Transcript of 616. Elizabeth I: The Fall of the Axe (Part 1)

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Visit vive. Com com to find out more. Subject to survey and suitability, Hive compatible with selected technology. High above all, a cloth of state was spread, and a rich throne as bright as sunny day, on which there sat most brave embellished with royal robes and gorgeous array, a maiden queen that shone as titan's ray in glistering gold and peerless precious stone. So that was the great poem, The Faerie Queen, by Edmund Spencer. And he is really laying it on, isn't he, Tom? In praise of perhaps the greatest of all English monarchs, Elizabeth I. Gloriana, as he calls her in the poem, a queen famous for her willpower, her courage, her beauty, and her dedication to England and England's glory.

Yeah, well, I mean, the name Gloriana suggests it, that this is a queen who's all about glory. That is absolutely the image that she still has today, and it derives from poems like The Ferry Queen. Elizabeth and propaganda was incredible. We would associate her with, I guess, a golden age, the spring flowering of English literature, so Shakespeare and Spencer, of course, and Marlowe, and the Exploration of the globe by English Sea Dogs, so Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, and of course, the defeat in 1588 of the Spanish Armada. I guess that that is a triumph for English arms that ranks in the national mythology alongside, I guess, Trafalgar, which we've just been doing recently, and the Battle of Britain, wouldn't you say? Yes. I mean, it's up there in the pantheon.

She's one of the genuinely Titanic figures of English history. I mean, the comparison with Nelson and Churchill is a good one because in each of those cases, they define themselves against what appears to be an overwhelming foreign adversary with a threat of invasion They do, yes.

More than that, they, like Nelson, like Churchill, Elizabeth finds the words of defiance that inspire her people, and which I think still have a power to stir the blood of a patriotic Englishman today. Dominic, I see you smiling as I say that. She has this thrilling peroration. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England, too. And think foul scorn that Palma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm. She is speaking those words in August 1588 as she rallies These troops who've gathered at Tilbury in Essex in readiness for a landing on English soil of a Spanish army led by the Duke of Palma, who is the most feared general in Europe. But of course, Dominic, that landing never It doesn't happen.

It doesn't happen. But that's like saying Bonaparte's invasion never happened, and that doesn't diminish Nelson's greatness.

No, because the Spanish armada is defeated, first of all by Protestant ships and then by Protestant wind. Right.

And by Protestant rhetoric before that, thanks to Elizabeth, surely.

Absolutely.

I guess that moment. Just as if you take the example of Nelson or the example of Churchill, both of those become legendary immediately. They become folk stories that become foundational moments in Britain's national identity. That's true of Elizabeth at Tilbury and England's national identity, isn't it? Right away, it is embedded in the national imagination.

Yeah, well, it's Sarah and Spencer who's writing The Ferry Queen in the 1890s, so less a decade after that speech. He portrays Elizabeth in all kinds of different ways. There's Gloriana, but there is also this Amazonian figure called Britamart. She's a peerless female night, much better than most of the male nights in the poem. All who see her are all struck by her. To quote Spencer, It seemed that Balona in that warlike wise to them appeared with shield and armor fit. This sense of Elizabeth as a warrior queen. You get it in paintings, in dramas, in novels, in films. Most recently, I guess, 2007, Kate Blanchette going the full Galadriel in Elizabeth, the Golden Age. I think that four and a half centuries on, she remains definitely, I think, the most generally admired of England's rulers. But I think also she's loved in a way that most English Kings and Queens tend not to be. If you think of Judy Dench winning an Oscar in Shakespeare in Love, she's literally on the screen for about three minutes. That Oscar, I think, in part was for Elizabeth as well as for Judy Dench. The idea is of her as a virgin queen who's married to her people, keeping England's enemies at bay, guarding them from civil war, good queen Bess, all of that.

Don't you think? I think she's loved as well as it might.

I I totally do. Putting my cards on the table, I think she is easily one of the most adept and most effective of England's rulers. We did a series about Mary Queen of Scots, another woman ruling at a similar time who makes a series of very bad choices. Elizabeth makes a series of very good ones. She's very good at politics. That said, there is a counter argument which some historians in the late 20th century began to develop that actually she's indecisive, she's vindictive. This is the portrait of Elizabeth that you get with the, she hasn't got any teeth.

Yeah, she's smelly.

Yeah, all of this stuff, which is very much the late Elizabeth. But I suppose there is this tension between the two visions of Elizabeth I. On the one hand, she's brilliant, she's Gloriana, and then the other actually knows she has feet of clay, and she creates problems that end up escalating to the civil wars of the 17th century. That's the counterargument.

I think that whether you're lording her or damning her. I think there is no doubt that the best way to understand what makes her tick, what her approach to politics and religion, to marriage, to parliament, to all these strandss within the Tudapoliti, the best way to understand what makes her distinctive is actually to look at her upbringing. Because one of the most extraordinary things about Elizabeth is that she ever gets to sit on the throne in the first place. She becomes queen on the 17th of November, 1558, and she's 25 years old. But for most of those 25 years, the prospect of her ascending the throne would have seemed an incredibly remote one because her infancy, her childhood, her adolescence, her early adulthood have the quality of a hideous fairy tale. She's three when mommy has her head chopped off by daddy Yeah. That's not a good start. I mean, imagine growing up and finding out that that's what's happened. She then ends up with a stepfather who sexually abuses her. She is then menaced by a half-sister who locks her up in the Tower of London, and Kelly wants to chop her head off as her mother's head had been chopped off.

But I think these traumas, the danger that she was repeatedly in through her childhood and so on, I think it matters because the girl is mother to the woman. They massively influence the monarch that Elizabeth becomes. They matter because Elizabeth ends up setting England on a course that will be massively decisive in the growth of of England and of Britain, and in the long run of the colonies that Britain establishes across the world. Of course, Roanoke, the first English foothold in the new world, even though it doesn't last, but it is set up in Elizabeth's reign, and Virginia is named after Elizabeth. She's the Virgin Queen.

