HistoryExtrahttps://www.historyextra.comHome of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast2026-02-09T15:30:05.000Zhourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00Who is the most overrated person in history? 9 experts reveal their choiceshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/who-is-the-most-overrated-person-in-history-9-experts-reveal-their-choices/2026-02-09T15:30:00.000ZHomer

Composite figment of imaginations

The writer credited with composing the Iliad and the Odyssey, and often regarded as one of the most important authors of all time, is to my mind the most overrated historical figure. That’s mostly because it’s likely that there was no one person called Homer.

Careful study of those works, as well as other surviving epic fragments, has shown that they weren’t written at a single time by one person. Instead, it is likely that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed over generations by poetry performers known as rhapsodes. Each of these improved on the work of their predecessors, curating these epics and honing them to a point of perfection. From that time, probably around 700 BC, these works started to be transmitted in a more stable format. By around 550–500 BC, they were written down for the first time.

By then, the belief was circulating that their genesis lay with one particular poet, Homer – not least because the idea of a single, genius author is simpler and more attractive than a slow process of evolution involving hundreds. A whole narrative was woven about the likely fictitious Homer: that he lived on Chios, that he was blind, even that he may have had some divine parentage.

In fact, the notional Homer became so popular that later rhapsodes, doing performances of these now ‘finished’, stable poems, liked to claim themselves as ‘sons of Homer’ to give themselves more gravitas and fame. Ancient historians even wrote biographies of Homer as a historical figure, and busts were created of him. Yet, as a single man, he probably never existed at all.

Michael Scott, professor in classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick

Charles Dickens

Verbose Victorian who distorted views of his era

At the risk of being tarred and feathered next time I show my face at a Victorian history conference, I’d have to say that Dickens is overrated.

It’s not that I dislike his work. Critics usually object to his long-winded prose, or baulk at the mawkish sentimentality of characters such as Little Nell, but I enjoy his writing. The callous way he treated his wife is harder to forgive – but his claim to greatness never rested on his qualities as a husband.

No, my objection to Dickens is one that he – always a relentless self-publicist – might actually enjoy. He is simply too famous. Dickens is often feted as the greatest English writer since Shakespeare. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol have been inflicted on generations of schoolchildren and adapted into endless period dramas (the best of which feature Muppets).

As a result, many people see the 19th century purely through a Dickensian lens: as a world of cruel workhouses, smoke-filled factories and desperate poverty. I’ve spent my career as a historian trying to reveal the lighter sides of Victorian life – to prove that things weren’t as miserable as some of Dickens’ more pointed critiques suggest.

Dickens was just one of many great writers who made their names in the Victorian era. I’m not suggesting that we consign him to the dustbin of history – but perhaps the time has come to stop him from hogging all of the limelight.

Bob Nicholson, writer, broadcaster and historian at Edge Hill University

Mary, Queen of Scots

Unwise architect of her own downfall

Some historical figures, such as Richard III and Anne Boleyn, attract a cult following. Mary is another. She’s typically presented as a tragic heroine: a woman of courage who battled against adversity throughout her life, only to have it savagely cut short by her cold-hearted cousin, Elizabeth I.

Yet the truth is far removed from this beguiling image. Yes, Mary was dogged by tragedy in her life, but much of it could have been avoided if she had shown greater wisdom and restraint. Instead, she made a series of catastrophic decisions that eventually lost her the crown – and her life.

After a pampered upbringing in France, Mary returned to her native Scotland in 1561, aged 18. She then married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, one of the most unsuitable consorts in history, before eloping with the chief suspect in his murder, James Hepburn, Lord Bothwell.

• Read more | Mary, Queen of Scots: your guide to her life and times

Having lost all credibility, and been forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son, James, Mary fled to England, naively expecting that Elizabeth would help her regain her throne. She spent almost 19 years a prisoner there, during which time she was involved in numerous plots against the English queen, finally leaving a paper trail exposing her parts in conspiracies.

Mary’s execution in 1587 propelled her to the status of Catholic martyr and tragic heroine. In truth, she was not the hapless victim of circumstance but the architect of her own downfall.

Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster

Petrarch

Painted a dim picture of the Middle Ages

The writing of early Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarch (1304–74) is certainly not overrated. He was responsible for an exquisite body of lyric poetry, an extraordinary scholar who rediscovered the letters of Cicero, and one of the greatest contributors to the Italian language. Reading or listening to his poetry truly feeds the soul.

