Noble Blood - The Beheading of the Cousin Queen

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

The rivalry between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I is stuff of legends: neighboring queens, cousins, opposites, and deadly opponents. [Support Noble Blood on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/noblebloodtales. Noble Blood merch is available here: https://store.dftba.com/collections/noble-blood] Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists. We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. Video on Demand.

This guy's bobo-bubim. 2 a whatever time it is. Lizzie McGuire. And I'm like, the paper view. It was like a first closet moment from me where I was like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of that. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful.

But I'm appreciating her. in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, but listen to Los Coltristas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised.

One quick note before we begin, and I'm sure you are absolutely tired of hearing me say it, but I wrote a book. It's a novel called Anatomy, a Love Story, and if you love spooky stories about people in history, I really think you're going to love it. It takes place in 19th century Edinburgh, and it's everything I love, like the reason I made Noble Blood,

in novel form. So if you haven't pre-ordered, please, please, do me a favor and check it out wherever you buy books, your local indie bookstore. It would mean so much. And now, the episode. For the woman we know today as Queen Elizabeth I, Growing up, Elizabeth's royal status was far from secure.

Her mother, Anne Boleyn, had climbed from Lady and Waiting to Queen, only to fall out of favor and lose her head in one of the quickest and most dramatic downfalls in royal history. Little Elizabeth was only three at the time, and it's not quite certain how aware she was when it came to the matter of her mother's death, or the matter of her own substance. subsequent loss of status. Perhaps apocryphly, she is said to have asked one of her father's courtiers, why was I Lady Princess yesterday and Lady Elizabeth today? The former princess became, after the death of her mother, like her older sister Mary, delegitimized, and so Elizabeth grew up all too aware that her status was precarious. Growing up Elizabeth's households were small and

eager. Her governess often needed to beg the king that he would provide the funds for his daughter to have proper clothing. Elizabeth was still a child, approaching ten when her father, King Henry VIII, beheaded his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Elizabeth had liked Catherine Howard. She had treated her with kindness, but the beautiful teenage queen had flirted, or maybe done more, with men who weren't the king. And so Catherine Howard was imprisoned in the tower, forced weeping to lower her head on a black block and wait for the hiss of an ax man's blade.

Some say that it was at that moment when Catherine Howard was beheaded that Elizabeth decided that she herself would never marry. She would never subject herself to the mercy of a man. Her own fate was already, decided by her father's capricious winds. Why invite that sense of unhappy submission into her life again voluntarily? By the end of Henry VIII's life, he softened towards his two illegitimate daughters, Mary, the elder, and Elizabeth. Though he didn't formally re-legitimize them, he did re-enter them

into the line of succession. After Henry's death, the young sickly Edward would be killed. son of Henry and his third wife, Jane Seymour. If Edward didn't have any children, next in line would be Mary. If Mary didn't have any children, only then would Elizabeth become queen. The profound uncertainty and insecurity of her status growing up, combined with the sheer unlikeliness that she would ever become queen, gave Elizabeth a pragmatic and independent streak. She didn't trust anyone unless.

she had to, and even then she never left her back unguarded. Her loyalties were hard won. Elizabeth knew that her right to rule wasn't inevitable, and she was willing to fight to protect it. Meanwhile, just one country away, Elizabeth's first cousin once removed, was born to an entirely different sort of childhood. This cousin was Mary Stewart, Queen of Scott. whose father died only six days after her birth, and so Mary Queen of Scots was officially Queen of Scotland from infancy. A quick side note here, Mary is an incredibly common name in the Tudor era, but for this story, the Mary that we'll be talking about from now on is not Mary Tudor, Elizabeth's older sister, but this new, much younger, Mary Queen of Scots.

Mary Queen of Scots, nine years younger than Elizabeth, was praised throughout her childhood for her good looks and her charm. While her mother ruled Scotland for her, Mary was raised in France alongside the Delphins, the prince who would one day be her husband, Francis. Because Mary was a queen in her own right, the French court honored and deferred to her. She outranked even the King of France's own daughters. People at court called her La Plu Parfé, or the Most Perfect. At 16 years old, her husband became King of France, making Mary the queen of two countries. Royalty was her birthright, and, as she was taught, England was her birthright as well. Mary Stewart was the granddaughter of Henry the 8th's older sister, Margaret, and as a Catholic, many, including the French and Mary herself, believed that she was the rightful heir to the throne of England over Henry the 8th's illegitimate Protestant daughter, Elizabeth. While in France, Mary used the English lion in her own personal coat of arms, and before her

