WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.180 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are attempting 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:07.440 something. Well, something difficult. We're trying 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:10.300 to really see a person who spent her entire life 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:13.480 making sure she couldn't be truly seen. That 00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:16.320 is a very, very apt way to put it. We are looking 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:19.059 at Elizabeth I. And I think for most of us, Elizabeth 00:00:19.059 --> 00:00:22.260 I isn't really a person. She's a logo. She's 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:24.199 that image on the tea towel, you know the one? 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:26.660 The white lead makeup, the bright red wig. The 00:00:26.660 --> 00:00:28.920 pearls, the ruffs that are the size of a satellite 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:32.299 dish. She is Gloriana. The Virgin Queen. Right. 00:00:32.420 --> 00:00:34.579 The woman who defeated the Spanish Armada and 00:00:34.579 --> 00:00:37.060 ushered in a golden age of Shakespeare and exploration. 00:00:37.420 --> 00:00:39.759 That's the brand. Right. But the source material 00:00:39.759 --> 00:00:41.640 we're working with today, and it's a massive 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:43.859 stack of biographical records, letters, state 00:00:43.859 --> 00:00:46.380 papers. It tells a story that is so much more 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:48.619 desperate. It suggests that the makeup and the 00:00:48.619 --> 00:00:52.380 wigs weren't just fashion. They were armor. It's 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:54.640 a survival story, and that's really the mission 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.079 of this deep dive. We need to strip away that 00:00:57.079 --> 00:00:59.740 fairy queen propaganda, which we should note 00:00:59.740 --> 00:01:02.079 she manufactured herself very successfully. Oh, 00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:04.379 brilliantly. And look at the political genius 00:01:04.379 --> 00:01:08.400 and the, well, the profound personal trauma that 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:10.260 shaped her. So the central question we're trying 00:01:10.260 --> 00:01:14.359 to answer is this. How did a woman... In the 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:16.659 16th century, I mean, a time when women were 00:01:16.659 --> 00:01:19.239 legally property and generally expected to be 00:01:19.239 --> 00:01:22.959 silent. How did she not only survive, but become 00:01:22.959 --> 00:01:25.379 the most feared ruler in Europe? And that other 00:01:25.379 --> 00:01:29.370 big question. Was the Virgin Queen a noble sacrifice 00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:32.030 or was it the most successful marketing campaign 00:01:32.030 --> 00:01:34.189 in political history? To understand the Golden 00:01:34.189 --> 00:01:36.730 Age, you have to understand that it started in 00:01:36.730 --> 00:01:39.609 the mud. It started with trauma. It absolutely 00:01:39.609 --> 00:01:41.930 did. So let's go back to the beginning. 1533, 00:01:42.189 --> 00:01:44.670 she is born to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. She 00:01:44.670 --> 00:01:46.909 is the heir. Everything is perfect. And then 00:01:46.909 --> 00:01:49.230 she hits age two. Two years and eight months, 00:01:49.269 --> 00:01:52.170 to be precise. And her world completely collapses. 00:01:52.939 --> 00:01:55.640 Her father, Henry, has her mother, Anne Boleyn, 00:01:55.719 --> 00:01:58.040 beheaded on charges of treason and adultery. 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:00.239 And it's not just that she loses her mother, 00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:02.480 which is obviously catastrophic. The source material 00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:05.120 really emphasizes the legal shift here. Henry 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:07.700 annuls the marriage. So Elizabeth isn't just 00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:10.620 an orphan. She is declared illegitimate. She 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:13.770 goes from Princess Elizabeth. To the Lady Elizabeth. 00:02:13.990 --> 00:02:15.650 She is stripped of her place in the succession, 00:02:15.969 --> 00:02:18.490 and you have to consider the psychological imprint 00:02:18.490 --> 00:02:20.710 of this. I mean, she's a toddler, but she is 00:02:20.710 --> 00:02:22.830 surrounded by a household that suddenly treats 00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:25.449 her differently. Right. The whispers must have 00:02:25.449 --> 00:02:27.610 stopped when she entered her room. Exactly. Her 00:02:27.610 --> 00:02:30.689 clothes are outgrown and not replaced. Her governess 00:02:30.689 --> 00:02:32.870 has to write these desperate letters begging 00:02:32.870 --> 00:02:36.669 the king for funds for, well, for canvas to make 00:02:36.669 --> 00:02:39.270 the child underwear. It's a Cinderella story, 00:02:39.490 --> 00:02:42.710 but with the constant lingering threat of execution 00:02:42.710 --> 00:02:45.110 hanging over it. And then she watches her father 00:02:45.110 --> 00:02:47.710 just cycle through wives. Jane Seymour dies. 00:02:47.969 --> 00:02:50.650 Anne of Cleves is divorced. Catherine Howard. 00:02:50.849 --> 00:02:53.389 Beheaded, just like her mother's cousin. That 00:02:53.389 --> 00:02:55.870 is the environment. She learns very, very early 00:02:55.870 --> 00:02:58.650 that marriage is a dangerous business. For women, 00:02:58.669 --> 00:03:01.909 anyway. If you displease the king, you die. But 00:03:01.909 --> 00:03:04.069 this is where we see her first coping mechanism 00:03:04.069 --> 00:03:07.689 develop. Since she has no power, no status, she 00:03:07.689 --> 00:03:10.789 turns to the one thing she can control. Her mind. 00:03:11.210 --> 00:03:13.530 Education. Hmm. I was looking at the breakdown 00:03:13.530 --> 00:03:15.590 of her studies. It's not finishing school stuff. 