1 00:00:01,464 --> 00:00:03,622 It's 1544. 2 00:00:03,623 --> 00:00:07,418 King Henry VIII, now in the third decade of his reign, 3 00:00:07,419 --> 00:00:10,696 bestrides England like an ageing colossus. 4 00:00:10,697 --> 00:00:14,533 By making himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, 5 00:00:14,534 --> 00:00:17,810 he'd taken the Monarchy to the peak of its power, 6 00:00:17,811 --> 00:00:21,687 but at a huge personal cost. 7 00:00:21,688 --> 00:00:25,685 For his headship of the church, known as the Royal Supremacy, 8 00:00:26,125 --> 00:00:29,881 had been born out of Henry's desperate search 9 00:00:29,882 --> 00:00:31,560 for an heir and love. 10 00:00:31,561 --> 00:00:35,557 The turmoil of six marriages, two divorces, two executions 11 00:00:36,757 --> 00:00:40,313 and a tragic bereavement had produced three children. 12 00:00:40,314 --> 00:00:44,311 Now, the King felt it was time for reconciliation. 13 00:00:46,589 --> 00:00:50,106 Henry's reunion with his family is commemorated 14 00:00:50,107 --> 00:00:54,103 in this famous painting, known as The Family of Henry VIII. 15 00:00:55,422 --> 00:00:59,419 The painting shows Henry enthroned between his son and heir 16 00:01:00,499 --> 00:01:04,175 the seven-year-old Prince Edward and, to emphasise the line 17 00:01:04,176 --> 00:01:08,171 of dynastic succession, Edward's long-dead mother Jane Seymour. 18 00:01:09,891 --> 00:01:13,888 Standing further off to Henry's right is Mary, his elder daughter, 19 00:01:15,408 --> 00:01:19,403 whom he bastardised when he divorced her mother. 20 00:01:19,604 --> 00:01:22,760 To the left his younger daughter Elizabeth, 21 00:01:22,761 --> 00:01:26,758 whom he'd also bastardised when he had her mother beheaded. 22 00:01:28,358 --> 00:01:31,394 But the painting is more than a family portrait. 23 00:01:31,395 --> 00:01:35,391 It's also a symbol of the political settlement by which Henry hoped to 24 00:01:36,631 --> 00:01:40,627 preserve and prolong his legacy. 25 00:01:41,387 --> 00:01:44,544 He decided that all three of his children 26 00:01:44,545 --> 00:01:46,703 would be named as his heirs. 27 00:01:46,704 --> 00:01:49,780 His son Edward would, of course, succeed him. 28 00:01:49,781 --> 00:01:52,218 But if Edward died childless 29 00:01:52,219 --> 00:01:56,015 the throne would pass to Henry's elder daughter Mary. 30 00:01:56,016 --> 00:02:00,013 If she had no heir then her half-sister Elizabeth 31 00:02:00,093 --> 00:02:01,891 would become Queen. 32 00:02:01,892 --> 00:02:03,730 The arrangement was embodied 33 00:02:03,731 --> 00:02:07,726 both in the King's own will and in a Parliamentary act of succession. 34 00:02:10,365 --> 00:02:13,441 Henry's provisions for the succession held and, through 35 00:02:13,442 --> 00:02:17,439 the rule of a minor and two women, gave England a sort of stability, 36 00:02:19,878 --> 00:02:23,873 but they also ushered in profound political turmoil as well. 37 00:02:24,475 --> 00:02:28,470 It turned out each of Henry's three children was determined 38 00:02:29,111 --> 00:02:32,268 to use the Royal Supremacy to impose 39 00:02:32,269 --> 00:02:36,264 a radically different form of religion on the English. 40 00:02:37,984 --> 00:02:40,142 The resulting conflicts would send 41 00:02:40,143 --> 00:02:44,138 hundreds to a terrible death at the stake or on the scaffold. 42 00:02:45,099 --> 00:02:47,935 They would even force Queen Elizabeth I 43 00:02:47,936 --> 00:02:51,933 to execute a fellow anointed sovereign. 44 00:03:16,035 --> 00:03:20,031 On Christmas Eve 1545 Henry VIII made his last speech to Parliament 45 00:03:21,910 --> 00:03:25,626 on the great issue dividing the nation - religion. 46 00:03:25,627 --> 00:03:29,624 It was an emotional appeal for reconciliation between conservatives 47 00:03:30,504 --> 00:03:34,500 who hankered after a return to Rome, and radical Protestants who wished 48 00:03:35,020 --> 00:03:38,736 to press on for a complete reformation of the Church. 49 00:03:38,737 --> 00:03:41,215 Henry sought a middle way 50 00:03:41,216 --> 00:03:45,212 which would both preserve the Royal Supremacy, and prevent the quarrel 51 00:03:45,332 --> 00:03:49,329 of Protestant and Catholic from tearing England apart. 52 00:03:52,767 --> 00:03:56,763 But a year later, on 28th January 1547, Henry was dead aged 55. 53 00:04:00,281 --> 00:04:03,797 With him died any prospect that the Royal Supremacy 54 00:04:03,798 --> 00:04:07,794 would be used to save England from religious conflict. 55 00:04:11,192 --> 00:04:15,189 Three weeks later, Henry's nine-year-old son 56 00:04:15,230 --> 00:04:19,226 was crowned King Edward VI at Westminster Abbey. 57 00:04:21,984 --> 00:04:23,742 The ceremony was conducted 58 00:04:23,743 --> 00:04:27,739 by Thomas Cranmer - England's first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, 59 00:04:28,779 --> 00:04:32,735 the man who, 16 years earlier, had helped Henry VIII 60 00:04:32,736 --> 00:04:36,733 to achieve supreme authority over church and state. 61 00:04:36,933 --> 00:04:40,929 Now, Cranmer used Edward's Coronation to spell out 62 00:04:41,250 --> 00:04:45,246 the Royal Supremacy's awe-inspiring claims. 63 00:04:45,286 --> 00:04:49,283 During the ceremony no fewer than three crowns were placed 64 00:04:49,803 --> 00:04:52,880 successively on the boy-king's head. 65 00:04:52,881 --> 00:04:56,876 The second was the Imperial Crown itself - the supreme symbol 66 00:04:57,398 --> 00:05:01,393 of the imperial monarchy, to which Edward's grandfather Henry VII 67 00:05:01,834 --> 00:05:05,830 had aspired, and which his father Henry VIII had achieved. 68 00:05:07,789 --> 00:05:10,546 And it wasn't only the crown. 69 00:05:10,547 --> 00:05:13,464 Cranmer turned the whole ceremony 70 00:05:13,465 --> 00:05:17,461 into a parable of the limitless powers of the new imperial monarchy. 71 00:05:19,301 --> 00:05:23,096 First, he'd administered the coronation oath to the King. 72 00:05:23,097 --> 00:05:27,094 But then, in a moment that was unique in the 1,000-year-old 73 00:05:27,334 --> 00:05:31,331 history of the coronation, Cranmer had turned directly to the King 74 00:05:32,890 --> 00:05:36,886 and people to explain, or rather to explain away, what he'd done. 75 00:05:38,446 --> 00:05:41,443 He'd just given the oath to the King, he said. 76 00:05:41,444 --> 00:05:45,439 But, he continued, neither he nor any other earthly man 77 00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:48,437 had the right to hold him to account. 78 00:05:48,438 --> 00:05:52,435 Instead, the chosen of God, the King, was answerable only to God. 79 00:05:55,633 --> 00:05:59,629 The nakedness of the absolutism established by Henry VIII 80 00:06:00,149 --> 00:06:02,427 now stood revealed. 81 00:06:02,428 --> 00:06:06,423 And both those who ruled in Edward's name and, in the fullness of time, 82 00:06:07,823 --> 00:06:11,820 Edward himself, were determined to use its powers to the uttermost. 