In Our Time - Mary, Queen of Scots

Episode Date: January 19, 2017

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had potential to be one of the most powerful rulers in Europe, yet she was also one of the most vulnerable. In France, when she was the teenage bride to their future king, she was seen as rightful heir to the thrones of England and Ireland, as well as Queen of Scotland and one day of France, which would have been an extraordinary union. She was widowed too young, though and, a Catholic returning to Protestant Scotland, she struggled to overcome rivalries in her own country. She fled to Protestant England, where she was implicated in plots to overthrow Elizabeth, and it was Elizabeth herself who signed Mary's death warrant. With David Forsyth Principal Curator, Scottish Medieval-Early Modern Collections at National Museums ScotlandAnna Groundwater Teaching Fellow in Historical Skills and Methods at the University of EdinburghAndJohn Guy Fellow of Clare College, University of CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson.

This is the BBC. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoy the programs. Hello, Mary Queen of Scots had potential to be one of the most powerful rulers in Europe, yet she was also one of the most vulnerable. In France, when she was a teenage bride to their future king,

she was seen as rightful heir to the thrones of England and Ireland, as well as Queen of Scotland and one day of France, which would have been an extraordinary union. She was widowed a year after the marriage, though, and as a devout Catholic returning to an abrasively Protestant Scotland, she struggled to overcome rivalries in her own country. Eventually, after various battles, she fled to Protestant England, where she was implicated in plots to overthrow Elizabeth,

and it was Elizabeth herself, who signed Mary's death warrant. With me to discuss the life in times of Mary Queen of Scots are David Forsyth, principal curator in the Scottish History and Archaeology Department at National Museums Scotland, Anna Groundwater, teaching fellow in history at the University of Edinburgh, and John Guy, fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge. John Guy, Mary is born in 1542, who were the most important people in her immediate family at that time?

Her father, James V of Scotland, died six days after her birth, so she was brought up in Scotland for the first five years by her mother, Mary of Gise, or Maria Gies, James' second wife, who, of course had been French princess. Those were very dangerous times because Henry VIII was seizing his opportunity to attempt to unite the crowns of England and Scotland by marrying off his son, Prince Edward, to Mary even though she was a baby. When Mary was five, she was shipped over to the safety of France. And there at the court of the French King, Henry II, the most important family members around her and the most important influences on her life and the key players in Henry's court were Francis, Duke of Guise and Charles Cardinal of Coray and her uncles.

How far did Henry get in trying to in marrying off in this attempt, this rough-wowing attempt to marry off his son to marry? Well, in effect, he sparked not quite a civil war in Scotland, but there was a pro-English party and there was a pro-French party. In the end, the pro-French party was in the ascendant, but that took years to play out. Henry tried to impose a treaty on the Scots, which eventually the Scottish Parliament rejected.

it. This was, this was, I mean, there were not just, this was not just diplomacy. I mean, it was, it was effectively war. There were invasions and devastations of the lowland area of Scotland and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, speaking Scottish regularly because four of her immediate attendants are in fact Scottish. So she's fluent in French, but she's also keeping her fluency in Scottish. But the point about this is that certainly by 1550, her uncles, the France's Duke of Guise, I mean one of the key war leaders in France, and her uncle, one of the cleverest, but also the slipperist diplomats in France, he's also Archbishop of Reim. They have a grand plan.

as a master plan in which through Mary and by the idea which of course was there from the moment Mary went to France that one day she might marry the Dauphin of France young young young Francis

the crowns of Scotland and France could be united but also with the crown of England there would be a triple monarchy because of course looking to the future Henry's son Edward who became the boy king Edward

the 6th was a Protestant and of course the Catholics didn't recognize Protestants. And then in the future, of course, down the line, what was Elizabeth Tudor, who was not only becoming a Protestant, but of course there was Ambelin's daughter and therefore the Catholics considered her to be illegitimate. Is it this time she's getting a very good education, Mary, unusually good education? She's getting pretty much the same education as Elizabeth got in England. The difference is that whereas Elizabeth is actually rather bookish, Mary, Mary is is clever. This idea that came from

the 19th century that she was somehow a sort of dope femme fatal I mean is just not supported by the evidence. She is almost as able intellectually as Elizabeth but she has different characteristics. She can reach out to people

she is much more generous than Elizabeth. The thing about Mary is that when she's talking to you she persuades you that you're the only person in the whole world that really matters. And her physical appearance is very impressive. She's tall, so was her mother, Mary of Gies. All the Gies are tall.

Elizabeth, of course, is relatively short, only five, five foot four. I mean, that was actually something later between them. There was always this issue of, you know, who was the better looking and who was the tall running, who could play the virginals better, who could speak languages better. But Mary has a very, very good education, but also Mary has a sense of fun. I mean, she likes to dress up. One of her favourite things is sort of going into the kitchen

and making Quinn's marmalid coat, coating, coating, coating, that sort of thing. She likes riding, you know, she's a cultured, she's a cultured woman. But the key thing about the time in France is this Franco-British policy, because when we move on and Elizabeth becomes Queen in 1558, the uncles do something that determines what is going to happen in terms of Anglo-Marian relations really for the rest of the story, which is they quarter the arms of England, France and Scotland on the, you know, essentially Mary and Francis's crockery. And they invite the English ambassador, Nicholas Throckmorton, to dinner

and serving him his dinner on a silver plate, you know, embossed with the arms of England. When Mary goes to chapel, the ushers cry, I may wait for the Queen of England. This is deliberately provocative to establish Mary's claim as the great-granddaughter of Henry the 7th, of course. And go to the throne.

