Elizabeth I: To speak or use silence

Carole Levin Author

04/01/2019 Added

36 Plays

Description

This staged reading of the new original play “Elizabeth I: To speak or use silence,” by internationally recognized scholar UNL professor Carole Levin expands our knowledge of Queen Elizabeth I and explores her life through the intersecting lenses of politics, sex and power. Featured readers include actress Tamara Meneghini, plus UNL Honors and History students.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:04.990]Hi everybody, I'm Jan Deeds,
[00:00:06.780]I'm the director of the Women's Center here at UNL,
[00:00:09.320]I've a couple things to read and
[00:00:10.810]I'm really happy to see you all here, this is lovely.
[00:00:13.820]First I have to let you know that this program
[00:00:15.380]is brought to you by Humanities Nebraska,
[00:00:17.490]a state wide non-profit organization
[00:00:19.430]inspiring and enriching personal and public life,
[00:00:22.130]by offering opportunities to thoughtfully
[00:00:24.030]engage with history and culture.
[00:00:26.410]With additional funding from
[00:00:27.460]the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
[00:00:29.260]If you enjoy this type of programing,
[00:00:31.050]please consider supporting
[00:00:32.080]Humanities Nebraska with a contribution.
[00:00:34.110]Donations are matched by state and federal funds,
[00:00:36.510]your support helps preserve our past and infirm our future.
[00:00:39.530]And before you leave there are some assessment forms
[00:00:41.940]out on the table, if you would fill one of those out,
[00:00:44.790]if we do those it encourages them to give us more funding.
[00:00:48.110]Next time we apply, so we would appreciate that.
[00:00:53.470]So welcome to the Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Event,
[00:00:56.600]this stage reading of Carole Levin's play
[00:00:58.730]Elizabeth I: To Speak or Use Silence.
[00:01:01.560]This event is part of women's week,
[00:01:03.160]and a part of a celebration of women's history
[00:01:05.580]as we begin Women's History Month this March.
[00:01:08.600]Mary Martin McLaughlin died in 2006 at the age of 87.
[00:01:12.510]She's known as one of those who established
[00:01:14.997]the field of pre-modern women's studies.
[00:01:16.430]She received her B.A. in 1940, and her M.A. in 1941
[00:01:20.160]in history from the University of Nebraska.
[00:01:22.520]She then went on to Columbia University for her PHD.
[00:01:26.050]Her research focused on the role of
[00:01:27.530]women, children, and families in the middle ages.
[00:01:30.340]Subjects that were for the most part overlooked
[00:01:32.900]when she began her career in the 1940's.
[00:01:36.090]Much of her life was devoted to the study of Heloise
[00:01:38.640]and her correspondence to Peter Abelard.
[00:01:41.020]In 2010 the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program
[00:01:44.755]held the first Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Lecture
[00:01:46.680]with Professor Bonny Wheeler, who completed McLaughlin's
[00:01:49.390]addition, the Letters of Heloise and Abelard.
[00:01:52.070]We are so pleased to honor
[00:01:53.170]Mary Martin McLaughlin this afternoon.
[00:01:56.230]In putting on this event,
[00:01:57.530]we are very grateful to the Women's Center staff,
[00:01:59.760]especially for our coming assistant Brittany Dickens,
[00:02:01.780]who you met in the hall, and who will be coming in a minute.
[00:02:04.670]And also to the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program,
[00:02:07.630]the Department of History and the Honor's program.
[00:02:10.200]We are grateful to Humanities Nebraska for their support,
[00:02:12.630]and ask for everyone to fill out their evaluation form,
[00:02:14.890]I just need to remind you of that again.
[00:02:16.755](laughter)
[00:02:17.810]Really, really leaning on that.
[00:02:19.550]We're especially grateful to the donation
[00:02:21.240]that allowed us to do the website,
[00:02:22.670]and have this event video taped as well as other support.
[00:02:25.970]We are so delighted to have students
[00:02:28.455]from the Honor's program,
[00:02:29.288]the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program,
[00:02:30.370]and the History Department reading in this play,
[00:02:32.380]and for all the work they did
[00:02:33.470]to make this event such a success.
[00:02:35.470]And we're honored to have Tamara Meneghini
[00:02:37.540]from Colorado to read the play.
[00:02:39.770]For those who would like to learn more about Queen Elizabeth
[00:02:41.890]there is a book table, as you saw coming in.
[00:02:44.350]And we also thank Stephanie Budel for organizing it.
[00:02:47.620]Carole would be delighted to sign books after the reading.
[00:02:50.250]And please, everyone have some marzipan,
[00:02:52.740]this was Queen Elizabeth's favorite dessert.
[00:02:55.160]So, enjoy.
[00:03:06.302]The old Elizabeth is sitting on stage, apparently asleep.
[00:03:09.130]She's at a desk that has chronicles and letters.
[00:03:12.100]In 1601 there was much worry in England over the behavior
[00:03:14.960]of the Earl of Essex and his conflicts with the Queen.
[00:03:17.720]A women named Jon Nott, of Mansel Gamet Hertfordshire
[00:03:20.290]on two successive Saturdays had such powerful warning dreams
[00:03:23.260]about a potential assassination of Queen Elizabeth,
[00:03:25.820]that she passionately entreated her Godfather to send word
[00:03:28.010]of it to the Queen's secretary Sir Robert Cecil.
[00:03:30.680]I dreamed that Anne Boleyn came to her daughter Elizabeth.
[00:03:33.670]Anne Boleyn enters and goes to Elizabeth,
[00:03:35.840]who wakes up to see her mother standing before her.
[00:03:38.410]She says.
[00:03:39.490]My dear daughter, these are very dangerous times.
[00:03:42.239]Whatever you do, do not leave court
[00:03:45.070]as this would put you in peril.
[00:03:46.800]Young Elizabeth enters followed by two men in black.
[00:03:49.500]One grabs her and the other stabs her
[00:03:51.026]and they carry her off stage.
[00:03:52.670]Such danger if you leave court.
[00:03:54.670]At court you are in power, such power,
[00:03:56.860]my brave and brilliant daughter.
[00:03:58.830]In the background young Elizabeth has reentered the stage
[00:04:01.760]regal and proud and Anne Boleyn wanders toward her.
[00:04:04.850]Dear girl, I died before you were three years old,
[00:04:08.070]and now you still have so much of your life ahead of you.
[00:04:11.120]What you must learn, which I did not in my peril,
[00:04:13.814]is when to speak, and when to use silence.
[00:04:17.090]Anne Boleyn exits and young Elizabeth
[00:04:19.070]moves toward the back of the stage.
[00:04:21.020]Enter Lady Mary Fitton, lady-in-waiting.
[00:04:24.029]Lady Mary, how good to see you.
[00:04:27.840]I'm having such strange dreams,
[00:04:29.810]I need something to distract me.
[00:04:32.010]For the last few years I have been a Maid of Honor
[00:04:35.389]to Elizabeth sometimes sleeping in the Queen's bedchamber.
[00:04:37.830]All too often I suffer from the disease of the mother
[00:04:40.230]and feel most sad and disordered.
[00:04:42.470]Sometimes I wonder if the Queen
[00:04:44.180]feels so too with all that is going on.
[00:04:46.520]She enjoys having us read aloud to her on occasion.
[00:04:49.230]There is a play that has been preformed of late,
[00:04:51.220]Master William Shakespeare's Richard the Second.
[00:04:53.800]It has been much on the Queen's mind lately.
[00:04:56.073]This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
[00:04:59.250]this earth of majesty, the seat of mars,
[00:05:01.780]this other Eden, demi paradise,
[00:05:03.930]this fortress built by nature for herself,
[00:05:05.990]against infection and the hand of war.
[00:05:08.140]This happy breed of men, this little world.
[00:05:10.710]This precious stone set in the silver sea
[00:05:12.990]which serves it in the office of a wall
[00:05:15.060]or as a moat defensive to a house
[00:05:16.810]against the envy of less happier land.
[00:05:19.240]This blessed pot, this earth, this realm, this England.
[00:05:23.880]Thank you Mary.
[00:05:27.050]In this year 1601,
[00:05:30.060]I have now been England's Queen for 43 years.
[00:05:33.660]So many that I loved and trusted are gone.
[00:05:37.770]Sir Francis Walsingham,
[00:05:39.540]who's spy network kept me safe I lost in 1591.
[00:05:43.750]My dear William Cecil Lord Burghley,
[00:05:46.520]who had loyal to my interest since before the reign began,
[00:05:51.050]died in 1598.
[00:05:52.967]As soon as I became Queen I made
[00:05:55.640]my principal secretary, telling him.
[00:05:58.894]This judgment I have of you,
[00:05:59.930]is that you will not be corrupted by any manner of gift,
[00:06:03.030]and that you will be faithful to the state.
[00:06:05.280]And that without respect of my private will
[00:06:07.240]you will give me that counsel that you think best.
[00:06:09.870]He said to his son Robert on his deathbed.
[00:06:12.750]Serve God by serving the Queen.
[00:06:15.058]I lost my dear Kat Ashley, who's loyal to me in the
[00:06:20.920]difficult years before I became Queen was priceless to me.
[00:06:25.280]She entered my service when I was only three years old.
[00:06:28.760]And in 1547, she became my governess.
[00:06:31.800]And I am so thankful she encouraged my education,
[00:06:35.670]we were deeply loyal to each other
[00:06:37.650]and when I became Queen she became
[00:06:39.710]my Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber.
[00:06:43.190]Kat Ashley enters and she and young Elizabeth
[00:06:45.630]dance together on one side of the stage.
[00:06:48.230]She died in 1565.
[00:06:51.400]Much too early in my reign.
[00:06:56.810]And oh, Robin, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester.
[00:07:03.840]Died unexpectedly right after the Armada in 1588.
[00:07:09.720]Robert enters and he and young Elizabeth hug each other.
[00:07:13.450]We had dined together most nights after the victory
[00:07:16.220]and then he left to take the baths,
[00:07:18.550]the waters in Buxton and died on his way there.
[00:07:22.440]Though I still love to dress up in my beautiful gowns
[00:07:25.130]and I have more than one thousand items of clothing,
[00:07:28.690]when times are difficult, it has always been my books
[00:07:31.734]and my studies that have helped to sustain me.
[00:07:35.590]But as I look at them now,
[00:07:37.830]remembering history can be painful.
[00:07:40.920]As we have learned from the plays
[00:07:42.520]of Master William Shakespeare,
[00:07:45.440]Henry Bolingbroke pushed his cousin
[00:07:47.580]Richard the Second off the throne.
[00:07:50.220]Bolingbroke was attractive, and a military leader
[00:07:53.870]too much like the Earl of Essex.
[00:07:57.810]A man who was my favorite, and the stepson of Robert Dudley.
[00:08:03.920]One man I truly did care about.
[00:08:07.358]Ugh, Essex.
[00:08:09.540]He was fascinating and charismatic.
[00:08:15.120]And he made me feel young again in some ways.
[00:08:18.320]But, I have had hard problems with charismatic but
[00:08:22.330]unscrupulous men going all the way back to Thomas Seymour.
[00:08:26.620]Older Elizabeth pauses, she glances
[00:08:28.920]and sees at the back of the stage the young Elizabeth
[00:08:31.080]being pursued by Thomas Seymour
[00:08:32.630]and struggling to fight him off, they then exit.
[00:08:35.440]Oh, and Essex's letters sounded so romantic even though
[00:08:40.290]I learned later he had his secretary compose them.
[00:08:44.270]But he was never actually my lover
[00:08:47.370]and my feelings for him were not at all what they were for
[00:08:50.260]Robert Dudley, a man who was never actually my lover either.
[00:08:55.420]Oh the rumors that swirled about my reign
[00:08:58.910]of lovers and illegitimate children,
[00:09:00.990]all the way to the Earl of Essex were just that: rumors.
[00:09:04.430]As I told the Spanish Ambassador decades ago.
[00:09:07.650]My life is in the open and I have so many witnesses
[00:09:11.090]that I cannot understand how so bad a judgment
[00:09:13.910]can have been formed of me.
[00:09:15.650]I know we cannot cover everybody's mouth,
[00:09:18.600]but must content ourselves
[00:09:20.500]with doing our duty and trust in God.
[00:09:22.820]For the truth will at last be made manifest.
[00:09:25.900]During the last decade of my reign,
[00:09:27.680]Essex has become one of the
[00:09:29.030]most important people at my court,
[00:09:31.320]and one for whom I have cared deeply.
[00:09:34.440]I early warned him when he ignored what I told him,
[00:09:38.960]where I'll see you fail not, else you will be loathe
[00:09:42.560]to incur our indignation and will answer for the contrary
[00:09:45.520]at your utter most peril.
[00:09:48.900]He was convinced that he knew better than me how to rule.
[00:09:53.127]I know I shall never do her service
[00:09:55.190]so that against her will.
[00:09:58.740]We were in a council meeting discussing who to send
[00:10:01.960]to try to subdue the rebellion in Ireland.
[00:10:05.994]I do not believe that your candidate
[00:10:08.970]Sir George Carol will do well in Ireland.
[00:10:11.670]How can you say that, how can you doubt my advice?
[00:10:15.650]Essex then turns his back on Elizabeth.
[00:10:17.870]Elizabeth then spins him around and boxes his ears.
[00:10:21.050]Essex starts to draw his sword against Elizabeth,
[00:10:23.770]the unnamed lord restrains him and takes his sword
[00:10:25.870]and places it on Elizabeth's desk.
[00:10:28.568]This is your Queen, you must apologize.
[00:10:30.820]I owe Her Majesty the duty of an Earl,
[00:10:33.480]but I can never serve her as a slave.
[00:10:36.460]Cannot princes err, cannot subjects receive wrong?
[00:10:39.900]I neither could nor would to put up with so great an affront
[00:10:43.160]and indignity neither would I have taken it
[00:10:46.170]at King Henry the Eighth's hands.
[00:10:50.010]My father would have struck off his head then.
[00:10:54.410]But I made up with him, and when he told me he
[00:10:58.530]was the only one who could settle the rebellion in Ireland,
[00:11:01.520]I not only agreed to appoint him,
[00:11:03.970]but I gave him the largest army ever raised in my reign.
[00:11:07.340]Oh the crowds, they cheered for him when he left London,
[00:11:10.980]but then he got to Ireland and he did nothing, nothing!
[00:11:14.570]He never brought about a capital rebel,
[00:11:17.670]against whom it would have been worthy
[00:11:19.080]to have ventured 1000 men.
[00:11:20.850]Oh, so much money was spent for no return.