wedding with Francis, she signed an agreement bequeathing Scotland and her claim to the English throne to the French crown if she, Mary, died before Francis and they didn't have children. These two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, would never meet. They would spend their early lives writing letters to one another, calling each other sweet names and building upon the diplomatic bonds of family. In theory, they should be allies. They were, as Mary would write, two queens, quote, in one aisle of one language, the nearest kinswoman that each other had. But family only goes so far when your cousin begins to present a threat. From cordial letters, the relationship between Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stewart stretched and devolved into rivalry,

and men into something more pernicious and more deadly. We as a society have a habit of pitting women against one another. Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer and Angelina, Brittany and Christina. It's a side effect of misogyny to frame any disagreement between women as a catfight, to preemptively assume that there's only room for one woman at the time. top, and so all women are inherently each other's competition. And so it's no wonder that the comparison between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I has fascinated writers and historians for generations. They were two tall, red-headed queens, one romantic, beautiful, married three times, the other,

a virgin who presented herself as masculine to retain power. But this, This is a rivalry that goes far beyond mere tabloid father. In the end, one of these two cousins would sign the other's death warrant. Family is important, but not as important as power. I'm Danish Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Mary Stewart and her husband, Francis, were king and queen of France, but only briefly. Francis had always been sickly, and less than two years, after he ascended to the throne, he died of possibly one of the more embarrassing ways that a king could go out of an ear infection in December of 1560. And so, a few months later, the teenage Dowager Queen returned to her homeland, Scotland, a place she hadn't lived since she was five years old.

The 19-year-old Mary now returned with a new name. She had left Scotland as Mary Stewart. S-T-E-W-A-R-T, but at some point in France she changed it to Stuart S-T-U-A-R-T to make it easier for the French to pronounce. At this point in her life, she was reportedly six feet tall and strikingly beautiful, with long red hair. She was well-educated, spoke multiple languages, and incredibly poised. Unfortunately, she was also probably unaware of just how complicated. the political and religious situation had become in Scotland during her long absence. Mary was Catholic, but the Protestant movement in Scotland was gaining considerable traction. Mary's half-brother, the Earl of Moray, who had been ruling in Mary's absence since her mother's death,

was a Protestant, as was the influential preacher John Knox, who would waste no time issuing fiery sermons, denouncing Mary and her sinful ones. ways. As Queen, Mary decided that religious tolerance would be the best course of action, and so she built a cabinet of advisors with predominantly Protestant voices. Her focus, even then, was on England, trying to ensure that she was made Elizabeth I's heir, if not just given the throne outright by the people. Back when she was still Queen of France, Mary had refused to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh in 1560, after English and Scottish Protestant forces had bested the Catholic French in Scotland. In that treaty, the French agreed to formally stop recognizing Mary

as the rightful Queen of England, but Mary, refusing to ratify, wouldn't ever stop recognizing herself, at least in theory. Even so, the relationship between the cousins remained cordial. Mary and Elizabeth wrote letters to one another, with Mary always waiting patiently to be formally named as Elizabeth's heir. The two talked about possibly getting together and meeting in person, but like distant mutual friends, their plans never came to fruition. Elizabeth was always guarded, on edge, wisely, it would seem, when it came to Mary. She understood that it didn't benefit her at all to name her successor while she was still alive. She once told an advisor, Princes cannot like their own children. Think you that I could love my own winding sheet?

In case you don't know, a winding sheet is what you wrap a corpse in. Some people like to frame Elizabeth as vain and jealous of Mary's youth and her beauty. But that seems a little unnecessary to me, a little tabloid. Just politically, to Elizabeth, Mary was a constant and lingering threat. That political threat of Mary as a distant, smiling enemy just biding her time until she could capture the English throne, perhaps explains why Elizabeth was so outraged when Mary, Queen of Scots, took the matter of her second marriage into her own hands.

Without consulting her own advisors, let alone consulting Elizabeth, without even waiting for the Pope to give dispensation, Mary made up her own mind to marry a man named Lord Darnley. The excuse given later was that Mary was just smitten, that she fell so head over heels in love with Darnley that she couldn't wait for anyone to give permission. At least that was the excuse given to Elizabeth I, because puppy love or not, it was an incredibly strategic marriage in terms of asserting Mary's claim to the English throne.

Consider it the matrimonial equivalent of moving a chess piece into a check position. Mary and Darnley were both grandchildren of Henry VIII's older sister, Margaret Tudor, though Darnley was the product of Margaret's second marriage. If Mary's goal was selecting a husband that highlighted her blood in the English dynasty, Darnley was the perfect fit. Unfortunately, that was the only thing about Darnley that was perfect. In fact, Mary realized pretty quickly that she had saddled herself with a truly awful husband. He was a drunk and lazy man who was jealous and selfish.

