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Chapter 1: What happened to Elizabeth I after Anne Boleyn's execution?
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Now, as my lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was in, and what degree she is at now I know not by hearsay, I know not how to order her or myself or her women or grooms. I beg you to be good lord to her and hers, and that she may have raiment, for she has neither gown, nor kirtle, nor petticoat, nor linen for smocks, nor kerchiefs, sleeves, rails, boots,
bodices, handkerchiefs, mufflers nor caps. So we'll discover who that was in a couple of moments. Was it Mrs. Thatcher? No, it definitely was not. But these are very, very dark days for the infant Elizabeth I, as she will become. She's not yet three years old, but she doesn't have enough mufflers. There's no kerchiefs. There's no kirtle. There's no gown. There's no bodice. And there's no mummy.
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Chapter 2: How did Henry VIII's marriages affect Elizabeth's status?
Yeah. Anyway, finally, she submits. She signs the articles that acknowledge Henry as head of the English church. And of course, this is a surrender that also requires her to acknowledge that her mother's marriage to her father had been incestuous and unlawful. And it's really the one moment in her life when she buckles, when she doesn't stick to her principles.
So Nicola Tallis in her book on young Elizabeth writes, she would never forgive herself for what she believed to be the ultimate betrayal of her mother's memory. And I think in the long run, actually, it serves just to make her even more determined to uphold her principles.
Yeah. Now, in the last episode, I revealed myself as, although not an admirer of Mary's ideological position, a great admirer of Mary as a person. And actually, she now behaves very nicely to Elizabeth, doesn't she? Because she and Elizabeth are now equal, because Elizabeth has been declared a bastard as well. And Mary turns out to be a very nice sister, older sister for Elizabeth.
So people always think of them as daggers drawn, but that's not...
entirely the case no so she says from this point on I shall never call her by other name than sister no longer is she that little bastard she's now her sister and as you say she's very loving she gives Elizabeth all kinds of toys plays with her all kinds of things like that and she even amazingly brings herself to pray for the soul of Anne Boleyn
That's pretty magnanimous, given how Amberlynn had treated her. That really is.
Yeah. So again, to quote David Starkey on Mary, he says that she was tenderhearted to excess when issues of principle were not involved. Like me. I thought that you were flinty-hearted even when issues of principle weren't involved. No, I think actually I'm a very sentimental person. Do you? Okay. Go on, continue. So Elizabeth, so what about her?
She's a very precocious little girl, but also I think profoundly unsettled and must be in a state of some bewilderment because she is aware of her change in circumstances. So there's this comment she makes to the man who's essentially responsible for her security. And she says, why governor, how happy yesterday, lady princess and today, but lady Elizabeth.
So at some point, obviously, she is told about what has happened to her mother. We don't know when. And as far as we can tell from our extant sources, she never really mentions Anne's name. I think it's clear why she doesn't, because her claim to the throne is massively not helped by the fact that her mother had her head chopped off for treason.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Elizabeth face as a young girl?
So that's a fine tribute, but I think credit is also due to Elizabeth herself because it is already becoming apparent when she's still quite young that she's really very, very smart. And there were specialists in education who worried that Kate was actually pushing Elizabeth too far.
And one of these people was a man who wasn't just England's foremost Greek scholar, but was also the greatest educationalist in the country. And this is a guy called Roger Asham. who again, like Kate, is an evangelical. So there's a kind of sense that humanist scholarship, evangelical beliefs, devotion to education, it's part of the swirl that Elizabeth is in.
But Ashen thinks, oh, you know, we mustn't hurry this. We mustn't push it too far. But actually on this occasion, he's wrong because Elizabeth really flourishes under Kate's leadership. educational regime to the degree that in December 1539, one of Henry's courtiers comes to Hatfield, where Elizabeth is based, to pay a courtesy call. She's six years old at this time.