Well, you know what? You mentioned Britermart. We've stayed in the Hotel Britermart in New Zealand when we were on tour. Elizabeth's imprint is still They're on the other side of the world.

Yeah. I think that tracing the young Elizabeth before she becomes Elizabeth I, I think it's well worth doing. We'll set up some episodes that we'll be doing in due course on the Tudor Cold War, the Spanish Armada, maybe Shakespeare. We've got lots to come on that. As we say, it is amazing that she ends up becoming queen. But it is true that she is born a princess, the daughter of a king, and not just that. When she's delivered on the seventh of September, 1533, between 3: 00 and 4: 00 of the clock afternoon, she does rank as the immediate heir to the throne. At the beginning, she does seem destined to become queen. Everything that could properly have been done to prepare her for her arrival had been done. On the 26th of August, 1533, her mother, she was in the Palace of Greenwich, downriver from London. She's gone to a very luxuriously appointed chamber. David Starki, in his great book on the Young Elizabeth, Elizabeth Elizabeth apprentice Crescentership describes it as a cross between a chapel and a luxuriously padded cell. There are carpets everywhere, there are tapestries on the walls. There's an absolutely massive bed that, amazing, I read up on it, it had belonged the younger brother of the Duke of Orléans, who was captured at Asyncore.

You remember? Yeah.

So he was a hostage, right?

Yeah, forever. He ends up writing poetry in English as well as French. But it was his younger brother, and the younger brother, the Duke of Orléans, had been a hostage in England since 1412 himself. So he'd obviously left this massive bed, which was nice of him. No men are allowed into this chamber. All the companions, the attendants, the midwives, they're all women. And so beyond this very female space, all the men are waiting, the king, the court, England, Europe. They're all on tenterhooks. Letters have been written, ready to reclaim the birth of what is hoped is going to be a prince to the other courts of Europe. The King of France has been squared as a godfather. A massive tournament is scheduled to be held in celebration. But in the event, of course, they're all canceled. There is There's no national rejoicing. I mean, it's true, the baby is healthy. The mother hasn't died in childbirth, but these pluses do not make up for the fact that it's a crushing disappointment that the newborn baby, the heir to the throne of England is not a boy, it's a girl.

What is worse, the mother has promised her husband that it will be a boy, and the baby being a boy has been central to the relationship between the mother and father, and indeed to England's history, as we'll see, because, of course, you haven't named the parents yet, Tom. I know you've done that deliberately as an exciting reveal for the audience. To explain why it matters so much that the child is a boy, that Elizabeth, and in fact, Elizabeth isn't a boy, we need to go back to the parents, don't we? Let's kick off with the father. Who's the father?

Well, the father, Dominic, it will amaze you to learn, is Henry VIII. I guess he's the only English monarch who can rival his daughter for instant recognisability, wouldn't you say?

I would say not only instantly recognizable, I would say the single most important ruler. I mean, not necessarily the best. I think Elizabeth has a good claim to be the best, but he's the one that matters.

The most consequential, isn't he?

Yeah, the most consequential ruler in England's history, and indeed in Britain's history, I would say.

When Elizabeth is born, he is 42, and he's a man of very imposing charisma and a accomplishment. He's been on the throne for 24 years since a very young man. When he came to the throne, he was renowned as an elite sportsman. People went into rapses over his athletic achievements. By now, he is starting to run to fat. He hasn't gone the full obesity, but he's still a very imposing figure.

He's poised between Damian Lewis and Charles Laughton, isn't he? He's not quite one or the other.

He's got red hair. He's very athletic. He's described as having an extremely an extremely fine calf to his leg, which obviously matters in the Tudor Court, where a fine calf is very important. The presence of Venetian ambassadors at the Tudor Court is tremendous for historians because they give very detailed accounts. One of the Venetian ambassadors described Henry as gifted with mental accomplishments as he's most excellent in his personal endowments. He's fluent in Latin, in French, in Spanish. He has very good Italian. He's got rudimentary Greek. He's very musical. Sadly, he didn't to compose Green Sleeves, but he is a composer. He plays the harp very good on the keyboards, so that's very impressive. He also fancies himself as a theologian. He had written a takedown of Martin Luther, and the Pope had named him Defender of the Faith for this in 1521. This is a title of which he's inordinately proud and which the British monarch still has to this day.

It's the same the Pope. The popes let themselves down after that, didn't they? But we've kept the title, which is important.

This is, yeah. There's lots to come on that score.

He's often seen, isn't he, as part of a trio of slightly larger than life monarchs who dominate Europe. But of the three of them, he is the junior, isn't he? The other two are Francis or François, the first of France, who's this incredibly priapic. He's a roister in his own way, isn't he? Then Charles, the fifth, the Habsberg Emperor, who's absolutely not a roisterer, He is a very melancholy brooding man, but he's probably the top dog and then the French king.

Undoutedly, I think, because he's the Emperor. He's got Germany, he's got the low countries, he's got much of Italy, but he's also the king of Spain. Of course, Spain means that he's also the ruler of vast chunks of the new world. He's got all the silver coming in from the new world. He is overwhelmingly the most powerful ruler in Europe, I think. Then François and then Henry. But the thing about Henry is he's very, very good at punching above his weight. He projects this vibrant image, and his weight is quite something, so that's pretty good. This makes him popular with the English. They're not embarrassed to have him as a king. They feel he He's giving them a good image, I think, is what they feel.

I think that's the one thing that people always get wrong about him in the eighth, when they say, Oh, he's a monster. He's this, he's that. At the time, people in England, they might have been frightened of him, or they might have thought he was making strange and unpopular decisions. But nobody ever doubted that he was good at being a king, and that he was good at standing up for England, and that he embodied English independence and defiance and all those kinds of things. He's very good at it.

He is. He's a massive great slab of beef on the English throne, and that's what the English like to see.

If Ian Botham was king of England.

Well, I think Ian Botham is called Charles Brandon, his mate.

Yes. Yeah, he completely is.

