Original subtitles

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'In July 1588, beacons were lit across England

'to warn of the arrival of the Spanish Armada.

'Elizabeth's darkest fears had come true.'

England was at war -

open war at last.

It was something that Elizabeth had twisted and turned

for 20 years to avoid.

Elizabeth hated war because it was so expensive.

It was also unbelievably risky.

The loss of Calais had destroyed her sister Mary's reputation.

And Elizabeth well knew that a similar, unforeseen disaster

could undo all her own work.

'Elizabeth loathed war

'because, as a woman she couldn't lead her own armies.

'Instead, she had to give their command to hot-willed men

'who would disobey her orders

'and might even turn her own forces against her.

'The slide into war had begun nearly 20 years before.

'By the early 1570s,

'Elizabeth had triumphed over her opponents in England.

'She had seen off a rebellion and executed the ringleaders,

'including her own cousin, the Duke of Norfolk.

'There was a fragile peace in England

'but Elizabeth was in constant danger.

'She had powerful enemies abroad,

'headed by the Pope, who, like a 16th-century ayatollah,

'had signed a fatwa on the Protestant English Queen.

(Reader) "Whosoever sends her out of the world

"with the pious intention of doing God's service

"not only does not sin but gains merit."

'Elizabeth had powerful Catholic enemies at home as well.

'Mary, Queen of Scots had been Elizabeth's prisoner

'since her desperate flight from Scotland in 1568.

'Mary had a strong claim to the English throne

'through her great-grandfather Henry VII.

'On her arrival in England,

'Mary identified herself passionately with Catholicism.

'Mary's faith set her on a collision course with Elizabeth

'especially as relations between Catholics and Protestants in Europe

'were about to explode.

'In Paris, on St Bartholomew's Day, 24th August, 1572,

'Catholics began a massacre of their Protestant neighbours.

(Reader) "Everywhere there were people who fled

"and others who ran after them crying, 'Kill, Kill!'

"There was no mercy, either for age or for sex.

"It was, in very truth, a massacre.

"The streets were strewn with naked, mutilated corpses.

"The river was covered with them."

'Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's ambassador in Paris

'barely escaped with his life.

'The Queen recalled him to London and gave him a new job

'masterminding England's security.

'Walsingham quickly identified public enemy number one.

(Reader) "Nothing is more necessary

"than that the realm might be delivered of her.

"If the sore be not salved

"I fear we shall have a Bartholomew breakfast."

'Mary was a figurehead for Catholics everywhere

'who wanted to depose Elizabeth.

'And Mary knew that there could be only one way out of her confinement.'

(Mary) "I will not leave my prison, save as Queen of England."

'The St Bartholomew massacre heightened the fear

'of a bloody Catholic rising in England.

'It also plunged France into civil war.

'Elizabeth had relied on France

'as a counterbalance to the mighty Spanish empire,

'which controlled much of Europe,

'including the Netherlands -

'that is, modern-day Holland, Belgium and northeastern France.

'But although England might fear her Catholic neighbours,

'she couldn't live without them

'because in the Netherlands was England's biggest export market,

'the booming city of Antwerp.'

In 1532, the year before Elizabeth's birth,

this magnificent new exchange was built.

Antwerp was now a combination of the City and Wall Street

and the most important commodity traded was English wool.

The English traders held centre stage,

doing their deals here, in the middle of the trading floor.

As usual, money talks

and the volume of the London-Antwerp trade

meant the Netherlands were normally England's chief overseas ally.

The rulers of the Netherlands in the 16th century were the Hapsburgs.

'One of them was Philip of Spain,

'who had been married to Mary Tudor, Elizabeth's sister.

'When Mary died, Philip tried to keep hold of England

'by proposing to Elizabeth.

'But the new queen refused him.

'Neither Elizabeth nor her people wanted to be ruled by a foreigner again.'