He talks to her and he's completely stunned by what he finds. And he reports back to Henry, if she be no more educated than she now appeareth to be, she will prove of no less honour and womanhood than shall beseem her father's daughter. So in other words, you know, she's a massive chip off the old block. Yeah. And actually, this courtier says, she's as smart as a woman of 40 years old.
So very, very impressive. And from this point on, Henry is sufficiently intrigued that he wants regular updates on Elizabeth's progress. And this isn't just her progress as a scholar, but also her abilities as a musician, which matters to Henry a lot. Can she dance? Can she sew? Is she good at riding? Can she hawk? And actually, she's good at all these things.
I mean, this is one thing about the Tudors that perhaps Because they're ubiquitous and because they're always the subject of kind of Channel 5 documentaries and stuff, therefore people are a little bit sick of them. Sort of man for man, woman for woman. They are extremely impressive. They are surely the most proficient and impressive dynasty in English history.
I mean, the reason they've got the throne as usurpers, as parvenus, is because they are very canny, bright, talented, ambitious, driven people. You know, the Tudors don't produce a wastrel.
No, and they just seem to be good at everything. Yeah. Elizabeth sounds an absolute prodigy, but clearly people are amazingly impressed by her. And Henry is sufficiently impressed that by 1543, he's decided, okay, I'm going to rehabilitate her. You know, I like the sound of her. She sounds like she might be a credit to me. And this is a really key moment in Elizabeth's life because...
For as long as she can remember, Henry has been this distant, terrifying figure, the man who had executed her mother. She hadn't seen him. She's been literally banished from his presence. And of course, she's also aware that it's due to her father's ruling that she's inferior in rank to Mary as well as to Edward.
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Chapter 4: How did Elizabeth navigate her relationship with Mary, her sister?
That must serve as a kind of inspiration for them, I think, later in life. And Elizabeth particularly ends up devoted to Catherine, who takes her duties as stepmother very seriously.
Catherine is an impressive person. She's smart and she's poised, but she's also canny. I mean, the whole thing with Thomas Seymour, she doesn't make the mistake that Catherine Howard made, for example.
She's also very stylish. I mean, like Anne Boleyn, she loves her fashion. And just as Anne Boleyn had done, she understands that a queen has to look like a queen. And so I think all in all, she becomes a huge influence on Elizabeth, who she keeps fixing her attentions on would-be stepmothers and they keep vanishing. And now she feels, well, at last I've got one that's a keeper.
And this matters because Catherine becomes stepmother at a crucial point in Elizabeth's intellectual development. And you said Catherine Parr is a very kind of smart woman. She takes a great interest in Elizabeth's education because by this point, Elizabeth has outgrown Kate's ability to teach her.
Unfortunately, this doesn't matter because Elizabeth by this point is growing up alongside her younger brother, Edward. And because Edward is going to become a king, inevitably he has the best teachers in the country at his service. And so Catherine convinces Henry that Elizabeth should have use of these teachers as well. Edward is smart. He's a Tudor, but Elizabeth is much smarter.
Everyone recognizes that. And so by the time she's 10, she's the focus of this kind of really brilliant circle. It's characterized by humanist scholarship and by evangelical religion. So kind of what we might start to call Protestantism. And the key figure is a guy called William Grindle, who is a young scholar from St. John's, Cambridge, and he teaches both Latin and Greek.
And the emphasis on Greek is very, very of the moment. So Henry only had the most rudimentary Greek. Mary had no Greek. Elizabeth is getting the kind of the latest in educational fashion. And Elizabeth develops a profound emotional as well as intellectual bond. with Grindel.
And I think it intensifies her sense of loyalty to Catherine as well, because it's Catherine who seems to have found her, Grindel, to be her teacher. There's further kind of emotional churn, because listeners to our previous episode may remember that Anne Boleyn had as her private chaplain a man called Matthew Parker.