He's an absolute ledge, Henry VIII.

But there's an issue, isn't there? He may well be a bit of a legend, and yet at the same time, he's a warrior. He's insecure, and he's insecure for good reasons. And this is the other thing that I think is… I think this is absolutely central to understand the whole story of the Tudas, why he has six wives, why he breaks with Rome, all of this stuff. The fact is the Tudas should not be there. They are usurpers. We know the Wars of the Roses are over, the Civil Wars, but they don't. As far as they're concerned, they could still be in the Wars of the Roses because there are a lot of other people who think they shouldn't be here. They're just parvenus, they're nouveau reich. What are they even doing on the throne?

Yeah. That makes it absolutely essential that every Tudor king has a male heir Because otherwise, the throne comes up for grabs again and civil war may break out. Henry's father, Henry VII, had defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. His reign had been... There'd been all kinds of attempted coups, rebellions. Henry had put them down, and also he had done his duty by fathering sons. His first son, Arthur, dies at the age of 15, but it's okay because he has a spare, and that spare, of course, is the Henry who will go on to become Henry the eighth. Henry not only inherits Arthur's title as Prince of Wales, but he also inherits Arthur's wife, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine is the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who are probably the most formidable Christian monarchs of their generation.

That's a massive tribute to Henry VII's diplomacy. Henry VII, by the way, I think, is a brilliant king. He has managed to get a deal for his sons that they will marry this princess.

He's punching above his weight there. I think there's no doubt.

Because Ferdinand and Isabella, their reputation is well known across Europe. They're the people who sent Columbus. They're the people who have made Spain a united country. They are presiding over a country that is rising to become a genuine world power with all these holdings in the new world and stuff.

Yeah, I mean, in a way, the first genuine world power in history.

This is a brilliant deal that Henry VII has got for… I mean, this is the mad thing about ditching Catherine of Aragon. You've got such a great deal in marrying Catherine of Aragon.

Yeah. Also, Catherine of Aragon is the aunt of the Emperor Charles IV, who rules Spain as Charles I, because Charles IV is the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. That relationship between Catherine of Aragon and Charles IV is going to play an important part in this story.

Just on this, so Henry and Catherine of Aragon get on really well at first, don't they? They're actually quite a happy couple, and everybody says, Oh, things are great. But there is this one big issue, which is, where is the air? Everything is fine apart from that, actually. They do get on pretty well, by and large.

Yeah, and Catherine's very competent. Basically, it's Catherine who wins the Battle of against the Scots, the great English victory. She's a very competent ruler when Henry's off doing his wars in France. She's much loved by the English people. No, she's a great hit, but she's got to give him a son. Henry does take for granted. People may be wondering, What's the deal with a son? Why not a daughter? There's a very precise reason why Henry doesn't want a daughter, and he spells it out because he says that if he has a daughter, and then if she should chance to rule, she cannot continue long without a husband, which by God's law must then be her governor and head, and so finally she'll direct the realm. This is going to be an issue for Elizabeth I. It's not just Henry being a chauvinist thinking that. It's an issue for Elizabeth as well. People who've listened to our series on Mary, Queen of Scots, who did marry very imprudently, we'll see the force of this anxiety. It really matters that Catherine gives Henry a son. Over the course of the first decade of his reign, Catherine does repeatedly get pregnant.

But tragically for her, tragically for Henry, all her babies, with one exception, are either still born or die shortly after birth. The exception that proves the rule is a girl. This is Princess Mary, who is born on the 18th of February, 1516. But there's still no son. And already by 1519, foreign observers are sounding the death knell for any prospect aspect of Catherine basically giving Henry any more children, let alone a son. The problem is very gannotly summed up by François Premier, Francis I. He says, His wife is old and deformed while he himself is young and handsome.

I mean, that is harsh because basically she's not old. She's what? She's late 30s or something, and she's definitely not deformed. Everybody said Catherine of Aragon was a perfectly attractive woman, although She is a bit older than Henry. As time goes on, there's a definite sense, isn't there, that he has... Well, he's a bit bored of her, but in a way that is actually standard for monarchs, late medieval, early modern monarchs. I mean, he's sleeping around, isn't he? But this is not a sign that he's a monster. This is fairly established practice.

Well, the other thing is that Henry has a son by one of his paramours, and so this reassures him that the problem isn't with him. By 1525, Catherine's 40. I mean, effectively, by now, she is, by the standards of the age, past childbearing age. This is a huge, huge problem for Henry. It is then in 1525, that he meets the woman who is going to upend everything, because this is a woman who is not content with being his bit on the side, with being his concubine. She wants to become his queen. This, of course, is a very famous name in English history. It's Anne Boleyn.

Yes. So Anne Boleyn, she's the daughter of a diplomat called Sir Thomas Boleyn, and she spent a lot of time in Paris, hasn't she? Which we'll come to. Her French fashion is a very important part of her repertoire. But she's not... She's conventionally, when she's played on screen, she's very pretty. But the odd thing is she's actually not terribly pretty. People actually went out their way to comment on it, to say it's amazing that Henry has fallen for this person who actually is not especially sexy and sensational. Yeah.

To look in what the Bernetian ambassadors have to say again. One of them, he's writing in 1532, describes Anne as of middling stature, swirly complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom, not much raised, and in fact has nothing but the English king's great appetite and her eyes, which are and beautiful. The other thing that causes eyebrows to be raised is, as you said, that she's not a royal blood. She's not even really of aristocratic blood. As you said, she's the daughter of a country squire, Sir Thomas Boleyn. He's a mucker with Henry VIII. He hangs out with the lads. He's a bit older than them, though. But he gets on well with Henry because he's all about horses and hunting and sport. He'd wear a gilet. He'd absolutely from that class.

He drives a Landrover.