To the throne. Exactly. Anna Groundwater, she returned to Scotland after her French husband died. There was a year between them. He was a young lad, and it was only a year of marriage.

Did she have any other options? I think by that point, no, she didn't. How old is she now? She's... she returns to Scotland when she's 18. She could have tried to hang on at the court in France, but her mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, seriously didn't want her around.

They didn't have a good relationship. Sorry. Why was that? Well, I think what Catherine de Medici didn't like was the De Guise power and influence that came when they had Mary, there, as John says, as part of this sort of master plan. And whilst Mary was Dauphat and then Queen, of course, it gave the Deguizis a lot of influence,

a lot of power. But as soon as she lost that position, the Degisers were eclipsed really effectively because then the new king was Catherine D' Medici's son, Charles VIII, over whom she was able to exert quite a bit of power, certainly to begin with. So the only option was to get out, as you're saying? Yeah, she had to get married otherwise. She could have, I suppose, gone somewhere else in Europe. But I think really what's probably more important here is that she had a kingdom to run.

And that I suppose one of the questions is why, you know, why wouldn't she have gone back to Scotland? She was Queen of Scotland. Scotland wasn't a bad country. It wasn't a bad place to be. Maybe it wasn't as glittering a court as France. But she had been Queen of Scotland since virtually from birth. Why she'd been in France, what connections had she kept with Scotland?

We'd been told she spoke the language every day, but what other connections did she have? Well, there's a frequent correspondence between her and her mother. Who's living in Edinburgh? Who's living in Edinburgh and around. And her mother, in fact, came out to see her in France in 50, 51, and bringing actually, I think, two of her half-brothers, her illegitimate half-brothers also came out to the court. there was also a determined attempt to keep her informed of what was going on in Scotland

so that she was aware of the situation in Scotland. And I think because of that, she was very aware that there was a Protestant revolution going on in Scotland at the time. So she came back as a Catholic who hadn't been to the country for a very long time. She probably scarcely remember it really, into an abrasively Protestant, which isn't really before, but it is fair enough, and brazenly Protestant country, very demanding of its Protestantism, and she was a debaute Roman Catholic. How did she manage to exercise any control at all?

Well, I think key here is that she did come back as the absolute acknowledged monarch. There hadn't been any attempt to challenge her right to rule, her legitimacy, and in fact her half-brother, her illegitimate half-brother, James Stuart who becomes the Earl of Murray who's a committed Protestant he comes out to ask her to come back so you know she's being asked to come back she's declared an interest in coming back

and this is a place where she can exert her I think there's one other point here is yes there's been a Protestant revolution the monarchy has been challenged successfully on the religion of the country but that's not to say that Scotland didn't overnight become Protestant. There were seriously

Protestant figures around, powerful Protestant figures around, but not everyone, you know, you don't change your faith overnight. David Forsyth, so she's back there. She's a Catholic though, and the Mass is allowed to be said only in the Chapel only in the Royal Chapel.

How did she adapt? Did she adapt? Did she adapt? She's got Protestant Scotland in front of her, but she walks out out of the chapel at Holy Road. What does she do then? Well, she can hear that Edinburgh being, the first day that Mass has said at Holiday House the Protestant mob are being at the door and the half-brother,

alleged to my half-brother James, has to help to ensure that the mask goes ahead. She's very, I think, diplomatic. She shows great realpolitik in realizing that this is a reformed country. Let's not forget, it's still, the Protestant Reformation is still at very early stage. There are great pockets of Roman Catholicism.

But Mary takes a practical approach. She proclaims that there will be no change to the religion. She's been made quite clear to her from the half-brother that the mass is only to be said within the confines of Holyrood House in Edinburgh when she tries to say it, have it said in Stirling, there's trouble there. So she respects, if you like,

the faith of her subjects. She even starts to accommodate in a way that she'll attend Protestant baptisms. She'll listen to some Protestant preachers that she finds acceptable. So I think she treads a very careful determined real politic practical line

she knows that for Mary the important thing is that she is the anointed Queen of Scots she has that authority She goes so far as to put down a Catholic rebellion doesn't she? She does indeed

so she puts down the rebellion in the north-east the Great Gordon family interest one of the leading Scottish noble families so she's showing great even hand-handedness in terms of her dealing with religion But you're talking about it being embryonic

as it were the Protestant thing you're still quite violent you have this man John Knox writing against the monstrous regiment of women. He sees her four or five times. The latest scholarship says the first two or three times were reasonably amicable. And the fourth time he told her who she should marry and when she went out we are told, she burst into tears, which is rather unusual for her.

