Dan Snow's History Hit - Mary Queen of Scots with Kate Williams

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Dan is joined by Professor Kate Williams to discuss the rise and fall of Mary Queen of Scots, one of the most dramatic and tragic figures of the Sixteenth Century - https://pod.fo/e/1148a4If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. As you know, I am now in the Antarctic. We are on a mission to try and find Shackleton's lost shipwreck, Endurance. In the meantime though, here's a favourite episode from our archive. Enjoy. Kate Williams, thank you for coming on the pod. I'm thrilled to be on the pod. It is my first time on the pod, and I'm a great admirer of the pod, so fantastic to be here. I have tried getting on the pod before. I'm embarrassed you haven't been on the pod,

and it is long overdue. You're going to be on the pod again before long, I'm certain. And also, I'm glad because you brought your daughter to the recording, and I'm actually a bit worried about that because her reading level is really very far advanced. I'm going to check her. She her reading level is really very far advanced. She's going to check if any. If I give you a wrong date,

she can come in and check the facts. Well, that's what I'm worried about because she's the same age as my daughter, but my daughter is not yet reading the Hiccup the Viking chapter book. So she's done the picture version. So I'm going to go home and get a bit Tiger Mum on her, I think. Right, you are here talking about

one of the great figures of british history tell me about my new book is about mary queen of scots it's called rival queens the betrayal of mary queen of scots and i'm fascinated by the idea of two queens in one island but i'm also particularly fascinated by mary herself and what she experienced as a queen. I think so often we see her as either a failure or a tragic queen. But in terms of queenship, what she was doing was not dissimilar to many other very successful queens. It's just that it failed for her. Well, listen, we're all failures. I don't hold that against her. So let's not talk about her as a prisoner yet. Let's talk about her young life and how how she started out this remarkable

path well mary was born into into chaos really her father really felt that he was losing everything to the to the british and when she was born he thought that was the end of everything he said essentially he said essentially he said it started with a woman and it ends with a woman it'll gang with a lass by which he meant that the the whole the whole of his family had begun with a woman and arguably and now she was going to be the end of it because with a woman on the throne what could stop Henry VIII from overtaking the entirety of the country that That was very much how he felt. And remind me of her relationship to Henry VII, the Tudor dynasty.

So she is related to Henry VII through her aunt. So her father was, of course, James V of Scotland. Her mother was Mary of Guise of France. And her grandmother was Margaret Tudor. So she has, I mean, she has this amazing lineage. She is a cousin of Edward VI, who Henry VIII of future hopes that she will marry. And she is herself a Tudor in many ways, but she's definitely seen as a steward. And it definitely is by this point, the division between Henry VIII in England and James in Scotland. And it was called at the time,

the rough wooing, which was England's attempt to sort of crush Scotland into submission and grab it as a territory. And certainly James felt that when he produced nothing but a girl, he'd had two boys, but they died. When he produced nothing but a girl, what was the point? They were going to be overrun. So he was already pretty ill, but having a daughter pushed him over the edge

and pretty much killed him. So she was an infant on the throne. She was an infant on the throne. And we know through history that infants on the throne? She was an infant on the throne and we know through history that infants on the throne are not particularly successful in history. People see infants on the throne as fair game, they'll gather around them and also because children are so vulnerable in the early modern period it is very likely that they might die So people are constantly grouping around someone else. So she was a child regnant, but her mother, Mary of Guise,

was essentially regent for her. But unlike a boy child regnant, she's constantly seen as a liability. She's constantly seen as going to be kidnapped. So they become very fearful that this child queen is going to be kidnapped by Henry VIII and whisked off to England and forcibly married to Edward VI. And there are treaties in which she will actually

marry Edward VI, but not till she's much older. So they become quite terrified that she's going to be kidnapped and that will mean the end of all Scotland's independence. So her mother, Mary of Guise, makes a decision to send her off to marry the future king of France and she's sent off just at the age of five and I mean that's a very interesting choice I think because yes on one hand what what choice did the mother have she was terrified that Mary was going to be kidnapped that she wasn't going to be safe but here is a queen being sent out of her country to be brought up as a, a consort in, in,

in the French court and the French court was much safer. And it was where Mary of Guise was very happy. And Mary of Guise herself is from this, this very powerful family of the Guises who are constantly pushing for influence in the French court. And therefore, if they're married, if they're one of their own is marrying to the future king then

they're getting influence so i i do feel that mary queen of scots even at five she's already being betrayed and one of even though her mother thought she was doing the best for her certainly she's becoming a pawn to gie's ambition because it's just not a great idea if you're the monarch to be sent out of the country and was there a suggestion was it were the two kingdoms or in the marriage treaty such there was that the two kings will always remain distinct like uh mary and philip of spain mary or was there talk of a a joint trans-maritime a joint monarchy where scotland france would forever have a union of the crowns that was the vision that was the ideal vision that scotland and france would have the union but certainly it was very clear early on that france was going to be the key partner that france was going to be the

