Elizabeth I vs The Catholics: The Queen’s Spymaster (Part 1)

**Dominic Sandbrook** (0:10)
A short memorial of the state of the realm. The perils are many, great and imminent. Great in respect to both the persons and the matters. Persons, the Queen's Majesty, who plays the part of the patient. The Pope, the King of France and Spain, as the authors and workers on her. The Queen of Scots, as the surgeon's knife, whereby the matters shall be attempted against the Queen's Majesty. The matters. For the recovery of the tyranny to the Pope, which of late years hath been discovered and so weakened. The eviction of the Crown of England from the Queen's Majesty, to set it upon the head of the Queen of Scots.
Changing the estate of England to popery. Which cannot be accomplished while the Queen's Majesty liveth, nor so assuredly and plausibly any way as by putting the Crown of England upon the Queen of Scots' head. Hi everybody. That was a rather downbeat, indeed positively gloomy briefing that was written in the early months of the year 1569 by Sir William Cecil, who was the Chief Minister to Queen Elizabeth I.
So Elizabeth I, perhaps the most celebrated of all England's monarchs, had at this point been on the throne of England for just over a decade. She is 35 years old. She is the second daughter of King Henry VIII. So England has broken from Rome. The Reformation has taken place.
However, even after a decade, Elizabeth remains embattled. She feels herself threatened by enemies within and enemies without. And that is the subject of this epic new series in which we will be delving into the realm of Elizabeth I and her various challenges, not least the Queen of Scots, Mary Queen of Scots. So Tom, take us through William Cecil's briefing paper because he sets out perfectly there the challenge that we're going to be discussing in this series.

**Tom Holland** (2:22)
Well, the metaphor in that briefing paper is a very brutal one. I mean, it's kind of conjuring up an image of Elizabeth as a patient who's been strapped down and the King of Spain, the King of France, the Pope are descending on her with their butcher's knives. And the worst blade that they have is the Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart. And so as you said, this is a very downbeat report and the briefing that he goes on to list all the challenges that he sees his mistress, Queen Elizabeth, is facing. So Elizabeth is on the throne of England as a Protestant Queen. But the two most powerful monarchies in Christendom, Spain and France, are both Catholic.
And so these two monarchies, in alliance with the papacy, which it goes without saying is also Catholic, are very keen to see England return to the Catholic fold. And Cecil sees it as his job to stop that happening. But he also feels this is a massive, massive task because the prospects of England returning to Catholicism, as he sees it, are actually very, very real. So the issue for Cecil and for all English Protestants is that the country's future as Protestant hangs really by a single thread. And this thread is Elizabeth's life. Because she rules famously as a virgin queen, which means she has no child, she has no heir. And that in turn means that if Elizabeth is toppled from her throne, by assassination perhaps, or maybe by armed invasion, then who is best placed to succeed her? And the answer to that is someone we have done an entire series about on The Rest Is History and that is Mary, Queen of Scots. So she is Elizabeth's cousin, terrible taste in husbands, hanging out with a squad in which everyone is called Mary.
Very kind of glamorous and romantic, but an incredible threat to Elizabeth because she is a Catholic. And so getting the Catholic Mary onto Elizabeth's throne, the kings of France and Spain couldn't be happier at the prospect. Because they regard Protestant England pretty much as the United States today regards Iran as a kind of a rogue state to be toppled.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (4:47)
So to pursue that parallel, when the United States attacked Iran, the thinking in Washington and in Israel was that that would weaken the regime because there are lots of people in Iran who chafed against the regime. And in fact, there had been riots earlier this year. There had been the student protests, there had been all the killings and whatnot. Now, in the 16th century, if you're in the court of France or Spain, presumably you think very similar things because you look at England and you say, well, Protestantism is only a recent transplant onto the body of England. And perhaps there are actually a lot of people who can't wait to be rid of this mad regime that they've got. Is that right?