All language subtitles for The.Private.Lives.of.the.Tudors.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10-NH

- Under tudor rule, England was taken

from a medieval kingdom
plagued by civil war

and developed into one of
the most powerful nations

in the renaissance world.

But from phantom pregnancies to the use

of bizarre methods of contraception,

it was often the most
intimate and tragic moments

of these monarchs' lives that dictated

the fate of the country.

In this episode, we look at the
life of queen Elizabeth I.

She was an attractive, charismatic
and vivacious young girl

who took the throne at
the age of just 25,

but her early years were lived
in fear of assassination

by the supporters of
Mary queen of scots.

Although she fashioned
herself as the virgin queen,

she had a series of
passionate liaisons.

Obsessed with her personal appearance,

she was also overly fond of sugar,

which left her teeth black and rotten.

As she grew older, there were
ever more desperate attempts

to stay attractive and to
cover her pockmarked face,

caking on thick layers of
white lead and vinegar

to preserve the mask of youth.

Welcome to "the private
lives of the tudors."

Princess Elizabeth was
only third in line

to the throne of England,

so when her father, Henry
viii, died aged 55

at his palace in whitehall,

the crown passed to
her brother, Edward.

But not wanting to declare Henry dead,

his accession had to be kept a secret.

They didn't want to risk people knowing

that the country was without a king,

so they even had meals
delivered to Henry's room

to make it look like
he was still alive.

But three days later, on
the 31st of January, 1547,

they announced the death of Henry

and proclaimed his son
king Edward vi of England.

Aged just nine and under the
charge of the privy council,

Edward was put into a rigid routine

of ceremony and official
business, a stark contrast

to the glittering world
of his father's court.

- The boy that arrives is a stranger.

We know little about him.

We see the king really
only from a distance

and darkly, as it were,
through a glass.

He has a very strong personality.

He's bright, like all
of these children.

He's self-confident about himself.

But there's also this
very cool, detached,

very willful personality,
almost cold and peremptory.

- Evidence of this still survives

in the king's personal writings.

This is now my office at
Hampton court palace,

but it was originally
built for Edward vi.

And it may have been here

that the young prince started
his journal, aged about 11.

Edward was the only one of
the tudors to keep a diary,

but, sadly, it's rather lacking

in titillating gossip and
scandal, as you might expect

for something written
by someone so young.

But it's also lacking in emotion.

There's an entry from the day

that Edward's favorite
uncle was executed,

and he simply records, "on
this day, the Duke of somerset

"had his head cut off on tower hill."

The journal ends abruptly in 1553,

when Edward falls very seriously ill.

Edward is stricken with
a mystery illness,

possibly some kind of chest
infection brought on

by a recent bout of measles.

He is reported to be suffering

from shortness of breath
and a dangerous fever.

- His reign is one of
remarkably good health.

He only has a bout of measles in 1552.

That may be the start
of things going wrong.

- It can be a much more serious disease

than we often give it credit for being.

It might have been tuberculosis.

It might have been fighting sickness.

But he was only weakened
at the end of his life.

He wasn't weak from day one.

- It was his father's greatest fear.

Henry had obsessed about
protecting Edward

from any illness during his lifetime,

but after only six years,
five months and seven days

on the throne, Edward was
dead at the tender age of 15.

The crown would now pass
to his half-sister Mary.

She had a rocky start to her reign.

Edward had been a staunch protestant

and didn't want a catholic
to inherit his crown.

A plot to usurp Mary and
place the protestant

lady Jane grey on the throne of England

very nearly succeeded.

But Mary was made of stronger stuff,

and the attempt was short-lived.

Mary's first priority as
queen is to find a husband,

and the man she chooses
is Philip of Spain.

- The only reason she's having
to think about a marriage

is because she's been
given the responsibility

of being a queen; She now needs
to ensure the succession.

It's the first duty of a monarch.

- There are many stories
about Mary tudor,

and one of those stories
is that she fell in love

with a portrait of Philip ii,

or Philip of Spain as he then was.

- Your majesty, it is
my pleasure and honor

to present to you this image

of his most catholic majesty,
king Philip ii of Spain!

