Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: One quick note before we begin, and I'm sure you
Speaker 1: are absolutely tired of hearing me say it, but I
Speaker 1: wrote a book. It's a novel called Anatomy, a love story,
Speaker 1: and if you love spooky stories about people in history,
Speaker 1: I really think you're gonna love it. It takes place
Speaker 1: in nineteen century Edinburgh and it's everything I love, like
Speaker 1: the reason I made Noble Blood in novel form. So
Speaker 1: if you haven't pre ordered, please please do me a
Speaker 1: favor and check it out wherever you buy books, your
Speaker 1: local indie bookstore. It would mean so much. And now
Speaker 1: the episode for the woman we know today as Queen
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the first. Growing up, Elizabeth's royal status was far
Speaker 1: from secure. Her mother Anne Boleyn, had climbed from Lady
Speaker 1: in waiting to Queen, only to fall out of favor
Speaker 1: and lose her head in one of the quickest and
Speaker 1: most dramatic downfalls in royal history. Little Elizabeth was only
Speaker 1: three at the time, and it's not quite certain how
Speaker 1: aware she was when it came to the matter of
Speaker 1: her mother's death, or the matter of her own subsequent
Speaker 1: loss of status. Perhaps apocryphale, she is said to have
Speaker 1: asked one of her father's courtiers, why was I lady
Speaker 1: Princess yesterday and Lady Elizabeth today? The former princess became
Speaker 1: after the death of her mother, Like her older sister, Mary, delegitimized,
Speaker 1: and so Elizabeth grew up all too aware that her
Speaker 1: status was precarious. Growing up, Elizabeth's households were small and meager.
Speaker 1: Her governess often needed to beg the king that he
Speaker 1: would provide the uns for his daughter to have proper clothing.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was still a child approaching ten when her father,
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth, beheaded his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth had liked Catherine Howard. She had treated her with kindness,
Speaker 1: but the beautiful teenage queen had flirted or maybe done
Speaker 1: more with men who weren't the king, and so Catherine
Speaker 1: Howard was imprisoned in the tower, forced weeping to lower
Speaker 1: her head on a black block and wait for the
Speaker 1: hiss of an axe man's blade. Some say that it
Speaker 1: was at that moment, when Catherine Howard was beheaded, that
Speaker 1: Elizabeth decided that she herself would never marry, She would
Speaker 1: never subject herself to the mercy of a man. Her
Speaker 1: own fate was already decided by her father's capricious winds.
Speaker 1: Why invite that sense of unhappy submission into her life again?
Speaker 1: Volunteer early. By the end of Henry the Eighth's life,
Speaker 1: he softened towards his two illegitimate daughters, Mary the Elder
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth. Though he didn't formally re legitimize them, he
Speaker 1: did re enter them into the line of succession after
Speaker 1: Henry's death, The youngest sickly Edward, would be king, son
Speaker 1: of Henry and his third wife, Jane Seymour. If Edward
Speaker 1: didn't have any children, next in line would be Mary.
Speaker 1: If Mary didn't have any children, only then would Elizabeth
Speaker 1: become queen. The profound uncertainty and insecurity of her status
Speaker 1: growing up, combined with the sheer unlikeliness that she would
Speaker 1: ever become queen, gave Elizabeth a pragmatic and independent streak.
Speaker 1: She didn't trust anyone unless she had to, and even
Speaker 1: then she never left her back unguarded. Her loyalty is
Speaker 1: were hard one. Elizabeth knew that her right to rule
Speaker 1: wasn't inevitable, and she was willing to fight to protect it. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: just one country away, Elizabeth's first cousin, once removed, was
Speaker 1: born to an entirely different sort of childhood. This cousin
Speaker 1: was Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots, whose father died only
Speaker 1: six days after her birth, and so Mary, Queen of
Speaker 1: Scotts was officially Queen of Scotland from infancy. A quick
Speaker 1: side note here, Mary is an incredibly common name in
Speaker 1: the Tutor era, but for this story, the Mary that
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about from now on is not Mary Tutor,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's older sister, but this new, much younger Mary, Queen
Speaker 1: of Scotts. Mary Queen of Scots, nine years younger than Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: was praised throughout her childhood for her good looks and
Speaker 1: her charm. While her mother ruled Scotland for her, Mary
Speaker 1: was raised in France alongside the dauphin, the prince who
Speaker 1: would one day be her husband, Frances. Because Mary was
Speaker 1: a queen in her own right, the French court honored
Speaker 1: and deferred to her. She outranked even the King of
Speaker 1: France's own daughters. People at court called her la plu parfait,
Speaker 1: or the most perfect. At sixteen years old, her husband
Speaker 1: became King of France, making Mary the queen of two countries.
