Hello and Welcome to Western SIEV episode three hundred and two Queens North and South.
In the early months of fifteen sixty five, Cecil had every reason to
think that Elizabeth might finally marry. She was reconsidering the Archduke, plus word
reached court that, desperate to avoid a Habsburg alliance, Catherine de Medici was
offering Charles the Ninth to the English Queen. Elizabeth was not interested in marrying
a fourteen year old boy. However, she was thirty one and publicly worried
about what people might say. Besides, Charles did not speak a word of
English and he was Catholic. Those both appeared to be deal breakers. But
mindful of keeping France and Scotland separate, Elizabeth gave her usual half promises in
the hope of stringing Charles along. Most of Elizabeth's Privy council advised her against
the match. Anyway, it would be easier and better. They argued for
her to wed a Habsburg. Cecil said nothing. He didn't think that Elizabeth
was serious. As usual, he was right. For the next five months,
Elizabeth played her usual game and played it well. Charles thought he was
set to marry the English Queen, though in reality nothing of the sort had
ever been agreed to. But of course Elizabeth was not the only single queen
in the British Isles. To the north, Mary Stuart was also still without
a husband. By February fifteen sixty five, Thomas Randolph had been working for
eighteen months to bring Mary and Robert Dudley together. It seemed like Mary was
finally warming to the idea. Randolph was therefore disappointed when he found out that
Elizabeth was finally going to allow another suitor, Lord Darnley, to go to
Scotland in an effort to woo the Queen. When Darnley arrived in Edinburgh on
February the thirteenth, Mary extended to him a warm welcome, and her feelings
for him were obvious from the very beginning. Within a few days, people
were saying she could scarcely stand to be apart from him. Quickly, Mary
became set on the idea of marriage, though her counselors urged her delay and
patience. True, Darnley could be well mannered. It meant he was handsome,
but he was also and she didn't know this. Petulant and unstable Mary
wrote to Elizabeth hoping to get her claim to the English throne recognized before marrying
Darnley, she would be disappointed again. Elizabeth wrote back that no, she
should marry Dudley, not Darnley, sorry about the similarity of these names.
And worse still, Elizabeth was not going to say anything publicly about Mary's claim
to the English throne. But by now Mary was far too much in love
with Darnley to care. When he fell ill with measles, Mary acted as
his nurse, regardless of the potential consequences. Mary's advisers, concerned about Darnley's
Catholicism, continued trying without avail to pump the brakes. All the while back
in England, Dudley continued to focus on marrying and another queen, Elizabeth.
In fact, the Spanish ambassador was so shocked at the way the two interacted
that he wrote back to Philip he believed Dudley was on the very cusp of
marrying the English queen. On the eighteenth of April, the Scottish ambassador informed
Elizabeth that Mary was going to wed Lord Darnley. It was a done deal.
Elizabeth was furious. She sent word to Scotland demanding Darnley come back immediately
and forbade the marriage. Now it was all emotion. Mary shot back that
quote she did not mind to use her own choice in marriage. She would
no longer be fed with yea and nay end quote. Elizabeth did at least
realize at this point that Mary was not going to wed Dudley, and for
this part, Dudley took this as a sign that his marriage, which to
Elizabeth, was imminent. Not everyone liked or loved this notion, and so
it was by the summer of fifteen sixty five, rival factions began forming,
really for the first time in Elizabeth's court. On one side, of course,
was Dudley. On the other side was what we might call today the
opposition. The leader of the opposition was the Earl of Sussex, who used
Dudley's great rival, the Duke of Norfolk, to offset the power of the
Queen's favorite. By July, men of both sides were openly carrying arms in
London. Matters. By then we're coming to a head. By the end
of June, Elizabeth formally rejected the young French King's suit, saying that she
would not marry someone so much her junior Cecil Sussex and others realized that this
was likely Dudley's best chance to move and seal the deal once and for all.
Hence, the anti Dudley camp worked furiously to bring about the Habsburg match.