As a medieval historian, though, I am bound to take issue with Petrarch’s comments on the nature of history – because these truly are overrated. His remarks have long misled and deceived, producing a vision of world history that has become embedded in the European and American historiographical imagination.

It was Petrarch who came up with the idea of the ‘Dark Ages’. He described the Middle Ages as a period of intellectual obscurity in which the glories of the great Roman empire had been forgotten, inhabited by benighted and stupid people. “This sleep of forgetfulness will not last forever,” he opined. “When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance.”

This condemnation of 800 years of history was taken up by 16th-century Protestants and then 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers. It’s still common today, with the Middle Ages often dismissed as poorly documented, boring and dogmatic. It’s just not true! These were centuries of extraordinary intellectual discovery, of philosophical thinking about the nature of the self and society, of artistic vibrancy and sophisticated political theory. The Middle Ages matter: we study them to challenge our assumptions and better understand our common humanity.

Hannah Skoda, associate professor of medieval history at the University of Oxford

Cicero

Rome’s most shameless self-promoter

The first-century BC Roman statesman and writer is often hailed as the voice of Republican virtue and a defender of democracy, justice and reason in a corrupt age. But this reputation owes more to his own words than to his actual achievements. In truth, Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of history’s most successful self-publicists.

Cicero was elected consul in 63 BC. It was a remarkable achievement for a novus homo (‘new man’ without aristocratic ancestry) – and he never stopped reminding people of it. That same year, he crushed a conspiracy to overthrow the Republic, and had several citizens executed without trial – an act he later declared showed moral courage. In reality, it was a serious abuse of power, and deeply divisive.

Despite his modest background, Cicero consistently sided with Rome’s conservative elite, opposing reforms that might have redistributed wealth or power to the poor. He praised virtue, yet defended the clearly guilty Milo on a murder charge. He was undeniably a gifted speaker and writer, but as a statesman he was relatively irrelevant. He had no army, no loyal faction and little influence over the major figures of his time, such as Caesar, Pompey and Octavian (later Augustus).

More than 800 of his letters and 58 speeches survive, far more than those left by any contemporary, giving his version of events an over-amplified voice. Through them he cast himself as the Republic’s moral guardian – but without them he’d be remembered as what he truly was: a gifted lawyer with more bluster than power.

Jess Venner, ancient historian, presenter and author

Winston Churchill

A flawed leader who could never live up to his idealised image

Churchill is one of Britain’s greatest heroes. He’s the subject of countless movies and television shows. His statue stands in Parliament Square. In a nationwide poll in 2002, he was voted the greatest figure in British history. Ever.

Though I have great respect for Churchill as a symbol of British courage and determination during the Second World War, the man himself cannot possibly live up to this image. In many ways, he was a terrible politician. Even by the standards of the time, his views were objectionable. He actively opposed equal rights for women, and he frequently made racist comments – particularly about Indians, calling them a “beastly people with a beastly religion”. During most of the 1930s he was shunned by the political establishment, including many in his own party. He was often drunk on the job.

There is no question that Britain needed a leader with Churchill’s energy to see it through the war. Yet his own Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke, claimed that Churchill often made it impossible for the armed forces to do their work. He came up with ridiculous plans, then acted “like a spoilt child” when military experts pointed out that they were impossible.

• Read more | Winston Churchill: is he still the greatest Briton in history?

Churchill was certainly a heroic figure. He was one of the very first to oppose Hitler, and his inspiring speeches galvanised the country in its hour of need. But can he live up to our idealised image of him? Of course not. How could anyone?

Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (Viking, 2017)

Erik Bloodaxe

Spectacular nickname, underwhelming legacy

I love a Viking-Age hero with a dramatic nickname as much as the next person, but let’s not kid ourselves: they were masters of their own propaganda. Look for the men behind the myths (and we are mostly talking men here) and the historical reality can be a little… underwhelming. Take Erik Bloodaxe, twice ruler of Northumbria in the mid-10th century. Most of what we think we know about his colourful life comes from the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, recorded long after his lifetime.