top dog in this and scotland was going to be the the dominated one and it's very obvious when you look at the marriage treaties that mary signs with the French royal family that they're essentially saying that if she has no heirs, the whole of the country will revert to France. So really, it's a marriage and it's shown and it's promoted as a union. But even in when Mary does marry the Dauphine, all the the celebration it's all about Scotland as the inferior one these poets sing about Scotland as the child on the French breast and Scotland is that Mary is the golden fleece it's made very clear

that they are the junior partner in all of this and so in that we see the essential problem of every queen pregnant in this period who do you marry and if you do marry how how can you marry without being without your whole country being seen as subservient as a wife is supposed to be so by the time mary marries the dauphin henry the eighth is dead ed is edward on the throne? So by the time Mary marries the Dauphin, it is much, much later. We're now looking at 1558 now. So we've had Henry, Edward has died,

and now we're at the end of Mary's reign at this point. So Mary Tudor is Catholic like her cousin. So actually it doesn't look quite as threatening from Mary Tudor's point of view. No, you're absolutely right, Dan. I mean, had there been this... Because when Mary marries the Dauphin, she has this marvellous childhood being brought up in the French court,

getting on very well with her future husband, getting on very well with the princesses. The French king, he actually puts her in precedence over his daughters. So it's all marvellous. Everything's splendid. And she gets on quite well with a very powerful mistress diane de potier and that's important not too bad getting on with catherine de medici but that's hard so she has a pretty idyllic childhood in an adolescence

in the french court and then marries in 1558 and it is this huge celebration of scotland and france as union i mean scotland is the junior partner very clearly but it's huge it's all it's all pomp it's all circumstances all power there were these gigantic mise-en-scène so the the in one of the i mean in one of the weddings i'm i'm sure you've been some fabulous weddings in your time down but i don't know if you've ever been to one where everyone got all the the principal men got in a boat and went round this boat, round the wedding banquet, and they got a lady in the boat with them and carried on riding round the boat together in a sort of big mise-en-scene, which would celebrate the rescue of Mary.

Indeed, when I was writing the book, I had a query from the copy editor, but they've been banqueting all day. Are they going to another banquet? Yes, they did. They went to one banquet in one place and moved to another banquet for more mise-en-scene so it was a huge celebration of Scotland and France and yes it would have been Henry VIII's worst nightmare I mean he would have thrown a complete fit Edward Edward VI and his protectors but with Mary uh it is let seen as she sees as less of a threat uh because they are great Catholic monarchs together.

So you've got Mary Tudor on the throne of England. You've got Mary Stuart on the throne of Scotland and now married to the heir to the throne of France. You've got lots of these powerful women around in the mid-16th century. Is that just total coincidence or was there something going on that allowed women to play a more prominent role in high politics i think certainly we although it's coincidence with mary queen of scotts she was the only female child uh we do see a lot of very powerful women uh whether they're wives like catherine de medici or mistresses like dan de potier or regnance, regents, such as Mary of Guise for Mary Queen of Scots. So I do think we see increasingly levels of powerful women.

So Elizabeth I, when she comes to the throne, is not necessarily the anomaly that we always think, because there's a long tradition of very powerful female consorts, female queens, and also to a degree, princesses and ladies of the manor and i think certainly that the the fact is that i think one one reason why women get more power by this point is because the court is becoming so important is because court skills are so much more important we have although it is still a violent age there's much less physical fighting all the time and there are there is because there's more court politics actual political roles and intellectual discussion that's something that women can more easily insert themselves in and we are in the period of the

great personality tyrant so if the great tyrant is willing to listen to his mistress or queen then she has power too right so everything's going swimmingly for Mary Stuart, and then suddenly, catastrophe. So everything is going absolutely splendidly. It's not received brilliantly in Britain that she declares herself Queen of England as well. The French king says she's Queen of France, Scotland and England. That's not received very brilliantly,

but the English kind of decide to brush under the carpet and ignore it. So things are going fantastically. It's all marvellous. And then her great father, the great King Henri, is killed with a lance in his eye. It's incredible how many people get fatal jousting injuries. So he's killed with a lance in his eye. Her husband how many people get fatal jousting injuries so he's killed with the lance in his eye her her father her husband becomes king she becomes the queen but her husband

really is quite sickly and he dies very quickly they haven't been king and queen very long he dies not very long afterwards and then she's in this impossible position she's not the queen anymore or she she's not the queen anymore she's the dowager position she's not the queen anymore or she she's not the queen anymore she's the dowager queen she's only a young woman and no one wants her no one wants her in the french court Catherine de' Medici never liked her very much and now wants her to go no one wants her in France uh certainly the guises try and remarry her but but they don't don't really want her anyway. And Scotland sends the lords out to ask her to come back to them. So she decides to head back to Scotland at 18.