When the Imperial ambassador arrived in the English court around the same time,
Cecil pressed Dudley to support the Archduke Charles's marital suit, if for no other
reason out of loyalty to the realm. Elizabeth, for the moment, seemed
receptive to the idea of marrying the Archduke, so Dudley, feeling very much
sort of pressed in, acquiesced and supported the match, at least publicly.
Then, in a case of conflict making strange bedfellows, the French turned around
and decided they were going to support a marriage with Robert Dudley to the Queen.
They just didn't want to see themselves surrounded by Habsburg's on both sides of
the English channel. As usual, no one could tell what the Queen read
really thought about any of this. At the end of July, Elizabeth declared,
quote, I would have stayed single, did not the Crown of England
compel me to marry to the Prophet of England. End quote, be that
as it may. The Imperial ambassador was at least convinced that the rumors about
the Queen's honor in Dudley's amorous intentions were simply unfounded, so she could take
some solace in that. But once again, when we're talking about a Habsburg
match, the marriage negotiations broke down over the issue of religion. Both sides
continued to insist that the other convert, Sussex, suggested that the Archduke might
attend Anglican services with Elizabeth in public and then Catholic Mass in private, which
the Emperor rejected as an insult. Once more, the two sides seemed deadlocked,
though both were still hopeful of achieving some sort of compromise. On July
twenty ninth, fifteen sixty five, Mary Stuart married Lord Darnley, who clearly
did not return to England by the way, though he was ordered to do
so within mere weeks. Darnley had alienated just about every Scottish noble at court.
The majority of Scott's distrusted him because he was a Catholic anyway. Suddenly
the prospect of civil war in Scotland appeared increasingly likely to the South. When
Elizabeth found out about the marriage, she was incensed, as you probably expected.
Even efforts to reach out to Queen Mary were rebuffed. Mary Stuart had
by July fifteen sixty five, made a fateful decision. She was going to
rule Scotland the way she wanted, and no one was going to tell her
any differently. That meant she was going to control the Scottish lords and force
of vnly Catholicism down her subject's throats. How would that go spoiler alert,
As we'll find out in a second, not well, as you might guess.
July fifteen sixty five was also the beginning of a change in relations between
Mary and Elizabeth. Remember they had been on the cusp of a personal meeting,
but now the two became increasingly antagonistic. That August, another dynastic issue
surfaced. Her sister in disgrace, Lady Mary Gray, was now technically the
closest in line to inherit the throne. Now Mary, as opposed to her
sister, was not beautiful. She was hunchbacked and had no interest in ever
being queen. That being said, Elizabeth kept this, remaining Gray's sister at
court under her watchful eye. Now be that as it may, and with
all these precautions, somehow Gray got herself secretly Mary, which was fast becoming
sort of a rite of passage for the Gray family, or at least the
Gray sisters, until Elizabeth found out about this and then flew off the handle.
Now, I want to be clear about one thing. Mary Gray was
never an actual threat to Elizabeth's legitimacy. But the simple fact that Elizabeth responded
to this incident with such rage is really just an indication of how sensitive she
had become about the topic of succession. Elizabeth clearly understood how precarious her situation
was. After yet another Gray affair, it became all the more imperative for
the Queen to marry. At least that was the perspective of Cecil and others.
However, the international tide was starting to turn critically. Philip of Spain
was no longer in support of Elizabeth marrying the Archduke of Austria. Philip no
longer believed that the marital bed was the way to make England Catholic again.
He now believed that the best path forward ran through Mary, Queen of Scots.
Now, at this point, Philip was not, I repeat, not
planning a coup. He believed that Elizabeth at some point would probably die of
natural causes, and without a better option, the English lords, maybe with
a little bit of Spanish support, would be compelled to accept Mary as queen.
This would give Philip the pliant female ruler he wanted in charge of England
without all the hassle of either finding Elizabeth a suitable husband or just replacing her
by force. His belief was reinforced by rumors which were true that Dudley was
no longer Elizabeth's sole favorite. Dudley would remain at court for the rest of
his life. Some might argue that he was Elizabeth's one and only true love
until the end, but the fact of the matter was that Elizabeth was now
spreading her favor more widely, and Dudley knew it. He now knew he
would never be King of England, and soon everyone else would too. To
the Nora, things weren't much better for Mary Stuart. Several of her lords
were now in open rebellion, and she managed to chase them south until they
reached England, where they sought protection in the court of Elizabeth. But if
there was one thing that Elizabeth was especially prickly about. It was disobedience by
male lords against a female sovereign, even if civil war in Scotland was in
her best interest, which it was not. In this case, Elizabeth would
not lift a fanger to ail male subjects attempting to overthrow Mary their female sovereign.