[00:11:25.390]I needed to comfort and cherish the hearts of my people,
[00:11:29.460]who groan under the burden of continual levies
[00:11:32.080]and impositions who were occasioned by Essex.
[00:11:36.590]All he did was send excuses.
[00:11:39.560]If we had mended Ireland after all the calamities
[00:11:42.840]in which they have wrapped it should have been abandoned,
[00:11:46.000]then it was superfluous to have sent over
[00:11:50.990]a personage such as Essex.
[00:11:54.320]Then, though I had commanded him that he could not
[00:11:57.520]leave Ireland without my express consent,
[00:12:00.250]he secretly rode all night, and he came to court
[00:12:05.970]mud splattered and marched into my bedchamber.
[00:12:09.450]Essex returns to the stage looking splattered.
[00:12:11.870]He pushes Lady Mary Fitton aside to reach Elizabeth.
[00:12:14.160]My Lord, you cannot go in there.
[00:12:16.008]They struggle.
[00:12:17.330]I'm still dressing, he'll see me as no man ever have,
[00:12:19.890]my gray hairs about my ears.
[00:12:22.340]He may have an army behind him, I need to be careful.
[00:12:25.270]Essex breaks through Mary Fitton's restraining arms.
[00:12:27.921](laughter)
[00:12:32.730]Oh my Lord, how tired you looked.
[00:12:35.950]Clearly you rushed back to see me.
[00:12:39.270]You should let me get properly dressed,
[00:12:42.320]and you as well get rested and cleaned up
[00:12:45.500]and then we can have a talk.
[00:12:48.270]I so appreciate Your Majesty's kindness.
[00:12:54.710]Lady Mary, get my guards and have
[00:12:57.460]the Earl of Essex placed under house arrest.
[00:13:01.930]Well I knew I could never trust him again.
[00:13:04.710]He could have gone into private life,
[00:13:06.090]but he felt his life was ruined.
[00:13:08.360]And when I told him my conditions
[00:13:10.420]for his released he complained that--
[00:13:12.630]Elizabeth is an old woman as crooked in mind as in body.
[00:13:18.240]Crooked, her conditions were as crooked as her carcass.
[00:13:24.494]Did he think that I would not hear about this.
[00:13:28.510]And then he started planning his rebellion,
[00:13:30.720]and had some of his friends pay
[00:13:33.230]William Shakespeare's company to put on a
[00:13:35.430]special performance of his play Richard the Second.
[00:13:39.310]Showing the King forced to abdicate.
[00:13:42.520]For God's sake let us sit upon the ground
[00:13:44.830]and tell sad stories of the death of kings.
[00:13:47.380]How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
[00:13:50.860]some haunted by the ghost they have deposed.
[00:13:53.310]Some poisoned by their wives,
[00:13:54.820]some sleeping killed, all murdered.
[00:13:57.080]For within the hall of crown, that rounds the mortal temples
[00:14:00.130]of a king, keeps death his court.
[00:14:02.240]And there the antic sits, scoffing his fate,
[00:14:05.320]and grinning at his pomp. (clapping)
[00:14:10.720]I am Richard the Second.
[00:14:13.640]Know ye not that?
[00:14:16.480]And though the crowds cheered Essex
[00:14:19.280]when he took to the streets to march against the Queen,
[00:14:23.290]none joined him.
[00:14:25.940]He was found guilty of treason.
[00:14:29.020]I had to have him executed.
[00:14:31.630]Older Elizabeth picks up the sword and points it at Essex.
[00:14:35.500]Essex departs the stage with his head down.
[00:14:41.690]Around the same time I went to the wedding.
[00:14:45.510]Lady Anne Russell and Henry Somerset.
[00:14:47.840]The entertainment was a masque,
[00:14:49.520]and nine ladies danced representing different qualities.
[00:14:54.240]Lady Mary Fitton asked me to dance with her.
[00:14:57.800]I asked her what she represented and she responded.
[00:15:01.958]Affection.
[00:15:03.221]Affection, affection's false.
[00:15:07.080]But, I did get up and dance.
[00:15:10.100]They danced.
[00:15:10.933]In the background young Elizabeth has two dancing puppets.
[00:15:14.690]But I soon had to leave court too.
[00:15:16.500]I fell in love with Lord William Herbert,
[00:15:18.590]and would disguise myself as a boy
[00:15:20.350]to leave court and be with him.
[00:15:21.950]He told me he would marry me
[00:15:23.530]and all too soon I was pregnant.
[00:15:26.270]The Queen was furious.
[00:15:27.440]You are a disgrace.
[00:15:29.280]A disgrace to yourself, to the court, to the Queen, leave.
[00:15:33.344]Leave the court!
[00:15:34.177]Your Majesty, I am so sorry!
[00:15:36.250]Elizabeth walks away from Mary Fitton.
[00:15:39.370]She sent me away, and my lover abandoned me.
[00:15:42.420]He utterly renounces all marriage.
[00:15:44.750]My baby son died and I was never in court again.
[00:15:48.584]Lady Mary leaves the stage weeping.
[00:15:50.440]Didn't these young girls understand that
[00:15:52.700]it hurt my honor as well as theirs if they misbehaved?
[00:15:58.750]There were a number I had to send away,
[00:16:00.350]so much loss in my last years.
[00:16:02.490]Oh Kat.
[00:16:03.930]If only you were still here with me at court.
[00:16:06.660]Kat Ashley comes out and puts her arm around
[00:16:09.040]the young Elizabeth, gives her a hug and then exits again.
[00:16:13.680]Oh Essex was just the latest threat, the latest pain.
[00:16:19.220]But there were glories too during my reign,
[00:16:21.810]and perhaps the greatest was our defeat over
[00:16:24.970]King Philip of Spain's Spanish Armada in 1588.
[00:16:30.510]Philip considered himself his most Catholic Majesty.
[00:16:36.230]He wanted to re-establish Catholicism all over Europe
[00:16:39.790]and he saw me as the one who was really standing in his way.
[00:16:44.800]I kept trying to make peace,
[00:16:47.060]but that soon became impossible.
[00:16:49.130]My Lord Admiral Howard wrote to me that--
[00:16:53.671]For the love of Jesus Christ,
[00:16:55.130]Madam awake thoroughly and see the villainous treasons
[00:16:58.240]round about you against Your Majesty and your realm.
[00:17:02.150]And draw your forces around you
[00:17:04.110]like a mighty prince to defend you.
[00:17:06.570]Truly Madam, if you do so there is no course for fear.
[00:17:10.750]If you do not, there will be danger.
[00:17:15.180]Well I did all I could to help recruit brave sailors
[00:17:18.710]such as Sir Francis Drake
[00:17:20.640]to help the Lord Admiral find effective ships.
[00:17:23.180]And my dear Robin Dudley, the Earl of Leicester,
[00:17:28.500]to find soldiers to protect the realm
[00:17:30.530]if the English ships could not stop the Armada
[00:17:32.670]that Philip called invincible.
[00:17:34.760]Robin wrote to me--
[00:17:36.590]Now for your person being the most dainty and sacred thing
[00:17:39.950]we have in this world to care for,
[00:17:42.360]a man must tremble when he thinks of it.
[00:17:44.980]Especially finding Your Majesty to have the princely courage
[00:17:48.100]to transport yourself to the utmost confines of your realm
[00:17:52.130]to meet your enemies and to defend your subjects.
[00:17:56.010]You shall comfort not only these thousands,
[00:17:59.869]but many more shall hear of it.
[00:18:01.570]See Robin had invited me to the Camp of Tilbury
[00:18:05.900]to help raise the troop's morale.
[00:18:08.830]While my main advisers William Cecil,
[00:18:10.920]and Lord Burley, Sir Francis Walsingham
[00:18:13.760]wanted me to stay in London where they could keep me safe,
[00:18:16.700]but I was determined to go to Tilbury
[00:18:19.840]and encourage the troops.
[00:18:22.170]Robin was also worried that someone might try to harm me.
[00:18:26.330]So protect me, to protect me my dear Robin
[00:18:30.340]stayed at my side the entire time.
[00:18:34.010]Robert Dudley stands with Elizabeth.
[00:18:36.030]Great Queen, I would give my life to protect you.
[00:18:39.810]The soldiers await your speech.
[00:18:49.460]My loving people, we have been persuaded by some,
[00:18:55.430]that are careful of our safety to take heed.
[00:18:58.340]How we commit ourselves to the armed multitudes
[00:19:01.680]for fear of treachery.
[00:19:03.760]But I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust
[00:19:08.120]my faithful and loving people.
[00:19:11.040]Let tyrants fear!
[00:19:13.880]I have always so behaved myself that under God
[00:19:17.410]I have placed my chief of strength and safeguard
[00:19:20.690]in the loyal hearts and the goodwill of my subjects.
[00:19:24.970]And therefore, I am come amongst you at this time
[00:19:29.570]being resolved in the midst and the heat of the great battle
[00:19:33.700]to live or die amongst you all.
[00:19:37.660]To lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people.
[00:19:43.220]My body, my honor, my blood, and even this dust.
[00:19:49.700]I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman,
[00:19:54.220]but I have the heart of a king, and a king of England too!
[00:19:58.500]And think foul scorn that Parma or Spain,
[00:20:01.870]or any other Prince of Europe
[00:20:04.199]should dare to invade the borders of my realms,
[00:20:06.330]to which rather than any dishonor should grow by me.
[00:20:09.500]I myself will take up arms and we shall shortly
[00:20:14.640]have a famous victory over the enemies
[00:20:18.072]of my God, my kingdom, and my people.
[00:20:24.792]The English fire ships and the storms God provided
[00:20:27.410]saved England from the dangers of the Armada.
[00:20:31.050]Older Elizabeth takes off her pearls
[00:20:33.120]and looks at them, and then puts them on the desk.
[00:20:38.070]Things are happening. (laughter)
[00:20:45.860]I want you all to imagine me taking off my pearls.
[00:20:48.853](laughter)
[00:20:54.540]Well, I wore these after the portrait done,
[00:21:02.160]after our great victory and I love these pearls.
[00:21:06.500]Originally Pope Clement the Seventh,
[00:21:09.590]gave them to his niece Catherine de'Medici
[00:21:12.210]when she married the heir to the throne of France.
[00:21:15.970]And then they were passed on to my cousin Mary Stuart.
[00:21:20.460]When she married the Dauphin,
[00:21:23.120]she brought them back to Scotland with her,
[00:21:25.100]but when she fled Scotland, the Earl of Moray
[00:21:27.890]asked if I wished to purchase them.
[00:21:31.000]I so wanted them I outbid Catherine and now they are mine.
[00:21:38.890]My dear Robin, Lord Robert Dudley,
[00:21:46.040]my great support since the reign of my sister Mary.
[00:21:51.370]Died in September on the 4th of 1588.
[00:21:56.270]Robert kisses Elizabeth on the cheek
[00:21:58.310]and then exits the stage.
[00:22:03.130]I was so devastated I locked myself in my room.
[00:22:08.620]I read and I reread the final letter
[00:22:12.366]I ever received from him,
[00:22:14.950]finally writing on it his last letter.
[00:22:21.550]I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to pardon
[00:22:24.060]your poor old servant to profess bold and
[00:22:27.849]sending to know how my gracious Lady doth.
[00:22:30.520]And what ease of her late pain she finds
[00:22:32.780]being the chiefest thing in the world I do pray for,
[00:22:36.230]for her to have good health, and long life.
[00:22:40.100]For my own poor taste I continue to steal your medicine
[00:22:42.940]and finds that amends much better
[00:22:44.480]than any other thing that have been given me.
[00:22:47.700]Thus hoping to find perfect cure at the bath,
[00:22:51.080]but the continuance of my wanton prayer
[00:22:53.440]for you Majesty's most happy preservation.
[00:22:57.160]I humbly kiss your foot.
[00:22:59.490]Your Majesty's most faithful and obedient servant.
[00:23:05.160]I stayed there until some days later,
[00:23:08.420]Lord Burley worried about his Queen
[00:23:11.690]ordered the door to my room be broken down.
[00:23:16.260]Oh Robin, Robin, oh he was gorgeous in his youth.
[00:23:23.900]I had known Robin since we were eight years old.
[00:23:26.850]And I told him then I would never marry.
[00:23:29.280]But though I told Robin that I would have
[00:23:31.920]but one mistress and no master,
[00:23:34.240]he was the man that knew me best.
[00:23:36.420]When I became Queen he became my Master of the Horse.
[00:23:39.510]We hunted together.
[00:23:41.360]The Queens Majesty, thanks be to God,
[00:23:43.750]is in very good health and has become a great huntress.
[00:23:47.120]And oh, how we loved to dance together.
[00:23:50.140]Robert Dudley and the young Elizabeth dance.
[00:23:53.585]One time we had such a fight Robin threatened.
[00:24:00.020]I'm leaving court.
[00:24:01.530]I told him you cannot.
[00:24:03.670]I must see you every day.
[00:24:05.830]Oh he preened, until I added you are like my dog.
[00:24:10.750]When people see you they know that I am nearby.
[00:24:13.926](laughter)
[00:24:19.240]Robin stays on stage and
[00:24:20.580]moves about during the next section.
[00:24:22.110]Coming back to stroke Elizabeth's arm or kiss her neck,
[00:24:24.560]pulling her up into a hug or a dance.
[00:24:27.530]All the ambassadors noted my closeness to Lord Robert.
[00:24:31.760]I remember when one of the French Ambassadors came.
[00:24:35.998](speaks in French)
[00:24:52.888]Her French is superb, and I hear from
[00:24:54.553]the other ambassadors that
[00:24:55.670]she has also greeted them in their languages too.
[00:24:58.208]But we also know how much time
[00:24:59.250]she seems to spend with Lord Robert.
[00:25:02.730]From the beginning of my reign, I worked hard to rule.
[00:25:06.320]But early in my reign, I also did love to go hunting with
[00:25:11.040]Robert Dudley, to dance with him, watch him play tennis.
[00:25:15.700]But there was no dishonor, though many claimed it.
[00:25:18.970]And as I told the Spanish Ambassador--
[00:25:22.020]They charged me with a good many things
[00:25:24.480]in my own country and elsewhere and amongst them
[00:25:27.220]that I show more favor to Robert than is fitting.
[00:25:30.380]Speaking of me as they might speak of an immodest woman.
[00:25:34.130]I have some favor, although not so much as he deserves,
[00:25:37.870]but God knows how great a slander it is,
[00:25:41.566]and a time will come when the world will know it.
[00:25:43.320]Some say Lord Robert's wife Amy,
[00:25:45.930]has a tumor in her breast, and that he is only waiting
[00:25:47.992]for her to die so that he can marry the queen.