In these, he’s portrayed as a larger-than-life character: favourite son of King Harald Fairhair, slayer of his own brothers, locked in a bitter feud with Icelandic poet Egill Skallagrimsson. His wife, Gunnhild, is depicted as a shapeshifting, murderous sorceress said to have commissioned another source for Erik’s life – or, rather, afterlife – the poem Eiríksmál (‘The Lay of Erik’), in which the god Odin orders his warriors and Valkyries to prepare Valhalla for the arrival of this great hero.

But beyond the vivid details of his legend, what do we know about the historical figure? Coins and chronicles tell us that he was a key political player in 10th-century Northumbria. But his brief reigns (947–48 and 952–54) were turbulent, to say the least, challenged by Anglo-Saxon Wessex to the south and Viking Dublin to the west. In 954, he came to a sticky end, driven from York and ambushed in the wilds of Cumbria. His death brought an end to Viking rule in the north of England. So, not a brilliant legacy. But still a great nickname.

Eleanor Barraclough, historian, broadcaster and author of Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age (Profile, 2024)

Ronald Reagan

Seemingly a candidate for sainthood – but with questionable principles

Making heroes out of historical figures requires some selective forgetting. In the US, where the cult of Ronald Reagan has many adherents, forgetting is almost an art form. Popular writing treats Reagan as a principled example of free-market rectitude who ended the Cold War and heralded morning in America. Critics of the contemporary Republican Party often invoke Reagan to signal how far his heirs have gone astray. The GOP is “no longer the party of Reagan”, critics lament in publications such as The Washington Post, Time or USA Today. Rhetorically, harking back to Reagan makes a claim of legitimacy and ideological fidelity. To invoke Reagan is to touch the hem of the saints.

This gives Reagan too much credit for accomplishments that were not his, and overlooks wrongdoing that was. Did Reagan end the Cold War? Many would argue that dynamics within the USSR – Mikhail Gorbachev’s embrace of democratic socialism, for example – sparked the transformation of the Soviet Union more than any external force did. Was Reagan’s administration principled? Anyone recalling the manipulative illegality of the Iran–Contra Affair might marvel at the question.

• Read more | Did Ronald Reagan 'Make America Great Again'?

Did Reagan mean “morning in America” to apply to all Americans? As candidate, he gave a speech celebrating “states’ rights” in Neshoba County, Mississippi near where three voting rights activists had been murdered in 1964. For years, he publicly ignored the decade-defining public health crisis that was the HIV epidemic. He scaled back on social programmes while intensifying the war on drugs. He busted unions while preaching ‘trickle-down’ economics.

Without selective forgetting, the Reagan era feels less like the antithesis of our present and more like its progenitor.

Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of history at Duke University

Simon de Montfort

A history of violence

Some 760 years after his death, Simon de Montfort still enjoys a fairly sturdy reputation as a social reformer – the man who summoned what’s claimed to have been the first English parliament. A portrait of him is carved above the doors of the US House of Representatives, among a pantheon of democratic worthies. An English university was named after him as recently as 1992.

But this reputation rests almost entirely on modern myth. Kings of England had been summoning consultative assemblies for hundreds of years before Montfort did so in 1265, and were calling them parliaments as early as 1236. Montfort’s contribution was long reckoned to have been the introduction of representation by including knights and townsmen, but both these groups had already been attending parliaments for several decades.

Montfort was undoubtedly a skilled politician – clever, persuasive and quick-witted – but his preferred method of getting things done was usually violence. He had put himself into power in 1263 by leading attacks on the supporters of his brother-in-law, Henry III, and he reduced Henry to a puppet the following year by defeating him in battle.

Montfort was also a pioneering antisemite. As soon as he became Earl of Leicester in 1231, he expelled all of the Jews from that town – the first such expulsion in England – and in the 1260s he led violent massacres of other Jewish communities. A capable warrior and a charismatic leader, Montfort was expert at exploiting the grievances of others for his own ends. A founder of parliamentary democracy he was not.

Marc Morris, medieval historian, writer and broadcaster

This article was first published in the January 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine

]]>From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houseshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/from-tragic-tudor-queens-to-restless-roman-soldiers-britains-8-most-haunted-houses/2025-10-30T15:00:03.000Z1. Stirling Castle, Scotland

From elusive sea monsters to shrieking banshees, Scotland is home to a host of supernatural beings – including, of course, ghosts. One of their best-known spectral celebrities is the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, who is said to haunt a staggering 10 properties, making her, perhaps, the best-travelled ghost in the nation. Among her main haunts is Stirling Castle, her childhood home in central Scotland.