While Mary was pregnant with their son, Darnley joined in the conspiracy to kill Mary's secretary, a man named David Rizio, out of jealousy about the rumors that he, Rizio, not Darnley, was the child's real father. Darnley and his men stabbed Rizio while Mary watched on, screaming. Even with that trauma, their child was miraculously still born healthy, a son who Mary named James. Mary made Elizabeth I, the cousin she had still never met, her son's godmother. The child's father, Darnley, wouldn't be in the picture long. Mary's first husband died with an ear infection whimper. Darnley would die with a boom.

Well, a boom and then a strangulation. Early in the morning of February 10, 1567, the house in Edinburgh where Darnley had been staying, Kirkofield, was destroyed and an explosion. Darnley was found partially clothed nearby. Apparently, he was unharmed by the actual explosion, but he was dead all the same. Someone had been waiting for him to flee the building and had been there to wring his neck. Pretty much immediately, everyone knew that the murder was the doing of Mary's close advisor, the Earl of Bothwell.

Bothwaugh was sent to trial and he was found innocent, but no one really took any stock in that. It's pretty easy to be found innocent when the queen herself is more than great to be. that her terrible husband was dispatched. The murder itself was shocking, but then even more shocking. Only three months after the murder of her husband, Mary married Bothwell, still the case's only suspect. Mary didn't even bother to complete the mandatory mourning period for her deceased husband, terrible as he was. Some say that the pair had conspired together to kill Darnley from the beginning,

that they had been lovers the whole time. Other historians maintain that Bothwell kidnapped and then raped Mary in order to entrap her in a marriage. It's impossible to know with any real clarity, but we do know that the optics were awful and that Elizabeth I was watching her cousin in horror. After Mary's marriage to Bothwell, Elizabeth I wrote to her, Madam, to be plain with you, our grief has not been. been small that in this your marriage so slender consideration has been had that as we perceive manifestly no good friend you have in the whole world can like thereof and if

we should otherwise write or say we should abuse you for how could a worse choice be made for your honor that in such haste to marry such a subject who besides other and notorious lax public fame has charged charged with the murder of your late husband. It was, in short, an international scandal. Some even say that the scandal of a queen quickly marrying the man who likely murdered her husband inspired the plot of Hamlet. But Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare weren't the only ones outraged.

The combined one-two punch of Darnley's Unsolved Murder and Mary, marrying the primary suspect, to the Protestant factions in Scotland overthrowing Mary, imprisoning her and forcing her to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son, James, who then became King James VI of Scotland. Mary was imprisoned at Lockleven Castle, although after a few months in 1568, she managed to escape and she managed to rally supporters for one final battle, a battle to reclaim the kingdom that was her birthright. Mary was defeated, and so without a country, she fled to England in the hopes that her, quote, sister Queen Elizabeth, would be her salvation. Mary hoped that Queen Elizabeth might even help her continue to rally support so that she could reclaim the Scottish throne. But no,

instead of sending troops to Scotland, or even sending Mary to pro-Catholic France, Queen Elizabeth I welcomed Mary to England, and then placed her under de facto house arrest. It was a moral and legal gray area. Mary, even if she did promise to be fully loyal to Elizabeth, and even if Elizabeth believed her, was still a symbolic leader for plenty of Catholics who wanted to kill or overthrow Elizabeth. That became especially true after Pope Pius V issued a papal bull on February 25th, 1570, allowing any English Catholic the authority to overthrow the Protestant queen. Mary, for her part, refused to recognize the authority of the English court to try or imprison her. And so,

the gray area. Mary was Elizabeth's biggest threat, and the longer that Mary was alive, the more Catholic rebels would unite in their fight around her. Queen Elizabeth's advisors all wanted her to execute Mary and make an end to it all. One member of the House of Commons called her the monstrous and huge dragon and mass of the earth. But Elizabeth hesitated. Executions were a messy business. They made martyrs.

When Elizabeth had to sign the execution warrant for the Duke of Norfolk, she had signed and then recanted, and then signed again and then recanted a total of three times before the order finally went through. and Mary was an even more complicated case. First, there was her son, the King of Scotland. Over the 19 years that his mother would be imprisoned, James would go from an infant to a grown man.