[00:25:51.080]Elizabeth looks horrified
[00:25:52.480]and turns away from the ambassador.
[00:25:54.380]When Robin again comes over she turns away from him too.
[00:25:57.670]Lady Mary Sidney enters.
[00:26:00.784]My dear Lady Mary, how good to see you.
[00:26:04.320]I served as Lady-in-Waiting to the
[00:26:05.730]Queen in the earliest years of her reign.
[00:26:07.750]Like my brother Robert, I knew her for many years,
[00:26:10.100]and I met my husband, Henry Sidney,
[00:26:12.070]at Edward the Sixth's court.
[00:26:13.520]I was one of Queen Elizabeth's closest companions.
[00:26:16.270]But oh to be caught in the middle of my brother Robert's
[00:26:18.300]spats and love games with the Queen.
[00:26:20.250]But then there was such a worrying time, in 1560,
[00:26:23.016]Robert's wife Amy Robsart was found dead
[00:26:25.270]at the bottom of some stairs with her neck broken,
[00:26:27.270]where she was living in the country.
[00:26:28.980]They'd only been 17 when they married,
[00:26:31.728]and my brother had not seen her more than a year.
[00:26:32.960]Young Elizabeth takes a puppet and lays her on the floor
[00:26:35.380]with her head at a strange angle.
[00:26:38.360]Many said that he had had her murdered.
[00:26:43.400]This untoward accident, all the malicious talk
[00:26:46.420]that I know the wicked world will use.
[00:26:49.830]My ambassador in Paris wrote.
[00:26:52.380]The brute be so brim and so malicious
[00:26:54.550]we report it here touching the marriage
[00:26:56.070]of Lord Robert and the death of his wife.
[00:26:58.320]As I know not where to turn you,
[00:26:59.883]know what continents to bear,
[00:27:02.090]I had rather perish and quail with honesty than live
[00:27:05.280]and beguile a little time with shame.
[00:27:08.190]Mary Stuart, then Queen of France said that--
[00:27:11.740]The Queen is going to marry her horse keeper
[00:27:13.720]who has killed his wife to make room for her in his bed.
[00:27:16.520]Mary laughs, does a little dance, and exits.
[00:27:19.920]I knew this was not true.
[00:27:23.300]To save your honor and my own, I cannot have you at court
[00:27:27.200]until all this is thoroughly investigated.
[00:27:29.660]Robin tries to touch Elizabeth,
[00:27:31.230]but she turns away from him.
[00:27:32.570]He cries out-- Elizabeth!
[00:27:34.300]And exits.
[00:27:36.970]I would not have him back at court until the Assize court
[00:27:40.120]found that Amy died by misadventure, an accident.
[00:27:45.120]Then the Queen welcomed Robin back to court
[00:27:47.080]and for a time all seemed well.
[00:27:49.150]Robin returns to the stage and he and Elizabeth
[00:27:50.846]bow to each other and briefly hug.
[00:27:53.470]They dance together.
[00:27:55.110]Robert was involved in efforts to occupy La Have,
[00:27:57.800]or New Haven as we called it, early in 1562,
[00:28:00.477]and my husband Henry helped him.
[00:28:02.510]It was rather a family affair as in the early Autumn
[00:28:04.760]there was another expedition and this time
[00:28:06.440]it was my brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick,
[00:28:08.439]who was with Henry at New Haven.
[00:28:10.630]But soon after they left court England was truly in crisis.
[00:28:13.160]Far more than my brother's with the death of his wife.
[00:28:15.240]As our Queen became ill.
[00:28:17.009]My body is aching all over, I'm so cold.
[00:28:22.400]Oh no, oh no, the Queen has smallpox,
[00:28:24.350]the Queen has smallpox.
[00:28:26.460]If it is God's will that I, I fear I am going to die.
[00:28:31.830]This is my command for the good of the country.
[00:28:34.840]Make Lord Robert the Governor of the Realm.
[00:28:38.050]And I must tell you, with the utmost seriousness,
[00:28:41.944]nothing dishonorable has ever passed between Robin and me,
[00:28:46.800]I promise you that.
[00:28:48.710]I nursed Elizabeth most devotedly
[00:28:50.550]and I never left her side.
[00:28:52.210]But while Elizabeth survived the disease with few scars,
[00:28:54.570]I became ill as well and was terribly marked.
[00:28:56.870]My husband was devastated.
[00:28:59.009]Ugh... When I went to New Haven
[00:29:05.430]I left her a full fair lady,
[00:29:07.820]in mine eye at least, the fairest.
[00:29:10.120]And when I returned I found her
[00:29:11.580]as foul a lady as the smallpox could make her.
[00:29:15.220]Which she did take by continual attendance of
[00:29:17.680]Her Majesty's most precious person.
[00:29:20.490]Sick of the same disease, the scars of which,
[00:29:23.231]to her resolute discomfort, ever since have done,
[00:29:27.190]and do remain in her face.
[00:29:29.080]So she lives like a night raven in the house.
[00:29:32.390]But Henry always exaggerated.
[00:29:34.300]Not about my scars, alas,
[00:29:36.180]but claiming I refused to be seen by any.
[00:29:38.230]I was not only up and around the house at night,
[00:29:40.060]when no one could see me but during the day as well,
[00:29:42.040]as I ran the household.
[00:29:43.500]I even returned to court,
[00:29:44.580]but never felt the Queen appreciated my sacrifice.
[00:29:47.260]She and young Elizabeth are walking around each other,
[00:29:49.583]then Elizabeth nods to Lady Mary and turns away.
[00:29:53.170]I wonder if she was embarrassed by me.
[00:29:54.910]We were never as close and my assigned rooms
[00:29:57.030]at court were far away from her.
[00:30:00.280]I recovered from the smallpox
[00:30:02.210]but my illness so frightened my advisors and my people
[00:30:05.700]that there was more pressure than ever
[00:30:07.340]that I marry so that I could give birth to a son
[00:30:09.970]and provide for masculine succession.
[00:30:12.860]Madam, your counsel, your parliament,
[00:30:15.510]and your people demand that you marry.
[00:30:17.830]We must have a king to help you rule,
[00:30:19.735]and you must have a son so eventually
[00:30:21.800]we will have a king again in this realm.
[00:30:24.100]I was not sure at all that I ever wanted to marry,
[00:30:27.580]but from the beginning of my reign I had many who horded me.
[00:30:31.270]My own brother-in-law, Philip the Second of Spain,
[00:30:33.870]once husband to my older sister Mary,
[00:30:36.450]the Archduke Charles, Eric the 14th of Sweden,
[00:30:39.740]Henry the Third of France and his younger brother
[00:30:42.100]the Duke of Alencon, later Anjou.
[00:30:45.070]Your Majesty, my dear Elizabeth,
[00:30:47.440]you should commit yourself to a suitor
[00:30:49.040]who is worthy and a responsible match.
[00:30:51.099]One who befits your rank
[00:30:52.620]and will please the people of England.
[00:30:55.740]But I was not so eager to marry.
[00:30:58.930]As I told the Spanish ambassador.
[00:31:00.743]If I could appoint such a successor to the crown,
[00:31:03.375]as would please me and the country, I would not marry.
[00:31:08.490]As it is a thing for which I have never had any inclination.
[00:31:12.824]And then of course, there was Robert Dudley.
[00:31:16.950]Robert Dudley comes on stage
[00:31:18.700]and leads Elizabeth in a short dance.
[00:31:24.838]I had even suggested in 1563,
[00:31:27.604]that Robin marry my Catholic cousin
[00:31:29.760]Mary Stuart the Scottish Queen.
[00:31:31.740]Mary Stuart enters, walking about and shrugging.
[00:31:34.330]She looks at Elizabeth and laughs
[00:31:36.180]and stands to the side of the stage.
[00:31:37.860]I told the Scottish ambassador Sir James Melville,
[00:31:40.970]that I esteemed Robert as my brother and my best friend.
[00:31:46.310]And whom nature had implanted so many graces
[00:31:49.530]that I would have married him myself
[00:31:52.570]if I had ever minded to have taken a husband.
[00:31:56.050]I made him the Earl of Leicester.
[00:31:58.420]Robert kneels before the young Elizabeth.
[00:32:00.760]Elizabeth puts the sword on his shoulder.
[00:32:03.280]She hands off the sword to the English Lord,
[00:32:05.580]and then leans over and tickles Robin about the neck.
[00:32:09.580]Perhaps tickling his neck was
[00:32:11.780]a bit too openly affectionate and I was not sure that
[00:32:16.710]I could do without his company.
[00:32:18.660]Robert now standing puts an arm around her.
[00:32:22.020]I wondered what to do when in January 1565.
[00:32:26.170]Well I would certainly consider
[00:32:27.890]marrying the new Earl of Leicester,
[00:32:29.560]if Elizabeth would make me heir to the crown of England.
[00:32:32.360]I just so want to be the Queen of England,
[00:32:34.390]and I am nine years younger and more attractive too.
[00:32:38.530]But Robin had no interest in marrying her,
[00:32:42.280]as he still wanted to marry me.
[00:32:45.680]Now that the death of my wife Amy was behind me
[00:32:48.150]I very much hoped that Elizabeth would become my bride.
[00:32:52.130]I worked to make this happen for years.
[00:32:54.930]I was her close companion and advisor.
[00:32:58.690]I gave her lavish gifts.
[00:33:00.680]And of course, I wondered how much was his love for
[00:33:04.310]Elizabeth Tudor and how much his Dudley desire
[00:33:07.570]to become the King of England.
[00:33:10.080]I cannot really tell the answer to that myself.
[00:33:14.449]Instead, Mary became enamored
[00:33:17.530]of her young cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
[00:33:19.957]When he rode into Edinburgh she proclaimed--
[00:33:23.100]He was the lustiest and best proportioned
[00:33:25.280]long man that I had seen.
[00:33:27.050]I am tired of being a widow.
[00:33:29.090]I am so eager to marry my gorgeous young cousin.
[00:33:32.100]He is such a good dancer.
[00:33:33.570]He assures me how much he loves me.
[00:33:35.740]Elizabeth is just so envious of my good fortune
[00:33:38.770]having such a gorgeous love.
[00:33:40.980]I gave him a set of gilded armor.
[00:33:43.310]But I still want to be named heir to the English throne.
[00:33:46.050]Truly since Henry was still Catherine of Aragon's husband
[00:33:48.800]when Elizabeth was born, she is a bastard
[00:33:51.050]and I should be the true Queen of England now.
[00:33:53.200]Right now, with my attractive cousin husband on my arm.
[00:33:59.030]Many thought that this marriage would strengthen
[00:34:01.500]her claim to my throne, since he was our cousin.
[00:34:04.830]But though I knew that she had fallen in love
[00:34:06.930]with an arrogant drunken fool,
[00:34:09.550]I had no idea of all the problems this marriage would cause.
[00:34:13.540]Darnley treated Mary badly.
[00:34:15.600]Even murdering her Italian secretary David Rizzio.
[00:34:19.360]They had a son, James, in June 1566.
[00:34:23.480]I was his Godmother, but she never forgave Darnley.
[00:34:27.730]What a mistake to marry Darnley.
[00:34:29.680]He insists that he should be the King and rule
[00:34:32.270]and I merely the Queen.
[00:34:34.030]I am weary from him and shrink from his touch.
[00:34:36.740]Mary started spending too much time
[00:34:38.650]with James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.
[00:34:41.080]A Protestant, but the only one she felt she could trust.
[00:34:44.430]Bothwell is daring, impetuous, and dangerous.
[00:34:47.700]He has bold ambitions.
[00:34:49.740]Oh Mary and her men.
[00:34:52.160]Did she not realize that the safest
[00:34:54.100]and strongest Queen was one who ruled alone?
[00:34:57.210]Darnley was ill and at the house he was in, Kirk o'Field,
[00:35:01.991]when on February 9th, 1567 there was a great explosion.
[00:35:06.780]But Darnley was not killed in the blast.
[00:35:10.000]He and his manservant were found strangled in the garden.
[00:35:12.860]My husband is dead, my husband is dead!
[00:35:15.290]She runs about a bit and then stands
[00:35:16.999]at the side of the stage pretending to weep.
[00:35:19.580]Everyone said that Bothwell had planned it.
[00:35:22.360]But Mary protected him.
[00:35:24.200]I told Mary, Madam, my ears have been so deafened
[00:35:28.367]and my understanding so grieved and my heart so a fainted,
[00:35:33.770]to hear of the dreadful news of the abominable murder
[00:35:37.400]of your mad husband and my killed cousin
[00:35:40.670]that I scarcely have the wits to write about it.
[00:35:44.630]I cannot dissemble that I am more sorrowful
[00:35:47.990]for you than for him.
[00:35:49.860]I will not at all dissemble
[00:35:51.100]what most people are talking about,
[00:35:52.570]which is that you mill look through your fingers
[00:35:55.230]at the revenging of this deed.
[00:35:58.170]However, I exhort you.
[00:36:01.090]I counsel you and I beseech you
[00:36:04.540]to take this thing so much to heart
[00:36:07.100]that you will not fear to touch even Bothwell,
[00:36:11.660]whom you have nearest to you, if the murder touches him.
[00:36:15.960]And that no persuasion will prevent you
[00:36:17.990]from making an example of justice out of this to the world.
[00:36:23.090]Mary Stuart stands there defiantly and says nothing.
[00:36:27.410]When Mary did not answer I became even more
[00:36:29.830]passionate and emphatic in my advice.
[00:36:32.500]For the love of God, madam.
[00:36:35.160]Use such sincerity and prudence in the matter of the hearing
[00:36:40.460]which touches you so merely that all the world
[00:36:42.920]may feel justified in believing you innocent
[00:36:45.610]of so enormous a crime.
[00:36:48.060]Which, if you were not, would be good cause
[00:36:50.480]for degrading you from the rank of princess
[00:36:53.100]and bringing you upon the scorn of the vulgar.
[00:36:56.130]Mary Stuart turns her back on Elizabeth
[00:36:57.950]and then walks off the stage.
[00:37:00.630]But the trial was a joke.
[00:37:03.840]Accused by Darnley's father, Bothwell showed up
[00:37:06.690]with many followers and was known to be protected by Mary.
[00:37:10.360]He was quickly found not guilty
[00:37:12.650]but no one believed the verdict.
[00:37:14.600]And many whispered, though he already had a wife,
[00:37:17.290]he would soon marry the Scottish Queen.
[00:37:19.900]And instead of being in mourning for at least a year,
[00:37:23.700]only a month after the trial and three months
[00:37:26.750]after Darnley's death she did indeed marry Bothwell.
