December 15, 2018 • 29 mins
Today we revisit an episode from 2009 in preparation for a new episode coming this week about the Babington Plot. Although they were cousins, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart had little in the way of familial affection. Previous hosts Katie and Sarah take a closer look at the infamous rivalry between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday everyone. We have a new episode of this
show coming out this week that is about Mary, Queen
of Scott's. Thanks to the folks that Focus Features, they
approached us about doing an episode that would tie to
their new film, which is also called Mary Queen of
Scott's and comes out in the US on December seven.
Our upcoming episode is about the Babbington plot against Queen
(00:23):
Elizabeth and the trial for treason that led to Mary's beheading,
and the ongoing rivalry between Elizabeth and Mary is of
course a contributing factor to all of that, so we
wanted to share today's episode from the archive for listeners
who have not heard it. The episode is from two
thousand nine. It's by previous hosts Katie and Sarah, and
for folks who are eager for even more Mary Stewart,
(00:44):
you can also search our archive for the episode on
the death of her husband, Lord Darnley. Welcome to Stuff
You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Katie Lambert and I'm
(01:06):
Sarah Dowdy, and we recently did a podcast on Queen
Elizabeth the First and it got us thinking about her
most important relationships while she was queen, and today we're
going to focus on her relationship with her cousin and
fellow Queen Mary Stewart, possibly her greatest rival. And since
we already talked about Elizabeth's early life, let's talk a
(01:29):
little bit about Mary Stewart's. Unlike Elizabeth, she was born
a queen. She was the child of King James the
fifth of Scotland and his French wife, Mary of Geese.
But her father died six days after her birth, and
this causes a little trouble for baby Mary. It does
her grandmother is the sister of Henry the eighth, so
he immediately makes an attempt to control her, but the
(01:52):
regency instead goes to her mother. Henry keeps at it
and pursues what's called the rough wooing between his young
son and Mary, hoping to make an alliance there. Um
Mary's mother instead sends her off to France to be
raised in the court of Henry the second in Catherine
de Medici, and this was the nicest, most luxurious court
(02:14):
in Europe at the time, so Mary was in good
hands and she had a lot of French relatives there.
And again, unlike Elizabeth. She had a fairly happy childhood.
It wasn't so stable childhood, right. And Mary grows up
to be a beautiful young lady. She's about five eleven,
very tall, remarkably tall for the Renaissance. Yes, she's got
red gold hair and ambered eyes. Yeah. Mary is really
(02:37):
the perfect Renaissance princess. When she finally marries Henry and
Catherine's eldest son, Frances in fiftifty eight, and they like
each other. They've been raised pretty much as siblings, but
it's the marriage probably isn't consummated. He's a few years
younger than her, and he's very sickly, and she thinks
of him fondly, but more in a brotherly sort of
(02:59):
way that in a husbandly sort of way. Also, in
fifteen fifty eight where the parallels start, Elizabeth the first
sends to the throne, so Mary, through the tutor line,
is next in line, but Henry had in order of
succession that had muddled things up a bit. Catholics actually
would consider Mary the Queen of England already because Elizabeth.
(03:24):
They don't recognize Elizabeth's parents marriage that of Henry the
eighth to Ann berleyn so to them, Elizabeth is a
courtesan's bastard right, And in fifteen fifty nine Francis becomes
king and Mary is his queen consort, and she begins
putting on airs as far as this whole Queen of
(03:45):
England things go, because she's safe, comfortable and powerful in France.
She has very powerful in laws and she can do
what she wants with impunity. She certainly doesn't try to
disabuse anybody of the idea that she's the frightful Queen
of England. Um. She and Frances actually start quartering their
arms with that of England, so they're proclaiming themselves rulers
(04:09):
of France, Scotland and England, which is not something that's
going to make Elizabeth very happy, you know. And in
a sense of course, Mary by Henry's order of succession
had been disinherited or her line had been so this
does make sense. But the trouble between the two queens
begins around fifteen sixty when Mary refuses to sign the
Treaty of Edinburgh, and the basic backstory on that there's
(04:32):
been a long alliance between France and Scotland and it's
getting less and less popular with the increasingly Protestant Scottish
lords who are ready to see themselves freed to France,
and England backs them, and uh they put together this
Treaty of Edinburgh, and obviously Mary, as Queen Consort of
(04:56):
France as well as Queen of Scotland can't uh can't
advocate breaking up this relationship. She embodies this relationship, and
she'd also have to then officially recognize Elizabeth as the
Queen of England instead of herself. It's tantamount to renouncing
her own claim to the English throne. But further muddling
(05:16):
matters at the time, her husband Francis dies of an
ear infection, so she's eighteen, she's dowager Queen and France,
and it is time for Mary to return home to Scotland,
where again she hasn't been since she was a baby,
so things start to get more personal around now. She
asks Elizabeth for safe conduct crossing the Channel should she
(05:38):
be forced to land on English soil. Elizabeth gives her
a pretty snappy answer, which she actually sails before she
can even receive it. But there would be no safe
conduct and no welcome for the Queen of Scott's and
her cousin's realm until she had fulfilled her obligations by
ratifying the treaty as she was an honor bound to do.
And Mary was pretty much just sorry. She'd ask offended
(06:00):
by this response, and the international community also wasn't thrilled
with Elizabeth's behavior. They thought she's hassling her young, beautiful,
newly widowed cousin and it's something queen right. So Elizabeth
comes back from that and tries to play nice and
tells Mary that in fact they do have a sisterly
friendship and after all, she didn't send her navy after
(06:23):
her very benevolent The essential fact here is that Mary
as a teen queen consort over in France is one
thing to Elizabeth, but Mary, Queen of Scott's back on
the marriage market is another issue, entirely right, because with
Mary coming back to Scotland, Elizabeth now has a dynastic threat.