That's correct. I mean, the conversations, for one of a better word, with Knox become more and more strident. The first one is about the monstrous regiment of women. It's about the political position of... Meaning women in power? Been a moon in power, yes. So Mary DeGays, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth,

who obviously was on her side, on Mox's side, and Mary herself. But they become more about religion, Knox, trying to, you know, persuade her that she's not really legitimate monarch through her religion. I think the thing about Mary is that she's been born, she's been schooled in queenship, she holds the line. These floods of tears

tend to come after Knox, Master Knox, has left the room. But in terms of the leadership, The political leaders are her half-brother James, James Stewart. I mean, Knox is not, the Scottish Protestant Reformation is a political movement. Two things here, picking up from what you said. First is she's very straightforward about her being Queen of Scots, when challenged by the great Catherine de Medici,

when she came to a nursery saying, why do you not bow to the Queen of France? This girl immediately replied, why do you not bow to the Queen of Scots? So Mary has confidence, yes. From the beginning. Secondly, about people who advised her, and we're going to come to the English advise in a minute who were, let's say they were very impressive.

They were devious, they were deceitful, they were all sorts, but they were very impressive. Did she have a like group of people advising her? But what I would say, I think one thing that Mary felt, if she had people like Walsingham and Cecil, around her in an immediate circle, she may have been more successful. There was a, the Scottish court politics fell into various cabals.

There were people like Maitland of Lethinton, known as the Machiavelli of Scotland, Mikkel Mack. I think Mary felt that because of these great regional interests in Scotland, the Lennoxes, the Gordons, the people around on the court, the half-brother, that she really was not best served

by some of these so-called advisors. And they had their own rivalries as well as... And they had their own, the disputatious nature of early modern Scottish politics. So she's there, this young girl still, her husband has died, her mother has died, her favourite uncle who really looked after her has died. And the father of loss.

That's right, and her father. And she's back in this sort of foreign country, which is her own. John Galley, did she have really dangerous enemies, and who were they? Well, it isn't Elizabeth. I mean, this is a common... Not at this stage. It's a common assumption...

This is a common assumption that it is. But of course, at this early stage, both Elizabeth and... and Mary, as it might whimsically be said, or fully paid up members of the Women Monarch's Trade Union. More importantly, not more importantly, you know what you're talking about, but they were both, Elizabeth, both of them, were very well aware that at the time that they had been anointed,

divinely anointed, to be in a position they were. And this mattered to them more than anything else. And that is the bond, which is a very serious bond. It played a part right the way through. Well, this is exactly right, because then divine right kingship meant exactly what it said but of course this was not so

for William Cecil Elizabeth's chief minister and the most important single fact to know about the early Elizabethan regime is that for Cecil Elizabeth was Protestant but not Protestant enough and the difference in there if you like their intellectual DNA is that both Mary and Elizabeth believe

that the first thing that matters when you're talking about say the succession to the throne is dynastic right, is heredity, and not religion, whereas Cecil believes that there should be some sort of religious test to make sure, I mean, Cecil and Knox are on the same wavelength here. They believe that an idolatrous ruler, which effectively means a Catholic ruler,

and in particular a Catholic idolatrous, should never be the queen. And what Cecil wants to do from the beginning is to exclude Mary from the succession, using Parliament, which of course Elizabeth finds absolute repulsive. So her greatest enemy is outside Scotland. It's Cecil Lord Burley, Queen Elizabeth's advisor over many, many years, who runs things.

Sometimes she's very angry that he does things without her authority, but he's there all the time. He is against her from the start. He plots against her on the start. He undermines her. He sets up traps and schemes and so on. So he's out there after her. Who was on her side on her groundwater? She married Darnley. Why'd she marry him?

I think Darnley was probably... Who was it to start like? Okay, so they, Henry Darnley, was a grandson of Margaret Tudor who had married James VIII of Scotland and thus he was the same degree of relation to Mary Tudor as Mary was herself.

So they were both grandchildren of Margaret Tudor, both grandchildren, great-grandchildren of Henry the 7th. So he had in his own right a claim to the English throne as well and he was also relatively ambivalent around his religion so he could be quite Catholic, he could also be Protestant when he needed to be. How and why did she pick him out? Was he picked out for her or did she see him or did he come and woo her? What happened?

Yeah, so it wasn't, yes. To start with, a whole load of other people were offered or suggested, none of whom really were very suitable. So there was the Don Carlos of Spain, Philip II's son, who became mad, and then also the Earl of Aaron in Scotland, who also became mad. So not a great choice, really. There really wasn't a great choice out there. And the other problem is that you marry a foreigner, you get into that situation that Mary Tudor had with Philip the 2nd. Spain that you've got a foreigner who could potentially make a claim to that train. So, how did you get

Darnley? Or vice versa. I don't know, what do you think? Elizabeth slipped up there a bit and let him go ahead. I've got two hands going up. Yeah, sorry. David, you coming. Elizabeth lets Darnley travel to Scotland and then realises a mistake. Darnie, of course, is a born Englishman. So this also adds to the

genealogical claim to the throne. It's also partly on the rebound because one of the silliest things, one the very few silly things Elizabeth ever did was to try to foist Robert Dunley, Earl of Lester, her own favourite. While we think we're sort of almost proved lover. Yeah, exactly.