Perched atop a volcanic crag, surrounded by cliffs overlooking the River Forth, Stirling Castle was constructed in the early 12th century, originally as a military stronghold, acting as a strategic line of defence during the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1357). However, almost from the very beginning, Stirling was also a favourite royal residence. By the time a young Mary Stuart lived there in the 1540s, it was as much a palace as it was a fortress: her father, James V, had transformed it into one of the most opulent homes in Renaissance Britain.

Whatever happy childhood memories Mary may have had of Stirling would be tainted by the events of 21 April 1567. It was here on this day that the embattled queen would see her infant son (the future King James VI & I) for the last time. Soon after, she was forced to abdicate, flee the country, and eventually, in 1587, she was executed for treason under the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the melancholy monarch returns to the castle, perpetually searching for her long-lost child, even in the afterlife. She is said to be kept company by a dutiful servant – a young woman in green, who purportedly died in a fire while attempting to save her mistress.

They are also joined by Stirling’s notorious ‘Highland Ghost’ – a mysterious man adorned in full Highland regalia, who is often mistaken for a costumed tour guide.

2. Raynham Hall, Norfolk

At its height in the Georgian period, Raynham Hall was nationally renowned for its innovative architecture, priceless art collection and powerful owner. Though originally constructed in the early 1600s, the stately red-brick manor we see today was largely the work of eminent early 18th-century architect William Kent, acting under the direction of Charles, 2nd Viscount Townshend, a leader in the House of Lords.

Like the house he lived in, Townshend was an imposing figure, known for his fiery temper and blustering delivery in parliament. And rumour had it, his aggressiveness was not solely reserved for political opponents. His long-suffering wife, Dorothy, may have also been a target of his ire. The story goes that Lady Dorothy Townshend (née Walpole, sister of prime minister Robert) endured an unhappy marriage. Some say she was unfaithful, while others claim it was her extravagant spending that incurred her husband’s wrath. In any case, she purportedly died under mysterious circumstances and continues to roam Raynham’s halls to this day.

• Read more | Five shocking tales from Britain’s royal palaces

Over the years, there have been numerous reported sightings of Lady Townshend – or ‘The Brown Lady’ as she has come to be known, on account of the colour of her silk brocade dress – but perhaps none so dramatic as the encounter of photographers Hubert Provand and Indre Shira. In the autumn of 1936, while on assignment for Country Life magazine, Provand and Shira prepared to take a photo of Raynham’s main staircase. Just as they were setting up the shot, they suddenly caught sight of an ethereal, veiled form floating down the stairs. Acting fast, they snapped their photo and captured what is widely considered to be one of the most famous examples of ‘spirit photography’ in history.

3. 50 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, Greater London

With its elegant Georgian townhouses, luxury boutiques and Michelin star restaurants, the upscale district of Mayfair in central London may not seem like the natural setting for a ghost story. And yet, it is home to a property once christened the ‘Most Haunted House in London’.  The offending structure can be found on Berkeley Square, a residential block first laid out in the mid-1700s by architect William Kent (the man behind Raynham Hall). From the outside, there’s nothing much to distinguish the townhouse at No 50 from its neighbours – but don’t let its staid, neoclassical façade fool you.

The first reports of unusual activity at No 50 occurred in the mid-1800s. Nearby residents noticed strange sounds and smells, lights flickering in the windows at all hours of the night, and the noticeable signs of decay and abandon. Sceptics chalked this up to the eccentric habits of its owner, Thomas Myers, a recluse left heartbroken by the rejection of his fiancée. Nevertheless, rumours soon swirled that the house was haunted.

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Some believed the ghost was a young woman who had jumped from an upper-storey window. Others claimed it was Myers himself, who had locked himself in the attic and driven himself mad. Still others maintained it was a preexisting entity that had possessed both Myers and the suicidal woman. Whatever the case, most Londoners came to fear and avoid No 50 – all save for a brave and foolhardy few.

One such daredevil was Lord George Lyttleton, a Conservative statesman, who, in 1872, accepted a bet to stay a night alone at the house. Though incredulous of the stories, Lyttleton packed a pistol and was probably quite pleased he had done so, for when a dark, tendrilled apparition advanced towards him, he was able to defend himself. Firing a few rounds, he was certain he’d hit his mark. Yet, when the smoke settled, it revealed only spent shell casings and an empty attic.