(Bells ringing)

'The people of the Netherlands didn't much like Spanish rule either

'and in 1576, they united behind Prince William of Orange.

'He was horrified by the brutality of Spanish rule

'and he turned to Elizabeth as a fellow Protestant, for help.

'Elizabeth now proved herself to be a queen of deception.

'Instead of intervening directly, as her father Henry VIII might have done,

'Elizabeth preferred to get others to do her dirty work for her.'

Elizabeth's policy towards the Netherlands trod a tightrope.

She didn't wish to be seen giving help to Philip's rebellious subjects

because that would break the rules of the royal club

to which both she and Philip belonged.

Nor, on the other hand did she want to see Philip

re-establish a real power over the Netherlands -

that would enable him to resume persecution of the Protestants.

Still worse, it would enable him to turn the Netherlands

into a springboard for the invasion of England.

So every time Philip looked as though he was getting the upper hand,

Elizabeth threw large amounts of gold at the Dutch rebels

to stiffen their resistance.

(Cannon fire, shouting)

'But mighty Spain would not be beaten by a Dutch revolt

'and William's rebellion began to buckle under the force of Spanish arms.

'Elizabeth needed someone else to try to stop Philip.

'Enter the Duke of Anjou.

'His mother had put him forward as a husband for Elizabeth

'when he was just 18 and she was 39.

'But he was reputedly puny and scarred by smallpox

'and Elizabeth hadn't been interested.

'But six years later, he began to intrigue her.

'The Duke belonged to the French royal family

'but as the youngest son,

'he had little chance of inheriting the throne,

'so he had to look elsewhere for a kingdom of his own.

'He hoped to find one in the Netherlands.

'If Elizabeth could pull the right strings,

'Anjou would be the perfect puppet to oppose Philip.

'Elizabeth flourished her diplomatic trump card,

'now a bit worn and past its best but still playable.

'Marriage was on the table again.'

Vous allez restaurer cette vie...

...languissante...

'Anjou's ambition needed money.

'He began a secret correspondence with Elizabeth

'but his letters didn't talk of interest rates.

'Instead, they used the language of love.'

La plupart fait...

'She was his "belle majest�".

'He was her slave.

'His declarations combined devotion and passion

'with just a tasteful hint of eroticism.

'Anjou sent a close friend, Jean Simier, to England,

'to continue the seduction

'and the financial negotiations on his behalf.'

Je vous pr�sente une lettre de Monsieur le duc.

'Simier was described as "a most choice courtier

"'exquisitely skilled in love toys and court dalliances."

'Elizabeth was more than half in love with his master

'without even having met him.'

Anjou arrived at Greenwich in the small hours of 17th August, 1579.

His first thought was to rush to the Queen's bedchamber.

Instead, Simier persuaded him to take some rest.

But then Simier wrote a letter to Elizabeth that was almost as titillating,

as though the Duke really had burst in on the slumbering Queen.

"I got in between the sheets," Simier wrote.

"And would to God you were there too,

"so that he could explain his mind to you more easily."

'Elizabeth and Anjou hit it off immediately.

'She'd steeled herself to meet an ugly little fellow.

'What she saw instead was a mature and attractive man.

'She nicknamed him her "Frog".

'The Spanish ambassador Mendoza remarked...'

(Mendoza) "The Queen has, with difficulty, entertained the Duke,

"being captivated, overcome with love.

"She told me she's never found a man

"whose nature and actions suited her better."

Elizabeth was in love.

The ice maiden had melted.

The Virgin Queen was longing to become a blushing bride.

Anjou had caught her on the rebound.

She'd just learned that Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,

her favourite of 20 years' standing,

had betrayed her by daring to get married in secret.

But she was also fascinated by Anjou himself.

All of the Englishmen, who'd attracted her

from Thomas Seymour when she was a teenager to Leicester himself,

were bold, athletic men

who barnstormed their way into Elizabeth's favour.

Anjou was different.

With his quirky face, his expressive hands

and his French ways,

he charmed her into love.

