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-How you doing? -No' bad. -Good day for it, eh? -Aye, lovely. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
-We can go aboard, yeah? -Aye, no problem. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
This is Loch Leven in Perthshire. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:25 | |
In 1567, it was at the centre of some of the most turbulent events Scotland had ever known. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:34 | |
On a little island in the middle of the loch, kept as a prisoner, was a young woman. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:40 | |
24-year-old Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:48 | |
On their way to the island was a small group of powerful nobles | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
intent on stripping the Queen of her crown. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:59 | |
When the nobles arrived here, they were brandishing documents they wanted Mary to sign | 0:01:03 | 0:01:08 | |
and they were prepared to use force and threats to her life to get their way. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:12 | |
They saw themselves as the saviours of Scotland and she was the obstacle in their path. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:17 | |
But Mary refused to cooperate, because she knew | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
that with one scratch of the pen, she would cease to be Queen. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:25 | |
Mary and the nobles held radically different visions of the nation's future. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:35 | |
And Scotland stood divided. | 0:01:35 | 0:01:37 | |
From that moment, on this loch, an incredible transformation | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
will take place - that will not only see Scotland united, | 0:01:41 | 0:01:45 | |
but a Scottish king ruling the entire British Isles. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:50 | |
The ambition of an unconquered nation and its royal family will be the driving force | 0:01:52 | 0:01:57 | |
that unites two ancient enemies and sets them on the road towards the Great Britain we know today. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:03 | |
A Scottish takeover of England? | 0:02:03 | 0:02:06 | |
Who would dare dream of such a thing? | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
In 1542, Scotland's fate came to rest on the shoulders | 0:02:48 | 0:02:53 | |
of a six-day-old girl, when its king, James 5th, died. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:59 | |
His daughter, Mary Stuart, was the last of the great Scottish royal line - | 0:02:59 | 0:03:05 | |
a child of glittering dynastic potential. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:08 | |
And almost immediately, the coveted prize of an English king. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:16 | |
Infant Mary was the solution to a very English problem. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:22 | |
Henry VIII had fallen out with other countries in Europe, over religion. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:29 | |
He'd broken with the Catholic Church and now England was vulnerable to invasion. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:35 | |
Henry's worst fear was that a hostile army would be allowed to land in Scotland. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:40 | |
And from there, launch itself into northern England. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:48 | |
England's king, Henry VIII, was an arch strategist, | 0:03:49 | 0:03:53 | |
and he came up with a remarkable course of action. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
He would kill off the threat from the north by marrying the Queen of Scots to his own son. | 0:03:56 | 0:04:02 | |
And by doing that, Scotland would become part of England. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:06 | |
A group of Scottish nobles were seduced by Henry's scheme... | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
..and even signed a marriage treaty on Mary's behalf. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:20 | |
But Mary's guardians backed out, | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
which brought Scotland and England once again to the brink of war. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
Young Mary was forced to run from one castle to another | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
as Henry sent soldiers to hunt her down and bring her to him. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:45 | |
When they couldn't find her, the English generals decided on a new tactic. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:55 | |
Diplomacy on one hand... | 0:05:01 | 0:05:04 | |
devastation on the other. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:06 | |
A huge English army invaded southern Scotland. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
The English tried to persuade the Scots that a royal marriage | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
to their oldest enemy was in everyone's interests. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:35 | |
But while the politicians threw away words like "fellowship" and "brotherhood" and "equals", | 0:05:35 | 0:05:40 | |
the English soldiers were murdering and raping and burning their way across southern Scotland. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:46 | |
Abbeys like Melrose, | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
then major commercial and cultural centres, were devastated | 0:05:53 | 0:05:59 | |
as southern Scotland was brought to its knees. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:03 | |
But the Scots still wouldn't give up their Queen. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:07 | |
Instead, they looked to Europe for military help | 0:06:13 | 0:06:18 | |
and called on France - their oldest and most trusted ally. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:23 | |
Now the French king, Henri, entered the fight. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:32 | |
He would send troops to help the Scots fight off the English. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
But on condition the infant Mary would be betrothed to HIS son, Francois. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:39 | |
So a new marriage treaty was drawn up for five-year-old Mary, | 0:06:45 | 0:06:49 | |
promising that she would now one day be Queen of France. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
The French King duly sent an army to fight off the English | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
and a boat to spirit his little Scottish Queen to safety. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:03 | |
And the English scheme to take over Scotland by marriage was dead. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:09 | |
The magnificent chateaux of the Loire Valley became Mary's refuge | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
as she entered the protection of the French royal family. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
And charmed the man who had gone to war for her hand. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:44 | |
"She is the most perfect child that I have ever seen," he wrote. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:51 | |
Mary was welcomed in here like a long-lost daughter. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:56 | |
In fact the king, Henri, treated her like one of his own children. | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
She lived in the royal nursery alongside the dauphin, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:03 | |
her future husband, and she received a fantastic Renaissance education - | 0:08:03 | 0:08:08 | |