(06:44):
There's also the possibility of religious conflict because Mary had
told the Pope she intended to restore the Catholic faith
to Scotland and Protestant, and Elizabeth is a staunch Protestant
as well, and she was also extremely pretty, extremely powerful,
a rival to all of Elizabeth's potential suit. Elizabeth isn't
the most eligible queen in Europe anymore and that really
(07:07):
bugs her. But on the other hand, she sees Mary
as a potential compatriot. She is her cousin after all,
and she's a fellow female monarch, which is a a
very unique situation to be in. So Mary returns to
Scotland in fifteen sixty one, and her life as a
potential queen consort in this fancy French court has made
(07:30):
it very difficult for her to know how to run things.
She simply hasn't been raised that way and she doesn't
have the tools she needs as powerful as she needs
to be. She hasn't been raised and educated as a prince.
She's been educated as a as a queen consort, and
that's a very different, different job. And most troublesome of
(07:52):
all are these Scottish nobles. The Scottish nobles are really
difficult to deal with. They're more interested it in um
fluffing up their own feathers kind of and having private feuds.
They're always feuding with each other then supporting the crown.
And we have to consider to um there's been a
regency while the queen has been in a minority for
(08:15):
eighteen years, so they haven't had a strong ruler for
a generation. But Mary does okay, at least at first
um with her illegitimate half brother, James, Earl of Moray,
she comes to a sort of policy of religious tolerance,
so at least in that respect there's no more fighting
or things are at somewhat of a piece as far
(08:38):
as religion. She can practice her Catholic religion but not
pull up a Mary Tutor, for instance, and have everyone
burned at the stake. And some people are happy to
have her there because again they've had that regency for
so long. They haven't had a monarch around in a
long time. And she is beautiful and charming and pleasant
to be around, so you know, maybe she'll be good
(08:59):
for Scotland after all. And when she gets back to Scotland,
she immediately starts working on Elizabeth to be named Elizabeth's Air,
of which, as we said earlier, um by birth she
she would be, but she's sort of downgraded her ambitions
at this point. She's not trying to be named. She's
calling herself Queen of England now quordering her arms. She
(09:22):
just wants to be Elizabeth's air, and Mary likes and
dislikes Elizabeth as well. These aren't just complicated feelings on
Elizabeth's part, because on one hand, Elizabeth has been helping
the Protestants cause trouble for Mary in Scotland, but friendly
relationships would only help. They both realize it would benefit
(09:42):
them to be friendly, right, But Elizabeth can't name Mary
her air. And this is what's at least somewhat at
the crux of their relationship, because that's one of the
reasons Elizabeth never wanted to get married at all. She
didn't want to name an air in her lifetime because
it would be a threat to her. And there's a
really a good quote about that. Yeah, she says, thank
you that I could love my winding sheet when his
(10:05):
example show princess cannot even love their children that are
to succeed them. And she goes on to say that
she's been a witness to this, uh, this desire to
overthrow the current prince with whoever, whoever the heir is uh,
something she's seen in her sister's lifetime. When Mary Tudor
was queen, people were saying it's time for Elizabeth. Elizabeth
(10:29):
should be queen instead, so she knows what it's like,
and so her fear and reluctance and that context makes
sense with her being friends with Mary. But they are
quite cordial, at least for a time, and Mary is
even a bit courtly. On seeing her cousin Elizabeth's portrait,
she said she wished that one of them was a
man so that their kingdoms could be united by marital alliances,
(10:51):
which we thought was really interesting because of course that
is how you played the game. Then you married off
eligible people to create these political alliances. But when you
had these two two single queens, you can't do the stalemate.
What's going to happen. One of them is going to win,
and we'll see which one a little bit later. So
(11:19):
they both really want to meet each other though, and
they come pretty close to it in fifteen sixty two,
but a religious war between the Catholics and Huguenots in
France upsets the meeting and they're really devastated by it.
Mary apparently cried all day and was only consoled when
somebody told her that Elizabeth was just as upset. So
(11:40):
there's a real personal element to this relationship too. They're
curious about each other. But the thorn and their relationship,
of course, is the fact that they both are two
single queens. But Elizabeth has of course set herself up
as the virgin Queen, a reputation she's worked very hard
to maintain, whereas Mary, on the other hand, temperamentally isn't
(12:02):
suited to be single, she doesn't want to be, and
she also has to think about the interests of Scotland.
It is in her interest to get married, but of
course any choice she makes, much like Elizabeth, is pretty
much impossible, yea. Elizabeth thinks that she'll be okay with
Mary's choice as long as it's somebody agreeable to the English,
(12:23):
namely not a Catholic prince from Spain, Austria or France,
which would be a very powerful alliance that Elizabeth does
not want to happen. So instead she offers up a
man named Robert Dudley and we'll talk about him more
in another podcast and relationship to Elizabeth. But he was
Elizabeth's great love, so this is a weird match, right,
(12:44):
and it was also an insulting one to Mary because
Dudley was of low birth and he's tainted because he's
implicated in the very mysterious death of his wife. So
Mary is genuinely insulted by this idea of a match
kind of Elizabeth's reject. Elizabeth can't marry him herself at
this point, and Dudley is not interested in this match either,
(13:07):
so he doesn't want to move to Scotland and leave Elizabeth. No,
so she's game playing a little bit, and Mary herself
is trying to arrange something with Don Carlos, who is
Philip the Second's Air and it's good this doesn't work
out of Spain. Don Carlos is not a great guy. Yeah,
So Mary declines an invitation to meet with Elizabeth, which
of course greatly offends Elizabeth and um. Eventually, Mary's advisers, uh,
(13:33):
right to Elizabeth's advisor, my guys will call your guys
and tell her that Mary won't even consider marrying Dudley
unless Elizabeth would settle the succession on her, And after
that Elizabeth is quiet. The game is over. Mary has
has called her on it, basically, but at this point
another possible suitor enters the game, and his name is
(13:54):
Lord Darnley. So Lord Darnley made a little shot at
Mary when she was first widowed. His mother sent him
to France to press his suit with with Mary. She
wasn't interested at the time, UM. But Elizabeth was very
disturbed by this because Lord Darnley is also a tutor claimant.
