friendship, but Elizabeth is very
definitely trying to help James. She's advising him how to
(10:37):
be a good King of England. Effectively, you can't help
think she's kind of grooming him for the role. Sometimes,
although she never quite commits, she'll then kind of backtrack
and just casually mention Arbella or one of the other claimants,
leave James wondering if she really does want him as
the next king.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And of course there is the slight damper of the
fact that she had to execute his mother, Mary, Queen
of Scuds.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, it's the elephant in the room, isn't it, The
fact that she orders his mother's beheading, And that definitely
challenges this friendly relationship that you know, had endured for
many years up until this point, until fifteen eighty seven
when Mary was executed, and it was really fascinating actually
reading their correspondence at this point, because first of all,
(11:27):
Elizabeth tries to avoid the blame for this, saying anything
from oh, I didn't realize it was the warrant. I
was signing the execution warrant and then saying, yeah, but
I didn't mean it to be issued, and I never
gave the order for that. Actually she was on sure
ground with that. She never did give the order for
the execution warrant to be issued. But by then, you know,
her exasperated counselors like, just send the thing to fotheringate
(11:50):
and let it be done, because they waited so long
for Elizabeth to act against Mary. So she apologizes to James,
but she also tries to free herself blame James. Now
you might think he's going to be furious with Elizabeth,
and his subjects certainly are. In fact, you know, half
of Scotland is calling on James to go to war
against England to avenge his mother's execution. But James doesn't
(12:14):
really want to because he grew up not knowing his mother.
He was just months old when she fled to England
and he took over the crown of Scotland, and he
was raised by men very hostile to Mary, Protestant men,
And that's really important to point out, thank you, because
of course Mary is a great Catholic figurehead. One of
(12:36):
the reasons she's so dangerous to Elizabeth for so many
years is Elizabeth Protestant. So any English Catholics look to
Mary and they plot against Elizabeth to put Mary on
the throne. But now there's this difficult situation because James,
you know, personally speaking, doesn't have a strong connection to
his now dead mother, and yet his subjects are calling
(12:57):
on him to go to war, but also doesn't really
want to rock the boat because he desperately wants Elizabeth
to name him her heir. So there's this kind of
little dance that takes place in letter form between Elizabeth,
who's come of going down on bended knees begging his forgiveness,
and James, who has to kind of appear a little
(13:18):
bit cross that she's accidentally lapped his mother's head off,
but then remarkably quickly forgives her rather for the whole thing,
and they both sort of agree water under the bridge,
it's all in the past, we won't talk about it,
and let's just go back to our friendly letters, and
that's exactly what they did. Neither of them referred to
it ever.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Again, Oh that's like bygones, be bygones.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
What's a little execution between friends.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Another thing that you make very clear in your book
is that the throne of England really was a prize,
especially compared to the throne of Scotland. I think people here, well,
if you're a king, you're a king. But as you
mentioned in the book, I think I have in front
of me that it was. The income of the English
monarchy was nineteen times the income of the Scottish king.
(14:07):
England was far more cosmopolitan, many more cities. It was
a real prize that King James was fighting for.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
He really wanted England like he really wanted England. It
was the superior kingdom. I'm not saying that from an
Anglo centric point of view, obviously I live in England.
But it was superior in wealth, in its position in Europe,
you know, in being the envy of Europe, in terms
of this kind of glittering court that Elizabeth had established.
(14:37):
So it was a real player on the world stage
in a way that Scotland wasn't and it had riches,
as you's say, nineteen times the income of the Scottish crown.