83 00:06:17,296 --> 00:06:21,292 Edward was being tutored by thoroughgoing Protestants. 84 00:06:21,333 --> 00:06:24,649 He learned his lessons well, writing at the age of only 12 85 00:06:24,650 --> 00:06:28,646 that the Pope was the true son of the devil, a bad man, an Antichrist. 86 00:06:33,044 --> 00:06:35,841 Edward and his councillors now determined 87 00:06:35,842 --> 00:06:39,318 to use the Royal Supremacy to force religious reform 88 00:06:39,319 --> 00:06:43,315 and make England a fully Protestant nation. 89 00:09:00,215 --> 00:09:03,181 The rebellion was eventually defeated. 90 00:09:03,182 --> 00:09:04,922 But Edward soon found 91 00:09:04,923 --> 00:09:08,876 a more dangerous opponent in his own half-sister and heir Mary. 92 00:09:10,974 --> 00:09:14,296 It was to divorce her mother, Catherine of Aragon, 93 00:09:14,297 --> 00:09:18,212 and to marry Anne Boleyn, that Henry had broken with Rome. 94 00:09:18,213 --> 00:09:22,167 So, for Mary the Supremacy had always been a personal 95 00:09:22,365 --> 00:09:26,004 as well as a religious affront. 96 00:09:26,005 --> 00:09:29,959 Now, she discovered her true vocation - to be the beacon 97 00:09:30,395 --> 00:09:33,953 of the old, true Catholic faith in England. 98 00:09:33,954 --> 00:09:37,909 She openly continued to hear mass in the traditional Latin liturgy. 99 00:09:40,639 --> 00:09:44,593 The clash between Mary and Edward, who was as stridently Protestant 100 00:09:46,019 --> 00:09:49,973 as Mary was Catholic, began at Christmas 1550. 101 00:09:50,409 --> 00:09:53,532 It was a family reunion, with Mary, Edward 102 00:09:53,533 --> 00:09:57,488 and Elizabeth all gathered together under one roof for the festivities. 103 00:09:58,241 --> 00:10:02,195 But, as so often, Christmas turned into a time for family quarrels, 104 00:10:03,185 --> 00:10:07,139 as the 13-year-old Edward upbraided his 34-year-old sister for daring 105 00:10:09,197 --> 00:10:12,439 to break his laws and hear mass. 106 00:10:12,440 --> 00:10:15,287 Humiliated, Mary burst into tears. 107 00:10:15,288 --> 00:10:19,242 But she would submit herself neither to her brother's laws 108 00:10:19,362 --> 00:10:23,317 nor to his religion. 109 00:10:29,133 --> 00:10:31,069 When she was next summoned to court 110 00:10:31,070 --> 00:10:35,025 a few weeks later, Mary came with a large retinue, all of them 111 00:10:35,856 --> 00:10:39,810 conspicuously carrying rosaries as a badge of their Catholicism. 112 00:10:41,908 --> 00:10:45,863 Mary had arrived in force for what she knew would be a confrontation 113 00:10:46,180 --> 00:10:48,631 with the full weight of Edward's government. 114 00:10:48,632 --> 00:10:51,795 But, when she was summoned before the King and Council 115 00:10:51,796 --> 00:10:55,751 and taxed with disobedience, she played her trump card. 116 00:10:56,108 --> 00:10:58,401 Her cousin on her mother's side 117 00:10:58,402 --> 00:11:02,356 was the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V - the most powerful ruler in Europe. 118 00:11:03,385 --> 00:11:05,916 Mary now invoked his mighty protection. 119 00:11:05,917 --> 00:11:09,871 The imperial ambassador hurried to Court to threaten war if Mary were 120 00:11:10,743 --> 00:11:13,233 not given freedom of religion. 121 00:11:13,234 --> 00:11:16,635 Faced with the combination of foreign war 122 00:11:16,636 --> 00:11:20,590 and Catholic insurrection at home, the Council backed off. 123 00:11:21,185 --> 00:11:25,139 It was Edward's turn to weep tears of frustration. 124 00:11:27,869 --> 00:11:29,648 And there was worse to come. 125 00:11:29,649 --> 00:11:33,604 In the winter of 1552, Edward started to cough blood. 126 00:11:34,514 --> 00:11:37,796 By the following spring it was obvious to everyone 127 00:11:37,797 --> 00:11:41,435 that the young King was dying. 128 00:11:41,436 --> 00:11:45,391 Mary's Catholicism now became more than an obstacle to the progress 129 00:11:46,182 --> 00:11:50,137 of reform - it threatened the very survival of Protestantism itself, 130 00:11:51,918 --> 00:11:55,081 for Mary was Edward's legal heir. 131 00:11:55,082 --> 00:11:58,681 She would succeed as Queen and Supreme Head. 132 00:11:58,682 --> 00:12:02,636 And like her father and brother before her, she'd be able to remake 133 00:12:03,626 --> 00:12:07,580 the religion of England according to her own Catholic lights. 134 00:12:09,796 --> 00:12:13,751 The thought of Mary as his Catholic successor was intolerable 135 00:12:14,424 --> 00:12:16,915 tothe hotly Protestant Edward. 136 00:12:16,916 --> 00:12:20,870 So, with a confidence that was breathtaking in a 15-year-old boy, 137 00:12:21,425 --> 00:12:25,340 he decided unilaterally to change the rules. 138 00:12:25,341 --> 00:12:28,425 And this is the document in which he did it. 139 00:12:28,426 --> 00:12:32,380 It's headed in his bold schoolboy handwriting - 140 00:12:32,420 --> 00:12:35,070 "My device for the succession". 141 00:12:35,071 --> 00:12:37,601 First, he excluded Elizabeth, 142 00:12:37,602 --> 00:12:41,557 as well as Mary, on the grounds that both his half-sisters were bastards. 143 00:12:42,310 --> 00:12:46,264 Second, he transferred the throne to the family of his cousins the Greys. 144 00:12:48,005 --> 00:12:51,959 And third, he decided that women were unfit to rule in their own 145 00:12:52,237 --> 00:12:56,192 right, though they could transfer their claim to their sons, or, 146 00:12:56,707 --> 00:13:00,661 in legal jargon, their "heirs male". 147 00:13:01,295 --> 00:13:04,972 The problem was that all his Grey cousins were women, 148 00:13:04,973 --> 00:13:08,295 and though they'd been married off at breakneck speed, 149 00:13:08,296 --> 00:13:10,629 none of them had yet had children. 150 00:13:10,630 --> 00:13:13,398 Now, in the course of time no doubt, 151 00:13:13,398 --> 00:13:15,533 this problem would have corrected itself. 152 00:13:15,534 --> 00:13:19,489 But in view of Edward's rapidly declining health, there wasn't time. 153 00:13:20,597 --> 00:13:24,472 Instead Edward had to swallow his misogyny and with 154 00:13:24,473 --> 00:13:28,428 two or three deft strokes of the pen changed the rules one last time. 155 00:13:30,209 --> 00:13:34,163 Originally he'd left the crown to the sons of the eldest Grey sister - 156 00:13:35,469 --> 00:13:37,169 the Lady Jane. 157 00:13:37,170 --> 00:13:40,215 "The Lady Jane's heirs male". 158 00:13:40,216 --> 00:13:44,170 A crossing-out and two words inserted over a caret 159 00:13:44,408 --> 00:13:48,363 changed this to "the Lady Janeand herheirs male". 160 00:13:51,567 --> 00:13:55,522 If Edward could make his device stick, the impeccably Protestant 161 00:13:55,721 --> 00:13:59,675 and deeply learned Lady Jane Grey would be his successor as queen. 