literature, rhetoric, as well as music, dancing and sport. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
She was a precious jewel | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
and in this setting she shone brightest of all. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
Her future husband, Francois, was short and clumsy. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
But Mary was tall, elegant and charming. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
All through her childhood, at court appearances and in private, she impressed her French guardians. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:44 | |
And she was groomed for a glittering future, | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
not only in France and Scotland, but potentially beyond. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:53 | |
Mary's veins contained very royal blood - | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
blood that gave her a claim to an even bigger prize - | 0:08:59 | 0:09:03 | |
the Crown of England. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
She was only fourth in line, but Mary's French guardians knew | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
where that claim could take them, if fortune smiled their way. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:15 | |
And that one day, Mary Stuart might just be their key | 0:09:15 | 0:09:20 | |
to the back door of England. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:22 | |
Her claim to be a contender for the English throne had always been a long shot. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
But events back across the Channel took a couple of unexpected twists. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:35 | |
In quick succession, an English king and an English queen, | 0:09:35 | 0:09:38 | |
both from the House of Tudor, died without leaving heirs. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
Suddenly, in 1558, Mary, in French eyes at least, | 0:09:41 | 0:09:45 | |
became the perfect heir for the English throne. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
There was just one problem... | 0:09:53 | 0:09:55 | |
..Elizabeth Tudor. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
Henry VIII's illegitimate daughter also now claimed to be Queen of England. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:05 | |
She had been born just eight months after her parents' wedding. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:09 | |
And in the eyes of many, she was not only illegitimate as a daughter, | 0:10:09 | 0:10:14 | |
but would be illegitimate as a queen. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
So, Mary's French family stoked her ambition, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
as she became the vehicle for theirs. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
They encouraged her to dream - that now the Crown of England really could be hers, too. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:40 | |
If she got it, one single, united empire would stretch from Scotland in the north | 0:10:43 | 0:10:50 | |
to France in the south. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:51 | |
This would be a Catholic empire, | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
vast and powerful, that would dominate the west of Europe. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
Wasn't that what God had in mind for Mary? | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
But her rival Elizabeth was English, Protestant and a Tudor. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:22 | |
So she got the Crown... | 0:11:24 | 0:11:25 | |
..and Mary's dream of a vast Catholic empire slipped away. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:32 | |
And soon, even the certainty of her own French crown was under threat. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:44 | |
The Protestant reformation was coming. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
This religious revolution was spreading across Europe, | 0:11:51 | 0:11:55 | |
promising to sweep away Catholic monarchs like Francois and Mary. | 0:11:55 | 0:12:00 | |
Just a few months into their reign, a group of rebels | 0:12:03 | 0:12:07 | |
stormed the chateau at Amboise and tried to capture the King. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:11 | |
So who were the rebels? | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
They were Protestants, but they were lords. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
We know their name now. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:22 | |
And they wanted to plot | 0:12:22 | 0:12:26 | |
against the royal family and the king, Francois II, | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
who was young and weak. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
The revolt failed, and a very public and very bloody example was made of the rebels. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:39 | |
How much of this would Mary Queen of Scots have seen with her own eyes? | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
We know she saw the bodies at the balconies of the chateau, because she was in the chateau. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:53 | |
It was the first time she was confronted with such a thing. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
-Such violence! -Yes. First time she saw this. -The bodies were hung from here to show the people? | 0:12:57 | 0:13:02 | |
-Yes, to make an example. -This is what you get. -Yes. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
Just a few months later, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:18 | |
Mary's time as Queen of France came to an abrupt end. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:22 | |
Her young husband, Francois, died of an ear infection, | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
leaving Mary a widow | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
and a powerless dowager Queen. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:35 | |
The glittering future that Mary had been brought up to believe in disappeared before her eyes. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:43 | |
France, the Catholic Empire, life at the centre of the Valois court - | 0:13:43 | 0:13:50 | |
it was all suddenly over. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
So Mary looked to home. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:01 | |
But home had changed. | 0:14:02 | 0:14:04 | |
The reformation that was pitting Protestant against Catholic from France to Holland and beyond, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:11 | |
had spread to Scotland - with dramatic results - | 0:14:11 | 0:14:15 | |
and very little bloodshed...so far. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
Swiftly and comprehensively, the Scottish Church had gone over to the new creed. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:25 | |
Life in Scotland was suddenly very different indeed. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:30 | |
Edinburgh's tiny Magdalen Chapel was where the leaders of that reformation met | 0:14:30 | 0:14:36 | |
to plan their brave new world. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:38 | |
And they now wanted to change more than just the Church. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
What was undertaken in this room was the sweeping, all-encompassing reform of Scottish society. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:51 | |
They started with religion, but they wanted to reach out and touch every part of peoples' lives. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:57 | |
And of course, it couldn't help but be a direct attack on the power of the monarch. | 0:14:57 | 0:15:02 | |
Mary's most loyal supporters - | 0:15:07 | 0:15:09 | |
Roman Catholics who had dominated the country in her absence - | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