Her mother, Mary of Guise, who'd been regent, is dead. And so she decides to return to this country to be their queen in which she hasn't lived. She barely remembers. She barely knows. She knows nothing about. And so she's pitched into this impossible life. I mean, many of our best queens, we think of Elizabeth I, we think of Victoria, we think to a degree of Elizabeth II. I mean, obviously,

they all grew up in their countries, but they were on the outside of court life, of public life, of majesty. And so they were on the outside looking in life, of public life, of majesty. And so they were on the outside looking in. So they had a peculiar and particular outsider's perspective of what was important and how to win the love of the people. And you see Elizabeth I using that in a very effective way. She uses her time in, really, sort of exile in Mary's reign, not only to build up her very loyal men, such the great William Cecil but also to take the stock of her country but you have Mary coming back Mary Stuart and she doesn't know anybody she has no

loyal friends no loyal advisors she's got no William Cecil and she's pitched into a world where she has no idea and she's very used to the high finesse, the high court politics, the polite world of the French court. And Scotland is different. Was it a little more rugged? It was a little more rugged. And rather than, there were basically in France two controlling families, the Guises and the Montmorences, who were both always battling for power in the court. In Scotland, there are many, many families and there are a lot of long-held grudges, a lot of long-held rivalries over everything

from marriages to castles to power to money. So she is in a world of, a very different world and a very different world of incredibly complicated and political shifting rivalries between the lords and this is a world in which she has no idea about and yes and her mother her mother had been dealing with it and yes had she grown up her life would be much more dangerous and difficult and and very hard but she would have had a better idea I think of what she was letting herself in for so So she's 18 years old.

She's one of the first queen regnants in the whole of British history. She's never really been to the country. She has no experience in the country. How does she do in the job? Well, initially, I mean, she's incredibly well-received. People are delighted to see her because I think that we see this over and over again in in 16th century history that other

other possible people are put up for the throne but the actual ordinary people want someone with royal blood so we see that with lady jane gray that she's so easily pitched off the throne for mary who is truly the daughter of henry the eighth so she's very well received she is the daughter of james she is the rightful queen they're delighted to have her back but she starts to get into the problems of the rivalries between the various lords because she wants to be queen in the same way that mary mary the tudor was in the same way that elizabeth the first was but they want her to be a figurehead and they want to do what they please under her. And one of the great problems is that already Scotland's Protestant revolution has advanced a great deal. And so by the time Mary comes, who is a good French Catholic, she is seen as antithetical by many of them.

And some of the lords are truly, genuinely great religious men. of them and some of the lords are truly genuinely great religious men some of them just want to keep the lands that they've grabbed from the abbeys and the monasteries but you do have a very strong protestant faction and they immediately see her as a threat and particularly in this group uh one of i mean the man who's the most important to her life is, I mean, there are a lot of Jameses in the story. Every one of her father, you know, she was like born into this long line of people. Basically, everyone was called James when she arrived and broke it to be called Mary.

And now her brother, James Stewart, he is her half-brother by her father and a mistress. And he has had a lot of power in the court. And he is a had a lot of power in the court is it and he is a very keen protestant and he'll be the one who causes most of uh who has the most influence on mary's life initially they're very friendly but very not very long after he tries to unseat her with a military coup and that's the beginning of which she's repeatedly tried to be unseated repeatedly threatened and repeatedly challenged uh so she's in she's in physical danger as well as in political turmoil yeah she is in physical danger and it's interesting because she makes some bad choices but when you think of

elizabeth the first um and not only was she did she luck out in having Walsingham and Cecil behind her, but also you don't really read anyone but Madman saying, I'm going to kidnap the Queen and assault her and marry her. I mean, people just don't say that. Whereas the Madman said it for Victoria. I mean, a couple of men knocked on the door and said that he was looking for a wife and what the queen the queen might do but but in mary's terms it's it's not it's not the madman it's not the jokers it's it's actually the men of high politics who are thinking i'm going to kidnap her i'm i'm going to make her subservient to my wishes and we see this constantly throughout uh throughout mary's life, and she is repeatedly under threat. And so she brings in policies that are very like Elizabeth's, ones of toleration, not as perhaps turning a blind eye as Elizabeth, but not too far off. But that isn't seen as good enough, because her power base isn't strong enough for her to simply be this, well, I don't really mind if Protestants get on with their own services,

I won't really say anything. She's too threatened and too vulnerable because she simply hasn't got any real power base behind her, apart from her ladies-in-waiting and their friends. None of the big, powerful men trust her. She does eventually choose a husband though doesn't she how does that work well uh mary also has the misfortune to marry um two of the francis is fine but she has three husbands and the second two i think are the worst consorts in royal history and that i

mean that's a competition that's a competition there are some bad consorts out there and i'd say she's got the two worst ones so her first one lord darnley she really wants to marry and she isn't like elizabeth who who keeps the marriage game going she really does want to marry partly because she wants to do her duty and produce a child but also because she she does believe the ideology that a man will help her, a man will strengthen her, and a man will be the shoulders she can cry on. So Elizabeth suggests that Mary marries her beloved Robert Dudley, who they are, best chums, as we know, probably more than best chums.

