All language subtitles for BBC She Wolves Episode 3- Jane, Mary and Elizabeth

[Applause]

[Music]

19:53 a coronation fit for a king but

it's a young queen who's about to be

crowned and the crowd roars its approval

[Music]

the fact that she's a woman attracts no

comment and she will go on to reign over

us for six decades but England's Queens

haven't always been greeted with such

adoration the first woman who sought to

be crowned queen in her own right here

in Westminster eight hundred years

earlier received a very different

response

she wasn't met by cheering crowds

instead she was chased away from the

capital by an angry mob

that's because throughout our history

women and power have made an uneasy

combination never more so than in the

Middle Ages when monarchy was forged in

the cut and thrust of battle it was

taken for granted that men would rule so

what if the King died and there were no

men to take the reins of power

in 1553 the only heirs to the tudor

throne were female the next three

monarchs of England would be women but

they would each discover that power did

not rest easily in the hands of a queen

when they pursued power like kings these

royal women were criticized and

condemned most graphically of all they'd

been vilified as she-wolves these are

the stories of the she-wolves of England

and to explore them is to realize just

how far we've come and how little has

changed

[Music]

this impressive building is the old

Royal Naval College 500 years ago

another even grander building stood on

the same spot it was one of the greatest

residences of the Tudor Kings on the 6th

of July 1553 in the Magnificent palace

that once stood here a Greenwich a 15

year old boy Lay Dying he was Edward the

6th the only son of Henry the 8th Edward

was the male heir for whom Henry had

been so desperate that he divorced one

wife and killed another and Edward had

been a golden boy until he was reduced

by a horrifying illness to a grotesque

and lonely figure struggling for breath

in a gilded bed but this wasn't just a

moment of unbearable pathos it was also

a moment of extraordinary political

crisis because when Edward died there

was no one left to claim the title of

King of England for the first time in

English history all the contenders for

his crown were female

[Music]

hindsight makes it difficult to

appreciate just how great a crisis this

was

for the men who stood around Edwards

deathbed the prospect of being ruled by

a woman was deeply troubling what they

thought they knew was that women were

not equipped to rule weaker than men

less rational more sinful unable to

fight unable to make law

over the previous 400 years the handful

of women who had tried to take power had

found themselves condemned as unnatural

even monstrous

[Music]

whether through inheritance or by force

the crown of England had always been

worn by a man

and Edwards father Henry the Eighth had

gone to extreme lengths to ensure that

he would have a son to succeed him

this painting offers a revealing insight

into Henry the eighth's view of his

dynasty in the center is Henry himself

flanked by his third wife Jane Seymour

and their son Edward on the left is

Henry's older daughter Mary by his first

wife Catherine of Aragon on the right is

his younger daughter Elizabeth by his

second wife Anne Burrell in the painting

is a fabricated representation rather

than a portrait from life in fact Jane

Seymour had died just a fortnight after

Edward's birth but here she sits as the

beloved mother of Henry's male heir

Henry's daughters by contrast are left

on the sidelines he even went as far as

to declare that they were bastards after

he'd disposed of their mothers daughters

for Henry would not do he was a king and

only a king could succeed him

[Music]

all of henry's hopes for England's

future rested on his sons shoulders and

when Henry died in 1547 nine year old

Edward became King of England he knew it

was his destiny to continue the glorious

line of Tudor Kings but a few months

after his 15th birthday Edward fell

seriously ill

throughout the winter he was confined

within the palace walls and by the

spring of 1553 it was clear he was dying

but the identity of his heir was far

from clear and that left England facing

an alarmingly uncertain future as well

as his two half-sisters Mary and

Elizabeth Edward had seven cousins but

all of them were women

for the first time since the Norman

Conquest there were no male heirs to the

throne

whatever happened England's next monarch

would be a woman and the question now

was which woman would it be Mary and

Elizabeth both knew that under the terms

of their father's will if Edward died

the crown should pass first to Mary then

to her younger sister but they also knew

there was a complicating factor Edwards

faith he was an ardent Protestant and

Mary an equally committed Catholic

Mary's fear was that faith would usurp

bloodline Mary had watched her father

Henry the eighth break from the Church

of Rome and make himself head of the

Church of England but it was under

Edward that England underwent a fully

fledged Protestant Reformation Edward

was a precocious ly intelligent child

he'd been educated by Protestant tutors

and despite his young age he was

determined to make his people follow his

faith all that Mary held dear the Latin

Mass sung in churches full of images and

incense was swept away to be replaced by

an English prayer book and simpler forms

of worship

for Edward it was unthinkable that his

own death should send his people back

into the darkness of Catholicism housed

in the inner temple library in London is

a document which shows just how far

Edward was prepared to go to stop this

happening this extraordinary document is

what Edward called my device for the

succession you can see that it's drafted

and redrafted in his own hand and what

this is about above all is excluding his

sister Mary from inheriting his crown

Mary anticipated that her father's will

would prevail but Edward found a

loophole

Henry had declared in law that his

daughters were illegitimate and that

gave Edward his chance English monarchs

he decided had to be legitimate and they

also had to be Protestant which ruled

out his Catholic cousin Mary Queen of

Scots that left his only remaining

cousins the descendants of Henry the

eighth's younger sister there was

Francis grey and her three daughters

Jane Catherine and Mary Jane Grey in

particular shared Edwards fierce

devotion to the Protestant faith but

Edward planned that all future English

monarchs would be Kings

he intended to cut women out of the

succession altogether so in his first

draft

he left his crown not to the gray girls

but to the sons they might one day have

their heirs male but there was no time

for the gray girls to have a son by the

summer of 1553 Edward and his ministers

knew he was dying on his sickbed

Edward took up his pen once again at the

eleventh hour and faced with no other

choice he accepted that he would have to

name a female heir his device said that

the crown should pass to the Lady Jane's

heirs male but now the King altered it

to read the Lady Jane and her

male with the addition of two small

words Jane Grey became the chosen heir

to Edwards throne

Mary was the rightful heir but she had

no inkling of these maneuvers and

neither did Jane Grey she was merely a

pawn in a much larger political game

during Edwards reign England had been

ruled by a noble Council as they waited

for Edward to reach adulthood

these men ran the country in the name of

the young king at their head was the

Duke of Northumberland for him

fifteen-year-old Jane Grey was the

perfect choice as Edwards heir not only

was she a Protestant like Northumberland

himself but she had just been married to

his son

June 15 53 was a month of mounting

tension northumberland sent warships to

patrol the Thames and did everything he

could to ensure his coup would go

according to plan

meanwhile Mary and Elizabeth were kept

ignorant of their brothers weakening

condition as one by one the King's

lawyers and councillors were called into

his bedchamber to put their seals to the

device for Lady Jane's succession

[Music]

on the 6th of July Edward died at

Greenwich as a summer storm raged across

the capital but the would-be Queens of

England didn't yet know that their

moment had come the Duke of

Northumberland wanted to ensure that the

King's death was kept secret until the

levers of power had been secured three

days after Edward's death Jane Grey was

summoned to meet Northumberland and

other members of the Privy Council she

watched in bewilderment as they knelt

before her offering their allegiance to

the new queen of England her first

reaction was a storm of grief for her

dead cousin her second was horror the

crown is not my right and pleases me not

she said the Lady Mary is the rightful

heir

[Music]

Jane Grey was strong-willed and

ferociously intelligent but she was only

15 and struggling with shock and grief

in the end she couldn't hold out against

her powerful and manipulative

father-in-law

Northumberland on the 10th of July

heralds at last appeared on the streets

of London to tell Edwards subjects that

their king was dead and to proclaim the

accession of Queen Jane the heralds

Proclamation was a lengthy document

largely because of the need to explain

to Jane's subjects exactly who their new

queen was if the idea that she might

inherit the throne had come as a shock

to Jane herself it was a bolt from the

blue for the people of England and

beyond the Emperor Charles v had to ask

his own voice to send a family tree to

explain Jane's claim to the crown and on

London streets the news was met in

puzzled and fearful silence

[Music]

but Jane soon realized even more was

expected of her as she was taken to the

Royal Apartments in the Tower of London

to prepare for her coronation it became

clear that her father-in-law

Northumberland expected his son to

become King once she was Queen Jane

later wrote that she was wrestling with

a troubled mind infinite grief and

displeasure of heart as she struggled to

cope with the shock of her situation but

all the same she was prepared to flex

her royal muscles the question of the

status of a reigning Queens husband was

without precedent in English history

Jane's husband Guildford had assumed

that he would become king when Jane

became queen but she was having none of

it she was worried that the crown might

not rightfully be hers but she was sure

that it wasn't her husband's

Jayne's stand precipitated a furious Rao

with her father-in-law and her husband

when it was suggested that a crown be

made for Guildford - she said she would

make him a Duke but not a king

[Music]

Northumberland had expected a puppet now

he was finding Jane wouldn't be so

easily manipulated but for the moment

this battle had to wait because another

strong woman was preparing for a fight

Mary it was Mary Henry the eighth's

eldest daughter who was popularly

understood to stand next in line to her

brother's throne Mary's sex had

compromised her standing as his heir in

her father's eyes but the fact that she

was female could hardly be used against

her by supporters of Queen Jane still

the fact remained that Northumberland

controlled the formidable machinery of

government and it wasn't clear what Mary

could do to oust him

[Music]

sinister whispers had reached marry that

Northumberland was planning to arrest

her and imprison her in the tower Mary

fled to her estates in East Anglia and

then made her way to her castle of

Framlingham in Suffolk with its motored

defenses

Mary was safe but she was far from the

center of political action and her

enemies controlled the capital she

seemed to be a woman alone and her

chances of becoming Queen were written

off even by her allies her chief

supporter overseas was her cousin

Charles the fifth as the king of Spain

and Holy Roman Emperor he was one of the

most powerful men in Europe and his

ambassador told him Mary stood no chance

all the forces of the country are in the

duke's hands and my lady has no hope of

raising enough men to face him as a

female heir to the throne mary found

that her judgment was questioned and her

claim dismissed because she couldn't

lead her own troops to enforce it but

what they hadn't taken into account was

Mary herself

[Music]

and that was a misjudgment on a massive

scale

Mary was determined she would be queen

she sent letters to noblemen and Gentry

around the country summoning them to

come to their rightful Queen's defense

they answered Mary's call in their

thousands the men who mustered their

troops here at her castle of Framlingham

in Suffolk were loyal to the old

religion or more simply to the lineage

of Henry the eighth and their confidence

in the Justice of their mission was

palpable the same wasn't true of Mary's

opponents Northumberland wasn't popular

and he had misjudged his reach just

because he had proclaimed Jane Queen

didn't mean the country would accept it

at Framlingham Mary's forces now counted

10,000 and rising

northumberland marched his men out of

London to meet them but on the 18th of

July Mary heard that he had stopped

short at Cambridge in shock at the

overwhelming strength of her position

and in his absence the other Lords of

the council collapsed into panic and

recrimination claiming moth umberland

had prevented them from declaring their

loyalty to Mary on Wednesday the 19th of

July Mary Tudor was proclaimed Queen of

England

Jane's Proclamation had been greeted

with uneasy silence now London streets

erupting in a wild explosion of joy and

relief in the tower the girl who'd been

queen for just nine days relinquished a

crown that she'd always believed was

Mary's by right Jane had reigned

fleetingly and powerlessly

but now Mary faced the reality of ruling

England

in just nine days Mary had routed her

enemies she ordered a traitor's death

for the Duke of Northumberland and Jane

Grey who had entered the Tower of London

to prepare for her coronation now

remained there as a prisoner but Mary

refused to order the execution of a girl

she saw as a wronged innocent Mary's own

right to the throne had been vindicated

with overwhelming popular recognition

but as a woman her right to exercise

power as she saw fit was another matter

Mary's cousin the Emperor Charles v have

no doubt of the constraints her sex

would impose on her rule just three days

into her reign he sent his ambassadors

some advice to pass on to the new queen

let her be in all things what she ought

to be a good English woman and avoid

giving the impression that she desires

to act on her own authority no King

could have tolerated the prospect that

he shouldn't act on his own authority

but Mary was being told she couldn't do

that and be a good English woman

for the time being however it seemed

that Mary would play the good English

woman to perfection three days before

her coronation Mary made a remarkable

appeal to the members of her council

synching to her knees before them she

spoke at length about her

responsibilities to God and her people

and then implored them to do their duty

as her counselors because she said she

had entrusted her affairs and person to

them the Imperial ambassador reported

that these great men of the realm were

moved to tears amazed as they all were

by this humble and lowly discourse so

unlike anything ever heard before in

England how much of this public

performance was heartfelt and how much

was strategy Mary was conservative by

temperament but she was also highly

intelligent and like all the Tudors had

a formidable will and whether or not she

genuinely believed that as a woman she

needed help in governing her kingdom it

was certainly the case that this display

of female frailty proved an effective

way of uniting a fractious and divided

council around her

and with the backing of her counsel Mary

was about to achieve something no woman

before her had ever managed Jane may

have been proclaimed England's Queen for

a fleeting moment but she was never

crowned on the 30th of September 1553

Mary became the first queen of England

to be crowned in her own right

at her coronation in Westminster Abbey

like all previous Kings she wore crimson

robes to receive the orb sceptre ring

Spurs and sword that represented the

powers of kingship

and she was anointed with holy oil like

a king before the crown of England was

placed on her head

[Music]

but the triumph of this ceremony was

soon overshadowed by the prospect of

another Mary's marriage she might be a

crown sovereign but she was still a

woman and the consensus was that she

needed a husband at the age of 17 Mary

had been declared a bastard

this toxic status had made her

unmarriageable but now twenty years

later she was the most eligible woman in

Europe and the question of Mary's

marriage would dominate the first year

of her reign it would bring into open

discussion whether a woman could be both

a ruler and a wife

her cousin the Emperor Charles v had

advised that she needed a husband so

that she could be supported in the labor

of governing and assisted in matters

that are not of ladies capacity Mary

remained calm in the face of such

patronizing advice because she agreed

that she needed a husband and quickly

but for a very different reason

Mary was 37 and she wanted a Catholic

heir everyone agreed then that the Queen

should marry without delay but it was

much harder to decide which husband in

particular she should take at the heart

of the problem was the unresolved

question of the balance of authority

between husband and wife when the wife

wore a crown if Queen Mary took a

husband would England acquire a king

many of Mary's subjects believed that

she should marry an Englishman fearing

that if she married a European prince or

King England would be subjected to

foreign rule

the leading candidate qualified by his

Catholic faith and his royal descent was

a nobleman named Edward Courtney Earl of

Devon

just a month after her coronation in

November 1553 a parliamentary delegation

visited the Queen to tell her why

Courtney should be her husband

they lectured Mary at length about all

the disadvantages dangers and

difficulties that could be imagined or

dreamt of in the case of her choosing a

foreign husband Mary might kneel before

her counsel when she chose but if they

thought she would simply do what she was

told they were very much mistaken

Parliament was not accustomed to use

such language to the kings of England

she blazed back

nor was it suitable or respectful that

they should do so and what angered her

more than anything was the suggestion

that she should marry one of her own

subjects the difficulty was that a good

Christian wife as Mary said should

wholly love and obey her husband but she

was a queen so how could she obey a

husband who was also her subject her

authority as a female sovereign could

only be safeguarded Mary believed if she

married a man whose status was the equal

of her own and that by definition meant

that he couldn't be an Englishman and

marrying a foreigner would also allow

her to separate her private

responsibilities as a wife from her

public duties as England's Queen she

would wholly love and obey her husband

she said but if he wished to encroach in

the government of the kingdom she would

be unable to permit it

and Mary already had a suitable

candidate in mind her first thought had

been of her widowed cousin and her

greatest supporter in Europe the Emperor

Charles v but he was 53 immobilized by

gout katar and hemorrhoids and he had no

appetite for another marriage in his

place he proposed his son

Philip who was already ruling Spain on

his behalf while Mary's councillors were

arguing for an English husband she had

already committed herself to this

Spanish match

Mary's decision to marry Phillip has

been seen as the defining mistake of her

reign and with hindsight it's certainly

clear that it had profound and

destructive drawbacks but there are good

grounds for thinking that he was the

best of the very limited choices

available to her as a female monarch in

search of a husband who wouldn't

compromise her power in her kingdom

by making an alliance with Spain one of

the most powerful countries in Europe

Mary was following in her own father's

footsteps Henry the Eighth had married

Mary's mother Catherine of Aragon as a

matter of political strategy Mary

applied the same hard-headed

calculations to her own match but the

reaction of the country to Mary's

Spanish choice was very different

[Music]

as soon as the news began to spread that

the ruler of Spain was coming to England

to marry the Queen a plot was hatched to

save England's autonomy by removing Mary

from the throne

under the leadership of a Kentish

gentleman named Sir Thomas Wyatt 3,000

men marched on London in February 1554

intending to make a new and safely

English queen out of Jane Grey or Mary's

sister Elizabeth

but once again Mary showed that a female

sovereign could lead her people in time

of crisis not by fighting but by talking

she rode to the heart of the City of

London to rally her subjects it was at

London's Guildhall that Mary declared

her dedication to her realm by playing

on her double identity as a sovereign

and a woman she showed the people her

coronation ring signifying her marriage

to her kingdom which she told them never

left her finger and she wasn't only the

wife but the mother of the nation

she said if a prince and governor may as

naturally and earnestly love her

subjects as the mother does love the

child then assure yourselves that I

being your lady and mistress do as

earnestly and tenderly love and favor

you

when the rebels finally arrived in

London during the night of the 6th of

February the Queen stayed at Westminster

believing her capital would hold firm

and she was right

by morning the rebellion had collapsed

it was a triumph for Mary but a disaster

for Jane Grey Jane's very existence

would always be a focus for Protestant

opposition and Mary reluctantly agreed

to her execution less than a week later

Jane was led to the scaffold within the

precincts of the tower with

extraordinary composure she admitted her

fault in accepting the crown she had

never wanted before her head was severed

from her body

the events of February 1554 were a

dramatic demonstration of Mary's

strengths and her vulnerabilities as

Queen she'd seen off the rebels with a

bravura display of her queenly authority

but the failure of the revolt didn't

dispel fears that her idealized marriage

to her kingdom might be compromised by

her actual marriage to Philip of Spain

[Music]

fears or not

Mary was determined that the wedding

should go ahead on the 25th of July 1554

she and Philip were married with pomp

and ceremony here at Winchester

Cathedral

they appeared an odd couple Philip was

27 elegantly dressed lantern-jawed and

utterly inscrutable his bride was 11

years older short and thin her face

lined with anxiety an ambassador

ungallant Lee reported Mary was

delighted with her marriage but England

now faced a double challenge a woman

intent on ruling with a foreign King as

her husband by her side what would this

mean for her kingdom

[Music]

this Great Seal of 1554 brilliantly

illustrates the complicated sexual

politics of this royal relationship the

couple are on horseback Mary riding

ahead holding a scepter and looking back

at Phillip on her left the traditional

position of a royal consort so Mary is

the dominant partner here but Phillip

has a sword unsheaths in his hand

the vital function of King as warrior is

one that she can't fulfill so her

husband is there to do it for her but

even this apparently neat division of

labour was fraught with difficulties if

Phillip were to lead his armies in

England's defence would England be

subjected to the military power of Spain

these difficulties and contradictions

were so powerful that the treaty

hammered out to set the terms of their

marriage went to great lengths to

prevent Philip from intervening in the

government of England at all England

would take no part in his Wars Mary

would not leave the country and Philip

would have no claim to the throne after

her death in effect Philip would have

the title of King in England but none of

the authority

Mary had got what she wanted by marrying

a foreigner she kept all her power in

England intact and just four months

later there was another reason for her

to be jubilant on the 28th of November

1554 the news was made public that Mary

was pregnant by Easter 1555 England

waited expectantly for the arrival of an

heir the Queen retreated here to Hampton

Court Palace for her confinement with an

exquisitely carved cradle standing ready

by her bed

on the 30th of April news reached London

that Mary had given birth to a boy the

city erupted in celebration but it

proved to be rumor running wilder than

the bonfires in the streets and was

quickly denied May came and went and by

July when the Queen reemerged in public

with no further comment it was clear

that she was not afterall pregnant

for Mary it was a personal tragedy

she'd been elated at the prospect of

giving birth to an heir and though it

wasn't easy for doctors then to confirm

a pregnancy beyond question her growing

belly had left her confident that she

was about to become a mother but her

symptoms turned out to be those of a

phantom pregnancy not a real one the

consequences were not only grief and

humiliation but a new political

vulnerability Mary knew that she needed

an heir to put an end to the unsettling

question of the succession but now her

hopes of conceiving one were diminished

by the fact that her husband couldn't

stay indefinitely by her side Philip had

waited for the delivery that never was

but in August 1555 he left England to

deal with his own royal duties on the

continent

[Music]

eighteen months later he returned to

England for a short visit and in January

the following year Mary announced the

good news that she was 7 months pregnant

she had waited so long she said because

this time she wanted to be certain of

her condition but it was the same story

again once again there was no baby and

by May the subject was no longer

mentioned despite all Mary's hopes at 42

she now faced the certainty that her

marriage had not brought her the heir

she needed for all monarchs the need to

produce an heir and carry on the royal

bloodline was of the utmost importance

but for Mary there was the added weight

of her Catholic faith her sister

Elizabeth was next in line to the throne

but Elizabeth was a Protestant now all

Mary could do was to try in her own

lifetime to make sure that Catholicism

was firmly re-established in England

[Music]

after Edwards Protestant regime many had

welcomed Mary's commitment to the

traditional forms of religious practice

altars were restored and images

retrieved from their hiding-places but

Mary's religious reform went deeper she

wanted to stamp out all traces of

Protestant belief as well as practice in

November 1554 she had reinstated the old

heresy laws and over the next four years

almost 280 English Protestants died in

Catholic flames and it was that ferocity

on the part of England's first sovereign

queen that gave rise to the most

explicit condemnation yet formulated of

the whole concept of female rule from

his exile in Geneva John Knox a Scotsman

who had served as chaplain at Edwards

Protestant Court watched in horror as

Mary undid Edwards Protestant

Reformation Knox responded in 1558 by

publishing this book but gloriously

titled first blast of the trumpet

against the monstrous regiment meaning

regimen or rule of women and it's clear

from the first page that Knox was not

about to mince his words to promote a

woman to bear rules superiority Dominion

or Empire above any realm nation or city

is repugnant to nature consumed ally to

God a thing most contrarious to his

revealed will and approved ordinance and

finally it is the subversion of good

order of all equity and justice

according to Knox women's rule with

monstrous that is unnatural and

abominable because women were

subordinate to men by the laws of God

and nature for Knox Mary's spiritual

fornication and horde

made her the uttermost of gods plagues

this is a piece of thundering Li

misogynist polemic but behind Knox's

ranting lay a much deeper and wider

cultural unease about the very idea of

women holding political power and there

was an intractable catch-22 at work here

women was soft and weak hence unfit to

rule but a woman who showed herself to

be strong was not the equivalent of a

man but a monster a crime against nature

this double bind stood at the heart of

Knox's portrayal of Mary he declared

that she was unworthy by reason of her

bloody tyranny of the name of woman

history would echo Knox's verdict by

dubbing this Catholic Queen Bloody Mary

Mary's desire to be both a female King

and a wife proved just how difficult

this combination could be England had

been drawn into Philips war against the

French and Calais England's last

territory in France had been lost

Mary was distraught it was later said

she'd declared that when she died the

words Philip and Calais would be found

inscribed on her heart in the summer of

1558 a lethal flu epidemic took hold of

England the fever laid thousands low and

many did not rise again from their beds

that autumn Queen Mary was among them in

the first week of November knowing that

she wasn't expected to survive

Mary sent to acknowledge Elizabeth as

her heir asking only hopelessly that her

sister should maintain the old religion

as the Queen has restored it she held on

for 10 more days slipping in and out of

consciousness but on the 17th of

November 1558 Mary died

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

this time there was no question who

would succeed and no protest that she

was a woman on the 14th of January 1559

25 year old Elizabeth was carried in a

litter draped with cloth of gold in a

triumphant progress through the streets

of London the next day she was crowned

queen of England in Westminster Abbey

when she was presented to her people the

new queen was greeted with roars of

approval fanfares of trumpets and

ringing of bells one eyewitness reported

that it was as if the world were coming

to an end

[Music]

the fresh young queen reveled in this

tumultuous welcome and the contrast with

her weary predecessor was stark

[Music]

but behind the pageants and the

processions Elizabeth shared more with

her sister than first meets the eye both

faced the same challenge to be as Mary's

funeral oration declared a queen and by

the same title a king also when

Elizabeth came to the throne the two

most urgent questions she faced with the

very same ones that had confronted Mary

her marriage and her country's religion

her advisors in England and observers

abroad assumed that the two questions

were one and the same because what would

determine England's religion they

thought wasn't Elizabeth herself but the

identity of her future husband

the Spanish ambassador said as much to

Philip of Spain just four days after

Mary's death the more I think over this

business he said the more certain I am

that everything depends upon the husband

this woman may take if he be a suitable

one religious matters will go on well

but if not all will be spoiled once

again it was assumed that the Queen

would have to marry and that the men

around her would play a decisive role in

choosing her husband first among the

Catholic candidates was Mary's widower

Philip of Spain himself if she decides

to marry out of the country his

ambassador wrote confidently she will at

once fix her eyes on your majesty

meanwhile Elizabeth's Protestant

counselors including her right-hand man

William Cecil who governs the Queen the

Spanish ambassador reported had other

ideas

the crown prince of sweden who sent

lavish gifts of gold and horses to press

his suit or a small handful of hopefuls

among the English nobility

[Music]

but within weeks the men around

Elizabeth began to find themselves

frustrated and confused the queen is a

woman who is very fond of argument

Philips ambassador wrote everybody

thinks that she will not marry a

foreigner and they cannot make out whom

she favors so that nearly every day some

new cry is raised about a husband surely

they thought the matter would be settled

at her first Parliament and so on the

6th of February 1559 in the Palace of

Westminster a parliamentary delegation

headed by the Speaker of the House of

Commons presented Elizabeth with a

petition that she should marry and give

the Kingdom and air which was said the

speaker the single the only the all

comprehending prayer of all Englishmen

Elizabeth's reply to her Parliament was

a masterpiece of oratory that

demonstrated her determination to be

both Queen and ruler if she did ever

marry she would only choose a husband

who would be as careful of her realm as

she was herself if she didn't then God

she was sure would provide an heir to

secure England's future and in the end

she said this shall be for me sufficient

that a marble stone she'll declare that

a queen having reigned such a time lived

and died a virgin this was an

extraordinary declaration

no King would ever have suggested that

he should remain unmarried and give up

his chance to father an heir but none of

her subjects believed she meant what

she'd said

and unlike Mary Elizabeth at 25 had the

luxury of time to put off her decision

about who and when to marry her

speechmaking didn't stop the suitors and

their diplomatic overtures continued to

be met with flirtatious prevarication

her first suitor Philip of Spain was the

first to lose patience when he married a

French princess in April 15 59 Elizabeth

said sharply that he couldn't have been

as much in love with her as he claimed

since he hadn't been prepared to wait

four months for her but declarations of

love had only ever been a political game

what had changed Philips mind was the

realization that Elizabeth would never

be a good Catholic wife she had made it

plain that she not any husband she might

take would decide the vexed question of

England's religion

Elizabeth didn't share the dogmatic

faith of either of her siblings and she

had seen all too clearly how the sight

of Protestant flesh burning in Catholic

flames had discredited Mary's government

instead the main business of her first

Parliament after the question of her

marriage had been raised and dispatched

was to establish a new religious

settlement in England after weeks of

bitter argument between Catholics and

hardline Protestants Elizabeth adjourned

the session and when on the 3rd of April

1559 Elizabeth three assembled her

Parliament she had come to a decision

that gave in to neither side

[Music]

Elizabeth formulated a very English

brand of reformed religion as Supreme

Governor of the Church of England not

supreme head which was too controversial

a title for a woman she tried to unite

as many of her people as possible around

her own sovereignty she had no desire

she said to make Windows into men's

souls for this queen outward obedience

to a compromised Church was enough no

one believed for a moment that this was

the last word on England's religion but

Elizabeth subjects were to find that

this apparently open-ended approach to

decision-making was typical of their new

queen they were discovering that their

queen could be baffling as well as

brilliant with a silver-tongued capacity

to say everything and nothing at the

same time but despite her capriciousness

as the years went on they learned that

it wasn't for nothing that Elizabeth's

motto was semper a arden always the same

the Queen may have dealt with the

question of England's religion with a

compromise but with the issue of

marriage there was no such middle ground

as weeks turned into months and months

into years the proposals came and went

and her chance of childbearing big

to fade there's no way of telling

whether Elizabeth ever really

entertained the idea of marriage she

dallied with suitors most famously her

favorite Robert Dudley who extended the

castle here at Kenilworth specially for

her visit but in the end with

characteristic insight she saw the

potential of her status as a virgin

queen and by putting off the decision to

marry until a perpetual tomorrow she

made herself the source of all security

for her kingdom

and in 1588 Elizabeth's determination

that she alone would protect her realm

would be put to its greatest test that

summer a vast Spanish fleet sent by

Elizabeth's one-time suitor Philip of

Spain

lay off the coast of England threatening

to invade Philip had tried and failed to

keep England Catholic first by proposing

to marry Elizabeth then by supporting

any opposition to her rule now he

intended to make England Catholic once

and for all this time by conquest and

[Music]

confronted by Philips forces with no

husband to hold a sword for her 54 year

old Elizabeth faced the challenge alone

could a female sovereign defend her

kingdom against the might of the Spanish

Armada an army was mustered at Tilbury

in Essex to resist the Spanish if they

dared to sail up the Thames on the

morning of the 9th of August 1588

Elizabeth rode out on a white horse with

a silver breastplate over her white

dress to rally her troops her courage

and her extraordinary charisma had never

been more apparent I know I have the

body of a weak and feeble woman she said

but I have the heart and stomach of a

king and of a king of England

two women might be weak but Elizabeth

wanted her subjects to know that she was

exceptional chosen by God to be king and

queen in one

[Music]

and heaven clearly approved the Armada

was shipwrecked by storms in the

Atlantic as Elizabeth declared

god-breathed and they were scattered

even without a husband the Virgin Queen

had seen off England's enemies this

dramatic triumph won by a nation led by

a woman served to feed the growing cult

of Gloriana pictures such as this one in

the National Portrait Gallery which was

commissioned in 1592 by one of her

courtiers as an elaborate complement to

the Queen show Elizabeth as a unique

being armed with an array of images

myths allegories and symbols here she

stands in all her glory impassive

imperious her elaborate dress hung with

the pearls of virginity now a frame for

an icon this Queen represents the

kingdom beneath her daintily slippered

feet as completely as she dominates it

she is king queen virgin wife mother and

goddess with a man's heart in a woman's

breast not simply a woman but a woman

chosen by God to rise above the

limitations of her sex but Elizabeth's

power entailed a sacrifice it had to be

exercised alone she could only be wife

and mother to her kingdom if she were

wife and mother to no one else

the Virgin Queen could dominate her

country's present but only by giving up

any stake in its future it was a high

price to pay in February 1603 when

Elizabeth was 69 her health began to

fail at her Palace of Richmond Restless

with fever she couldn't eat or sleep but

still she did everything she could to

stave off the moment when her kingdom

would go on without her

refusing to make a will or to name an

heir or even to move from the floor

cushions on which she lay

a courtier told her she must go to bed

little man little man she said the word

must is not to be used to Prince's but

the flattering rhetoric and the ageless

portraits couldn't save her

even Gloriana wasn't immortal on the

24th of March 1603 Elizabeth died and

with her died the Tudor dynasty the

family line that her own father had gone

to such lengths to continue the

consequences were immediately clear as

Elizabeth breathed her last horsemen

raced north to Edinburgh to tell James

the sixth the Stuart King of Scotland

that he was now also King of England the

first of a new dynasty of English kings

[Music]

Elizabeth had ruled England for

forty-five years she had shown not just

that female rule was possible but that

it could be glorious but still she

couldn't do what every King saw as his

birthright to pass on the crown to an

heir of his own bloodline

it's a telling reminder that for a queen

there was no neutral in the exercise of

power power was male and a woman who

sought to rule faced compromises and

criticism of a kind that would never

have applied to a man

[Music]

all the women who sought to rule

medieval and Tudor England from Matilda

to Elizabeth the first found from bitter

experience that power wasn't shaped for

female hands when they did pursue power

as a man might they were accused of

being unfeminine and unnatural of being

she wolves

[Music]

now it seems straightforward even

natural that Great Britain has a queen

elizabeth ii has been able to wear her

crown without facing the difficult

choices that confronted her namesake

four centuries ago but there's a reason

for this unlike her medieval and Tudor

predecessors our queen reigns

rather than rules when she comes here to

the House of Lords to open a parliament

she speaks her government's words not

her own my government's legislative

program will be based upon the

principles of freedom fairness and

responsibility a woman with real power

is still the exception to the rule if we

examine our instincts and our

institutions power still looks sounds

and feels overwhelmingly male so in the

end is the culture of power in the

modern world less different from the

medieval past than we'd care to admit

[Music]

a brand-new series explores the allure

of our new beau here on BBC HD at half

past 10 that tomorrow in sex and

Sensibility next tonight though off on

vacation with the hairy biker's

year-old Edward became king of England

he knew it with his destiny to continue

the glorious line of Tudor Kings

but a few months after his 15th birthday

Edward fell seriously ill

throughout the winter he was confined

within the palace walls and by the

spring of 15:53 it was clear he was

dying but the identity of his heir was

far from clear and that left England

facing an alarmingly uncertain future as

well as his two half-sisters Mary and

Elizabeth Edward had seven cousins but

all of them were women

for the first time since the Norman

Conquest there were no male heirs to the

throne

whatever happened England's next monarch

would be a woman and the question now

was which woman would it be Mary and

Elizabeth both knew that under the terms

of their father's will if Edward died

the crown should pass first to Mary then

to her younger sister but they also knew

there was a complicating factor Edwards

faith he was an ardent Protestant and

Mary an equally committed Catholic

Mary's fear was that faith would usurp

bloodline Mary had watched her father

Henry the eighth break from the Church

of Rome and make himself head of the

Church of England but it was under

Edward that England underwent a fully

fledged Protestant Reformation Edward

was a precocious ly intelligent child

he'd been educated by Protestant tutors

and despite his young age he was

determined to make his people follow his

faith all that Mary held dear the Latin

Mass sung in churches full of images and

incense was swept away to be replaced by

an English prayer book and simpler forms

of worship

for Edward it was unthinkable that his

own death should send his people back

into the darkness of Catholicism housed

in the inner temple library in London is

a document which shows just how far

Edward was prepared to go to stop this

happening of mounting tension

Northumberland sent warships to patrol

the Thames and did everything he could

to ensure his coup would go according to

plan

meanwhile Mary and Elizabeth were kept

ignorant of their brothers weakening

condition as one by one the King's

lawyers and councillors were called into

his bedchamber to put their seals to the

device for Lady Jane's succession

[Music]

on the 6th of July Edward died at

Greenwich as a summer storm raged across

the capital but the would-be Queens of

England didn't yet know that their

moment had come the Duke of

Northumberland wanted to ensure that the

King's death was kept secret until the

levers of power had been secured three

days after Edward's death Jane Grey was

summoned to meet Northumberland and

other members of the Privy Council she

watched in bewilderment as they knelt

before her offering their allegiance to

the new queen of England her first

reaction was a storm of grief for her

dead cousin her second was horror the

crown is not my right and pleases me not

she said the Lady Mary is the rightful

heir

[Music]

Jane Grey was strong-willed and

ferociously intelligent but she was only

15 and struggling with shock and grief

in the end she couldn't hold out against

her powerful and manipulative

father-in-law

Northumberland on the 10th of July

heralds at last appeared on the streets

of London to tell Edwards subjects that

their king was dead and to proclaim the

accession of Queen Jane the heralds

Proclamation was a lengthy document

largely because of the need to explain

to Jane's subjects exactly who their new

queen was if the idea that she might

inherit the throne had come as a shock

to Jane herself it was a bolt from the

blue for the people of England and

beyond the Emperor Charles v had to ask

his envoy's to send a family tree to

explain Jane's claim to the crown and on

London streets the news was met in

puzzled and fearful silence

[Music]

but Jane soon realized even more was

expected of her as she was taken to the

Royal Apartments in the Tower of London

playing illness to a grotesque and

lonely figure struggling for breath in a

gilded bed but this wasn't just a moment

of unbearable pathos it was also a

moment of extraordinary political crisis

because when Edward died there was no

one left to claim the title of King of

England for the first time in English

history all the contenders for his crown

were female

[Music]

hindsight makes it difficult to

appreciate just how great a crisis this

was for the men who stood around Edwards

deathbed the prospect of being ruled by

a woman was deeply troubling what they

thought they knew was that women were

not equipped to rule weaker than men

less rational more sinful unable to

fight unable to make law

over the previous 400 years the handful

of women who had tried to take power had

found themselves condemned as unnatural

even monstrous

[Music]

whether through inheritance or by force

the crown of England had always been

worn by a man

and Edwards father Henry the Eighth had

gone to extreme lengths to ensure that

he would have a son to succeed him

this painting offers a revealing insight

into Henry the eighth's view of his

dynasty in the center is Henry himself

flanked by his third wife Jane Seymour

and their son Edward on the left is

Henry's older daughter Mary by his first

wife Catherine of Aragon on the right is

his younger daughter Elizabeth by his

second wife Anne Burrell in the painting

is a fabricated representation rather

than a portrait from life in fact Jane

Seymour had died just a fortnight after

Edward's birth but here she sits as the

beloved mother of Henry's male heir

Henry's daughters by contrast are left

on the sidelines he even went as far as

to declare that they were bastards after

he'd disposed of their mothers daughters

for Henry would not do he was a king and

only a king could succeed him

[Music]

all of henry's hopes for England's

future rested on his sons shoulders and

when Henry died in 1547 nine

[Music]

19:53 a coronation fit for a king but

it's a young queen who's about to be

crowned and the crowd roars its approval

[Music]

the fact that she's a woman attracts no

comment and she will go on to reign over

us for six decades but England's Queens

haven't always been greeted with such

adoration the first woman who sought to

be crowned queen in her own right here

in Westminster eight hundred years

earlier received a very different

response

she wasn't met by cheering crowds

instead she was chased away from the

capital by an angry mob

that's because throughout our history

women and power have made an uneasy

combination never more so than in the

Middle Ages when monarchy was forged in

the cut and thrust of battle it was

taken for granted that men would rule so

what if the King died and there were no

men to take the reins of power

in 1553 the only heirs to the Tudor

throne were female the next three

monarchs of England would be women but

they would each discover that power did

not rest easily in the hands of a queen

when they pursued power like kings these

royal women were criticized and

condemned most graphically of all they'd

been vilified as she-wolves these are

the stories of the she-wolves of England

and to explore them is to realize just

how far we've come and how little has

changed

[Music]

this impressive building is the old

Royal Naval College 500 years ago

another even grander building stood on

the same spot it was one of the greatest

residences of the Tudor Kings on the 6th

of July 1553 in the Magnificent palace

that once stood here a Greenwich a 15

year old boy lay dying he was Edward the

6th the only son of Henry the 8th Edward

was the male heir for whom Henry had

been so desperate that he divorced one

wife and killed another and Edward had

been a golden boy until he was reduced

by a horrify this extraordinary document

is what Edward called

my device for the succession you can see

that it's drafted and redrafted in his

own hand and what this is about

above all is excluding his sister Mary

from inheriting his crown Mary

anticipated that her father's will would

prevail but Edward found a loophole

Henry had declared in law that his

daughters were illegitimate and that

gave Edward his chance English monarchs

he decided had to be legitimate and they

also had to be Protestant which ruled

out his Catholic cousin Mary Queen of

Scots that left his only remaining

cousins the descendants of Henry the

eighth's younger sister there was

Francis gray and her three daughters

Jane Catherine and Mary Jane Grey in

particular shared Edwards fierce

devotion to the Protestant faith but

Edward planned that all future English

monarchs would be Kings he intended to

cut women out of the succession

altogether so in his first draft

he left his crown not to the grey girls

but to the sons they might one day have

their heirs male but there was no time

for the gray girls to have a son

by the summer of 15:53 Edward and his

ministers knew he was dying

on his sickbed Edward took up his pen

once again at the eleventh hour and

faced with no other choice

he accepted that he would have to name a

female heir his device said that the

crown should pass to the Lady Jane's

heirs male but now the King altered it

to read the Lady Jane and her heirs male

with the addition of two small words

Jane Grey became the chosen heir to

Edwards throne

Mary was the rightful heir but she had

no inkling of these maneuvers and

neither did Jane Grey she was merely a

pawn in a much larger political game

during Edwards reign England had been

ruled by a noble Council as they waited

for Edward to reach adulthood

these men ran the country in the name of

the young king at their head was the

Duke of Northumberland for him

fifteen-year-old Jane Grey was the

perfect choice as Edwards heir not only

was she a Protestant like Northumberland

himself but she had just been married to

his son

June 15 53 was a month