were driven from power, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
as Protestant nobles took control of the country. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
The movement's spiritual leader was a preacher called John Knox. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:32 | |
He called for those who practised the Catholic Mass to be put to death. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
He even went as far as to claim that Catholic monarchs could be justly deposed. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:44 | |
Catholic monarchs...like Mary. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
When the Scottish nobles heard Mary was coming back, different factions sought her out. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:57 | |
One Catholic Earl wanted Mary to return as a Catholic figurehead in a war to drive out the Protestants. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:03 | |
Another offer came from her Protestant half brother. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:07 | |
He wanted Mary to come back and work with the new Protestant regime. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:12 | |
If she accepted his offer, he promised she could remain a Catholic, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:16 | |
as long as she kept her religion a secret and only practised her faith in private. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:21 | |
One August day in 1561, Mary Stuart sailed into Scottish waters. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:31 | |
She had chosen to work WITH the Protestant regime. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:37 | |
Her ships were almost a week ahead of schedule, | 0:16:37 | 0:16:41 | |
so there was no welcoming party. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:43 | |
But a few rounds of the ship's canon promptly assembled a small, curious crowd | 0:16:43 | 0:16:48 | |
as Scotland's Queen finally came home. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
During Mary's first private Mass on her first Sunday back, | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
a mob gathered outside Holyrood to protest. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
They jeered and shouted that they were going to kill the priest, but they couldn't get to Mary. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:43 | |
Eventually, they went away, but the secret of the Queen's private faith was out | 0:17:43 | 0:17:47 | |
and the truth hung in the air like a bad smell. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
John Knox wouldn't even tolerate Mary's private faith. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
"That one Mass," he said, "was more fearful | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
"than if 10,000 armed men were landed in any part of the realm, | 0:18:03 | 0:18:07 | |
"to suppress the whole Protestant religion." | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
From the pulpit of St Giles, he openly preached against her. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
Knox was brought before the Queen, | 0:18:20 | 0:18:22 | |
and straight to Mary's face, he questioned her right to rule Scotland. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
Why? First of all she was Catholic and Scotland wasn't. Not any more. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
Second, she was a woman. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
But Mary had lived long enough to have seen the realities of religious reformation. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
She was no innocent, so she faced him down. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
Scotland could remain Protestant. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:39 | |
In private, however, she would remain Catholic. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
No matter how violently Mary and Knox disagreed, there would be no bloodbaths here. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:51 | |
Mary had survived her first crisis | 0:18:53 | 0:18:56 | |
and now she had the business of ruling to attend to. | 0:18:56 | 0:19:00 | |
Mary began to tour the whole country, | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
winning over the powerful regional nobles | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
with her beauty and her cultivated charm. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:20 | |
Rekindling old loyalties that ran deeper than the new religious ties. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:25 | |
Sending a clear signal that she was back... | 0:19:25 | 0:19:30 | |
and in charge. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:31 | |
This is a moment from Scottish history that stays with you. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:37 | |
Mary was back, and she was making a success of it. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:39 | |
But she'd been Queen all of her life. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
She'd been surrounded by the magnificence of the French court, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:45 | |
and she'd had her ambitions to be Queen of England inflated and fanned. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:49 | |
After all that, could she really reconcile herself | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
to a life lived here, out on the edge of the world? | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
The bigger stage, England, was always on her mind. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
The trouble was, the English already had their leading lady. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:10 | |
But by 1564, Elizabeth had neither married nor produced an heir. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:16 | |
So Mary seized the initiative. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:19 | |
Mary began surveying the field for suitable contenders for marriage. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:34 | |
But Mary wasn't just looking for a husband, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
she was looking for a stud - to maintain or even improve the bloodline. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:42 | |
Someone who could finally help her fulfil her dynastic potential. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:47 | |
First, she investigated Catholic suitors. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:52 | |
Spaniards and French. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
The French one was her dead husband's adolescent brother. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
And the Spanish one promptly lost his mind. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
Elizabeth offered her own favourite. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:06 | |
But eventually Mary settled on something much closer to home - | 0:21:06 | 0:21:11 | |
an English cousin. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
Like her, he's a good dancer. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
A good huntsman. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:17 | |
Tall, good looking and young. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
His name was Henry, Lord Darnley. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
And he was the boy who would be King. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:32 | |
After a whirlwind romance, Mary and Darnley married. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
And Scotland was poised to have a cocky 19-year-old, | 0:21:41 | 0:21:46 | |
not just as its Queen's husband, but as its out-and-out King. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
All with Mary's blessing. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