And Elizabeth's idea was that they would all live together in a menagerie in the south of England. I mean, this was, you know, and I mean to marry, that was, you know, a red rag to a bull. But, Darley... So actually, let's get this straight, because I think listeners are going to be rather surprisingly. Elizabeth proposed to her cousin

that they lived together in the south of England with Elizabeth's lover, whom she made an earl, so he could be early enough to marry her cousin. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But the thing about Darnley was that he was one of these very, very smooth young men who knew how to behave

until the ring was on the finger. The trouble starts once the ring's on the finger. Right? And also, Darnley is one of the few men that can look Mary in the eye because he's a long of leg as Mary describes them. She's 5'11. He's a tall man

and he was certainly fancable. So he, but he is, we are told he arrives there with syphilis, which opens up questions for the future, James. We've got to leave that alone, unfortunately. Anyway, they get married and he drinks a lot and he's sooner sot, a drunken sot. Womanises. And why was he murdered? And who did it? That's it up to you, David.

That's a six million dollar question. Well, he is, he's Catholic normally. he is the Scottish advisors around Mary do not like that Danley he's inveigled into the whole Rizio Who's Rizio? Well this was the Well you tell us who Ritzio was

a fine bass singer he was from the Savoy Court That's a funny way to introduce it He was our French secretary and became very close to Mary Mary, Mary spent a lot of time with them and of course the so-called advisors

or plotters around Mary used Ritzio to really fire up downly and say whisper all sorts of crude innuendo about what the relationship between Mary and Ritio might be. And Ritio was murdered, and one of the murders was Darnley. Darnley's implicated in the plot. And the root of the problem is that once Darnley and Mary are married,

Darnley wants to be king of Scotland. The thing about the 16th century is that rank does not trump gender. Even the person who was attempting to write a book defending Elizabeth as Queen of England said that a woman may rule as a magistrate but must obey as a wife. And one of Mary's mistakes is that before the wedding she tells Downey she will make him king of Scotland

but after the wedding she realises what he's really like and refuses and after that he plots against her to attempt to get the Crown matrimonial and this leads to... Crown matrimonial is that he gets to be king. And I mean to cut to the quick this leads to great turbulence in Scotland in the process of that turbulence

Mary's secretary gets Rizio gets murdered. The people who've done that are expelled from the country. And of course, in London, William Cecil wants to get those people back because those people are his Scottish allies. They're all Protestant. He wants to work with them. And so a situation is reached in which Darnley begins to plot against Mary

in a way that looks like he will actually even attempt to depose her. very overpopulated. Just a second. Anna here. So, Darnie, let's keep it clear. She's married Darnley. They've had this child, James, who became later, James. Crucially.

Crucially, right. Can you tell, did that change the balance of power in Mary's favour? Crucially. What effect did that have? Well, it immediately gave her that air that's your primary duty as Queen to provide. And it certainly was probably one of the highest points of her life was having had this son, the longfall sun and heir, she has a baptism ceremony at Sterling Castle,

which was a splendiferous affair. And it really showed Mary at her best the sort of the majesty of monarchy, the splendor of the court. It was very impressive. People heard about it abroad. And that really was her high point. But at that point, crucially, Darnley goes, oh, I'm not going to bother.

I'm not coming to the baptism. So this was very problematic because that's the sort of thing you'd do if you were saying, this child isn't mine. So it was potentially very, very harmful, extremely disloyal, and also he was writing letters out of the country at this point

to get support from the Pope or whoever against Mary. She had the child soon enough she meant he was the child his. David? but it's certainly made he said we know that not really honestly that it wasn't the question I asked come on face up

was it his I just took him down now and saying it might not have been his child what's the odds there oh I think I think it was it was that was James he's a deal of Stuart

okay so let's so let's go for the murder of Downley he is murdered and then what would you like to take that up well I think the thing about the murder is the whole Kirkafield explosion.

I mean, the body is found... So, Danley is enticed back to Edinburgh. He's enticed back to Edinburgh with Mary. He's staying in lodgings in an area of the sort of upscale area of the city called Kirkyfield near where the National Museum is now. And he... There's a huge explosion.

The gunpowder plot, if you're like a Scottish gunpowder plot that the lodgings that he's in are completely destroyed. But the body of Danley and the knight-servant are found in the orchard. Unharmed, well, not unharmed, he's dead, obviously, but unsinged from any explosion. There are no marks on his body.

So it's that, it's the whole nature of that event. I mean, the event is triggered because at the baptism, the English ambassador who's been put there by Cecil, who's one of his closest allies. So Cecil's around everywhere. Yeah, he's everywhere. We've got to...

The subjects of this story, the tentacles of certain. He's partly controlling these events. The Earl of Bedford, who's the ambassador put there but by Cecil gets Mary, who is too generous on this occasion to pardon the people who'd murdered Darnley and let them back into England and the key player here is the Earl of Morton

who comes back in determined to murder Darnley for betraying their bond essentially their you know their agreement Exactly so this is a revenge killing but of course the question is I mean, my view of this and after studying this for many years.

Yeah, this is, what's your answer to that? And my answer to that is that she was not part, she was not part of it. But this doesn't mean that she was a wimp. Darnley had by this time become totally unmanageable and uncontrollable. And my belief In what way? The drink? Because most seriously he was threatening

to depose Mary and rule in the name of Prince James and to support this, you know, by if necessarily by funding and if necessary military support from the European Catholic powers. So everyone agreed, all the people around Mary agreed that something had to be done about this. Now, in order to cope with this, my reading of the sources is that Mary had a plan.