Speaker 1: Royalty was her birthright, and as she was taught, England
Speaker 1: was her birthright as well. Mary Stewart was the granddaughter
Speaker 1: of Henry the Eighth's older sister Margaret, and as a Catholic, many,
Speaker 1: including the French and Mary herself, believed that she was
Speaker 1: the rightful heir to the throne of England over Henry
Speaker 1: the Eighth's illegitimate Protestant daughter Elizabeth. While in France, Mary
Speaker 1: used the English lion in her own personal coat of arms,
Speaker 1: and before her wedding with Frances, she signed an agreement
Speaker 1: bequeathing Scotland and her claim to the English throne to
Speaker 1: the French crown. If she Mary died before Frances and
Speaker 1: they didn't have children, these two cousins, Mary and Elizabeth
Speaker 1: would never meet. They would spend their early lives writing
Speaker 1: letters to one another, calling each other sweet names, and
Speaker 1: building upon the diplomatic bonds of family. In theory they
Speaker 1: should be allies. They were, as Mary would write, two
Speaker 1: queens quote in one aisle of one language, the nearest
Speaker 1: kinswoman that each other had, but family only goes so
Speaker 1: far when your cousin begins to present a threat from
Speaker 1: cordial letter. The relationship between Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stewart
Speaker 1: stretched and devolved into rivalry, and then into something more
Speaker 1: pernicious and more deadly. We as a society have a
Speaker 1: habit of pitting women against one another. Hilary Duff and
Speaker 1: Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer and Angelina, Brittany and Christina. It's a
Speaker 1: side effect of misogyny to frame any disagreement between women
Speaker 1: as a catfight, to preemptively assume that there's only room
Speaker 1: for one woman at the top. And so all women
Speaker 1: are inherently each other's competition, and so it's no wonder
Speaker 1: that the comparison between Mary, Queen of Scott's and Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First has fascinated writers and historians for generations. They
Speaker 1: were two tall, red headed queens, one romantic, beautiful, married
Speaker 1: three times, the other a virgin who presented herself as
Speaker 1: masculine to retain power. But this is a rivalry that
Speaker 1: goes far beyond mere tabloid father In the end, one
Speaker 1: of these two cousins would sign the other's death warrant.
Speaker 1: Family is important, but not as important as power. I'm
Speaker 1: Danish schwartz and this is noble blood. Mary Stewart and
Speaker 1: her husband Frances were King and Queen of France, but
Speaker 1: only briefly. Francis had always been sickly, and less than
Speaker 1: two years after he ascended to the throne he died
Speaker 1: of possibly one of the more embarrassing ways that a
Speaker 1: king could go out of an ear infection, in December
Speaker 1: of fifteen sixty and so a few months later, the
Speaker 1: teenage dowager Queen returned to her homeland Scotland, a place
Speaker 1: she hadn't lived since she was five years old. The
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Mary now returned with a new name.
Speaker 1: She had left Scotland as Mary Stewart s t e
Speaker 1: w A RT, but at some point in France she
Speaker 1: changed it to Stuart s t U a r T
Speaker 1: to make it easier for the French to pronounce. At
Speaker 1: this point in her life, she was reportedly six ft
Speaker 1: tall and strikingly beautiful, with long red hair. She was
Speaker 1: well educated, spoke multiple languages, and incredibly poised. Unfortunately, she
Speaker 1: was also probably unaware of just how complicated the political
Speaker 1: and religious situation had become in Scotland. During her long absence.