4. Chillingham Castle, Northumberland

Touted as Britain’s ‘Most Haunted Castle,’ Chillingham has a long and violent history. Once one of nearly 100 fortifications that dotted the bleak borderlands of England and Scotland, this 13th-century fortress served a pivotal role in the centuries-long rift between the two warring kingdoms. It was here, in 1298, that King Edward I launched his attack on William Wallace during the First War of Scottish Independence.

Over the years, hundreds of England’s enemies were killed at Chillingham, many of them by torture in the castle’s dungeon and torture chamber – a cramped windowless pit located in a cellar beneath what is today a public tearoom. Strangely, however, these prisoners are not among the castle’s best-known ghostly residents. Instead, the most familiar phantom faces are those of women and children.

There is the mysterious ‘Radiant Boy’ – an unknown child in blue who materialises before guests in the castle’s ‘Pink Bedroom’. And the legendary ‘Grey Lady’ – believed to be the ghost of Lady Mary Berkeley, whose husband, Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville, reportedly jilted her for her younger sister, leaving her alone and heartbroken in the castle. Modern visitors report the sounds of sobbing, the rustling of a heavy gown dragging along the castle’s corridors, and the faint aroma of rosewater.

5. Blickling Hall, Norfolk

Blickling Hall might be considered the English counterpart to Scotland’s Stirling Castle – though, on the face of it, they would seem to have little in common. Where Stirling is a medieval citadel looming over the gateway to the Scottish Highlands, Blickling is a Jacobean manor nestled in the heart of the Norfolk Broads. Just 20 miles east of Raynham Hall, one would think it would have more in common with its ‘haunted’ East Anglian neighbour. But as the presumed birthplace of Anne Boleyn, Blickling has a far stronger symbolic link to the childhood home of Scotland’s own tragic queen.

• Read more | Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before?

The existing structure, built for Sir Henry Hobart in 1616, was erected atop the ruins of a Tudor manor house once belonging to Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire – whose youngest daughter had the unfortunate honour of becoming Henry VIII’s second wife. On 19 May 1536, after just three years of marriage, Anne Boleyn was beheaded for adultery and treason.

Like her Scottish counterpart, Anne is thought to haunt a number of historic properties, including Hever Castle (another childhood home), Windsor Castle (a brief residence), the Tower of London (the site of her death), and, of course, Blickling. Here, she is said to appear every year on the anniversary of her death, in a carriage driven by headless horses.

6. Heol Fanog, Brecon Beacons, Wales

A relatively recent entry into the annals of haunted historic Britain, Heol Fanog farmhouse in South Wales has gained contemporary notoriety thanks to the exposure of the hit BBC Sounds podcast, The Witch Farm (2022). The series focuses on the occupancy of the Rich family, who lived on the farm for a seven-year period from 1989, during which time they claim to have experienced a litany of terrifying events.

From cold spots to disembodied footsteps, inexplicable power surges to noxious odours, and even full-blown apparitions and demonic possessions, the experiences of the Rich family have been likened to that of the Lutz family of Amityville Horror fame.

While these stories are relatively new – and, indeed, the farmhouse itself is less than a hundred years old – legends about the isolated rural property have circulated for well over a century. The area’s strong association with witchcraft, occultism and Celtic mysticism, combined with the dark legacy of a gruesome local murder in the 19th century, have earned the property its nickname: ‘The Witch Farm’ or ‘Hellfire Farm’.

7. Hampton Court Palace, Greater London

Historic Royal Palaces certainly have their hands full. In addition to managing some of the nation’s highest profile heritage landmarks, catering to some 4 million visitors each year, they also have ghosts to contend with. Several properties in their portfolio – including the Tower of London, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace – are allegedly haunted. And while it’s hard to say which one of them is the most haunted, Hampton Court is definitely a strong contender.

Construction on the iconic Tudor palace began in 1515 under the direction of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York – Henry VIII’s chief advisor. At the time, Wolsey was one of the kingdom’s richest and most influential figures and he intended to build a home to reflect his position. In this he succeeded; however, within just a few years of his home’s completion, Wolsey had fallen from favour. Shortly before he died in 1530, he was ordered to surrender the palace to the king. Just 15 miles from London, the palace quickly became a favourite royal retreat.