He absolutely does. Yeah, he does. He's like Fergie's father, Major Ferguson. That's what- Major Ronald Ferguson. Major Ronald Ferguson. But he's not really the stuff of a royal father I mean, it's just it seems as a mad idea. I mean, Anne is not conventionally beautiful. She's not of the pedigree that would mark her out as a potential royal wife. The question is then, what's she bringing to the party? How does she get Henry to think of her as a possible queen? You mentioned her French glamor. She has been at the French court a fair while. She's very smart, she's very sophisticated, she's very stylish. In an age when French fashion is the marker for people in England, Tracy Borman, she wrote a brilliant book on Anne Boleyn and her relationship to Elizabeth. She describes it as an irresistible jeunesse. She sings, she dances, she plays musical instruments much better than any of the ladies at the English court. She's sensationally well-dressed. And while she loves fashion for its own sake, she also knows that fashion matters for someone who wants to be a queen. If you want to be a queen, you have to look like a queen.

She's very good at that. She's very clever. She, again, I think, is intellectual in a way. Henry's very smart. I think there's a meeting of minds there. And Anne, while she was at the French court, was strongly influenced by a very remarkable woman, Marguerite of Navarre, who's the sister of Francis I. And she is very interested in Luther. She's very interested in all the trendiest, most cutting-edge currents of religious thought that are coming out of Germany at the time. The Reformation is kicking off. She's not a Protestant, which in any way would be an anachronistic at this point, protestants as such, don't exist yet. She's a reformer, she's an evangelical, and she admires Luther. And Anne seems to have picked up various evangelical ideas from her. So these would include the idea that you could have a direct, unmediated relationship with God, that you don't need priests to mediate between you and the divine. The urgent need for everyone, not just those who can read Latin, to have access to scripture. So the idea that the Bible be readily available in the vernacular, and a sense that the church is corrupt and that it needs to be reformed, and a particular anxiety about papacy that seems very corrupt and worldly.

Marguerite herself never goes so far as to say, Well, we should cast off papal supremacy. We should bin the Pope. But I think Anne, certainly by the time she gets back to England from the French court, I think she's gone the full Luther. I think she's buying into that.

What all that means is she's very stylish, she's very fashionable, she's continental, she's sophisticated. She's returned to England with the latest ideas that lots of people in England are only just struggling to get their heads around. She's clearly very poised, self-conforting, confident. I guess she offers something that Catherine, who's always been a very dutiful wife, perhaps slightly unassuming by royal standards. She offers something that Catherine doesn't and that also Henry's various mistresses don't offer. She seems much cooler, doesn't she? She's spikier. She can be a bit difficult, Anne, as in she's acerbic and she can be very scornful and scathing, but she's interesting.

Well, and also she plays him brilliantly because most of the ladies in the court, if Henry comes calling, they're very flattered and basically give in to him. Anne doesn't. She's described as tantalizing him with her pretty dugs, but that's basically as far as it goes. She tells him very forthrightly, I would rather lose my life than my honesty. She tells him, If you want to sleep with me, then you're going to have to make an honest woman of me. That means making her Henry's queen.

I mean, that is... Just to pause a second. That is bonkers by the standards of the… I mean, people, all through English history, there have been kings with mistresses.

Well, you're absolutely right. But there is a special circumstance, which is that Henry is married to a woman who he thinks can't give him a son. He suspects that and hopes that Anne can. More than that, Anne has a way of cutting the Gordian knot around the marriage because there is a huge issue around any prospect of divorce. Because marriage, according to the church, is a sacrament instituted by Christ himself. So what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. I mean, that seems absolutely black and white. How do you get round that? Well, Henry has come to believe that his marriage Catherine is invalid and an offense to God, and that therefore God wants it dissolved. In Henry's opinion, Catherine's failure to give him a son is clear evidence of divine anger. He and his his tame clerics, sight a verse from Leviticus in the Old Testament, If a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing. He hath uncovered his brother's nakedness, they shall be childless. Of course, Henry has taken his brother's wife. Catherine was the widow of Arthur. Henry then married him. He'd got a special papal dispensation to do that.

But he's now thinking that dispensation doesn't cut the mustard with God. He's been pressing the Pope to grant him an annulment. Probably under normal circumstances, the Pope would have been happy to oblige. But the problem is, as we mentioned, Catherine is Charles IV's aunt, and the Pope, given a choice, is always going to risk offending Henry rather than Charles IV.

Of course, because just to give people a sense of the context, Rome has just been sacked by Charles IV's troops. The Pope is effectively Charles IV's prisoner. He's How are we going to offend Charles IV.

Yeah. This leaves Henry and his ministers in an absolute jam. It's called the King's Great Matter. How do you get a divorce when the one person who can grant that divorce, the Pope, is not going to give it to you. It's locked Henry into years of fruitless negotiations and frustration. It's incredibly Brexit. The ambassador's endlessly going and being rebuffed. But now, not only is he a protracted to Anne, not only does he think she can give him the son that he so desperately wants, but she can also provide the key that would unlock the King's great matter. Because if, as Luther teaches and Anne has come to think the Pope is the great whore of Babylon, the Antichrist, then who cares what the Pope thinks? It doesn't matter.

Yeah. In many ways, this is a win-win for Henry, because not only will he get the woman he wants, if this all works out, but he will throw off foreign influence, become master in his own house, as it were, in religious terms, and also In the long run, of course, there was all those monestries.

Very tenting. Yeah, there's all kinds of good ease and prospect. Henry summons a load of scholars to weigh this up. They're English scholars, and amazingly, they tell him, Yeah, brilliant. Go for it. The guy who takes the lead in this is a very brilliant scholar called Thomas Cranmer, who we'll be hearing about over the course of this series. He's going to be a key player. But basically, Thomas Cranmer and his fellow scholars demonstrate to Henry satisfaction that his power as king is superior to that of the popes. Once that's been accepted by Henry, things then move very fast. In 1531, the English Church grants Henry the title of a singular protector, supreme Lord, and even so far as the law of Christ allows, supreme head of the English Church and clergy. That's essentially shunting the Pope to one side. In the same year, Catherine is banished from court, and her apartments are given to one of her former ladies in waiting, and that is Anne Boleyn. The following year, Anne is raised to the peerage in her own right, the first woman to be honored in this way, and she's granted the Marquisate of Pembrooke, which is an extinct title that Henry resurrects.

