Why Was Elizabeth I Such An Effective Queen?

Tom Holland (0:07)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's bonus episode. And this week, Dominic, we launched our Tudor Cold War series. Next week on the bonus, we will be talking about Mary Queen of Scots time in England.

And then I am doing a really extraordinary story. It's basically the Shropshire Da Vinci Code. And it features a Bishop of London who may or may not be buried under a Shropshire lawn. It's an incredible story.

Dominic Sandbrook (0:34)

Hold on, is he the descendant of Jesus?

Tom Holland (0:36)

I'm not going to reveal. I will say there is an authentic link to Shakespeare as well.

Dominic Sandbrook (0:40)

I mean, to call it the Shropshire Da Vinci Code, you're setting the bar quite high. So I'm looking forward to that enormously.

Tom Holland (0:45)

Absolutely, knowingly.

Dominic Sandbrook (0:46)

Okay, wow.

Tom Holland (0:47)

So, and then after that, we have, on the main show, we're going to have four episodes on the troubles in Northern Ireland. So basically, there's a lot of kind of Protestant Catholic shenanigans.

Dominic Sandbrook (0:58)

Yeah, wow, there is.

Now, a little bit of advertising. I know we don't do advertising in The Rest Is History Club, but I think we're allowed to advertise ourselves, surely. So we're doing a live show at the Southbank in London on the 5th of September. And tragically, that sold out. But because we care nothing for our own time, and we care a lot about the public, we're doing a second show by popular demand, and we're doing that on the 4th of September, which is a Friday. And it's at the Southbank Centre in London.

And we are telling the story of, we're billing it as the ultimate Victorian adventure, or indeed, the maddest expedition in history. And this is all about how Queen Victoria wouldn't answer the letters of the Abyssinian Emperor. So he took loads of Europeans hostage, and the British sent an armed expedition all the way to his mountain fastness of Magdala to rescue the hostages. And it was a tremendous adventure, worthy of Flashman. In fact, it's the subject of the novel Flashman on the March. We're doing this live. We're doing it at the Southbank Centre. You can get your tickets at therestishistory.com. The advert ends here. So now you can send in your complaints about the advertising while Tom and I talk about the Tudors.

Tom Holland (2:08)

Yeah, I wouldn't bother listening to the rest of the episode. Just sending you loads of complaints.

Dominic Sandbrook (2:11)

Okay, fine. But that's what we like.

So the Tudors. I'm going to ask you Midas' question. Midas' question. I've been itching to ask this for weeks. Midas says, what was it that allowed Elizabeth I to rule for so long without being toppled, assassinated or usurped? Good question.

Tom Holland (2:30)

Clearly the protection of God. Don't you think?

Dominic Sandbrook (2:33)

She's very good at politics.

Tom Holland (2:35)

She's very good at politics, but she's lucky as well.

I mean, it's one of the themes, I think, of the series that we've done is that she could have died at any minute. So she almost dies of smallpox at Hampton Court where we did our live show. But there are these endless plots to assassinate her. This is a period when assassination is becoming much easier. So the Earl of Moray, who is Mary Queen of Scots' half-brother, he is assassinated. I think he's the first ever acting head of state to be shot with a firearm. William of Silent, of course, who we did an episode about in our national anthems, he gets assassinated too.

And there are plots by people to shoot her in that way. It's partly luck. It's also because she has a formidably efficient espionage service.

Dominic Sandbrook (3:25)

Well, I was gonna say a couple of things. So I was gonna say, first of all, her three, no, her four predecessors are not toppled, assassinated or usurped. Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary. They all die peacefully in their beds.

So the threat is perhaps not quite as great as one might imagine, I would say.

It would be abnormal for a monarch to be assassinated. Not toppled, maybe, given the Wars of the Roses. But one of the things about the Tudor dynasty is they're really good at holding onto power. They're really smart. And I was gonna say the other thing, which goes back to your points about the spy network, Elizabeth I is really good at appointing talented people to run her government. Walsingham, Cecil and so on. I mean, that's a great gift for any political leader, is surrounding yourself by really talented people.