• Read more | Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams

While many monarchs have resided in Hampton Court over the centuries, the palace is indelibly linked with the reign of Henry VIII. As such, it should come as no surprise that the most familiar phantoms are members of the Henrician court.

There’s Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, who died from complications of childbirth, and allegedly still holds a solemn vigil on the palace’s Silverstick staircase; Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, whose ghost is said to run screaming down the aptly-named ‘Haunted Gallery’, endlessly replaying a failed attempt to reach  her husband to beg him to spare her from execution; and maybe even Old King Hal himself. Some believe it was the ghost of the king who was captured on the viral CCTV footage that made headlines around the world in the winter of 2003.

8. Treasurer's House, York, North Yorkshire

Beneath the soaring spires of York Minster, scores of visitors amble along pedestrian thoroughfares lined with gastropubs, gift shops and historic buildings. The din of casual conversation is occasionally interrupted by the booming oratory of tour guides who lead groups of tourists down winding cobble-stoned lanes and narrow alleyways (idiosyncratically referred to as ‘snickleways’ by the locals). These merry little bands are on the hunt for haunted houses, and in York – reputedly the ‘Most Haunted City in Britain’ – they will not be disappointed.

Dozens of properties compete for the title of ‘Most Haunted House’ in York, and while there is no clear victor, there is one property that can lay claim to what is, perhaps, the best authenticated ghost story in British history. That is the Treasurer’s House – a Grade I listed National Trust property with foundations dating all the way back to the early 12th century. Its best-known ghost story, however, has nothing to do with its medieval history.

In 1953, an 18-year-old apprentice plumber called Harry Martindale was hired to install a boiler in the property’s ancient cellar. Working alone and in silence, Martindale was startled by the distant sound of a trumpet. The sound grew closer, and suddenly, what appeared to be a Roman soldier with a plumed helmet emerged from a wall, followed by a cart horse and a band of other soldiers, all dressed in green and carrying round shields. If this weren’t strange enough, the soldiers appeared to be cut off at the knees.

Though Martindale’s claims were initially dismissed as hallucinations, the subsequent discovery of the Via Decumana, a Roman road lying about 15 inches below the cellar floor, gave credence to his story.  What’s more, his description of the soldiers’ attire – originally deemed inaccurate based on existing historical knowledge – was later confirmed to be consistent with the regiment stationed at the Roman outpost of Eboracum (i.e. modern-day York).

Caitlin Blackwell Baines is an art historian and author who specialises in Georgian art and architecture. She is the author of How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession (Profile Books, 2025)

This article was first published in the Apple News October 2025 bonus issue

]]>The lie of succession: did James I steal Elizabeth I's crown?https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-lie-of-succession-did-james-i-steal-elizabeth-is-crown/2025-10-13T08:00:19.000ZRichmond Palace, 22 March 1603. Elizabeth I – the self-proclaimed Virgin Queen who had ruled England for 44 years, seeing off the Armada, healing religious divisions and creating a court so magnificent it was the envy of Europe – lay dying. Her anxious advisers clustered around her bedside, urging her to do the thing she had resisted throughout her long reign: name her successor.

Rousing herself from her stupor, the 69-year-old queen declared: “I will that a king succeed me, and what king, but my nearest kinsman, the king of Scots?” Wanting to make completely sure, her chief minister, Robert Cecil, asked whether that was her “absolute resolution” – to which she irritably retorted: “I pray you trouble me no more, I’ll have none but him.”

That “kinsman” was James VI of Scotland, son of Elizabeth’s old rival Mary, Queen of Scots. Her closest surviving blood relative, he had emerged as the front runner in the race for the English crown. He had the support of Cecil and most of his fellow privy councillors, who had been working behind the scenes to smooth James’s path to the throne. The queen, too, had shown him favour, sharing the pearls of her monarchical wisdom during their 20-year correspondence, as if grooming him as her successor. But she had always flinched from actually naming him as such. Now, almost with her last breath, she had. Elizabeth died two days later – and the Tudor dynasty gave way peacefully to the Stuarts.

This dramatic depiction of Elizabeth’s last-gasp naming of the Scottish king as her heir is based solely on an account by the contemporary historian and antiquarian William Camden. He had begun writing his monumental work Annales: The True and Royall History of the Famous Empresse Elizabeth (first published in Latin in 1615) during Elizabeth’s lifetime. Camden was close to some senior members of the queen’s court, and had access to the voluminous state papers of her reign, so historians have relied on his manuscript as one of the most important and accurate sources for the period.