But then something strange happened. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
A clue lies here, in the National Museum of Scotland. | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
So what have we here, Nick? | 0:22:01 | 0:22:03 | |
We have a coin which was struck to commemorate the marriage of | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Lord Darnley in July 1565. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:11 | |
-And that's the happy couple? -Face to face, staring into each other's eyes. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:15 | |
And the inscription has Henry's name before Mary's. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
So it's Henry and King before Mary and Queen. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
Yes. So I think it was | 0:22:22 | 0:22:23 | |
probably considered soon after this had gone into circulation, | 0:22:23 | 0:22:27 | |
that it was conveying an unfortunate message. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
They were withdrawn from circulation rapidly and replaced with a different type. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
-What replaced it? -It was replaced by a different coin. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
The same size, but with a different design on it. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
-Surely that's mysterious - that two coins should replace one another so quickly? -Well, | 0:22:40 | 0:22:45 | |
Mary of course was of higher status than Henry Darnley. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
And the coin would seem to convey that he was at least equal, if not in fact superior status. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:53 | |
So the new issue was brought out which had Mary's name first, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:58 | |
making sure that the correct hierarchy was maintained. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:01 | |
So he's been put in his place by the time the second coin comes out? | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
So quite clearly, these two coins | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
tell us what we need to know about that relationship. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:10 | |
Well, yes. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:12 | |
The fact this happened in Scotland so rapidly is an indication of something unusual going on, yes. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:17 | |
Darnley roamed about Edinburgh drunk and debauched, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:25 | |
mouthing off about not being King and making enemies in the process. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:31 | |
If Mary had once encouraged him to dream of being King, she now backtracked. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:36 | |
And well she could, because Darnley had done his job by then - | 0:23:36 | 0:23:42 | |
he'd made his wife pregnant. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:44 | |
Guns fired across Scotland to salute the future King | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
when Mary gave birth to a son, James, on June 19th, 1566. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:04 | |
A few months later, a lavish party was thrown | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
in the great hall of Stirling Castle to celebrate James's baptism. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:17 | |
And it was a major political event. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
Mary had ordered a huge round table be set up here - | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
to remind the guests of King Arthur, the mythical King of Britain. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
And James was hailed as Little Arthur, the future King of a reunited Britain. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:36 | |
The visiting English ambassador was suitably offended | 0:24:38 | 0:24:43 | |
at the Scottish royal family's claim to be the future rulers of the whole British Isles. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:48 | |
It was a very provocative gesture. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:52 | |
But it was realistic. Time was running out for Elizabeth. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
She was already in her mid 30s, and it was becoming less and less likely | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
that she would ever produce her own heir. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
And if she didn't, or couldn't, where would that leave England? | 0:25:02 | 0:25:07 | |
Answer - in Scotland's hands. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:10 | |
Whether Elizabeth liked it or not, baby James would be the next in line. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:24 | |
So the English Queen now seemed poised to do something remarkable - | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
bury the hatchet with Mary and name her son James as the successor to the English throne. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:34 | |
Until, that is, Mary's poor choice in men came back to haunt her. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:43 | |
The house where Darnley, Mary's husband, was staying | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
was blown up with gunpowder packed into its basement. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
But it wasn't the blast that killed him. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
His body was found some distance away from the scene of the explosion. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:00 | |
In all likelihood, he was strangled as he tried to flee for his life. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:06 | |
The Scottish nobles had finally run out of patience with Darnley. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:13 | |
But some said the blood on their hands was ordained by the Queen herself. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:20 | |
And Mary's behaviour seemed to prove those suspicions. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
She didn't rush into mourning clothes. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:29 | |
Nor did she give her husband a state funeral. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
Instead, Darnley's body was dumped at night somewhere in Holyrood Abbey. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:37 | |
You get a sense of Darnley's tragedy here. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
The story goes that he's buried alongside these other dead, but they have gravestones and he doesn't. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:49 | |
No-one knows for sure where he was buried and no-one really cares. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
Yet he was practically a King of Scotland. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
His sordid death changed everything for Mary. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
Elizabeth put a stop to any more talk of her succession. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:07 | |
Until, that is, Mary could be cleared of any involvement in Darnley's murder. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
But that wasn't about to happen. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
Instead, she married the man most people suspected of carrying out the murder. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:26 | |
His name was James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
There were of course rumours that he kidnapped her, that he raped her, | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
that she married him to keep her honour. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