And in her last interview with him before she got taken to the Tower, she had asked Matthew Parker to look out for Elizabeth. And this is what Matthew Parker is now doing. He's coming and giving sermons to Elizabeth and instructing her and all kinds of things.
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Chapter 5: What role did Thomas Seymour play in Elizabeth's life?
the late queen, clandestinely marries her old flame, the long bearded Uber lad, Thomas Seymour. The Mr. Tickle of Tudor politics. The Mr. Tickle. And he by now has become a very, very big cheese because his brother, Edward, has become both the Duke of Somerset and the Lord Protector. And Thomas himself has become the Lord High Admiral because of course, both of them are the uncles of Tudor.
The young king, Edward VI. So for Thomas Seymour to marry a late queen, it's a punchy thing to do because he's massively punching above his weight there. And so when the news breaks, there is outrage at court. Mary, Elizabeth's elder sister, is outraged, breaks off relations with her stepmother completely, demands that Elizabeth do the same. But Elizabeth doesn't.
And the consequences of this, you called Thomas Seymour Mr. Tickle. Well, let's say that the consequence of this is that the tickle hands can start tickling.
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Chapter 6: How did Elizabeth respond to the scandal involving Seymour?
So the moment Elizabeth is back, Seymour is up to his old tricks, coming to her bedroom each morning in his nightgown, bare-legged in his slippers. And Elizabeth, by now, has developed a strategy, which is that if he bursts in on her, she reaches for a book and puts her nose in the book.
Yeah, hoping that the sight of some Greek verses or something will... Will keep him at bay. Yeah, exactly.
Cat, she upbraids Seymour again. Again, it has no effect. And then that spring, the crisis point, which was kind of always going to arrive, does finally arrive because Catherine, and again to quote, came suddenly upon them where they were all alone, he having her in his arms.
He having her in his arms is ambiguous though, isn't it? Because they're alone together, you know, in an embrace. Is that voluntary or is that involuntary? It's not clear.
It's unclear. And I think it's unclear to Catherine. And she is very heavily pregnant by this point and obviously incredibly upset. And I think that perhaps she fears the worst, that Elizabeth has been complicit in this. And so she sends Elizabeth away. Elizabeth goes to a place called Chessington, Hertfordshire.
And there she stays with Kate Astley's sister and her husband, who's a guy called Sir Anthony Denny. And the salient thing about Sir Anthony Denny, the one thing that everybody knows about him and why his service has been so valued by Henry VIII, is that he's a courtier chiefly celebrated for his ability to keep a secret.
And obviously, both Elizabeth and Catherine are paranoid the gossip may leak, that the story may break. All that summer, they're kind of waiting, really, for the rumours to spread. And actually, they seem not to. And... That's a source of great relief to both of them. And Elizabeth and Catherine are writing regularly to each other. They obviously want to repair their relationship.
And Catherine writes to Elizabeth and says, you know, if I hear anything bad, any story slipping out, I will write immediately and let you know. So clearly by this point, they are back on side. Their relationship has been patched up.
But then there's a twist, isn't there? There is a twist. Yeah. I mean, you described Catherine of being pregnant. She goes off to one of the Seymour Estates that summer. Soodley Castle. Very nice castle, I have to say. And I have to say, I commend it because when I was a boy, they had, to my mind, a world-leading adventure playground. So that's nice. Anyway, she goes to Soodley Castle.
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Chapter 7: What impact did Catherine Parr have on Elizabeth's upbringing?
Kate seems to have completely fallen for him. She seems to have had a bit of a crush on him and has decided that actually he'd be a great husband for Elizabeth. And so she's kind of endlessly saying to Elizabeth, I really think you should go for him. And meanwhile, Seymour has also been checking with Thomas Parry, the Welshman, for our Welsh listeners, about the state of her finances.
