← Dan Snow's History Hit
Dan Snow's History Hit
Mary, Queen of Scots
00:42:12
The many twists and turns of Mary's tumultuous life.
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- [00:01]
Dan Snow
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Kate Williams
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Kate Williams
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- [00:45]
Kate Williams
Okay.
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- [02:01]
Dan Snow
Hi everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. She was Queen of Scotland. She was Queen of France. She arguably had a better claim to be Queen of England than her cousin Elizabeth. I'm talking, of course, about Mary Stuart. Mary, Queen of Scots, a woman raised to the highest pinnacle by fate and also thrust down to the deepest depths those closest to her brothers, lovers, husbands, cousins, abandoned her, fought against her, assaulted her, and would eventually kill her. She sat on the throne of France. She led armies, she escaped as a desperate fugitive, and she spent 19 years in English prison. Who was Mary? Why did so many people seek to have power over her. And in the end, why was she such an existential threat to Tudor England that they precipitated a war against Spain, the greatest superpower on earth, by executing her? All your answers here with Kate Williams, one of my favourite contributors. They're very brilliant. Historian, author and broadcaster. Professor of public engagement at the University of Reading, an absolute legend. Biographer of Mary Queen of Scotch. She wrote a book in 2019 called Rival Queens. She is going to take us on a whistle stop tour of the life and times of Mary Queen of Scots. Enjoy.
- [03:33]
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- [03:35]
Kate Williams
God save the King. No black white unity till there is first some black unity. Never to go to war with one another again.
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- [03:44]
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- [03:49]
Dan Snow
Hello, Kate Williams, welcome back to the podcast.
- [03:52]
Kate Williams
Hi, Dan, thrilled to be here. Great to see you.
- [03:56]
Dan Snow
It's good to see you too. Right, let's talk about Mary Queen of Scots. Well, she was literally the Queen of Scots. She was queen when she was born.
- [04:02]
Kate Williams
That's so true. Mary Queen of Scots was queen at six days old. We have had younger monarchs, monarchs in utero, but Mary was six days after her birth, she was Queen of Scotland and. And Mary started out with everything she had power, riches. She was a queen from a baby. And she had French royal blood, Scottish royal blood, English royal blood, all these incredible gifts. And Mary became Queen of Scots so young because her father, James V died. He'd been terribly beaten by the English at the Battle of Solway Morse. This was a time really when the English are non stop harassing the Scots, non stop fighting the Scots. And James V was beaten at the Battle of Solemay, fell very ill afterwards. And I'm afraid to say that during the 16th century, it wasn't quite like now. We don't always say, just a healthy baby. That's all I want, a healthy baby. They wanted a boy. And James was ill. And then when he was told he had a baby daughter, two earlier sons had died, he was so devastated that I think I have to say, it pushed him over the edge. And that was the end of the King, apparently. Although recorded by James Enemy. He said, cam with a lass and will gang with a lass. He was talking about the House of Stuart. He was saying it began in the 14th century with Marjorie Bruce and it will end with Alas, which was his daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. That was his prediction that the House of Stuart would be ended by Mary Queen of Scots. His fear was that with a queen with a daughter, he was seen as so weak that The English would just invade in a flash. So she. She was a disaster for him and he died.
- [05:49]
Dan Snow
Well, he was wrong. It didn't end with Mary. In fact, it ended with. Hang on, it ended with Anne. So he was right. Anne was the final Stuart. So there you go.
- [05:57]
Kate Williams
Isn't it fascinating that he was right in a way? It didn't end with Mary, whose blood, of course, courses through all the monarchs, but ended with Anne, who was also a lass. And it's interesting. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself, but in Mary Queen of Scots, fantastic, beautiful bling tomb, which we'll talk about in Westminster Abbey, There are other minor royals buried in and around there, and some of them are Anne's children who died. And so the Stuarts that were hoped to continue the line were buried with Mary. That's, I think, a really fascinating point, but yes. So King James was heartbroken when he heard he had a daughter and died. And so Mary is now queen and at six days old, what an amazing position, but also what a vulnerable position.
- [06:41]
Dan Snow
Right. Because although we've. Apologies for the spoiler, everyone there, Mary does end up dead. She is vulnerable now because of her age and her sex. And everyone wants to marry Mary. She's a huge prize.