Speaker 1: Mary was Catholic, but the Protestant movement in Scotland was
Speaker 1: gaining considerable traction. Mary's half brother, the Earl of Moray,
Speaker 1: who had been ruling in Mary's absence since her mother's death,
Speaker 1: was a Protestant, as was the influential preacher John Knox,
Speaker 1: who had waste no time issuing fiery sermons denouncing Mary
Speaker 1: and her sinful ways. As Queen, Mary decided that religious
Speaker 1: tolerance would be the best course of action, and so
Speaker 1: she built a cabinet of advisers with predominantly Protestant voices.
Speaker 1: Her focus even then was on England, trying to ensure
Speaker 1: that she was made Elizabeth the First's heir, if not
Speaker 1: just given the throne outright by the people. Back when
Speaker 1: she was still Queen of France, Mary had refused to
Speaker 1: ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh in fifteen sixty, after English
Speaker 1: and Scottish Protestant forces had bested the Catholic French in Scotland.
Speaker 1: In that treaty, the French agreed to formally stop recognizing
Speaker 1: Mary as the rightful Queen of England, but Mary, refusing
Speaker 1: to ratify, wouldn't ever stop recognizing herself, at least in theory.
Speaker 1: Even so, the relationship between the cousins remained cordial. Mary
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth wrote letters to one another, with Mary always
Speaker 1: waiting patiently to be formally named as Elizabeth's heir. The
Speaker 1: two talked about possibly getting together and meeting in person,
Speaker 1: but like distant mutual friends, their plans never came to fruition.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was always guarded on edge wisely, it would seem
Speaker 1: when it came to Mary, she understood that it didn't
Speaker 1: benefit her at all to name her successor while she
Speaker 1: was still alive. She once told an adviser, princes cannot
Speaker 1: like their own children. Think you that I could love
Speaker 1: my own winding sheet. In case you don't know, a
Speaker 1: winding sheet is what you wrap a corpse in. Some
Speaker 1: people like to frame Elizabeth as vain and jealous of
Speaker 1: Mary's youth and her beauty, but that seems a little
Speaker 1: unnecessary to me, a little tabloid, just politically to Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: Mary was a constant and lingering threat. That political threat
Speaker 1: of Mary as a distant, smiling enemy just biding her
Speaker 1: time until she could capture the English throne perhaps explained
Speaker 1: why Elizabeth was so outraged when Mary, Queen of Scotts,
Speaker 1: took the matter of her second marriage into her own
Speaker 1: hands without consulting her own advisers, let alone consulting Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Without even waiting for the Pope to give dispensation, Mary
Speaker 1: made up her own mind to marry a man named
Speaker 1: Lord Darnley. The excuse given later was that Mary was
Speaker 1: just smitten, that she fell so head over heels in
Speaker 1: love with Darnley that she couldn't wait for anyone to
Speaker 1: give permission. At least that was the excuse given to
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the first Because puppy love or not, it was
Speaker 1: an incredibly strategic marriage in terms of asserting Mary's claim
Speaker 1: to the English throne. Considerate the matrimonial equivalent of moving
Speaker 1: a chess piece into a check position. Mary and Darnley
Speaker 1: were both grandchildren of Henry the eighth older sister Margaret Tudor,
Speaker 1: though Darnley was the product of Margaret's second marriage. If
Speaker 1: Mary's goal was selecting a husband that highlighted her blood
Speaker 1: in the English dynasty, Darnley was the perfect fit. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that was the only thing about Darnley that was perfect.
Speaker 1: In fact, Mary realized pretty quickly that she had saddled
Speaker 1: herself with a truly awful husband. He was a drunk
Speaker 1: and lazy man who was jealous and selfish. While Mary
Speaker 1: was pregnant with their son, Darnley joined in the conspiracy
Speaker 1: to kill Mary's secretary, a man named David Rizzio, out
Speaker 1: of Ellessie about the rumors that he Rizzio, not Darnley,
Speaker 1: was the child's real father. Darnley and his men stabbed
Speaker 1: Rizzio while Mary watched on screaming. Even with that trauma,
Speaker 1: their child was miraculously still born healthy, a son who
Speaker 1: Mary named James. Mary made Elizabeth the first the cousin
Speaker 1: she had still never met her son's godmother. The child's father.