00:03:15.650 --> 00:03:17.830 She's not just learning to sew and play the lute, 00:03:17.870 --> 00:03:20.090 you know. Far from it. She became one of the 00:03:20.090 --> 00:03:22.729 most educated women of her generation. By her 00:03:22.729 --> 00:03:25.330 teens, she was fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, 00:03:25.550 --> 00:03:28.009 and Latin. She could read Greek. And she wasn't 00:03:28.009 --> 00:03:31.310 reading light fiction. The sources list her translations, 00:03:31.650 --> 00:03:34.409 Tacitus and Boethius. Let's just pause on that 00:03:34.409 --> 00:03:36.370 for a second because that's so telling. Tacitus 00:03:36.370 --> 00:03:38.650 was a historian of the Roman Empire, specifically 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:41.370 writing about how to survive under tyrants. Exactly. 00:03:41.550 --> 00:03:44.289 And Boethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy 00:03:44.289 --> 00:03:48.030 while he was in prison awaiting execution. So 00:03:48.030 --> 00:03:50.229 you've got a teenager. The daughter of a tyrant 00:03:50.229 --> 00:03:53.310 who kills his wives and she's translating manuals 00:03:53.310 --> 00:03:55.409 on how to survive tyranny and how to find peace 00:03:55.409 --> 00:03:59.909 in a prison cell. That feels highly practical. 00:04:00.189 --> 00:04:01.969 It was her survival guide. She couldn't fight 00:04:01.969 --> 00:04:04.310 with a sword, so she sharpened her mind. She 00:04:04.310 --> 00:04:06.830 used her intellect to make herself useful, or 00:04:06.830 --> 00:04:09.030 at least formidable. And she would need that 00:04:09.030 --> 00:04:11.550 intellect immediately after Henry dies in 1547 00:04:11.550 --> 00:04:13.849 because she walks right into the Seymour scandal. 00:04:14.250 --> 00:04:16.509 Right. I want to slow down on this part. Because 00:04:16.509 --> 00:04:19.370 in the movies, the Thomas Seymour incident is 00:04:19.370 --> 00:04:22.629 often played as this sort of tragic romance or 00:04:22.629 --> 00:04:26.490 a minor blip. A teenage crush. Yeah. But looking 00:04:26.490 --> 00:04:28.990 at the depositions in the source material, this 00:04:28.990 --> 00:04:31.550 feels like a fundamental dismantling of a child's 00:04:31.550 --> 00:04:34.029 safety. We're talking about a man in his late 00:04:34.029 --> 00:04:37.240 30s targeting a 14 -year -old girl. it's grooming 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.300 by modern definitions but politically it was 00:04:40.300 --> 00:04:43.180 treason seymour wasn't just a creep he was the 00:04:43.180 --> 00:04:45.639 lord high admiral he was the uncle of the new 00:04:45.639 --> 00:04:49.079 king edward vi he was attempting to build a power 00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:51.540 base to challenge his brother the lord protector 00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:54.259 and marrying elizabeth was the key by marrying 00:04:54.259 --> 00:04:56.160 elizabeth he would have controlled the spare 00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:59.220 heir to the throne it was a power play but here's 00:04:59.220 --> 00:05:02.319 what i don't get elizabeth was incredibly sharp 00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:04.699 We just established she was translating Latin 00:05:04.699 --> 00:05:07.300 at age 10. Did she not see what he was doing? 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:09.860 Or was she just a lonely kid who liked the attention? 00:05:10.120 --> 00:05:12.220 And that is the absolute tragedy of it. She was 00:05:12.220 --> 00:05:15.240 both. She was an intellectual prodigy, yes, but 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:17.660 she was also a motherless teenager living in 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:20.439 a household where her stepmother, Catherine Parr, 00:05:20.699 --> 00:05:23.139 the woman responsible for protecting her, was 00:05:23.139 --> 00:05:25.339 actually participating in some of these boundary 00:05:25.339 --> 00:05:28.019 violations. That's the part that's so hard to 00:05:28.019 --> 00:05:31.240 read. to keep her husband happy. The sources 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:33.339 mentioned Catherine holding Elizabeth down while 00:05:33.339 --> 00:05:36.300 Seymour cut her gown into pieces. It was a bizarre, 00:05:36.420 --> 00:05:39.339 abusive dynamic. And when Catherine dies in childbirth, 00:05:39.519 --> 00:05:42.579 the buffer is gone. Seymour moves immediately 00:05:42.579 --> 00:05:45.319 to try and marry Elizabeth. And that leads to 00:05:45.319 --> 00:05:47.560 the interrogation at Hatfield. This is the part 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:50.259 that reads like a spy thriller. The Crown arrests 00:05:50.259 --> 00:05:53.040 Seymour for treason, and they send an investigator, 00:05:53.300 --> 00:05:55.800 Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, to break Elizabeth. And 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.699 he's not just asking her questions. He is actively 00:05:58.699 --> 00:06:01.139 trying to trick her. Oh, completely. Tyrwhitt's 00:06:01.139 --> 00:06:03.240 letters are wild. He writes to the council saying, 00:06:03.339 --> 00:06:05.399 I will get it out of her. He tries everything. 00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:07.660 He tells her rumors that she's pregnant with 00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:10.019 Seymour's child. He tells her Seymour has already 00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:13.379 confessed, which was a lie. He tries to terrify 00:06:13.379 --> 00:06:15.759 her into admitting a plot. Imagine the pressure. 00:06:16.180 --> 00:06:19.279 You are 15. Your father beheaded your mother. 00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:21.899 Now the government is telling you that if you 00:06:21.899 --> 00:06:23.879 don't confess to this marriage plot, you're a 00:06:23.879 --> 00:06:26.889 traitor. Most adults would crack. But she doesn't. 00:06:26.889 --> 00:06:29.490 No. And this is where the Elizabethan character 00:06:29.490 --> 00:06:32.769 is forged. She stonewalls him. She writes these 00:06:32.769 --> 00:06:35.750 letters that are masterpieces of evasion. She 00:06:35.750 --> 00:06:38.189 admits to hearing rumors, but never admits to 00:06:38.189 --> 00:06:41.389 the actions. She parses every single word. And 00:06:41.389 --> 00:06:43.589 Tierwood eventually just gives up. He essentially 00:06:43.589 --> 00:06:45.990 does. He writes, she had a very good wit and 00:06:45.990 --> 00:06:48.009 nothing has gotten of her but by great policy. 