'Elizabeth was in love with a man 20 years her junior,

'a Catholic and a Frenchman.'

But would the marriage be a real one?

That's to say, was Elizabeth, unlike her sister Mary,

still able to have children?

Her minister Burghley had thought of this problem too

and he'd had confidential discussions with her doctors

and her ladies-in-waiting.

And they'd all said the same thing,

that she was apt to have children even at this day.

'After just two weeks, the lovers were torn apart.

'Anjou was recalled to Paris after a friend was killed in a duel.

'He sent Elizabeth three love letters tied with pink ribbons

'before he had even left English soil,

'calling himself "the most faithful and loving slave on earth".

'Elizabeth, intoxicated with the attention

'couldn't wait for him to return.

'Elizabeth's old favourites were enraged.

'Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, was parrticularly jealous.'

(Reader) "Leicester is much put out and all the councillors are disgusted.

"A friend of Leicester tells me he's cursing the French."

'A pamphlet appeared on the streets of London.

'It was venomous in its opposition to the match.

'Elizabeth would be drawn into a Catholic den of idolatry.

'If she died in childbirth Anjou might become King of England.

'Besides, the Frenchman probably had the pox.

'Elizabeth was incandescent with rage.

'She ordered that the author John Stubbs, and his printer'

'have their right hands struck off.

'Stubbs spoke of his loyalty to the Queen

'before having his hand severed with a butcher's cleaver

'and the stump seared with a red-hot iron.

'Public opinion turned viciously xenophobic.

"Hop off, you Frogs!"

But Tudor England wasn't a democracy.

The men whose opinions Elizabeth would listen to

were the members of her Privy Council.

The council debated the marriage all day.

Finally, opinion was split fifty-fifty for and against.

In those circumstances, the council felt

that it could offer the Queen no formal opinion.

Elizabeth was genuinely astonished.

For 20 years, her ministers had been telling her she had to marry.

Now she'd found the ideal marriage and they refused to endorse it.

She took her council's lukewarm reaction

as an effective veto on the Anjou marriage.

'So Elizabeth wouldn't marry her Prince Charming.'

(Reader) "She remained extremely sad and was so cross and melancholy

"that it was noted by everyone who approached her.

"She's been greatly alarmed by all this."

'Elizabeth wrote to Anjou explaining why public opinion

'made it impossible for her to marry him.'

(Elizabeth) "The public practice of the Roman religion so sticks in their hearts.

"I beg you to consider this deeply

"as a matter which is so hard for Englishmen to bear

"that it passes all imagination.

"For my part, I confess there is no prince in the world

"to whom I think myself more bound,

"nor with whom I would rather pass the years of my life,

"both for your rare virtues and sweet nature.

"With my commendations to my dearest Frog."

'Elizabeth thought she'd seen the last of him.'

(Mary) "I will not leave my prison save as Queen of England."

'Mary, Queen of Scots

'had now been Elizabeth's prisoner for 11 years.

'She dreamed of rescue

'and she dreamed of taking her captor's throne.

'So she became the centre of a web of Catholic conspiracy,

'keeping contact with her supporters at home and abroad

'via secret letters.

'Some of these letters contained encouraging news.

'Although Catholicism in England had been driven underground,

'Jesuit priests were being trained abroad to keep the faith alive.

'The Jesuits were spiritual revolutionaries

'who were being smuggled into England in disguise.

'Among them was Edmund Campion,

'one of the outstanding churchmen of his age.

'Campion had left the Church of England to become a Catholic

'and he had the zeal of a convert.

'Campion landed in England in 1580,

'posing as a travelling merchant.

'His mission was spiritual, to minister to Catholics.

'He had no plans to stir up rebellion

'but he knew that the Protestant authorities would treat him as a traitor.'

(Campion) "I cannot long escape the hands of the heretics.

"The enemy have so many eyes, so many tongues,

"so many scouts and crafts.