More likely than not, she just didn't like the precedent that that particular
decision would have set. But though Elizabeth would not support rebellion in the North,
that did not mean that things were peaceful. Scotland remained a tinderbox.
Darnley seemingly did his best every day to alienate everyone he could, including his
own wife. Mary now detested her husband and saw him as little as possible.
Darnley was fine with this arrangement and went hunting as much as he could
while Mary attended to matters of state, making matters worse. Mary had now
developed a liking for one of her secretaries, an Italian gentleman who had come
with her from France. Darnley openly suspected them of having an affair. When
Mary became pregnant that December, there were more than a few whispers about who
it was child. It was. Things weren't much better in London. The
rivalry between Dudley and Norfolk had now reached capulate in montague levels seriously. Each
side now wore their own livery purple for Dudley, yellow for Norfolk, and
settled their disputes in the streets with physical violence. Elizabeth mediated all these conflicts
as as she could, but do little to avoid the obvious favoritism. She
continued to show Dudley. That Christmas, he again asked the Queen to marry
him. As usual, she deferred, saying he would need to worry for
February for an answer. All the while, the vias animosity between Dudley and
Norfolk continued to simmer. They pretended to be friends at court, but everyone
knew this was just a show and that one major provocation might cause the entire
situation to explode. Yet the country got a short reprieve weeks later, when
both Dudley and Norfolk left court. Dudley left mostly out of frustration. He
was tired of everyone blaming him for the country's failures and giving Elizabeth credit for
all the successes. Critically, it was angry that everyone blamed him for the
fact that she remained unmarried. He had in fact urged her many times to
marry for the sake of England, and she had not. There was nothing
he could do about it. Now back in Scotland, things had gone from
bad to worse. Darnley was now convinced that his wife was having an affair
and wanted her Italian secretary gone. Thus he began a conspiracy with the Scottish
lords, in which he was actually just a tool. The plan, as
far as Dardenley knew, was to murder the Italian in front of Mary.
It was believed the shock might incapacitate her or perhaps even cause her death.
Regardless, he agreed with the conspirators that she would be shut up after the
deed was done, and that he would rule Scotland. At least that was
what the conspirators told Darnley the plan was. In reality, they intended to
double cross him. They would kill the Italian, sure, but then they
would blame it all on Darnley and insist that he immediately be executed for treason,
thus removing two potential impediments to their power. Cecil in England knew about
the plot, but did nothing. Elizabeth didn't know about it until it was
all over. On March ninth, fifteen sixty six, while the Queen was
dining with her Italian secretary and another woman, Darnley and too few other men
burst into the room, dragged the man away, and savagely murdered him.
Mary was in a state of shock, but over the next two days she
managed to convince her not so intelligent husband that he was clearly the next target.
At midnight on March the eleventh, the royal couple fled to a nearby
royal castle at Dunbar. Note Mary was six months pregnant this whole time,
so it was quite the feat. On March eighteenth, the couple returned to
Edinburgh with an army of eight thousand men, but by then the conspirators had
already fled. Mary's brief reconciliation with her husband, however, proved short lived
when she discovered just how involved in the murder plot he had been. Now
everyone at court treated him with barely concealed contempt, and he sulked around like
a petulant child. But to the south, Elizabeth was appalled with what Mary
had gone through, and the two women seemed to grow briefly closer. As
a result, Mary even wrote to Elizabeth urging her to marry the Archduke,
in her opinion, an excellent match, not that she was a good judge
of those sorts of things. On June nineteenth, Mary Stuart gave birth to
a healthy son, James. Not only did that immeasurably increase her own legitimacy,
but it also strengthened her claim to the English throne in England. Elizabeth
appeared to react to the news positively, spurring rumors that she would shortly announce
Mary as her heir apparent. This was the case, particularly because now that
Mary had a healthy son, the path of succession would be clear in that
direction. Cecil heard persistent rumors that Mary was entering into negotiations with Catholic nobles
in the North of England one day to forcibly take over the English government if
he had to, but he thought very little of those rumors, and he
was right to discount them. Mary had her hands full trying to establish a
stable government in Scotland plause. Relations between herself and Darnley were now positively frigid.