00:06:48.269 --> 00:06:51.759 She beat the interrogator. At 15. She saved her 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:53.839 own life. If she had admitted to a contract of 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:55.980 marriage with Seymour without the king's consent, 00:06:56.199 --> 00:06:58.439 she would have been disinherited or, you know, 00:06:58.459 --> 00:07:00.899 worse. It taught her the most valuable lesson 00:07:00.899 --> 00:07:04.139 of her reign. Silence is safer than speech. That 00:07:04.139 --> 00:07:05.860 lesson comes in handy pretty quickly because 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:08.699 her brother Edward dies young and her older sister 00:07:08.699 --> 00:07:12.100 Mary takes the throne. Mary first. Bloody Mary. 00:07:12.279 --> 00:07:15.120 A devout Catholic. And Elizabeth is the great 00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:17.160 Protestant hope. Even if Elizabeth does nothing, 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:20.009 her very existence is a threat to Mary. So when 00:07:20.009 --> 00:07:23.129 the Wyatt Rebellion breaks out in 1554 against 00:07:23.129 --> 00:07:26.089 Mary's plan to marry Philip of Spain. Elizabeth 00:07:26.089 --> 00:07:28.709 is the natural figurehead. Whether she was involved 00:07:28.709 --> 00:07:31.129 or not, everyone assumed she was. So Mary throws 00:07:31.129 --> 00:07:33.689 her in the Tower of London. The very same place 00:07:33.689 --> 00:07:35.949 her mother was imprisoned before her execution, 00:07:36.350 --> 00:07:39.269 she enters through Trader's Gate. The sources 00:07:39.269 --> 00:07:41.709 say she sat on the wet steps and refused to go 00:07:41.709 --> 00:07:44.589 in, saying, here lands as true a subject, being 00:07:44.589 --> 00:07:47.620 prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs. She 00:07:47.620 --> 00:07:49.980 was terrified. I read that Mary's advisors, like 00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:52.339 the Spanish ambassador, were basically in her 00:07:52.339 --> 00:07:54.519 ear day and night saying, as long as Elizabeth 00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:57.839 lives, you will never be safe. They wanted her 00:07:57.839 --> 00:08:00.660 head. So why didn't Mary just execute her? Primarily 00:08:00.660 --> 00:08:03.379 a lack of evidence. Elizabeth stuck to her training. 00:08:03.540 --> 00:08:06.220 She saw everything and said nothing. She admitted 00:08:06.220 --> 00:08:08.839 nothing. She wrote these incredibly careful letters 00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:11.540 pledging her loyalty. And Mary knew that executing 00:08:11.540 --> 00:08:14.040 her sister without hard proof would turn Elizabeth 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:16.220 into a Protestant martyr. It would have caused 00:08:16.220 --> 00:08:19.279 a civil war. So Elizabeth survives by seeing 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.160 and keeping silent video at Tassio. It becomes 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:25.579 her personal motto. So flash forward to 1558. 00:08:25.779 --> 00:08:30.100 Mary I dies. She's childless. And suddenly, Elizabeth. 00:08:30.750 --> 00:08:33.590 the bastard, the prisoner, becomes queen at age 00:08:33.590 --> 00:08:36.970 25. It's a remarkable turnaround, but the country 00:08:36.970 --> 00:08:39.830 she inherits is a complete disaster zone. It's 00:08:39.830 --> 00:08:42.909 bankrupt from Mary's wars, the military is degraded, 00:08:42.909 --> 00:08:46.169 and it is violently, violently divided by religion. 00:08:46.509 --> 00:08:48.490 And she kicks things off with this really interesting 00:08:48.490 --> 00:08:51.340 speech about her. Two bodies. Right. It's a key 00:08:51.340 --> 00:08:53.919 concept. She says she has a body natural, her 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:57.620 physical female human self, and a body politic, 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:00.740 the divine immortal institution of the monarchy. 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:02.980 She's basically telling them, I might be a woman, 00:09:03.100 --> 00:09:05.059 which you all think is a weakness, but I'm also 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:07.799 God's anointed vessel, so deal with it. It's 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:09.600 clever rhetoric, but you're right. She has to 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:11.740 back it up with policy. And that brings us to 00:09:11.740 --> 00:09:14.980 the machinery of 1559. She becomes queen and 00:09:14.980 --> 00:09:17.559 the country is a religious wreck. You have Catholics 00:09:17.559 --> 00:09:19.320 who think she's a heretic and Puritans who think 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:21.179 she's not Protestant enough. So the history books 00:09:21.179 --> 00:09:23.299 call it the middle way. But how do you actually 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:25.759 legislate a middle way when half your parliament 00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:27.460 wants to burn Protestants and the other half 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:30.379 wants to smash Catholic statues? Well, it was 00:09:30.379 --> 00:09:33.620 an absolute legislative brawl. You have to remember, 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:36.080 the House of Lords was stacked with Catholic 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:39.259 bishops appointed by her sister Mary. They voted 00:09:39.259 --> 00:09:41.600 against her first religious proposals unanimously. 00:09:42.299 --> 00:09:45.980 The middle way almost died on arrival. So how 00:09:45.980 --> 00:09:47.940 did she pass it? She couldn't just execute all 00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:49.940 the bishops without looking like a tyrant. She 00:09:49.940 --> 00:09:52.539 used a combination of procedural trickery and 00:09:52.539 --> 00:09:57.080 the Easter recess. arrested two key bishops for 00:09:57.080 --> 00:09:59.279 disobedience just to get them out of the chamber 00:09:59.279 --> 00:10:01.720 and reduce the Catholic vote count. That's a 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:04.539 bold move. It was. And then she split the legislation 00:10:04.539 --> 00:10:07.440 into two parts, the act of supremacy and the 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:09.539 act of uniformity. OK, so let's parse those. 