But none of that could alter the fact that from the outside, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:42 | |
from the point of view of the ministers, the nobles and the mob, it looked bad. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:47 | |
Those factions who had always opposed her, chief among them | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
the hard-line Protestants, now rose up against Mary and her power-hungry new husband. | 0:27:56 | 0:28:01 | |
And Scotland teetered on the point of civil war. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
Mary and Bothwell met their opponents outside Edinburgh, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
ready to calm their kingdom with violence. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
But on the battlefield, Mary begged her opponents to avoid bloodshed... | 0:28:17 | 0:28:22 | |
and to allow Bothwell to escape. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:24 | |
In return, she offered herself into captivity. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:30 | |
Mary was taken to Lochleven Castle. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
When the nobles came to force her to sign her abdication documents, | 0:28:45 | 0:28:48 | |
at first, Mary resisted. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 | |
But there was only so long she could put up with the threats to her life. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
So she signed. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:00 | |
And gave up her power. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:04 | |
Gave up...her country. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:06 | |
A few months later, Mary escaped and tried to get it back. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:16 | |
But it was too late. | 0:29:18 | 0:29:20 | |
The army that she raised was defeated at Glasgow | 0:29:20 | 0:29:22 | |
and Mary fled to England, where she threw herself on Elizabeth's mercy. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:27 | |
But Elizabeth put her back in prison. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
# The Lord shall out of Zion send | 0:29:35 | 0:29:40 | |
# The rod of Thy great power | 0:29:40 | 0:29:44 | |
# In midst of all thine enemies... # | 0:29:44 | 0:29:50 | |
The future of Scotland once again rested on the shoulders of a Stuart infant. | 0:29:50 | 0:29:55 | |
This is the 110th psalm. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
And it is believed to have been sung | 0:30:01 | 0:30:03 | |
at the coronation of Mary's son, James, | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
here in the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:09 | |
# ..From morn's womb | 0:30:09 | 0:30:11 | |
# Thy youth like dew shall be... # | 0:30:11 | 0:30:15 | |
It was the worst attended Scottish coronation of all time. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:22 | |
After the psalms came the sermon, | 0:30:22 | 0:30:24 | |
and it was given by the firebrand preacher John Knox himself. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:27 | |
# And, for this cause, in triumph | 0:30:27 | 0:30:32 | |
# He shall lift his head on high. # | 0:30:32 | 0:30:41 | |
It wasn't unusual for an infant to become a king, especially not a Stuart king. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:47 | |
But there was something momentous about the day | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
and it marked a turning point in the history of the nation. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:53 | |
For the first time, a King of Scotland had been crowned in a Protestant ceremony. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:58 | |
That ceremony sent a clear signal - when it came to religion, | 0:31:03 | 0:31:08 | |
Scotland was now firmly on the same Protestant side as England. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:12 | |
As James grew up, his religious education became the most important project in the land. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:22 | |
Scotland's leading scholar, George Buchanan, | 0:31:23 | 0:31:26 | |
was brought in to ensure that James was set against his mother's religion for good. | 0:31:26 | 0:31:31 | |
He had once been a confidant of Mary's, but then he had turned against her. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:37 | |
And now he had power over her son. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
James and Buchanan spent a lot of their time here at Stirling Castle. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:47 | |
And through this little door is supposedly the schoolroom where they had all their lessons | 0:31:47 | 0:31:52 | |
in Latin, history and rhetoric and, of course, lots and lots of Bible lessons. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:56 | |
You can't help but feel for little James. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:17 | |
He was here without a mother or a father. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
He was kept away from the people. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:22 | |
He was almost a captive himself. | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
And he wasn't here to do what he wanted - he was here to do what he was told. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:30 | |
To make matters worse, the man responsible for his education | 0:32:34 | 0:32:38 | |
was not above inflicting physical punishment. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:41 | |
After one beating inflicted by Buchanan, James's guardian, | 0:32:41 | 0:32:44 | |
the Countess of Mar, accused him of going too far. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
Buchanan retorted, "I have whipped his arse, you may kiss it if you want to." | 0:32:48 | 0:32:53 | |
And just what was his tutor trying to beat into him? | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
Something his mother had never fully grasped - | 0:33:02 | 0:33:06 | |
the limits of royal authority. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:08 | |
In the new Protestant Scotland, the role of the monarch was under review. | 0:33:30 | 0:33:34 | |
The will of the people was what mattered now. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:38 | |
And Buchanan wanted to ensure that James got the message. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
He even wrote a book to help James be the right sort of king. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
Listen to this - it's from George Buchanan's personal note to James VI | 0:33:50 | 0:33:54 | |
at the start of his book about kingship. | 0:33:54 | 0:33:57 | |
"I have sent you this book to steer you through the reefs of flattery. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
"It may not only admonish you, but also keep you to the path which you have once embarked upon. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:06 | |
"And if you should stray from it, rebuke you and drag you back again." | 0:34:06 | 0:34:10 | |
It's all couched in very affectionate language, but there's no mistaking Buchanan's intent. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:15 | |
It says to me that he wants to control the young prince. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:19 | |
In fact, he wants to create a puppet king. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:22 | |
Buchanan went on to say that if the King caused the people | 0:34:30 | 0:34:33 | |
to despise or distrust him by reigning like a tyrant, | 0:34:33 | 0:34:37 | |
the people were perfectly justified in getting rid of him. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
It was meant as a warning, not necessarily as a prediction. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:52 | |
But just a few years later, James came to understand | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