And Mary is very insulted by that because Dudley is, of course, a traitor's son. he's not the best idea for a husband for her and she knows he's Elizabeth's very close friend so she really doesn't want that and really when Elizabeth suggests Dudley as a possible husband Mary is very insulted and moves towards Lord Darnley who does have a degree of acclaim towards Mary's throne he does have a degree of acclaim towards mary's throne he does have a degree of acclaim towards elizabeth's throne and he's been pretty much under what we might call as house of very nice house arrest him and his family in elizabeth's court elizabeth sets him free really to put the cat among the pigeons in scotland and he he does too well well he's Mary falls in love with him on the spot

he's he's he has a royal claim he's good he's going to rattle Elizabeth's cage because he has a claim to Elizabeth's throne and and he's handsome and he's young and he's just perfect and the parent Darnley's mother really engineers it very keenly and Mary falls in love with him marries him and initially it all seems rather rather great there's a wonderful wedding banquet but Darnley is a very poor husband he alienates everyone he particularly alienates James Stewart the Earl of Moray who we're talking about Mary's half-brother he alienates him by saying I think you've got too much land they feel he's catholic they're they they already begin to panic that he's going too far and taking you're going to take mary as a catholic monarch and they're all going to be excluded um and so when mary

when when mary falls pregnant there begins to be increasing concern because with the child she and Darnie will be stronger. And we have the first of the most terrible events in Mary's reign, which is the death of her musician. So she has a musician, David Rizzio, who she promotes to be her secretary. And one night when she's eating on a Saturday night in her palace with a few friends and Rizzio, there's a huge amount of conspirators, a lot of the lords with Darnley behind them. They come up through Darnley's room and break into Mary's supper chamber, seize Rizzio and try and stab him. Rizzio and try and stab him and there's this totally violent Saturday night altercation in which Mary's holding Rizzio behind her skirts and begging them to set him free and then one of them waves a gun at her and she thinks she's going to die and then they they take off Rizzio and they stab him I think it's you know nearly 50 times and just throw him down the stairs. And then they imprison Mary in the castle because it's not really all about Rizzio.

Yes, they hated him. Yes, they thought he had too much influence. He thought he was a Catholic, but really they want to use him as a way of imprisoning Mary in the castle. And so Darnley gets all the power. You listen to Dan Snow's history. More coming up I'm Matt Lewis and I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga and in Gone Medieval we get into the greatest mysteries the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human

history we're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So Darnley is behind this attack. Yes, I mean, there are plenty of other people who've encouraged him to do it, but Darnley is behind the attack. He wants Mary, he basically wants to depose Mary, and so he can rule for the child along with the lords.

So it's not the greatest thing that you might hope your husband to do it's a bad thing for marital relations I think but Mary she does she does manage to win Darnley over Darnley comes to see her and he says you've got to submit and she says she says, I don't want to. And oh, I think the Lords are going to turn against you as well. And maybe, maybe it'll be, maybe you won't, things are going to be bad for you too. So Darnley actually does help her to escape. But the other person who helps her escape is Lord Bothwell. And Mary thus trusts Lord Bothwell. mary thus trusts lord bothwell that's going to be a very bad thing so mary's in a terrible position i mean her lords her the men who are supposed to be advising her and helping her are busily trying to get her off the phone as fast as they can in any kind of way and she she genuinely feels

that she's under going to be killed by them that, that they were not just waving a gun at her to threaten her. She genuinely feels they're trying to kill her. Okay, so then she manages to style the house, survives. How does her marriage go with Darnley after that? She makes her comeback. They all know people still feel very strongly that she should be on the throne. She makes her comeback. She gives birth to a son, which marvelous that's absolutely great she's a very

unusual name for me exactly she a very unusual name she thinks i know let's call him james so she the um the scottish ambassador can't ride fast enough to tell elizabeth the news that uh mary's had a. But having a son is a complicated thing for a queen. On one hand, you're powerful. On the other hand, everyone thinks let's just depose her for him because he's just a baby, but he's still a man and that's more important. And so Mary, James is taken away and he's given his own little nursery as things would be in a different castle. But things begin to go very badly with Darnley and the lords begin to become obsessed that he must be got rid of, that he's a bad influence. He's always going out drinking.