So no wonder James was rather keen to get his
hands on that English crown. And you know he wasn't
terribly subtle about it. You know, he was constantly in
these letters that passed between London and Edinburgh pleading with Elizabeth. Look,
(15:02):
just name me your Air. Let's just settle this once
and for all. And Elizabeth was brilliant at what her
contemporary is called answers answerless, so you know she said
back this reply that was kind of an answer, but
actually didn't really give him what he wanted. And she
would always use the prospect that she might name him
(15:23):
Air as like a carrot that she would dangle in
front of him to to sort of make him behave
to make him a good ally to England. So he
was always very very conscious that he couldn't really upset
that delicate balance with Elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And of course he wouldn't want any physical harm to
come to her, because you know, once he was named Air,
then you know, heaven forbid if anything should happen to her,
it would be his further taking.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Right, then, that's funny you should say that because in
fifteen ninety eight, so Elizabeth well into her sixties by now,
this is sense that she's living on borrow time. But
to James it seems like the Queen of England is
just going on forever. She's never going to die, and
still she hasn't named him her successor. And there is
(16:13):
a little hint, more than a hint that actually in
fifteen ninety eight James lost patience because in that year
a man with the wonderful and almost false name of
Valentine Thomas, pretty sure it is a false name. He
was arrested on the Scottish border, and he was arrested
for stealing horses. But when the English authorities questioned him,
(16:37):
they got more than they bargained for, because Valentine Thomas
attested that he'd had several meetings with the King of
Scots in Edinburgh, during which he had agreed to James's
request that he rides south to England, and he murdered
Elizabeth and he would be paid very handsomely for it. Well,
(16:58):
Elizabeth was told of timed Thomas's confession, and she chose
not to believe it, and whether or not she actually did,
but she chose not to, but as a courtesy she
wrote to James just to kind of inform him of
the whole thing. But she said, look, I'm going to
cover it all up. Don't worry. Valentine Thomas's in prison.
Nothing's going to come of this. And this is one
(17:19):
of many occasions when James really should have listened to
Elizabeth's advice, because he never did, and I should have
made that clear. All of those letters really were in vain.
James just thought, what does she know, She's just a woman.
So he kind of besieged Elizabeth with letter after letter,
outraged that he'd been named in this plot and protesting too,
(17:41):
blumming much that he had had nothing to do with it,
and saying no, no, wasn't me and never met the man.
And he did it so many times that Elizabeth got
really suspicious of him and thought, h why is he
doing this? And then James went even further and he
insisted that Elizabeth publish a proclamation to the people of
(18:03):
England clearing his name of the Valentine Thomas assassination plot.
But of course all this did was to make the
people of England aware of the plot and to make
them suspect that James really had been involved.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It's a tudor example of the barber streisand effect. Don't
draw people's attention to this.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Exactly if you don't want them to know about it,
really don't protest about it. It's exactly the barber stress
under fate. I thought of that very thing when I
was writing the book. It's like, come on, James, ah,
just listen to Elizabeth. And it really did damage his
standing in England and with Elizabeth. And I think Elizabeth
was just whether or not she was really suspicious of him.
(18:45):
She was exasperated with him. She's like, just come on,
this needs to just go away. But James wouldn't let
it go away, and it was to his cost.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Skipping or just a little bit, to Elizabeth's deathbed. The story,
as it's been popularly understood, largely from an account by
a man named William Camden, is that on Elizabeth's deathbed
she pretty explicitly named James as her heir. But as
you reveal in this book, that might not have exactly
(19:21):
been the case.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
That's exactly so. Now this fascinating new research by a
student called Helena Rotovska working with the British Library, and
she was studying the original manuscript of William Camden's Annals
of Elizabeth, his history of Elizabeth, which runs into several volumes.
By the way, the manuscript itself hadn't been really looked
(19:44):
at that much by historians because and I count myself
in this, we've all relied on the published version, which
arrived a few years after Elizabeth's death. But looking at
the original manuscript it became obvious how much it had
been altered. There were lots of crossings out. But also
what research has noticed was that many pages had been
pasted in covering Camden's original text, two hundred pages actually,
(20:10):
and then they found that in sixteen oh eight. So
when James had been king for five years, he actually
got in touch with Camden and he ordered him to
rewrite his manuscript because Camden had written his complete history
of Elizabeth up to and including her death, but he
hadn't intended to publish it. He didn't want to because
(20:31):
it's a bit tricky publishing an account of a queen
who's now dead and then there's somebody else on the
throne and new dynasty, so he kind of buried it.
