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- [00:01]
A
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- [01:09]
A
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots to from Shakespeare to samurais relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. There's a moment at the end of every long rain when the calm on the surface hides something far more dangerous. Queen Elizabeth first liked to present herself as unshakable, the Virgin Queen, unflinching, eternal. But beneath that polished image simmered decades of unease, whispered conspiracies and rivals circling a throne she refused to discuss. Succession was the question Elizabeth never answered, and it became the pressure point of her entire reign. In her new book, Dr. Tracy Borman reveals that the shift from Tudor to Stuart, so often remembered as seamless, was in reality fraught, secretive and profoundly unstable. Centuries of tension between England and Scotland still hung in the air. Mary, Queen of Scots cast a long shadow even after her execution, and in Scotland, her son James had been groomed to believe that the English crown was his destiny while navigating plots, rebellions and the legacy of his mother's fall. Elizabeth's refusal to marry and her silence on the question of an heir created a political void that ministers, ambassadors and opportunists scrambled to fill. Letters were smuggled, alliances forged and broken, and rival claimants quietly monitored or imprisoned. And after Elizabeth's death, her story was reshaped, quite literally rewritten to ensure James smooth arrival in London. It's a tale of secrecy, rivalry, insecurity and high stakes politics that shape the future of Britain. To explore it all, I'm delighted to be joined by historian and broadcaster Professor Tracy Warman obe, whose new book, the Stolen Crown, uncovers the truth behind Elizabeth's most dangerous legacy, the battle for what came next. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and this is not. Not just the Tudors from history Hit. Tracey, welcome back to the podcast.
- [03:46]
B
Thank you so much for having me. And can I just say, wow, what an intro. I'm kind of wishing I'd had that to put on the back of the book because it was just so brilliantly written. So thank you.
- [03:58]
A
So let's get a sense of context as we go into thinking about this, because one thing that you really establish in your book is that we can only really understand what's going on if we delve deep into the complex relationship between England and Scotland. So what's the history there? In brief?
- [04:17]
B
Yes, in brief. How to sum up kind of centuries of actually what was mostly hostility between England and Scotland? So they were traditional adversaries, but it was Henry vii, the first Tudor king, who slightly changed that path. And he, with the Scottish king James iv, agreed on the right, rather optimistically named Treaty of Perpetual Peace. Well, that treaty didn't actually endure for all that long, but what was absolutely crucial from the treaty was the marriage. It agreed between James iv and Henry VII's eldest daughter, Margaret, because it would be their line that would one day take the crown of England. Henry VII's son, he was soon at war with Scotland again and he actually, and we overlook this, but it's important. He made it law that the Stuarts would never inherit his throne. He didn't want his sister Margaret's descendants to be kings or queens of England because he was always at war with Scotland. So we tend to overlook that when we talk about James VI of Scotland and indeed his mother, Mary Queen of Scots. Really, they didn't have a legal basis for their claim, but that's been glossed over in the centuries since.
- [05:35]
A
Yes. Although whether Henry had a legal basis to rule them out is perhaps another question.
- [05:41]
B
It's a minefield.
- [05:42]
A
It is a minefield. Whatever's legal is what the latest monarch has said. So how does the stolen Crown challenge or revise the traditional narrative of Elizabeth I's succession and James VI and first succession to the English throne?