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:11.620 The act of supremacy is the one about her title, 00:10:11.700 --> 00:10:13.879 right? Yes. And this is where the genius of language 00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:16.320 comes in. The Catholics couldn't accept a woman 00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:18.059 as head of the church because that's the Pope's 00:10:18.059 --> 00:10:20.919 job or Christ's. And the hardline Protestants, 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:23.580 the Puritans, didn't like it either. So she proposes 00:10:23.580 --> 00:10:27.419 supreme governor. Governor. It sounds more administrative. 00:10:27.820 --> 00:10:31.340 Less divine. Exactly. It implies administrative 00:10:31.340 --> 00:10:33.919 control without claiming theological divinity. 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:36.960 It gave the Catholics just enough of a loophole 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:39.620 to swear allegiance to her without feeling like 00:10:39.620 --> 00:10:42.799 they were damning their souls. Smart. But the 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.100 act of uniformity, that's the one that affects 00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:47.039 the average person on Sunday morning. Correct. 00:10:47.179 --> 00:10:50.179 And this was the great compromise. The book was 00:10:50.179 --> 00:10:53.580 Protestant, the Book of Common Prayer, but the 00:10:53.580 --> 00:10:57.100 look was Catholic -ish. She kept the priest's 00:10:57.100 --> 00:10:59.720 vestments, the candles on the altar, the choral 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:02.980 music. She knew that for the illiterate peasant 00:11:02.980 --> 00:11:05.980 in Yorkshire, the deep theology didn't matter 00:11:05.980 --> 00:11:08.690 as much as the sensory experience. Right. If 00:11:08.690 --> 00:11:10.370 it looked and felt like the church they'd always 00:11:10.370 --> 00:11:12.470 known, they wouldn't revolt. But what if you 00:11:12.470 --> 00:11:14.809 didn't go? What if you were a hardcore Catholic 00:11:14.809 --> 00:11:16.830 who refused to attend this new service? Then 00:11:16.830 --> 00:11:19.950 you paid. This is the recusancy fine. Twelve 00:11:19.950 --> 00:11:22.289 pence for every missed Sunday service. Twelve 00:11:22.289 --> 00:11:24.389 pence doesn't sound like much today. Back then, 00:11:24.450 --> 00:11:26.629 it was about a week's wages for a common laborer. 00:11:26.889 --> 00:11:29.929 It was painful, but it wasn't lethal. And that 00:11:29.929 --> 00:11:31.389 was the calculation. She didn't want to make 00:11:31.389 --> 00:11:33.720 martyrs. She wanted to make money and ensure 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:36.759 outward conformity. She famously said she had 00:11:36.759 --> 00:11:39.399 no desire to make windows into men's hearts. 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:42.139 Basically, I don't care what you believe in your 00:11:42.139 --> 00:11:44.720 head, just show up, pay your taxes, and don't 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.059 cause trouble. Precisely. It was about stability, 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:49.980 not piety. But while she's trying to stabilize 00:11:49.980 --> 00:11:53.120 the country, everyone else is obsessed with one 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:56.159 thing. Who is she going to marry? The marriage 00:11:56.159 --> 00:11:59.620 question. It completely dominated the first 20 00:11:59.620 --> 00:12:02.179 years of her reign. Parliament, her council, 00:12:02.539 --> 00:12:05.200 foreign ambassadors, they all believed a woman 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:08.179 could not rule alone. She needed a husband to 00:12:08.179 --> 00:12:10.799 handle the military and crucially secure this 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:12.820 succession. And she had options. I mean, first 00:12:12.820 --> 00:12:14.960 and foremost, there was Robert Dudley, the Earl 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:17.100 of Leicester. Her sweet Robin. The sources are 00:12:17.100 --> 00:12:18.759 pretty clear that this was a genuine emotional 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:20.600 connection. They had known each other since they 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:22.539 were eight years old. They were in the tower 00:12:22.539 --> 00:12:25.139 at the same time under Mary. But he was married. 00:12:26.049 --> 00:12:29.129 until his wife, Amy Robsart, was found dead at 00:12:29.129 --> 00:12:30.950 the bottom of a flight of stairs with a broken 00:12:30.950 --> 00:12:34.309 neck. Hmm. Which is still one of history's great 00:12:34.309 --> 00:12:37.470 cold cases. Did Dudley arrange it? Did Elizabeth 00:12:37.470 --> 00:12:40.710 know? Was it a genuine accident or suicide? We'll 00:12:40.710 --> 00:12:43.730 never know. But the optics were absolutely terrible. 00:12:44.009 --> 00:12:47.529 If Elizabeth married him right after that, she 00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:49.429 would have been seen as an accomplice to murder. 00:12:49.710 --> 00:12:52.049 It would have been political suicide. Total suicide. 00:12:52.090 --> 00:12:54.870 So Dudley is out. Then you have the foreign princes. 00:12:55.549 --> 00:12:58.190 Philip II of Spain proposed, which is ironic 00:12:58.190 --> 00:13:00.029 since he was her brother -in -law. Right, the 00:13:00.029 --> 00:13:02.950 Archduke of Austria, the French dukes. The Duke 00:13:02.950 --> 00:13:06.590 of Anjou, she called him her frog. She even wore 00:13:06.590 --> 00:13:08.889 a frog -shaped earring he sent her. It went on 00:13:08.889 --> 00:13:11.309 for years. That is adorable. But was she ever 00:13:11.309 --> 00:13:13.799 serious? Mm -hmm. Or was she just stringing them 00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:15.799 all along? That is the million -dollar question, 00:13:16.019 --> 00:13:18.659 isn't it? She played the game for decades. She 00:13:18.659 --> 00:13:20.620 called it courtship. But it was really foreign 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:22.879 policy. As long as she was available, she could 00:13:22.879 --> 00:13:24.919 dangle the possibility of an English alliance 00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:28.159 before France or Spain. And play them off against 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:31.120 each other. Exactly. But if she marries one, 00:13:31.240 --> 00:13:33.440 she alienates the other. And more importantly, 00:13:33.620 --> 00:13:36.700 she loses her power to her husband. She saw what 00:13:36.700 --> 00:13:39.080 happened to her sister Mary, who married Philip 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:41.600 II and got dragged into Spanish wars and was 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:43.620 completely sidelined. She was never going to 00:13:43.620 --> 00:13:46.360 let that happen. Never. So she pivots. She takes 00:13:46.360 --> 00:13:49.159 this liability, being unmarried and childless, 00:13:49.299 --> 00:13:53.070 and she turns it into a brand. The Virgin Queen. 