- [06:54]
Kate Williams
Well, yes, that's really fascinating because, of course, James V feared that Henry was going to invade. Henry VIII was going to come storming in. It was going to be a washout, a catastrophe. But having a daughter put Henry VIII into a mind of a different plan, which was marrying the little Mary to his son Edward, the future Edward vi, and by that way, creating a unity through marriage. So what you see now is Henry withdraws to a degree and starts to say, okay, I'll stop attacking Scotland all the time if you just marry Mary to my son, so give her over. And of course, that would be expected, that Mary would go to the English court. Very early on, she would brought up the English court as a future wife, Edward vi, and it would mean the submission of Scotland to England. In the same way that her wife was seen as submissive to her husband, Scotland would be submissive to England through marriage. So that was Henry's strategy. So he actually did draw back and that gives Mary of Guise, Mary's mother. So Mary Queen of Scots mother, is Mary of Guise. It's a big question. What is she going to do? Is she going to marry Mary Queen of Scots to Edward VI and thereby create this submission of Scotland to English desires, or is she going to do something else?
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Dan Snow
So it's so funny that Mary's children would end up on the throne of England, but via a different route. What does Mary, her mother, decide to do?
- [08:23]
Kate Williams
Well, big question, actually, I should say, Dan, before I get to go too much further, just to the listeners that basically everyone in this entire story is called James and Mary. Everyone's called James or Mary. And so if ever anyone's thinking, who is she talking about now? It's just someone called James or Mary, everyone. So, yes, we do have the odd Edward in there or Henry on the English side, but in Scotland it's all James and Mary. So we have Mary Queen of Scots and her mother is also called Mary as well. Mary of Guise, who was King James V's second wife. And she was from a very powerful family in France, the Guises, I think we could say they were the sort of 16th century Kardashians, if the Kardashians had had their eye set on political power as opposed to influencing. So they were very powerful. She was a Guise and she'd actually had the option to marry Henry viii. She'd been a young widow and prize on the marriage market. You can't stay a widow for long and she'd have the option of two men. She'd had the option of James V of Scotland and Henry viii. And she was heard to say that she didn't really think she had the right type of neck to marry Henry viii. I've seen pictures, it's very long. I don't know what she was saying. The executioner could have got a right old purchase on that. So she thought she hadn't got the right kind of neck to marry Henry viii. So she married into the Scottish royal family and Scotland was seen as tough for the French. The French thought it was a very bad climate and French people died there. But she was a determined woman and she wanted to keep power for her daughter and she didn't want her to marry into the English royal family to marry Edward VI and for Scotland and Mary to be subservient. So she sort of played Henry VIII along for a while. Along for a while. She sort of said, I don't really know, I'm not really sure. And then she turned tail and said, no, I'm actually going to marry Mary to the future king, France. So this little baby has two suitors for her hand, all of them children. It's future king of England, Edward vi. And there's a future king of France, the Dauphin Francis. So Mary decides to marry Mary Queen of Scots to the future dauphin and that means Mary Queen of Scots. Will be sent abroad to Paris to be brought up in the French court at the age of five. And she goes along to the French court at the age of five without her mother, but with her half brother, who was called James, and her four ladies in waiting. I'm sure the listeners can guess the names of those four ladies in waiting of Mary Queen of Scots. They were called Mary, Mary, Mary and Mary. So, as I said, everyone's called James and Mary in the entire story. And we really should change our names, Dan, to James and Mary for the duration of this podcast. I think that would be great. So Mary goes over to marriage into the French royal family. And this is a real question. I subtitled my book the Betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots. And we can see many betrayals through her life, can't we? The husbands, the English Cecil around Elizabeth I. But is this a betrayal? Because one, it keeps Mary Queen of Scots safe. She isn't going to be kidnapped by Henry VIII to seize for his son. It also means that the French king sends a lot of ships, a big army to Scotland because Henry VIII is invading and Mary of Guise can't fight it back on her own. So French king sends big reinforcements and Henry draws back because he's scared of the French king. So Mary of Guise protects her country, she protects her daughter. But it does mean that Mary Queen of Scots is sent overseas at a very young age and she's treated like a marriage pawn, a future queen consort, not a future queen regnant. And, and it makes Scotland subservient to France. But most of all, I think when Mary comes back to be queen much later, everyone always associates her with France and they attack her for being associated with France. Because we know that one great thing that Elizabeth I had, she had one of the worst possible childhoods you could imagine. Childhood and adolescence, you know, constantly threatened with having a, having a head cut off by a half sister and half brother and sexually harassed. But she stayed in England and was always associated with England. And that both gave her the power of, say, calling herself an English queen, but also meant that she could kind of create a network of advisors around her as her sister Mary I grew weaker and closer to death. And Mary Queen of Scots was associated with France and she was way out of the Scottish court and the Scottish networks of power and also the English networks of power. So Mary of Guise had to marry Mary Queen of Scots to someone. There was no way they could have stayed the little country being besieged by Scotland, and they would have been besieged by France if they turned them down. So she couldn't have stayed single. But I think she was in an impossible position and she chose France.