Darnley had begun threatening that he might choose to live abroad someday, a
fact that was intensely embarrassing to Mary. In August, the Imperial ambassador returned
to Vienna frustrated. It seemed that the negotiations for a marriage between Elizabeth and
the Archduke had reached yet another impasse, though to be fair, Elizabeth wrote
directly to the Emperor, making it clear that this had nothing at all to
do with Dudley. Shortly thereafter, she dispatched Sussex to Vienna with the express
intent of completing these negotiations. However, the orders that Sussex took with him
seemed more likely to produce further delays, which was almost certainly the point that.
Fall desperately short of money, Elizabeth had no choice but to call a
session of Parliament once more. The Commons was determined to have the succession crisis
ended. Elizabeth ordered Cecil to tell the comments that she was going to marry,
but she wouldn't say to whom or when. This time, though,
the House of Lords and the House of Commons were defiant. They declared they
would not grant any subsidy at all until the succession issue had been decided.
Elizabeth was furious, and she struck her a usual refrain that her marriage was
not Parliament's business. On October the twenty first, a delegation from the House
of Lords met with the Queen and begged her to name a successor. Elizabeth
refused and reminded them that if she were a man, no one would make
these demands of her. The Lords could do as they pleased, and so
would she. Matters got progressively worse the next day when the Lords and Commons
held the Joint Session and declared they would not decide any government business at all
until the succession issue was decided. Matters could not rest as they were,
and Elizabeth knew it. She therefore summoned a delegation of thirty members from each
House of Parliament to Whitehall, but refused to allow the Speaker to accompany them,
since she alone meant to do all the talking. This time barely containing
her anger, she opened by accusing quote unbridled person in the Commons of plotting
a traitorous trick end quote then rehearsed all the old arguments against naming her successor,
administering a stinging rebuke to the Lords for rashly supporting the Commons in all
this nonsense. She said, quoting, Now, was I not born in
this realm? Were not my parents? Is not my kingdom here? Whom
have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to the other's harm? How have
I governed since my reign? I will be tried by envy itself. I
need not use many words for my deeds. Do try me. I have
sent word that I will marry, and I will never break the word of
a prince said in a public place for my honor's sake. And therefore I
sigh again. I will marry as soon as I can conveniently, and I
hope to have children. Otherwise I would never marry. She went on further
to talk about the successions follows, none of you have been a second person
in the realm as I have, or tasted the practices against my sister,
whom I would to God were alive again. There are some now in the
commons who, in my sister's reign, had tried to involve me in their
conspiracies. Were it not for my honor, their knavery would be known.
I would never place my successor in that petition end quote. The succession question
was a difficult one, and she acknowledged that to Parliament, but firmly she
chided them for their impertinence, because it was for her, the sovereign,
to decide the succession, and not for them. All she would say ultimately
was that she would have resolve the succession problem when she could do so without
imperiling herself. As for her mutant subject, she hoped the instigators of all
this trouble would repent and openly confess their fault. Quote. As for my
own part, I care not for death, for all men are mortal.
And though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage answerable
to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen.
I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I
am endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in
my petticoat, I were able to live in any place in Christendom end quote.
The lords actually seemed somewhat subdued by this response, but the comments,
well, that was another matter. When Cecil read out his edited draft of
the Queen's speech to the House, it was received in stony silence, and
three days later there were more calls for a petition had now had quite enough
of this insubordination on her orders. On November ninth, Parliament was informed that
they needed to be satisfied with her promise to marry, because that was all
they were going to get. This prompted another uproar, so on November the
eleventh, she summoned the Speaker of the House of Comments before her and told
him herself that she was done with this conversation. The House needed to move
on to the business of government. The Commons, however, refused to be
silent. They had her in a corner and they knew it. She badly
needed the money, and Parliament was the only way she was going to get
it. She had two choices, does all of Parliament and not get the
money she needed or give in the original dispute over the succession was turning in
to a battle over the privileges of the monarch and the privileges of Parliament.