- [05:57]
B
So the inspiration for the book was quite dramatic. New evidence that was uncovered by the British Library back in 2023 and a PhD researcher, Helena Rutovska, had been working with William Camden's Annals, or rather the original manuscript for that, and she uncovered something quite startling, which is that there was a quite heavy edit, should we say, of Camden's Annals once Elizabeth was dead and James was on the throne. So William Camden was actually a very, very good historian. He was very well respected. He was very meticulous in his research. And he was commissioned by Lord Burleigh to write a history of Elizabeth. And he did it quite reluctantly, actually. Can be a poison chalice writing about somebody in power. And he finished it when Elizabeth died. But then he put it to one side and never intended to publish, because now there was not just a new king, but a new dynasty on the throne. But James, the new king of England, had already heard about this book, and he spied what we might call a PR opportunity. He badly needed some positive press. At the time that he heard about Camden's work, There had been the Gunpowder Plot, numerous other conspiracies against this new Stuart King. So he ordered Camden to publish his history of Elizabeth, but not before some judicious rewriting. And this is when the British Library research comes in, because the researchers noticed there were lots and lots of crossings out in Camden's original manuscript, and as well that 200 pages had been pasted in covering the original text. So using quite a clever technique called transmitted light, they managed to uncover the words that lay beneath. And that's when they discovered that actually, Camden had put words in the dead queen's mouth when he wrote that Elizabeth, on her deathbed said, I will have none but the King of Scots. She never said that. And in his original draft, written at the time of her death, he said that she simply died without naming a successor at all. So I guess it blew the whole story wide open in that I've been guilty of this myself, seeing the Tudor Stewart transition as inevitable. And, of course, it was James and the other contenders were sort of also runs. But this put a whole new complexion on it and made me realize, actually, it was quite a close race to the throne, and we could easily have had a different king or queen, actually.
- [08:32]
A
Yes. And actually we spoke to Helena Rukhovska and to Callum Cockburn, Curator of Medieval Manuscripts at the British Library, back when that research was published. So if anyone wants to go back and listen to that podcast, it's well worth a listen. But we shall now think about the implications of that together. Tracy. So, of course, everybody knows Elizabeth famously refused to name an heir or marry. Why do you think that was?
- [08:59]
B
Well, Elizabeth made it very Clear, actually, why? And she said, basically, look what happened in my sister's reign. So her sister was Mary, of course, better known as Bloody Mary. And it was obvious, even though Mary didn't actually name Elizabeth until quite late on, it was obvious that if she had no children, it had to be Elizabeth, because Elizabeth was the last of Henry VIII's children. And what that meant was that with this obvious heir, it was very dangerous for Queen Mary, because it's human nature. If you're not satisfied with those in power, you rally around the opposition and that's what Elizabeth became. And so there was the Wyatt rebellion in her name, and it was dangerous for both Mary and Elizabeth, said, look what happened in my sister's reign, I'm not going to do that. If I name an heir, I create a rival. And so she was always absolutely determined not to. That said, she did favour some candidates over the others, over others, rather. And the one actually she showed greatest favor to was James VI of Scotland. And you can see how she has this long standing correspondence with him and really is trying to groom him, I think, as a future king, but could never bring herself to actually name him her heir.
- [10:16]
A
Can we talk a bit about how the fact that she doesn't name an heir really shaped the culture of her reign? You know, the politics, the anxieties, basically the entire sort of ether.
- [10:29]
B
Absolutely. You know, I should say from the beginning that when Elizabeth came to the throne, she made the shocking declaration that she would live and die a virgin, so she wasn't going to marry, which was quite hard for her subjects to get their heads around, because surely the very first duty of any monarch is to provide an heir. And she wasn't going to do that. So she said, and neither was she going to name a successor. And it was sort of acceptable when she first came to the throne, shocking though it was. But Everything changed just four years in 1562, when the 29 year old Queen was staying at a place very familiar to us both, Hampton Court, when she fell dangerously ill with smallpox and nobody thought she was going to survive. So her council called this urgent meeting to decide on who should be the successor. Because people still talked about the wars of the Roses. They feared a return to civil war if the succession wasn't assured. So they were there at Hampton Court, arguing late into the night between various candidates, Mary Queen of Scots, Lady Catherine Grey, sister of Jane Grey and various others. And they couldn't reach a consensus. So actually it was crisis point and panic spread throughout the palace. But then, against the odds Elizabeth recovered and she might have weathered that storm, but it had changed things forever in that from that day forward, she would be plagued by pressure to name her heir because this near death experience had frightened everybody and they just wanted some certainty. So she spent the rest of her reign seeing off rivals, playing one off against another. There was the unending question of whether actually she would marry, and she was just saying she wasn't to increase her value. So really, the succession was one of the things that defined Elizabeth and her reign more than anything else, I think.