- [13:09]
Dan Snow
It's a tough neighborhood. She marries, spends 10 years in France, becomes quite French. She marries Francis the dauphin, the prince, in 1558 and then she becomes his queen when he exceeds the throne in 1559. So she's queen of Scotland and France, big deal.
- [13:25]
Kate Williams
She's Queen of Scotland, she's Queen of France. They have this marvellous wedding, this great moment of a wedding, huge wedding. Although there's a lot of symbolism in the wedding that Scotland is subservient to France, but it's all, you know, marvellous symbolism. Then his father, the king, dies in a jousting accident. So obviously, Dan, you and I were always trying to build a time machine. That's our ultimate dream, isn't it? One day we'll build one. Maybe in a few years we'll actually build a time machine and then we can all get into it for history, hit and travel wherever we want to go and make podcasts in all these places. So this is our mission as historians, to build a time machine. But if this time machine does work and people generally get into it, I'm just advising people who go back to this period on two things. Don't let a doctor come near you, don't just eat some nettles or something, number one, and number two, don't do any jousting because the King of France dies in a fatal jousting accident. It's very dangerous. So I wouldn't do jousting because I'm hopeless of that kind of thing. But I could see you being quite into jousting, Dan, and I'm going to forbid you from doing it when we go in our time machine.
- [14:23]
Dan Snow
I'd be happy to accede to that request. No problem. So Francis dies jousting. Fatal mistake. Henry VIII almost dies jousting. Anyway, Francis dies jousting and so Mary's now queen.
- [14:35]
Kate Williams
So Mary's the wife of Francis II of France, she's the queen, she's a teenage queen, but then when she's 18, her husband, the dauphin, dies and she is now a widow. She's a widow and she's a widow in the French court and she's not welcome. Her mother in law is perhaps one of the most formidable women in Europe ever, and that's Catherine de Medici. And Catherine de Medici, having not really had the most perfect marriage at the hands of the former king, very much wants now to come into her power as a mature lady and she wants to be regent for her son, for the much younger son. And Mary being around, she doesn't like that. So Mary's not welcome. Mary is not welcome in the French court. And what uses that for her to be there anyway? So her half brother, as we call James, as they all are, half brother called James. So he's the son of James V by one of his mistresses. There are quite a few of them. But this half brother, James, is the most powerful, is a very powerful man, and he's got very powerful during Mary's life in France. And really, to me, James, the Earl of Murray, Mary's half brother, is her nemesis, is her enemy, he's her ultimate enemy. And this is a really fascinating difference from England and Scotland to me, in the sense that the children of Henry VIII are no threat to Mary I, Edward vi, Elizabeth I. There are plenty of other threats, but they are not the illegitimate children of Henry viii. But the illegitimate son of James V is a big threat to Mary, Queen of Scots, and he really, I think, is the one who brings about her downfall. They did a lot of interesting research on this. I mean, we can all boo when he comes on stage. Let's all boo. So we can all shout, boo, hiss. But he won't get off stage because he's very powerful. So James contacts Mary and he says, come back to Scotland. And what he wants is for Mary to be a puppet queen under his power. That's what he wants. James, the illegitimate son who can't legitimately be king, but would be if his mother had been the queen, he wants to have power. He's pretty much controlling the nobles of Scotland. They've not been brought to heel and oppressed in the way that the English nobles have. The nobles in Scotland are very powerful. James is in control of them all. There are a load of oligarchs and he's controlling the oligarchs. And he says to Mary, come back and be queen. And what he wants is her to be his puppet queen. He can't be king, but he wants to rule through her and her to be his puppet queen. And that's what he wants. And Mary comes back to Scotland with all four ladies in waiting. Mary, Mary, Mary and Mary. And huge amounts of shopping. Mary Queen of Scots is a champion shopper. I mean, she was queen. She has bought huge amounts, and she takes them all back to Scotland. Of tapestries and furniture and books and jewelry and clothes. We know that Elizabeth I had thousands of dresses. I think it's 2 or 3,000 we estimate. And Mary Queen of Scots had a good amount of the same and an incredible jewellery collection. She brings it all back on all these boats, comes and sets up home in Edinburgh. And everyone's delighted by her. They're all thrilled by the new wonderful queen. She's absolutely marvellous. She's beautiful. They think she's fantastic. The whole court, the court suddenly revivifies into French grace and marvels. But we have a battle on our hands and that is between Mary and her half brother, because she does not want to be his puppet queen. She wants to try and be like Elizabeth I, her cousin. They call each other sisters later, but they are cousins because Henry VIII's sister was Mary, the Queen of Scots grandmother. And she wants to be like Elizabeth I and reign rule for herself. And so this sets James against her and he is determined to get power.