This matters because Henry can only marry someone of that rank. The people who listened to the series we did on Mary, Queen of Scots this July may remember that every time Mary Mary, Queen of Scots, makes one of her unfortunate marriages. She has to raise her husband to be to a dukedom so that he will be of worthy rank to be married to a queen. Basically, that's what Henry is doing with Anne here. By December 1532, Anne knows she is pregnant. The foot really needs to be put down on the pedal. On the 25th of January, 1533, Henry marries her in his private chapel in Westminster, despite the fact that actually the annulment of his marriage Catherine still hasn't come through. So effectively, he's now bigomus. On the 30th of March, Thomas Cranmer is consecrated as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he gets the job because Henry knows that he's going to do what he needs the Archbishop to do, which is basically to absolutely affirm the legitimacy of what he's going through. At Easter 1533, again, quoting the Venetian ambassador, the Martianess Anne went with the King to high Mass as as queen, and with all the pomp of a queen, clad in cloth of gold and loaded with the richest jewels, and she dined in public.

Then on the 29th of May, she sails from the Palace of Greenwich, up the River Thames, to the Tower of London. She steps out from the boat She goes round to the main entrance into the tower, crosses the moat. She's greeted by Henry with a kiss, and the couple retire to apartments that Henry has had decorated in splendid magnificence, specifically for Anne. Two days later, she makes her ceremonial entry into London dressed in white, and she is extolled as a splendid image of chastity. On the first of June, 1533, she is anointed, and the Crown of St. Edward the Confessor is placed on her head, and this is the Crown that is usually reserved for the monarch himself. So it is a signal honor.

The reason for this signal honor, presumably, is because it's very obvious to everybody now, if she knew she was pregnant in December, it must be obvious to everybody now that she is expecting a child. The general assumption is that this will be... The assumption, based on nothing, is that this will be a son.

She's been described as this splendid image of chastity, but she's also been described as somewhat big with child. You're right that this pregnancy reassures Henry. Brilliant. I now have a woman who can give me a son. If Anne is pregnant with his son, then it's absolutely essential that everything is done to make clear that Anne is legitimately his wife, and therefore, his son will legitimately be the heir to the throne. It is on the 26th of August that Anne Boleyn, now the Queen of England, retires to her birthing chamber in Greenwich. On the seventh of September, she goes into labor.

Right, Guy. Well, as we know, the result of this will be a little bit of a disappointment for Henry. We will return after the break to find out how he deals with it. This episode is brought to you by Uber. Now, do you know that feeling when someone shows up for you when you need it most?

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Welcome back to the Rest is History. So Anne Boleyn, she's just been crowned Queen of England. All kinds of exciting political and theological developments going on in the background. She has gone into labor. She has been delivered of a child. Brilliant news. It is an heir at last for Henry the eighth, and it is a boy. Oh, no, it's actually not. It's the girl. What a massive let down. Here's the thing. You would think that Henry would be furious, and this would be curtains for Anne Boleyn. Lots of people probably think, well, it is. But it isn't straight away, right? He doesn't completely give up on Anne Boleyn after this. I mean, I was about to say he's a reasonable man. I mean, in many ways, he's not. But he must recognize it's a 50/50 chance that it would have been a girl. He's a bit disappointed.

He is disappointed. But also Anne's had a successful pregnancy, the baby's healthy. There's every prospect that she'll get pregnant again and give him a son. Also, he now has a legitimate princess, so that's better than nothing. He in no way repudiates his baby daughter. He shows her all kinds of marks of favor. Her name, the name he gives her, Elizabeth, and amazingly, Anne had wanted to call her Mary to erase Princess Mary from the ledger. Henry says, No, I'm not. That's poor. But he chooses Elizabeth because it's a tribute to his mother, Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth is then baptized in Greenwich. The mayor of London is rode down there with 40 of the city's worthies, movers and shakers. Elizabeth doesn't get Francis I, the King of France, as godfather, which she would have done had she been a boy. But she does get Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, that's not bad. Of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury also, it's an imprimatur of legitimacy. Suggests that God is saying she's not a bastard, so that's great. Then after the baptism, which Henry and Anne are not at it, that's not the custom, she's brought out Eustass Shapuise, the Imperial ambassador, who's a very hostile witness to Anne.

He describes what happens. The herald in front of the church door claimed her Princess of England. Then in December, it's a very wintery day, drizzled, falling on the streets of London. She rides with splendid ceremony through the capital out of it, onwards towards the house that Henry has decided will be her official residence. This is a palace called Hatfield, and it lies 20 miles north of London in rural Hartfordshire. It's It's close to the capital, so easy for Henry to visit it, but it's also less likely to be swept by plague, which is always a consideration. He's looking out for her. It's a pretty impressive place for a Bournemouth-old baby girl to have. It's got a great hall, it's got fine apartments, it's got apartment full of deer. It's a palace fit for a princess, I guess.

Yeah. Henry, he goes to visit her, doesn't he, in January? And by which point, it's very clear that if there were any questions about her parentage, which there hasn't been, I mean, she looks a little bit like Henry because she's even got the red hair, hasn't she?

Yes, and the violent temper, apparently.

Right. I mean, to be fair, she's a baby. I mean, that's pretty much the standard. And then the key thing in March, Parliament passes legislation that declares Elizabeth as Henry's heir. But there is a couple of twists, aren't there? Basically, if Henry dies before Elizabeth reaches the age of majority, then Anne will be regent and absolute governor of children and of the kingdom. But also, if you call anybody but Anne and Elizabeth, Queen or Princess, so the obvious target here is her half-sister Mary, then that is high treason, and you can say goodbye to your head.