Elizabeth had no wish for a showdown over this sensitive issue. Wisely, in
the end, Elizabeth capitulated, conceding that the members might have a free discussion
on the succession question and remitting one third of the subsidy she had asked for.
The Commons were so overjoyed and gratified at this that they agreed to proceed
at once to the Money Bill without debating the succession. So she got everything
she wanted. But when Parliament tried to incorporate the Queen's promise to marry into
the preamble to the bill, she took one outrage look at the draft presented
for her approval and scrawled in the margin quote, I know no reason why
my private answers to the realm should serve for prologue on subsidy book. Neither
do I understand why such audacity should be used to make, without my license,
an act of my words end quote. The preamble was then discreetly removed,
leaving in the draft just a brief reference to Parliament's pious wish that the
succession question would be resolved in the future. This, of course dashed the
hopes of Mary Stuart, who had expected her claim to be ratified by Parliament.
On January the second, fifteen sixty seven, Elizabeth dissolved Parliament, sourly,
advising its members quote, beware, however, you prove your Prince's patience
as you have now done mine. Let my discipline stand instead of Storer Stokes,
and let my comfort pluck up your dismayed spirits a more loving prince towards
you. You shall never have Unquote she behaved as though she had won this
war, but so you still pointed out that she had actually been more than
anything else, the loser in the contest, passing her a memorandum in which
he enumerated what had not been achieved. Quote. The succession not answered,
the marriage not followed, dangers ensuing general disorientations to the north. On December
seventeenth, fifteen sixty six, the future King James was christened in Catholic fashion.
It would be the last time a Scottish monarch was christened in the Catholic
manner. Darnley refused to attend his son's baptism. Elizabeth was named the boy's
godmother and represented at the ceremony by the Earl of Bedford. After christening,
Bedford informed Mary that he had good news. Elizabeth had agreed she would block
any legislation prejudicial to Mary's claim to the English throne if Mary agreed not to
press the issue. While Elizabeth lived during the winter, Darnley fell dangerously ill,
most likely as a result of contracting syphilis. On January the twentieth,
Mary visited Darnley, where he was staying in Glasgow, and convinced him to
return to Edinburgh. He agreed. His first night back, Mary sat up
with him and gave every appearance all was well. On the night of February
the eighth, Mary announced that she was finally ready to sign the Treaty of
Edinburgh, and the next day her envoy left for England with the good news.
Mary had intended to spend that night with Darnley, where he was in
residency, but then remembered she had promised to attend a wedding nearby, so
she kissed her husband goodbye and left for the palace. On the night of
February tenth, fifteen sixty seven, a violent explosion shook Edinburgh. The source
of the explosion the house in which Darnley had been staying. His corpse was
discovered shortly thereafter. Now to be clear, the explosion had not killed him,
he had been strangled. The explosion was evidently intended to cover up evidence
of the murder. When news reached Mary, she was reportedly horrified. She
said she would have been killed as well had she not left to attend the
wedding. However, everyone knew the Queen had a motive for killing her husband,
whom she had long regarded as a dangerous liability. People might also suspect
the Scottish lords of wanting Darnley dead, chief among them Lord Bothwell, whom
many believed wanted to marry the Queen and thereby gained the crown for himself.