- [18:20]
Dan Snow
You're listening to Dan Snow's history here. Talk about Mary Queen of Scots. More after this.
- [18:29]
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- [18:44]
Kate Williams
Oh.
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Kate Williams
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Kate Williams
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Dan Snow
Oh.
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- [19:30]
Kate Williams
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- [20:39]
Dan Snow
She has very unsuccessful married life, doesn't she? Well, first of all, her. Yeah, her first husband died. Then her second husband also died, very curiously. Talk to me about Lord Darnley.
- [20:50]
Kate Williams
Yes, Mary has some very bad husbands. Now, Elizabeth I, of course, she's a great virgin queen, so famous for that. Mary just couldn't have been the virgin Queen. There was just no way that that would be possible for her in Scotland because men were constantly trying to kidnap her and seize her in the sense of trying to make her be their wife. So no one would have done that to Elizabeth I. That simply wouldn't have happened. We have two completely different societies, and Mary didn't talk about being the virgin Queen. That wasn't something she wanted, but there was no way she could have managed it. She had to get married. And she and Elizabeth had a very jolly friendship. Initially, they wrote letters to each other. They were very fond of each other. There was some talk of meeting, and they were going to meet in. And this was going to be a huge fandango of a meeting. But then Elizabeth changed her mind, and that was the end of that. I do see the great unrequited love affair here as between Mary and Elizabeth. And Mary was always devoted to Elizabeth. All she wanted to do was have one meeting with Elizabeth and she never got it. And Mary said to Elizabeth, you know, who shall I marry, Elizabeth? And Elizabeth said, well, let's think about that. Who shall you marry? And then Elizabeth said, I know who you should marry. You should marry Robert Dudley. And she made him Earl of Leicester to make him more palatable to Mary. And Mary was not very pleased at that offer of Robert Dudley, because Dudley was a commoner, even though he was made Earl of Leicester by Elizabeth. Obviously, Mary didn't like Leicester very much. Perhaps he was a commoner. His father had been a traitor. And he was also said by many to be Elizabeth's close friend, possibly even more so. It was like Elizabeth was passing on an ex, or not even an ex. And he was suspected in this very murky affair of the death of his wife, Amy Robsart. Now, I don't think that he did kill her, but certainly at all look very suspicious, even though he was, I'm sure, innocent of her death. And I think that other people killed her to frame him and make sure he didn't marry Elizabeth. I. It did look bad. So Mary said, I'm not going to marry him. And also, even worse, Elizabeth said, you marry Robert Dudley and then you come down and live in the English court. And that would have been, to use a famous phrase, a rather crowded marriage. Elizabeth, Mary, Dudley. Elizabeth and Dudley would all been off riding together. And Mary was so annoyed at this suggestion that she married Dudley that she actually decided to marry someone, Henry, Lord Armley. And that was guaranteed to infuriate Elizabeth because they are Scottish aristocrats, English landowners, the parents of really wanting to marry her. From the word go, they are both grandchildren of Margaret Tudor, and he has a claim to the English throne. So this is a problem because Mary has a claim to the English throne if Elizabeth doesn't have a child. Mary, Queen of Scots, is the closest in blood to the English throne. So she is, if Elizabeth doesn't have a child, the closest in blood to get the throne. And blood matters to the Tudors. We know this blood is really important. So Mary married to Darnley and having a child now, that child has a very powerful claim to the English throne, and that makes everything very dangerous. So Mary's great power comes from the fact that she's so close to the English throne. But this also condemns her. This also makes her dangerous. Elizabeth isn't so terrified of her. Elizabeth's confidant. Elizabeth's advisors are terrified that when Elizabeth dies, Mary, Queen of Scots, will get the throne, and Mary, Queen of Scots, will take revenge on everyone who wasn't nice to her, including all the advisors. So Elizabeth is infuriated by the marriage of Mary to Darnley. And also our dreaded baddie, the Earl of Moray, James, he's also infuriated by Mary marrying Darnley. He doesn't like Darnley. It's interesting. Mary, at the beginning of her reign, she created a good tolerance between Protestant Catholics. She made it very clear that even though she was Catholic, she didn't want the country to be Catholic. Some aristocrats were concerned about religion because they were truly religious people. Some aristocrats just didn't want to have to give up that land that they got from all the monasteries. So Mary said, you know, not taking it back was to staying as it is. This is the country as it is, but I'm Catholic. And the Earl of Morrow started whipping up hatred against Mary among the Protestant Nobles. And we have a real problem here. We start to have a real problem. There starts to be a lot of tensions between Mary and the nobles, led by her half brother. And it reaches a terrible height when Mary gets pregnant. Because getting pregnant is fantastic for a queen consort. Absolutely marvellous, isn't it great? That's what you do. Pop them out. 10, 15, 20. Marvellous. Pop them out. But for a queen regnant, it's more complicated, because a baby, particularly a boy, you can be deposed for him, even if he hasn't even got any teeth, you can be deposed for him. And you could be deposed for a girl as well. So as soon as Mary gets pregnant, these powerful Scottish aristocrats start to harass her more in the hope that when the baby comes, they can chuck her out and they can be regent for the baby and do what they want with Scotland, get power. So Mary is very pregnant when she's having a lovely evening in with some friends and her private secretary, David Rizzio, who's very hated because he's Catholic, but