162 00:14:13,441 --> 00:14:17,395 On the 6th July 1553 Edward died. 163 00:14:18,662 --> 00:14:22,617 On the 10th the 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey was brought to the Tower 164 00:14:24,398 --> 00:14:26,769 to be proclaimed Queen. 165 00:14:26,770 --> 00:14:30,725 The Tower was the traditional location for such a proclamation. 166 00:14:31,043 --> 00:14:34,997 The difference in this case was that Jane Grey would 167 00:14:35,749 --> 00:14:39,703 never leave its precincts again. 168 00:14:46,547 --> 00:14:50,502 By leaving the throne to Lady Jane Grey, Edward had flouted both his 169 00:14:51,531 --> 00:14:55,486 father King Henry VIII's will and the act of succession. 170 00:14:55,842 --> 00:14:58,729 This flagrant disregard for the law 171 00:14:58,730 --> 00:15:02,091 was unacceptable even to many Protestants. 172 00:15:02,092 --> 00:15:06,046 Moreover, Lady Jane Grey's supporters had made a fatal mistake - 173 00:15:07,234 --> 00:15:10,476 they had failed to arrest Edward's Catholic sister Mary, 174 00:15:10,477 --> 00:15:14,432 who was, according to Henry's will, the legitimate heir to the throne. 175 00:15:16,806 --> 00:15:20,760 Instead, forewarned by friends at court, Mary fled out of reach 176 00:15:22,422 --> 00:15:26,376 to the depths of East Anglia where she had vast estates and a loyal following. 177 00:15:27,090 --> 00:15:31,044 On the 10th of July she proclaimed herself rightful Queen of England 178 00:15:32,232 --> 00:15:34,644 and two days later she took up residence 179 00:15:34,645 --> 00:15:38,598 at the Great Castle of Framlingham here, which she made her headquarters 180 00:15:39,232 --> 00:15:42,119 for an armed assault on the throne of England. 181 00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:43,939 Troops flooded in 182 00:15:43,940 --> 00:15:47,894 and Mary inspected her army in front of the castle in true royal style. 183 00:15:54,184 --> 00:15:56,754 But no blow needed to be struck. 184 00:15:56,755 --> 00:15:59,325 Faced with Mary's overwhelming power, 185 00:15:59,326 --> 00:16:02,093 the Grey faction threw in the towel 186 00:16:02,094 --> 00:16:06,049 and Queen Jane was deposed after reigning for less than a fortnight. 187 00:16:06,446 --> 00:16:10,400 It was legality, legitimacy and the sense that she was 188 00:16:10,916 --> 00:16:14,869 Henry VIII's daughter that had won the day for Mary, but Mary herself 189 00:16:15,820 --> 00:16:17,994 didn't see it like that. 190 00:16:17,995 --> 00:16:21,950 She was convinced that her accession against all the odds was a miracle 191 00:16:23,493 --> 00:16:27,170 brought about by God for his own purposes. 192 00:16:27,171 --> 00:16:31,126 It was a sign, and she was now a woman with a mission - to restore England 193 00:16:33,145 --> 00:16:36,506 to the Catholic faith. 194 00:16:36,507 --> 00:16:40,461 But to prevent England ever returning to Protestantism, 195 00:16:41,094 --> 00:16:43,862 Mary must marry and produce an heir. 196 00:16:43,863 --> 00:16:46,315 For otherwise her father's will left 197 00:16:46,316 --> 00:16:50,270 the throne to her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth. 198 00:16:51,418 --> 00:16:55,373 Long ago, Mary had been briefly betrothed to the Emperor Charles V. 199 00:16:56,837 --> 00:17:00,791 Now, Charles offered her his own son and heir, Philip, 200 00:17:01,465 --> 00:17:03,560 who'd been brought up in Spain 201 00:17:03,561 --> 00:17:07,515 and was imbued with that country's Catholicism. 202 00:17:09,376 --> 00:17:13,251 But the idea of a Spanish king ruling in England 203 00:17:13,252 --> 00:17:15,149 was wildly unpopular. 204 00:17:15,150 --> 00:17:18,590 An uprising in Kent, led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, fought 205 00:17:18,591 --> 00:17:22,546 its way to London, and for a while Mary's throne was in real jeopardy. 206 00:17:27,451 --> 00:17:31,406 But the rebellion was finally crushed, and Mary exacted a 207 00:17:31,565 --> 00:17:35,520 terrible revenge, executing all the leaders of the conspiracy, 208 00:17:36,193 --> 00:17:40,147 and the 17-year-old Lady Jane Grey herself, whom hitherto she'd spared. 209 00:17:54,664 --> 00:17:56,839 With the rebellion defeated, 210 00:17:56,840 --> 00:17:59,726 and with Parliament's reluctant acquiescence, 211 00:17:59,727 --> 00:18:03,681 there was now no barrier to Mary's marriage to Philip. 212 00:18:06,016 --> 00:18:09,971 Philip landed at Southampton on 20th July, and five days later 213 00:18:11,831 --> 00:18:15,786 he and Mary were married here at Winchester Cathedral. 214 00:18:16,221 --> 00:18:20,176 The couple processed from the west doors along an elevated walkway to 215 00:18:20,888 --> 00:18:24,843 a high platform at the centre of the knave where the ceremony took place. 216 00:18:26,743 --> 00:18:30,340 It deliberately evoked an older, better world. 217 00:18:30,341 --> 00:18:34,296 Mary used an old-fashioned wedding ring made of a band of plain gold 218 00:18:35,326 --> 00:18:38,331 and she swore the woman's old oath, 219 00:18:38,332 --> 00:18:42,286 to be "bonny and buxom in bed and at board". 220 00:18:42,525 --> 00:18:46,479 Of course, if the couple had children, that older, better Catholic world 221 00:18:49,011 --> 00:18:52,966 would live again. 222 00:18:53,322 --> 00:18:56,763 A few months later, Mary, like her namesake 223 00:18:56,764 --> 00:19:00,718 the blessed virgin, declared that the "babe had stirred in her womb". 224 00:19:02,103 --> 00:19:06,057 The prospect of a Catholic heir greatly strengthened Mary's hand, 225 00:19:06,375 --> 00:19:09,816 and Parliament voted to return the Church of England 226 00:19:09,817 --> 00:19:13,771 to the obedience of the Pope. 227 00:19:13,850 --> 00:19:15,709 The Royal Supremacy, 228 00:19:15,710 --> 00:19:19,664 which Henry VIII had forced on the English people, seemed to be over. 229 00:19:21,366 --> 00:19:25,321 In early April Mary moved to Hampton Court for the birth of the child 230 00:19:26,943 --> 00:19:30,225 that would crown her life and reign, 231 00:19:30,226 --> 00:19:34,181 and guarantee the future of Catholic England. 232 00:19:36,238 --> 00:19:40,192 Mary's confinement, as was customary, began with the ceremony 233 00:19:40,312 --> 00:19:42,842 of the Queen's taking to her chamber, 234 00:19:42,843 --> 00:19:46,798 in which she bade farewell to the male-dominated world of the court 235 00:19:47,352 --> 00:19:48,816 and withdrew instead 236 00:19:48,817 --> 00:19:52,375 into the purely female realm of her birthing chamber. 237 00:19:52,376 --> 00:19:56,330 There etiquette required she should have remained secluded and invisible 238 00:19:57,202 --> 00:20:01,156 until the birth. But Mary couldn't keep her joy to herself. 239 00:20:01,394 --> 00:20:05,072 Instead, on St George's Day, she appeared at a window 240 00:20:05,073 --> 00:20:09,027 to watch her husband Philip lead the celebrations below. 