He's causing fights. He probably has syphilis. He has various affairs. So the lords begin to be obsessed with the fact that he needs to be got rid of. And so they speak to Mary about divorcing him. There is some talk made towards the Pope about a divorce on the grounds of consanguity. But they are really only kind of second cousins, a bit removed. I mean, that's basically all of royalty if you say that their marriages are too close so and they and and this is the and this is where things start getting murky

is is then then what happens and who knows what and what happens when because darnley mary it's obviously going to be very complicated to divorce him and then Mary is told that maybe the lords might have a better idea of something they could do and that her half-brother Lord Murray will look through his fingers at it and that's all very cryptic as to what exactly is going on and then we have the fateful moment and this is in February we're in Edinburgh and we're all it's a very we've all we're all fast asleep it's and Edinburgh is quiet and there's this huge explosion that rocks Edinburgh and well wake wakens up all the people from their houses Mary is in the palace and feels like there's a cannon and what it is is that a house quite near the city walls has exploded and this was the house in which darnley

was staying and almost immediately he is found not to be in the house but he's in the nearby orchard and he's underneath the tree with his servant and now it gets a bit cluedo-ish because beside him is a rope and a dagger and a chair and a cloak so it's very odd Darnley was staying in a different house to Mary he'd been in Glasgow and then they come back to stay in this house in Kirkerfield in Edinburgh and Mary had been staying in the rooms below and she'd been visiting Darnley. There'd been a huge court wedding. She'd gone back to her palace in Holyrood

and yet Darnley remained and then the whole house was blown up. But then he was found nearby under the orchard. So that's quite mysterious. And there's this brilliant map, which you can see in the National Archives, but because I didn't manage to steal it when I went, I'm going to get it. Here we are to look at it in my very cracked phone. But it's an amazing map. And this was drawn by the spies at the time, by the English spies who were on the case, on the scene,

faster than anyone else so you can see here's here's the house Kirkerfield I will put this on the Instagram the Facebook here at the house and that's that's down into rubble just there you can see it uh and there here is here is Darnley and here is his servant under the orchard and there's the cloak you can see it there and there's a dagger and there's there's a dagger and there's a chair and the dressing gown and they're obviously half naked and you also see here it's a quite a political message you can see baby baby the baby james his son crying for vengeance so but he's dead he's done he is dead so this is the mystery if the

house is blown up what's he doing under the orchard now one of the servant is found clinging to the city walls propelled by the blast but it's clear this hasn't happened to darnley and his servant so what did happen to them and there are various witnesses who say they hear men running up and down outside the house. So what we think happened is that some men came in to the house and were heading up to Strangle Darnley. He heard it, jumped out of the window using the rope and the chair with his dressing gown and fled. But they caught up with him and they caught him in the orchard and they killed him there. And then the house was blown up so it would have been the perfect crime had he not heard and escaped it would have been the perfect crime he would have been blown up and everyone was just said oh gunpowder but because of that because he's found dead in the orchard it's very clear that he's been murdered and almost immediately the murder in the murder it, it's very clear that he's been murdered. And almost immediately,

the murder, the news is across the whole of Europe. The Queen's husband has been murdered. And who did it? Because clearly, it wasn't just a random mugger who got a bit overenthusiastic with the dagger. This is a planned murder plot. does suspicion settle upon mary suspicion does settle upon mary suspicion settles upon everyone at the beginning and there is this panic of of of of counter recrimination but but suspicion does settle on mary and one reason very early is because she is seen not to pursue the killers. And she's discussing it with the Privy Council and they say they're going to pursue them. But to many people, including Elizabeth,

it looks like she's being far too relaxed about it. Just saying, oh, well, maybe the killers, well, we'll just find them. And she is in shock. I've read a lot of interesting books about this that it's often important in court cases you you there's a certain way in which one is supposed to act when one is in in a state of shock and grief you're not supposed to act in a dazed way or you're you're supposed to be hysteric what what they wanted was what Mary should have done is performed hysterical weeping. But she's too much in shock and she can't manage it. And so for some people, this looks like

she doesn't care and she's callous. And of course, everyone knows that she didn't really love her husband anymore. And increasingly, people begin to say, well, it's quite good for her isn't it that he's out of the way but it's also you know I might argue and I do in the book quite good for someone else quite good for a lot of people this is out of the way and there are other people who I think are key to the manipulation of the murder plot and certainly it seems as if some of the English spies did know it was afoot, because a lot of these Lords of Unmerry do have an idea. I mean, I am very suspicious about the Earl of Moray, because he suddenly manages to pop away just before Darnley's murdered. He suddenly says, I've got to go. My wife's ill. I have to go and help her. So unlike everyone else, he's not in Edinburgh when it happens.

And then not long after it happens, he decides he has to go and live in England. And he does benefit. He completely benefits from Cui Bono leads directly to him. He's the one who benefits from it. He, because Darnley was getting too, he and Darnley had fallen out. Darnley was going to try and rule for the son, for the baby. If Darnley's not around, the next one in line is pretty much Moray. So he again wants to come in and it benefits him hugely if Darnley is dead

and Mary is thrown into such suspicion. What begins very clearly after the death of darmy is that those who start maneuvering those who think they can start maneuvering to imprison her and to get her and so they can get power sometimes i mean i wonder you know you know it's a strange comparison but uh straight after the brexit vote when everyone was busy lots of people were busy trying to unseat jeremy corbyn that you kind of see that everyone vote, when everyone was busy trying to unseat Jeremy Corbyn, that you kind of see that everyone's, when everyone was thinking about the murder, the Lords were thinking about something else. And this was how to get Mary's power for themselves.