He's a cousin of Mary's UM. Elizabeth doesn't want any
(14:18):
consolidation of the tutor claims, so when Darnley returns from France,
she has him and his mother arrested, but by this
time they've patched things up. Elizabeth is okay with him again.
She lets Darnley go to Scotland on family business, whatever
that might be. UM. And it's kind of suspicious here
(14:39):
because she knows what Darnley's intention is regarding Mary. Not honorable,
let's put it that way, or at least honorable. He
wants to marry Mary, but he's not an honorable guy.
There are several accounts of him being basically someone who's
really nice on the outside, and once you get to
know him, you realize just how bad he is vicious.
(14:59):
So it's kind of suspicious that Elizabeth is sending him.
She might know how this all plays out right and
be planning this is something that could possibly ruin marry
So three nights before Darnley arrives, spectral warriors are seen
fighting in the streets of Edinburgh at midnight, and I
(15:19):
think we can all agree that's a bad omen. And
soon enough Mary welcomes him, and soon enough falls in
love with him. They're both young, they're both very attractive,
and as Katie said earlier, being single does not suit Mary.
And they announced their engagement and then I love this.
So Elizabeth has let Darnley go to Scotland, knowing what
(15:43):
might happen, but she completely plays dumb and is shocked
by the engagement and arrest Darnley's mother, and Mary, quite
quite understandably is saying, hey, I thought you wanted me
to marry an English guy, and I am. So they
get married in July of fifteen sixty five, and it
is quickly revealed to Mary that she has made a
(16:06):
very bad choice. Darnley is simply not a good guy,
and it's not just her who decides to hate him.
It's all of these Scottish lords, those contentious lords do
not like Darnley, and things get really bad by March
fifteen sixty six, so less than a year after the marriage,
uh in the Rizzio Murder Darnley and other lord's plot
(16:31):
to murder Mary's favorite in front of her. She's heavily
pregnant by this point, and they're hoping that she'll be
so shocked by seeing this man killed in front of her,
you know, at her feet essentially, that she'll be dehabilitated
and Darnley will act as maybe a regent or maybe
(16:52):
a king and just completely delusional thinking because no one
would have ever let that happen. Again, they hated him.
So Mary is confined for a few days, and she
is much brighter than her somewhat dimwitted husband, and she
convinces him that the conspirators are going to go after
him next. There's no way he's going to be a
regent or a co ruler or something now, so she
(17:15):
gets all of his conspirators names out of him, and
they end up escaping through servant quarters and ride twenty
five miles to safety, once again while she's heavily pregnant.
Um The relations between Elizabeth and Mary actually improve after this.
After obviously Elizabeth was disappointed with Mary's choice of husband
and things have gotten a little frosty there. But Elizabeth
(17:38):
is so horrified that something like this would happen in
front of a fellow sovereign queen, an anointed queen um
that she warms up to Mary again right, And when
Mary gives birth to her son James in June sixty six,
she names Elizabeth as the godmother, and in a fun
little story, Elizabeth sends a gold font for the baby,
(18:01):
but not realizing that the baptism took place a few
months after the birth font she sent was much too small.
She's really embarrassed that little baby game um. But the
birth doesn't help Mary and Darnley reconcile, and she's starting
to think, Okay, I have a male air. How can
I get rid of this husband? She was really upset
(18:24):
about the prospect of spending her days with him, but
annulment is out of the question because that would mean
that James is a legitimate and she can't do that.
She needs an air, so her options are pretty much
divorce or arresting him for treason. But the question is
answered for her in fifteen sixty seven. So on the
night of February nine, Mary is supposed to spend the
(18:47):
night with Darnley, but she realizes that the last minute
that she has a mask to attend and goes out. Meanwhile,
Darnley's room is blown up seriously and he runs into
the night naked and is strangled to death. That's quite
a story, and we're going to talk about it more
(19:07):
later because it's too good to pass up now. That'll
be a different podcast. But after his death, Mary doesn't
conduct herself in the wisest manner. In fact, she marries
the chief suspect, James Hepburn, who is the fourth Earl
of Bothwell, just three months after the death, and also
after he abduct and ravished her according to accounts, and
(19:29):
that's always been unclear. Was it a willing abduction or
did this guy just steal her for real? And he's
married at the time, so he's granted a divorce to
marry her. So again, things aren't looking so great as
far as Mary's choices are going. But she may just
have been very simple sad at that point, she's in
(19:50):
ill health. She needs a strong man to help her
manage Scotland. She's already married once badly, and she's got
her heir and has to figure out how she's going
to live the rest of her life. But Elizabeth is
disgusted by Mary's actions and um, she even compares them
to her own relation with her true love Dudley and
(20:12):
his wife's mysterious death, and how she's conducted herself so
properly after this, uh, contrasted with Mary running away with
this guy. Elizabeth even wants little Prince James sent to
England so she can rear him under her protection rather
than him being with Mary and this strange new man.
(20:37):
But Mary and Bothwell part ways. On June sixty seven,
He's forced into exile and imprisonment by those lords who,
you know, having just gotten rid of Darnley, they're not
willing to to put up with Bothwell. Um. But Mary
herself is imprisoned on a tiny island in the middle
of a lock and deposed in favor of her one
(21:00):
year old son, James, and Elizabeth is completely outraged. She
was outraged by Mary's actions to begin with, but now
she's even more outraged by what the Scottish lords have
done by deposing Mary. Because Elizabeth has very strong viewpoints
about again appropriate behavior one and about the monarchy and
how an adored queen a sovereign and this was simply inappropriate,
(21:23):
and a lot of historians have suggested that if Elizabeth
hadn't protested so much against their actions, and the Scottish
lords would have executed Mary with without much to do
at all. Um And and that really is the crux
of their relationship. This, this is why Elizabeth hesitates over
the Mary question for so long, because actively trying to
(21:43):
depose or sentenced to death a fellow monarch sets a
really dangerous precedent and it's not something Elizabeth wants to
get into. But in contrast all these helpful things she's
doing at the same time, In March of fifteen sixty eight,
Elizabeth is eyeing Mary's jewels, which of course have been
put up for auction, and she outbids Katherine de Medici
(22:04):
for her pearls, and you'll see them in several state portraits.