But James heard about it, and he ordered Camden to
take up his quill and to rewrite certain sections of
his history of Elizabeth in his favor. And we know
this from Camden's correspondence because Camden he sometimes gets a
(20:54):
bad press, but actually he was a meticulous historian, and
he was very careful about his sources. He really did
strive to produce a faithful account, faithful to truth. In fact,
he included an ode to truth in this book. And
what it was clear that he was being made to
do was to alter it, amend it, rewrite it on
(21:18):
James's orders. And he actually complained to a friend King
James must need revise it himself. And many things were
altered and many things were crossed out, and so he's
getting these installments that he sends to James back like
covered in the equivalent of kind of read ink, you know,
and James is saying, no, no, you need to alter that.
(21:40):
And some bits were so sensitive then rather than just
cross them out, Camden's pasted over his original text, and
they include the Valentine Thomas controversy, interestingly, which Camden had
told in full in his original part, but now on
James's orders, rather than James having been suspected of wanting
(22:03):
to assassinate Elizabeth. That was changed to James just felt
some ill affection towards Elizabeth, so the whole thing was sanitized. Mary,
Queen of Scott's was totally rewritten. She'd been presented as
a traitor in the first draft. Now, of course she's
mother of the king, so she's much more positively written.
But the most crucial bit, and the discovery that inspired
(22:27):
my whole book, was what happened on Elizabeth's deathbed, And
what the research has found was that in William Camden's
original draft of this deathbed scene, he, like the couple
of other eyewitnesses we have records of, said that Elizabeth
just died without naming anybody her heir. And then he's
(22:48):
been made to go back on James's orders and rewrite
it so that now he says that almost with her
last breath, Elizabeth speaks the words, I will have none
but the King of Scots to succeed me. And that
was history rewritten in favor of the one who was
now in power. It's so cynical, it's so shocking, and
(23:13):
it completely changes everything we thought we knew about the succession,
and as I said, this kind of smooth, natural transition
from Elizabeth to the absolute odds onsert front runner, who
was James, sixth of Scotland.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And was it a smooth transition?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
In fact, it's a great question because again, if you
believe James's pr absolutely by lawful and undoubted succession, the
proclamation of his reign had been drafted by James's ally
on Elizabeth Council, Robert Cecil, many weeks before. And really
I think we should be calling Robert Cecil a kingmaker,
(23:57):
because that's why James was able to take the throne
in sixty three. He'd made this alliance, this deal with
Robert Cecil, Elizabeth's chief minister, that you know, if you
smoothed my path to the throne, you'll benefit when I'm king.
And Cecil certainly did. He was made at Lord Salisbury
(24:18):
and given huge power in James's government. But really, without Cecil,
I'm not sure James would have been able to claim
the throne at all. And was it actually as smooth
as we've been told? Well, we're told a lot about
the rejoicing of the English people. We're told less about
some evidence that I uncovered when researching the Stolen Crown,
(24:39):
which is that there were actually riots in a number
of English cities against the coming in of the Scottish king.
As they put it, they still saw him as a foreigner,
you know. They didn't want a Stewart on the English throne,
so people did object to it. Some mayors, you know,
the kind of very high updignitary, refused to declare James
king even they were ordered to do so, So that
(25:01):
it wasn't quite as smooth as we've been led to believe.