- She falls instantly in love with him

after seeing only his portrait.

She's besotted, but she's also naive,

not blessed with good
looks, and, age 37,

is some 11 years his senior.

- I trust this is a fair likeness.

- The artist, senor
titian, has captured

his majesty most perfectly.

- He pleases us well.

- The reality was that the marriage

between Mary and Philip
was a political marriage,

as indeed all royal marriages were.

She asked Charles v, Philip's father,

who had been her protector
for many years,

who he wanted her to marry,

and it was his son Philip
that he urged upon her.

Mary tried to present
herself as a romantic wife

and may have gone through

certain expressions of romantic love.

But the reality for her

was that it was a political marriage.

For Philip, it was even
more a political marriage.

He didn't want to marry Mary at all.

He was persuaded, if not coerced,

by his father to accept
Mary as his bride.

- Your majesty, welcome.

- Upon arriving in England

and meeting Mary for the first time,

Philip finds her repugnant.

He confides to a close
attendant that Mary is no good

from the point of view
of fleshly sensuality.

But Philip does his duty and
he marries the English queen.

- The marriage, when it
happens in July 1554,

goes quite well, really.

Philip, he knows he's buying
a woman who's past her best.

- Philip had been married before
and he had fathered a son.

This gave Mary hope

that she could conceive
a son for herself.

There was also a large
age gap between them.

Philip was them 27 and Mary's 38,

so time was running out for him.

She was very keen to get
the marriage started

and to share Phillip's bed.

- Within days of her wedding to Philip,

Mary believes she is pregnant.

As the weeks progress,
she shows all the signs,

including morning sickness
and a swollen belly.

When the ninth month approaches,

she enters her confinement
at Hampton court.

Everything has been prepared
for the royal birth.

- Mary believed she was pregnant

because she had the
symptoms of pregnancy.

Her stomach swelled; It's even
said that she was lactating.

She felt nauseous, and even
her doctors were convinced

that she was pregnant.

The whole realm thought
that Mary was pregnant.

- When Mary entered her confinement,

her midwives and other
attendants would have given her

a special tonic known as caudle.

This comprised ale mixed with
various other ingredients

such as sugar, honey,
saffron and ginger.

It was believed that this
caudle would strengthen

the expectant mother for
the labor that lay ahead,

but the reality in Mary's case
was that she didn't need it.

- At this stage, there
is no way of knowing

you're pregnant for sure.

These sort of pregnancy
tests that we have today,

way in the future.

Very difficult to know if
you're definitely pregnant.

Very easy to mistake pregnancy

for a whole host of other things.

In November, she thinks
that she can feel

the baby quicken inside her.

She takes to her chamber in may.

This is when you depart
into your private apartment

and seal yourself off,
which was a normal thing

for a wealthy tudor woman to do.

- But the due date comes and goes,

and many weeks later, there
is still no sign of a baby.

Mary's stomach decreases in size

and it becomes obvious that
it was a phantom pregnancy.

- It has been said that
Mary was not the only woman

in the 16th century who did
have symptoms of pregnancy

when they were not in fact pregnant.

- Phantom pregnancy is actually
a known medical condition.

It's basically where a woman is
so desperate to get pregnant

that her body is actually
deceived into thinking

that she is pregnant.

Very sad, because of
course Mary is made fun of

by lots of people after

the pregnancy is
discovered to be false.

It must have been a
terrible tragedy for her.

- Not only did she have to

suffer the public ridicule,
but she was also

seemingly abandoned by her husband.

- One of the things that
happened as a result

of her failing to bear a child

was that Philip then left England,

and for over a year
she was without him,

begging him to return, knowing that

she couldn't fall pregnant without him.

So on a personal level
and a dynastic level,

it was a terrible blow for Mary

as queen and as a woman.

- But it wasn't the last time

Mary would be mistaken in
thinking she was pregnant.

Because two years later she began

to show signs of pregnancy again,

although many had their doubts.

- The queen believes
herself to be pregnant.

She can only believe
that for two reasons.

One, that Philip is back in England.

Secondly, that they must
have had intercourse again.

- She wrote to Philip, telling him

that she was expecting a child.