Yeah. So great news for Anne, but terrible news for Mary, Henry's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, who is now very publicly, and by act of Parliament, declared a bastard. Anne is ecstatic about this because she detests Catherine of Aragon, and she particularly detests Mary and is consistently vicious towards her. I mean, horrible to poor Mary.

Can I say something, actually, on this front? There are some admirable things about Anne. I like the fact that she's acerbic and that she's clever and that she's a bit of a personality and stuff. But she's horrible. She's horrible to Mary, isn't she? In a way that she didn't have to be.

Yeah. I think in part, it's jealousy of Mary's lineage. I think she's jealous on behalf of her own daughter. But it's also in large part because Mary refuses to acknowledge her own bastardy. She refuses to play the game that Henry, her father, wants her to play. Anne goes all out to try and erase the privileged status that Mary had previously enjoyed as Henry's eldest daughter. On the first of October, 1533, which was only two months after Elizabeth's birth, Henry had summoned Mary and told her, You are no longer going to be a princess. From this point on, you're just going to be the Lady Mary. Mary understandably burst into tears. She's only 17 years old. I mean, for a teenager, teenagers hate. Anything. It's the most humiliating thing. Yeah, basically. The following month, Shapouy reported an even greater humiliation. He writes, The King, not satisfied with having taken away the name entitled Princess from Mary, has just given out that in order to subdue the spirit of the princess, he will deprive her of all her people because they put notions into her head and stop her from obeying him, and that she should come and live as ladies made with the little bastard.

The little bastard is Elizabeth. What a humiliation. You're stripped of all your own servants, and you have to go and work as a servant for this girl who's replaced you. I mean, that's absolutely terrible. So Mary is sent there only with two attendance, and she's obduret in refusing to accept this. She says, I'm not going to accept this horrible little girl as a legitimate heir. She insists she knew no other princess in England except herself. And Anne is so infuriated that she takes away all Mary's jewels. It's obfuscating her iPhone or something. And she tells the women supervising Mary to box her ears as a cursed bastard. So Nicola Talis, who wrote another great book, Young Elizabeth, Princess prisoner, Queen. She says, Little wonder Mary spent much of her time weeping in her chamber.

But that makes Mary sound like a drip, whereas Mary is not a drip. I like Mary. I think she has She's got massive backbone, Mary. Obviously, she's regarded as one of the great villains of English history because she lets herself down with her Catholicism. However, she has tremendous guts, I think, and she's a massive survivor.

I don't You see, I don't think that it's Mordlin weeping. I think it's angry weeping.

Yeah, I respect that.

It's I hate you all weeping. That's what it's like. Obviously, none of this makes Anne any the more popular, because we said how Catherine is very popular with the mass of the English people. And so Anne going out of her way to insult Catherine's daughter, Mary, who's also very popular, it doesn't go down well at all. Shapouille, unsurprisingly, completely he completely agrees with this. It says, I do not understand why the King is in such hast to treat the Princess Mary in this way, if it were not for the importunity and malignity of the lady, i. E. Anne.

I know he's biased, but he's- But he's not wrong.

Yeah, he's right. Now, I guess none of this would have mattered had Elizabeth been a boy. I mean, Anne could have done, in that case, she could have done whatever she liked, nor if in the wake of Elizabeth's birth, she had then been able to get pregnant again and give Henry the son that she wanted. But this does not happen because in the summer of 1534, absolute disaster. Anne loses a baby. It's gone almost a full term. The rumor is that it had been a boy. Another year goes by, and there are rumors of another miscarriage. It is clear as well to people that Henry is getting a little bit fed up with Anne. You said you like her. She's sassy, she's acerbic. But Henry, to begin with, he might have found that quite attractive, quite titulating. But I think by this point, he's starting to find her bossy, arrogant, nagging, shrewish. These are not qualities that he's particularly looking for in a way.

Do you know what? Sometimes Anne Boleyn, I said she was horrible, but sometimes she reminds me a tiny bit of myself. Really?

Imagine. Well, God, Henry would have been lucky to get married to you. That has to be said, Dominic, but the odds of you giving Henry a son would be low, I think.

Yeah, it's not It's not a situation I've ever really pondered. How would I perform as Henry, one of Henry the 8th's wives? But actually, I think probably, although Anne Boelina is the one I like least, she's probably the one I most like.

Well, fortunately for you, you are not having to get pregnant by Henry. That's Anne's job. And ominously for Anne, by this point, Henry, his eye is starting to stray again. He's starting to have affairs. And as early as October 1534, so this is a few months after Anne's second miscarriage, Chapuy is reporting that Henry is paying particular attention to one lady in waiting. This is a woman called Jane Seymour. The following summer, so that's in 1535, Henry pays a visit to the Seymour house, which is in Wiltshire, which I'm delighted to say.

It's great to have Wiltshire in the Sulsbury area back on the show.

This is a place called Wolf Hall. It seems that Henry is really quite keen on Jane Seymour if he's going off and meeting their parents, that thing. It's unclear exactly what it is that Jane has that Henry finds so irresistible. Shapui famously describes her as an enigma. She's modest, she's not particularly attractive. Shapui describes her as not a woman of great wit. Tracey Borman in her book on Anne Boleyn points out that enigme was Tudor slang for the female genitals. Perhaps Shapui is hinting at something there unclear. But there's one definite advantage that Jane does have over Anne, certainly in Henry's eyes, which is that she She wasn't always losing her temper with him.

But the point about the appeal of Jane Seymour is surely that Anne Boleyn is acerbic, is argumentative, is a bit of a nag, is a bit bossy, all of these things that make her very interesting. Jane Seymour is quite boring, but she basically is a people pleaser. Everything we know about her is she's a massive people pleaser. And Henry thinks, God, she's sweet, she's nice. She'll bring me a cup of scented wine or whatever and nurse my ulcer.

She'll find my friends confusing.

Exactly.