And I think it wouldn't have happened at all, as
I say, if it hadn't been for that very intensive
groundwork that Robert Cecil had been preparing for a number
of years before Elizabeth's death.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Is there anything that James did specifically to sort of
renounce his Scottishness to sort of bolster up his English
bonafidees as it was.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, it's interesting because very early on in his reign,
almost within days, commissioned a family tree that really bigged
up his relationship to the Tudors. It's almost like the
Scottish side was kind of left out, and it's like
this is my English heritage right here, and he kind
of repeated that in his speeches, always calling to attention
(25:50):
his close links to the Tudors and how he had
Tudor blood in his veins, and so yes, he sort
of went out of his way to make himself seem
more English, but then in his actions he did the
exact opposite. Because it was a very very brief honeymoon
for James in England, the rejoicing was short lived, and
(26:11):
actually James quickly lost patients with the people of England.
He didn't really like the way Elizabeth Court had been run,
with all of its show and its glamour and its ceremony.
One of many pieces of advice to James had been
to play the king, you know, put on a good show.
The people of England like that in their monarch. James thought,
(26:32):
I'm not going to do that is pointless and time consuming,
so instead he locks himself away with just a handful
of male favorites, and of course that causes some consternation
as well. It's a very brief love affair between James
and the people of England, and very soon there is
opposition to James. There's a plot just within weeks of
(26:53):
his accession followed by another plot, and then, of course
two years later we have the most famous terror plot
in history, certainly in British royal history, and that is
the Gunpowder plot, led by a group of disaffected Catholics
who wanted to quote blow the Scottish king to the heavens.
So James is losing control within a really short space
(27:17):
of time of unlawfully inheriting elizabeths throne.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
So despite the fact that he is unfortunately in this
case Scottish, he was a male heir at this point,
I believe he had two surviving sons, which also makes
someone appealing as an heir. It makes a dynasty seem
like a hes longevity. In your opinion, do you think
there was another heir that was more appealing.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Well, you're absolutely right to point out that James came
with already made dynasty. So he had two sons, Henry
and Charles. In fact, Henry would die young and wouldn't
make it, but we would have a king Charles the
first and he had a daughter, Elizabeth. Actually did improve
James's standing. Before Elizabeth died, you know, the people of
England were like, okay, well he might be Scottish, but
(28:07):
there isn't going to be a succession crisis if he
comes to the throne. However, there were others, and if
we're purely talking about the law, who would have been
the next lawful successor to Elizabeth? It would have been
the eldest son of Lady Catherine Gray. That was according
to the succession Acts of Henry the eighth and his
(28:27):
last Wood and Testament, both of which still stood in
sixteen oh three when Elizabeth died. We would have had
a King Edward the seventh in sixteen oh three rather
than in nineteen oh one when Queen Victoria died. So yeah,
Edward Seymour As I said that the eldest son of
Lady Catherine Gray, he was the next legal successor after.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And he was a descendant of Henry the Eighth's younger.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Sister, exactly so, his younger sister Mary, whom Henry the
eighth had actively favored when it came to the succession.
But Elizabeth not so much. Elizabeth hated the sisters of
Lady Jane Gray. She persecuted them, she imprisoned both of them,
made their lives a misery. And it was said, although
again this is Camden, that when she was on her
(29:15):
deathbed and Edward Seymour's name was mentioned. She ranted that
she would have no rascal on her throne, and everybody
understood that by rascals she meant Edward Seymour. But again
that's in Camden's rewrite, so maybe it says more about
how threatened James felt about his close rival.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It seems a little bit reading your book that King
Henry the Eighth opened something of a can of worms
by passing laws that allowed him personally as king, to
determine what the line of succession would be.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Oh what account of worms? That was. Absolutely it did,
because until then it had been pretty straightforward in the
English succession. The crown passed to the eldest legitimate male
heir in the absence of them, and if they really
couldn't find anybody else, it would go to the female heirs.