- [12:32]
A
And you've given us some names there, but over time, who are the contenders to succeed Elizabeth and how does that change over that long reign?
- [12:41]
B
It does get quite, quite confusing with the various contenders because there are a lot of them. My favorite quote from Elizabeth's reign, somebody said, this crown is not likely to fall to the ground for want of heads to wear it. So there are many, probably on average about 15 people at any one point in her long reign who could have stepped in and claimed the crown. But to simplify it, nearly all of the claimants were related to two women, Henry VII's eldest daughter, Margaret, and his younger daughter, Mary. So those two kind of lines began. The various rival claimants. I've already talked about Mary Queen of Scots being related to Margaret. Mary's descendants included the sisters of Lady Jane Grey. And Catherine Gray was probably the most dangerous of those to Elizabeth because she married somebody else with a blood claim, Edward Seymour, Jane Seymour's nephew, and she had two sons. So even though Catherine herself died quite young and very miserable as a prisoner of Elizabeth, her sons lived on and the claim endured. And then, of course, there are a couple of people who just defy my rule there about being related to those two princesses. And they kind of go further back. People like Henry Hastings, who had Plantagenet blood, and then the rank outsider, a Spanish princess, the daughter of Philip ii. She was in the mix. And why she was quite a threat is that a she was from this powerful Catholic country and baby, she had the might of Spain at her back. And people in England really feared there would be a successful Spanish invasion that would put a Spanish candidate on the throne. So it was a very, very turbulent time and clearly a source of great anxiety, apparently more to Elizabeth's subjects than Elizabeth herself. But she was probably a bit stressed about the whole thing herself, I'd imagine.
- [14:33]
A
For a large portion of her reign, Mary Queen of Scots was perhaps the greatest rival to her throne. How did this affect the succession crisis?
- [14:45]
B
Oh, gosh, yes. I Mean, these two women, people have written about them, talked about them endlessly, films have been made, and for good reason. They dominated each other's lives for three decades. And it's fascinating, that relationship. And it was almost destined not to get off to a good start, because the very day after Elizabeth came to the throne, Mary started to call herself not just Queen of Scots, but Queen of England. So she was really kind of staking her claim from the off. And it would really define the first two decades of Elizabeth's reign. Particularly as Mary, unlike Elizabeth, she didn't want to rule alone. She. She married. And after her first husband died young, the, the dauphin, later king of France, she married somebody with actually quite a lot of English royal blood, Henry, Lord Darnley, the son of Henry VIII's niece, Lady Margaret Douglas. So that made her an even stronger contender. And she remained that even after she was forced to flee Scotland, having lost her crown, and became a prisoner in England, because now, being on English soil, she was almost in a way, more dangerous to Elizabeth because she was within tantalizing reach of all England's Catholics who wanted to see her on the throne. And then in 1570, the Pope just accelerated all those plots by excommunicating Elizabeth, and he actively encouraged her Catholic subjects to rise up, murder Elizabeth and make Mary queen. And it was an incredibly dangerous time. The 1570s and the first part of the 1580s were treacherous for Elizabeth, and it's really only thanks to her great spymaster Walsingham, that she stayed alive. I think ultimately, of course, this battle between the two queens was won by Elizabeth when Mary effectively signed her own death warrant by leaving a paper trail of her involvement in one of those plots led by Anthony Babington. And she was put on trial. The evidence was incontrovertible. Elizabeth, though, did prevaricate over signing the execution warrant. And actually, she later claimed that she didn't order it to be issued. And so it wasn't her fault. And the reason she did that is, of course, she feared a backlash from Catholic Europe, but particularly from Mary's son James, because she'd gone to so much effort to cultivate James and to foster harmony between England and Scotland. And she'd sent him all these letters over the. The 30 year period that they wrote to each other, all kind of giving him advice, the sort of inside track on how to be a good king of England without actually ever naming him as such. So it was slightly tricky, but have to say, very, very quickly, indecently quickly, James and Elizabeth found a way through the slight awkwardness of the fact Elizabeth had chopped his mother's head off. And they kind of went back to business and let's just never mention that again. Elizabeth always called it that miserable acc. And they got on with being friends afterwards.