Speaker 1: Darnley wouldn't be in the picture long. Mary's first husband
Speaker 1: died with an ear infection whimper. Darnley would die with
Speaker 1: a boom, well, a boom and then a strangulation. Early
Speaker 1: in the morning of February fifteen sixty seven, the house
Speaker 1: in Edinburgh where Darnley had been staying kirk of Field,
Speaker 1: was destroyed and an explosion. Darnley was found partially clothed
Speaker 1: nearby a Apparently he was unharmed by the actual explosion,
Speaker 1: but he was dead all the same, someone had been
Speaker 1: waiting for him to flee the building and had been
Speaker 1: there to wring his neck. Pretty much immediately, everyone knew
Speaker 1: that the murder was the doing of Mary's close adviser,
Speaker 1: the Earl of Bothwell. Bothwell was sent to trial and
Speaker 1: he was found innocent, but no one really took any
Speaker 1: stock in that. It's pretty easy to be found innocent
Speaker 1: when the queen herself is more than grateful that her
Speaker 1: terrible husband was dispatched. The murder itself was shocking, but
Speaker 1: then even more shocking. Only three months after the murder
Speaker 1: of her husband, Mary married Bothwell. Still, the case is
Speaker 1: only suspect. Mary didn't even bother to complete the mandatory
Speaker 1: mourning period for her deceased husband, terrible as he was.
Speaker 1: Some say that the pair had con fired together to
Speaker 1: kill Darnley from the beginning, that they had been lovers
Speaker 1: the whole time. Other historians maintained that Bothwell kidnapped and
Speaker 1: then raped Mary in order to entrap her in a marriage.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to know with any real clarity, but we
Speaker 1: do know that the optics were awful, and that Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First was watching her cousin in horror. After Mary's
Speaker 1: marriage to Bothwell, Elizabeth the First wrote to her, Madam,
Speaker 1: to be plain with you, our grief has not been
Speaker 1: small that in this your marriage, so slender consideration has
Speaker 1: been had, that as we perceive, manifestly, no good friend
Speaker 1: you have in the whole world can like thereof. And
Speaker 1: if we should otherwise write or say, we should abuse you.
Speaker 1: For how could a worse choice be made for your
Speaker 1: honor than in such haste to marry such a subject, who,
Speaker 1: besides other and tore is, lacks public fame, has charged
Speaker 1: with the murder of your late husband. It was, in short,
Speaker 1: an international scandal. Some even say that the scandal of
Speaker 1: a queen quickly marrying the man who likely murdered her
Speaker 1: husband inspired the plot of Hamlet. But Queen Elizabeth the
Speaker 1: First and Shakespeare weren't the only ones outraged. The combined
Speaker 1: one to punch of Darnley's unsolved murder and Mary marrying
Speaker 1: the primary suspect led to the Protestant factions in Scotland
Speaker 1: overthrowing Mary, imprisoning her, and forcing her to abdicate in
Speaker 1: favor of her one year old son, James, who then
Speaker 1: became King James the sixth of Scotland. Mary was imprisoned
Speaker 1: at luck Levin Castle, although after a few months in
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty eight, she managed to escape and she managed
Speaker 1: to rally supporters for one final battle a bat All
Speaker 1: to reclaim the kingdom that was her birthright. Mary was defeated,
Speaker 1: and so without a country, she fled to England in
Speaker 1: the hopes that her quote sister, Queen Elizabeth would be
Speaker 1: her salvation. Mary hoped that Queen Elizabeth might even help
Speaker 1: her continue to rally support so that she could reclaim
Speaker 1: the Scottish throne. But no, Instead of sending troops to
Speaker 1: Scotland or even sending Mary to pro Catholic France, Queen
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the First welcomed Mary to England and then placed
Speaker 1: her under de facto house arrest. It was a moral
Speaker 1: and legal gray area Mary, even if she did promise
Speaker 1: to be fully loyal to Elizabeth, and even if Elizabeth
Speaker 1: believed her, was still a symbolic leader for plenty of
Speaker 1: Catholics who wanted to kill or overthrow Elizabeth. That became
Speaker 1: especially true after Pope Pious the Fifth issued a papal
Speaker 1: bull on February seventy allowing any English Catholic the authority
Speaker 1: to overthrow the Protestant Queen. Mary, for her part, refused
Speaker 1: to recognize the authority of the English court to try
Speaker 1: or imprison her, and so the Gray Area. Mary was
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's biggest threat, and the longer that Mary was alive,
Speaker 1: the more Catholic rebels would unite in their fight around her.