And even though he didn't know his mother at all, and even though he was raised Protestant, Mary was still his mother, and Elizabeth feared, at least in theory, the retaliation of his Scottish forces should she execute, Mary. But that issue was easy enough to get around. Because Elizabeth had no children of her own as a virgin queen, James, the Sixth of Scotland, was the frontrunner to get the throne of England when Elizabeth died. Elizabeth could dangle and threaten that throne to make sure James wanted

to stay on her good side. But there was a larger, more philosophical reason that Elizabeth was hesitant just to do away with Mary. Though plenty of people believed that Mary had been legally and justly deposed, Elizabeth didn't. In her mind, Mary was still an anointed sovereign. You can't just execute anointed sovereign. Even though it would eventually become more commonplace, at this time, it was a huge deal. A wife is one thing. A queen in her own right is something entirely different. Queens are anointed by God, and so hated as Mary was among

most of England, large as her threat continued to loom. Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to pull the metaphorical trigger, until, of course, she no longer had a choice. Though Mary wasn't supposed to be communicating

with the outside world, she was slipped letters that were smuggled in the watertight casing inside the stopper of a beer barrel, Unbeknownst to Mary and her supporters, though, Elizabeth and her spymasters were privy to the scheme. And so even though the Catholic loyalist Anthony Babington wrote his letter to Mary Queen of Scots in code, Elizabeth's ciphers decoded it. And so they read the details of what would come to be known as the Babington plot to overthrow Elizabeth,

in a letter that asked Mary for her advice on how to ensure, quote, the dispatch of the usurping competitor. Elizabeth spies also got their hands on Mary's reply when she signed what would become her own death sentence, a letter in which she wrote, quote, Let the Great Plot commence. Of course, one can't really blame Mary. She had been imprisoned for coming up on two decades,

for no crime with no trial, close to half of her young life. Someone loyal writing to her to try to help her escape and reclaim power must have seemed like a no-brainer. Thomas Phillips, the cipher, decoded and copied Mary's letter, adding a short PS to Mary's reply, asking, hey, quick question, just curious, would you mind telling me the names of everyone else involved in this plot? No reason. But before that letter was even answered, the arrests started. Babington and his co-conspirators were arrested and imprisoned and sentenced to death, to be hanged, disemboweled, drawn, and quartered. Apparently, the first two executions were so gruesome

that Queen Elizabeth made a quick change for the rest of them, saying that from then on the men were to be hanged until, quote, quite dead before the rest of the mutilation. It took a few more months for Mary to be tried and found guilty of collusion. Even with the smoking gun of her letter to Babington, Mary continued to proclaim her innocence. Elizabeth's advisors knew how prickly Elizabeth would be when it came to actively ordering the execution. Her closest minister, Cecil, summoned Parliament so that the pressure wouldn't be Elizabeth's alone. It was, quote,

to make the burden better born and the world abroad better satisfied. Elizabeth Secretary Davison slipped the death warrant to Elizabeth in the middle of a large pile of other things for her to sign. And as soon as she signed it, knowing that the queen could change her mind at any moment, Davison rushed the warrant to the rest of the council and got the execution moving. Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed on February 8, 1518. at 44 years old, after 19 years of imprisonment, in which she was moved from one remote English castle to another. Mary walked slowly and confidently to the stage that had been draped in black fabric for the occasion of her death. She walked with her back straight and her head high, letting the light catch her profile as she stood and paused before climbing the stairs.

Even though her famous looks had faded, there was still something striking about her, her height, her red hair, her steely eyes. Mary accepted the hand of her longtime jailer who had been with her for so many years as she was climbing the stairs. I thank you, sir, she said. This is the last trouble I shall ever give you. Over 100 people had come to the great hall of Fatheringay Castle to watch Mary's execution. From the crowd, a man rose and shouted to Mary, I am the Dean of Peterborough. It is not too late to embrace the true faith. Yay, the reformed religion with Heth. Mary, moments from death,

interrupted him with a raised hand. Good Mr. Dean, troubled not yourself anymore about this matter. I was born in this religion, have lived in this religion, and am resolved to die in this religion. When the executioner stepped forward, he knelt and asked for Mary's forgiveness. I forgive you and all the world with all my hearts, for I hope this death will make an end to all my troubles, she said. Personally, I can't imagine that I would be facing the man who would be removing my head with the same grace. The executioner then gestured for Mary to remove her large black cloak. He offered to help, but Mary shook her head. She gestured for her ladies-in-waiting to come assist her.

They unbuttoned her black outer gown, and, to the gasps of the crowd, revealed that beneath, Mary was wearing a dress in bright crimson, the color of Catholic martyrdom. Mary kissed her crucifix in prayer book and handed her lady-in-waiting a handkerchief so that she could tie it as a blindfold. The lady's hands were shaking so much that Mary tied the blindfold herself.