This was confirmed when on April the twenty fourth, Bothwell effectively kidnapped Mary as
she was making her way back to Edinburgh and reportedly quote unquote ravished her so
that she would have no choice but to marry him. Many believed, however,
that the Queen had been in on the whole thing and was in cahoots
with the Lord to murder her husband and marry him. Regardless, the two
Mary and Lord Bothwell were wed on May fifteenth in a Protestant ceremony. Elizabeth
was appalled with her cousin's conduct and wrote to her as follows quote, to
be plain with you, Mary, our grief has not been small thereat for
how could a worse choice be made for your honor than in such haste to
marry a subject who besides other notorious lacks public fame, has charged with the
murder of your late husband, besides touching yourself in some part, though we
trust in that behalf falsely, and with what errol have you married him,
that hath another lawful wife, nor any children betwixt you legitimate. Thus you
see our opinion plainly, and we are heartily sorry. We can conceive no
better. We are earnestly bent to do everything in our power to procure the
punishment of that murderer against any subject you have, how dear soever you should
hold him, and next there too, to be careful how your son,
the Prince, may be preserved to the comfort of you and your realm end
quote. But the Scottish lords had no interest in this new rival for power
either. They had already done away with Darnley and had no interest in a
new suitor. The matter came to blows at the end of June. Very
little blood was spilt, but at the end of the confrontation Mary was in
the custody of the Scottish nobility, and Bothwell had fled to Denmark. When
Mary was led back into Edinburgh, crowds appeared shouting various insults, and she
was imprisoned in a castle in the center of a lake. There she was
kept under lock and key while the lords decided how best to be rid of
her. But Elizabeth was angry that a female sovereign would be treated like this
and was determined to fight for her cousin's release. She sent an ambassador to
Edinburgh to try to resolve matters between Mary and her peers. This time,
however, the Scottish lords were determined. By the end of July, with
a knife literally at her throat, Mary agreed to abdicate in favor of her
son. On July the twenty ninth, he was crowned James, the sixth
King of Scotland. The nobles would now rule through the infant child. Elizabeth
continued to raise rather than taking her anger out on Cecil. There wasn't much
she could do. There was no money or appetite for war with Scotland,
and that was the only way to get what she wanted. Cecil knew that,
and so he simply bore the brunt of her displeasure. By October,
the queen had sufficiently calmed down and realized that she was truly powerless to change
the situation. In Scotland. Meanwhile, in Vienna, Sussex continued the marital
negotiations with the Emperor. It seemed like now the only sticking point was religion,
and actually the Emperor appeared willing to compromise. He now suggested that the
Archduke Charles be allowed to attend Mass in private. In public, he would
attend Anglican services. Elizabeth's Privy Council was torn over the issue. Cecil was
inclined to agree, but Altimate Dudley won the debate. Elizabeth wrote to Sussex
that this compromise was not acceptable, and thus finally died eight years of marriage
negotiations. You might be inclined to criticize Elizabeth for this, but remember she
had witnessed first hand the problems that Philip's marriage to Queen Mary had brought to
the realm. Moreover, the crisis in the Netherlands was now in full swing.
All around Europe, the age of religious warfare was erupting. Elizabeth had
no intention of having it on her doorstep. Did she need foreign support perhaps,
but she needed civil war a lot less. By March fifteen sixty eight,
relations between Scotland and England were noticeably improved. In fact, Elizabeth outbid
Catherine de Menici from Mary Stuart's old crown jewels, so apparently she was not
that upset anymore that her cousin was incarcerated. But then, on May the
second, Mary escaped from custody. She made it to Hamilton Palace, where
she was joined by several lords who assembled an army of six thousand men.
However, Elizabeth had barely received word of this when Mary in her army was
crushed at Langside on May thirteenth. Mary, realizing all was lost, fled
the battlefield and made for England, hoping to place herself under Elizabeth's protection,
but English authorities south of the border weren't really sure how to receive her.
Her arrival posed a dilemma for the government that it would have to deal with
for roughly the next two decades. Queen Elizabeth insisted that Mary must be restored
at once, argued that it was a mistake to assist a queen who had
schemed and plotted against her for years and was in every real sense her enemy
and no political innocent whatsoever. Mary should be sent back to Scotland immediately.
Elizabeth protested that if she did so she was sending her cousin to her death.
Then that was unthinkable. It was difficult to determine what should be done
with Mary, since every option carried its own dangers. The last thing Elizabeth
wanted was to go to war with Scotland on Mary's behalf, and she felt
it would be infinitely preferable if she could bring about a reconciliation between Mary and
the Scottish lords on terms that were favorable to England. It would be an
absolute disaster to send Mary abroad, say to France or Spain. But even
if Elizabeth left her at her liberty in England, she would be an inspiration
to every Catholic malcontent in the kingdom. The Queen was aware that there were
those of the Old Faith, both at home and abroad, who regarded Mary
as having a better title to the English throne than herself, especially in the
Catholic North, where Mary had been cultivating support for years, and where there
was spontaneous rejoicing at her coming to England. Those who had met her were
impressed by her beauty and charm, and also by her powers of persuasion.