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth's advisers all wanted her to execute Mary and
Speaker 1: make an end to it all. One member of the
Speaker 1: House of Commons called her the monstrous and huge dragon
Speaker 1: and mass of the earth, but Elizabeth hesitated. Executions were
Speaker 1: a messy business. They made martyrs. When Elizabeth had to
Speaker 1: sign the execution warrant for the Duke of Norfolk, she
Speaker 1: had signed and then recanted, and then signed again, and
Speaker 1: then recanted a total of three times before the order
Speaker 1: finally went through. And Mary it was an even more
Speaker 1: complicated case. First, there was her son, the King of Scotland.
Speaker 1: Over the nineteen years that his mother would be imprisoned,
Speaker 1: James would go from an infant to a grown man,
Speaker 1: And even though he didn't know his mother at all,
Speaker 1: and even though he was raised Protestant, Mary was still
Speaker 1: his mother, and Elizabeth feared at least in theory the
Speaker 1: retaliation of his Scottish forces should she execute Mary. But
Speaker 1: that issue was easy enough to get around because Elizabeth
Speaker 1: had no children of her own. As a virgin queen,
Speaker 1: James the sixth of Scotland was the front runner to
Speaker 1: get the throne of England when Elizabeth died. Elizabeth could
Speaker 1: dangle and threaten that throne to make sure James wanted
Speaker 1: to stay on her good side. But there was a larger,
Speaker 1: more philosophical reason that Elizabeth was hesitant just to do
Speaker 1: away with Mary. Though plenty of people believed that Mary
Speaker 1: had been legally and justly deposed, Elizabeth didn't. In her mind,
Speaker 1: Mary was still an anointed sovereign. You can't just execute
Speaker 1: an anointed sovereign. Even though it would eventually become more commonplace,
Speaker 1: at this time it was a huge deal. A wife
Speaker 1: is one thing. A queen in her own right is
Speaker 1: something entirely different. Queens are anointed by God and so hated,
Speaker 1: as Mary was among most of England. Large As her
Speaker 1: threat continued to loom, Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to pull
Speaker 1: the metaphorical trigger, until, of course, she no longer had
Speaker 1: a choice. Though Mary wasn't supposed to be communicating with
Speaker 1: the outside world, she was slipped letters that were smuggled
Speaker 1: in the watertight casing inside the stopper of a beer barrel,
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to Mary and her supporters, though Elizabeth and her
Speaker 1: spy masters were privy to the scheme, and so even
Speaker 1: though the Catholic loyalist Anthony Babington wrote his letter to Mary,
Speaker 1: Queen of Scott's encode, Elizabeth's ciphers decoded it, and so
Speaker 1: they read the details of what would come to be
Speaker 1: known as the Babington plot to overthrow Elizabeth in a
Speaker 1: letter that asked Mary for her advice on how to
Speaker 1: ensure quote the dispatch of the usurping competitor. Elizabeth spies
Speaker 1: also got their hands on Mary's reply when she signed
Speaker 1: what would become her own death sentence, a letter in
Speaker 1: which you wrote, quote, let the great plot commence. Of course,
Speaker 1: one can't really blame Mary. She had been imprisoned for
Speaker 1: coming up on two decades for no crime with no trial,
Speaker 1: close to half of her young life. Someone loyal writing
Speaker 1: to her to try to help her escape and reclaim
Speaker 1: power must have seemed like a no brainer. Thomas Phillips,
Speaker 1: the cipher decoded and copied Mary's letter, adding a short
Speaker 1: ps to Mary's reply, asking hey, quick question, just curious,
Speaker 1: Would you mind telling me the names of everyone else
Speaker 1: involved in this plot? No reason. But before that letter
Speaker 1: was even answered, the arrests started. Babbington and his co
Speaker 1: conspirators were arrested and imprisoned and sentenced to death, to