Gracefully, Mary went to her knees and laid her head on the smooth block. This is where the grace of the execution ends. From here it becomes a grim comedy. The executioner swung his blade down and missed. He grazed only the hairs on the side of Mary's neck. Mary was heard to have muttered, sweet Jesus. The executioner tried again. He made contact this time, but didn't get quite through her neck.

He was forced to saw through the sinew with the axe until the head disconnected. God save Queen Elizabeth, the frazzled executioner shouted, grabbing the severed head by its hair so that he could hold it up to the crowd. He didn't realize that Mary had been wearing a red wig. With the executioner only holding the wig, Mary's head fell, and the head of a gray-haired woman lolled on the stage, lips still moving. The crowd gasped.

But the chaos didn't even end there. From the folds of Mary's skirts came a yelp. In her dress, Mary had smuggled in her dog, Geddon to the execution. Gettin, distraught, began howling and circling the corpse. The angry Protestant man in the audience, the one who had heckled Mary earlier, ran up to the stage and grabbed the dog by the nape of its neck. Remember, John Knox had prophesied that dogs would drink her blood, he shouted. He shoved the dog's face into Mary's blood.

Drink ye cur! Instead, the dog bit the man's hand. When the dust settled, there were to be no relics left of Mary Queen of Scots, nothing for curious onlookers to keep as mementos or sell, no items for Catholics to help turn her into a martyr. Mary's clothes, her prayer books, her everything, were burned in the courtyard. Bonfires throughout England were lit in celebration of the Catholic Jezebel's death, but Elizabeth was inconsolable.

The queen claimed that she had signed the death warrant but had never actually meant for it to be enacted. It was only supposed to be kept in reserve for future threats. Elizabeth blamed her secretary, Davidson. But most people didn't quite believe her outrage. The historian William Camden wrote that Elizabeth conceived or pretended great grief and anger against Davidson. But in Camden's second edition, he thought better of his adolph. accusation of pretending and removed that word. Still, she was queen, and so Elizabeth put Davison on trial and war of London, finding him 10,000 marks, although his sentence would

ultimately be remitted. However Elizabeth felt about how it happened, the deed was done. Mary, Queen of Scots, was dead. Sixteen years later, Elizabeth herself would die, and it would be Mary's son, James, who would finally become king of both Scotland and England, King James the 6th of Scotland and the first of England, the man who united the two kingdoms. Though Elizabeth and Mary never met, today the two women are buried mere feet apart, together in Westminster Abbey. That's the tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots and her relationship with her cousin, Elizabeth. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about one of Mary's

more unusual modern legacies. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend Janet. Hey. And we have been joined at the hips since high school. Absolutely.

Now a redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips, wider. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my high. Honda Odyssey with all the snacks and drinks. Sidebar. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? They had a bogo.

Well, then you got it. Do you want a white color or something here? Just hit it. What are y'all doing? Microphones? Are you making a rap album? Oh, I would. I would buy it.

Cuts through the defense like a hot knife through sponge cake. That sounds delicious. Oh, you're lucky. I'm not a drug addict. You are. I'm not an alcoholic. You are. You are.

You're lucky I'm not a killer. I love this team. And I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh. Oh. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists. We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys.

We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. Video on Demand. This guy's bobble. 2 a.m. Liddy McGuire. Lissie McGuire. and I'm like, a wild bat you were with. It was like a first, like, closet moment from me

where I was like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of that. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful. But I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, but listen to Los Coleristas on the Iheart radio app,

Apple podcast, or whatever you get your podcast. It feels a little bit stereotypical of me to be relating golf to the story of the Queen of Scots, but by all accounts, Mary loved to play golf, or, as she learned it as a child in France, Pelmel. In Scotland, Mary had a vacation house at St. Andrews, often considered to be the oldest golf course in the world. When Mary, or any royal golfer hit the links, their bags were carried by military cadets. It's believed that Mary gave those cadets a nickname, one that carries

on to this day. When Mary played golf, her bags were carried by a man that she called a caddy. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by Rima Ilkjali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Blood,

Blood Tales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists, we have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here,

and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire 2am video on demand. This guy's... 2 a.m. Lizzie McGuire. And I'm like... A wild batch you were with. It was like a first closet moment from me where I was like...

You're like, I don't feel like She's hot, like the rest of them. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful. But I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, but listen to Los Angeles on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.