His response was that he was delighted,

but in reality he was quite skeptical,

as was Mary's court.

- This time hardly
anybody believes her.

I think it was just the closest
of her ladies around her

played along because they
didn't want to upset her.

- The gentlewomen of the privy chamber

don't seem to treat her
as if she's pregnant.

And by the middle of the
year it's quite actually

whatever the queen
believed was happening,

it hasn't happened.

- Again, no arrangements
were made for her lying-in.

By the time that her due date arrived,

there was a silence in court.

She didn't go into confinement,

and again the matter was dropped.

- Your majesty,.

- They were right to doubt her.

Mary wasn't pregnant, but she
may have been gravely ill.

By may 1558, Mary had become
weak and dangerously sick.

It seems possible that what
she mistook for pregnancies

were in fact something
far more serious.

- There are a number of possibilities.

The sweat was raging through England,

but it seems likely, given
these two phantom pregnancies,

that she was suffering
from some condition,

possibly some form of cancer

that created these symptoms in her too.

- Some doctors have argued

that what Mary was experiencing

was a form of stomach bloating

that was coming from
some form of tumor,

whether it was a ovarian tumor

or whether it was a stomach tumor.

There might have been
other illnesses, too,

that created those kinds of symptoms.

- Mary died later that year

at St. James's palace
in London, aged 42.

Her husband, Philip, who was
away in Brussels at the time,

wrote of his regret at
the passing of his wife.

- The idea that Philip doesn't
have any feelings for Mary

I think is probably false.

It may not be a love match,

but he sees it as an important match,

a family matter, if I
can put it that way,

that touches him deeply and personally.

And he obviously
respects her enormously.

And that tells us something
about Mary, I think,

because to be respected
by somebody like that,

a man brought up to be king of
Spain, I think that implies

that Mary herself must have had more

than we often see from the distance,

that we're allowed to get.

- It had taken the death of
both her younger brother

and her older sister,
but it was finally time

for Elizabeth to take
her turn on the throne.

Age 25, Elizabeth was greeted

with open arms by her subjects.

As she paraded through the city

on the Eve of her coronation,

she was met by enthusiastic
and adoring crowds.

This was the start of
England's golden age.

She was attractive,
charismatic and vivacious,

and by the time she became queen,

Elizabeth had already won
the love of her people.

But alongside the celebrations

that accompanied her accession,

there was an underlying
unease among her new subjects

that they were once again
being ruled by a woman.

- Women were the
possessions of their men,

their husbands or their fathers.

They didn't own property.

Everything they had, including
themselves, bodily,

was the possession of their husband.

- People even debated
in certain circles

whether women had souls.

It was that kind of level.

- But Elizabeth made it perfectly clear

that she was no ordinary woman.

She was a queen ordained by god,

and whether they liked it or not,

she was going to rule them.

- We think of women
during the 16th century

as being second-class citizens.

We have to remember that
status always trumped gender.

Women who came from a noble
or a gentry background

would be able to exercise
authority and power

over men who were of a
lower social status.

- It was a fairly unnatural concept

for most englishmen and English women

to be ruled by a woman who
had the ultimate say,

politically, dynastically,

over how the country was run.

- Part of people's fear

of having a woman on the
throne was practical,

in that they didn't think
that women could keep order.

That's why Elizabeth's
achievement was all the greater,

because she did so much manage
to keep herself on top.

- Elizabeth understood PR

and knew how to market
herself to the public.

One of the way-she did this was through

the beautiful and elaborate
clothes she wore at court.

- Elizabeth was an iconic
figure in terms of fashion.

She set the style.

Women wanted to look like her.

Men wanted to be in her favor.

- She was exceedingly clever

at making the best of what she had.

She was never a wealthy monarch.

All her clothes were recycled,
time and time again.

You think of all that beautiful
embroidery that she wore.

It could be taken off one dress
and put onto another one.

She was styled on a budget.

- To better understand how
Elizabeth would have dressed,

I've come to meet collections
curator eleri Lynn

in the costume department
at Hampton court palace.

I want to get some
first-hand experience

in what it would have been like

to wear one of her exquisite dresses.