So he's asking how many persons she kept, what houses she had, what lands. And Thomas Parry, I'm afraid to say, like Kate, has been completely seduced by Seymour's charisma. It basically tells him everything. So essentially... The two people who Elizabeth most trusts, Kate and Parry, are both saying to her, go for it. Thomas Seymour himself is sending lewd messages about her buttocks.
And so what is Elizabeth herself making of this? And I think looking at the evidence, there is a sense that she is actually tempted. Because one of the reasons why I think Kate does support Seymour's advances is that she has seen that Elizabeth does
fancy Seymour. Right. Because you said, I mean, it's important stress. He's very charismatic and good looking, right?
Yeah. I mean, he's by all accounts, a very, very attractive man. And Kate notes how sometimes she would blush when he was spoken of, you know, and it's not unknown for victims of sexual abuse to kind of fall for the person who's abusing them.
Well, or for teenage girls to have a crush on a much older man, right? I mean, it's not unknown.
Yeah. So to quote David Starkey on this, it was an initiation and a brutal one into the world of adult sexuality. Almost all the men that she subsequently loved or pretended to love resembled Seymour. Interesting. I mean, it's very interesting as we will see as we carry this story on.
And because of this, because there was an evident partiality on Elizabeth's part towards Seymour, there was gossip that she had surrendered to his advances and So that when Catherine Parr found Elizabeth in Seymour's arms, the implication was that Elizabeth had welcomed this. And there are some who say that she'd lost her virginity to him.
And there are others who say even that she'd had his child. There is no substantive evidence for any of this. And I think that the lack of privacy in Tudor households being what it was, I think it's most improbable. But there's also another, I think, even more salient reason for rejecting these stories.
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Chapter 8: How did Elizabeth's political acumen develop during her youth?
She's even prepared to acknowledge that she liked Thomas Seymour, that she didn't absolutely detest his advances, but that she was only prepared to entertain them once the council had first granted its approval. And she said enough that there is evidence that supports this claim. So as a result, it is apparent that she had never been complicit in Seymour's plot.
And it's a brilliantly skillful performance from one so young. Her interrogators cannot pin anything on her. They can't show that she was plotting behind Edward's back to marry this man, that she was always operating within the set bounds of legality. And in due course, Kate and Thomas Parry are released.
And though to begin with, Elizabeth is not allowed to take them back into her service, by September 1549, you know, they're back in her household. And I think the experience for her was a very salutary one. And it confirmed her in an understanding of how politics operates. in the nature of men and their desires and their ambitions and the advantages of studied ambiguity that will never leave her.
There will be features of her life, her very long life, right the way up to the end.
And Thomas Seymour, he ends up on the chopping block, doesn't he? He's executed on Tower Hill. In the spring of 1549. He does. But that ambiguity, doesn't she write to Edward VI and she says to him, it is as your majesty is not unaware, rather characteristic of my nature, not to say in words as much as I think in my mind. That's the key, I think. Yeah.
But that again, I mean, the Mary Queen of Scots parallel, Mary Queen of Scots is unguarded, isn't she? Yeah. And Elizabeth isn't. Yeah.
They are always deep waters with Elizabeth and she's just a brilliant politician. And a brilliant strategist. So in the wake of Seymour's execution, she's got off. Nothing's been pinned on her. But she's aware that she has to tread very carefully now. And so that's what she does. She dresses very modestly in black and white. You know, she's inherited from Anne Boleyn a love of beautiful clothes.
But for now, she plays the sober Protestant maid. And Edward is very impressed. You know, he's a very priggish Protestant by this point. And so he calls her sweet sister temperance. He thinks she's great. She continues her studies under Roger Asham, which she completes in 1550. So she's had the best education that Anyone in Europe could have, basically.
And she is increasingly cast by her admirers as a brilliantly educated woman and by Protestants as a paragon of godly virtue. So is she a complete paragon? I mean, it has to be said that one feature of her character we haven't yet brought out, and that is that she is monumentally acquisitive. And again, you can understand that perhaps psychologically.
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