M Mary's briefly liberated the following year, and uh tries
to seek refuge in England with her cousin Elizabeth. She's
probably thinking Elizabeth has been pretty nice and helpful lately,
but this is a really bad move, because Elizabeth uses
(22:25):
as an excuse issues surrounding Darnley's murder and holds Mary
in a series of prisons for the next eighteen years,
and the English tribunal delivers the only verdict they can
against Mary because there's nothing that can be proved. But
Elizabeth can't let her go either because Mary at this
(22:46):
point has gotten interested again in claiming the English throne
because she doesn't want the Scottish one back, and I mean,
really would you. It's pretty understandable, and the tempo of
her life has changed at this point. She's gone from
being this romantic and venturous figure in this whirlwind life,
always fleeing on horseback exactly, to spending twenty years in prison,
(23:07):
practicing her religion and working on her embroidery. Yeah, she's
her embroidery is kind of an interesting side note. There
actually been books written solely about Mary's embroidery. She was
really good at it, but she would use symbolism. I
really liked rendering of a ginger cat playing with a mouse,
which was a reference to the red hair to Elizabeth
(23:30):
toying with poor little mouse Mary. But most of her
time in prison is really sad and her health suffers,
her beauty diminishes, and she resolves to get out first
by pleading with Elizabeth. But also she is scheming from
the very beginning, Elizabeth's chief advisor actually warns her the
Queen of Scott's is and always shall be a dangerous
(23:53):
person to your estate, and that is very much true.
Mary has started plogging against a Elizabeth almost as soon
as she was in England, um and unfortunately she's the
number one hope for English Catholics. So basically, any rebellion
you have that's trying to unsee Elizabeth is going to
(24:13):
look to Mary as the woman to put on the
throne in her stead. And one of the plots in
fifteen seventy was a big deal, the Rodolphie plot, which
was your average run of the mill Catholic plot to
assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary. But after this
particular event, Elizabeth never again considers restoring Mary, and she
(24:37):
recognizes James the sixth as King of Scotland. But Mary's
security gets tighter around four she's been living as a
queen imprisoned. But it goes into major lockdown mode by
this point, and they're also new laws against plotting treason
in England by this point, and Elizabeth is afraid that
(24:58):
she might have to kill Mary under them. In goes
to the now grown James and asks if you and
your mother would be willing to co rule, and he's
unwilling to do this. He's seeing a future for himself
as um not only king of Scotland, but King of England,
and uh. Elizabeth tries to hide this betrayal from Mary,
(25:19):
which was kind, but the end finally happens in a
plot that was sent through beer barrels. Mary is under
this heavy security, but these beer barrels are like the
one one chink in the armor. But even then, even
after yet another plot comes up where it's clear to
Elizabeth that Mary is still conspiring against her. She wavers
for months about doing anything about it. She even declares,
(25:43):
I am not free but a captive. She knows that
their lives are entwined together forever. And finally, though, Mary
is executed in February eight and she goes to her
death in a very dignified manner and end the fact
of her death is broken to Elizabeth, She's almost hysterical.
(26:05):
She dresses in mourning, She cries, She rages against those
who drove her to do this, so much so that
her advisers get out of town because worried the shell
do right. And she's also afraid, truly, deeply afraid, that
God will punish her for what she's done. And she's
part of this is certainly personal. This was a hard
(26:25):
personal decision for Elizabeth to make, but she's also worried
that her international reputation will be shot, that she's put
Catholic martyr to death, not just a treasonous queen um
and some of this rage and these crying fits are
to show the world that she's upset by this. So
(26:48):
while the relationship between the Thistle and the Rose came
to a bloody end, the interesting thing is that despite
this long history they have with one another, they've never
met no and Mary never stopped pleading for personal contact.
She was a very charming woman, and she was sure
that she could charm her cousin too. And Elizabeth was
(27:10):
interested at first in this, but became more and more distant,
and she's she's afraid of the charm. She's afraid that
Mary will enchant her, or worse, upstage her, be prettier
and more impressive than the great Queen Elizabeth. She said
at one point, there is something sublime and the words
(27:30):
and bearing of the Queen of Scott's that constrains even
her enemies to speak well of her. And again, since
they never met, they had the opportunity to make the
other one larger than life in their minds less excuse me,
more than human. And it's funny too to consider their reputations.
Elizabeth always played up the masculinity of her strength, even
(27:52):
though she was a very emotional woman, and Mary has
always been seen as the emotional one, even though honestly
she's more ruthless. She would have seen Elizabeth murdered because
she was so desperate. Well, Elizabeth takes forever to sentence
her to death, so between this battle of the rival queens,
(28:14):
they both end up winning and losing. In the end,
Elizabeth makes James her air, and every British monarch since
then has been a descendant of Mary. But James, of
course was a Protestant Air, which was the cause dear
to Elizabeth's heart. And the best conclusion to this story
is that when James becomes king, he brings his mother's
(28:37):
remains to Westminster Abbey and builds a magnificent marble tomb
for the lady Chapel with a Scottish lion at her feet,
and the tomb lies just across the aisle from U Guessta,
that of Elizabeth together forever. So we will end with
the words of Elizabeth, who wrote a sonnet about Mary
(28:57):
and said, the daughter of debate that eke this chord
doth so shall reap no gain where former rule that's
taught still peace to grow. Thank you so much for
joining us on this Saturday. If you have heard an
email address or a Facebook you are l or something
(29:19):
similar over the course of today's episode, since it is
from the archive that might be out of date now,
you can email us at History podcast at how stuff
works dot com, and you can find us all over
social media at missed in History. And you can subscribe
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(29:43):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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Happy Saturday everyone. We have a new episode of this
show coming out this week that is about Mary, Queen
of Scott's. Thanks to the folks that Focus Features, they
approached us about doing an episode that would tie to
their new film, which is also called Mary Queen of
Scott's and comes out in the US on December seven.