But to do that I need to get
out of my 21st-century clothes

and into some historic underwear.

So I'm all set in my tudor
undies, and do your worst.

- Now this very unassuming
layer is very, very important.

So you're in your linen smock.

It absorbs the sweat of the body,

keeping the outer garments clean.

Most people would have
changed their linens weekly,

but as a member of the royal family,

you're changing it many
more times than that,

possibly several times a day.

- It's quite a cumbersome
procedure, isn't it?

But I have to say it feels nice.

I suspect the other
layers aren't gonna feel

quite as comfortable, but
shall we get started?

- Absolutely, so the next
layer is your bodice.

- The elizabethan bodice
was a type of corset

worn by the women of the age.

- What the tudors didn't do

was to get into their
bodices straight away

and just lace it up and that was that.

They would do it in increments,

because the whalebone in these bodies

would have warmed with your body heat.

- So it actually changes
shape to your body?

- Yes, and becomes a
bit more comfortable

and a bit more pliable.

- You say whalebone; They're
not real whalebone, surely.

They don't go out hunting whales

just in the name of fashion.

- In the 16th century,
they have great voyages

of discovery, crossing the Atlantic

and finding these huge whale fisheries.

And they're bringing
back all this whalebone.

- Whalebone, during the
elizabethan period,

was a highly prized
commodity, so much so

that it was considered a royal fish,

meaning that to this day

any whale found in English
waters belongs to the monarch.

- Elizabeth is dressing,
not only for fashion,

but to project her might

and the power of her expanding empire.

And so she wants to show
all of these wonders,

and what better way
than to use whalebone

in as many different ways as possible?

- Next to go on is the bum roll,

a kind of padded cushion
often filled with feathers

and tied around the waist
so it hung at the back.

This would act as a support
for the hoop skirt,

known as a farthingale, which
would have been stiffened

with either bone or cane
to add the rigid shape

we often associate with
elizabethan women.

Now I've got the farthingale
and the bum roll.

I'm beginning to get a feeling

of what it must have been
like to be a larger lady.

And just the way I'm holding myself,

I have to put my hands in front.

You can't stand with them by your side

because it's uncomfortable and
probably looks a bit stupid.

- You can suddenly
understand why the tudors

are in the postures that they are.

Tudor portraiture
always shows the ladies

with their hands sort of
crossed or holding something.

- The next layer is the petticoat,

followed by the elaborately
decorated outer garment.

This was the most opulent
and expensive layer,

often made from hugely valuable fabrics

such as silk and cotton
imported from the Middle East

or fine velvets from Italy.

And possibly the most recognizable item

of elizabethan clothing, the ruff,

made from the finest
linen from Holland.

Okay, so I've got my
dress, I've got my ruff.

Where's the bling?

I need some jewelry.

Elizabeth loved her diamonds
and pearls and rubies.

Can we have a little
bit of that, perhaps?

Elizabeth was particularly
keen on her pearls

and is seen wearing them
in many of her portraits.

This was because they were
considered to be pure

and were used in tudor symbolism
to represent virginity.

- She had a huge collection of jewels,

many of them she'd
inherited off her father

from his many wives.

One ring that we know is
missing from your fingers now

is a locket ring that she was
found wearing when she died.

It was a jeweled ring like any other,

but it opened, and inside
was a silhouette of herself

but also a lady in much
earlier tudor dress

looking very, very much
like the portraits

that we know of Anne boleyn.

- So before we quite finish,

there is the piece de
resistance, the crowning glory

of course, the wig.

Thanks to my able dressers here,

I have all of my outfit
complete: My wig, my jewels,

my beautiful gown and
what lies underneath.

I'm ready to Sally forth
into court, am I not?

- She knew how to make an entrance.

She knew how to capture her
image in terms of portraits.

And that was really
the prevailing ideal

of beauty of the time.

- One big advantage that Elizabeth had

was the fact that she had inherited

her mother Anne boleyn's
sense of style.

She did start off
reasonably good looking.

She had, oh that twist

of being able to just
look particularly good,

and also had incredible charisma.

So Elizabeth was able to stand
out amongst her ladies.

- Clothing was important to Elizabeth.