241 00:20:09,424 --> 00:20:12,192 She even turned sideways on 242 00:20:12,193 --> 00:20:16,147 so that her big belly was shown off to the crowds below. 243 00:20:18,086 --> 00:20:20,933 Good Catholics rejoiced with the Queen, as they 244 00:20:20,934 --> 00:20:24,888 did when the serious business of enforcing Catholicism began. 245 00:20:25,641 --> 00:20:27,538 Part of the return to Rome 246 00:20:27,539 --> 00:20:31,494 was the restoration of heresy laws which punished those who denied 247 00:20:31,693 --> 00:20:35,647 the Catholic faith with the horrible death of burning alive. 248 00:20:44,429 --> 00:20:48,383 The burnings began in February 1555. 249 00:20:48,384 --> 00:20:50,243 Over the following three years 250 00:20:50,244 --> 00:20:54,197 more than 300 men and women died in agony at the stake. 251 00:20:55,029 --> 00:20:58,984 Faced with such persecution, many other leading Protestants 252 00:20:59,183 --> 00:21:03,136 fled into exile abroad. 253 00:21:04,601 --> 00:21:08,556 One of the exiles was the protestant cleric John Foxe 254 00:21:08,675 --> 00:21:12,629 who decided to write a history of the persecutions. 255 00:21:12,709 --> 00:21:16,664 Using the trial records, eyewitness accounts and the writings of the 256 00:21:17,298 --> 00:21:21,252 martyrs themselves, he compiled his acts and monuments here. 257 00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:26,474 Soon known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, it became, after the Bible, 258 00:21:27,463 --> 00:21:31,418 the second most read book in English and it damned Mary's reputation 259 00:21:33,198 --> 00:21:37,152 forever as Bloody Mary, especially the gruesome woodcuts. 260 00:22:06,898 --> 00:22:10,853 But Foxe's propaganda would have amounted to very little if it hadn't 261 00:22:11,209 --> 00:22:15,164 quickly become obvious that Mary's condition was a phantom pregnancy. 262 00:22:16,826 --> 00:22:20,741 By early summer, she was a public laughing stock, with stories 263 00:22:20,742 --> 00:22:24,696 circulating that she was pregnant with a lap dog or a monkey. 264 00:22:25,132 --> 00:22:29,086 By August, even Mary herself had abandoned hope. 265 00:22:29,958 --> 00:22:33,913 Moreover, at 39, it seemed unlikely she would ever conceive again. 266 00:22:37,908 --> 00:22:40,913 With her pregnancy exposed as a delusion, 267 00:22:40,914 --> 00:22:43,761 power started to ebb away from the Queen. 268 00:22:43,762 --> 00:22:47,400 Philip, now with no long-term interest in England, 269 00:22:47,401 --> 00:22:51,355 abandoned his wife to return to his Continental possessions. 270 00:22:51,594 --> 00:22:54,995 Still worse, her failure to produce an heir, and with it 271 00:22:54,996 --> 00:22:58,950 the guarantee of a Catholic future, broke Mary's hold on Parliament. 272 00:23:02,431 --> 00:23:06,385 Crucial to the government's plans for the final suppression of Protestantism 273 00:23:07,771 --> 00:23:11,726 was a bill to confiscate the landed estates of the Protestant exiles. 274 00:23:12,834 --> 00:23:15,721 If the bill passed, the economic foundations of 275 00:23:15,722 --> 00:23:18,173 resistance would be destroyed. 276 00:23:18,174 --> 00:23:22,128 The government strained every nerve, but so too did the opposition, 277 00:23:22,446 --> 00:23:26,400 led by Sir Anthony Kingston. With the connivance of the Sergeant at Arms, 278 00:23:27,311 --> 00:23:30,672 the doors of the House were locked from the inside. 279 00:23:30,673 --> 00:23:34,627 As the members milled around, Kingston thundered his protests 280 00:23:35,498 --> 00:23:37,831 and the bill was defeated. 281 00:23:37,832 --> 00:23:41,786 Scenes like these would not be seen again in the Commons until the 17th century. 282 00:23:46,613 --> 00:23:50,567 Despite the loss of the political initiative, Mary grimly persisted 283 00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:53,890 with the persecution of Protestants. 284 00:23:53,891 --> 00:23:57,845 Her most illustrious victim was Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. 285 00:23:58,202 --> 00:24:01,602 But Cranmer was caught on the horns of a dilemma. 286 00:24:01,603 --> 00:24:03,778 In creating the royal supremacy, 287 00:24:03,779 --> 00:24:07,179 he'd argued that monarchs were God's agents on earth, 288 00:24:07,180 --> 00:24:11,135 and that obedience to them was an absolute religious duty. 289 00:24:11,769 --> 00:24:15,723 But what to do when the monarch was of the wrong religion? 290 00:24:15,923 --> 00:24:19,244 Obey the Queen? Or Christ? 291 00:24:19,245 --> 00:24:23,199 At his heresy trial, Cranmer, old, worn out and terrified of the fire, 292 00:24:24,822 --> 00:24:28,777 recanted his Protestantism. 293 00:24:30,082 --> 00:24:33,839 It was a huge propaganda coup for Mary. 294 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:35,975 But Mary wasn't satisfied. 295 00:24:35,976 --> 00:24:39,931 She bore Cranmer a deep grudge for divorcing her mother 296 00:24:40,050 --> 00:24:44,004 and even though church law said that a repentant heretic should 297 00:24:44,163 --> 00:24:47,287 be pardoned, was determined that he would burn. 298 00:24:47,288 --> 00:24:51,045 Cranmer's execution was to take place in Oxford, 299 00:24:51,046 --> 00:24:55,001 preceded by a public repetition of his recantation. 300 00:24:57,967 --> 00:24:59,588 Early on a rainy morning 301 00:24:59,589 --> 00:25:02,753 he was bought to the University Church here. 302 00:25:02,754 --> 00:25:06,708 You can still see where sections of the piers were cut away to build 303 00:25:07,421 --> 00:25:11,178 a high platform to give maximum publicity to what the authorities 304 00:25:11,179 --> 00:25:15,133 were confident would be a repetition of his recantation and confession. 305 00:25:15,925 --> 00:25:19,879 Instead, in an astonishing theatrical coup, Cranmer repudiated 306 00:25:21,621 --> 00:25:25,575 his recantation and as the hubbub rose from the church, managed 307 00:25:25,813 --> 00:25:29,768 to shout out a final denunciation of the Pope as antichrist. 308 00:25:30,718 --> 00:25:34,672 He was pulled down from the scaffold and hurried to the stake. 309 00:25:36,295 --> 00:25:38,826 But Cranmer hadn't finished. 310 00:25:38,827 --> 00:25:42,386 As the flames rose he stuck out his right hand, 311 00:25:42,387 --> 00:25:46,340 which had signed his recantation, into the heart of the fire. 312 00:25:46,698 --> 00:25:50,613 It had sinned so it should first be punished, he said. 313 00:25:50,614 --> 00:25:54,568 It was a magnificent gesture which vindicated Cranmer's integrity, 314 00:25:56,032 --> 00:25:59,987 and saved the good faith of Protestantism. 