"I often change my name.

"Threatening edicts come forth against us daily.

"I read letters sometimes that tell news that Campion is taken."

(Father Hewett) 'Campion had a very attractive personality.

'Clearly a man of integrity, ambition, great intelligence.'

The authorities viewed him as a dangerous individual,

, because he was so gifted, because he was so attractive

because he had such a great name already

from his days at Oxford and as a member of the Anglican church.

'He represented a new kind of religion,

'not just establishment religion of either sort.'

It was enthusiastic religion and that's always dangerous,

particularly if you're trying your best, as Elizabeth was

very understandably from her point of view,

to form an established church which didn't satisfy anybody

but kept everybody more or less contained and quiet.

One thing Campion was not was quiet.

(Starkey) 'The Catholic Mass was illegal in England.

'That didn't stop Campion moving from house to house,

'saying Mass and hearing confessions.

'He published pamphlets

'which challenged the very basis of Elizabeth's church.

'Elizabeth had met Campion at Oxford 15 years earlier,

'before he had converted to Catholicism.

'She had been greatly impressed by him

'but she couldn't ignore the gauntlet that he was now throwing down.

'Like it or not she had to treat him as the enemy.'

Elizabeth and Campion actually had a lot in common.

Both believed that it should be possible

to distinguish between religion and politics.

At the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth had claimed passionately

that she wouldn't make windows into men's souls

whilst Campion, for his part, insisted that he had no political motives

and was the Queen's loyal subject.

But in the circumstances of the European cold war

between Protestant and Catholic

the distinction between religion and politics

was almost impossible to maintain.

After all, Campion was the loyal servant of the Pope

and the Pope claimed the authority to depose Elizabeth.

He had already in the 1560s

authorised her subjects to rebel against her

and he could and would do so again.

'Campion's solitary journey

'now brought him to Lyford Grange near Oxford.

'Here, a priest-catcher discovered him and alerted the authorities.

'The house was ransacked and after a search of two days,

'a chink of light betrayed Campion's hiding place.'

Campion was taken to London, where he had a secret meeting

with Leicester and Elizabeth herself.

The Queen offered him pardon and preferment if he would recant.

Campion refused and in turn reminded Elizabeth

of her glorious Catholic ancestors whom she had betrayed.

'Campion was returned to the Tower

'and five days later was put to the rack, to extract a confession of treason.

'At his trial, he was found guilty

'and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

'On the scaffold, Campion prayed to God

'to grant the Queen a long, quiet reign

'with all prosperity.'

The effect of Campion's death on the Catholic world

was tremendous strengthening.

As always, when you make martyrs,

you usually increase the cause you're trying to oppose

and that certainly was the case with Campion.

'Word got round of his heroic death, by any standards.

'So, tremendous encouragement for the Catholic world.'

The very thing that Elizabeth was trying to cool down -

enthusiastic commitment and religion of any sort -

was the very thing he strengthened.

'Elizabeth was provoking her Catholic enemies.

'Most aggrieved of all was Philip of Spain.

'Whilst Campion's death had insulted his faith

'another of Elizabeth's subjects had been busy emptying his pockets.

'On September 26th, 1580,

'a battered ship dropped anchor in Southampton harbour.

'The ship was the Golden Hinde.

'The captain was one of the most outstanding Elizabethan seamen,

'Sir Francis Drake.

'Drake's voyage had begun three years before

'as a pirate expedition to the Pacific.

'One of the investors was the Queen herself.

'Drake's target was the Spanish treasure ships.'

Fire!

'Drake had waged a private war

'against the most powerful empire on earth.

'As he sailed back into Southampton, Drake must have had the odd doubt

'whether the Queen would still welcome her pirate subject.'

(Coleman) 'Drake would have returned with much trepidation.'

He had been away for three years

and he had no idea what had happened during that time.

And I think one of the first things he asked was

was the Queen still alive?