Speaker 1: be hanged, disemboweled, drawn and quartered. Apparently, the first two
Speaker 1: executions were so gruesome that Queen Elizabeth made a quick
Speaker 1: change for the rest of them, saying that from then
Speaker 1: on the men were to be hanged until quote quite
Speaker 1: dead before the rest of the mutilation. It took a
Speaker 1: few more months for Mary to be tried and found
Speaker 1: guilty of collision. Even with the smoking gun of her
Speaker 1: letter to Babington, Mary continued to proclaim her innocence. Elizabeth's
Speaker 1: advisers knew how prickly Elizabeth would be when it came
Speaker 1: to actively ordering the execution. Her closest minister, Cecil, summoned
Speaker 1: Parliament so that the pressure wouldn't be Elizabeth's alone. It
Speaker 1: was quote to make the burden better born and the
Speaker 1: world abroad better satisfied Elizabeth. Secretary Davison slipped the death
Speaker 1: warrant to Elizabeth in the middle of a large pile
Speaker 1: of other things for her to sign, and as soon
Speaker 1: as she signed it, knowing that the Queen could change
Speaker 1: her mind at any moment, Davison rushed the warrant to
Speaker 1: the rest of the council and got the execution moving.
Speaker 1: Mary Queen of Scotts, was executed on February seven, at
Speaker 1: forty four years old, after nineteen years of imprison mint,
Speaker 1: in which she was moved from one remote English castle
Speaker 1: to another. Mary walked slowly and confidently to the stage
Speaker 1: that had been draped in black fabric for the occasion
Speaker 1: of her death. She walked with her back straight and
Speaker 1: her head high, letting the light catch her profile as
Speaker 1: she stood and paused before climbing the stairs. Even though
Speaker 1: her famous looks had faded, there was still something striking
Speaker 1: about her, her height, her red hair, her steely eyes.
Speaker 1: Mary accepted the hand of her longtime jailer, who had
Speaker 1: been with her for so many years, as she was
Speaker 1: climbing the stairs. I thank you, sir, she said, this
Speaker 1: is the last trouble I shall ever give you. Over
Speaker 1: one hundred people had come to the Great Hall of
Speaker 1: Fathering a castle. To watch Mary's execution. From the crowd,
Speaker 1: a man rose and shouted to Mary, I am the
Speaker 1: Dean of Peterborough. Ra it is not too late to
Speaker 1: embrace the true faith. Yea, the Reformed religion with have Mary,
Speaker 1: moments from death, interrupted him with a raised hand. Good,
Speaker 1: mister dean, troubled, not yourself anymore about this matter. I
Speaker 1: was born in this religion, have lived in this religion,
Speaker 1: and am resolved to die in this religion. When the
Speaker 1: executioner stepped forward, he knelt and asked for Mary's forgiveness.
Speaker 1: I forgive you and all the world with all my heart,
Speaker 1: for I hope this death will make an end to
Speaker 1: all my troubles. She said personally, I can't imagine that
Speaker 1: I would be facing the man who would be removing
Speaker 1: my head with the same grace. The executioner then gestured
Speaker 1: for Mary to remove her large black cloak. He offered
Speaker 1: to help, but Mary shook her head. She gestured for
Speaker 1: her ladies in waiting to come a sister. They unbuttoned
Speaker 1: her black outer gown, and, to the gasps of the crowd,
Speaker 1: revealed that beneath Mary was wearing a dress in bright crimson,
Speaker 1: the color of Catholic martyrdom. Mary kissed her crucifix and
Speaker 1: prayer book and handed her lady in waiting a handkerchief
Speaker 1: so that she could tie it as a blindfold. The
Speaker 1: lady's hands were shaking so much that Mary tied the
Speaker 1: blindfold herself gracefully. Mary went to her knees and laid
Speaker 1: her head on the smooth block. This is where the
Speaker 1: grace of the execution ends. From here it becomes a
Speaker 1: grim comedy. The executioner swung his blade down and missed.
Speaker 1: He grazed only the hairs on the side of Mary's neck.