exactly what his teacher had been trying to tell him. | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
A group of Protestant nobles lured 16-year-old James to this castle and took him prisoner. | 0:35:03 | 0:35:09 | |
James's crime? | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
He had been keeping dangerous company. | 0:35:16 | 0:35:19 | |
The company of an older, charismatic French cousin. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:24 | |
Esme Stuart was the only family James had ever known | 0:35:27 | 0:35:31 | |
and James had grown bold with him around. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:34 | |
Once-trusted advisors had found themselves sidelined - | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
some had even been executed - | 0:35:38 | 0:35:40 | |
and his cousin had been promoted in their place. | 0:35:40 | 0:35:44 | |
Esme Stuart was two things the Protestant nobles feared most. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
He was French and he had Catholic sympathies. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:52 | |
Even more worrying, he had an influence, even a power, over young James. | 0:35:52 | 0:35:58 | |
Protestant nobles felt their power slipping. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
And in England, Elizabeth grew worried at developments north of her border. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:10 | |
So, with her support, Esme Stuart was forced back to France. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:18 | |
And James came to share his captive mother's fate. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:24 | |
James stews in captivity, as days turn into weeks, | 0:36:28 | 0:36:32 | |
turn into months, and into a year. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:35 | |
He's just a young boy. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:36 | |
He knows his mother has been imprisoned in England for years, so maybe this is his lot. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:41 | |
Or perhaps his captors have another, more grisly fate in mind for him. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:46 | |
But his jailers didn't seem to know what to do with him. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:52 | |
For the best part of a year they moved him around the country. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:56 | |
Until, finally... | 0:36:56 | 0:36:58 | |
James escaped. | 0:36:58 | 0:37:00 | |
He sought out his loyal supporters and raised an army | 0:37:07 | 0:37:10 | |
to take on his captors and get his kingdom back. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:14 | |
A few skirmishes later, James marched into Edinburgh | 0:37:28 | 0:37:32 | |
and took full control of Scotland. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
And it wasn't long before James showed just what kind of King he intended to be. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:44 | |
The book of his old tutor, George Buchanan, | 0:37:44 | 0:37:46 | |
that contained all those ideas of the King's rightful place - | 0:37:46 | 0:37:50 | |
the book designed to rebuke James and drag him back to the correct path - | 0:37:50 | 0:37:55 | |
was banned. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:57 | |
James would be guided, not by the will of the people, | 0:37:57 | 0:38:01 | |
but by God alone. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
James would be an absolute monarch. | 0:38:04 | 0:38:06 | |
But what of England? And the Queen who had wanted James jailed? | 0:38:18 | 0:38:22 | |
Elizabeth was facing war in Europe | 0:38:30 | 0:38:32 | |
and now she sought an alliance with the Scottish King. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:36 | |
But James had a price in mind. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:38 | |
Nothing less than a guarantee that he would be her heir. | 0:38:38 | 0:38:43 | |
Childless Elizabeth guaranteed nothing. | 0:38:43 | 0:38:47 | |
But she did offer a bond of friendship | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
and Little Arthur was almost where he wanted to be. | 0:38:50 | 0:38:54 | |
But this so-called friendship was about to face its toughest test. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:00 | |
In her 19th year in Elizabeth's English prison, Mary had grown reckless. | 0:39:11 | 0:39:17 | |
Almost everything she'd hoped for had been lost - | 0:39:18 | 0:39:22 | |
the Catholic Empire, power in France, power in Scotland, | 0:39:22 | 0:39:27 | |
even her liberty. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:28 | |
So when she received an offer to join up to a murderous plot, | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
she said yes. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:33 | |
The plot was an elaborate one. Mary was to be liberated, Elizabeth was to be executed | 0:39:37 | 0:39:42 | |
and a Catholic army would land here on the south coast of England. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:45 | |
They would sweep up through the country to London and secure Mary's position. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:50 | |
It was nothing less than a plan for a Holy War. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:53 | |
Mary wrote a letter agreeing to Elizabeth's murder. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:04 | |
The letter was intercepted. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:06 | |
Mary was tried for treason and sentenced to death. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
James now faced the toughest decision of his life. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:26 | |
Just how far should he go in pleading for the life of the mother he hadn't seen since he was a baby? | 0:40:26 | 0:40:31 | |
If was seen to be weak, if he did nothing, | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
then the Scottish people themselves might rise in defence of Mary. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:37 | |
But if he shouted too loudly, and severed his ties with England | 0:40:37 | 0:40:41 | |
and with Elizabeth, what would that mean for his place, his unspoken place, in the line of succession? | 0:40:41 | 0:40:47 | |
He sent ambassadors to London with clear, written instructions. | 0:40:55 | 0:41:00 | |
The one, "to deal very earnestly both with the Queen | 0:41:00 | 0:41:03 | |
"and her counsellors for our sovereign mother's life." | 0:41:03 | 0:41:07 | |
The other, "that our title to that Crown be not pre-judged." | 0:41:07 | 0:41:12 | |
In other words, do nothing to jeopardise my claim to the English throne. | 0:41:12 | 0:41:18 | |
James's next letter begged Elizabeth merely to exile Mary. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:25 | |
But by then, it was clear that James was not going to make war to save his mother's life. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:31 | |
# The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the Crown | 0:41:34 | 0:41:38 | |
# The lion beat the unicorn all around the town | 0:41:38 | 0:41:41 | |
# Some gave them white bread and some gave them brown | 0:41:41 | 0:41:45 | |
# Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town. # | 0:41:45 | 0:41:49 | |
The English Royal Coat of Arms bears a lion. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
And the Scottish Coat of Arms bears a unicorn - | 0:41:52 | 0:41:55 | |
the mythical wild animal that cannot be tamed... | 0:41:55 | 0:41:58 | |
..except by a virgin. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:01 | |
Now, the Virgin Queen had tamed her troublesome unicorn. | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
Mary went to the block dressed as a Catholic martyr | 0:42:17 | 0:42:21 | |
and still claiming to be the rightful Queen of England. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
Nothing became her in life like her death. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