315 00:26:00,976 --> 00:26:04,931 Mary's vengefulness had turned the propaganda coup 316 00:26:04,972 --> 00:26:08,926 of Cranmer's recantation into a public relations disaster, 317 00:26:09,481 --> 00:26:13,435 which fired her opponents with a new zeal to resist Bloody Mary. 318 00:26:15,097 --> 00:26:18,577 Among them was John Ponet, a Protestant bishop 319 00:26:18,578 --> 00:26:22,533 who'd fled into exile in Strasbourg when the burnings began. 320 00:26:22,572 --> 00:26:24,826 He was an old friend of Cranmer's. 321 00:26:24,827 --> 00:26:26,646 But, unlike Cranmer, 322 00:26:26,647 --> 00:26:30,601 Ponet's experience of Mary's tyranny led him to question the intellectual 323 00:26:31,314 --> 00:26:35,110 foundations of the Supremacy, and reject outright 324 00:26:35,111 --> 00:26:39,066 the idea that the King was ordained by God to rule his church on Earth. 325 00:26:41,163 --> 00:26:45,117 And this is the revolutionary book in which Ponet did it. 326 00:26:45,950 --> 00:26:49,903 Published in 1556, it's called A Shorte Treatise of Politike Power. 327 00:26:52,159 --> 00:26:56,113 Its title page, with the motto taken from Psalm 118, says it all - 328 00:26:58,567 --> 00:27:02,521 "it is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in princes." 329 00:27:03,985 --> 00:27:07,940 This meant that kings, far from being the god-like creatures 330 00:27:08,574 --> 00:27:11,816 of Henry VIII's and Cranmer's imagination, 331 00:27:11,817 --> 00:27:15,772 were human at best and sub-human at their all-too-frequent worst. 332 00:27:17,592 --> 00:27:21,547 And this meant in turn that kings were human creations and had to be 333 00:27:21,667 --> 00:27:25,620 subject to human control. 334 00:27:25,740 --> 00:27:29,694 If, therefore, Ponet went on to argue, a king or queen broke human or divine law 335 00:27:32,623 --> 00:27:36,260 they should be reproved or even deposed. 336 00:27:36,261 --> 00:27:40,216 And if, like Mary, they were a cruel and persecuting idolator 337 00:27:41,324 --> 00:27:45,279 then it was a virtuous act to assassinate them as a tyrant. 338 00:27:47,969 --> 00:27:51,923 By ignoring Henry VIII's call for moderation and resorting instead to 339 00:27:53,230 --> 00:27:57,185 religious extremes, Edward and Mary had provoked conspiracy, rebellion, 340 00:27:58,926 --> 00:28:02,682 and finally, Ponet's head-on challenge to the authority 341 00:28:02,683 --> 00:28:06,638 and legitimacy of kingship itself. 342 00:28:11,108 --> 00:28:15,063 But Mary was soon beyond the reach of Ponet's seditious theorising. 343 00:28:16,567 --> 00:28:20,521 In 1558 she became seriously ill, though she fondly imagined 344 00:28:21,195 --> 00:28:22,815 she was pregnant again. 345 00:28:22,816 --> 00:28:26,771 She even wrote her will, leaving the throne to her unborn Catholic child. 346 00:28:29,422 --> 00:28:33,376 But, six months later, with her health rapidly fading, 347 00:28:34,564 --> 00:28:38,518 even Mary had to face reality, and she added this codicil to her will. 348 00:28:40,892 --> 00:28:44,846 In it, she finally acknowledged that it was likely that she would have 349 00:28:45,639 --> 00:28:49,593 "no issue or heir of her body", and that she would be succeeded instead 350 00:28:50,860 --> 00:28:54,814 "by her heir and successor, by the laws and statutes of this realm". 351 00:28:56,951 --> 00:29:00,906 That, of course, was half-sister Elizabeth, though Mary couldn't even 352 00:29:02,686 --> 00:29:06,640 bring herself to write her name. 353 00:29:09,054 --> 00:29:13,009 Mary, seeing visions to the last of heavenly children, died on the night 354 00:29:14,078 --> 00:29:18,032 of 16th November 1558. She was 42. 355 00:29:21,592 --> 00:29:25,033 Two of Henry's three children had imperilled by their 356 00:29:25,034 --> 00:29:28,988 contrasting religious extremism, both the Supremacy and the crown. 357 00:29:30,849 --> 00:29:34,803 Would his last surviving heir, Elizabeth, do any better? 358 00:29:43,387 --> 00:29:46,194 After years of danger and uncertainty, 359 00:29:46,195 --> 00:29:48,449 Henry VIII's daughter Elizabeth 360 00:29:48,449 --> 00:29:52,404 was on the verge of becoming Queen of England. 361 00:29:52,762 --> 00:29:55,964 This is a portrait of Elizabeth aged 14, 362 00:29:55,965 --> 00:29:59,642 and painted in the last weeks of her father's life. 363 00:29:59,643 --> 00:30:03,598 It shows her as the very model of a religious, learned princess. 364 00:30:04,706 --> 00:30:06,960 But the reality of Elizabeth's life 365 00:30:06,961 --> 00:30:10,915 under the reigns of her brother and sister was to be very different 366 00:30:11,351 --> 00:30:15,187 from the studious calm suggested by this picture, 367 00:30:15,188 --> 00:30:19,142 especially under her sister Mary. 368 00:30:19,776 --> 00:30:21,911 During Mary's reign, 369 00:30:21,912 --> 00:30:25,036 Elizabeth occupied the impossible position 370 00:30:25,037 --> 00:30:28,992 which she would later call "second person". 371 00:30:29,428 --> 00:30:33,382 By their father's will, she was Mary's heir presumptive. 372 00:30:33,937 --> 00:30:37,693 She was also, as a covert Protestant, 373 00:30:37,694 --> 00:30:40,857 guaranteed to undo everything that Mary held dear. 374 00:30:40,858 --> 00:30:44,813 This made her both the focus of every conspiracy against Mary, 375 00:30:45,248 --> 00:30:49,006 and the target of her sister's fear and rage. 376 00:30:49,007 --> 00:30:52,961 Mary had even sent her to the Tower on charges of treason. 377 00:30:54,267 --> 00:30:58,221 Such experiences left Elizabeth with a set of indelible memories, 378 00:30:58,262 --> 00:31:00,911 which meant she took 379 00:31:00,912 --> 00:31:04,866 a very different view of policy from her brother and her sister. 380 00:31:08,071 --> 00:31:12,025 News of Mary's death was brought to Elizabeth here at Hatfield. 381 00:31:13,372 --> 00:31:17,326 The story goes that she fell on her knees exclaiming with the Psalmist, 382 00:31:18,276 --> 00:31:22,230 "This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes". 383 00:31:24,091 --> 00:31:27,214 Actually, Elizabeth had been preparing herself 384 00:31:27,215 --> 00:31:28,994 for this moment for weeks. 385 00:31:28,995 --> 00:31:32,237 And her right-hand man in her preparations for power 386 00:31:32,238 --> 00:31:33,899 was Sir William Cecil. 387 00:31:33,900 --> 00:31:37,854 It was to be the beginning of a life-long partnership. 388 00:31:38,093 --> 00:31:42,047 Cecil, born the son of a Tudor courtier 389 00:31:42,285 --> 00:31:44,499 some 13 years before Elizabeth, 390 00:31:44,500 --> 00:31:48,455 had shared many of her experiences and, as a Protestant, 391 00:31:49,207 --> 00:31:51,342 suffered the same fears under Mary 392 00:31:51,343 --> 00:31:55,298 when he too had saved his skin by conforming to Catholicism. 393 00:31:55,299 --> 00:31:58,106 But there was a difference. 394 00:31:58,107 --> 00:32:02,061 Cecil, unlike Elizabeth, drew the harsh lesson of never again. 