[00:37:31.030]A man all said was a murderer and by then many wondered
[00:37:35.300]if she was also part of the plot.
[00:37:37.650]She claimed that Bothwell, quickly divorced,
[00:37:40.980]had kidnapped her and ravished her,
[00:37:42.960]and that the only way to save her honor was to marry him.
[00:37:46.750]Marry him!
[00:37:47.900]If someone had tried that with me
[00:37:49.490]he would lose the head off his shoulders
[00:37:51.130]instead of having his ring on my finger.
[00:37:53.784]And many thought it was a plot to explain
[00:37:57.220]a marriage to a woman already pregnant.
[00:38:00.050]I told Mary how could a worse choice be made
[00:38:03.450]for your honor than in such haste to marry such a subject.
[00:38:08.090]Who besides other a notorious lacks, public fame has charged
[00:38:12.020]with the murder of your late husband?
[00:38:15.540]There is a strong idea in the world
[00:38:17.940]that a woman may not live unless she is married.
[00:38:22.260]Or else by all events if she refrains from marriage
[00:38:24.930]she does so for some bad reason.
[00:38:27.400]Well I say, look at Mary Stuart's marriages,
[00:38:30.650]and my reign as Virgin Queen.
[00:38:33.040]Kat Ashley applauds her.
[00:38:36.760]Some say Mary was bewitched, the Scots rebelled.
[00:38:40.940]Shouting burn the whore.
[00:38:42.700]Burn the whore! Burn the whore!
[00:38:45.730]Bothwell had to flee the country,
[00:38:48.360]and I heard that some years later
[00:38:49.750]he died insane in a Danish prison.
[00:38:52.310]Mary was forced to abdicate the throne
[00:38:54.740]in favor of her infant son.
[00:38:57.110]I was 25 when I became queen.
[00:39:00.010]She was forced off the throne at the same age.
[00:39:03.400]She managed to escape her imprisonment and fled to England.
[00:39:07.110]She immediately wrote to me for help
[00:39:09.870]and her letters become more and more frantic.
[00:39:12.440]I entreat you to send to fetch me
[00:39:14.980]as soon as you possibly can, for I am in pitiable condition.
[00:39:18.260]Not only for a queen but for a gentlewoman.
[00:39:20.790]For I have nothing in the world
[00:39:22.150]but what I had had on my person when I made my escape.
[00:39:24.700]When I did not send her my own gowns to wear
[00:39:26.922]and invite her to court,
[00:39:28.300]she wanted me to know that others,
[00:39:30.790]who might well be my enemies would be glad to aid her.
[00:39:34.300]If for any reason I cannot come to you,
[00:39:36.690]seeing I have freely come to throw myself in your arms,
[00:39:39.850]you will I am sure permit me to
[00:39:41.540]ask assistance of my other allies.
[00:39:43.900]I would not give her an army to use against Scotland.
[00:39:47.370]And was weary of letting her go to France or Spain
[00:39:49.770]because I was afraid that she would raise an army
[00:39:52.532]that she could use not only against Scotland,
[00:39:55.970]but against England and me too.
[00:39:57.740]No, no keeping her in England seemed the best plan.
[00:40:01.420]Freely as I came to throw myself into your arms
[00:40:04.460]as my best friend, you will permit me on your refusal
[00:40:07.830]to seek sucker from the other Princes
[00:40:09.620]and my friends and allies.
[00:40:11.260]As may seem most convenient to me.
[00:40:13.610]For God be thanked, I have got good friends and neighbors
[00:40:17.120]in my just so quarrel and there is nothing to
[00:40:20.581]prevent me from applying them to this detention.
[00:40:22.640]I have chosen you from among all other Princes,
[00:40:26.130]as my nearest kinswoman and perfect friend.
[00:40:29.110]Doing as if I supposed it an honor to be called
[00:40:31.780]Queen restorer who hoped to receive this kindness from you.
[00:40:35.790]I see to my great regret, I am mistaken.
[00:40:39.529]I was never her best friend.
[00:40:42.565](laughter)
[00:40:43.860]In truth, she was no friend to me at all.
[00:40:47.370]As well as these letter to me she also wrote to others.
[00:40:50.720]I am writing to the Spanish Ambassador,
[00:40:52.810]I entreat him to tell his master King Philip
[00:40:55.620]that if he shall help me, I shall be Queen of England
[00:40:58.270]and in three months mass shall be said all over my kingdom.
[00:41:01.520]For years I refused to allow her to leave England.
[00:41:04.530]And for years she conspired against my life.
[00:41:07.210]Parliament and my counsel kept begging me
[00:41:09.330]to have her executed.
[00:41:10.860]After she conspired to marry my cousin
[00:41:13.050]Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, so that they could be
[00:41:15.640]King and Queen of Scotland and England,
[00:41:18.010]Norfolk was finally executed.
[00:41:20.260]The Bishop of London argued that--
[00:41:22.493]For the safety of our Queen and realm
[00:41:25.610]forthwith to cut off the Scottish Queen's head.
[00:41:29.360]Mathew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury
[00:41:32.140]wrote to my dear Lord Burley that if
[00:41:34.160]Mary gained her freedom--
[00:41:36.336]He doubted not that Henry's bones and Mistress Elizabeth's
[00:41:39.120]too should be burned in Smith Field.
[00:41:41.420]With plot after plot against me
[00:41:43.190]parliament kept insisting that Mary must lose her head.
[00:41:46.420]Yet I refused, despite her intrigue.
[00:41:49.890]She was my cousin and an anointed Queen.
[00:41:53.782]Many of the leaders of my kingdom
[00:41:56.670]signed a bond of association putting Mary supporters
[00:41:59.470]on notice that were I killed, they would kill Mary.
[00:42:02.340]Yet even with that, Mary would not stop
[00:42:05.520]becoming involved in conspiracies to have me assassinated.
[00:42:09.330]Make her Queen, bring back Catholicism
[00:42:12.020]and burn those who refused to accept her rule.
[00:42:15.440]My Catholic subjects must be brave an work to get me
[00:42:18.220]out of here, destroy my bastard cousin, and make me Queen.
[00:42:21.860]I will rule as a great Catholic Queen
[00:42:24.110]and destroy the heretics.
[00:42:25.420]It had to end.
[00:42:29.089]When Sir Anthony Babington, another foolish romantic youth
[00:42:34.940]in love with the idea of Mary Stuart,
[00:42:39.000]again planned to have me murdered and make my cousin Queen,
[00:42:41.940]I had to give in.
[00:42:44.330]I was so fortunate that Sir Francis Walsingham
[00:42:46.710]was alert to all dangers and found the correspondence
[00:42:50.100]between my cousin and the other conspirators.
[00:42:53.780]Mary was put on trial at Fotheringhay Castle.
[00:42:56.730]I am an absolute Princess and therefore
[00:42:59.010]exempt from answering to the law.
[00:43:01.110]You have no right to try me, none at all.
[00:43:03.820]Your Queen is a bastard and a heretic
[00:43:06.140]and you are all heretics too.
[00:43:08.210]You not only have no right to put me on trial
[00:43:10.780]but you are doing it solely because I am Catholic.
[00:43:13.300]I am an innocent, a Catholic to be martyred for her faith.
[00:43:16.560]I told Mary, you have in various ways and manners
[00:43:22.540]attempted to take my life
[00:43:24.550]and bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed.
[00:43:28.590]I therefore require, charge, and command you
[00:43:31.500]to make answer for all that I have been
[00:43:33.370]well informed of your arrogance.
[00:43:36.870]English counselors found her guilty of treason.
[00:43:39.860]Condemned her to death.
[00:43:42.330]But for months, I could not bring myself
[00:43:44.240]to sign the death warrant.
[00:43:45.810]How could I execute an anointed Queen and my own cousin.
[00:43:50.401]Would the other Monarchs condemn me?
[00:43:53.171]I told Parliament--
[00:43:54.530]I am not so void of judgment as not to see mine own peril.
[00:43:59.210]Nor yet so ignorant as not to know it where in nature
[00:44:03.520]a foolish course to cherish a sword to cut mine own throat.
[00:44:08.210]I kept thinking bear with her or smite her.
[00:44:14.010]Strike lest thou be stricken.
[00:44:19.290]Sir Francis Walsingham was ill
[00:44:20.790]but he kept sending me messages to sign the death warrant.
[00:44:25.068]You must sign this warrant Your Majesty.
[00:44:28.627]I had been troubled that night
[00:44:31.290]upon a dream that the Scottish Queen was executed.
[00:44:34.610]Do not worry about vain dreams.
[00:44:36.580]Dread sovereign, please, just sign the warrant.
[00:44:40.734]Older Elizabeth takes a pen and quickly signs.
[00:44:44.811]Let Sir Francis Walsingham know that I have signed it.
[00:44:48.868]Given the delicate nature of his health right now,
[00:44:52.100]the excitement over the news may cause his death,
[00:44:54.150]but you must not have the warrant sent on
[00:44:58.010]without my express consent.
[00:45:00.830]But it was sent on immediately
[00:45:04.210]and Mary Queen of Scots was soon dead.
[00:45:07.300]Older Elizabeth picks up the sword
[00:45:09.400]and points it at Mary Stuart.
[00:45:11.530]Mary dejectedly leaves the stage.
[00:45:15.340]I was distraught when they told me.
[00:45:17.970]How could I not think of my own mother?
[00:45:20.330]Another Queen and how she was killed.
[00:45:23.570]Anne Boleyn enters again
[00:45:24.870]and stands with the young Elizabeth.
[00:45:26.610]Yet for close to two decades Mary had sought my death.
[00:45:30.190]Strike lest thou be stricken.
[00:45:32.590]The stage is draped in black.
[00:45:35.913]In August 1572 my court was the most bleak of mornings
[00:45:40.650]after thousands of Protestants were slaughtered
[00:45:42.970]in Paris on St. Bartholomew's day.
[00:45:46.410]I was so deeply distraught as soon as I heard it.
[00:45:49.460]I have since heard that whilst the Queen was
[00:45:51.310]hunting in company with her principal counselors
[00:45:53.184]the said post from France reached her
[00:45:55.350]and she read the letters at once,
[00:45:57.070]whereupon she immediately abandoned her hunting
[00:45:59.020]and returned to the palace so distressed at the news
[00:46:01.530]that all the court was downcast.
[00:46:04.430]At first there was only solemn silence.
[00:46:07.030]Almost as if it were a funeral.
[00:46:08.990]The Lord is on stage but when the Ambassador
[00:46:11.020]approaches him the Lord ignores him.
[00:46:13.440]The Ambassador then goes to the older Elizabeth.
[00:46:15.880]I was so sorry to hear of the great slaughter
[00:46:18.626]made in France of noblemen and gentlemen.
[00:46:22.210]Unconvicted and untried so suddenly.
[00:46:27.240]We could not but with lamentation
[00:46:29.080]and with tears of our heart hear it,
[00:46:31.900]of a Prince so well allied with us.
[00:46:34.800]We do hear it marvelously evil taken,
[00:46:37.500]and as a thing of a terrible and dangerous example.
[00:46:40.790]And are so sorry that our good brother
[00:46:43.310]was so ready to condescend to any such counsel.
[00:46:47.080]Who's nature we took to be more humane and noble.
[00:46:51.070]But when more was added unto it, that women, children,
[00:46:55.459]maids, young infants, and sucking babes
[00:46:58.940]were at the same time murdered and cast into the river.
[00:47:02.740]And that liberty of execution was given to the
[00:47:05.180]vilest and basest sort of the popular,
[00:47:08.430]without punishment of such cruelties done afterwards by law,
[00:47:12.350]upon those cruel murderers of such innocents.
[00:47:15.460]This increased our grief and sorry
[00:47:17.560]in our good brother's behalf, that he should suffer himself
[00:47:20.940]to be led by such inhuman counselors.
[00:47:24.570]Members of the counsel told me that France
[00:47:26.430]had been guilty of the most terrible crime
[00:47:28.660]since the crucifixion of Jesus.
[00:47:31.330]Sir Francis Walsingham, in Paris when this happened,
[00:47:34.800]sheltered all he could in household
[00:47:36.720]and begged to return to England.
[00:47:38.700]I think it less peril to live with them
[00:47:40.970]as enemies than as friends.
[00:47:42.410]But I was convinced that diplomacy
[00:47:44.795]rather than hostility would not only be better for England,
[00:47:48.900]but for the Protestants in France as well.
[00:47:52.160]Kat Ashley removes the black draping.
[00:47:53.980]The French Ambassador exits.
[00:47:55.830]In the Autumn of 1574 I sent Rodger, Lord North,
[00:48:01.030]to Paris to congratulate the new King Henry the Third
[00:48:04.900]on his ascension and negotiate with him and his mother,
[00:48:08.650]Catherine, for a treaty that would protect our trade
[00:48:11.900]as well as safeguard the French Protestants.
[00:48:15.186]Lord North is a highly educated and able man.
[00:48:21.540]His command of French and Italian were of great value
[00:48:24.990]as was his charm, presence, and tact.
[00:48:29.810]I know how tactful he is because
[00:48:31.690]he regularly loses to be when we play cards together.
[00:48:35.236](laughter)
[00:48:36.069]And he never fails to give me a New Year's gift.
[00:48:38.840]We have great pleasure chatting in french together.
[00:48:42.790]He had been to Paris before in 1570,
[00:48:46.210]when Sir Francis Walsingham went to attempt to secure
[00:48:49.110]more tolerations for the Protestants.
[00:48:51.576]But what happened at the French Court,
[00:48:54.792]was too much even for his tactful ways.
[00:48:59.760]The French had a buffoon dressed up
[00:49:03.690]as my father Henry the Eighth.
[00:49:06.670]Catherine de' Medici and Lord North enter.
[00:49:08.820]The Queen Mother Catherine turned to Lord North
[00:49:10.780]to make sure he realized who her fool was.
[00:49:13.260]My Lord North, do you see that my fool
[00:49:15.990]is dressed like King Henry of England?
[00:49:18.520]Lord North could not let this go.
[00:49:20.835]The tailors of France aught to know how
[00:49:23.330]the great king was accustomed to dress,
[00:49:25.870]for he came over the sea diverse times
[00:49:28.500]with banners flying and made some noise among the men there.
[00:49:33.730]I railed at the French Ambassador about this
[00:49:36.440]in front of the whole court but one insult was such that
[00:49:40.660]I had to discuss it with him privately.
[00:49:44.256]I have been gravely insulted by
[00:49:48.090]the Queen Mother of your country.
[00:49:49.920]Lord North has told me that in her private chambers
[00:49:53.390]she has an ugly female dwarf dressed up as me,
[00:49:58.019]and another as a member of my court.