James expected Elizabeth to reward him for his loyalty, | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
but he was in for a shock, | 0:42:46 | 0:42:47 | |
as again, she refused to officially name him | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
as her chosen successor for the English Crown. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:53 | |
So James set about proving himself as a king... | 0:42:53 | 0:42:57 | |
in Scotland. | 0:42:57 | 0:42:59 | |
First, the Stuart line had to be strengthened. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:13 | |
James chose a wife, Princess Anne of Protestant Denmark, | 0:43:13 | 0:43:18 | |
who quickly gave birth to an heir, Henry. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:22 | |
And then she produced a spare, Charles. | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
Sometimes by force, but more often than not by guile, | 0:43:28 | 0:43:31 | |
James started to stabilise his turbulent kingdom. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:35 | |
Words were his main weapons and books were his ammunition | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
in the constant struggle to stay in control. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
He even sought out copies of books from across the known world. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:51 | |
-What have we got here, Ian? -Something rather intriguing - | 0:43:57 | 0:43:59 | |
a translation into Scots | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
of Machiavelli's famous treatise on statecraft, The Prince, | 0:44:02 | 0:44:07 | |
done by William Fowler for his sovereign, James VI. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:11 | |
And here is the first page. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:13 | |
"The Prince of Nicholas Machiavelli, secretary and citizen of Florence, | 0:44:13 | 0:44:17 | |
"translated furth of the Italian tongue." | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
Rather nice usage of "furth" - "out of" the Italian tongue. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:25 | |
What is The Prince all about? What's the essence of Machiavelli's work? | 0:44:25 | 0:44:28 | |
Power. The getting, keeping, the exercise of power... | 0:44:28 | 0:44:34 | |
and the use of it for the Prince's ends and for the good of his state. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:39 | |
Machiavelli's book The Prince has become the most famous book on power in the world. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:50 | |
It advises kings to act like a fox, as well as a lion, in keeping hold of it. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:55 | |
Which James did, amazingly well. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:59 | |
And gradually, he established himself as a king | 0:44:59 | 0:45:03 | |
who ruled with his head and not with his heart. | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
A son who was the opposite of his mother, | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
though every bit as ambitious. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:12 | |
Elizabeth's stubborn refusal to name James as her chosen successor became irrelevant. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:24 | |
The writing was on the wall for Tudor England. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
And James was the only real contender for the Crown. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:33 | |
Like his mother, the perfect solution to a very English problem. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:37 | |
James had already proven himself to be an adept ruler in Scotland. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:42 | |
He'd succeeded where Mary had failed. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:46 | |
He was also the right sex and the right religion to rule in England. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
And what's more, he had done something the Tudors had never been very good at - | 0:45:50 | 0:45:55 | |
he'd produced viable heirs. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:56 | |
Now, all he had to do was live longer than Elizabeth. | 0:45:56 | 0:46:01 | |
But Elizabeth lived on and on and on. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:14 | |
In fact, Elizabeth I lived longer than any English monarch had ever lived before. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:23 | |
Little Arthur was forced to bide his time and contemplate his master plan | 0:46:25 | 0:46:31 | |
for when he finally took over in England. | 0:46:31 | 0:46:34 | |
James was 36 when he received the news | 0:46:48 | 0:46:51 | |
he'd spent half a lifetime waiting for. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:54 | |
Elizabeth was dead. | 0:46:56 | 0:46:57 | |
The Tudors were finished. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:00 | |
And England needed a king. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:04 | |
James received the news just three days after the death of Elizabeth. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:09 | |
The king-makers wanted him to go down south. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:12 | |
He was to go immediately and directly to the seat of power. | 0:47:12 | 0:47:16 | |
But James had other ideas. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:18 | |
For one thing, he was going to take his time. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:20 | |
For another, he wasn't going to travel light. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:23 | |
He was going to take his whole entourage - all the pomp and circumstance he could manage. | 0:47:23 | 0:47:27 | |
This was to be a triumphal tour of the promised land. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:30 | |
Now, a moment that Scottish kings could only have dreamed of had arrived. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:44 | |
A Scottish takeover of England was happening... | 0:47:44 | 0:47:47 | |
..and the moment belonged to a king who had proven himself as a clever and effective ruler. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:54 | |
One of the most accomplished kings Scotland had ever produced. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:58 | |
He entered London just a few days after an outbreak of plague. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:10 | |
Shortly after, he took a barge along the Thames to the Tower, | 0:48:22 | 0:48:26 | |
where he finally saw the English Crown Jewels | 0:48:26 | 0:48:29 | |
that now belonged to HIM. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:31 | |
Put yourself in James's position. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:38 | |
This was the seat of power | 0:48:38 | 0:48:40 | |
of his most ancient foe - the enemies of his blood. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
The people who had burned, raped and murdered his forebears, | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
who had sought to dominate his nation for 300 years, | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
were offering everything they had - throne and crown included - to him. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:55 | |
Imagine what that must have felt like. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:58 | |
After the grand entrance, the great words of welcome, | 0:49:17 | 0:49:21 | |
James unveiled his master plan. | 0:49:21 | 0:49:24 | |
And it went way beyond just being the King of two separate kingdoms. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:28 | |
Now, according to James, was the chosen moment for a new country to be born. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:34 | |
James had a crystal-clear vision of the future and his place in it. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:44 | |