he's a red herring. And all the nobles break in, they grab him, they stab Rizzio to death in front of Mary. She's pregnant, she's terrified, she says. They wave a gun at her stomach and she's totally terrified. And they drag him down the stairs and Darnley stabs him too, in this huge, dramatic moment. And then they take Mary prisoner, in the sense that they want to take Mary prisoner until she has the baby. Then they'll just keep in prison forever. But interestingly, Darnley switches sides and was like, actually, they're not gonna make me king, they're gonna do me dirty. I'm gonna go back to Mary. And then Mary and Darnley seem to be reconciled. Mary has her baby, a little boy, on the 19th of June, 1566. And he's called, as you can imagine, James. And this birth of a son precipitates the desire of the nobles to get her and also get Darnley. And what happens is the baby's born in June, in the February following that. June. So not a year after, Darnley is in Edinburgh. He's recovering from illness in a house just outside of Edinburgh. Mary is in her castle in Holyrood, and there's this huge explosion, this massive explosion, it rocks all of Edinburgh. And Mary thinks, what's happening? What's going on? And what she hears is that Darnley's house has been blown up and he has been found with his valet, smothered in the orchard nearby. And it's fascinating because English spies were on the scene faster than anyone else. And they drew this really incredible picture of what was going on. The blown up house, the city walls, Darnley and his servants smothered in the orchard. And it really does get quite cluedo because beside Darnley and his servant are a chair, a rope, a dagger and two dressing gowns. I mean, what was that?
- [27:49]
Dan Snow
It's one of history's great mysteries. And I always want to make a program with you trying to get to the bottom of that one.
- [27:53]
Kate Williams
But.
- [27:53]
Dan Snow
So Darnley is now dead. Not from the explosion, from strangling. And quite soon she remarries. But this is the tragic moment. What happens next?
- [28:03]
Kate Williams
So Darnley's dead. There's huge amounts of suspicion. Who done it, who did it? And Mary knows who did it, of course. It was her half brother. The nobles around her, they did it. They got rid of Darnley, they want to get rid of her. But she now looks so bad that Elizabeth I says, you've got to investigate it. Catherine de Medici says, you've got to investigate it. What's she going to do? Investigate her half brother? And of course, what she should have done is what the nobles later do. And they just put some servants on trial. And they put the servants on trial and say it was them. And the servants go to the block shouting, it wasn't me, it was you. But a show trial is obviously very popular in the 16th century. So Mary is surrounded by suspicion. She's terrified she's going to be murdered next. And I don't think she's wrong, that she was in people's sights and she has no idea what to do. And then she puts Bothwell, another James, James Bothwell, who was part of the group, who's part of the noble group on trial. And he is found not guilty. But actually, the very fact that there was a trial does settle down some of the restive feeling against her. And she feels that, you know, it's okay, it's fine. Then things are calmer. She goes to go and visit her son. Now they all think that it's so funny, considering what air and life is like now, that they think the air in Edinburgh is very polluted. So they send baby James to live at Stirling in the countryside, and Mary goes to see him. And on her way back to Edinburgh, Mary is stopped on the way to Edinburgh by James Bothwell, this man she's put on trial. And he tells her there's rioting in Edinburgh, you have to come with me. And he has a lot more men with him. So she does, she trusts him. They go back to a castle, a castle that she actually gave to him, and he slams the door, closes the door, and he assaults her. He sexually assaults her. He does this because he wants to marry her. This is the way he's going to get her to marry him, because she has said no already. This happens in April 1567. Darmi dies in February. This is April. And already Bothwell has gone to a lot of bishops and lords and said, will you agree that you support me if I marry Mary Queen of Scots? So he's already worked out with the men. He said, oh, all men. I'm going to marry the Mary, I'm going to marry the Queen. So that's okay by you? So they've all had a big boys chat about it, but she said no. So the way he's got to do it is by seizing her, assaulting her and kidnapping her. And then she's in this terrible state, you know, she's been assaulted. And Mary believes now that she has to marry him. And that's what was the culture at the time. If a father says, dear Fred, you can't have my daughter Eddle Tina, she can't have her. Most nice Freds will say, okay, fine, I'll find someone else. Bad Freds will try and kidnap her and seize her because then she has to marry him. I mean, this happens in societies all over the world still. And Mary was in the same situation as many heiresses in the same situation as Bean. And she had no choice. She felt, she thought she was pregnant. I mean, she was pregnant, had to agree to marry Bothwell. And people say to him, why did she do it? Why did she marry him? And you know, what choice did she have? That is what happened to women. That was Women's lives. She was a highly religious person. She thought that's what women were expected to do. She thought she was pregnant. It was a terrible sin to have children outside of wedlock. And she was pregnant, what choice did she have but to marry this man because he had assaulted her. And I'm afraid to say that many marriages were founded in this sense. And by us saying, oh, but why would Mary marry someone who raped her? I mean, we are literally looking at the 16th century with 21st century eyes. I think that it's very interesting because everyone in the 16th century agreed that this is what had happened. Mary Bothwell himself, the lords around her, they all agreed that she'd been assaulted. But that was the way it went. She'd been assaulted, it had happened. There we go. She had to marry him. And it's only since then that she's been so condemned over and over again for marrying the man who raped her.