- [18:07]
A
I suppose the fact that James had been raised to consider Mary his mother as, you know, someone who had basically murdered his father and been promiscuous and not served the crown of Scotland well, might have been part of the reason that he could come to terms with that. I was just thinking about the point that you said Elizabeth wins in the end. I wonder if it's actually. It's sort of more like William Cecil wins in the end because he's the one who gets everything he wants. Because why do you think, given the threat that she posed, Elizabeth didn't just execute Mary as soon as she was able to.
- [18:48]
B
No, she didn't. And she always claimed it was for lack of evidence, which she had a point, actually. It was really the Babington plot that delivered that crucial written evidence of Mary's involvement, even though undoubtedly she'd been involved in plots earlier than that. But Elizabeth also flinched from putting an anointed queen to death. It was creating rather a dangerous precedent, and I just don't think she wanted to be forced into that. She was put under an enormous amount of pressure by William Cecil, in particular. He called Mary the bosom serpent. You know, this idea that the most dangerous being dwelt at the heart of Elizabeth's realm. And it was only when there was this undeniable proof that Elizabeth eventually agreed that Mary could go on trial. But until then, Elizabeth seemed to seriously entertain, at one point releasing Mary and letting her return to Scotland and rule jointly with her son James. That was a serious proposition. And actually it foundered because of James more than Elizabeth, because James was like, thanks very much. Don't want to share power with my mother. And so the whole thing died a death. But it is a very, very complex story that between Elizabeth and Mary and the fact that they never met makes it more complex still, even though in every film they always have a meeting between the two queens, which kind of annoys me, but it was.
- [20:17]
A
Yeah, it's irresistible, isn't it? I mean, even you go back to the operas of the 19th century, they make them meet, I guess, because it's really hard to put on stage or screen two women writing to each other. It's just not that exciting.
- [20:30]
B
Exciting. And same with Elizabeth and James. They just wrote to each other. And what a precarious State of affairs. I mean, if you think today, if you were to conduct a relationship purely by letter or by email, it's so easy to misconstrue things and misunderstandings creep in. And you see that certainly between Elizabeth and Mary, where rumor and hearsay gets the better of each of them, and then also with Elizabeth and James, and that suddenly their relationship falls apart when one hears a rumor about the other and chooses to believe it. So it's a precarious sit situation when you're not actually spending time with that person. You're reliant on letters and on. On hearsay, really.
- [21:31]
A
James attitude towards Elizabeth and towards the English crown is quite intriguing because he seems to have been deferential but also ambitious. How did this.
- [21:41]
B
Very ambitious.
- [21:42]
A
How did this dynamic play out in their dealings?