And Mary doesn't help herself. She doesn't make a huge amount of public grief. She goes to a wedding in the middle of her, well, very early on in her period of grief she shouldn't have done that and also she should have pursued murderers i think she knew who did it and didn't want to pursue them because they were so close to her but unfortunately this is the age of the show trial you have to pursue someone so someone should have been put on trial and indeed later on we do see all the servants of the lords who are involved being put on trial and being the scapegoats for it. And clearly Mary didn't do that. And so to all Europe, you see these horrified letters coming from Catherine de' Medici, coming from Elizabeth I, saying you've got to stop this, you've got to find the murderer, you must. And mary continues in this crazed panicked days it's hard to blame her i mean do we have you have a strong sense of her her state of mind during this period she does write letters saying she doesn't understand what's happened she can't bear it i i mean i think her her feelings of guilt come from the fact that

she knew that the lords are plotting something she just didn't realize that it was murder she thought it was more along the lines of threatening darnley of talking about divorce to him of saying what could happen to him and but she also i mean she knows that many people, including her half-brother, are involved in this. And how can she get them? So you see this kind of disaster. And the public who had loved her begin to become very resentful of her. And we start seeing placards all over edinburgh saying saying accusing various people of doing it and who they start to accuse is who she starts to depend on and that is lord bothwell

who helped her to escape from the rizzio plot she depends on him she thinks he's trustworthy but of course he's not in the slightest and we start to see a lot of resentment of him, a lot of resentment, blaming of him for the murder. He certainly was involved and probably did a lot of the dirty work. And we start to see people saying that she and him are in cahoots. And what we also put on the page as well is, you know, some of these placards become very, they become

incredibly pointed and so this is a brilliant one which is also in our wonderful national archives um of mary as a mermaid yeah this is brilliant this is a copy by one of the english of one of the placards so this is one of the placards that was put all over Edinburgh. And, you know, as soon as you take them down, as soon as the government took them down, someone puts them back up again. And this is Mary here as a mermaid with Mary Regina. And this is meant to be Bothwell here, down here, because that's his cipher, the hair, and J.H.'s name,

and surrounded by these rather phallic-looking swords. And we might think, oh, how nice, a mermaid, because we love mermaids. I mean, we all are such a big fan of mermaids. But a mermaid in the 16th century is a word, is a synonym for prostitute. So what they're basically saying here, and I mean, I don't know what you think of this, Dan,

what the queen as the topless mermaid here is holding, what, I mean, what that is suggestive of, that large sea flower. So Mary's holding this flower, which is in a rather suggestive shape, and she's surrounded by these phallic swords coming off Bothwell. And this is basically saying

Mary is a prostitute Bothwell is involved in the murder and she's doing it for him so and this is put out on the 1st of March so even with under a month people are saying Mary and Bothwell stick together and the government try and clamp down on the placards but they just keep popping up over and over again so mary is in this horrific and impossible position she is her husband is dead and people are beginning to whisper across the world that she and bothwell did it let's keep going how does mary end up an exile and a prisoner well you know in every movie uh you know when you when you kind of study this screenwriting which i occasionally have they say there's an all is lost moment in every movie there's maybe sort of two thirds in when the

character loses everything and um and then and then they lose it they lose something that they thought was important and they lose everything else. So Mary, she thinks she's at her all is lost moment, but it's going to get worse, much worse than this. So what happens is there becomes this uneasy truce and she says she's going to investigate the murderers. And there is this show trial. Bothwell is put on trial. He's found not guilty and he goes around Edinburgh crowing but there's an uneasy truce and then Mary goes to visit her son at his nursery in Stirling

and on the way back Bothwell and a load of his men pop up and Bothwell puts his hand on her bridal. And this is, we might argue, the Me Too moment in Mary's... Because there has been a lot, there was a lot of comments saying, oh, he didn't really take her. She really wanted to marry him and this was her cunning way of doing it because she was really in love with him. Because what he does is he puts his hand on her bridal. He says he's going to take her. He says that in Edinburgh there's riots

and she mustn't go there because it's not safe. And she hasn't got many servants. So he basically says he's going to take her and she hasn't really got much choice but to go with him. She trusts him. She goes back to a castle with him, a castle that she gave him. And then he rapes her in the castle he he ravishes her as he said at the time that he

one of the men who was with her said he he said he would have the queen whether she will or no so he he rapes her in the castle so it couldn't nothing could be worse mary has been kidnapped she's been raped and what both wants to do is he wants to marry her because he knew he knew she wouldn't marry him otherwise so this is a way of doing it and it is not unheard of that women are are assaulted into marriage in this way that women who say they won't marry someone or their fathers won't allow the marriage the the the suitor kidnaps them rapes them and then what fathers won't allow the marriage, the suitor kidnaps them, rapes them, and then what choice does either the father or the woman have? So Mary's in