Coming back with all that gold and silver,

if the political situation had changed dramatically,

he could have been hailed as a hero or condemned as a villain

when he returned to England's shores.

(Starkey) 'Drake was lucky.

'Elizabeth was fascinated by his stories and entranced by his loot.

'And, in the event, his piracy suited her devious foreign policy.

'Gold from the New World paid for Spain's troops in the Netherlands.

'So, by diminishing the supply, she had weakened Philip's grip.'

At his anchorage at Deptford, Drake's ship, renamed the Golden Hinde,

quickly became a tourist attraction

and in April, Queen Elizabeth herself joined the throng.

Elizabeth, despite the outraged protests of the Spanish ambassador,

had already pocketed her share of Drake's loot.

This amounted to the staggering sum

of nearly one year's parliamentary revenue

and represented a 5,000% return on the money that she'd invested.

Now she'd arrived to confer respectability,

in the most public fashion possible, on Drake.

She jokingly told him that she'd brought a golden sword

with which to cut off the head of this notorious pirate.

Instead, Elizabeth gave the sword to the Duke of Anjou's representative

and told him to knight Drake here on the deck of the Golden Hinde.

'By asking a Frenchman to knight her pet pirate,

'Elizabeth was making her allegiances very clear.

'England was still ranged with France against Spain.

'The alliance with France meant that her liaison with Anjou would continue.

'After two years' absence, he returned, asking for more money

'for his campaign against the Spanish in the Netherlands.

'Accompanied by the French ambassador

'he also decided to pop the marriage question again.

'Elizabeth's answer was astonishing.'

You may write this to your King...

that the Duke of Anjou shall be my husband.

'At the age of 48, Elizabeth was engaged.'

It was a formal, public betrothal in front of witnesses.

Messengers were dispatched round Europe with the astonishing news

and church bells were rung in Antwerp.

Back home in England, the reaction was more mixed.

Burghley rejoiced, Leicester was furious and other courtiers burst into tears.

That same evening, the opponents of the marriage

instructed Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting to paint,

in graphic terms, the restrictions of married life

and the horrors of childbirth.

As a result, the Queen spent a miserable and sleepless night.

'For one extraordinary moment, Elizabeth's heart had ruled her head.

'But it didn't last long.

'In the morning, she told Anjou that she couldn't marry him,

'because the welfare of her subjects must come first,

'before her own happiness.

'What accounts for this extraordinary on-off behaviour?'

Elizabeth had certainly abandoned

any serious intention of marrying Anjou two years earlier.

But he was politically useful and she found his company attractive.

So, for one moment

she fondly allowed herself to imagine what might have been.

Then, the following morning, in the cold light of day,

the pretence was abandoned

and she ditched, with many expressions of regret, her dream lover.

'Elizabeth might have thrown her suitor back in the water

'but her Frog didn't swim away.

'He stayed on for three months begging for more money.

'Finally, Elizabeth was driven to pay him �10,000

'and Anjou set sail for the Netherlands

'to pursue his quest for another kingdom.

'She would never see him again.

'She could no longer pull the strings of her puppet prince

'for, instead of helping the people of the Netherlands fight Spain,

'Anjou tried to set them against each other

'in a cynical attempt to seize absolute power for himself.

'But his plan failed

'and in 1583 Anjou retreated to France in disgrace.

'A year later, he died.

'Elizabeth was genuinely saddened.

'She wrote to his mother...'

(Elizabeth) "If you could see a picture of my heart,

"you would see a body without a soul."

'There would be no more pretence of marriage.

'Elizabeth would rule alone

'and she would die without a natural heir.

'Elizabeth had always avoided open war

'and she had maintained peace

'by persuading others to fight her battles for her.

'But her policy was about to collapse, thanks to events in the Netherlands.

'At midday on 10th July, 1584,

'William, Prince of Orange was dining with his family

'in the Prinsenhof in Delft.'