- [31:57]
Dan Snow
So this catastrophic forced marriage doesn't last that long either.
- [32:01]
Kate Williams
No, this marriage doesn't last that long. It starts to collapse very quickly. What happens is that Bothwell, he made this agreement with all the guys, saying, yeah, yeah, I'll marry Mary, Queen of Scots. You support it, I'll share power. He didn't share power. And they were like, okay, we're coming for you. So what happens is you start to see real hatred of Bothwell be whipped up by our old friend James Murray, Mary's half brother. We start to see this happening over and over again. Mary thought that the other men supported it, and they start to come for her. She is pregnant. She is very heavily pregnant with twins. We later find out, and what happens is Mary, they start to turn against them. We have a massive battle in June, the Battle of Carberry Hill. So Darnley only dies in February. This is June. There's a massive battle going to happen at Carberry Hill. But actually, Mary's forces just have gave up. And in the negotiations, Bothell was taken away and Mary was imprisoned by the Lords and locked up in Edinburgh. But what happened was that in Edinburgh, there's still a lot of support for her. Even though she's seen as having married this bad man, there's a lot of support for her. She's the right queen. So they take her away to the middle of nowhere, to Loch Leven, Loch Leven Castle on an island in the middle of Loch Leven. And then not long afterwards, she has a miscarriage of her twins, which is obviously very heartbreaking. And the day after that, were they Darnley's kids? These were Bothwell's children. So these are the consequence of the assault and the marriage. So she was pregnant as she thought she was, and that was why she had to marry. And then, while she's still suffering the terrible after effects of this miscarriage, men come to her and they say, you've got to abdicate. And they pretty much say, to abdicate or die. It's a forced abdication. It's at the brink of a knife. One of these nobles say to her, so she has to abdicate for James. James Murray, her half brother. Her own nemesis is Regent. Bothwell's sent away. He gets sent off to Denmark, and they put him chained to an upright post so he can never sit down. And he goes mad after that. And Mary has lost everything. She's imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. Her son is king at a baby. And what's she going to do now?
- [34:13]
Dan Snow
Listen to Dan Snow's history here. Talk about Mary Queen of Scots. More after this.
- [34:22]
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- [34:38]
Kate Williams
Perfect.
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- [35:34]
Dan Snow
Well, she heads off to see her cousin eventually, doesn't she?