- [21:46]
B
Yes, James made it very, very obvious that what he wanted more than anything from his relationship with Elizabeth was for her to name him her heir. And he kept piling on the pressure. And she was very good at giving kind of vague answers. She did, though, give him a pension at one point, which was taken as a bit of a sign of things to come. But it's obvious in all of James's letters, and I'm pleased to say that his correspondence with Elizabeth has been published, it's been transcribed, so your more intrepid listeners, if they wish to, can go along and read those letters. And it's so obvious how much James wants this from Elizabeth. You know, he starts out being terribly polite and dancing around it, and then he gets less polite. And by the 1590s, he's so impatient because all she's giving him are her wonderfully named answers, answerless, where she sort of. Sort of answers, but actually doesn't. And she doesn't so far as to name him. And at one point she frustratingly says, when I am dead, they shall succeed that have the most right. So she doesn't even gender it, she doesn't say he, she doesn't hint it's James. And one of the most intriguing parts of researching this book for me was the wonderfully named Valentine Thomas controversy. So this happened in 1598, and James by now had been king for over 30 years in Scotland. He'd been hoping for Elizabeth's throne for most of that time. And there's a sense he has lost patience now. So Valentine Thomas was a man who was arrested on the Scottish border by the English authorities for stealing horses. And when they questioned him, they got more than they bargained for, because Valentine Thomas said, actually, I was stealing Horses, because I'm riding south to England on the orders of James to assassinate Elizabeth. And he claimed to have had several meetings with the King of Scots and been paid handsomely to go and murder Elizabeth so that James could finally get his English crown. We don't know, he might well have been a fantasist, or there might have been fire underneath the smoke. Elizabeth herself chose not to believe him. And she wrote to James out of courtesy, saying, look, I've got this guy, I've put him in the tower, don't worry, nobody need know. But James rather stupidly writes letter after letter to Elizabeth protesting too much, saying, oh, I never met him in my life. Her son money didn't pay him all of this. And Elizabeth starts to get suspicious. And then James ups the ante and insists that Elizabeth publish a proclamation to the people of England clearing his name of this controversy. And Elizabeth tries to tell him this is a disastrous idea, but he insists. And in the end, she's just exasperated and she agrees. And you can still see the proclamation in the National Archives in West London. And what this served was a dual purpose. On the one hand, it told the people of England of a plot they'd never heard of, and then it also made them think James was guilty. So he massively shot himself in the foot with this protesting too much. And it does make one wonder whether he really was involved in the Valentine Thomas controversy. And actually, interestingly, that's one of the things in Camden's biography of Elizabeth that James made him go back and rewrite to change the language. So in the rewrite, it's no longer an assassination plot, it's just that James was suspected of bearing ill affection towards the English queen. So quite fascinating.
- [25:46]
A
That testifies to the fact that that that last decade of Elizabeth's life was a period in which the question of the succession was just as vexed as it had been before Mary Queen of Scots death. I think it's easy to think of it as, oh, there's this period where everyone's wondering if, if Elizabeth's going to marry and there's Mary Queen of Scots as a rival. But actually, that last decade is just as contentious, isn't it?
- [26:14]
B
Oh, it is. The 1590s is fraught with anxiety. You get a new generation actually of claimants coming forward, because by the 1590s, of course, Elizabeth is terribly long lived and not all of the claimants are. So there's a new generation of those. And the likes of Henry Hastings, that Plantagenet claimant, he's died as have some of the Stanleys, they're also related to Henry VII's younger daughter, Mary. And of course Mary Queen Scots is dead, but James, he's not quite the last one standing, but it's kind of like the survival of the fittest now. And James is emerging into a very strong position because by the 1590s he's married, he married Anne of Denmark in 1589 and in 1594 she gives birth to their first son, Henry. And this really strengthens James position in England because until now he hadn't been that popular in England, he was Scottish. I'm afraid most of the English people thought the same way as Henry VIII towards the Scots, but now they could see, look, here's James, he has experience of being king, he's the right gender, nobody wants another queen and he has a ready made dynasty. So there'll be no anxiety if he's king of England about who will follow him. But there were others. And Arbella Stewart, we must mention her because actually of all the claimants I wrote about in the Stolen Crown, I think Arbella has to be my favourite. Let me be clear, she would have been a car crash as queen, but it would have been so entertaining.
- [27:52]
A
She's such a tragic figure in this whole story.