Our upcoming episode is about the Babbington plot against Queen
(00:23):
Elizabeth and the trial for treason that led to Mary's beheading,
and the ongoing rivalry between Elizabeth and Mary is of
course a contributing factor to all of that, so we
wanted to share today's episode from the archive for listeners
who have not heard it. The episode is from two
thousand nine. It's by previous hosts Katie and Sarah, and
for folks who are eager for even more Mary Stewart,
(00:44):
you can also search our archive for the episode on
the death of her husband, Lord Darnley. Welcome to Stuff
You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Katie Lambert and I'm
(01:06):
Sarah Dowdy, and we recently did a podcast on Queen
Elizabeth the First and it got us thinking about her
most important relationships while she was queen, and today we're
going to focus on her relationship with her cousin and
fellow Queen Mary Stewart, possibly her greatest rival. And since
we already talked about Elizabeth's early life, let's talk a
(01:29):
little bit about Mary Stewart's. Unlike Elizabeth, she was born
a queen. She was the child of King James the
fifth of Scotland and his French wife, Mary of Geese.
But her father died six days after her birth, and
this causes a little trouble for baby Mary. It does
her grandmother is the sister of Henry the eighth, so
he immediately makes an attempt to control her, but the
(01:52):
regency instead goes to her mother. Henry keeps at it
and pursues what's called the rough wooing between his young
son and Mary, hoping to make an alliance there. Um
Mary's mother instead sends her off to France to be
raised in the court of Henry the second in Catherine
de Medici, and this was the nicest, most luxurious court
(02:14):
in Europe at the time, so Mary was in good
hands and she had a lot of French relatives there.
And again, unlike Elizabeth. She had a fairly happy childhood.
It wasn't so stable childhood, right. And Mary grows up
to be a beautiful young lady. She's about five eleven,
very tall, remarkably tall for the Renaissance. Yes, she's got
red gold hair and ambered eyes. Yeah. Mary is really
(02:37):
the perfect Renaissance princess. When she finally marries Henry and
Catherine's eldest son, Frances in fiftifty eight, and they like
each other. They've been raised pretty much as siblings, but
it's the marriage probably isn't consummated. He's a few years
younger than her, and he's very sickly, and she thinks
of him fondly, but more in a brotherly sort of
(02:59):
way that in a husbandly sort of way. Also, in
fifteen fifty eight where the parallels start, Elizabeth the first
sends to the throne, so Mary, through the tutor line,
is next in line, but Henry had in order of
succession that had muddled things up a bit. Catholics actually
would consider Mary the Queen of England already because Elizabeth.
(03:24):
They don't recognize Elizabeth's parents marriage that of Henry the
eighth to Ann berleyn so to them, Elizabeth is a
courtesan's bastard right, And in fifteen fifty nine Francis becomes
king and Mary is his queen consort, and she begins
putting on airs as far as this whole Queen of
(03:45):
England things go, because she's safe, comfortable and powerful in France.
She has very powerful in laws and she can do
what she wants with impunity. She certainly doesn't try to
disabuse anybody of the idea that she's the frightful Queen
of England. Um. She and Frances actually start quartering their
arms with that of England, so they're proclaiming themselves rulers
(04:09):
of France, Scotland and England, which is not something that's
going to make Elizabeth very happy, you know. And in
a sense of course, Mary by Henry's order of succession
had been disinherited or her line had been so this
does make sense. But the trouble between the two queens
begins around fifteen sixty when Mary refuses to sign the
Treaty of Edinburgh, and the basic backstory on that there's
(04:32):
been a long alliance between France and Scotland and it's
getting less and less popular with the increasingly Protestant Scottish
lords who are ready to see themselves freed to France,
and England backs them, and uh they put together this
Treaty of Edinburgh, and obviously Mary, as Queen Consort of
(04:56):
France as well as Queen of Scotland can't uh can't
advocate breaking up this relationship. She embodies this relationship, and
she'd also have to then officially recognize Elizabeth as the
Queen of England instead of herself. It's tantamount to renouncing
her own claim to the English throne. But further muddling
(05:16):
matters at the time, her husband Francis dies of an
ear infection, so she's eighteen, she's dowager Queen and France,
and it is time for Mary to return home to Scotland,
where again she hasn't been since she was a baby,
so things start to get more personal around now. She
asks Elizabeth for safe conduct crossing the Channel should she
(05:38):
be forced to land on English soil. Elizabeth gives her
a pretty snappy answer, which she actually sails before she
can even receive it. But there would be no safe
conduct and no welcome for the Queen of Scott's and
her cousin's realm until she had fulfilled her obligations by
ratifying the treaty as she was an honor bound to do.
And Mary was pretty much just sorry. She'd ask offended
(06:00):
by this response, and the international community also wasn't thrilled
with Elizabeth's behavior. They thought she's hassling her young, beautiful,
newly widowed cousin and it's something queen right. So Elizabeth
comes back from that and tries to play nice and
tells Mary that in fact they do have a sisterly
friendship and after all, she didn't send her navy after
(06:23):
her very benevolent The essential fact here is that Mary
as a teen queen consort over in France is one
thing to Elizabeth, but Mary, Queen of Scott's back on
the marriage market is another issue, entirely right, because with
Mary coming back to Scotland, Elizabeth now has a dynastic threat.