It wasn't just an aesthetic question,

it was about the status.

The more bling, the better.

So if she could incorporate
jewels, pearls,

different rich fabrics
into her costume,

the more status she projected.

It was a very important status symbol,

a very important sign
of her power as queen.

- In public Elizabeth carried herself

with an air of self assurance.

She was confident and acted
upon matters of state

with decisive action,
defying the expectations

of many of her critics.

But for the most cynical
members of her court,

there could be only one reason

for her display of strong leadership.

- There were many rumors
about Elizabeth's sexuality,

about her gender, because she exhibited

various masculine qualities
such as strength,

the ability to make a
decision, authority.

And the belief was that a
woman couldn't actually

display these, so the logical outcome

was that surely Elizabeth
must be a man in disguise.

- Elizabeth was well
aware of these attitudes

and played the game very cleverly.

She pretended to regret her sex,

famously lamenting that she
was a weak and feeble woman.

But her reign would prove that
this was just play-acting.

Far from being constrained by her sex,

she used it as a weapon.

- Elizabeth used her sexuality
at court for certain,

because it was a
function of her gender.

As a woman, she interacted
with her male courtiers

in a different way than
a king would have done.

She played up to them like lovers.

She had favorites, gave them nicknames.

This represented a very
different style of queenship.

She vas inventing something new.

She was establishing a court
where she was the queen bee.

- She expected men to
write poetry to her

and pay her fulsome compliments,

treat her almost like a mistress.

And I think she enjoyed
every minute of it.

- Elizabeth could be flirtatious
or she could be teasing,

but for the most part she
used something else, I think,

as a political weapon, and
that was courtly love.

She was an object of devotion.

She would have knights
who would do her service

and would be utterly devoted to her,

but they did not have any expectation

of a sexual relationship with her.

And Elizabeth played
on that a great deal,

as did her courtiers.

- Like all monarchs,
Elizabeth was expected

to marry and produce an
heir, but she made it clear

from the outset of her reign

that she had no intention
of taking a husband.

It has been assumed that
this was pure statecraft.

She did not wish to be ruled by a man.

But the real reason behind
Elizabeth's refusal to marry

lay in her private fears sparked
by her childhood traumas.

She had just been shy
of three years old

when her mother Anne had been executed

at the orders of her father.

Five years later, her
stepmother, Catherine Howard,

had followed Anne to the block.

Horrified, the eight-year-old
Elizabeth had confided

to her companion Robert Dudley

that she herself would never marry.

- Her big problem was
that she couldn't marry

without compromising her authority.

Because at that time a
man was always thought

to have authority over his wife,

and Elizabeth was certainly
not going to do that.

- Elizabeth was faced by the question

of whether she would marry,
because women were not perceived

to be able to govern
themselves independently.

- When you married as a woman,

you literally became
your husband's chattel.

Anything that you possessed
before you were married

became your husband's.

So you could bring a
fortune to that marriage,

and your husband could
spend that entire fortune

on his mistress, and there was nothing

that you could do about it.

- But there was also another reason;

she was afraid of giving birth.

- Elizabeth had seen the dangers

of pregnancy and childbirth firsthand.

She had experienced the death

of her stepmother Catherine
parr during her teens,

and she knew that that was something

that could derail her from the throne.

It also meant if she married,

she'd have to give
power to her husband.

She would become second place,

and the idea of going
through the pregnancy

and the birth itself, with
all the physical weakness

that would cause, wasn't
particularly compatible

with her presentation of
either the virgin queen

or the ultimate power that she
personally wanted to wield.

- Elizabeth was not inclined to marry,

but neither was she prepared

to completely restrain
her sexual desires.

Whether or not Elizabeth I
was really the virgin queen

has been one of the most hotly
debated subjects in history.

Although her iconic image was
rooted in her virginal state,

rumors about her sexual misconduct
with a whole host of men

were forever breaking out.

- She did have relationships at court,

but just how far these went
took place behind closed doors.

- She did have a relationship
with some of her courtiers

which was more intimate,

sometimes expressed even
in physical touching.