- [35:37]
Kate Williams
Mary does manage to escape with some cunning disguises while everyone else at the castle is having a party. And. And what happens is that James Murray as a regent, is not popular. People are saying, yes, well, Mary had her faults, but she was the right queen, the rightful queen. You're not. The nobles are already, already fighting against him because they haven't got enough power. So there is a lot of support for her. She gets an army, she starts to work towards possibly getting her throne back. And she has three choices at this point. She is in a stronghold. She could go to France and be looked after in France. She could go to Scotland, try and get her throne back. Now, I think she probably could have done get her throne back. Probably not very long, but she could have got it back. Or she could go to England and ask Elizabeth I to help her. And that's what she does. She decides that Elizabeth I is going to help her. So she flees over into the Lake District and then expects when she arrives to be escorted to Hampton Court or one of Elizabeth's marvellous palaces to have a lovely Meeting with Elizabeth instead. What happens is she's taken in prison at Carlisle Castle, and this is the beginning of her house arrest. Elizabeth's pondering putting her back on her throne, but Elizabeth's advisors are dead set against it. They say, look, the Earl of Murray, James Murray, he's Protestant, he's our friend, we prefer him. I think Cecil was paying Mary's nemesis a long time through this. Let's just stick with the way things are. And an inquiry has started into whether or not Mary is guilty of Darnley's murder. This rather ridiculous inquiry has started about this, in which the English say, can we find something that says Mary's guilty? So a letter is sent saying, Mary's guilty. And the English, I'm sorry, that's not really enough any more than that. And amazingly, they found some letters under someone's bed in Edinburgh that say, Mary's very guilty. But actually, when we look at these letters, they're clearly a collection of poems and forgeries and the dates that Mary's writing them, saying, I'm going to kill Darnley. The dates don't even match up. But this actually quite suits Elizabeth well. Cecil, her advisor, this inquiry, they don't want to find Mary innocent because then she's going to have to be let free in England. And they fear that she could raise rabble against Elizabeth, these Catholic discontents. And they don't want to find her guilty because then they'll have to deal with her. So what they do find is that they can't say whether she's innocent or guilty. So in this state of suspension, they can then keep her under house arrest. And the house arrests are initially very marvellous. There's lots of visitors, there's lots of money, there's huge amount of the household are there. Mary has a wealthy life, but she is in prison. And this is the beginning of her imprisonment, which lasts nearly 20 years. And as things get more tense in England, because it's clearer to Cecil, to Elizabeth's advisors, that Elizabeth ain't gonna have that child. As optimistic as Cecil is about babies in later life, she ain't gonna have it. And we really see is after the breakdown of Elizabeth's negotiations for marriage with the Duke of Anjou, who really is her last suitor, then feelings about Mary get very, very strong and they become obsessed to the fact that Mary's gonna try and push Elizabeth off the throne and that Mary will outlive Elizabeth. Mary's, of course, younger than Elizabeth, and Mary is imprisoned in tighter, tighter detail. And there Starts to be plots that Mary is said to be involving herself as these tighter, tighter imprisonment comes towards her.
- [39:09]
Dan Snow
In the end, Elizabeth famously has her cousin killed. Why does she decide in the end that Mary's gotta go?
- [39:16]
Kate Williams
Well, there are various plots that are clearly, when you look at the evidence, made up around Mary. But then Mary actually does agree to a plot, and this is the Babington plot. She agrees to some idealist saying they're going to throw Elizabeth off the phone and put Mary on it. And unfortunately, she agrees to that plot when there is a code breaker reading all her messages. And the minute that code breaker sees that message in which Mary says, yes, okay, let's do it. He writes. He's like, yeah, I gotta. And he did a hangman. He wrote a hangman on the letter. He was like, yeah, yeah, I've got her. And this is evidence for treason. And Mary was not guilty of Darnley's death. I don't think she was guilty of any of the other plots that were around her. This one she did agree to. So she is guilty of treason and she's put on trial. She's put on trial. And Mary says, you can't put me on trial. I'm the queen. There's no counsel. I don't have any defence. I haven't been able to look at the papers, and I'm not an English subject. You can't put me on trial. You can't convict me of treason. But she is convicted and sentenced to death. And Elizabeth then has a problem. She doesn't want to sign the death warrant. Elizabeth does not want to execute Mary. She really doesn't. She knows it'll look bad. She thinks Spain will be angry with her. She thinks France will be angry with her. And she doesn't want to execute a queen. She doesn't want to execute an anointed queen. She thinks it could undermine the concept, the perception of monarchy. I mean, she's right. So she really does hesitate and she doesn't really know. And as we know, Elizabeth likes to shilly shally, and she shilly shallys. And one day she's just basically sort of pushed to sign the execution warrant, and she does it. But she thinks that, you know, she can keep Mary on death row and go back and forth, and eventually, hopefully, Mary will just die. But what happens is when she signs that death warrant, the privy council get it, and they do it without Elizabeth knowing. They have a meeting without her knowing. They do it behind her back. They say, okay, let's chop this. This woman's head off now before Elizabeth changes her mind. And they chop Mary's head off really swiftly, really fast. The privy council meet on the third. Mary is told on the seventh that she's having her head chopped off. I mean, it's very, very fast. Mary is told late at night in Fotheringhay Castle she'll be executed. Next morning, she distributes her belongings. She is so devastated. How can you sleep in a night like that? Her agent, waiting, reads