William had already survived several attempts on his life,

so by 16th-century standards, the security round him was tight.

Here in his own house, at least he should have been relatively safe.

About two o'clock William left the dining room

to go upstairs to his study.

He was going to meet a recent contact.

The man had introduced himself as Balthasar Gerards, a French Protestant.

William had decided to send him to France with letters.

He'd given him money to buy clothes for the journey.

Balthasar Gerards wasn't a Protestant at all.

It wasn't even his real name.

Instead, he was an undercover Catholic fanatic

and he'd spent William's money not on clothes but on pistols.

He fired three shots at the Prince.

Two bullets passed through William's body...

and lodged in the wall.

The Prince died a few minutes later uttering as his last words,

"God have mercy on my soul and on my poor country."

'His death was appalling news for Elizabeth.

'It left her as the only Protestant leader in Europe.

'Spain could overrun the whole of the Netherlands

'and then invade England.

'There was no one left to fight England's battles for her.

'Elizabeth had no choice.

'She finally had to send English troops overseas.

'Her old friend, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was in command.

'But still, Elizabeth was wary of declaring all-out war.

'She discouraged Leicester from going on the offensive.

'She hoped a display of English muscle would scare off the Spanish.

'But Leicester's opponent was the Duke of Parma

'Philip's greatest general.

'For him, England and Spain were at war and he didn't hesitate to attack.

'The war put Elizabeth under huge strain.

'She was now at her most contrary

'and things weren't helped by Leicester's mixture

'of high-handedness and incompetence.

'In defiance of Elizabeth's explicit instructions,

'he became the governor general of the Netherlands

'and he proved hopeless as a general as well.

'So Parma's troops swallowed the Netherlands bit by bit.

'Elizabeth recalled Leicester.

'Her favourite had failed her.

'Only the sea now stood between England and invasion.

'There was one person in the kingdom who welcomed the news -

'Mary, Queen of Scots.'

In January 1585, Mary was brought here

to the hill-top castle of Tutbury in Staffordshire.

The assassination of William of Orange abroad

and a series of plots in England

brought home the danger Mary presented to Elizabeth's life.

So far, Mary had been kept in honourable custody.

Now it became a real imprisonment.

She had a jailer - the harsh, unsympathetic Puritan Sir Amyas Paulet.

There were armed soldiers who patrolled the battlements.

Mary was cut off from all correspondence with the outside world.

She was isolated, bored and resentful.

But the devil, in the form of Sir Francis Walsingham,

soon found work for Mary's idle hands.

'Elizabeth's patient spy master set a trap

'and then waited for Mary to walk into it.

'A servant offered to smuggle Mary's letters

'in a beer barrel from a local brewery.

'The servant and the brewer were in Walsingham's pay.

'Every letter she sent and received was intercepted

'and decoded by Walsingham's private secretary, Thomas Phelippes.'

Six months after the setting up of the barrel post,

Mary received a letter from Anthony Babington.

Babington came from a rich Derbyshire family.

He was young, Catholic and idealistic

and he'd just organised a plot to assassinate Elizabeth.

Babington saw the murder in terms of high heroics.

He even had a group portrait painted of himself and his fellow conspirators

with the motto "We are comrades united in danger."

'It was intended to be their monument. Instead, it was their tombstone.'

Anthony became involved in the plot against Elizabeth

mainly due to his connections with Mary, Queen of Scots

while she was imprisoned early on in her life

and while he was a young page in her service.

'We can only believe that he had a crush on her

'and was infatuated by her, if not besotted

'which carried on for most of his life and her life.'

Anthony was politically naive.

He was very impressionable and he was used by conspirators

who had much stronger beliefs than he had on the wider European front.

(Starkey) 'Babington wrote to Mary, saying he and his friends

'would dispatch the usurper Elizabeth and rescue Mary.

'The Spanish would invade and Mary would take the English throne.

'Mary's reply, when it came a few days later, was clear enough.'