(30:09):
But Henry, mostly thanks to the fact he married so
many times, he kept changing the succession in favor of
his latest wife and their child. Of course, he only
ever had one child by any of his wives three
children in total from six marriages, so one son and
two daughters he had. But it did introduce this element
(30:31):
of uncertainty the fact that Henry used a bit of
personal choice in the succession, and that went further still
when his son Edward inherited his throne in fifteen forty seven,
when Henry died, because Edward only reigned for six years,
he was on his deathbed aged fifteen, and he was
(30:52):
persuaded by his powerful advisers to change the succession.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Again, well, if his dad could do it, he could
do it too.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Yes, he's tars to do it. He doesn't want his
sister Mary on the throne because Edward is Protestant, and
of course Mary the First as we now know her,
Bloody Mary is Catholic. And also his advisors persuade him
that he really should disinherit Elizabeth as well because she's illegitimate,
And so Edward changes the succession in favor of his cousin,
(31:24):
very much a Protestant, lady Jane Gray. But again that's
destabilizing because if it doesn't just go on blood alone,
then there's all sorts of choice, There are all sorts
of candidates, and who knows who's going to win the
race for the throne.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So I'm asking you to speculate a bit here in
your opinion if Elizabeth had not made this deathbed declaration
in favor of James, and if Camden had not written it,
and the people hadn't understood that that was the case,
what do you think might have happened.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, I think this lie that began the Stuart dynasty
would have devastating consequences. Despite Camden, I should say that Camden,
you know, good historian that he was, he kind of
had the last laugh because although James had made him
falsify history, he took his time over it. So you
see the correspondence and James is like breathing down his
(32:21):
next saying, come on, finish this book, and Camden's like, well, no,
I just need to do a few more tweets. He
delays publication until sixteen fifteen.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Oh, so James has already been king for a good
long while.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And that's only the first installment that only goes up
to the execution of Mary, Queen of Scott's. The second installment,
that includes the succession, is only published in sixteen twenty five,
by which time both Camden and James are dead. So actually,
this rewrite doesn't help James in his lifetime, but it
(32:55):
has helped him in the centuries afterwards to be seen
as the rightful king, and it did help his son, Charles,
who came to the throne, you know, uncontested, because by
then people believed that Elizabeth had named his father her successor.
So that got Charles's reign off to a good start,
but of course it didn't continue.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
The end of charles reign wouldn't be a good ending.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
No, not at all. So I think the truth will
out and there had been this clash between the Stuarts
and the Tudor way of doing things, because if only
James had listened to Elizabeth's advice, I think things would
have turned out very differently. I think that is the
intriguing What if if he had taken on board advice
such as play the king, such as work in partnership
(33:39):
with parliament, not against it, don't just use it to
impose your royal will. And of course Charles the first
did exactly the latter, and he just dissolved parliament whenever
it disagreed with him, until Parliament rose up against him
and plunged England into a bitter series of civil wars
that resulted in the execution of the king. The end
(34:01):
of the monarchy. It's so intriguing to trace it all
back to, as I say, that lie that started the
Stuart dynasty in England.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
The moral of the story is we should have listened
to Elizabeth the First.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It's always the moral of my story. I actually wrote
a piece for written BBC History Magazine and maybe your
listeners would like to look it up because it's basically
life hacks from history and I wrote the life hack
for Elizabeth the First and the kind of advice that
I tend to follow, among many other pieces of advice
that you know, Elizabeth left behind in that she was
(34:36):
the mistress of procrastination, you know, just delaying things until
the right thing became clear. And so she was always
you know, putting off things like marriage and the succession.
And she just used this very skillfully saying, you know,
just a woman, I can't make decisions. You're going to
have to go away and give me a moment. And
(34:57):
she used this very deliberate delay tactic time and time again,
and things had a way of working out. So always
we should listen to Elizabeth. That's my number one takeaway
from her life hacks.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
If you're going to procrastinate, do it right.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Just procrastinate. It's great.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Thank you so much for speaking with us today. Tracy Borman,
author of the phenomenal new book The Stolen Crown, just
so readable. If you're a listener of this podcast, I
think you'll absolutely love it. Thank you again, so so much.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Oh, it's been such a pleasure talking to you again.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,
Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Milani. The show is
edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima
(36:03):
il Kaali and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and
Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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