(06:44):
There's also the possibility of religious conflict because Mary had
told the Pope she intended to restore the Catholic faith
to Scotland and Protestant, and Elizabeth is a staunch Protestant
as well, and she was also extremely pretty, extremely powerful,
a rival to all of Elizabeth's potential suit. Elizabeth isn't
the most eligible queen in Europe anymore and that really
(07:07):
bugs her. But on the other hand, she sees Mary
as a potential compatriot. She is her cousin after all,
and she's a fellow female monarch, which is a a
very unique situation to be in. So Mary returns to
Scotland in fifteen sixty one, and her life as a
potential queen consort in this fancy French court has made
(07:30):
it very difficult for her to know how to run things.
She simply hasn't been raised that way and she doesn't
have the tools she needs as powerful as she needs
to be. She hasn't been raised and educated as a prince.
She's been educated as a as a queen consort, and
that's a very different, different job. And most troublesome of
(07:52):
all are these Scottish nobles. The Scottish nobles are really
difficult to deal with. They're more interested it in um
fluffing up their own feathers kind of and having private feuds.
They're always feuding with each other then supporting the crown.
And we have to consider to um there's been a
regency while the queen has been in a minority for
(08:15):
eighteen years, so they haven't had a strong ruler for
a generation. But Mary does okay, at least at first
um with her illegitimate half brother, James, Earl of Moray,
she comes to a sort of policy of religious tolerance,
so at least in that respect there's no more fighting
or things are at somewhat of a piece as far
(08:38):
as religion. She can practice her Catholic religion but not
pull up a Mary Tutor, for instance, and have everyone
burned at the stake. And some people are happy to
have her there because again they've had that regency for
so long. They haven't had a monarch around in a
long time. And she is beautiful and charming and pleasant
to be around, so you know, maybe she'll be good
(08:59):
for Scotland after all. And when she gets back to Scotland,
she immediately starts working on Elizabeth to be named Elizabeth's Air,
of which, as we said earlier, um by birth she
she would be, but she's sort of downgraded her ambitions
at this point. She's not trying to be named. She's
calling herself Queen of England now quordering her arms. She
(09:22):
just wants to be Elizabeth's air, and Mary likes and
dislikes Elizabeth as well. These aren't just complicated feelings on
Elizabeth's part, because on one hand, Elizabeth has been helping
the Protestants cause trouble for Mary in Scotland, but friendly
relationships would only help. They both realize it would benefit
(09:42):
them to be friendly, right, But Elizabeth can't name Mary
her air. And this is what's at least somewhat at
the crux of their relationship, because that's one of the
reasons Elizabeth never wanted to get married at all. She
didn't want to name an air in her lifetime because
it would be a threat to her. And there's a
really a good quote about that. Yeah, she says, thank
you that I could love my winding sheet when his
(10:05):
example show princess cannot even love their children that are
to succeed them. And she goes on to say that
she's been a witness to this, uh, this desire to
overthrow the current prince with whoever, whoever the heir is uh,
something she's seen in her sister's lifetime. When Mary Tudor
was queen, people were saying it's time for Elizabeth. Elizabeth
(10:29):
should be queen instead, so she knows what it's like,
and so her fear and reluctance and that context makes
sense with her being friends with Mary. But they are
quite cordial, at least for a time, and Mary is
even a bit courtly. On seeing her cousin Elizabeth's portrait,
she said she wished that one of them was a
man so that their kingdoms could be united by marital alliances,
(10:51):
which we thought was really interesting because of course that
is how you played the game. Then you married off
eligible people to create these political alliances. But when you
had these two two single queens, you can't do the stalemate.
What's going to happen. One of them is going to win,
and we'll see which one a little bit later. So
(11:19):
they both really want to meet each other though, and
they come pretty close to it in fifteen sixty two,
but a religious war between the Catholics and Huguenots in
France upsets the meeting and they're really devastated by it.
Mary apparently cried all day and was only consoled when
somebody told her that Elizabeth was just as upset. So
(11:40):
there's a real personal element to this relationship too. They're
curious about each other. But the thorn and their relationship,
of course, is the fact that they both are two
single queens. But Elizabeth has of course set herself up
as the virgin Queen, a reputation she's worked very hard
to maintain, whereas Mary, on the other hand, temperamentally isn't
(12:02):
suited to be single, she doesn't want to be, and
she also has to think about the interests of Scotland.
It is in her interest to get married, but of
course any choice she makes, much like Elizabeth, is pretty
much impossible, yea. Elizabeth thinks that she'll be okay with
Mary's choice as long as it's somebody agreeable to the English,
(12:23):
namely not a Catholic prince from Spain, Austria or France,
which would be a very powerful alliance that Elizabeth does
not want to happen. So instead she offers up a
man named Robert Dudley and we'll talk about him more
in another podcast and relationship to Elizabeth. But he was
Elizabeth's great love, so this is a weird match, right,
(12:44):
and it was also an insulting one to Mary because
Dudley was of low birth and he's tainted because he's
implicated in the very mysterious death of his wife. So
Mary is genuinely insulted by this idea of a match
kind of Elizabeth's reject. Elizabeth can't marry him herself at
this point, and Dudley is not interested in this match either,
(13:07):
so he doesn't want to move to Scotland and leave Elizabeth. No,
so she's game playing a little bit, and Mary herself
is trying to arrange something with Don Carlos, who is
Philip the Second's Air and it's good this doesn't work
out of Spain. Don Carlos is not a great guy. Yeah,
So Mary declines an invitation to meet with Elizabeth, which
of course greatly offends Elizabeth and um. Eventually, Mary's advisers, uh,
(13:33):
right to Elizabeth's advisor, my guys will call your guys
and tell her that Mary won't even consider marrying Dudley
unless Elizabeth would settle the succession on her, And after
that Elizabeth is quiet. The game is over. Mary has
has called her on it, basically, but at this point
another possible suitor enters the game, and his name is
(13:54):
Lord Darnley. So Lord Darnley made a little shot at
Mary when she was first widowed. His mother sent him
to France to press his suit with with Mary. She
wasn't interested at the time, UM. But Elizabeth was very
disturbed by this because Lord Darnley is also a tutor claimant.