00:13:53.370 --> 00:13:55.750 It's brilliant marketing. It is. In a country 00:13:55.750 --> 00:13:58.250 that had just lost its primary female religious 00:13:58.250 --> 00:14:00.649 figure, the Virgin Mary. She steps into that 00:14:00.649 --> 00:14:03.409 void. She becomes the mother of the nation. She 00:14:03.409 --> 00:14:06.350 declares she is married to her kingdom. It was 00:14:06.350 --> 00:14:08.789 a genius move that justified her holding soul 00:14:08.789 --> 00:14:11.330 power. But while she's building this brand of 00:14:11.330 --> 00:14:14.230 the perfect Protestant queen, there is a dark 00:14:14.230 --> 00:14:17.289 reflection, a rival across the border. Mary. 00:14:17.720 --> 00:14:19.840 Queen of Scots. The rival. You couldn't write 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:22.759 a better foil for Elizabeth. Mary Stuart is everything 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:25.139 Elizabeth isn't. She's younger. She was raised 00:14:25.139 --> 00:14:27.379 in the glamorous French court, so she's incredibly 00:14:27.379 --> 00:14:30.059 charming and courtly. She's devoutly Catholic. 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:34.419 And crucially, she has a son, an heir. And in 00:14:34.419 --> 00:14:38.179 the eyes of Catholic Europe, Elizabeth is illegitimate, 00:14:38.259 --> 00:14:41.860 the daughter of Anne Boleyn. So Mary is the rightful 00:14:41.860 --> 00:14:45.470 Queen of England. Correct. But Mary was politically 00:14:45.470 --> 00:14:48.409 reckless. She makes disaster after disaster in 00:14:48.409 --> 00:14:51.409 Scotland. Her husband, Lord Darnley, is murdered. 00:14:51.629 --> 00:14:53.929 The house he was staying in was literally blown 00:14:53.929 --> 00:14:56.509 up. And then he was found strangled in the garden. 00:14:56.769 --> 00:15:01.019 That is. Incredibly violent. And then just a 00:15:01.019 --> 00:15:03.720 few months later, Mary marries the main suspect, 00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:06.639 the Earl of Bothwell. Her own people turn on 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:09.639 her. She is forced to abdicate and flee Scotland. 00:15:10.019 --> 00:15:12.399 And where does she go? She runs to England. She 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:14.440 throws herself on the mercy of her cousin Elizabeth, 00:15:14.779 --> 00:15:17.059 assuming Elizabeth will help her get her throne 00:15:17.059 --> 00:15:19.080 back. Which puts Elizabeth in an absolutely impossible 00:15:19.080 --> 00:15:21.600 position. This is the ultimate damned if you 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:23.919 do, damned if you don't. Right. She can't kill 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:26.299 an anointed queen. That sets a terrible precedent. 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:28.759 She can't help her regain her throne because 00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:31.419 Mary is a Catholic with a claim to the English 00:15:31.419 --> 00:15:33.580 throne. That's a huge threat. And she can't just 00:15:33.580 --> 00:15:35.279 let her go to France to raise an army against 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:38.039 her. So she puts her in a cage. A gilded cage. 00:15:38.759 --> 00:15:42.909 For 19 years. Mary is moved from castle to castle 00:15:42.909 --> 00:15:45.210 under house arrest. But you can't lock up a symbol. 00:15:45.409 --> 00:15:48.230 As long as Mary is alive in England, every Catholic 00:15:48.230 --> 00:15:50.350 plot against Elizabeth has a figurehead. And 00:15:50.350 --> 00:15:52.549 there were so many plots. The Rodolphe plot, 00:15:52.850 --> 00:15:55.950 the Throckmorton plot. Then in 1570, the Pope 00:15:55.950 --> 00:15:58.730 actually excommunicates Elizabeth. He issues 00:15:58.730 --> 00:16:01.649 a bull called Regnans in Excelsis. Can we define 00:16:01.649 --> 00:16:03.929 exactly what that meant back then? Because today, 00:16:04.049 --> 00:16:06.129 excommunication sounds like you just can't take 00:16:06.129 --> 00:16:09.659 communion. In 1570, it was a weapon of war. It 00:16:09.659 --> 00:16:12.279 declared Elizabeth a heretic and a servant of 00:16:12.279 --> 00:16:15.639 crime. But crucially, it legally absolved all 00:16:15.639 --> 00:16:17.820 English Catholics of their allegiance to her. 00:16:17.940 --> 00:16:20.080 It basically gave them religious permission to 00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:22.440 assassinate her. So the Pope put a hit out on 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:25.129 her. Effectively, yes. So the pressure on Elizabeth 00:16:25.129 --> 00:16:27.870 to get rid of Mary becomes immense. Her spymaster, 00:16:28.029 --> 00:16:29.870 Francis Walsingham, is practically begging for 00:16:29.870 --> 00:16:32.009 it. Walsingham is running this incredible surveillance 00:16:32.009 --> 00:16:34.950 state that would make the CIA jealous, intercepting 00:16:34.950 --> 00:16:37.250 letters, breaking codes, turning double agents. 00:16:37.529 --> 00:16:40.009 And eventually he traps Mary, the Baggington 00:16:40.009 --> 00:16:43.629 plot in 1586. He intercepts letters using a double 00:16:43.629 --> 00:16:46.870 agent where Mary explicitly consents to the assassination 00:16:46.870 --> 00:16:50.190 of Elizabeth. The evidence was undeniable. He 00:16:50.190 --> 00:16:52.970 had her dead to rights. So Elizabeth has no choice. 