And it was to go and, Darnley had, after he'd finished sulking after the baptism, because he's now got more advanced syphilis, has gone off to his sort of, if you like, ancestral estates near Glasgow. She goes to fetch him back. My belief is that she was going to bring him to Craigne. Miller Castle just outside Edinburgh, three miles outside of her, and keep him locked up there, if necessary for the rest of his life. However, the people around her who she's got enemies inside Scotland, believe that they not only want to kill Darnley, they want to destabilise

Mary. And I mean, if you're going to kill Darnley and you want it to go unobserved, you don't do it as in a gunpowder plot in the middle of Edinburgh. Anna, can you take us on from that? So Darnley is murdered. how does that affect merit let's focus again on Mary because there's lots of all sorts of people turning over which is right and proper

so how does that affect her he's been murdered do a lot of people think she's implicated do people think it's a good thing a bad thing or what thing what's going on okay so in Edinburgh very quickly after Darnie's murder

placards appear which show pictures of Mary as a Apparce, posters, of Mary as a mermaid, which was a person of ill repute. A prostitute? Yeah, and then underneath a picture of the hair,

which was the crest of the Earl of Bothwell, who was also accused of being, who was certainly part of the murder of Duny. Bothwell just come on the scene. Can you give us two or three sentences about Bothwell? Bothwell is a Protestant. He's a hard man from the borders. He's got quite a sizable armed following, like a lot of these other earls do. And he is the one person that has come back in support of Mary and also indeed in support of her mother at one point. So he's someone with a lot of military power, someone that she trusts. He's independently rich. All those are Protestant and his support. and he supports France as well

so it's unusual character. He's not keen on the English and in a way you know to be a Protestant and not to be keen on the English is almost you know the opposite to the normal way of doing things. Yeah that's I mean that's great he's a strange amalgam I mean he is a bit of a border hard man

but he's been at the court in France he's cultured if you look at the beautiful little miniature and oil that the Scottish National Portrait gallery has he is he looks very much regal or part of the court courtly world. But I think he's got an armband. He's a regional magnate.

And what happens that she marries him? Sorry, John, you were to come in. He's been in alliance with this Morton character, but after the murder, of course, there's a falling out, if you like, among the thieves. And the Earl of Bothwell, you know, who sees an opportunity here, thinks that now that Mary is in this terrible crisis,

I mean, after all, her husband has been murdered in a gunpowder plot the reverberations of this are all over Europe, where, of course, in Catholic Europe, this is seen as a regicide. Even Elizabeth thinks that it's a regicide, because after all, Darnley is her cousin, too. Bothwell steps onto the stage and says to Mary, I can be your protector.

And in this position of emotional crisis and political crisis for, she accepts, and then Bothwell does, in a way, what all the men do at this time, he demands marriage as the price of protection. And then it all goes wrong, then it all happens again. How did it all go wrong, Anna? Well, she marries him.

Absolute disaster, because in doing so, she's threatening the power of all those other powerful Scottish nobles because he's there right by her side and has got that claim then to the throne to power. And he, thus, as John's saying, alienates, manages to alienate

all these people that he has actually been in a bond with up until then. Can I ask an obvious, very obvious question here. Was being a woman particularly difficult? Her advisors weren't as good as Elizabeth's advisors by a long chalk, nor as consistent, and nobody in the world was as implacable as Cecil. But putting that to a sign,

was just being a woman, is it a soft question or what do you say? Well, I suddenly think that we should look at Mary's rule as Mary as a ruler rather than a female ruler to start with. Was she an effective ruler? And my answer to that would be she was very well. because she was human. Sometimes she got it right, sometimes she got it disastrously wrong.

But being a female ruler definitely did come with a few problems, particularly because you've got to get married. And as John was saying, you know, you're meant to obey your husband in this time. And that left her vulnerable either. She marries someone in Scotland. She gets a whole load of jealous Scottish nobles. She marries a foreigner. She gets people worried about.

that. So the whole question of her marriage leaves her vulnerable and leaves her open to these things where you get someone like Darnley, someone like Bothwell, who want more than just marriage, they want power. Before we take her, before she goes to England, David, there's a

phase in her life where she gets on a horse and goes into battle and wins things, wasn't she? And she'll find that she doesn't. But let's talk about winning, first of all. Well, she does. She's quite, this is one of the dynamic natures of marriage, she does lead troops into battle, I don't think, John, there are many other Renaissance queens that do that. She's very visible.

After her various interventions when she's been in imprisonment in captivity, it is surprising just again how many men she can put in the field. So despite this religious disparity, she maintains elements of support and popularity. And she wins earlier on with her matter, doesn't she? She does, yeah, she's quite effective. She's got good military men with her, but she does win her military success. And of course, Bothwell had supported her at that time. He'd come back to support her at that moment.

I mean, she can be incredibly decisive. The other thing about Mary is that she is a bit of a risk-taker, unlike Elizabeth, of course, it always plays for time. I mean, in a crisis, Mary will say, I've got to do something. Elizabeth will say, I've got to do absolutely nothing. So, yes, she gets on a horse with a steel cap and a gun in her holster, and she rides, and she throws these people out of Scotland.