Yeah. But it's still not all over for Anne. So by January 1536, she's pregnant again. Then on the seventh of January, 1536, even better news, it is announced that Catherine of Aragon is dead. Henry's reaction is, God be praised. Anne's brother George, it was a pity the princess, i. E. Mary, did not keep company with her. I mean, really venimous, really venimous. You might wonder, well, why this hostility? I think for George Boleyn, the hostility to Mary, it's not just dynastic. He, like Anne, has become a very passionate evangelical. We be anachronistic to call him a Protestant, but that's basically what he is by now. But Mary, she has stayed very devoutly, very defiantly loyal to the traditional Catholic faith. She's loyal to the Pope, and of course, that loyalty is an expression of her loyalty to Catherine of Aragon. She refuses to accept Henry's supremacy of the Church. This, of course, in turn, then enables to say, Well, I have every godly reason to deny the legitimacy of my half-sister, baby Elizabeth. That means that for the Boleyns, Anne, George, the rest of the crowd, their godliness, their evangelical identity is now seamlessly interwoven with their dynastic ambitions and interests.

For them, it seems obvious that God is on the side of the Boleyns and against Princess Mary and all these awful the Catholic. But of course, none of this matters if Anne can't give Henry what he so desperately wants, a son.

Yeah. So the clock's ticking. I mentioned his ulcer, actually. I was being anachronistic because he doesn't get this famous ulcer until the 24th of January, when he has this jousting accident. He comes very close to death, doesn't he? He's knocked off his horse. People actually think he may have died. And with that, there is a serious, So for the first time, people think, Gosh, he could actually have died. And what happens next? The future of the dynasty is not yet secure. There are a lot of people who think, When he goes, great, we can get rid of the Tudas. I mean, they're a bit of an aberration. We can get back to, we can find some plantagenet air to take over.

Yeah, we can get back to fighting. Yeah, exactly. Brilliant. Exactly. Yeah. And so that fall, it has a knock-on consequence because five days later, 29th of January, Catherine Aragon is laid to rest in Peterborough Cathedral, and on the same day, Anne has a miscarriage. She blames it on the shock that she felt on learning of the news of Henry's fall. But Henry thinks, No, this is the marker of a curse. Just as my first marriage was cursed, so now my second is cursed. He says explicitly, I see that God will not give me male children. Shapui, he is delighted by this. He writes to Charles IV, the Emperor, and he reports Henry's growing belief, and I quote Shapui, that he had made this marriage seduced by witchcraft, and for this reason, he considered it null.

See, I think Henry, at this point, my sense is that he feels a little bit guilty. Catherine of Aragon has died, and although he will never admit it to himself, he has treated her abominably. She wasn't a bad person. She was a good wife for him. He's treated his own daughter atrociously. Henry is a very vain man. He will never accept that he's behaved badly. So he pins all this on Anne, doesn't he? Don't you think that's what he's doing?

Yeah, I think so. I think also what's very unfortunate for Anne is that Jane Seymour, although she may be boring, she's learned from Anne how to play Henry. In April, Henry sends Jane this purse of gold sovereigns in a letter, presumably, pledging his truth. She just kiss the letter very demurely and sends it back unopened and declares that she will only accept such gifts if she is married. She's learned from the mistress how to play, how to do this. That April, the same to the same month, Anne is in Greenwich, and she has Elizabeth brought from Hatfield, and Elizabeth, by this point, is two and a half years old. Elizabeth has clearly been much on Anne's mind. Anne has been ordering her all kinds of clothes, it's dresses of orange and purple, velvet, and taffet of caps, adorned with gold, obviously designed to go with her complexion and her urban hair. So Anne, again, being the great fashion Easter. She's clearly worrying, I think by this point, that Henry might strike against her at any moment. What are the implications of this for her daughter? On the 26th of April, she summons her private chaplain for a conversation.

This chaplain is a man called Matthew Parker, who is a very brilliant young evangelical scholar, typical of the clergyman that Anne has been favoring. Anne says to him, Look, I don't know what's going to happen, but suppose the worst does happen, please will you promise to look after my daughter Elizabeth? Parker vows, Yes, your Majesty, I absolutely will. And he holds true to that vow. Years later in Elizabeth's reign, Parker reports the conversation he'd had with Anne at this point to Elizabeth, and he describes it as the last words that ever Her Majesty's mother spoke to me concerning her.

Well, you say the last words because the end is coming for Anne, isn't it? And it comes on. Isn't there some story that there she's watching some form of sport? I can't remember what it is, people playing tennis or something. And then she gets a summons from the council, Come and you must come immediately. She She's accused of, to her shock, complete and utter shock, she is accused of adultery. And then she's taken off by barge from Greenwich to the Tower of London. She never even gets the chance to see her daughter before she goes, does she?

No, there's no dilly dallying. After the Tower, she goes, and the boom of cannonsances to London her arrival in the Tower. Of course, this was where three years earlier, she'd stayed for a couple of days with Henry in the Royal well quarters before setting out across London for her coronation, and now she's being incarcerated there as a prisoner. The first evening that she's there, she asks the constable of the tower, Shall I die without justice? She clearly recognizes the fate that is now threatening her. The constable replies to her, The poorest subject the King hath hath justice, and at this Anne only laughs. The laughter is very bitter because Anne does not receive justice.

She's put on trial on the 15th of May in the Tower of London, isn't she? She's the first Queen of England ever to be subjected to a public trial. The counts, so adultery, she's convicted of adultery with five different men. I mean, they're not messing around. Then the next count, incest, because she's accused of sleeping with her own brother, this evangelical guy, George Boleyn. And then treason and conspiracy to kill her husband, to murder her husband. The thing is, of course, she's obviously innocent of these things, right? I mean, people never... Historians don't think she'd plotted against her husband or that she'd slept with her brother, or even that she'd committed adultery.