(Mary) "The affair being prepared

"and forces in readiness within and without the realm

"then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work.

"Upon the accomplishment of their design,

"I may suddenly be transported out of this place."

'At last, there was evidence enough to send Mary to the scaffold.

'Babington and the conspirators were arrested a few days later.

'They were tortured, tried for treason, and sentenced to a traitor's death.'

Pressure from the country and council was now building up.

They were determined to have Mary's head

and Elizabeth was forced to agree to a trial.

The trial was to take place at Fotheringhay Castle

and Burghley himself drew up the seating plan.

But, despite these careful preparations, the trial nearly didn't take place at all.

Mary, Queen of Scots absolutely refused to accept the jurisdiction of the court.

"I am not a subject," she said,

"and would rather die a thousand deaths than acknowledge myself as one."

Instead, she was a sovereign prince

and so, answerable to God alone.

'Elizabeth retaliated.'

(Elizabeth) "You have, in various ways, attempted to take my life

"and bring my kingdom to destruction.

"I have never proceeded so harshly against you.

"On the contrary, I have maintained you and preserved your life.

"It is my will that you answer the nobles of the kingdom

"as if I were myself present."

Eventually, a form of words was found that enabled the trial to go ahead.

Mary defended herself ably in two days of examination.

She denounced the Babington letters as forgeries

and wriggled out of the most incriminating questions.

But finally, she was cornered.

She could only say that she had to be believed

because she spoke on the word of a prince.

This cut no ice with her judges.

The court adjourned to Westminster for the final decision.

The verdict, guilty.

The sentence, death.

'Elizabeth now had to decide Mary's fate.

'The two queens had never met,

'although Mary had been Elizabeth's prisoner for 20 years.

'Yet Elizabeth agonised over the decision.

'She was reluctant to execute Mary

'because she too was a member of the royal club.

'Cutting her head off might set a very unwelcome precedent.

'Elizabeth asked Mary's jailer, Sir Amyas Paulet,

'to assassinate her by poison or suffocation

'so that the Queen would not have to take responsibility for her death.

'Paulet refused.

'As Elizabeth hesitated England seethed with rumours.

'The Spanish had invaded. London had been burned.

'Finally, on 1st February, 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant.

'Seven days later, the sentence was carried out

'in the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle.'

Mary herself behaved with a theatrical courage.

She included Elizabeth in her final prayers.

Ladies removed her outer clothes to reveal a petticoat of scarlet,

the Catholic colour of martyrdom.

"She knelt at the block.

'But the executioner bodged his task

'and he took two strokes of the axe to remove her head.

'Still worse when he tried to hold up the head,

'he found himself clutching only a wig,

'whilst the head, with its thin greying stubble, rolled at his feet.

'England celebrated Mary's death.

'Elizabeth grieved.'

(Reader) "Her countenance changed. Her words faltered.

"She gave herself over to grief, putting herself into mourning weeds

"and shedding abundance of tears."

What a performance.

It was even more complex and self-contradictory

than Elizabeth's usual behaviour.

Some of those tears were real.

Elizabeth had been profoundly reluctant to execute Mary

and when the deed was actually done, she was horrified.

But there were also tears of rage.

She strongly suspected she'd been jumped into the action by the council.

They'd met secretly and decided not to tell her

that the warrant had been dispatched to Fotheringhay.

That's why she tore strips off her ministers

and secretary William Davison in particular,

who'd actually dispatched the warrant.

He was imprisoned, fined and even threatened with hanging.

But finally, they were crocodile tears as well.

By exaggerating her grief and scapegoating Davison,

Elizabeth was trying to deflect responsibility

from where it really and finally lay -

with her.

'The news of Mary's execution exploded across the Catholic world.

'It gave Philip of Spain the excuse he needed

'to declare war on the heretic queen.

'Philip ordered the Duke of Parma to prepare an army in the Netherlands

'for the invasion of England.

'The Armada would sail from Spain

'to collect Parma's force and land them on the English coast.

'Philip's deadly intentions were no secret.

'Reluctantly, Elizabeth ordered

'that the English fleet be readied for the threat.

'Even now, she hoped to avoid war.

'She tried negotiating with Parma as the Armada set sail

'but there was no mood for compromise amongst her Catholic opponents.'

"She's an incestuous bastard

"begotten and born in sin of an infamous courtesan."

'Cardinal William Allen, June 1588.

'English lookouts scoured the horizon for enemy sails.

'They sighted them on July 19th.

'The Spanish did not really expect to be challenged

'on their voyage up the Channel.

'The English fleet was half the size of the Armada

'but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in design.'

The English ships were much smaller than the Spanish.

The Spanish ships had large forecastles and aftercastles

which were fortified areas on the ship

where they could house men when they engaged in battle,

men who could then board other ships.

But as the rigs were fairly small,

in fact, too small, really, for powering the ships along,

it meant that the Spanish ships were largely only of use in trade-wind sailing,

in following the routes between Spain and the Americas

rather than in tactical fighting within the English channel.

I think that is where the English ships scored,

because they were relatively smaller

and therefore more manoeuvrable and had the tactical advantage.

'The English still weren't ready to engage the Spanish fleet head-on.

'Sir Francis Drake now promoted to vice admiral,

'favoured skirmishing tactics.

'As the Armada sailed up the Channel,

'there was a scatter of vicious dogfights.

'Elizabeth went on a morale-boosting visit to her troops on land.

'Finally, she had found a rhetorical way of reconciling the paradox

'of being a woman and being a leader in war.'

(Elizabeth) 'I am come amongst you not for my recreation and disport

'but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle

'to live or die amongst you all.

'To lay down for God and for my kingdom and for my people

'my honour and my blood, even in the dust.

'I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman

'but I have the heart and stomach of a king

'and think foul scorn that Spain or any prince of Europe

'should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

'To which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me,

'I myself will take up arms.'

(Starkey) 'But Elizabeth did not need to take up arms herself.

'The English had a secret weapon.

'They called it the "Hellburner".

'They packed five ships with pitch and timber,

'set fire to them and put them adrift amongst the Spanish galleons.

'There was panic. Many of the Spanish ships upped anchor and fled

'and were scattered by the wind.'

Incredibly, Medina Sidonia, the Spanish admiral,

managed to reunite his scattered ships.

They even resumed their powerful crescent formation.

Then, off Graveline on the coast of the Netherlands

the two fleets, for the first time came into battle at close quarters.

Each side used its favourite tactics.

The Spaniards tried to board,

the English brought their heavy guns into play at close quarters.

And it was the English guns that won the day.

They killed thousands of Spaniards

and they did terrible damage to the Spanish ships,

though only a handful actually went down.

'The winds and the weather now finished what the English fleet had begun.

'Many of the Spanish ships were wrecked off the coast of the British Isles

'as they tried to find their way home.

'The defeat of the Armada was England's and Elizabeth's finest hour.

'Little wonder that she had this portrait painted as a symbolic memorial.

'Elizabeth was now mistress of the seven seas

'as well as of her own people.'

Elizabeth had entered the war against Spain

with a deep sense of foreboding

but she'd emerged triumphant.

Above all she'd shown that a woman

could be an inspirational leader in war as well as in peace.

Of course, the weather had played its part in the victory over the Armada.

"God's winds blew and they were scattered,"

as it said on the back of the commemorative medal.

But this fact does nothing to diminish the extent of the English victory

or the scale of Spain's defeat and humiliation.

At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign,

the heralds had proclaimed that she was Empress

from the Orkney Isles to the Pyrenean mountains.

Then the claim to English overlordship of the seas was empty bombast.

With the defeat of the Armada it became sober reality.

It was an astonishing achievement.

The only problem now was living up to it.

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