[00:50:01.720]Now Queen Catherine and her ladies
[00:50:03.250]had excited them to mimic me ever and anon,
[00:50:06.300]throw in injurious words to prompt the vile little buffoons
[00:50:10.300]to a vein of greater derision and mockery.
[00:50:13.400]In the background the young Elizabeth
[00:50:14.880]plays with the two puppets, having them swan at each other.
[00:50:18.906]Oh most gracious Queen, this is so untrue.
[00:50:21.830]The Queen Mother values your intelligence and great beauty
[00:50:24.880]and loves you as she would her own daughter.
[00:50:27.100]She had been unwearied in praising
[00:50:29.030]Your English Majesty's beauty and good qualities
[00:50:31.670]to her son the King of France.
[00:50:33.760]When he was the Duke of Anjou and your suitor.
[00:50:36.270]As you well know, my Lord North has utter ignorance
[00:50:39.900]in the French language which have caused him to mistake
[00:50:42.180]the whole tenor of what he described.
[00:50:44.220]And besides, the Queen's dwarves are lovely miniature women.
[00:50:47.640]Like your own Thomasina.
[00:50:49.550]Oh well of course, of course Ambassador.
[00:50:53.583]Lord North's poor French is the
[00:50:57.760]cause of this misunderstanding
[00:51:00.000]and no doubt my poor French as well.
[00:51:03.230]I do desire to be excused if out of ignorance
[00:51:06.480]of the French language I have made myself use
[00:51:10.820]of any unbecoming phrases regarding
[00:51:13.380]your Excellent Queen Mother.
[00:51:15.430]This has all been ill interpreted by Lord North.
[00:51:19.830]Since you assure me that the dwarves are very pretty ones,
[00:51:25.020]and very properly dressed,
[00:51:27.840]I would like above all things to see them.
[00:51:33.380]Please request that the Queen Mother
[00:51:34.960]would send me one of them as a present.
[00:51:41.810]Of course she did not.
[00:51:44.470]And I do have my own lovely Thomasina.
[00:51:47.320]Young Elizabeth brings one of the puppets
[00:51:49.130]to the older Elizabeth.
[00:51:50.450]I have my own dresses, and when I tire of them
[00:51:53.820]I cut them down for her.
[00:51:55.770]Thomasina is known as being
[00:51:58.879]as beautifully dressed as her Queen.
[00:52:00.650]For more than 25 years she has been loyal to me
[00:52:04.650]and has given me great pleasure.
[00:52:07.060]People sometimes call her my doll,
[00:52:09.560]but she is a real if miniature person
[00:52:14.950]and an entertaining companion.
[00:52:16.900]Very smart and very loyal.
[00:52:20.720]But I did make it very clear to the French
[00:52:23.530]how I should be respected.
[00:52:25.740]And the King did sign our treaty
[00:52:27.880]but even so the wars of religion
[00:52:30.360]and the slaughter of Protestants continued in France.
[00:52:33.360]Why is there such violence over religion?
[00:52:38.300]After all--
[00:52:39.160]There is one Jesus Christ and all the rest
[00:52:42.150]is dispute about trifles.
[00:52:47.200]When I became Queen, after my half sister Mary's
[00:52:50.280]bloody reign, the other Mary in my life,
[00:52:53.490]England was again separated from Rome.
[00:52:55.890]But unlike my father and brother
[00:52:57.490]I was not appointed head of the English Church.
[00:53:00.740]Many were opposed to it.
[00:53:02.500]The Archbishop of York said that--
[00:53:04.550]To preach or minister the Holy Sacraments a woman may not.
[00:53:09.340]A woman in the degrees of Christ's Church is not called
[00:53:12.270]to be an Apostle, neither a doctor or a preacher.
[00:53:16.210]Therefore she cannot be
[00:53:17.510]Supreme Head of Christ's Militant Church.
[00:53:21.710]But that was not the reason I did not take the title.
[00:53:25.670]I seriously maintained that this honor was due to
[00:53:28.640]Christ alone and cannot belong to any human being so ever.
[00:53:34.430]I took my position as Supreme Governor of the Church
[00:53:37.750]very seriously.
[00:53:39.510]My first Parliament again abolished mass,
[00:53:42.540]church services were once again celebrated in English.
[00:53:46.270]I insisted that the act of uniformity be flexible enough
[00:53:49.490]that for most people it would be
[00:53:51.810]at least somewhat satisfactory.
[00:53:54.140]I did not wish to argue about religious matters.
[00:53:57.860]I only wanted outward conformity from my subjects.
[00:54:01.080]I did not want to make windows
[00:54:02.760]into men's hearts and secret thoughts.
[00:54:06.150]Except the abundance of them did overflow
[00:54:08.600]into overt and express acts and affirmations.
[00:54:13.070]I wanted to restrain only manifest disobedience.
[00:54:17.950]I sometimes got very tired of preachers telling me
[00:54:21.821]as a woman what I could and could not do.
[00:54:26.447]I am a Queen!
[00:54:28.790]I would much rather talk to God myself
[00:54:31.330]than listen to others lecture me about God.
[00:54:36.070]Oh Lord, it is thou who hast raised and exalted me.
[00:54:40.920]By thy providence to the throne
[00:54:43.160]and hast crowned me with peace to this end.
[00:54:46.200]That I may govern my people and nourish thy church.
[00:54:50.170]I thank thee, my good God,
[00:54:52.670]for the honor that thou hast done me.
[00:54:55.210]And I entreat thee to give me grace that I may equip myself
[00:54:58.990]of my duty of well governing the state
[00:55:01.840]and faithfully administering justice
[00:55:04.440]without making exceptions for any persons.
[00:55:08.040]No Catholics were executed during
[00:55:09.860]the first decade of my reign.
[00:55:12.100]But once Mary Queen of Scots was in my realm,
[00:55:15.770]religious and politics became inextricably intertwined.
[00:55:20.950]I had to protect my realm.
[00:55:23.360]Many Catholics suffered.
[00:55:25.200]Some were true hearted in their beliefs
[00:55:26.940]and I shuttered to think of their fates,
[00:55:28.810]Margaret Clitherow was crushed to death.
[00:55:31.810]Did she deserve that?
[00:55:33.840]Yet I had to protect my realm.
[00:55:36.310]This is what had been in my heart
[00:55:37.810]from the beginning of my reign.
[00:55:39.520]Oh, I remember when I became Queen.
[00:55:43.372]The people loved me and I loved being Queen.
[00:55:47.080]Kat Ashley enters and she and Elizabeth
[00:55:49.160]swing each other in a circle laughing.
[00:55:51.563](laughter)
[00:55:53.330]The Spanish Count of Fiera said that--
[00:55:56.130]She is incomparably more feared than her sister Mary
[00:56:00.020]and gave orders and had her way
[00:56:01.900]as absolutely as her father did.
[00:56:04.610]Yes, I wanted to be powerful.
[00:56:07.380]But I also wanted to be loved.
[00:56:10.360]I told the French Ambassador how it was almost unbelievable,
[00:56:15.280]the love that my people had for me
[00:56:17.110]and how I loved them no less than they loved me.
[00:56:21.190]That I would die rather than see any
[00:56:23.660]diminution on one part or the other.
[00:56:26.890]When the Lord Mayor welcomed me on my coronation day,
[00:56:30.130]I said that I thank my Lord Mayor, his brethren and you all,
[00:56:34.795]and where as your request is that I should I continue
[00:56:38.270]your good lady and Queen, be ensured that I will be
[00:56:42.070]as good unto you as ever Queen was unto her people.
[00:56:46.900]No will in me can lack.
[00:56:48.970]Neither do I trust shall there lack any power.
[00:56:52.910]And persuade yourselves that for the safety and quietness
[00:56:56.990]of you all I will not spare if need be to spend my blood.
[00:57:02.130]Many thought ill of me and both
[00:57:03.720]my sister's and my brother's reigns as well.
[00:57:07.010]She holds up the puppets.
[00:57:09.300]My sister Mary distrusted me.
[00:57:11.950]She never forgave what my mother did to hers.
[00:57:15.040]She even claimed that I should not be heir,
[00:57:17.580]as I was not her sister at all.
[00:57:19.610]I cannot stand this illegitimate child of a criminal,
[00:57:23.710]who was published as a public strumpet,
[00:57:26.720]as on the points of inheriting throne
[00:57:29.470]with better fortune than myself,
[00:57:31.340]who's descent was rightful, legitimate, and regal.
[00:57:35.750]I refuse to call her sister.
[00:57:37.860]She is not even my sister,
[00:57:39.070]I know she is not my sister, she is not my father's child,
[00:57:43.060]she has not royal blood, not a drop of it.
[00:57:46.820]She is a bastard, a bastard!
[00:57:50.080]Elizabeth is the bastard child of that whore
[00:57:53.480]Anne Boleyn and her musician executed as her lover.
[00:57:58.100]She has the face and countenance of Mark Smeaton,
[00:58:01.470]who was a very handsome man, not my father Henry the Eighth.
[00:58:05.870]Perhaps she did not think our father was so handsome,
[00:58:09.610]but I had red hair just like his.
[00:58:13.070]Life at court was so uncomfortable,
[00:58:15.690]I asked the Queen if I could leave court
[00:58:17.840]and go to my residence at Ashbridge,
[00:58:20.150]but I begged Mary to agree to see me in person
[00:58:23.730]if she heard anything to my discredit.
[00:58:26.430]I pleaded with her not to put faith
[00:58:28.650]in treasonous stories about me without a hearing.
[00:58:32.100]She promised me she would but then she broke her promise.
[00:58:37.030]After Thomas Wyatt's rebellion against
[00:58:39.150]the Queen's marriage to Philip of Spain in 1554
[00:58:43.320]Mary insisted that I return to court and be examined.
[00:58:46.970]She was sure that I knew about and had encouraged
[00:58:50.270]the rebellion though I had not.
[00:58:52.850]Mary had just put our cousin Jane to death
[00:58:55.920]and I felt such--
[00:58:57.260]Extreme misery, sickness, fear, and peril.
[00:59:02.183]When they came to take me back to London,
[00:59:05.230]I told them truly I was too ill to travel.
[00:59:08.700]I felt such a cold and headache
[00:59:12.210]that I have never felt there like.
[00:59:14.500]They informed me that--
[00:59:16.130]We must need to bring you with us.
[00:59:17.810]Either alive or dead.
[00:59:19.320]They took me in a litter to London.
[00:59:22.340]As I traveled through the city dressed all in white,
[00:59:25.990]I had the curtains open so that all could see me.
[00:59:29.410]The people looked at Elizabeth
[00:59:30.910]and saw a brave young woman.
[00:59:33.210]For a month I was at court
[00:59:35.700]and the Queen refused to see me.
[00:59:38.749]You are to be immediately taken to the tower.
[00:59:41.450]I am terrified, please, please let me write a letter
[00:59:46.400]to my sister Mary before you take me to the tower.
[00:59:49.490]I cannot allow that, we will lose the tide.
[00:59:51.710]Please let me write, I am the sister of the Queen,
[00:59:55.070]was the daughter of a King, please, let me write.
[00:59:59.950]Yes, you are the daughter of Henry the Eighth.
[01:00:02.700]I will let you compose a letter and I'll take it
[01:00:04.960]to the Queen herself myself, even if it angers her.
[01:00:09.990]I knew the Spanish Ambassador was telling Mary
[01:00:12.860]she would be safer if I were dead.
[01:00:15.230]It is considered that she will have to be executed,
[01:00:18.010]as while she lives it will be very difficult
[01:00:20.640]to make the Princes entreat you're safe.
[01:00:23.050]Oh, I was terrified.
[01:00:25.500]I feared I would die like my mother.
[01:00:29.319]I wrote Mary if any ever did try this old saying
[01:00:33.741]that a king's word is more than another man's oath,
[01:00:37.090]I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to verify it in me.
[01:00:41.150]And to remember your last promise and my last demand
[01:00:44.320]that I not be condemned without answer and due proof.
[01:00:48.920]And to this present hour I attest for God
[01:00:52.550]who shall judge my truth who so ever mal shall devise
[01:00:57.100]that I never practiced, counseled, nor consented
[01:01:01.480]to anything that might be prejudicial to your personage
[01:01:04.480]in any way or dangerous to the state by any mean.
[01:01:09.100]And therefore I humbly beseech Your Majesty to let me answer
[01:01:13.830]afore yourself, afore I go to the tower.
[01:01:18.570]Also, I most humbly beseech Your Highness
[01:01:22.120]to pardon this boldness which innocency procures me to do,
[01:01:26.720]together with the hope of your natural kindness.
[01:01:30.400]Therefore, once again, with humbleness from heart
[01:01:34.380]because I am not suffered to bow the knees of my body,
[01:01:37.720]I humbly crave to speak with Your Highness.
[01:01:41.900]Which I would not be so bold as to desire
[01:01:44.890]if I knew not myself most clear, as I know myself most true.
[01:01:50.470]I humbly crave but only one word answer from yourself.
[01:01:56.950]Queen Mary sent me no answer.
[01:02:00.440]But was furious that my being taken
[01:02:02.480]to the tower was delayed.
[01:02:04.730]The next day there was no reprieve.
[01:02:07.620]As we landed at tower gate I proclaimed my innocence.
[01:02:11.210]Here lands as true a subject being prisoner
[01:02:14.600]as ever landed at these stairs.
[01:02:17.210]And before thee oh God, I speak it.
[01:02:19.870]Having no other friends but thee alone.
[01:02:23.370]They kept me in a tower for two months.
[01:02:26.530]And I thought so often of my mother and her fate.
[01:02:31.100]Anne Boleyn enters and watches Elizabeth.
[01:02:34.084]Robert Dudley was also in the tower
[01:02:37.230]and we found a way to communicate through a little boy.
[01:02:40.090]A young child of one who worked there.
[01:02:42.400]As I walked the tower grounds the boy
[01:02:44.380]would bring me flowers with messages from Robin.
[01:02:47.780]But one day he told me.
[01:02:49.900]Madam, I can bring you no more flowers.
[01:02:52.478]And he cried, and they no longer
[01:02:55.949]let me take exercise at all.
[01:02:58.580]I did not understand when Sir Henry Bedingfeld
[01:03:00.970]came with his men that I was to be moved to Woodstock.
[01:03:05.600]I begged my people to pray for me telling them.
[01:03:08.380]For this night I think to die.
[01:03:12.150]They continued to interrogate me at Woodstock.
[01:03:14.610]I used my diamond to carve into the window.
[01:03:18.010]Much suspected by me, nothing proved can be.
[01:03:21.710]Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner.