He's a cousin of Mary's UM. Elizabeth doesn't want any
(14:18):
consolidation of the tutor claims, so when Darnley returns from France,
she has him and his mother arrested, but by this
time they've patched things up. Elizabeth is okay with him again.
She lets Darnley go to Scotland on family business, whatever
that might be. UM. And it's kind of suspicious here
(14:39):
because she knows what Darnley's intention is regarding Mary. Not honorable,
let's put it that way, or at least honorable. He
wants to marry Mary, but he's not an honorable guy.
There are several accounts of him being basically someone who's
really nice on the outside, and once you get to
know him, you realize just how bad he is vicious.
(14:59):
So it's kind of suspicious that Elizabeth is sending him.
She might know how this all plays out right and
be planning this is something that could possibly ruin marry
So three nights before Darnley arrives, spectral warriors are seen
fighting in the streets of Edinburgh at midnight, and I
(15:19):
think we can all agree that's a bad omen. And
soon enough Mary welcomes him, and soon enough falls in
love with him. They're both young, they're both very attractive,
and as Katie said earlier, being single does not suit Mary.
And they announced their engagement and then I love this.
So Elizabeth has let Darnley go to Scotland, knowing what
(15:43):
might happen, but she completely plays dumb and is shocked
by the engagement and arrest Darnley's mother, and Mary, quite
quite understandably is saying, hey, I thought you wanted me
to marry an English guy, and I am. So they
get married in July of fifteen sixty five, and it
is quickly revealed to Mary that she has made a
(16:06):
very bad choice. Darnley is simply not a good guy,
and it's not just her who decides to hate him.
It's all of these Scottish lords, those contentious lords do
not like Darnley, and things get really bad by March
fifteen sixty six, so less than a year after the marriage,
uh in the Rizzio Murder Darnley and other lord's plot
(16:31):
to murder Mary's favorite in front of her. She's heavily
pregnant by this point, and they're hoping that she'll be
so shocked by seeing this man killed in front of her,
you know, at her feet essentially, that she'll be dehabilitated
and Darnley will act as maybe a regent or maybe
(16:52):
a king and just completely delusional thinking because no one
would have ever let that happen. Again, they hated him.
So Mary is confined for a few days, and she
is much brighter than her somewhat dimwitted husband, and she
convinces him that the conspirators are going to go after
him next. There's no way he's going to be a
regent or a co ruler or something now, so she
(17:15):
gets all of his conspirators names out of him, and
they end up escaping through servant quarters and ride twenty
five miles to safety, once again while she's heavily pregnant.
Um The relations between Elizabeth and Mary actually improve after this.
After obviously Elizabeth was disappointed with Mary's choice of husband
and things have gotten a little frosty there. But Elizabeth
(17:38):
is so horrified that something like this would happen in
front of a fellow sovereign queen, an anointed queen um
that she warms up to Mary again right, And when
Mary gives birth to her son James in June sixty six,
she names Elizabeth as the godmother, and in a fun
little story, Elizabeth sends a gold font for the baby,
(18:01):
but not realizing that the baptism took place a few
months after the birth font she sent was much too small.
She's really embarrassed that little baby game um. But the
birth doesn't help Mary and Darnley reconcile, and she's starting
to think, Okay, I have a male air. How can
I get rid of this husband? She was really upset
(18:24):
about the prospect of spending her days with him, but
annulment is out of the question because that would mean
that James is a legitimate and she can't do that.
She needs an air, so her options are pretty much
divorce or arresting him for treason. But the question is
answered for her in fifteen sixty seven. So on the
night of February nine, Mary is supposed to spend the
(18:47):
night with Darnley, but she realizes that the last minute
that she has a mask to attend and goes out. Meanwhile,
Darnley's room is blown up seriously and he runs into
the night naked and is strangled to death. That's quite
a story, and we're going to talk about it more
(19:07):
later because it's too good to pass up now. That'll
be a different podcast. But after his death, Mary doesn't
conduct herself in the wisest manner. In fact, she marries
the chief suspect, James Hepburn, who is the fourth Earl
of Bothwell, just three months after the death, and also
after he abduct and ravished her according to accounts, and
(19:29):
that's always been unclear. Was it a willing abduction or
did this guy just steal her for real? And he's
married at the time, so he's granted a divorce to
marry her. So again, things aren't looking so great as
far as Mary's choices are going. But she may just
have been very simple sad at that point, she's in
(19:50):
ill health. She needs a strong man to help her
manage Scotland. She's already married once badly, and she's got
her heir and has to figure out how she's going
to live the rest of her life. But Elizabeth is
disgusted by Mary's actions and um, she even compares them
to her own relation with her true love Dudley and
(20:12):
his wife's mysterious death, and how she's conducted herself so
properly after this, uh, contrasted with Mary running away with
this guy. Elizabeth even wants little Prince James sent to
England so she can rear him under her protection rather
than him being with Mary and this strange new man.
(20:37):
But Mary and Bothwell part ways. On June sixty seven,
He's forced into exile and imprisonment by those lords who,
you know, having just gotten rid of Darnley, they're not
willing to to put up with Bothwell. Um. But Mary
herself is imprisoned on a tiny island in the middle
of a lock and deposed in favor of her one
(21:00):
year old son, James, and Elizabeth is completely outraged. She
was outraged by Mary's actions to begin with, but now
she's even more outraged by what the Scottish lords have
done by deposing Mary. Because Elizabeth has very strong viewpoints
about again appropriate behavior one and about the monarchy and
how an adored queen a sovereign and this was simply inappropriate,
(21:23):
and a lot of historians have suggested that if Elizabeth
hadn't protested so much against their actions, and the Scottish
lords would have executed Mary with without much to do
at all. Um And and that really is the crux
of their relationship. This, this is why Elizabeth hesitates over
the Mary question for so long, because actively trying to
(21:43):
depose or sentenced to death a fellow monarch sets a
really dangerous precedent and it's not something Elizabeth wants to
get into. But in contrast all these helpful things she's
doing at the same time, In March of fifteen sixty eight,
Elizabeth is eyeing Mary's jewels, which of course have been
put up for auction, and she outbids Katherine de Medici
(22:04):
for her pearls, and you'll see them in several state portraits.