This was to be a Great Britain - | 0:49:44 | 0:49:46 | |
united under a common religion, common laws and common citizenship. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:51 | |
He would be at the top - King and Emperor of it all. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
And most crucially, it was to be a union of two equal nations. | 0:49:54 | 0:50:00 | |
But that was precisely where the problem lay. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:04 | |
"What's so equal about Scotland and England?" said the English nobility. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:18 | |
England, they thought, was clearly the superior nation - | 0:50:18 | 0:50:23 | |
richer, more developed, stronger. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
What benefit would there be in joining with backward and impoverished Scots? | 0:50:30 | 0:50:35 | |
Yet...a Scot was now their King... | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
and he was determined to take his idea of Great Britain to Parliament. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:47 | |
It didn't exactly go down a storm. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:52 | |
James was accustomed to getting his own way with Parliament in Scotland. | 0:50:55 | 0:50:59 | |
He expected unquestioning obedience. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
But the men here would not roll over - certainly not for an upstart Scot. | 0:51:02 | 0:51:07 | |
Inside Parliament, it quickly became clear that James wasn't about to get his own way. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:16 | |
And outside Parliament, relations between Scots and English | 0:51:20 | 0:51:24 | |
were on the point of breaking down. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:26 | |
James exacerbated the situation by his own actions. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:36 | |
He began to shower his inner Scottish circle with gifts - | 0:51:36 | 0:51:40 | |
money, pensions, land. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:42 | |
English estates were dealt out to Scottish nobles. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:46 | |
And suddenly, England seemed to be ruled by a clique of very powerful Scots, | 0:51:49 | 0:51:54 | |
blocking the way of English courtiers and nobles to riches and royal favour. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:59 | |
Scots in London began to acquire a reputation as being on the make and tightfisted | 0:52:00 | 0:52:05 | |
and closed ranks around their King. | 0:52:05 | 0:52:08 | |
Their prominence was to make them a target | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
in one of the most spectacular conspiracies in British history. | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
One group had come to especially hate James and his expatriate entourage... | 0:52:17 | 0:52:22 | |
..and decided to take matters into their own hands. | 0:52:24 | 0:52:28 | |
English Catholics felt the Scottish King had let them down with empty promises of tolerance. | 0:52:29 | 0:52:36 | |
And so they turned not only against James, but against all Scots in London. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
One of these conspirators was a mercenary called Guy Fawkes. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:48 | |
The gunpowder was heaped up under the Houses of Parliament. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:59 | |
But the institution itself was not the target. King James was - | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
Protestant, Scottish, King James. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
They later said they had enough gunpowder "to blast him all the way back to Scotland". | 0:53:05 | 0:53:09 | |
After the plot had been foiled, after Guy Fawkes had been tortured and made his confession, | 0:53:10 | 0:53:15 | |
it was revealed that the conspirators had detailed maps and plans | 0:53:15 | 0:53:19 | |
giving the locations of the houses of every prominent Scot in London. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:23 | |
What they had planned was nothing less than the ethnic cleansing of the whole city. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:28 | |
James's project for a peaceful, united Britain was in desperate trouble. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
In the absence of meaningful progress, James resorted to symbols, to gestures, | 0:54:08 | 0:54:14 | |
to flags. | 0:54:14 | 0:54:16 | |
Once James was settled in London, he asked one of his English advisors | 0:54:18 | 0:54:22 | |
to come up with some designs for a new flag for his United Kingdom. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:27 | |
And don't the results give a telling insight into the mindset of the English establishment of the time? | 0:54:27 | 0:54:33 | |
Scots were gripped by the new fear that the independence of their unconquered nation was under threat, | 0:54:37 | 0:54:44 | |
that a Scottish king would do with the pen what no English king had been able to do with the sword - | 0:54:44 | 0:54:50 | |
turn Scotland into a satellite of England. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:53 | |
Scotland would now be outranked by England | 0:54:53 | 0:54:57 | |
"and thereby loss her beauty for ever," said one commentator. | 0:54:57 | 0:55:02 | |
Scotland will turn into "a pendicle of England", said another. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:05 | |
The Union flag, with the English cross set on a Scottish background, | 0:55:11 | 0:55:16 | |
was what James chose to represent his united kingdoms. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:20 | |
But in James's lifetime, it was no more than a reminder of what might have been, | 0:55:20 | 0:55:25 | |
of an idea whose time hadn't yet come. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:29 | |
The people of the islands, both Scots and English alike, | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
weren't ready to be British. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:39 | |
And so Project Britain ground to a halt. | 0:55:39 | 0:55:43 | |
For centuries, English kings had used the prophecy of King Arthur's return | 0:55:49 | 0:55:55 | |
to try and justify their attempts to subdue Scotland. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:58 | |
But in one of the great ironies of British history, | 0:55:58 | 0:56:01 | |
it was Scotland's own Little Arthur, James, who fulfilled that prophecy. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:06 | |
What James had seen as a great victory for Scotland, other Scots felt as a loss. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:16 | |
For the first time, Scots now found themselves ruled from distant London | 0:56:18 | 0:56:23 | |
and a new reality dawned. | 0:56:23 | 0:56:25 | |
By 1603, the Scottish people had a powerful sense of their identity | 0:56:34 | 0:56:39 | |
as an ancient and free nation, | 0:56:39 | 0:56:42 | |
unconquered by successive waves of invaders, | 0:56:42 | 0:56:45 | |
who had fought time and again to secure their freedom and forged a place in Europe. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:50 | |
They had also created a unique and distinctive court. | 0:56:50 | 0:56:54 | |
But the events of 1603 weren't just a further step along that road. | 0:56:54 | 0:56:58 | |
They were the decisive turning point in Scotland's story. | 0:56:58 | 0:57:02 | |
The peace and co-operation that 1603 seemed to promise would be short lived. | 0:57:15 | 0:57:20 | |
In the century to come, | 0:57:20 | 0:57:21 | |
Scotland and England would experience a terrible escalation of violence | 0:57:21 | 0:57:26 | |
in a furious civil war to resolve just what Britain actually meant | 0:57:26 | 0:57:31 | |
and what sort of country the new Scotland would become. | 0:57:31 | 0:57:35 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:57:57 | 0:58:00 |