- [27:55]
B
Oh, such a tragic figure. So she, like James and as her name Stuart suggests, was of partly Scottish descent, descended from that elder Princess Margaret, but she was born in England, which sort of gave her the edge over James really. And she was, her birth was very deliberate in terms of producing an heir to the throne because she had two quite formidable matriarchs as grandmothers. Lady Margaret Douglas, Henry VIII's niece, mother of Lord Darnley and Bess of Hardwicke, wonderful figure of the Elizabethan age. And they basically got together and decided that their children should marry and produce an heir to throne. And the result was Arbella. But this upbringing she had with her grandmother Bess at Hardwick hall in Derbyshire was quite unfortunate because it was a bit like the Kensington system for Queen Victoria in that Bess suffocated Arbella. She wasn't allowed much freedom of action. She had to sleep in the same room as her grandmother until she was in her 20s. But she was raised to absolutely believe that she had every right to the throne. So Arbella grew up quite arrogant, but also hopelessly naive, which was a great combination for an heir to the throne. And she in maturity proceeded to make a series of disastrous decisions, trying for a secret marriage with one of the Seymours, the descendants of Lady Catherine Grey, that failed. She was kind of under house arrest. And then that continued, you know, into James's reign. She was still there vying for the throne, but in a not very effective way. But probably as the 1590s wore on, Arbella became the closest rival to James in the race for Elizabeth's throne. And certainly lots of people are writing about her. And on the subject of writing, I should say as well that the 1590s is sort of the high point of succession. Tracts, books, pamphlets. Even though by now Elizabeth has actually made it treason to talk about the succession because she's so sick of hearing of it. Everybody's writing about it because there's intense anxiety. Surely Elizabeth, who's in her 60s now, can't endure much longer. So, yeah, these are the bestsellers of their day. Everybody's writing, debating who their favorite candidate is, who has the greatest right. And so it's still in a way anybody's game at this point.
- [30:23]
A
I mean, as Elizabeth came to the end of her life, you write about the sense of impending crisis in England. Would ordinary people have felt this at all?
- [30:35]
B
That's such a good question because we make big assumptions when we write about the royals and those at the centre of power. We know a lot less about the ordinary people. Elizabeth subjects across England, we have little snippets. For example, arrests were made in towns such as Northampton where somebody was locked up for saying that they would have no Scotsman on the throne. And, and so you that. But there's such. So there's such scant evidence for what people at the ground level were really thinking. But I do think perhaps it's quite telling that Robert Cecil, so William Cecil's son and really successor as chief minister to Elizabeth, in that he decided during the 1590s to back James. He wasn't ideal, but he was kind of the best of a bad lot in Robert Cecil's eyes. And he went to the trouble of securing England's ports, to putting armed guards in England's key cities, which does suggest that he was worried that there would be rebellion if James came to the throne and that this sort of anti Scottish feeling that was so endemic in England would actually boil over if James actually inherited Elizabeth's throne. So it's interesting, but sadly we just don't know enough about what the ordinary people of England were actually thinking. Choose to show up. With the bold styling of the Mazda CX30.
- [32:43]
A
Now, putting aside the question of whether Valentine Thomas was actually James's agent or not, what steps do we know that James was taking to consolidate his position as Elizabeth got closer to death.
- [32:57]
B
The best thing James did was to make friends with Robert Cecil. At the beginning of the 1590s, he kind of goes on a charm offensive with those he sees as being the most powerful members of Elizabeth's government. He goes for the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth's last great favorite, Robert Devereux, and they get very friendly indeed. But then, of course, Essex writes himself out of the story when he rebels and is executed. And then James backtracks and tries to distance himself from Essex because people say that the Scottish king put him up to that rebellion. So all of James's eggs, if you like, are now in Cecil basket. And he does choose well in cultivating Robert Cecil because he has enormous power and influence. And they begin this top secret correspondence during the early part of the 1590s. They use code names for each other. They use secret agents to convey their letters, because it is treason, what they're doing on two counts. They're discussing the succession, but they're also referring to the death of the queen, and that's treason as well. And so they're putting everything in place, even down to the wording of the proclamation of James's accession, which Cecil drafts 10 years before Elizabeth dies. So he is a detail man, and he really is smoothing James's path. I do wonder, though, whether Elizabeth knew exactly what was going on. She did still have quite a tight control over affairs at her court. There has been, I think, a fairly valid theory that she was turning a blind eye to, or perhaps even encouraging Cecil to correspond with James, to lay the foundations for him inheriting her crown, because she'd already really showed her hand that he was probably her favorite, even though she was determined never to name him. So that was absolutely pivotal to James's success. And I think probably he owed his crown to Cecil far more than to Elizabeth. And we should probably, you know, we could talk about Warwick the Kingmaker, perhaps Cecil the Kingmaker we should start talking about, because his power was so considerable and his influence on the session at the end was probably greater than anybody else's.