00:16:53.190 --> 00:16:56.309 But even then, she hesitates. The sources say 00:16:56.309 --> 00:16:58.350 she signed the death warrant, but then claimed 00:16:58.350 --> 00:17:00.269 she didn't mean for it to be sent. She blamed 00:17:00.269 --> 00:17:03.370 her secretary, William Davison. She threw him 00:17:03.370 --> 00:17:06.210 under the bus, put him in the tower. She had 00:17:06.210 --> 00:17:09.289 to maintain plausible deniability. She knew that 00:17:09.289 --> 00:17:11.589 executing a sovereign monarch was breaking a 00:17:11.589 --> 00:17:14.690 divine taboo. She was terrified that if she killed 00:17:14.690 --> 00:17:16.549 a queen, it would open the door for people to 00:17:16.549 --> 00:17:19.329 kill her. And historically, she was right. Her 00:17:19.329 --> 00:17:21.970 successor's son, Charles I, would lose his head 00:17:21.970 --> 00:17:25.049 a few decades later. So Mary is executed in 1587. 00:17:25.390 --> 00:17:27.690 And for Philip II of Spain, this is the final 00:17:27.690 --> 00:17:30.069 straw. It's go time. The Spanish Armada. The 00:17:30.069 --> 00:17:32.089 enterprise of England. This is the blockbuster 00:17:32.089 --> 00:17:35.910 movie moment, 1588. Spain sends this massive 00:17:35.910 --> 00:17:38.289 fleet, the largest Europe had ever seen, to invade 00:17:38.289 --> 00:17:41.349 England, depose the heretic queen, and restore 00:17:41.349 --> 00:17:44.349 Catholicism. And we all know the story. Elizabeth 00:17:44.349 --> 00:17:46.990 gives a speech. The plucky little English navy 00:17:46.990 --> 00:17:49.750 sets ships on fire. And the Spanish are defeated 00:17:49.750 --> 00:17:53.549 by a Protestant wind. That is the headline. But 00:17:53.549 --> 00:17:55.230 we need to look at the logistics because the 00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:58.890 reality is much grittier. On paper, England should 00:17:58.890 --> 00:18:01.890 have been crushed. Spain was the superpower. 00:18:02.170 --> 00:18:05.130 But England had the sea dogs. Francis Drake, 00:18:05.349 --> 00:18:08.299 John Hawkins, let's be clear. These men were 00:18:08.299 --> 00:18:10.740 state -sponsored pirates. They absolutely were. 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:13.380 They had been raiding Spanish gold shipments 00:18:13.380 --> 00:18:16.240 for years. They were rough, they were aggressive, 00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:18.480 and they had better technology. Their ships were 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:21.180 faster, more maneuverable, and their guns could 00:18:21.180 --> 00:18:24.059 fire further. But the decisive moment wasn't 00:18:24.059 --> 00:18:26.039 really a gunfight, though, was it? It was the 00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:28.769 fire ships. That was the turning point. The Spanish 00:18:28.769 --> 00:18:30.910 were anchored off Calais waiting to pick up their 00:18:30.910 --> 00:18:33.289 invasion army. The English sacrificed eight of 00:18:33.289 --> 00:18:35.670 their own ships, filled them with tar and gunpowder, 00:18:35.710 --> 00:18:38.390 set them ablaze, and drifted them into the tightly 00:18:38.390 --> 00:18:40.549 packed Spanish formation at night. It must have 00:18:40.549 --> 00:18:43.710 caused absolute panic. Complete chaos. The Spanish 00:18:43.710 --> 00:18:46.069 captains cut their anchor cables and scattered 00:18:46.069 --> 00:18:49.170 into the North Sea. Their perfect crescent formation 00:18:49.170 --> 00:18:52.069 was broken. And then the weather took over. The 00:18:52.069 --> 00:18:55.789 Protestant wind. A series of terrible storms 00:18:55.789 --> 00:18:57.910 battered the Spanish fleet as they tried to sail 00:18:57.910 --> 00:19:01.170 home around Scotland and Ireland. It was a disaster 00:19:01.170 --> 00:19:04.769 for Spain. Thousands drowned. Okay, we need to 00:19:04.769 --> 00:19:08.150 talk about the Tilbury speech. I have the heart 00:19:08.150 --> 00:19:12.480 and stomach of a king. It's iconic. But the timeline 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:15.420 in the sources is a bit messy. Did she give this 00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:17.799 speech before the battle to rally the troops? 00:19:18.099 --> 00:19:20.279 Actually, no. And this is a detail that historians 00:19:20.279 --> 00:19:22.759 love to debate. She gave the speech to the troops 00:19:22.759 --> 00:19:25.019 at Tilbury after the Spanish Armada had already 00:19:25.019 --> 00:19:26.559 been scattered by the fire ships and was being 00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:28.339 chased up the channel. Wait, so the immediate 00:19:28.339 --> 00:19:30.140 danger had passed? Well, they didn't know that 00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:31.920 for sure. They were still worried the Spanish 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:34.900 might regroup and land. But yes, the speech was 00:19:34.900 --> 00:19:37.599 more of a PR victory lap than a braveheart charge 00:19:37.599 --> 00:19:40.460 into battle. And there is a darker context to 00:19:40.460 --> 00:19:42.140 Tilbury that... It usually gets cut from the 00:19:42.140 --> 00:19:44.519 movie. The condition of those soldiers she was 00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:48.720 speaking to. The English Navy had won, yes, but 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:51.880 the logistics were a disaster. The Queen's government 00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:54.519 was terrified of the cost of keeping a standing 00:19:54.519 --> 00:19:57.480 army. So while Elizabeth was delivering this 00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:00.180 soaring rhetoric about dying for her people. 