Didn't require a great leap of imagination to see her becoming a force for rebellion
or treason, And of course there was always the possibility that King Philip might
divert that huge army that he had in the Netherlands putting down that rebellion,
send it over to England to support Mary Stuart's claim. In the end,
Elizabeth decided that Mary should remain not in prison, but in honorable custody as
her quote unquote guest and under constant observation. The next question was should Elizabeth
meet with Mary. She wanted to, but all of her advisers, including
Dudley, so that was a terrible idea. Mary was a Catholic sovereign who
had never renounced her claim to the throne of England. Elizabeth simply could not
meet with her as an equal. In the end, the Queen relented because
in the end, what they decided to do was form a sort of impromptu
tribunal that would determine if Mary was in any way complicit in Darnley's murder.
If she was acquitted, then it was agreed Elizabeth would meet with her.
In July, Mary was taken to Bolden Castle in Yorkshire, which was to
be her lodging for the foreseeable future. It was sufficiently far from both Scotland
and London to posing a great security risk. At Bolton, she kept state
like a queen and was allowed to indulge her passion for hunting, but she
was constantly guarded. Sir Francis Knolly's was her host, but had a difficult
time coping with her tears and tantrums as she chafed against the restrictions upon her
liberty. There was by now a strong what we would call Queen's party in
Scotland, and two members of it, Lord Harry's and the Bishop of Ross,
took it upon themselves to go to England and plead Mary's case. Elizabeth
told Harries quote, if Queen Mary will omit her case to be heard by
me as her dear cousin and friend, I will send for her rebels and
know their answer why they deposed their queen. If they can allege some reason
for doing so, which I think they cannot, then I will restore Mary
to her throne, on condition that she renounces her claim to England and abandons
her league with France and the Mass in Scotland. End quote. These were
tough terms, but the promise was implicit, and Mary was desperate. On
the twenty eighth of July, she agreed to submit her case to English courts.
What she did not know was that all the parties were determined that she
wouldn't get to speak in her own defense. Nor did she know that simultaneously,
Elizabeth had already informed the Scottish lords that she had no intention of restoring
Mary to her throne. Now, Mary, for her part, was no
innocent in this. Almost from the moment she arrived in England, she started
to plot against Elizabeth. She wrote to Phillip the Second of Spain that if
she had the right support, England could be Catholic again. Still, the
last thing Elizabeth wanted was to have Mary found guilty of murder. She realized
Mary needed to accept her change in situation. Though Mary had a couple of
options here. She could potentially accept her deposition and live as a private person,
or maybe rule with the Scottish lords in tandem until James reached the age
of majority, but her days of ruling alone were over. That exigency was
simply out of the question. Given the strength of English opinion against Mary,
Elizabeth could not allow her to be declared innocent, Yet neither did she want
a queen to be subject to the judgment of a tribunal. And so it
was in January fifteen sixty nine, the Commissioners assembled delivered the only verdict possible
that nothing had been proven against Mary. Now, Mary for herself refused to
simply acknowledge that they had any jurisdiction over her at all. But Elizabeth still
didn't want to set Mary free. In fact, she dare not. She
posed too great a threat even as a prisoner. For already there were signs
that Catholics in England were beginning to regard her as their figurehead. As for
Mary, she seemed more interested now in claiming the English throne than in recovering
the Scottish one. Prophetically, cecil was later Warren Elizabeth, the Queen of
Scots is and always shall be a dangerous person to your estate. Next week,
we're going to stay in England and continue with our story to see how
Mary, Queen of Sconce proves herself to be in fact a dangerous person.
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of Western Ciev two point zero. We are past the Punic Wars now and
back into that era of chaos between the end of the second century BCE and
the rise of Julius Caesar. No longer one had worn