[01:03:24.520]I was told I would be freed if only I would
[01:03:27.720]confess and beg my sister's mercy,
[01:03:30.280]but I answered.
[01:03:31.500]That rather than would I do so
[01:03:33.400]I would lie in prison all my life,
[01:03:36.480]that I have never offended against the Queen
[01:03:39.340]in thought, word, or deed.
[01:03:41.982]That I craved no mercy at Her Majesty's hand.
[01:03:46.530]I had rather be in prison with honesty
[01:03:49.170]than to be abroad suspected of Her Majesty.
[01:03:52.250]That which I have said I will stand to.
[01:03:55.295]In the end though, I did not confess and was finally allowed
[01:03:59.980]to go back to my residence at Hatfield.
[01:04:02.880]It was such a hard time.
[01:04:05.320]Many years later Mary Stuart tried to use my time
[01:04:08.600]with my sister to make me give her what she wanted.
[01:04:12.180]I am a free and absolute Prince
[01:04:14.230]and I may not be worse handled than Queen Elizabeth
[01:04:16.860]herself was when she was a subject
[01:04:18.774]and kept imprisoned by her sister.
[01:04:21.040]I was never conspiring against my sister,
[01:04:24.500]the way my cousin conspired against me.
[01:04:27.160]But I was in such danger when my sister Mary was queen.
[01:04:31.110]Yet I was not only in great danger in my sister's reign,
[01:04:34.460]but in my younger brother's as well.
[01:04:37.060]After my father died, he was both splendid and terrifying,
[01:04:41.560]I lived with Queen Catherine my step-mother, whom I loved,
[01:04:45.040]at Chelsea, but she too soon
[01:04:48.140]married Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour.
[01:04:51.210]Glamorous and fun but also a frightening man.
[01:04:54.810]He had keys to every room in Chelsea,
[01:04:57.730]including my bedchamber.
[01:04:59.530]He would come many mornings into
[01:05:01.220]the Lady Elizabeth's chamber before she were ready
[01:05:04.160]and sometimes before she did rise.
[01:05:06.470]He would be wearing only his nightshirt and was bare legged.
[01:05:09.580]And if she were up he would bid her good morrow
[01:05:12.040]and ask how she did and strike her upon
[01:05:14.020]the back or the buttocks familiarly.
[01:05:16.159]And if she were in bed he would pull open the curtains
[01:05:21.531]and bid her good morrow and make as though
[01:05:23.990]he would come at her and she would go further in the bed
[01:05:26.710]so that he could not come at her.
[01:05:28.630]While Kat is speaking we see young Elizabeth
[01:05:30.880]being hunted by Thomas Seymour who's trying to
[01:05:33.060]kiss and embrace her and she is struggling.
[01:05:35.270]This is the same scene we saw at the beginning.
[01:05:37.820]Another time when she was in bed
[01:05:40.080]and heard the lock at her door being opened,
[01:05:42.180]she ran out of her bed and then went behind
[01:05:44.250]the curtain of the bed and one morning
[01:05:46.333]he tried to kiss her in bed.
[01:05:48.470]I was there an bade him go away for shame.
[01:05:51.540]Young Elizabeth breaks away from Thomas and comes forward.
[01:05:54.660]Thomas exits.
[01:05:56.210]I got up earlier and earlier so that
[01:05:59.380]I would be dressed and at my studies when he entered.
[01:06:02.990]He kept trying to kiss me and I felt both horrified
[01:06:07.420]but perhaps excited, a bit curious.
[01:06:12.360]Finally Catherine, now pregnant with his child,
[01:06:16.350]thought it better if I went to live in another household.
[01:06:19.810]I was replete with sorrow to depart from Catherine
[01:06:23.590]and though I thought a great deal about
[01:06:25.320]what she told me as I wrote to her.
[01:06:27.597]All be it I answered little,
[01:06:29.400]I waded more deeper when you said you would warn me
[01:06:32.000]of all the evils that you should hear of me.
[01:06:34.640]For if Your Grace had not a good opinion of me,
[01:06:37.570]you would not have offered friendship to me.
[01:06:41.814]I was glad I had my governess Kat Ashley still with me
[01:06:45.820]as I cared for her deeply.
[01:06:47.850]Kat Ashley puts her arm around Elizabeth.
[01:06:51.420]But I missed Queen Catherine.
[01:06:53.940]We continued to send each other affectionate letters
[01:06:57.110]and I expressed my wish that we could be together again.
[01:07:01.120]Although it were the worst soil in the world,
[01:07:04.710]your presence would make it pleasant.
[01:07:07.510]How tragic that she died giving birth to her daughter,
[01:07:11.280]who was soon dead too.
[01:07:13.500]Everyone said that I would now marry Seymour myself,
[01:07:16.890]some even said that I was already pregnant with his child.
[01:07:20.840]Learning how damaging gossip could be
[01:07:23.040]I wrote to him not to visit me.
[01:07:25.550]Thomas Seymour was a man of much wit
[01:07:28.253]and very little judgment.
[01:07:31.320]He tried to kidnap the King, my brother Edward,
[01:07:34.940]and was sent to the tower.
[01:07:36.800]My beloved Kat Ashley was also in the tower
[01:07:39.800]and examined him about what happened
[01:07:42.050]in the household at Chelsea.
[01:07:43.960]They asked if I planned to elope with my Lord Admiral.
[01:07:47.340]And the Lord Protector sent Sir Robin Turwit to examine me.
[01:07:51.200]If they could prove that I had planned
[01:07:53.160]to marry Thomas Seymour without the council's consent
[01:07:55.930]I could lose my place in the succession
[01:07:58.190]or perhaps even my life.
[01:08:01.181]I was 15 year old.
[01:08:04.420]I explained that Kat Ashley never advised me
[01:08:07.173]to make such a marriage but said always
[01:08:10.320]when any talked of my marriage--
[01:08:13.130]That I would never have her marry,
[01:08:14.790]neither in England or out of England
[01:08:17.000]without the consent of the King's Majesty and the councils.
[01:08:21.471]I wrote to the Lord Protector,
[01:08:22.570]my conscience bareth me witness
[01:08:24.980]which I would not for all earthly things
[01:08:27.340]offend in anything for I know that I have a soul to save.
[01:08:31.770]And then I learned as I wrote,
[01:08:34.380]that there goeth rumors abroad
[01:08:36.220]which be greatly both against my honor and honesty,
[01:08:39.530]which above all other things I esteem, which be these:
[01:08:43.940]That I am in the tower and with child by my Lord Admiral.
[01:08:48.010]My Lord, these are shameful slanders.
[01:08:51.420]I ask that I may come to court,
[01:08:53.170]that I may show myself as I am.
[01:08:55.720]When he refused to allow me to come to my brother's court
[01:08:58.830]I asked that he send out a proclamation of my innocence.
[01:09:02.480]It might be so good unto our Lordship
[01:09:04.680]and the rest of the council to send forth
[01:09:06.760]a proclamation that they refrain their tongues.
[01:09:09.680]Declaring how the tales be but lies.
[01:09:13.270]And it should make both the people think that
[01:09:16.560]you and the council have great regard
[01:09:19.680]that no such rumors should be spread
[01:09:22.270]of any of the King Majesty's sisters as I am.
[01:09:27.400]The Lord Admiral was executed and I was constantly told
[01:09:31.130]that I had to confess my own share in his plotting
[01:09:34.060]if I were to be forgiven.
[01:09:35.760]But I would confess nothing.
[01:09:38.160]And I kept writing to the Lord Protector
[01:09:40.330]working to have Kat Ashley released
[01:09:42.260]and returned to my service, I begged that.
[01:09:45.020]It would please the Lord Protector
[01:09:46.810]and the rest of the council to be good unto her.
[01:09:49.680]She hath been with me a long time and a great many years.
[01:09:54.470]And hath taken great labor and great pain
[01:09:56.540]in the bringing of me up and learning honesty.
[01:09:59.786]I was able to have Kat returned to my service.
[01:10:02.840]She would serve me faithfully until her death.
[01:10:06.830]Which grieved me deeply.
[01:10:08.740]Kat Ashley embraces the older Elizabeth
[01:10:11.027]and then leaves the stage.
[01:10:15.430]I learned from what happened with the Admiral
[01:10:18.280]how important it was for me to be careful but strong.
[01:10:23.460]To insist on what was right and to protect not only myself,
[01:10:27.230]but those in my service.
[01:10:29.150]I had learned that I need to take great thought
[01:10:32.030]in all situations, whether I should speak or use silence.
[01:10:37.370]It helped me learn what I needed to be if I became Queen.
[01:10:41.790]She walks over to the older Elizabeth
[01:10:43.890]and they look at each as if each is looking in the mirror.
[01:10:46.860]As they each move their arms or shake their hand
[01:10:49.357]the other does it too.
[01:10:52.397]I wonder what my older self would say,
[01:10:55.360]would tell me about how I should rule.
[01:10:58.630]If I could speak to my younger self,
[01:11:01.350]I would encourage her how to know that above all else,
[01:11:06.140]she needs to keep England safe.
[01:11:09.290]It's economy strong, a religious policy that could include
[01:11:13.300]as many of the English people as possible
[01:11:15.620]and that she must love the people
[01:11:19.160]more than any individuals at her court.
[01:11:22.350]My younger self I would say remain true to yourself
[01:11:27.870]and your ideas and your values.
[01:11:31.200]Never let anyone rule for you.
[01:11:33.990]You are more than capable to accomplish great things.
[01:11:38.270]And yes, you will have dark moments and loneliness,
[01:11:43.000]but remember how strong you are.
[01:11:46.070]And that you are of the race of lions.
[01:11:49.747]As for loneliness, embrace it or it will devour you.
[01:11:56.320]But more importantly have faith in God and in yourself.
[01:12:04.800]You will thrive and know too that when you most need her
[01:12:12.748]your mother will be with you.
[01:12:15.360]Anne Boleyn appears on stage.
[01:12:17.570]She walks over to the Elizabeths,
[01:12:19.150]first putting her hand on the shoulder
[01:12:20.590]of the older Elizabeth then moving to the younger Elizabeth
[01:12:23.190]and in mirror image putting a hand on her shoulder.
[01:12:26.210]Both Elizabeths smile and then Anne Boleyn walks
[01:12:28.740]to the side of the stage.
[01:12:31.710]And most of all, what I would want
[01:12:33.440]my younger self to always remember,
[01:12:36.760]to think carefully and to know when to speak or use silence.
[01:12:44.690]If only I could know how best to be Queen.
[01:12:49.410]Sometimes I think in a dream within a dream.
[01:12:54.100]I see my mother watching me as if in a mirror.
[01:12:58.400]And I hear my older self council me.
[01:13:00.950]The two now turn away from each other.
[01:13:06.130]And now as I near the end of my reign,
[01:13:11.870]I say to my people...
[01:13:17.270]And though God hath raised me high,
[01:13:21.350]yet this I account to the glory of my crown.
[01:13:27.030]That I have reigned with your loves.
[01:13:31.300]That makes me that I do not so much rejoice
[01:13:35.080]that God hath made me to be a Queen,
[01:13:38.390]as to be a Queen over so thankful a people.
[01:13:42.750]And to be the means under God to conserve you
[01:13:45.520]in safety and preserve you from danger.
[01:13:49.600]It is not my desire to live or reign
[01:13:52.210]longer than my life or my reign shall be for your good.
[01:13:56.190]And though you have had and may have many
[01:14:00.160]mightier and wiser Princes sitting in this seat,
[01:14:05.920]you never had or nor shall have any who love you better.
[01:14:15.070]But though that was all true I still grieved
[01:14:17.600]for all those I had lost including the Earl of Essex.
[01:14:21.490]Whose actions had been such that I had to order his death.
[01:14:25.160]Sometimes the Queen sits in the dark
[01:14:27.540]and weeps for the fate of Essex.
[01:14:31.430]The older Elizabeth picks up the sword and looks at it.
[01:14:34.770]Then she puts it down and closes her eyes.
[01:14:38.150]Anne Boleyn enters and places a hand on her shoulder
[01:14:41.620]and she picks up the pearl necklace
[01:14:43.490]and leads her to walk over to the young Elizabeth.
[01:14:49.360]In the Autumn of 1558 I knew that
[01:14:52.660]my sister Mary was deathly ill
[01:14:55.140]but I feared that someone would tell me she was dead
[01:14:59.595]and I would proclaim myself Queen when it was not true.
[01:15:02.270]I said I would not believe that my sister was gone
[01:15:05.240]until they brought me the ring she said
[01:15:07.500]would never leave her finger while she lived.
[01:15:10.420]Mary Fitton, Mary Dudley Sidney, and Kat Ashley
[01:15:13.440]all enter and gather around the young Elizabeth.
[01:15:16.310]A lord enters and hands young Elizabeth the ring.
[01:15:18.910]She looks at it.
[01:15:26.040]My sister Mary is dead, I am now the Queen of England.
[01:15:30.890]The three women around Elizabeth smile and cheer.
[01:15:34.220]Anne Boleyn puts the pearl necklace on Elizabeth
[01:15:36.580]and takes the ring and puts it on her daughter's finger.
[01:15:46.410]This is the Lord's doing.
[01:15:48.670]It is marvelous in our eyes.
[01:15:56.260]Curtain.
[01:15:58.339](applause)
[01:16:35.730]We would be happy to do a talk back
[01:16:40.080]for those who would like to stay and answer any questions
[01:16:43.363]or listen to any comments you have about the play
[01:16:47.030]and I also really really really want to thank
[01:16:53.768]these incredible students who have worked so hard
[01:16:58.710]to put on this play and also all the work they did
[01:17:03.950]to support it, the work we did on our website,
[01:17:07.350]the wonderful beautiful flyer that A.J. designed
[01:17:11.700]and I am so impressed with them
[01:17:14.230]and so also deeply grateful to Tammy
[01:17:18.270]who came from Colorado to read the older Elizabeth
[01:17:21.780]and I also must thank Jan Deeds
[01:17:24.570]who was the best partner ever in working
[01:17:27.970]to bring this play here to UNL.
[01:17:31.060]So I really am deeply grateful.
[01:17:34.630]Do you want to take just a quick break
[01:17:36.810]and those of you who want to stay just move up
[01:17:38.670]and we'll be really happy to chat with you.
[01:17:49.440]Wow, wow, you were all fantastic!
[01:17:54.980]You were all great!
[01:17:58.810](laughter)
[01:18:02.295]Keep your thing on 'cause we're gonna talk at the talk back.
[01:18:08.177]Carole, should we take these off?
[01:18:09.890]I think for the talk back you would keep them on,
[01:18:12.210]wouldn't you?