this impossible, terrible position. And really, this is when she really loses all her judgment. I think she believes she's pregnant by Bothwell, and she throws her lot in with him. And she thinks that, well, she's got to marry him now. She's got to. She said later that it is done and we must make the best of it. Whereas obviously now we would say, no, you don't have to marry him. You know, absolutely not. And you are the queen. And even though an ordinary woman would be expected to marry her rapist at this point, you are the queen and you are different and people will allow it not to happen but she's obviously a deeply religious woman she thinks she's pregnant and mary marries both were in this miserable ceremony but that's the beginning of the end by this point the earl of murray who's returned and his friends think they're going to get her off the throne and the justification is she has they will get her off the throne for her son and they'll be regent for her son because she's not a fit monarch this is what they start to say she has did not she's now married her husband's murderer she is a bad monarch she's a bad queen and so

you see her being you essentially the two sides go to war um mary and bothwell and murray and his men and murray wins and mary bothwell trundles off and mary then is surrendered to the lords and she's taken back to edinburgh she's weeping she's put in prison and she appears after this she's put in prison in in the in the toll house and she appears to the people with her bodice unlaced her hair wild this amazing hair i mean she's an incredibly beautiful woman she's five foot eleven she's got this amazing open hair she's a fabulous statuesque woman and so she's always been dignified and perfect and now she's in this huge grief and hysteria and um that's essentially she's imprisoned it's the end of her reign uh the mary queen of scotts that we knew is no more at this point and she does she's taken

off to a very very isolated prison does manage to escape and this is her mistake she then she she has supporters because actually people people although you can see the shifting laurators people actually begin to say we really right to imprison the queen was that really what we should have done and maybe she didn't maybe bothwell was now bothwell's been bad now both was gone she'll be fine again so you see people going over to her side and supporting her but then then she she thinks i i just will get captured again in scotland and she makes a fatal error she escapes she rides 60 miles she shaves her hair she lives on lives on the ground she escapes she's in a stronghold but she is nervous about riding again and she thinks i'm going to go into england so elizabeth

can help me get back on the throne i'm going to go into England so Elizabeth can help me get back on the throne I'm going to go to England get some English forces and come in and get the throne back and that's a fatal error because the minute she she arrives in in Carlisle not far from Carlisle in a little boat and she's immediately put in Carlisle castle and the poor old governor of Carlisle I mean he's very stuck is she prisoner is she not because Mary's immediately saying I want to go to London to meet with Elizabeth I want to speak to Elizabeth and tell her everything

and she'll put me back on the throne and this is the beginning of it and how many years is she then in Elizabeth I's prisoner I'm Matt Lewis and I'm Dr Eleanor Yonaga and in Gone Medieval we get into the greatest mysteries the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history we're talking vikings normans kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends murder

rebellions and crusades find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Mary is then Elizabeth I's prisoner for the rest of her life. First, there is a, Elizabeth I says she can't see her until it is decreed that she is not guilty of her husband's murder. So there is an inquiry opened at York in which everyone decides whether or not Mary is guilty or not guilty. Mary refuses to be seen by a court because she says, I'm the queen. I'm not, I'm not having this. Some letters arrive, which is seen as evidence

we don't but the mary's forged letters i would argue we don't know what they are they're these letters that suddenly pop up uh when the earl of murray is asked for evidence and he finds these suddenly letters in a casket under a bed and which they're all about mary saying yes i love you both well i don't like darnley and let's kill him very convenient and so these letters are brought out but mary's not allowed to see them she isn't allowed to to discuss them and the the outcome of the inquiries the various inquiries is the essentially the worst of both worlds it's no verdict mary's not guilty but she's not innocent so it's no verdict so mary's in this state of suspended animation really where she isn't innocent she isn't guilty and so she's kept in these luxurious prisons as a luxurious

prisoner for then onwards so uh mary has this miserable life living in the prisons um she's always begging elizabeth to meet her and it's amazing to read the letters please meet me just please please please she's like a tiny fairy pulling at elizabeth's gown no no no no and so what you see mary getting involved in is plots, she's very resistant to plots, but increasingly you start to see her getting involved in plots because she feels she has no choice but to get involved in plots. And these plots are not just to free her,

but to depose Elizabeth and put her on the throne in her place. And Philip of Spain is involved. The French are involved. The spies are involved. So Mary gets involved in various plots, but none of them have quite the evidence that Walsingham needs. And so what finally happens is that Mary is in a particular castle and Walsingham gets this double agent. I mean, this is the time of the spies and the double agent gets amazing double