00:20:00.589 --> 00:20:02.690 The sailors on those ships who had just saved 00:20:02.690 --> 00:20:06.309 England were literally dying of typhus and starvation 00:20:06.309 --> 00:20:08.430 in the ports because the crown wouldn't pay them 00:20:08.430 --> 00:20:10.670 or release money for food and medicine. Because 00:20:10.670 --> 00:20:12.630 she wouldn't pay them? Because the crown was 00:20:12.630 --> 00:20:15.430 broke and the bureaucracy was paralyzed. Lord 00:20:15.430 --> 00:20:17.750 Howard of Effingham, the admiral, was actually 00:20:17.750 --> 00:20:20.329 using his own personal money to buy wine and 00:20:20.329 --> 00:20:22.849 arrowroot for his sick crewmen because the Privy 00:20:22.849 --> 00:20:24.849 Council wouldn't release the funds. That creates 00:20:24.849 --> 00:20:26.930 a very different image. Yeah. You have the queen 00:20:26.930 --> 00:20:29.759 in her white velvet and silver breastplate. looking 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:32.279 like a goddess, while the men who actually saved 00:20:32.279 --> 00:20:35.240 the country are rotting in market. It highlights 00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:37.900 the disconnect between the myth of Gloriana and 00:20:37.900 --> 00:20:40.539 the reality of the Elizabethan state. The propaganda 00:20:40.539 --> 00:20:43.500 machine was world class. The supply chain was 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:45.759 medieval. And we see this again the very next 00:20:45.759 --> 00:20:48.980 year. We always stop the story at 1588. But in 00:20:48.980 --> 00:20:52.839 1589, Elizabeth decides to push her luck. She 00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:55.779 sends the English Armada to Spain. I assume since 00:20:55.779 --> 00:20:58.000 we never hear about the English Armada, it didn't 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:01.359 go well. It was a catastrophe. Led by Drake and 00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:04.259 Norris, they lost thousands of men, failed to 00:21:04.259 --> 00:21:06.640 take Lisbon, and bankrupted the treasury even 00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:09.779 further. It proved that 1588 was largely a fluke 00:21:09.779 --> 00:21:12.420 of weather and Spanish mismanagement, not proof 00:21:12.420 --> 00:21:14.920 of English military supremacy. And this brings 00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:17.079 us to the part of her reign that often gets skipped. 00:21:17.359 --> 00:21:20.900 The second reign, the 1590s. The sources paint 00:21:20.900 --> 00:21:23.480 this decade as really dark. It was. The Golden 00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:25.259 Age felt very tarnished to the people living 00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:27.599 through it. You had four consecutive years of 00:21:27.599 --> 00:21:30.000 bad harvests. Inflation was rampant. There was 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:31.859 plague in London. And personally, for Elizabeth, 00:21:32.180 --> 00:21:34.420 it was a time of profound loss. Her inner circle 00:21:34.420 --> 00:21:37.539 starts dying off. Exactly. Dudley dies in 1588, 00:21:37.700 --> 00:21:40.160 right after the Armada. Walsingham in 1590. Her 00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:42.440 rock. Her chief advisor, William Cecil, dies 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:45.059 in 1598. She is suddenly an old woman surrounded 00:21:45.059 --> 00:21:47.759 by a new generation of courtiers who are young, 00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:50.279 ambitious, and frankly, tired of waiting for 00:21:50.279 --> 00:21:52.880 her to die. And the main character of this new 00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:56.160 generation is the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereaux. 00:21:56.859 --> 00:22:00.140 Dudley's stepson. He was handsome, arrogant, 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:04.140 reckless. Elizabeth indulged him, perhaps because 00:22:04.140 --> 00:22:06.960 he reminded her of her youth and of Dudley, or 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:08.799 perhaps because she just needed the flattery. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:11.490 But he didn't respect her. There's that famous 00:22:11.490 --> 00:22:13.769 anecdote where he turns his back on her in a 00:22:13.769 --> 00:22:16.589 privy council meeting. Yes. Turning your back 00:22:16.589 --> 00:22:19.990 on the monarch is a huge, huge insult. And she 00:22:19.990 --> 00:22:22.730 lost her temper. She actually boxed his ears. 00:22:22.910 --> 00:22:25.529 She hit him? She hit him. And his reaction? He 00:22:25.529 --> 00:22:27.349 reached for his sword. In front of the queen? 00:22:27.450 --> 00:22:30.250 That's treason. It was a shocking breach of protocol. 00:22:30.450 --> 00:22:33.029 It showed that her authority, her mystique, was 00:22:33.029 --> 00:22:35.799 slipping. Essex eventually tried to stage a rebellion 00:22:35.799 --> 00:22:38.640 in London in 1601. He marched through the streets 00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:40.539 trying to rally the people to save the queen 00:22:40.539 --> 00:22:43.359 from her advisors. And nobody showed up? Nobody. 00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:45.119 The people might have been hungry and unhappy, 00:22:45.339 --> 00:22:47.440 but they were loyal to her. Essex was arrested 00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:50.140 and executed. But the betrayal broke her. She 00:22:50.140 --> 00:22:52.829 fell into a deep, deep depression. And physically, 00:22:53.150 --> 00:22:55.750 the sources paint a really stark picture of these 00:22:55.750 --> 00:22:58.970 final years. The rainbow portrait from this time 00:22:58.970 --> 00:23:01.829 shows her looking young, beautiful, and ageless. 00:23:02.130 --> 00:23:04.930 But the reality... The reality was brutal. She 00:23:04.930 --> 00:23:07.849 had smallpox scars from an illness back in 1562. 00:23:08.170 --> 00:23:10.470 She was losing her hair, which is why she wore 00:23:10.470 --> 00:23:13.069 those elaborate red wigs to cover it. And her 00:23:13.069 --> 00:23:15.930 teeth... The sugar addiction. Yes. Sugar was 00:23:15.930 --> 00:23:19.049 a luxury status symbol, and she loved it. Her 00:23:19.049 --> 00:23:21.710 teeth were black and rotting. Foreign ambassadors 00:23:21.710 --> 00:23:23.789 reported that they could barely understand her 00:23:23.789 --> 00:23:26.029 when she spoke because so many teeth were missing. 00:23:26.250 --> 00:23:28.910 Yet she still dressed the part. The sources say 00:23:28.910 --> 00:23:31.210 she refused to look in a mirror in her final 00:23:31.210 --> 00:23:34.109 years. That is heartbreaking. It's like she became 00:23:34.109 --> 00:23:35.950 a prisoner of her own image. She couldn't let 00:23:35.950 --> 00:23:38.289 anyone see the human being, only the queen. And 00:23:38.289 --> 00:23:40.349 while she is physically decaying, she is ordering 00:23:40.349 --> 00:23:43.309 a brutal campaign in Ireland, the Nine Years' 00:23:43.410 --> 00:23:45.589 War. The source mentions scorched earth tactics. 