It was erotically charged,

and this created a style at her court

which was obviously very different

from that of her sister or her brother,

and indeed even that of Henry vii.

- Among Elizabeth's many
flirtatious relationships

with her male courtiers,
the one that inspired

by far the most gossip was that

with her long-standing
confidant Robert Dudley.

Friends since childhood, by the time

that Elizabeth became queen,
they were inseparable.

A year after her accession,
she had Dudley's bedchamber

moved next to her own
private apartments

in order to make it easier
for them to meet in secret.

Before long, their relationship
was causing so much scandal

that Elizabeth had to go to
great lengths to conceal it.

- A very clear favorite from
the start was Robert Dudley,

with whom Elizabeth seemed
to be very much in love

in the early part of her reign.

She had nicknames from
him, she kept his letters.

They spent a lot of time together.

I think it most likely
that Elizabeth was aware,

as she said often, that she was
married to her kingdom first

and everything else came second.

Possibly she had to
subjugate the personal

into the domestic, the political.

Was prepared to have
emotional connections

but not necessarily physical ones.

- What made their relationship

all the more scandalous

was that Dudley was already married.

Things came to a head when
his wife, Amy Dudley,

was found dead at the bottom
of a short flight of stairs.

Elizabeth and her alleged lover

were both implicated in the death.

- She couldn't marry him,
particularly after his wife, Amy,

died in mysterious circumstances.

She simply couldn't allow
her name to be linked

to what was possibly a murder plot.

- The rumors at court
spread like wildfire.

There were accusations

that Dudley had his wife killed

so he was free to marry Elizabeth.

Although these claims
were unsubstantiated,

they were enough to force the queen

to distance herself from Dudley.

There were even those who said

she secretly bore him a love child.

- Whether the relationship
actually became physical,

we can't say for certain.

There was no recorded
pregnancy as a result,

but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

- She was a very cautious
lady, so that I don't think

she would have engaged in any
sex that would risk pregnancy.

But that doesn't mean to
say that it wasn't sexual

in the sense of erotic.

- Elizabeth probably was
bearing in mind, though,

the danger to herself if
she did conceive a child.

She didn't want to run that risk.

- Sex outside of marriage

in elizabethan England was widespread,

and there were even books published

on the subject of lovemaking,
but having children

out of wedlock was a
different matter altogether.

So they had to find
ways to prevent this.

Birth control in the tudor period

was rudimentary, to say the least.

Some methods admittedly would
still be employed today,

such as coitus interruptus
or the rhythm method,

whereby a woman would abstain from sex

during her most fertile period.

But most of the tudor methods

of birth control were outlandish.

Some women wore amulets
around the neck or thigh,

often containing herbs
that they believed

to have contraceptive
properties such as honeysuckle

or oil of mint, but, bizarrely,

they would also sometimes
contain oddities

such as dried cat's liver, donkey dung,

or even weasels' testicles.

But the most common methods involved

inserting some kind of barrier,

whether that was,
bizarrely, a slice of lemon

or perhaps a piece of
wax molded to shape.

But the most popular was a sponge.

Now this would be cut up
and soaked in vinegar.

The reason was that
vinegar was believed

to be doubly effective,
because not only did it help

the sponge to provide
some sort of barrier,

but the vinegar itself was thought

to naturally repel a man's sperm.

Well, if Elizabeth had relied
on any of these methods

in order to prevent herself
from falling pregnant,

she would have been
taking an enormous risk.

- I'm not sure that there
was any contraception

that really worked in
tudor England at all.

- There was a form of
post-coitus contraception,

in other words, a form
of early abortion

that was practiced
through herbal remedies

being used to induce an abortion.

These were the ways in
which historians now think

that contraception was practiced.

- Whether they worked or not,

most women would have learned

about these birth control methods

through their female friends.

Although Elizabeth did not have friends

in the true sense of the word,
she did become very close

to a number of her most
intimate attendants.

They included Elizabeth
fiennes de Clinton,

who facilitated her royal
mistress's meetings

with her male courtiers, and
her old governess Kat astley,

who knew many of her
most intimate secrets.

At least one of Elizabeth's ladies

would even sleep in
the same room as her.