from the Bible. She writes her last letter to the King of Spain saying, you know, I've been treated like a criminal. And she doesn't try to write Elizabeth anymore. She's tried to write to Elizabeth over and over again. She doesn't do it. Now she realizes her chance is over. Next morning, she's executed. And the idea is it's going to be a very undignified execution. That's what they want. They don't execute her as a queen, certainly not. And they don't really execute her as a woman. And actually one of the bystanders, one of the onlookers and aristocrats, this is appropriate. They were going to have the executioner undress her, but the onlooker said, you know, you can't do this. So they have the lady in waiting undress her. And then when she's undressed, she reveals this red underdress and petticoat, the colour of Catholic martyrdom. And so even though she's being preached at to convert, she reveals this red colour dress. And that is this big moment where she says, I'm not giving in. I'm not giving in, even though you're going to execute me. And her execution is, is awful. It takes three goes and the executioner holds her head up to show everyone and then it falls because she was wearing a wig and it's just awful. And it's also, the English are terrified. They close the ports, they burn all of Mary's belongings. They don't want them to turn to martyrdom. They take her heart and they put it under a mound and fotheringhe castle in a glass jar. They don't want anything to be taken, to be used as a martyr because they're terrified of her power. They don't want anyone to know about it. They don't want kings to know about it. Her servants are locked away so they can't tell the story. They are terrified that it's going to cause massive ructions across the country and across Europe. And when Elizabeth hears, she is devastated, she's furious. But Cecil tells her he begs her forgiveness and she has no choice. She has to write to James, Mary's son, and say she's so sorry. Mary's execution is heartbreaking, but there's one little shard of hope, and that's when her body is stripped that they find her dog is clinging to her body under her skirts, and her dog had gone up to the block with her. And I just love that, that she was totally alone, no one with her. She was a queen. She started with everything, riches, power, monarchy. And ended. Executed, really, in a very undignified fashion in front of everybody. But the dog was there, holding tight to her feet. Now you've got animals. I know you're an animal lover. Your animals would go to the block with you, wouldn't they?
- [43:53]
Dan Snow
Probably not with me, because I'm the grumpy dad that occasionally feeds them in the rain when my kids refuse to do so. But, yes, I understand the sentiment.
- [44:01]
Kate Williams
I mean, I have a cat. I really don't think it would go to the block with me. I just really don't think. I think it would just automatically go see whether Cecil would feed it. But the dog, I see. I love my cat, but I know that if I was being executed that I'm not sure it'd be there. But Mary's dog was under her skirts and it did accompany her. She was buried in Peterborough Cathedral, not far from Catherine of Aragon, who was sent off there in exile and died there. And Mary remained there and she seemed to have lost everything. But then she did triumph, because when Elizabeth I died, Mary's son became James I. He became King of England and Scotland. He became the man with all the power, and then it was his blood that courses through the veins of all the monarchs, including those of the current day.
- [44:50]
Dan Snow
And as you pointed out at the beginning, Mary was buried in pride of place in Westminster Abbey by her son, King James vi. And first of England.
- [44:57]
Kate Williams
James I never really talked about his mother. What he did do is he took her out of Peterborough, where she'd been buried, not as a royal, and he buried her in the most elaborate tomb in Westminster Abbey. And when you go into Westminster Abbey, it's the most bling, the most glamorous tomb, and she is right next to Elizabeth I, the queen she had wanted to meet her whole life. Mary wanted to meet Elizabeth I, and they met in death. And James also basically wrote this post on the tomb which said, you bad people executed my mother. He says that she was sprung from royal and ancient stock, endowed with excellent gifts and Then he said she'd been detained in custody for more or less 20 years, had courageously fought against the obloquies of her, her foes. She was struck down by the axe, an unheard of precedent. Outrageous to royalty. And so he makes it clear that it was outrageous to royalty. She was the wife, the daughter, the mother of kings. And he really says very clearly, he talks about the violent murder, that she should be vindicated. James really makes it pretty clear that he doesn't like the fact that his mother was treated this way. And that is a very significant statement. So, as we know, Henry VIII wanted this massive, massive tomb in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, didn't he? All this bling and angels, people crying over him all the time. Didn't get it. His children said no. And he has this very sort of modest little tombstone that William IV put up. Loads of monarchs don't get a good tomb, but Mary might have had a miserable life, but she got a great tomb. She got the best tomb. And in the end, she was the one who mothered the line, who created the line of descendants. So her marriage is may have been a disaster. They may have been marriages that gave her great distress and that lost her the power of the throne, but they did continue the line.
- [47:00]
Dan Snow
She had a bad life, but she had the best biographer. Kate Williams. That was fantastic. I just love it. I love talking to you on the podcast. What an absolute pro. Your book is called Rival the Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots. So make sure you go and buy that, everybody. And Tolti's been such a pleasure.
- [47:18]
Kate Williams
Thank you for having me.
- [47:27]
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- [47:43]
Kate Williams
Perfect.
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Kate Williams
Hey, can I get your number?
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Kate Williams
Ugh.
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We found love in an open.
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