00:23:45.990 --> 00:23:49.359 It was a total war. To subdue the rebellion led 00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:52.019 by Hugh O 'Neill, her commander, Lord Mountjoy, 00:23:52.160 --> 00:23:55.180 burned crops, destroyed villages, and deliberately 00:23:55.180 --> 00:23:58.660 induced a famine. Thousands of civilians died. 00:23:58.859 --> 00:24:01.400 It was a military victory. O 'Neill surrendered 00:24:01.400 --> 00:24:04.380 just days after Elizabeth died. But the human 00:24:04.380 --> 00:24:07.400 cost was horrific. It's a reminder that good 00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:10.579 Queen Bess was also a ruthless war leader. So 00:24:10.579 --> 00:24:13.539 we reach 1603. She's 69 years old. She's depressed. 00:24:14.109 --> 00:24:17.329 She's refusing to go to bed. She's stood for 00:24:17.329 --> 00:24:20.640 hours and hours. or sat on cushions on the floor. 00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:23.319 Her ladies -in -waiting had to prop her up. She 00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:25.099 was afraid that if she lay down, she would never 00:24:25.099 --> 00:24:27.279 get up again. She knew the end was coming. And 00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:29.640 Robert Cecil, the son of her old advisor, is 00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:31.880 begging her to go to bed, and she snaps at him. 00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:33.759 Must is not a word to use to princes, little 00:24:33.759 --> 00:24:35.940 man. Even at the very end, she was the queen. 00:24:36.019 --> 00:24:37.880 She refused to name an heir until the very last 00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:40.519 moment. She knew that the moment she named James 00:24:40.519 --> 00:24:43.119 VI of Scotland, her power would flow to him. 00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:45.680 All her courtiers would turn to the rising sun. 00:24:46.250 --> 00:24:48.309 But Cecil had been secretly negotiating with 00:24:48.309 --> 00:24:50.789 James for years, hadn't he? The silent transition. 00:24:51.049 --> 00:24:54.569 It was a masterclass in secret diplomacy. Cecil 00:24:54.569 --> 00:24:57.009 was writing to James in code, basically telling 00:24:57.009 --> 00:24:59.890 him, sit tight, don't invade, just wait and the 00:24:59.890 --> 00:25:03.190 throne is yours. When Elizabeth finally died 00:25:03.190 --> 00:25:06.269 in the early hours of March 24, 1603, the transition 00:25:06.269 --> 00:25:10.150 was seamless. No civil war, no invasion. James 00:25:10.150 --> 00:25:13.869 VI of Scotland became James I of England. And 00:25:13.869 --> 00:25:16.730 she was buried in Westminster Abbey. But here's 00:25:16.730 --> 00:25:19.130 the final irony. She's buried in the same tomb 00:25:19.130 --> 00:25:21.630 as her sister Mary. The sister who tried to have 00:25:21.630 --> 00:25:24.690 her killed. The inscription reads, Consorts in 00:25:24.690 --> 00:25:27.369 Roman tomb, here we sleep. Elizabeth and Mary, 00:25:27.569 --> 00:25:30.450 sisters in hope of resurrection. The Protestant 00:25:30.450 --> 00:25:32.490 and the Catholic, the survivor and the tragic 00:25:32.490 --> 00:25:35.460 queen, trapped together for eternity. So let's 00:25:35.460 --> 00:25:37.460 unpack the legacy. We started by asking if she 00:25:37.460 --> 00:25:40.079 was a genius or a performance artist. And I think 00:25:40.079 --> 00:25:41.759 the answer is that she was a genius because she 00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:43.599 was a performance artist. She understood that 00:25:43.599 --> 00:25:46.000 power, especially in that era, is largely perception. 00:25:46.319 --> 00:25:48.640 She held the country together. She provided 44 00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:50.779 years of stability after decades of chaos under 00:25:50.779 --> 00:25:53.359 her father and siblings. She forged a national 00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:55.740 identity. But she also kicked the can down the 00:25:55.740 --> 00:25:58.380 road on a lot of issues, right? She didn't solve 00:25:58.380 --> 00:26:00.559 the religious problem. She just paused it. The 00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:03.069 Puritans didn't go away. She didn't solve the 00:26:03.069 --> 00:26:05.230 structural financial problems of the crown. That's 00:26:05.230 --> 00:26:07.569 true. She left a lot of problems for the Stuarts 00:26:07.569 --> 00:26:10.170 to deal with. But she kept England independent 00:26:10.170 --> 00:26:12.970 and relatively peaceful in a Europe that was 00:26:12.970 --> 00:26:16.009 tearing itself apart with religious wars. At 00:26:16.009 --> 00:26:18.450 the end of the day, she held the center. It's 00:26:18.450 --> 00:26:20.490 just amazing to think about that little girl 00:26:20.490 --> 00:26:23.630 who was declared illegitimate, who had her gown 00:26:23.630 --> 00:26:25.890 cut to pieces, who sat in the Tower of London 00:26:25.890 --> 00:26:29.230 expecting to die. She didn't just survive. She 00:26:29.230 --> 00:26:31.819 defined an entire era. And she did it alone. 00:26:32.059 --> 00:26:34.500 She proved that a woman could rule, but the price 00:26:34.500 --> 00:26:36.460 she paid was that she could never be anything 00:26:36.460 --> 00:26:39.480 but a ruler. She sacrificed the personal for 00:26:39.480 --> 00:26:41.519 the political in a way that is almost hard to 00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:43.799 comprehend today. So here's my final thought 00:26:43.799 --> 00:26:46.359 for you listening. We remember the golden age. 00:26:46.579 --> 00:26:49.160 We remember the victory, the portraits, the poetry. 00:26:49.779 --> 00:26:53.119 But when you look at the reality. The wigs covering 00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:55.359 her hair loss, the rotting teeth, the refusal 00:26:55.359 --> 00:26:58.059 to name an heir, the constant fear of assassination. 00:26:58.539 --> 00:27:02.140 Was Elizabeth the master of her destiny? Or was 00:27:02.140 --> 00:27:04.319 she just the ultimate survivor of a brutal game 00:27:04.319 --> 00:27:06.400 she never asked to play? A provocative question. 00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:09.099 Perhaps the Gloriana mask was the only thing 00:27:09.099 --> 00:27:10.900 that kept the terrified woman underneath safe. 00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:13.700 That's it for this deep dive. Thanks for listening. 00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:14.640 Until next time.