395 00:32:03,724 --> 00:32:07,124 Never again must there be a Catholic monarch or heir 396 00:32:07,125 --> 00:32:09,457 and if by mischance, one appeared, 397 00:32:09,458 --> 00:32:12,819 then people, Council and Parliament together 398 00:32:12,820 --> 00:32:14,995 could and should remove them. 399 00:32:14,996 --> 00:32:17,249 These were Ponet's arguments, 400 00:32:17,250 --> 00:32:20,335 though Cecil was a moderate in comparison. 401 00:32:20,336 --> 00:32:24,132 Nevertheless, it would make for an interesting relationship 402 00:32:24,133 --> 00:32:28,008 between Cecil and his imperious, headstrong young Queen, 403 00:32:28,009 --> 00:32:31,964 with her high views of royal power and her moderate line in religion. 404 00:32:33,784 --> 00:32:37,739 And indeed, establishing a new religious settlement 405 00:32:37,858 --> 00:32:40,468 was Elizabeth's first task as Queen. 406 00:32:40,469 --> 00:32:41,931 Mary's Parliament 407 00:32:41,932 --> 00:32:45,293 had made Catholicism once more the religion of England 408 00:32:45,294 --> 00:32:48,379 and only another parliament could change it. 409 00:32:48,380 --> 00:32:51,741 But to what? 410 00:32:51,742 --> 00:32:55,695 Elizabeth's first parliament met in January 1559. 411 00:32:56,843 --> 00:33:00,363 It was opened with a speech by the acting Lord Chancellor. 412 00:33:00,364 --> 00:33:04,319 He spoke in Elizabeth's name but his phraseology deliberately 413 00:33:04,557 --> 00:33:08,511 invoked her father's great speech on religion to the parliament of 1545. 414 00:33:10,411 --> 00:33:14,365 Like her father, Elizabeth wanted the middle way in religion, 415 00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,874 partly because she believed in it, and partly because she too saw it 416 00:33:19,191 --> 00:33:21,959 as the best defence of the Royal Supremacy 417 00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:25,915 which she was determined to revive as her God-given right. 418 00:33:26,707 --> 00:33:30,661 But Elizabeth's plans for a moderate religious settlement 419 00:33:30,820 --> 00:33:34,577 came under fire from both extremes, from Catholics 420 00:33:34,578 --> 00:33:38,533 in the Lords and Protestants in the Commons and Council. 421 00:33:39,205 --> 00:33:43,160 Finally, to overcome her Catholic peers and bishops, 422 00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:45,414 Elizabeth had to join forces 423 00:33:45,415 --> 00:33:48,816 with her Protestant Commons and Councillors. 424 00:33:48,817 --> 00:33:52,258 She duly got the settlement and the Supremacy, though 425 00:33:52,259 --> 00:33:56,213 with the narrowest of majorities in the Lords of only three votes. 426 00:33:57,044 --> 00:34:00,999 The price however was her acceptance of Cranmer's second, 427 00:34:01,910 --> 00:34:05,547 much more radically Protestant prayer book of 1552. 428 00:34:05,548 --> 00:34:08,711 In the infighting between the religious extremes, 429 00:34:08,712 --> 00:34:12,667 it seemed that Elizabeth's hoped for moderate settlement had been lost. 430 00:34:14,092 --> 00:34:18,047 The outcome of the Parliament had been a triumph for Cecil. 431 00:34:18,443 --> 00:34:21,883 He had outmanoeuvred and strong-armed the Catholics 432 00:34:21,884 --> 00:34:23,861 to restore the Royal Supremacy, 433 00:34:23,862 --> 00:34:27,816 and he had, so it seemed, outmanoeuvred Elizabeth as well, 434 00:34:28,094 --> 00:34:32,049 to bring back the extreme Protestantism of her brother Edward. 435 00:34:34,700 --> 00:34:37,586 Elizabeth was equal to the challenge. 436 00:34:37,587 --> 00:34:40,671 She insisted, against fierce opposition, 437 00:34:40,672 --> 00:34:44,626 on inserting the so-called Ornaments Rubric into the legislation. 438 00:34:45,419 --> 00:34:48,305 This empowered her, on her sole authority 439 00:34:48,306 --> 00:34:52,260 as Supreme Governor of the Church, to retain traditional ceremonies, 440 00:34:52,973 --> 00:34:56,928 like making the sign of the cross in baptism, and to require the clergy 441 00:34:57,127 --> 00:35:01,081 to wear traditional vestments, like the surplice and the cope. 442 00:35:01,912 --> 00:35:05,392 The result was a Church that was Protestant in doctrine, 443 00:35:05,393 --> 00:35:09,308 Catholic in appearance, and would, Elizabeth hoped, 444 00:35:09,309 --> 00:35:13,264 satisfy all but a handful of extremists on both sides. 445 00:35:14,293 --> 00:35:18,247 And Elizabeth's hopes would almost certainly have been fulfilled 446 00:35:18,683 --> 00:35:21,451 but for the issue of the succession. 447 00:35:21,452 --> 00:35:25,406 It was the succession which had driven the giddy switchback from 448 00:35:25,447 --> 00:35:29,402 Catholicism to Protestantism, and it had the potential to do it again. 449 00:35:30,312 --> 00:35:33,159 It was clear to Cecil that the best way 450 00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:37,114 to secure the succession was for the Queen to marry and produce an heir. 451 00:35:37,431 --> 00:35:39,567 But Elizabeth was less sure. 452 00:35:39,568 --> 00:35:42,652 She'd seen how her sister's choice of a husband 453 00:35:42,653 --> 00:35:44,867 had sparked dissent and rebellion. 454 00:35:44,868 --> 00:35:47,517 Elizabeth determined that England would 455 00:35:47,518 --> 00:35:50,721 "have one mistress and no master". 456 00:35:50,722 --> 00:35:54,676 But if Elizabeth could not or would not marry, who would succeed her? 457 00:35:55,982 --> 00:35:59,343 Her father's will here had an answer for that too, 458 00:35:59,344 --> 00:36:01,914 for if Elizabeth died childless, 459 00:36:01,915 --> 00:36:05,869 this clause here prescribed that she should be succeeded 460 00:36:06,069 --> 00:36:10,023 by the descendants of her aunt Mary, Henry's younger sister. 461 00:36:11,447 --> 00:36:15,402 But they were the Greys. 462 00:36:16,510 --> 00:36:18,724 Elizabeth hated the Grey family 463 00:36:18,725 --> 00:36:22,680 because they had helped put Jane Grey on the throne. 464 00:36:22,720 --> 00:36:26,042 Then, Elizabeth had been publicly branded a bastard 465 00:36:26,043 --> 00:36:27,981 and barred from the succession. 466 00:36:27,982 --> 00:36:31,936 In revenge, Elizabeth would never allow the throne to pass to a Grey. 467 00:36:34,547 --> 00:36:38,462 But what to do about her father's will here? 468 00:36:38,463 --> 00:36:42,418 Her brother and her sister, to whom its terms were equally unacceptable 469 00:36:43,012 --> 00:36:46,333 had challenged it head-on and failed. 470 00:36:46,334 --> 00:36:48,707 Elizabeth was subtler. 471 00:36:48,708 --> 00:36:52,661 The will was given one last public outing in the second parliament of 472 00:36:52,900 --> 00:36:56,855 the reign and then it was returned to the safe-deposit of the treasury 473 00:36:57,765 --> 00:37:01,719 and put as this marginal note records, in an iron chest. 