- [35:16]
A
When Elizabeth died, although she later came to be regarded as this great Gloriana, at the time, actually, there was this sense of relief. You know, the gerontocracy is over. We've had enough being ruled by an old woman. And now we've got this man coming and he's got heirs and he's established and experienced as a king. Were there early signs, however, of tension or friction when James came to the English Throne.
- [35:44]
B
Yes, there was, absolutely. And in fact, when he was declared king, which happened very speedily thanks to Cecil's careful preparation, there were riots in certain cities and towns in England and arrests were made. Now, they were all fairly small scale and certainly there was no concerted opposition to James, so he was able to inherit Elizabeth's throne. Uncontested Billy. But they were warning signs. And as James made his steady progress south to claim his new crown, there were more and more signs. Because to say there was a culture clash between the Stuarts and Tudors would be an understatement. I think James didn't take on board any of the advice Elizabeth had tried to give him. One of my favourite pieces of advice was that he should play the king. In other words, Elizabeth was the ultimate queen of pr. She was known for her public appearances, her image was very carefully curated, her progresses. James preferred to live in private with a few favourites. He spent most of his time hunting, leaving the business of government to Cecil and others. And this really didn't go down very well with the people of England. Neither did James's sort of riotous forms of entertainment, like these, these drunken masks that were performed in the Stuart court. But what was really crucial was James's relationship with the English Parliament, because, again, he didn't listen to Elizabeth's advice and she'd really urged him, look, it's not the same as in Scotland, where the King is more in charge of Parliament, if you like, you have to work in partnership with Parliament. And he disregarded that. And things went very badly wrong for James and the English Parliament very quickly. He'd confidently expected that they would agree to his idea for a formal union between England and Scotland. And you can see why it makes sense. They now just. They share a king. But actually the English Parliament wanted none of it. And actually most people in England didn't either. And so this was the first major clash between James and Parliament. And things just unraveled so quickly with this new king that within weeks, actually of his accession, you start to hear of plots. There are a couple of plots, one called the by Plot, the other the main plot. And then we have the ultimate plot with the gunpowder plot in 1605, when, in a reaction against James's heavy persecution of England's Catholics, that we have Robert Catesby and his fellow Catholic gentlemen planning to, as they could it, blow the Scottish King to the heavens with this huge cache of gunpowder ready underneath the House of Lords. For when James comes to open parliament in November 1605. It's only narrowly foiled. And it seems to have really understandably rattled James. And there's this sense that he's clinging to power by his fingertips, really in England. And that's the moment when he spies an opportunity with William Camden and this book he's heard that Camden had written about Elizabeth but never published. And that's when James instructs Camden to publish, but not until he has made some quite crucial revisions to that book, most notably regarding the succession.
- [39:14]
A
Recently I talked to a number of scholars about what would have happened if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded. And actually it was a really wonderful thought experiment because as we talked we gradually sort of started to realize how huge the ramifications would have been, how far reaching but how serious a threat was it? I mean, was there any chance it could have come off, do you think?