M Mary's briefly liberated the following year, and uh tries
to seek refuge in England with her cousin Elizabeth. She's
probably thinking Elizabeth has been pretty nice and helpful lately,
but this is a really bad move, because Elizabeth uses
(22:25):
as an excuse issues surrounding Darnley's murder and holds Mary
in a series of prisons for the next eighteen years,
and the English tribunal delivers the only verdict they can
against Mary because there's nothing that can be proved. But
Elizabeth can't let her go either because Mary at this
(22:46):
point has gotten interested again in claiming the English throne
because she doesn't want the Scottish one back, and I mean,
really would you. It's pretty understandable, and the tempo of
her life has changed at this point. She's gone from
being this romantic and venturous figure in this whirlwind life,
always fleeing on horseback exactly, to spending twenty years in prison,
(23:07):
practicing her religion and working on her embroidery. Yeah, she's
her embroidery is kind of an interesting side note. There
actually been books written solely about Mary's embroidery. She was
really good at it, but she would use symbolism. I
really liked rendering of a ginger cat playing with a mouse,
which was a reference to the red hair to Elizabeth
(23:30):
toying with poor little mouse Mary. But most of her
time in prison is really sad and her health suffers,
her beauty diminishes, and she resolves to get out first
by pleading with Elizabeth. But also she is scheming from
the very beginning, Elizabeth's chief advisor actually warns her the
Queen of Scott's is and always shall be a dangerous
(23:53):
person to your estate, and that is very much true.
Mary has started plogging against a Elizabeth almost as soon
as she was in England, um and unfortunately she's the
number one hope for English Catholics. So basically, any rebellion
you have that's trying to unsee Elizabeth is going to
(24:13):
look to Mary as the woman to put on the
throne in her stead. And one of the plots in
fifteen seventy was a big deal, the Rodolphie plot, which
was your average run of the mill Catholic plot to
assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary. But after this
particular event, Elizabeth never again considers restoring Mary, and she
(24:37):
recognizes James the sixth as King of Scotland. But Mary's
security gets tighter around four she's been living as a
queen imprisoned. But it goes into major lockdown mode by
this point, and they're also new laws against plotting treason
in England by this point, and Elizabeth is afraid that
(24:58):
she might have to kill Mary under them. In goes
to the now grown James and asks if you and
your mother would be willing to co rule, and he's
unwilling to do this. He's seeing a future for himself
as um not only king of Scotland, but King of England,
and uh. Elizabeth tries to hide this betrayal from Mary,
(25:19):
which was kind, but the end finally happens in a
plot that was sent through beer barrels. Mary is under
this heavy security, but these beer barrels are like the
one one chink in the armor. But even then, even
after yet another plot comes up where it's clear to
Elizabeth that Mary is still conspiring against her. She wavers
for months about doing anything about it. She even declares,
(25:43):
I am not free but a captive. She knows that
their lives are entwined together forever. And finally, though, Mary
is executed in February eight and she goes to her
death in a very dignified manner and end the fact
of her death is broken to Elizabeth, She's almost hysterical.
(26:05):
She dresses in mourning, She cries, She rages against those
who drove her to do this, so much so that
her advisers get out of town because worried the shell
do right. And she's also afraid, truly, deeply afraid, that
God will punish her for what she's done. And she's
part of this is certainly personal. This was a hard
(26:25):
personal decision for Elizabeth to make, but she's also worried
that her international reputation will be shot, that she's put
Catholic martyr to death, not just a treasonous queen um
and some of this rage and these crying fits are
to show the world that she's upset by this. So
(26:48):
while the relationship between the Thistle and the Rose came
to a bloody end, the interesting thing is that despite
this long history they have with one another, they've never
met no and Mary never stopped pleading for personal contact.
She was a very charming woman, and she was sure
that she could charm her cousin too. And Elizabeth was
(27:10):
interested at first in this, but became more and more distant,
and she's she's afraid of the charm. She's afraid that
Mary will enchant her, or worse, upstage her, be prettier
and more impressive than the great Queen Elizabeth. She said
at one point, there is something sublime and the words
(27:30):
and bearing of the Queen of Scott's that constrains even
her enemies to speak well of her. And again, since
they never met, they had the opportunity to make the
other one larger than life in their minds less excuse me,
more than human. And it's funny too to consider their reputations.
Elizabeth always played up the masculinity of her strength, even
(27:52):
though she was a very emotional woman, and Mary has
always been seen as the emotional one, even though honestly
she's more ruthless. She would have seen Elizabeth murdered because
she was so desperate. Well, Elizabeth takes forever to sentence
her to death, so between this battle of the rival queens,
(28:14):
they both end up winning and losing. In the end,
Elizabeth makes James her air, and every British monarch since
then has been a descendant of Mary. But James, of
course was a Protestant Air, which was the cause dear
to Elizabeth's heart. And the best conclusion to this story
is that when James becomes king, he brings his mother's
(28:37):
remains to Westminster Abbey and builds a magnificent marble tomb
for the lady Chapel with a Scottish lion at her feet,
and the tomb lies just across the aisle from U Guessta,
that of Elizabeth together forever. So we will end with
the words of Elizabeth, who wrote a sonnet about Mary
(28:57):
and said, the daughter of debate that eke this chord
doth so shall reap no gain where former rule that's
taught still peace to grow. Thank you so much for
joining us on this Saturday. If you have heard an
email address or a Facebook you are l or something
(29:19):
similar over the course of today's episode, since it is
from the archive that might be out of date now,
you can email us at History podcast at how stuff
works dot com, and you can find us all over
social media at missed in History. And you can subscribe
to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcast, the I
Heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
(29:43):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff Works dot com.
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