agent who goes to her and he says um well um i've been in france with your friends and i'm going to take letters for you and mary unfortunately says what a good idea whereas this guy is a double agent and so mary has this amazing she thinks it's amazing way of of not her letters being not seen they have this fantastic code ciphers also the national archives amazing ciphers and then you make it into a teeny tiny teeny tiny little fold it up the letter and then you put it in a teeny teeny tiny cork of a beer barrel and you send the beer barrel out and then the beer barrel is is opened and the cork is taken out but of course she's going through all this amazing subterfuge and the english walsingham everyone knows what she's doing because this french man the double agent tells them everything so every

letter that she puts into the beer barrel is immediately removed and the guy walsingham's best code breaker is in the same castle he's just basically there installed and he just reads every letter. And finally, Mary is sent a letter saying, shall we depose the Queen? And she writes back saying, yes, let's do it. And the codebreaker, Philippes, actually drew a hangman on there. He drew a man being hanged because he knew he had what he knew he had the dynamite he wanted and that was what was needed and so mary is then put on trial for for trying to depose and kill the queen put on trial for treason of course she says

she can't possibly be on trial she's a queen she protests her innocence she says she's been set up she says that the she never wrote letters her secretaries did um but the moment in which it's shown to her in the court that they knew her codes all along that's what is the pulls the rug from out of her she puts on this brilliant brilliant defense but unlike her defense in the previous inquiries into her conduct about the husband's murder, she's guilty. She did it. She did actually get involved in these plots. And so although we might say she had no choice, she is guilty of what she is charged of and she's found guilty. And then poor Elizabeth is then mired in indecision because everyone is telling her to execute Mary um her ministers

parliament her people uh it's you see this tension between Elizabeth and her ministers in the sense that she and Walsingham and Cecil just don't think that she understands the Catholic threat enough and they think she's too soft on Catholics and she doesn't get it so they're constantly pushing her and there are arguments in which some of the Catholic plots against her are their invention trying to push her into action but certainly she is she should she doesn't want to execute a queen she debates she worries but finally she's pushed into it and there is no choice she she she takes the the execution warrant it's in Lambeth Palace archives now it's amazing to look at she takes it and she signs it and what's very interesting is then the minute because cecil's been waiting for it he's been desperate waiting

for it when he's got it he says okay now let's proceed without talking to the queen further let's just get on with it let's just get with it. So she may think that she's doing something symbolic that she can then rescind, but Cecil says, let's just get on with it. And so immediately he's got the execution warrant in his hand. He sets it straight away, sends men off immediately to gallop to Mary and say, you're going to be chopped off tomorrow morning.

And the Mr Bull, the executioner, is on his way with the axe. So get ready. Elizabeth then tries to absolve herself of it, saying she was forced into it by her counsellors. Yes, she does. So the execution takes place. Mary does this big Catholic martyr set-up because they're trying to get her to rec to to recant her um religion on the on the

on the block she refuses they they treat her very badly they won't let her it's not like Anne Boleyn where she gets certain amount of dignity in the French swordsman they tell her that her ladies can't accompany her that the execution is going to undress her that is very undignified and and but she she is so dignified and she prays the way she wants to the way throughout so actually she she gets the last word and she wins but when the news reaches elizabeth she is devastated she weeps she cries she begs forgiveness of mary's young son james who's now a teenager um she can't believe it uh many people say that she knew what was going on and she's just performing going on and she's just

performing her grief now. She's just pretending, trying to get the best of both worlds. I didn't mean to, but oh dear, it's happened. But I do think she was genuinely shocked by what had happened because it's one thing chopping off the heads of traitors. It's one thing chopping off the heads of traitors it's one thing chopping off the heads of men who get above themselves but executing a queen is something that is really such a big thing because if a queen can be executed what is royal about them at all i mean what separates them from the normal people so she does actually elizabeth try and get someone to to just kill m the... Mary has a very mean keeper, Paulie, and she basically says to him, could you just bump her off? And Paulie says, no, I am not doing that.

You do it. Mary's like this hot potato. You kill her. No, you kill her. I don't want to do it. And so Elizabeth is devastated. And she's also, of course, very concerned that it's not only a grievous thing that she's also, of course, very concerned that it's not only a grievous thing that she's done, that it also will bring down the ire of Scotland, will bring down the ire of Catholic Europe upon her.

And so the ports are closed for a long period after Mary is executed. England basically shuts down. So Elizabeth is devastated at what's happened. But I do think that when she signed, she must have, although Cecil didn't tell her what he was doing, I think she did, she must have had a suspicion

that it might have gone straight to execution, as it were. Well, it's just one of the most remarkable and tragic stories in British history. Thank you. What's the book called? The book is called Rival Queens, The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots, and is out on the 20th of September.

And yes, so all my pictures that I talked about, the spy map, the set of Mary's codes, the mermaid and the hare. I've got the pictures I will put on the internet, but I've also got them all in the book as well. And yeah, I think she is a most fascinating figure. And she really points up how difficult it was to be a queen. You can set out with all the advantages beauty education grace uh true royal heritage and still uh lose absolutely everything thanks folks for listening to this episode

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