474 00:37:02,749 --> 00:37:06,347 And the key to the chest in effect was thrown away. 475 00:37:06,348 --> 00:37:10,026 It was a case of out of sight, out of mind. 476 00:37:10,026 --> 00:37:12,439 With the lightest of touches, 477 00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:16,354 Elizabeth had nudged her father's will into oblivion. 478 00:37:16,355 --> 00:37:20,310 This left as her most obvious heir her cousin Mary, the granddaughter 479 00:37:20,627 --> 00:37:24,423 of Henry's eldest sister Margaret. 480 00:37:24,424 --> 00:37:28,378 Mary was Queen Consort of France and Queen of Scots in her own right. 481 00:37:29,645 --> 00:37:33,600 She was also a Catholic. 482 00:37:38,466 --> 00:37:42,420 In August 1561, after the death of her husband the French King, 483 00:37:43,846 --> 00:37:47,800 Mary returned to Scotland as Queen. 484 00:37:48,157 --> 00:37:52,111 Mary was far more interested in her claim to the English throne, 485 00:37:52,388 --> 00:37:55,789 and in September, she sent her personal emissary, 486 00:37:55,790 --> 00:37:59,745 Sir William Maitland, to negotiate directly with Elizabeth. 487 00:38:05,046 --> 00:38:09,000 Elizabeth was all graciousness in her private, face to face interviews with Maitland. 488 00:38:11,295 --> 00:38:14,973 She acknowledged that Mary was of the blood royal of England, 489 00:38:14,974 --> 00:38:18,375 was her cousin and her nearest living kinswoman, 490 00:38:18,376 --> 00:38:21,183 and that as such, she loved her dearly. 491 00:38:21,184 --> 00:38:25,139 She also, under Maitland's subtle prodding, went further. 492 00:38:26,089 --> 00:38:29,726 She knew, she said, no-one with a better claim 493 00:38:29,727 --> 00:38:33,682 to be her successor than Mary, nor any that she preferred to her. 494 00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:37,875 She even swore that she would do nothing to impede Mary's claim. 495 00:38:39,023 --> 00:38:42,977 But the final step of declaring Mary her heir, 496 00:38:44,164 --> 00:38:48,119 she told a crestfallen Maitland, she would never, ever take. 497 00:38:50,849 --> 00:38:54,803 But Elizabeth had already gone far too far for Cecil. 498 00:38:55,318 --> 00:38:58,561 He'd already lived through the reign of one Mary 499 00:38:58,562 --> 00:39:02,517 and her attempt to re-Catholicise England, 500 00:39:02,556 --> 00:39:06,511 and he was determined never to suffer another one. 501 00:39:07,185 --> 00:39:11,139 Matters came to a head in the Parliament of 1566, 502 00:39:11,299 --> 00:39:14,936 which attempted to force Elizabeth to name a successor, 503 00:39:14,937 --> 00:39:18,891 and by implication, to exclude the claim of Mary Queen of Scots. 504 00:39:19,170 --> 00:39:22,887 Furious, Elizabeth summoned 30 members of each House 505 00:39:22,888 --> 00:39:24,786 to her palace at Whitehall, 506 00:39:24,787 --> 00:39:27,949 where she delivered an extraordinary speech. 507 00:39:27,950 --> 00:39:31,905 Elizabeth was at her fiery, brilliant best. 508 00:39:32,222 --> 00:39:34,674 She would never name an heir, she said, 509 00:39:34,675 --> 00:39:37,679 because they would become "second person", 510 00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,092 and she, better than anyone else, 511 00:39:40,093 --> 00:39:44,048 she continued, knew the danger of that position, since, 512 00:39:44,128 --> 00:39:48,082 as Mary's legally appointed heir, she'd been "second person" herself. 513 00:39:49,310 --> 00:39:53,066 As such, her own life had been in constant danger and she'd been 514 00:39:53,067 --> 00:39:56,111 the focus of plots and treason. 515 00:39:56,112 --> 00:39:59,553 At this point, Elizabeth became sharply personal. 516 00:39:59,554 --> 00:40:03,429 Many of the MPs, she said, turning to the Commons delegation, 517 00:40:03,430 --> 00:40:05,447 had been amongst the plotters, 518 00:40:05,448 --> 00:40:09,402 and only her own honour prevented her from naming names. 519 00:40:09,442 --> 00:40:13,159 Similarly, turning now to the Lords, many of the bishops, 520 00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,837 under Jane Grey, had preached treasonably, 521 00:40:16,838 --> 00:40:19,963 that she, Elizabeth, was a bastard. 522 00:40:19,964 --> 00:40:23,325 "Well, I wish not for the death of any man", she said, 523 00:40:23,326 --> 00:40:26,251 not altogether convincingly. 524 00:40:26,252 --> 00:40:29,653 No head can have felt too secure on its shoulders 525 00:40:29,654 --> 00:40:33,608 by the time that the Queen had finished. 526 00:40:35,904 --> 00:40:39,344 But the issue of the succession wouldn't go away, 527 00:40:39,345 --> 00:40:42,903 and it was brought into sharp focus when a rebellion 528 00:40:42,904 --> 00:40:46,859 brought about by disgust at her scandalous personal life 529 00:40:46,978 --> 00:40:50,933 forced Mary to flee Scotland and seek Elizabeth's protection. 530 00:40:52,358 --> 00:40:56,312 The presence of Mary Queen of Scots in England would force Elizabeth 531 00:40:57,420 --> 00:41:01,375 into the very actions she'd tried so hard to avoid. 532 00:41:11,502 --> 00:41:13,993 Mary Queen of Scots' flight to England 533 00:41:13,994 --> 00:41:15,931 was a disaster for Elizabeth. 534 00:41:15,932 --> 00:41:19,056 In Scotland, Mary, despite her Catholicism, 535 00:41:19,057 --> 00:41:21,231 had been lukewarm about religion. 536 00:41:21,232 --> 00:41:24,475 She'd lived with a Protestant government, and even taken 537 00:41:24,476 --> 00:41:26,374 a Protestant as her third husband. 538 00:41:26,374 --> 00:41:28,390 But in England it was different. 539 00:41:28,391 --> 00:41:31,278 Here Mary played up her Catholicism, 540 00:41:31,279 --> 00:41:35,233 and Catholics in turn identified with her. 541 00:41:35,630 --> 00:41:38,635 The issue for both Mary and the English Catholics 542 00:41:38,636 --> 00:41:40,692 was the succession. 543 00:41:40,693 --> 00:41:44,647 Mary was Elizabeth's obvious heir, but Elizabeth steadfastly refused 544 00:41:46,230 --> 00:41:48,286 to recognise her as such. 545 00:41:48,287 --> 00:41:50,303 By bidding for Catholic support, 546 00:41:50,304 --> 00:41:53,269 Mary was hoping to force Elizabeth's hand, 547 00:41:53,270 --> 00:41:57,225 and, in turn, the prospect of an heir of their own faith 548 00:41:58,136 --> 00:41:59,717 gave English Catholics, 549 00:41:59,718 --> 00:42:03,237 who'd almost lost hope, stomach for the fight once more. 550 00:42:03,238 --> 00:42:07,192 The spectre, which Elizabeth had striven so hard to lay, 551 00:42:07,312 --> 00:42:11,266 of a second person who differed in religion from the monarch, 552 00:42:12,059 --> 00:42:16,012 was about to rise once more. 553 00:42:20,523 --> 00:42:24,477 As Elizabeth had foreseen, the plots soon began. 554 00:42:24,597 --> 00:42:27,879 Catholics saw Mary as a means back to power, 555 00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:31,360 and used her as a focus for rebellion. 556 00:42:31,361 --> 00:42:35,315 Despite her precarious position, Mary was naive enough to allow 557 00:42:36,146 --> 00:42:39,626 herself to be implicated in several of these plots. 558 00:42:39,627 --> 00:42:43,582 But Elizabeth refused to take action against Mary. 559 00:42:43,899 --> 00:42:47,853 Her instinct was to try to defuse the conflict, and above all 560 00:42:48,765 --> 00:42:52,442 she didn't want Mary to become a martyr. 561 00:42:52,443 --> 00:42:56,318 But Elizabeth's hopes of avoiding conflict were dashed, 562 00:42:56,319 --> 00:43:00,273 when her middle way came under attack from both extremes. 563 00:43:00,868 --> 00:43:04,703 First to move against her was Rome. 564 00:43:04,704 --> 00:43:08,659 This is the Papal edict or bull, issued by the Pope in 1570, 565 00:43:11,192 --> 00:43:15,145 known from its opening words as Regnans In Excelsis, 566 00:43:15,305 --> 00:43:17,005 "reigning on high", 567 00:43:17,006 --> 00:43:20,960 it sets out the most extreme version of the Papal claim to rule 568 00:43:22,108 --> 00:43:25,430 "all people and all kingdoms". 569 00:43:25,431 --> 00:43:29,385 Then, for her defiance of this claim, it condemns Elizabeth, 570 00:43:29,742 --> 00:43:32,273 deposes and excommunicates her, 571 00:43:32,274 --> 00:43:36,228 and absolves all her subjects from their oath of allegiance. 572 00:43:36,664 --> 00:43:39,352 The Bull was the Catholic version 573 00:43:39,353 --> 00:43:42,952 of the arguments of the Protestant Ponet, 574 00:43:42,953 --> 00:43:46,907 and, as with Ponet, its logical outcome was tyrannicide - 575 00:43:48,491 --> 00:43:52,445 the assassination or murder of the errant ruler. 576 00:43:54,582 --> 00:43:58,259 The Pope had, in effect, declared war on Elizabeth 577 00:43:58,260 --> 00:44:00,712 by calling for her murder. 578 00:44:00,713 --> 00:44:02,570 But two could play at that game, 579 00:44:02,571 --> 00:44:06,328 and Elizabeth's council responded in kind. 580 00:44:06,329 --> 00:44:09,373 Violent times breed violent measures 581 00:44:09,374 --> 00:44:13,329 and few had been more violent than this bond of association here. 582 00:44:14,556 --> 00:44:18,511 Drawn up by the privy council, it's a kind of licensed lynch law. 583 00:44:19,461 --> 00:44:21,595 If Elizabeth were to be assassinated 584 00:44:21,596 --> 00:44:23,653 in favour of any possible claimant 585 00:44:23,654 --> 00:44:27,607 to the throne, then those who joined the bond undertook 586 00:44:27,727 --> 00:44:31,682 to band together to "prosecute such person or persons to the death" 587 00:44:32,949 --> 00:44:36,903 and "to take the uttermost revenge on them by any possible means." 588 00:44:39,198 --> 00:44:43,153 The Protestant nobility and gentry flocked to subscribe to the bond 589 00:44:43,510 --> 00:44:47,464 in their hundreds, as these masses of signed and sealed copies show. 590 00:44:48,374 --> 00:44:51,538 Mary wasn't mentioned by name in the bond 591 00:44:51,539 --> 00:44:54,385 but everybody knew she was the target. 592 00:44:54,386 --> 00:44:58,341 The bond was subsequently legalised by an act of Parliament, 593 00:44:58,738 --> 00:45:02,692 which also set up a tribunal to determine her guilt or innocence. 594 00:45:03,919 --> 00:45:05,896 But Cecil had wanted to go 595 00:45:05,897 --> 00:45:09,851 much, much further and establish a great council to rule England 596 00:45:10,801 --> 00:45:14,123 in the interregnum that would follow Elizabeth's murder. 597 00:45:14,124 --> 00:45:18,078 The great council would exercise all the royal powers and, 598 00:45:18,831 --> 00:45:22,785 together with a recalled parliament, would choose the next monarch. 599 00:45:23,419 --> 00:45:27,373 This was Ponet translated into a parliamentary statute 600 00:45:28,166 --> 00:45:30,933 and Elizabeth was having none of it. 601 00:45:30,934 --> 00:45:34,889 For Elizabeth saw the bond as being as offensive as 602 00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:37,420 Regnans In Excelsis, 603 00:45:37,421 --> 00:45:40,585 since it too set religion above the crown, 604 00:45:40,586 --> 00:45:44,539 and permitted subjects to judge a sovereign. 605 00:45:44,818 --> 00:45:47,981 But not even Elizabeth could protect Mary 606 00:45:47,982 --> 00:45:51,501 from her own folly or Cecil's vendetta. 607 00:45:51,502 --> 00:45:54,349 In 1586, Mary was lured into 608 00:45:54,350 --> 00:45:58,305 giving her explicit endorsement to a plot to assassinate Elizabeth. 609 00:45:59,255 --> 00:46:02,616 Faced with incontrovertible evidence of her guilt, 610 00:46:02,617 --> 00:46:06,571 Elizabeth was forced to agree to her trial and condemnation. 611 00:46:07,878 --> 00:46:10,210 She even signed the death warrant. 612 00:46:10,211 --> 00:46:13,889 But gave instructions that the execution wasn't to be carried out 613 00:46:13,890 --> 00:46:16,697 without her further command. 614 00:46:16,698 --> 00:46:20,653 But for once, Cecil didn't obey his Queen. 615 00:46:21,603 --> 00:46:25,557 Instead, a secret meeting of the Council was convened 616 00:46:25,874 --> 00:46:28,128 in his private rooms at Court, 617 00:46:28,129 --> 00:46:30,501 and, acting on their own authority, 618 00:46:30,502 --> 00:46:33,230 and in defiance of the Queen's express commands, 619 00:46:33,231 --> 00:46:37,027 the councillors despatched the death warrant to Mary's prison 620 00:46:37,028 --> 00:46:39,242 at Fotheringhay Castle. 621 00:46:39,243 --> 00:46:43,198 There, in the Great Hall, Mary was publicly beheaded. 622 00:46:43,871 --> 00:46:47,193 She died magnificently, clutching the crucifix 623 00:46:47,194 --> 00:46:51,148 and wearing a scarlet petticoat as a martyr to her Catholic faith. 624 00:46:54,156 --> 00:46:58,110 But she also, Queen Regnant though she was, had been publicly executed 625 00:46:59,376 --> 00:47:02,183 like any other common criminal. 626 00:47:02,184 --> 00:47:06,139 The divinity that doth hedge a King, which Elizabeth had fought so hard 627 00:47:06,535 --> 00:47:10,490 to preserve, had evaporated, never fully to return. 628 00:47:11,558 --> 00:47:15,157 The execution of Mary was a watershed. 629 00:47:15,158 --> 00:47:19,113 Henry VIII and his three children had each sought to re-shape 630 00:47:19,628 --> 00:47:21,486 the religion of the nation 631 00:47:21,487 --> 00:47:24,848 according to their own personal preferences. 632 00:47:24,849 --> 00:47:28,803 But as a fierce, nationalistic Protestantism took hold in England, 633 00:47:29,754 --> 00:47:33,036 it was becoming clear that a monarch or an heir 634 00:47:33,037 --> 00:47:34,895 who stepped too far out of line 635 00:47:34,896 --> 00:47:37,781 with the religious prejudices of the nation, 636 00:47:37,782 --> 00:47:40,393 would do so at their peril. 637 00:47:40,394 --> 00:47:44,348 The dangerous liaison between monarchy and religion 638 00:47:44,389 --> 00:47:48,342 had claimed its first victim in Mary Queen of Scots. 639 00:47:48,581 --> 00:47:52,535 She would not be the last.