But look, you know, Ritsio's been murdered, darnly's been murdered. You know, that's too much. for one woman in this world in which you are in a vice because if you marry you're in peril from an ambitious husband and if you don't marry you're in a dynastic caldiscate because you can't have an air

and then she lost one big back was it Pinky where she lost the battle David and then she fled she made what all of you call a major miscalculation fleeing to Calaisal Castle across the border across the Solway into England well I think that I didn't mention earlier in the programme about the

co-sanguinity between Mary and the She throws herself in her cousin, her sister the queen, because of that belief they're both anointed queens. Elizabeth is not going to have going to harm her. She's in her 20s for this time because this is the end of the 7th. Yeah, 25. 25, yeah. So she's still quite young. Yeah, this is the end of the personal reign.

So she plays, she loses that battle and she, why did she decide that was the only option? That was a mistake. It was a mistake. I think this is the biggest mistake. I mean, if she told up in Scotland. But who had advice her? So she's got these options. she's gone back, she's topped it out

here there, she's faced John Knox, she's faced all the other then she decides to go across us over to colour. Who advised her? Why did she decide to do it? John, you're waving her hand. Well, she loses the battle and then she's imprisoned in Lock Leaven for a year. And she escapes from Lott Levin and then she raises her supporters

because by this time her enemies have become so impopular in Scotland, she can actually raise a party. But she actually loses the battle and then she flees. No one is advising her. She decides to do that. exactly off her own back, because she believes that this relationship, woman to woman with Elizabeth, is such that if she can only meet Elizabeth and talk to her sister queen, as she calls her, all this will go away.

Can you briskly tell us the part to Cusket Letters play? I want to get it in, but let me be shot. Of course. Once Mary is in England, the thing that the Earl of Murray, who of course by now is the regent, and of course Cecil wants, is that Elizabeth will recognise Murray as the regent in Scotland ruling in the name of Prince James. And to try and achieve that, the claim is made that eight letters, allegedly from Mary to Bothwell, were found in a silver box at Holyrood after she was taken to Lockleven.

And those letters supposedly prove that, first of all, Mary was complicited in Darnley's murder, and secondly, that she was an adulterous relationship with Bothwell before Darnley was dead. Now, there are these eight letters. I examined them at huge length in 2004. Three are manifestly letters to Darnley while their relationship was breaking up. Three are based, three are of different versions of one letter to Bothwell that had been antedated by several weeks to make it look incriminating.

There's a letter that Mary did write, but not at the date or the time that it's said to be. And there's a long letter called a Long Glasgow letter on which the jury is still out. but in my opinion 15 to 1,800 words are genuine but 1,000 to 1,200 words are forgeries. So it was basically she was set up again, wasn't she?

Right. There was other things going on in Europe that made her position. Can you skim through those and then we can get back to her in Carlisle Castle? Yeah. The problem that Mary faced

is that on the continent you have the beginning of the counter-reformation happening. The Catholics hitting back, yeah. Catholic's hitting back at all these Protestant reformations going on. In France, you've got it descending into the French Wars of Religion. So where she might have perhaps hoped for some support from the de Midec, from the Degises, they are suddenly embroiled in an ineffectively religious civil war. In the Netherlands, the Dutch are revolting. And, um, uh, Phileys, and, uh, philadelphia.

Philip II is sending in his forces to try and put down. That was effectively to become a Protestant rebellion there. It didn't quite start like that. And then you've got Philip the second, obviously, wanting to control his land. Sorry, I should make that clear. He owns effectively the Netherlands, the low countries at this point. So they're rebelling against his rule.

He's a committed Catholic as well. So the Catholics are on the rampage. The Catholics are on the rampage. And the Protestants are worried because it's a big rampage. and Spain is very powerful and I've got lots of fleets, lots of soldiers, lots of men. And also Elizabeth doesn't want to annoy Philip the second at that point either. No. Is there any way, Dave Forsyth in which her having the son,

she's got the son. Insurance policy. She's just, she's in car. I'll keep mentioning car, I guess. I wonder why. Well, no, no, not really. It's just because she's there and I want to talk a bit more about it, if you don't mind. No. But any one person who's around her son or son said, look,

this is the mother of our future king she can't be over there we want her back here did that go on at all well I mean the main the main man round the son of course is Buchanan formerly Mary's one of Mary's advisors the man who wrote

a brutal teacher he used to beat a little boy whether he deserved it or not he got a sound beating and of course James is brought up or school by this man who tells him that his mother is a murderous and an adulteress and this is really why James has a very difficult relationship with that isn't the question I'm asking.

Weren't there people there when she left saying, hold on, she's the mother of a future king, she is still Queen of Scots, let's bring her back across the Solway and try to make do with it, make it work. There's a civil war going on in Scotland. It's not

a severe civil war, but there is civil war. It's called the Marion Wars. There was a significant number of people who did still support. Mary, the Queen's man. But the problem was, they didn't own the body of the prince, the king himself. I've just seen how you got left. I'm in a shock.

You're going to have to be very fast, John. She's in England for 19 years, imprisoned, trying to make deals with Elizabeth, almost again and again making Elizabeth's willing, she's willing, again and again, Cecil undermines it. Can you give me a rather extended view of that summary? Yeah, I mean, that's the basic outline. And at first, Mary is, it's almost like a sort of court in exile. She's a cuckoo in Elizabeth's nest.