[01:18:13.777]Should I record it?
[01:18:14.968]Yeah, I do want to record it.
[01:18:15.990]I do want to record it.
[01:18:39.310]Congratulations, this is awesome.
[01:18:41.470]I will see you Monday morning?
[01:18:43.380]Absolutely.
[01:18:44.674]Make sure you relax tonight and tomorrow okay,
[01:18:46.649](laughter)
[01:18:48.090]have some fun, yes.
[01:18:59.712]I would love that.
[01:19:01.377]That really was really tremendous.
[01:19:04.834]Thank you.
[01:19:08.560]You should be proud. I'm thrilled.
[01:19:10.240]I'm really proud, yeah.
[01:19:11.763]They did a beautiful job everybody did,
[01:19:12.646]so thank you.
[01:19:13.962]Do you want to stay for a little bit, or--
[01:19:15.418]No I think I won't, then I'll be back too--
[01:19:17.224]That's okay.
[01:19:18.057]Well give your wonderful dog my--
[01:19:21.020]I will.
[01:19:22.586]I'm so happy to do Valentines
[01:19:23.980]with your dog this year, that was--
[01:19:24.970]That was the nicest thing!
[01:19:27.219]Well when they sent it around I just--
[01:19:29.810]Where'd you get those, cause you know--
[01:19:30.887]I got an email about it
[01:19:31.720]saying do you want to make this donation--
[01:19:33.480]I mean where'd the food come from?
[01:19:35.802]Where'd those treats come from 'cause he loved them--
[01:19:37.970]Oh I don't even know.
[01:19:39.666]I'm sorry I don't remember. Well it was a very
[01:19:41.370]thoughtful gift, anybody who gives a gift to my dog--
[01:19:44.131]You know I love Ruckus.
[01:20:03.811]Oh, so sorry.
[01:20:05.314]Something Admiral esque.
[01:20:12.410]We can do our creative work.
[01:20:14.411]Yes, yes, you--
[01:20:16.035]Wow Bob, thank you so much for coming.
[01:20:19.899]We'll be in touch.
[01:20:21.340]I will talk to you, see you.
[01:20:24.098]I can't stay but it was lovely, lovely.
[01:20:26.590]Well maybe we can talk sometime about how we could
[01:20:28.520]actually mount a production of it?
[01:20:30.230]I would love that.
[01:20:32.204]Thank you so much for coming.
[01:20:34.795]Thanks for inviting me.
[01:20:37.692]It was great, okay we got it.
[01:20:45.829]The old and the young and all the whole
[01:20:47.730]history woven into that story.
[01:20:50.400]Great job, they did a great job.
[01:20:53.181]They did do a great job.
[01:20:56.190]You must be so proud.
[01:20:57.646]I'm so proud.
[01:20:59.758]It was wonderful I wasn't bored for one minute.
[01:21:02.869]So does anyone wanna stay for the do a talk back?
[01:21:09.433]Does anyone want to do that?
[01:21:10.777]Are there any people, you're interested.
[01:21:12.490]Okay.
[01:21:16.790]You were spectacular, yeah lets make sure
[01:21:19.090]we get all these things gathered up here.
[01:21:26.500]Okay, I think we'll just spend a few minutes
[01:21:32.210]answering any questions or comments.
[01:21:34.980]Or, is Hannah around?
[01:21:41.648]Oh I saw here momentarily, where'd she go?
[01:21:44.370]Okay, if we need to Hannah has a mic for people.
[01:21:53.646]Thank you so much for coming, thank you.
[01:21:56.529]I loved the idea of people being in love
[01:22:00.420]with the idea of Mary Stuart.
[01:22:02.214]Yes.
[01:22:04.980]Carole, I wondered how you chose the order
[01:22:08.060]in which you talked about different aspects of her life,
[01:22:11.850]'cause it wasn't just strictly chronological.
[01:22:14.640]No I was kind of trying to put it together,
[01:22:16.850]that's a great question Elaine, thank you.
[01:22:19.820]Well first I was trying to get the sort of
[01:22:21.400]the sense of her thinking about her life,
[01:22:23.700]but thinking about it thematically in terms of courtship,
[01:22:27.760]in terms of danger, in terms of religion
[01:22:31.193]and so that was what I was trying to do.
[01:22:34.134]So that people could really see how those fit together
[01:22:37.901]in the ways that they did.
[01:22:41.490]I'm gonna share the chair with you.
[01:22:45.620]Other comments or questions.
[01:22:49.170]Yes, Ian.
[01:22:52.193]Put together.
[01:22:53.216]Okay.
[01:22:54.049]Here's the history of it.
[01:22:55.050]I have loved Queen Elizabeth since I was a kid.
[01:22:58.830]And (laughs) I, as well as being a scholar
[01:23:06.500]I really love to do things that are creative as well.
[01:23:09.910]And I'd done some short kind of silly plays about Elizabeth
[01:23:13.810]and then in February of 2016 Tammy got in touch with me.
[01:23:18.560]And we'd known each other and had worked on
[01:23:20.560]an Elizabethan salon 10 years earlier
[01:23:23.730]when she was here at the University of Nebraska
[01:23:26.310]and we had the Elizabeth exhibit here,
[01:23:28.230]and she said the Folgers sending out the first folio
[01:23:32.527]to every state it's coming to Boulder,
[01:23:33.570]it'd be great to have a play and at first
[01:23:36.040]we were thinking of a one person play
[01:23:36.920]and then it became a two actor play about Elizabeth
[01:23:40.440]and also really connected a lot with Shakespeare.
[01:23:43.360]And so it was just such an immense pleasure
[01:23:46.740]working with Tammy and I wrote a script
[01:23:49.670]and then we work shopped it
[01:23:51.120]and her director Lynn as also just amazing.
[01:23:55.070]And so I finished it and it was just
[01:23:57.600]one of the joys of my life when I went to Boulder
[01:23:59.960]and got to see it at its premiere,
[01:24:02.680]and the script to it is actually on sale outside.
[01:24:07.430]And it's been performed oh,
[01:24:11.450]probably 1500, 20 times since then.
[01:24:15.000]But I got so excited by that,
[01:24:17.670]and I thought okay well it's nice having Elizabeth
[01:24:19.507]and then a kind of a generic lady-in-waiting
[01:24:21.840]but there's so much more to tell about her life
[01:24:24.920]and she had so many relationships with
[01:24:26.580]her different ladies-in-waiting and with the Earl of Essex
[01:24:29.800]and with Mary Stuart and especially with Robert Dudley
[01:24:33.730]and the ambassadors and then I thought her mother,
[01:24:36.900]she never really knew her mother,
[01:24:38.440]she was not even three when her mother was executed
[01:24:43.380]but I thought her mother had such an impact in her life.
[01:24:46.801]And thank you for playing Anne Boleyn so beautifully!
[01:24:49.240]And so I really wanted the ghost of Anne Boleyn
[01:24:52.410]to be there too and the play starts
[01:24:54.866]with the dream this woman had,
[01:24:56.680]and that's an actual dream when I was working on the book
[01:24:59.550]The Heart and Stomach of a King,
[01:25:01.740]I just went through every ...
[01:25:03.090]I don't know any shortcuts to doing research
[01:25:04.960]so I just went though everything I could find.
[01:25:08.330]And I found that dream!
[01:25:10.520]I found the letter about that dream
[01:25:11.890]and nobody had ever written anything about it
[01:25:13.570]and I was so excited and I thought
[01:25:15.640]what a great way to start the play,
[01:25:18.170]what a great way to have Anne Boleyn here
[01:25:20.150]at all the kind of key moments of Elizabeth's life.
[01:25:23.500]So that was, so I started drafting it the summer of 2016,
[01:25:27.697]and then I just kept working on it
[01:25:31.580]and then I was just really lucky in June,
[01:25:35.466]there was a table reading of it with professional actors
[01:25:37.950]in the D.C. area and actually hearing it read
[01:25:41.840]gave me lots more ideas, so how to make it more dramatic,
[01:25:44.810]and involve the characters more.
[01:25:48.020]And then I've just been writing
[01:25:49.590]and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting.
[01:25:52.850]So it's been kind of an ongoing project,
[01:25:55.670]which is, having these wonderful and amazing students
[01:25:59.610]and Tammy come to do it here has just been,
[01:26:02.940]you know, really a dream come true.
[01:26:08.300]Other comments or questions?
[01:26:10.890]And any for any of the students of for Tammy as well.
[01:26:16.100]Okay, well mostly for the sort of the (mumbles) people,
[01:26:20.640]if you had to be at court, who would you want to me?
[01:26:25.500]Knowing, you know, this group.
[01:26:28.000]You'd say oh I'd want to be a,
[01:26:29.890]or would you want to now after having you know,
[01:26:32.450]learned about politics and want to run as far away from--
[01:26:36.662](laughter)
[01:26:40.860]Lord North seems okay. (laughter)
[01:26:49.578]I think Thomasina has kinda the best deal.
[01:26:51.920]She just gets to hang out (laughter)
[01:26:53.850]and have cool dresses and eat well.
[01:26:55.978]And no one wants to kill her!
[01:26:58.849]That's true.
[01:27:00.750]Yeah I think at this point I'd probably just run,
[01:27:03.160]'cause like okay, Marry Fitton didn't have it so great,
[01:27:06.620]okay Jon Notts there, she got two lines, woo.
[01:27:10.144]And then like Queen Mary the First, oh gosh.
[01:27:12.710]Her life sucked, like I do not want to be her.
[01:27:16.930]This experience really did not glamorize
[01:27:20.240]the King and Queen's court at all.
[01:27:22.929](laughter)
[01:27:24.670]Yeah like, hello, you put a single foot wrong,
[01:27:26.580]okay now your heads chopped off, sorry.
[01:27:37.290]Anything else?
[01:27:38.200]I think I would go with Jessa as well
[01:27:40.520]that I would run from court.
[01:27:43.018]I think that would be my plan of attack.
[01:27:47.370]My 11 year old who's seen the show several times,
[01:27:51.270]and my husband who's obsessed with news,
[01:27:54.550]one day said, well, at least it's not
[01:27:57.030]Queen Elizabeth's court because then
[01:27:58.380]everybody's head would be getting cut off.
[01:28:00.337](laughter)
[01:28:02.810]So, you know.
[01:28:07.100]How many people that would have in court did get executed?
[01:28:12.820]I can't tell you exactly.
[01:28:14.900]And a lot of people were executed
[01:28:16.710]actually weren't necessarily at the court.
[01:28:20.607]Elizabeth reigned for close to 45 years,
[01:28:25.670]and there certainly were a lot of executions.
[01:28:28.090]However, compared to the number in her father's reign,
[01:28:31.890]and compared to the number of so called heretics,
[01:28:36.300]they would consider themselves Protestants,
[01:28:38.760]who were burned in Mary the First's reign,
[01:28:41.440]it was actually safer in Elizabeth's reign
[01:28:43.830]than some of her relative's reigns.
[01:28:46.589]But talking about that it makes me think of,
[01:28:50.117]and we talked a lot about Thomas Seymour
[01:28:51.970]and how he was eventually executed.
[01:28:54.920]But he was the brother of Jane Seymour,
[01:28:58.340]and his brother Edward was the Lord Protector,
[01:29:01.470]and it doesn't say it in the play
[01:29:02.590]but he was also executed and I think about,
[01:29:04.780]she had three brothers, she had Henry,
[01:29:06.810]she had Edward, and she had Thomas.
[01:29:08.790]Henry decided to stay home, the other two went to court
[01:29:10.628]going wahoo and Henry was the only one who died in his bed.
[01:29:14.330]So you can see it was very problematic,
[01:29:19.200]it was very problematic.
[01:29:21.350]And of course for Elizabeth, and this was,
[01:29:23.290]I really am so grateful to both Tammy and to Olivia,
[01:29:27.820]you could see the danger she was in
[01:29:30.300]and how terrifying that was for her
[01:29:33.010]both before she became Queen
[01:29:34.540]and then during her reign as Queen.
[01:29:41.470]Jane.
[01:29:42.540]I suppose nearly everyone would learn things from emails
[01:29:46.969]but, you know, back home all of this knowledge you have,
[01:29:50.397]did it come from letters?
[01:29:52.930]A lot of it is from letters.
[01:29:54.830]A lot of it is from letters, documents at court,
[01:29:57.930]but lots, the ambassadors would write home
[01:30:02.750]sometimes two or three times a day.
[01:30:04.850]And they really wanted to show how much they knew
[01:30:07.420]and how much information they should gather.
[01:30:09.910]And so that was just for me just amazing.
[01:30:12.980]But then also William Cecil was very organized
[01:30:19.860]and I think he kept, and his son Robert after him,
[01:30:22.060]kept every letter that ever came.
[01:30:24.340]And so there's volumes of them.
[01:30:27.457]And I've gotten so much stuff from that as well.
[01:30:31.854]One of the things I think is really fascinating though
[01:30:34.800]is all the gossip and rumors and slander
[01:30:37.790]and a lot of that comes from people actually being arrested
[01:30:42.000]and, oh you were slandering the Queen, what were you saying?
[01:30:44.810]And so those kind of trials were really fascinating too.
[01:30:50.020]And what's also kind of interesting about the letters
[01:30:53.150]is so much of it has now been digitized.
[01:30:56.271]There are collections such as early English books online,
[01:31:00.624]that have a lot of those large collections that
[01:31:04.040]are available and I mean, if you can get access in some way
[01:31:07.670]to like a computer in the library, if you're a visitor here,
[01:31:10.592]they pay those subscription fees
[01:31:12.840]that would normally be required
[01:31:14.100]so you can actually just start combing
[01:31:15.590]through those letters in just digital format.
[01:31:18.280]And they're amazing, they're really amazing to read.
[01:31:21.135](background noise drowns out question)
[01:31:25.060]I did in some cases, yeah.
[01:31:27.560]And that I have to say when I was a grad student,
[01:31:31.530]I think after about a year of grad school,
[01:31:33.350]and I was in a rare books library,
[01:31:37.340]and I actually had this book
[01:31:38.550]that was published in 1548 in my hands
[01:31:41.607]and my heart was going... to actually hold this book
[01:31:46.390]and then what was amazing about it
[01:31:47.920]which shows that even eye witness you can't really trust
[01:31:50.900]because it was talking about the death of Henry the Eighth
[01:31:53.780]had happened in 1547 just a year earlier.
[01:31:56.610]And it was so terrible when the King died,
[01:31:59.150]according to this book it rained blood.
[01:32:03.440]There were hailstones the size of eggs
[01:32:05.700]with the faces of devils on them.