Speaker 1: Mary was heard to have muttered, sweet Jesus. The executioner
Speaker 1: tried again. He made contact this time, but didn't get
Speaker 1: quite through her neck. He was worse to saw through
Speaker 1: the sinew with the axe until the head disconnected. God
Speaker 1: Save Queen Elizabeth, The frazzled executioner shouted, grabbing the severed
Speaker 1: head by its hair so that he could hold it
Speaker 1: up to the crowd. He didn't realize that Mary had
Speaker 1: been wearing a red wig. With the executioner only holding
Speaker 1: the wig, Mary's head fell, and the head of a
Speaker 1: gray haired woman lolled on the stage, lips still moving.
Speaker 1: The crowd gasped, but the chaos didn't even end there.
Speaker 1: From the folds of Mary's skirts came a yelp in
Speaker 1: her dress. Mary had smuggled in her dog getting to
Speaker 1: the execution. Getting distraught, began howling and circling the corpse.
Speaker 1: The angry Protestant man in the audience, the one who
Speaker 1: had heckled Mary earlier, ran up to the stage and
Speaker 1: grabbed the dog by the nape of its neck. Remember
Speaker 1: John Knox had prophesied that dogs would drink her blood.
Speaker 1: He shouted, he shoved the dog's face into Mary's blood,
Speaker 1: drink ekur. Instead, the dog bit the man's hand. When
Speaker 1: the dust settled, there were to be no relics left
Speaker 1: of Mary, Queen of Scots, nothing for curious onlookers to
Speaker 1: keep as mementos or sell, no items for Catholics to
Speaker 1: help turn her into a martyr. Mary's clothes, her prayer books,
Speaker 1: her everything were burned in the courtyard. Bonfires throughout England
Speaker 1: were lit in celebration of the Catholic Jezebel's death, but
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was inconsolable. The queen claimed that she had signed
Speaker 1: the death warrant, but had never actually meant for it
Speaker 1: to be enacted. It was only supposed to be kept
Speaker 1: in reserve for future threats. Elizabeth blamed her secretary Davison,
Speaker 1: but most people didn't quite believe her outrage. The historian
Speaker 1: William Camden wrote that Elizabeth conceived or pretended great grief
Speaker 1: and anger against Davison, but in Camden's second edition he
Speaker 1: thought better of his accusation of pretending and removed that word. Still,
Speaker 1: she was queen, and so Elizabeth put Davison on trial
Speaker 1: and were of London, finding him ten thousand marks. Although
Speaker 1: his sentence would ultimately be remitted. However, Elizabeth felt about
Speaker 1: how it happened, the deed was done. Mary, Queen of
Speaker 1: Scotts was dead. Sixteen years later, Elizabeth herself would die,
Speaker 1: and it would be Mary's son, James, who had finally
Speaker 1: become king of both Scotland and England. King James the
Speaker 1: sixth of Scotland and the first of England, the man
Speaker 1: who united the two kingdoms. Though Elizabeth and Mary never met,
Speaker 1: today the two women are buried mere feet apart together
Speaker 1: in Westminster Abbey. That's the tragic story of Mary, Queen
Speaker 1: of Scott's and her relationship with her cousin Elizabeth. But
Speaker 1: keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear a
Speaker 1: little bit more about one of Mary's more unusual modern legacies.
Speaker 1: It feels a little bit stereotypical of me to be
Speaker 1: relating golf to the story of the Queen of Scots,
Speaker 1: But by all accounts, Mary loved to play golf, or
Speaker 1: as she learned it as a child in France hell
Speaker 1: Mel In Scotland, Mary had a vacation house Sat Andrew's,
Speaker 1: often considered to be the oldest golf course in the world.
Speaker 1: When Mary, or where any royal golfer hit the links,
Speaker 1: their bags were carried by military cadets. It's believed that
Speaker 1: Mary gave those cadets a nickname, one that carries on
Speaker 1: to this day. When Mary played golf, her bags were
Speaker 1: carried by a man that she called a caddy. Noble
Speaker 1: Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and
Speaker 1: hosted by Dani Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema Ill
Speaker 1: Kali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media
Speaker 1: at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about
Speaker 1: the show over at Noble blood tails dot com. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. M