- [39:37]
B
I think there was. Although there is quite a good theory that the whole thing was a put up job. Maybe Robert Cecil was behind it because he wanted to whip up fear of England's Catholics and it certainly worked with that. But obviously therefore made sure it, it wasn't actually carried out. There was that anonymous tip off, but it was a very, very serious threat to James. I think if it wasn't assuming it wasn't some kind of fake plot. And I think probably it wasn't. It really spoke of James's deep unpopularity in England and particularly among the Catholic community. But there's sort of a xenophobic flavor to it as well, which James increasingly came up against. You know, the Scottish King they called him and came so close to success. I mean, Guy Fawkes was only discovered at midnight on the 4th of November. Parliament was due to open on the 5th of November. Of course we now celebrate Bonfire Night on that day. And so it was a very close run thing. And far from being this sort of group of fantasists who didn't know what they were doing. They were explosives experts, these guys, they knew what they were doing with gunpowder, they'd worked with it. People like Guy Fawkes had a military background and they had it all in place. And if it had succeeded, it would have destroyed not just the Houses of Parliament with the King and his Parliament in it, but sort of a mile radius of London. It was, it would have been devastating. And you're right, it's sort of, yeah, that my mind starts exploding literally when I think about what might have been if it had succeeded.
- [41:21]
A
You've mentioned throughout these wonderful findings at the British Library about Camden. And it's so interesting because for a Long time people thought he was impartial, but of course, these hidden pages, this, this doctoring, the self censoring reveals something different. What, in the end do you think it adds to our understanding of the business of the succession in particular?
- [41:45]
B
I think it really makes us look afresh at the Elizabethan succession and make it makes it seem much more like a closely contested battle than a foregone conclusion. But I think perhaps the greatest significance of this discovery is the sort of the after story, because this lie that started the Stuart dynasty here in England would have consequences. And I think the crucial element were those letters that passed between Elizabeth and James where she's trying to influence him to be a good king. I think she recognizes he's the strongest blood claimant, he's probably going to get it. So she's trying to shape his views, trying to shape him into an effective King of England. But he disregards her advice. He, like his countryman Knox, believes that it's abhorrent for a woman to bear rules. So he's not going to listen to her. And therefore things fall apart very, very quickly for James. And then that decline continues and accelerates under his son, Charles I, who is very much a king in the mould of his father. He believes in the divine right of kings. He rides roughshod over Parliament in England, dissolving it whenever it doesn't do his bidding, until Parliament becomes so aggrieved that it rises up against the king, plunging the country into the civil war that people had spent most of Elizabeth's reign fearing and resulting ultimately in the execution of the king. So within the space of a generation, you go from the glory that the majesty, the seeming invincibility of the Tudors to the destruction of the Stuarts. It all happens so rapidly. And just tracing it back to that shady moment when in March 1603, a lie was told. And so it continued. It is one of the most tantalizing what ifs and something we haven't spoken about yet. Is that, okay, if not James, he was illegal, he wasn't named who should have technically come to the throne. And this is a tantalizing what if, because actually, if the law had been followed. I realise as you pointed out, Henry VIII's will, there are issues and you've written about this, but really the strongest legal candidate was Edward Seymour, who was the eldest son of Lady Catherine Grey. So in theory we should have had a king, Edward VII in 1603, not in 1901 when Victoria died. But we don't know much about him. So he's a bit untested. We don't know if he'd have made a good king, but the monarchy would have taken a completely different path. It's just one of those tantalizing what ifs, as I said.
- [44:50]
A
So is that in the end why you call it a stolen crown?
- [44:54]
B
Yes, it's a provocative title and I think if it was stolen, Elizabeth was at least complicit in the theft. But ultimately, yes, he wasn't a named heir. He wasn't a legal heir in the eyes of many, and therefore that word stolen made it onto the book cover.
- [45:17]
A
Well, Tracy Portman, thank you so much for talking to us us about the succession and giving us this kind of brand new way of thinking about it. It's been really fun.
- [45:28]
B
I've enjoyed every moment. Thanks so much for having me.
- [45:33]
A
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors from History Hit. Thank you also to my researcher Max Wintool, my producer Rob Weinberg, and to Amy Haddo, who edited this episode. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line@notjusthetorshistoryhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on Not Just the Tutors from History.
- [45:59]
B
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