No, I don't think any historians think that they're true. Essentially, Henry wants her eliminated, and he's prepared to go to any lengths to do it. Sure enough, the sentence is read out to her because that has defended against our sovereign, the King's grace, and committing treason against his person. The law of the realm is this, that thou shalt be burnt here within the Tower of London on the green, else to have thy head smitten off. Clearly in that, it's better to have your head chopped off than to be burnt alive. Anne is being offered a deal. Agree to what I want, and you will have a merciful death. The following day, sure enough, Anne is visited in the tower by Cranmer, and Cranmer wins Anne's consent to the annulment of her marriage. This might seem surprising to people because effectively, of course, this serves to render Elizabeth now a bastard. But I think Anne is doing it. I mean, partly, maybe she thinks, Well, I'll have my head chopped off. But I think she thinks that by doing this, her life will be spared, and that will then enable her to... It will ensure that at least Elizabeth will continue to have a mother.

But there is no pardon.

Interesting point there, actually, Tom, which never really occurred to me, that at that point, Henry VIII could have pardoned her. I mean, he could have just said, send her off, like Catherine of Aragon, send her off to some country house. Then, although people would talk about him as having had lots of wives, his reputation as this blue beard, the wife killer. He doesn't have to kill her.

No, he doesn't. Everyone finds it astonishing. Even Shapouy, who obviously hates Anne, he regards it as madness. He says, may God permit that this may be his last It's seen as very aberrant behavior, I think. But she has now declared and accepted that her marriage was invalid. The following morning, 17th of May in Lambeth Palace, Cromer officially annuls Henry's marriage to Anne. This means that Elizabeth, like her half-sister Mary, is declared bastard and deprived of the title of Princess. From this point on, she will be called the Lady Elizabeth. Later that same morning, 17th of May, The Five Men who've been convicted of adultery with Anne are led out onto Tower Hill. Before the mass of Londoners who've gathered there to watch the spectacle, and one by one, they are beheaded. George Boleyn goes first because he's of the highest rank, and the ax will be at its sharpest, so it's a measure of privilege there. He speaks as a martyr for his evangelical beliefs. He says, I have been a seter forth of the word of God. He's implying this is the reason that he's being eliminated. He does not defend his sister, and in fact, only one of the five men who are executed, who's a guy who Henry, very close to a man called Henry Norris, long-term favorite and friend of Henry's.

He's the only one who does a decent thing and speaks out in defense of Anne. In his conscience, he thought the Queen innocent of these things laid to charge, and he would die a thousand deaths rather than ruin an innocent person. But this has no impact. It doesn't help Anne. On the 19th of May, so two days later, it is her turn to meet death. Now, she does not die as the five men accused of adultery had done on Tower Hill, but within the tower itself. So there's a measure of privacy. A thousand people are gathered to watch it, but she doesn't have the stinking rabble, jeering and knocking her. A great scaffold has been erected next to the white tower. It's been draped in black. She approaches it wearing a gray silk gown. She's led to the scaffold. She climbs steps, and then she addresses the crowd, and she says, I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you for a gentler nor a more merciful Prince was there never. I mean, obviously, she doesn't believe this, and so people may wonder Why would she say it? I think that the reason is that she is hoping it will encourage Henry to look more fondly on their daughter.

It may well be that in her final moments, Anne's thoughts are of Elizabeth. There isn't a block. She just nails in the straw, she says her prayers, and then she removes the hood that she's had. That opens up her neck. Her hair is bundled up, put in a cap. Her neck is now absolutely exposed. Lady in waiting step forwards, blindfolds her, and leans forwards. She's still saying her prayers. Then there's a French swordsman who Henry has especially hired for his expertise, slight mark of mercy, I suppose. He quietly reaches down for his sword without making a sound, so Anne doesn't know when it's going to come. Then with very smooth, very silent precision, he brings the blade of the sword down onto Anne's neck. Her head is severed with a single blow. Anne, before her execution, had said that she had a little neck, so there's no hacking and chopping at it. It's done very efficiently. And the head is then held up to the crowd, and it's reported that her mouth continues to move in prayer for several seconds after her decapitation.

Gosh, I wonder if that really happened.

Well, I think it is possible. I mean, the whole question of what happens to you after your head is chopped off is a very interesting one, and I gather much contested. Right. Okay. Who knows? There are markers of mercy. They're French swordsmen. She hasn't been burnt to death. It's been in privacy, but it's still completely shocking. I think that Henry's willingness to sanction the judicial murder of his queen, of Henry Norris, one of his closest friends, four other presumably Really innocent people as well, it speaks of his utter resolve to secure this great prize that he's been longing for, which is a son. On the 30th of May, he marries Jane Seymour. A year and a half later, on the 12th of October, the 15th 37, she dies, but she has done what Henry married her for. So two weeks before her death, she had given him the male heir that he had been so, so desperate to obtain. It's a boy called Edward.

But where does that leave Elizabeth? Because Elizabeth, Tom, is now being declared illegitimate. She's a bastard, and she's the daughter of somebody who's basically been erased from the Annals as a traitor and as an adulterous and as a witch. So where will this lead? Well, the good news is if you're a member of the Restes History Club, you can find out right away, and you can hear the rest of the episodes in this series, including the next one, which explores how the young Elizabeth survives the murderous snake pit of the Court of Henry VIII. And of course, if you're not a member of the Restes History Club, and you want to hear the whole of the series right now, You can join our very own snake pit, our very own murderous Tudor Court at therestishistory. Com. So wonderful news for everybody. Tom, that was absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much for that. A tour de force, and we'll see you all next time. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

George Orwell was one of the most impactful voices of the 20th century. But you know what? His life story is just as interesting as the things he wrote.

I'm William Drimple.

I'm Anita Arnith, and we are the hosts of Empire, a goalhanger show about world history. On Empire, we're currently in the middle of a gripping four-part series about the life of George Orwell.

Orwell's early life was wrapped up in the British Empire. He was born in India to an opium trading father, and in his 20s, he served as a colonial police officer in Burma. His later life crystallized his hatred of totalitarianism. As an idealistic writer, he traveled to fight with the Republicans against Franco's fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and he witnessed the horrors of the Blitz. These experiences led him to write his most famous novels, Animal Farm and 1984, giving us some enduring phrases like Big Brother is watching you.

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