This meant they were
able to run errands

for the queen at a moment's notice.

- She did have a lot of ladies
who served her faithfully

all the way through her life.

Having said that, she
was very bad-tempered,

and when her life got stressy,

the ladies could find themselves
treated really quite badly.

They were pinched, and in fact
she even broke the finger

of one of her ladies.

So she could be a very
difficult woman to work for.

- As age began to overtake Elizabeth

and she had to face the fact

that she was no longer the
most desirable woman at court,

she underwent an increasingly
elaborate routine

of dressing and makeup,
including the use

of a series of outlandish wigs

as well as white lead on her face,

which ironically did
more to corrode her skin

than aging ever could.

- Elizabeth notoriously
took a long time

to get herself ready, to
make herself presentable.

It was very much a theatrical process.

She would have had her ladies ready

to help prepare her skin.

- She would use various compounds

in order to make it
whiter, to make it softer

and also to hide the blemishes

which she had as a result of smallpox.

- But Elizabeth's looks
also fell victim

to her ever-expanding empire.

This was the age of discovery,

and things that were
once rare delicacies

were now commonplace
in the royal court.

Elizabethan explorers
were bringing back sugar

in greater quantities than ever before,

and nobody benefited more from
this than the queen herself.

Elizabeth was said to eat sparingly,

but she had an incredibly sweet tooth.

She would add sugar to everything,

not just cakes and chocolates
but to wine and even salads.

And to make matters worse,

Elizabeth used honey
to clean her teeth.

Well, not surprisingly
those teeth soon started

to rot and fall out,

which made Elizabeth'
appearance change.

Her face seemed rather gaunt,

so she used what were
known as plumpers,

pieces of cloth that she
would stuff into her cheek

to make herself appear
as she did before.

Well, these had another advantage,

because the plumpers
would first be soaked

in some sweet-smelling oil
or potion, which helped

to offset the stench of
Elizabeth's foul breath.

Towards the latter part of her life,

Elizabeth was practically
bald and toothless,

a secret that the young Earl of essex

accidentally discovered.

The audacious Earl, who was
more than 30 years her junior,

played court to her like a lover,

and Elizabeth was obsessed with him.

But their liaison came to an abrupt end

when he burst into her
bedchamber early one morning.

Who's there?

- Your majesty, it's the Earl of essex.

- How dare you come here unannounced?

Get away from here!

- He was aghast to see her

stripped of her usual
thick makeup and wigs.

At court he laughed with his
friends about what he had seen,

saying she had a crooked carcass.

But Elizabeth had the last laugh.

She had him executed
shortly afterwards.

- This is a time when no
person of any standing

is ever left on their own.

You are always surrounded by people

as a sign to how much
influence you have.

So private life wasn't ever
really in it for them.

As time went by, Elizabeth's
reign continued

with strength and the
love of her people.

But while the years brought
her reverence and respect,

they also brought her loneliness.

She had outlived most of her
longest-serving confidants,

and her flirtatious liaisons

and romances had all but ceased.

It was also noted by witnesses at court

that the once vivacious
and beautiful queen

had started to fade.

- Elizabeth at the end
of her life, in private,

would definitely have
been no oil painting.

- In later years, as she
aged she deliberately asked

for this to be concealed
and portraits were created

to make her look youngster, youthful.

- By the age of 69, Elizabeth
had sat on the throne

for 44 years, and having been
married only to her country,

she was to be the last
of the tudor dynasty.

But her memory and her family's legacy

would continue to live on.

- I think the tudors are remembered

the way they'd like to be remembered,

particularly Elizabeth
I and Henry viii,

because I would imagine that
most of our first thoughts

would be those famous portraits

by people like holbein of Henry,

the armada portraits for Elizabeth,

which show them in full splendor,

exactly the way they
wanted to be remembered.

So I think you have to
say they got it right.

- To the very last she continued
with her public duties

and ruled with authority.

But she began to suffer
from ill health,

which made her
increasingly debilitated.

Elizabeth's reign was
coming to a close.

She died in her private bedchamber

at Richmond palace in march 1603,

surrounded by only her
closest female attendants.

It was a death that was both dignified

and fittingly private.