[01:32:08.051](laughter)
[01:32:08.884]I thought it was pretty interesting.
[01:32:10.000]Having that be the very first kind of 16th century book
[01:32:12.590]I ever had in my hands,
[01:32:13.450]I've never forgotten reading that passage.
[01:32:20.579]Yeah.
[01:32:23.700](mumbles) On this last trip was very concerned
[01:32:29.733]about being poisoned and so (mumbles)
[01:32:32.207]did she worry about being poisoned?
[01:32:36.100]She didn't worry but everybody worried terribly about her
[01:32:39.100]because they felt she was way too careless.
[01:32:41.610]She loved to go on progress.
[01:32:43.510]Part of this is the summers in London,
[01:32:47.870]the smells wouldn't be great.
[01:32:48.950]Part of it is that she once put it herself,
[01:32:50.890]she loved to take with both hands
[01:32:52.340]and give with her little finger.
[01:32:53.950]And going on progress she could go visit
[01:32:56.610]her various courtiers and it was like,
[01:32:59.730]oh this is such an honor, oh this has broken the bank.
[01:33:02.990]So she'd go on all these progresses in the summers,
[01:33:06.530]but she'd go into a town and they'd put on
[01:33:08.700]a little play for her and some woman would say
[01:33:10.930]oh, I baked you this cake, and she'd...
[01:33:12.706]Oh it's great and meanwhile the people around her are going
[01:33:15.470]oh my god! (laughs)
[01:33:18.560]So she was amazingly brave about stuff like that.
[01:33:22.110]Her feeling was, the people loved her, she should be okay.
[01:33:25.590]But one time, and again I didn't have it in this play,
[01:33:28.080]but she actually was out in a garden
[01:33:32.190]with a few of her ladies and this assassin,
[01:33:35.190]who again wanted to get Mary Stuart on the throne, broke in
[01:33:38.010]and he had a knife and she saw him with the knife
[01:33:40.900]and she just glared at him.
[01:33:43.410]And she stared him down so he got ,ah,
[01:33:46.680]and the knife dropped out of his hand
[01:33:48.370]and then she called for guards and said,
[01:33:50.110]ah, you know, it would be nice to have some help here.
[01:33:52.950]She didn't put it quite like that.
[01:33:54.414](laughter)
[01:33:56.135]But I thought it was just kind of amazing that she did that.
[01:33:59.870]I mean she just out of force of will, protected herself.
[01:34:10.040]Anything else? Yes.
[01:34:12.671](background drowned out the question)
[01:34:24.932]And I should say, the honor students
[01:34:26.970]have a whole range of different majors.
[01:34:31.410]Jameson is a History major, Ben is a PHD candidate
[01:34:37.150]in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Jess is a English
[01:34:40.620]and Medieval and Renaissance Studies major--
[01:34:43.200]Yeah, but I have a History minor though, so.
[01:34:45.700]And Sam is a History major, and Olivia's English,
[01:34:51.230]but Claire for example, is training
[01:34:54.090]to be a physical therapist.
[01:34:59.340]A.J.'s doing Global Studies.
[01:35:04.080]So I was just kind of blown away by
[01:35:06.369]they all kind of pulled together on this.
[01:35:09.473]But I want to let them talk about that.
[01:35:10.470]Yeah, so about the research,
[01:35:12.020]for those of us that are in the Honor's program,
[01:35:14.190]we were assigned two to three topics to investigate,
[01:35:17.850]and they are mostly about the characters we're portraying.
[01:35:20.620]So I was Anne Boleyn and then had
[01:35:23.040]a one liner from Catherine de' Medici,
[01:35:25.330]so my three topics were those two characters
[01:35:27.490]and then the St. Bartholomew's day massacre
[01:35:30.100]which is mentioned in here.
[01:35:32.380]Which I was really kind of honored to be assigned those
[01:35:34.860]by Dr. Levin because when I was in her class last semester
[01:35:39.010]I got to do research paper on Catherine de' Medici.
[01:35:42.610]So it was like someone who I was already
[01:35:44.620]very interested about and passionate about
[01:35:46.490]and had already begun research on that.
[01:35:49.020]So it was really interesting to get the opportunity
[01:35:52.620]to further investigate things
[01:35:53.913]that I was already so interested in.
[01:35:57.080]It's certainly been interesting taking a class
[01:36:00.380]this semester on the Tudors and Stuarts and you know,
[01:36:04.988]this was approached to us at the beginning of the semester,
[01:36:08.650]basically to work on it.
[01:36:10.993]So I've just been sitting in class
[01:36:12.280]and then a quote will show up on the PowerPoint slides
[01:36:14.640]or something and it's like oh yeah,
[01:36:15.490]I remember that already being said in the script, so.
[01:36:17.474](laughter)
[01:36:19.590]So yeah there's just like certainly a lot of history
[01:36:22.500]that goes into this play and it's just fun to have it
[01:36:26.490]both from sort of the performance side
[01:36:29.110]and then more of like the student side of things.
[01:36:32.870]And Dr. Levin was really good with working at us,
[01:36:35.155]so that if we were interested in a specific event,
[01:36:38.440]or a specific person if they were in the play,
[01:36:40.830]we usually get to read that, so actually
[01:36:43.220]my favorite Tudor was Mary the First
[01:36:44.860]because she's well, incredibly problematic, but fascinating.
[01:36:48.970]So that's why I got to research her,
[01:36:51.410]that's why I got read her part,
[01:36:53.250]is because she's my favorite.
[01:36:55.147](laughter)
[01:36:56.080]So she was really good at working with us
[01:36:58.630]and giving us yeah, okay, you should look here for this.
[01:37:00.986]Just generally making the process fairly easy.
[01:37:08.410]It was really fun, it was really fun.
[01:37:10.745]They did a lot of research, we went back and forth on that,
[01:37:15.000]and that is now up on the website.
[01:37:18.030]We did a whole number of rehearsals
[01:37:20.470]before I final one last night when Tammy was here.
[01:37:24.659]So it was, it's been a, yeah, we've been working on this
[01:37:27.430]since early January and it's been a really fun project.
[01:37:31.630]Is the website present on the program somewhere?
[01:37:33.963]Yes, yes. On the very bottom.
[01:37:36.500]Yes, and it's fun and there's also more
[01:37:41.530]about the wonderful actors and--
[01:37:44.091]And the recording.
[01:37:45.030]And the recording. Full entry there so.
[01:37:47.425]Yeah! Yes.
[01:37:51.230]Did working on the project end up make you think
[01:37:54.560]of politics (mumbles) contemporary politics?
[01:38:02.310]I think some of it is still relevant.
[01:38:05.210]One thing that's like mentioned is here,
[01:38:07.930]is how Elizabeth wants someone
[01:38:10.360]to release her declaration of innocence,
[01:38:12.780]and it shows how much the public
[01:38:14.641]was influenced by her reign and how that's so much about
[01:38:18.830]how the public has influence in like our democracy here.
[01:38:24.191]So just like how public opinion isn't just see now,
[01:38:27.870]but it something that was also so very prevalent
[01:38:30.500]back in her reign.
[01:38:33.000]Well and also something that this was maybe
[01:38:35.500]brought up a little bit more in the class itself
[01:38:37.930]but as Dr. Levin mentions, if Elizabeth had died
[01:38:42.110]around the time of the Spanish Armada,
[01:38:44.260]everyone probably at that point would have had
[01:38:46.360]a great public opinion of her at the time,
[01:38:49.700]but then she went through some really hard stuff afterwards
[01:38:53.650]with famine and I mean inflation and everything.
[01:38:57.009]And Essex.
[01:38:58.398]And Essex, and so lots of hard decisions
[01:39:02.040]that had to be made, so at the time,
[01:39:04.879]the people weren't such a huge fan of her decisions
[01:39:08.990]but its been interesting then how you look
[01:39:11.905]five, 600 years later essentially
[01:39:15.377]now she has such this powerful image
[01:39:19.530]and this adoration from lots of people.
[01:39:23.132]And we see that in politics all the time too,
[01:39:26.180]people that may be at the time were very unpopular
[01:39:30.980]but they did the things that had to be done
[01:39:33.090]to keep the country running.
[01:39:34.920]And I just thought it was so great
[01:39:39.000]to see a really effective woman ruling in the 16th century
[01:39:44.609]when we have not yet had a woman
[01:39:48.040]become president of the United States.
[01:39:50.200]So there's a number of women running
[01:39:52.670]for the nomination this time so maybe it'll actually happen.
[01:39:56.150]So it seems to me that that's a real...
[01:39:58.940]The things that she faced are still issues women,
[01:40:02.810]in terms of power and politics,
[01:40:05.240]are facing today too.
[01:40:07.380]Yeah and I personally think that's one of
[01:40:09.080]the most interesting parts of Elizabeth's life
[01:40:11.600]is that she and her older sister were the first women
[01:40:14.580]to rule England in their own right.
[01:40:16.970]Nobody else had done it before,
[01:40:18.250]and we still only have, what like five or six Queens
[01:40:20.830]that have ruled on their own in England.
[01:40:22.810]So they were really figuring out what on earth
[01:40:25.410]they were doing and something that did come up in the play
[01:40:27.900]is okay, Philip the Second who was married
[01:40:30.150]to her older sister Mary thought he was King of England.
[01:40:33.670]Anyone who was going to marry Elizabeth
[01:40:35.520]thought they were going to be King
[01:40:36.560]because they were still shaking out
[01:40:38.590]the gender dynamics there.
[01:40:40.100]So I do think that this is something
[01:40:41.710]that we do see in this country today too is,
[01:40:43.890]as we're starting to get more women into political office,
[01:40:47.500]we're redefining how the systems work
[01:40:49.990]because when they've always been held by men,
[01:40:52.050]what does that mean then to stick a woman in there
[01:40:54.910]when she sometimes has different responsibilities.
[01:40:57.710]Well and then you think of the rhetoric
[01:40:59.900]as sort of in this Armada speech that Tammy gave too,
[01:41:02.800]that she seemed to say that
[01:41:05.240]she embodies sort of these qualities.
[01:41:08.040]What was that quote Dr. Levin that we had
[01:41:10.430]a couple of days prior where it's like that is great as a--
[01:41:16.030]Oh, Robert Cecil said of her
[01:41:18.241]she's better than a man but kind of less than a woman.
[01:41:24.730]Which is kind of her final secretary,
[01:41:27.190]which is kind of hurtful. (laughter)
[01:41:30.953]But it just, its an interesting peek into like
[01:41:33.210]sort of how she was using sort of the gendered expectations
[01:41:37.250]I guess you could say, while probably being well aware
[01:41:40.400]of what she was doing and you know,
[01:41:42.990]she knew what she was saying in those moments.
[01:41:46.663]We started touring this, the two person version of this
[01:41:50.350]in 2016, and it was before the election.
[01:41:53.850]And we had no idea so it's quite different, it's Elizabeth
[01:41:58.290]and then lots of Shakespeare integrated with it.
[01:42:00.210]But the theme is still the same.
[01:42:02.520]And we were blown away by how political it became.
[01:42:06.870]And it really became sort of a rally cry
[01:42:08.980]for in most cases the young women in the audience
[01:42:12.890]and we did a number of universities and libraries
[01:42:16.570]and art galleries and most of the commentary afterwards
[01:42:20.040]was about the politics and how they aligned so closely
[01:42:23.220]with the politics of today.
[01:42:25.010]So that was a huge wonderful gift at the time
[01:42:28.130]and I think still part of the power of the story.
[01:42:31.180]One other thing I would say is I don't know
[01:42:33.130]how many of you saw the recent Mary Stuart film.
[01:42:37.080]Elaine and I saw it together,
[01:42:38.300]but one of the things that bothered me about it
[01:42:41.560]was I thought it was boring actually.
[01:42:43.160]I thought they made her really interesting life
[01:42:45.020]kind of dull, but I really wanted to show,
[01:42:49.240]you know they never actually met,
[01:42:51.030]but it was really exciting through their letters
[01:42:52.930]to have them on stage at the same time
[01:42:54.690]responding to each other, but actually doing it accurately,
[01:42:58.720]as opposed to all these fantasies
[01:43:00.720]which I think are less interesting
[01:43:02.610]than the actual relationship was.
[01:43:04.340]And kudos to Claire for doing a great Mary Stuart.
[01:43:08.630]I think that's something great that Professor Levin does
[01:43:11.400]is that she's not creating a story here, like a lot of times
[01:43:15.350]they put twists on historical events to make them
[01:43:18.220]more interesting but the historical events themselves
[01:43:21.500]are so very interesting and you present them in a way
[01:43:23.810]that people can understand and they can feel influenced by,
[01:43:27.040]which is so amazing.
[01:43:30.470]The script is situated, if you're ever interested
[01:43:32.770]to ask Carole to see the script,
[01:43:35.460]that it's situated so that you have actual quotes
[01:43:38.530]from Elizabeth embedded in the script.
[01:43:40.850]So the quotations are all in italics
[01:43:43.040]so you're talking along and then you have a
[01:43:44.890]oh my gosh, it's Elizabeth, okay.
[01:43:47.180]And it's just, it's fascinating because it's all there.
[01:43:51.350]She didn't you know, the dramaturgy is all there already
[01:43:54.930]in the woman and her story,
[01:43:56.740]but its so cleverly put together that way, it's nice.
[01:44:00.250]We have one more question.
[01:44:02.127]I have a question for the cast.
[01:44:04.264]So since you've been working so closely
[01:44:06.170]for these past couple of months, has this class,
[01:44:09.082]do you think discover anything about yourself?
[01:44:14.263]That I'ma complete ham.
[01:44:15.959](laughter)
[01:44:29.130]That's an excellent question,
[01:44:30.250]it definitely makes you think,
[01:44:33.030]I think I really enjoyed studying Kat Ashley
[01:44:35.790]and just her relationship with Elizabeth
[01:44:37.847]and the impact she had and it just kinda
[01:44:41.070]makes you think about all the people
[01:44:42.260]that have impacted your life
[01:44:43.530]and the impact you want to have on others.
[01:44:46.968]I think Kat Ashley was very supportive and encouraging,
[01:44:49.768]and it definitely made me desire to have those qualities.
[01:44:55.170]And be there for someone else,
[01:44:57.257]but I don't know that I can say
[01:44:58.767]I really would like to relate to Mary Stuart as much.
[01:45:01.009](laughter)
[01:45:04.455]I think just the fact that we're talking about her
[01:45:06.650]500 years later is just amazing.
[01:45:10.553]I think it's pretty amazing too.
[01:45:12.980]Thank you all again so much for coming.
[01:45:16.296](applause)

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Elizabeth I: To speak or use silence

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments