Elizabeth I vs The Catholics: A Treacherous Conspiracy (Part 4)

**Tom Holland** (0:04)
Hello, everyone, and before today's show, I have incredibly exciting news for you about a live show. On Friday, the 4th of September, Dominic and I will be at the Southbank to do something that we have not done before. So you will be the first people to hear it. We are telling the story of what is the ultimate Victorian adventure, the date is 1868, the location is Abyssinia, and the Emperor of Abyssinia has been writing letters to Queen Victoria who rather rudely has not replied to them.
So the Emperor of Abyssinia, annoyed about this, has kidnapped a number of British subjects. In response, Britain sends an expedition to rescue the captives, and it is no exaggeration to say, it is massive. On this expedition, 13,000 soldiers, 40,000 animals, including 44 elephants, and the British even put down a railway line to transport everything. It's an incredible story full of jaw-dropping events, ludicrous characters, lots of moustaches, lots of general Victorian shenanigans. And as I say, it is the first time that we have ever done it on The Rest Is History. I don't want to blow our trumpet, but I think it's going to be an absolute Rest Is History classic. So if you want to get a ticket for the ultimate Victorian adventure at the Southbank in London on Friday, the 4th of September, you know where to go. therestishistory.com.
This episode is brought to you by Claude by Anthropic.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (1:56)
Thomas, you know, recently I've had to work on several kinds of issues. One of them was having to write the notes for a series about the First World War in 1915 Would have been so easy to be overwhelmed by that, like an Italian soldier trudging up a limestone hill towards Austrian guns. But whereas the Italians often felt alone, I knew that I always had you and that was very special.

**Tom Holland** (2:15)
You did, Dominic.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:16)
And if I'd had to do it on my own, I'd have probably been daunted. And the good news is that when you need help, there's Claude.

**Tom Holland** (2:23)
Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. So whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/rest Is History. That's claude.ai/rest Is History.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (3:05)
The Dragon, that are seized and raise his crest, and brought back heaps of gold into his nest, unto his foes more terrible than thunder, glory of his age, after ages' wonder, excelling all those that excelled before. It's feared we shall have none such anymore. Effecting all, he sold and undertake valiant, just, wise, mild, honest, godly Drake.
This man, when I was little, I did meet, as he was walking up Tot Ness's long street. He asked me whose I was, I answered him. He asked me if his good friend was within. A fair red-orange in his hand he had. He gave it me, whereof I was right glad. Takes and kiss me, and praise, God bless my boy, which I record with comfort to this day.
So that was a poem published in 1628 by a man from Devon, as you can tell from the reading.

**Tom Holland** (4:11)
Yeah, you could.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (4:13)
But interestingly, the first-ever poet in Canada to write in English. So that's a lovely little gift there to our Rest Is History Club member, Mark Carney, who will surely enjoy that.

**Tom Holland** (4:27)
And to all our Canadian listeners as well.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (4:29)
And now you've had some Canadian history.
No more complaints for the rest of this year, please. So this bloke's name, the first-ever poet in Canada to write in English, he was Robert Heyman, and he served between 1618 and 1628 as the governor of a short-lived English colony in Newfoundland. And his father had been the MP in Totness, in Devon. And this was how, as a boy, the young Robert Heyman had come to meet Sir Francis Drake. And he had been given this orange by the great man, of course, the orange, an exotic fruit.

**Tom Holland** (5:06)
Red, he just calls it, doesn't he?

**Dominic Sandbrook** (5:07)
Yeah, the red-orange.

**Tom Holland** (5:09)
It's really interesting, yeah.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (5:10)
That is a reminder of Francis Drake's exotic travels and his circumnavigation of the globe. And obviously, this bloke, Heyman, this is the kind of thing you would remember all your life, because Drake, the preeminent, the paramount English hero of the age, perhaps of the entire century.