But of course, there's a big rebellion in England in 1569 in the north, the northern rising. You know, 6,000 rebels. It's not just the rebellion. That's put down, it's put down extraordinarily brutally, but 60 of those rebels escape to the continent and become, if you're like, Mary's supporters on the continent. One of the aims of the rebels was to restore the mass, Catholicism and put Mary on the throne. But I personally do not believe that Mary was a great threat

to Elizabeth herself until the 1580s, at which point the international situation, which Anna's has been describing, has reached boiling point. And at that point, of course, it isn't just that Catholics want her on the throne. It's that she is rejected by her own son. In 1581, Mary puts forward a proposal that she should rule on a co-ruler basis with, with, with, with James, James rats on her and allies with Elizabeth. Very brief. You've got to get, let's forget the Adolfi papers. The Babington plot, Babington wrote for a letter saying,

William John a conspiracy. She answered the letter. Walsingham then falsified the letter by adding other names. And he, like Cecil, set her up. And that with the Babington plot could not, at the time said, be denied, and Elizabeth, I'm told you, denoted, had no alternative but to pronounce her guilty,

and she was executed. And I mean that was the intention of Walsingham and Cecil in setting her up was that it would force Elizabeth's hand finally to sign that death warrant. But I think James helped to sign that death warrant too by signing an Anglo-Scottish alliance in 1586, her son, which made no reference to Mary at all. So she was left friendless, but also. Well, not all that old.

She's still very attractive. He designed the main prize. He designed the throat on the throne of England. And Elizabeth wrung her hands. And then it was, it's all a bit of slate of hand, isn't it? They're all signing that letter. Oh, we're not to stop. It's awful. We've got to stop. There we are. Thanks, Alan.

John, I've got it right. John, we've got to stop. Anna Groundwater, John Guy, David Fawc. Thank you very much. Next week we'll be talking about parasitism. Thanks for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. This is the extra really, which the podcast persons get, hello podcast persons. And I usually say, what do we miss out? And then I sit back.

So it's up to you. Lois. So much. What did I miss out? What did we miss out that was, do we miss anything about that was critical? I'd like to say one particular thing, which is about the nature of Scottish government. And I think there are two sort of slightly opposing views here of it. So when she came back, was she faced with, I think you've got.

called it tribal politics, which she really was not going to ever be able to come, or was it that she came back to a situation which, if she had asserted her authority consistently, that she would have been able to take much more control than she did. And I think one of the things that she didn't do was to pack the Privy Council with her supporters. If she had done that...

Why did she do that? To me, this is extraordinary, and I don't understand why she didn't pack the... Proby Council in Scotland with her supporters and if she had I think it might have been a different story because I think with the religious thing she was happy to tread that line

and even taking criticism from Catholic monarchs and from the papacy you're not doing much to sort out these heretics in your kingdom so that again shows this real politics so I suppose in the way if she's Is that because she's her again I'm just a bit obsessed with the advice

It's difficult to I mean when she can't When she comes back, essentially these advisors of whom two have been to see her in France to sort of try and make terms beforehand, they expect her in essence to fail and the whole thing to be a catastrophe, which, of course, for James Stewart-Eld of Murray, could be rather a good thing, because as illegitimate, he's the Edmund in King Lear. He thinks he really should, you know, actually be the king. But of course, when Mary comes back, because of this politic approach that she takes, you know, which David's, described. You know, she's doing

extremely well and by the end of the first year, Macdon of Lettington is saying, blimey. You know, I mean, you know, she's so good, if anything's amiss. The fault lies in ourselves. And I think that she was so successful until she married darling. The problem is, I mean, for me, the problem is if you're a woman monarch in the 16th

century, you're stuffed. Because if you marry, the bloke will try and take over. And if you don't, you're in this dynastic cul-de-sac And then everybody's wondering about the future and what's going to happen. But don't you think, If Darnley had been a better character, there was a chance there. Well, I had this debate with Antonio Fraser in Westminster Abbey about of Elizabeth had married,

Robert Dudley. And, you know, Antonio's view was, you know, yeah, that could have worked because, you know, know, Dudley would have behaved. And I mean, my reaction was, no, the guy was the popping jay. You know, he would have gone exactly the same way. And, you know, one reason why Elizabeth didn't marry, in my opinion, was because she'd sussed this out as an adolescent, you know, with all the Tom Seymour. business and she sussed it out, you know, with the struggle that she got to the throne.

And then she saw it again beginning to unfold in her own reign, and particularly with Mary, you know, why am I going to, you know, I'm not going to go down that road. But I, somehow, I think, if Darnley had been a more reliable character, the system of government was there for her to take the reins of. But she ultimately, the structure was there, the relationships were there, she just had to, Jenny Wilmot always says rise above faction and assert her authority and I'm very much in agreement with that

and that's what she ultimately failed to do but a divisional difficult mission to... So what she's in Carlisle Castle and I didn't manage to get in again No I saw him out of Carlisle I was born in Carlisle yeah I know you have she's in Calaisal and she just there's all sorts of places in Cumberland

called Weary Hall and all that where she's supposed to have stayed and she should have meanded through the She manned her through the north of England continually coming further further south to come into the more to the sort of the foolcrum of Cecil. I mean

the Carlisle thing is interesting because she's convinced because of this, her cousin her fellow, her sisterly, anointed queen that she's a guest. There's a sort of slow realisation that she's not a guest but again this is Cecil because I mean the minute she's at Carlisle Cecil sends you know Francis Knowles up

I mean essentially the police go up to sort of hem her in and she's very closely guided. The deal is sealed, isn't it? And Elizabeth, at this point, I mean, the sort of the paradox of this scenario is that at this moment, Elizabeth, you know, probably was prepared to meet her and talk about it woman to woman,

but Cecil blocks it, just as in 1562, when a meeting actually was arranged and it was all going to happen. Cecil had written, you know, the equivalent of the press communique, canceling the meeting two weeks before, anything that happened to actually justify the meeting being cancelled.

He didn't want them. He whipped up. He didn't want them to get together. He was not little. He didn't want that. And that there was always... Sorry, I'm being a board, but how long was she in colour? I'm not being told you about this. Was it a year? Or was it months? No, nothing like that long three months. Then she's gradually brought down to Tuttbury and then she's... Where it's more secure. Then she's put with the Derbyshire, with the Earl of Shrewsbury.

Because Derbyshire being at the county where your furthest, you know, your furthest from the the coast at any point. Shrewsbury Castle actually. I mean, I mean, it's Chatsby. Chosbury Castle, yeah. But there was the opportunity still, I think, in 69 for her to have negotiated a settlement whereby she could have been restored to the Scottish throne,

but Cecil made sure that that didn't happen. He's an emissus. He's an emisus. And even Elizabeth knew, I mean, Elizabeth wouldn't give a decision at the meeting which or the commission as it's called which examined the casket letters because basically she knew they were dodgy and the thing was just left in abeyance

I mean it wasn't I mean some historians say it's like the sort of Scottish verdict of not proven but actually it's just you know no shut the whole thing down and everyone was sworn to secrecy and then blow me you know after the Rydolfi plot which we didn't talk about on air but after the first of these

you know more specific plots what does Cecil do he tries to get Mary executed and shortly before the summoning of the 1572 Parliament in which he and his people try to get Mary executed, he publishes the casket letters in phony Scots anonymously pretends it was done by the, by the Scot. Even Buchanan, you know, write in and say, hang on, you know, not me, Gov, you know, there's nothing to do with me.

I mean, this guy is a skilled political operator, you know, of the most, where Mary is concerned, you know, I mean, the most sort of messianic, He's a way ahead of her. Nemesis. I didn't realize, I mean, I read that sort of stuff at university and before that at school, so I thought I knew quite a bit about it. There was recognitions all the way, but that was a while. I didn't realize he'd kind of stalked us since the beginning of the 15.

Well, John mentioned the album. In 1559, in August 1559, at the height of the revolt of the Protestant laws in Scotland, he wrote a sort of master plan saying that if Mary, as an absentee, ruler at that point doesn't get rid of idolatry in Scotland, doesn't get rid of French influence, then it pleases Almighty God to depose her. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, you know, he could read the, he could read the mind. This is absolutely extraordinary. And at the moment when she is forced to abdicate at Lock Levin, Elizabeth is absolutely horrified because she thinks that the abdication of a divine right monarch is worse than whoever killed Lord Darnley. She gives Nicholas Throckmorton,

who's the ambassador she sends up, the sort of Henry Kissinger type envoy she sends up to try and sort of get this sorted. Get her out of jail. Get her restored of Queen of Scotland. Get her her money back. Cecil gives Throckmorton contrary instructions. Keep her in. Don't let her out. If she does get out, you know, she's to absolutely have no money and Scotland's got to be ruled by a council of 24 nobles led by Murray. It destroys Throck Morton's career. But at the end of his instructions, as a private sort of doodle at the end in the draft of them, this is my eureka moment in the National Archives. Sessel writes, a failure interemptor per Joach Reagan

Athalia was assassinated so that Joach could be king and this is pure knocks out of the first blast of the trumpet Athalia like Jezebel the idolatrous rulers of Israel who were deposed in favour of a regency of a young boy with the Council of Nobles Bingo

Why did he finish his career? Because he obeyed the wrong person Because you couldn't you couldn't cope with this you just couldn't satisfy them both. You couldn't serve two masters or one master's or one master. John, how much do you think that Cecil had that sort of almost British, well, certainly an Anglo-Scottish vision, a Protestant and those Scottish. I mean, he talks about one monarchy in the 1560s. And the other thing he says is that religion is the biggest band.

That's going to be the point. That will bring us together. And that was Protestant. Absolutely. He's one of the very first people to use this language in Edward 6th reign. And it's bound by religion. And what I think his master plan was for a Protestant British Isles. But of course the problem for the Scots was it was to be done in Cecil's view on the basis of English superiority. And that the Scots could never accept.

Except if it had been done on the basis of equality, then this could well have happened. Which is why it did work in inverted commas in 6003 because there was that. The migration north to south of James. But there's a 40-year delay because in order for it to work, you have to get rid of Elizabeth because it's the one thing that she's just saying. This is absolutely, you know, absolutely abhorrent to her. I think we've got a producer pouring the ground down to the north. To make you an offer you really can't refuse.

Oh dear. You've got enough now, yeah? I'd love coffee. Oh, I'd love a coffee. Yes, please. There are many more history and discussion programs from Radio 4 to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.co.com.uk slash radio four.