However, none of those present at Elizabeth’s deathbed testified that she had spoken the words Camden quoted in his account, only that the dying queen had raised her hand to her head when James’s name was mentioned – an ambiguous gesture at best.

Rewriting history

Now, groundbreaking new analysis of Camden’s original manuscript by a team at the British Library has revealed that key passages were covered over and rewritten after Elizabeth’s death to make them more favourable to her successor. No fewer than 200 pages have been pasted in, 65 of which replaced original text with a new version. The use of imaging technology has enabled researcher Helena Rutkowska to see the words underneath for the first time in 400 years. Among the findings are that Elizabeth’s naming of James as her heir was a work of fiction, designed to make his accession appear more predetermined than it had been. In fact, she had been the only monarch in English history not to make provision for the succession.

• Read more | The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love

If this had been more widely known at the time, it might have had profound repercussions for the Stuart dynasty. Rather than welcoming James as the king to whom ‘Good Queen Bess’ had given her blessing, the people of England might have refused to accept him. After all, England and Scotland had been bitter enemies for centuries, with fleeting periods of peace cut short by the clash of arms or threat of invasion. And James was by no means the only candidate with a strong claim to Elizabeth’s throne.

Holding on by his fingertips

Camden had first been commissioned to write his history of Elizabeth’s reign in 1596 by William Cecil (Robert’s father), Lord Burghley – Elizabeth’s most trusted advisor, whom she dubbed her ‘Spirit’. It was not a task that the author had embraced with any alacrity, grumbling about the “piles and heaps of papers and writings of all sorts” that had been placed at his disposal. He made only a faltering start during Elizabeth’s lifetime and, as soon as she died, he quietly set down his quill, hoping that the idea would be forgotten.

Fast forward to 1607 and James VI & I had been on the English throne for four years. The initially peaceful transition from Tudors to Stuarts had given way to turbulence and uncertainty, conspiracy and persecution, witchcraft and gunpowder. With the accession of England’s first Stuart monarch, everything had been transformed – from court culture to royal ceremony, religious tolerance to parliamentary authority, morality to witch-hunting. Two countries that had been fierce rivals for centuries were now forged into an uncomfortably united kingdom. The fleeting popularity that James had enjoyed as the “bright star of the north” had been extinguished, and he was holding onto his new crown by his fingertips.

It was at this moment that James heard about Camden’s stalled biography of his predecessor, and spied an opportunity. To have a published account of Elizabeth’s reign – and, in particular, the succession – written by one of the most esteemed historians of the age would help silence any whispers of usurpation. If, that is, the author was prepared to write it to the king’s satisfaction.

It was with good reason that Camden expressed reluctance when first approached by the king to restart his history of Elizabeth. Quite apart from the heavy burden of research it entailed, writing the history of a queen who, even in death, was eclipsing her unpopular successor was fraught with difficulty. Camden knew that James would not want an unbiased appraisal but one written in his favour. Only the previous year, the king had ordered an account of the gunpowder plot to be rewritten so that it was even more complimentary towards him.

Restarting the history of Elizabeth was the very definition of a poison chalice, and Camden tried everything to avoid drinking from it. But James gave him no choice. At the king’s command, work on the book resumed in 1608. Camden was his subject to command, and the succession was his to rewrite.

Reviving the queen

By the time Camden again took up his quill, rewriting sections to James’s benefit, the cult of ‘Gloriana’ was already in full swing. Elizabeth’s former subjects were quick to forget that they had grown tired of “an old woman’s government” and had longed to have a king ruling over them. One contemporary reflected that, a few short years after Elizabeth’s death, “when we had experience of the Scottish government, then… in hate and detestation of them, the queen did seem to revive. Then was her memory much magnified.”

It was not long before praising the last Tudor queen became a powerful weapon used to attack her Stuart successor. Donning their rose-tinted glasses, her former subjects harked back to a halcyon time when England had enjoyed decades of peace and prosperity, triumphed over the might of Spain, and was presided over by a glorious queen and her court. The anniversary of Elizabeth’s accession day, 17 November, began to be celebrated each year with “joyful ringing of bells, running at tilt, and festival mirth… in testimony of their affectionate love towards her”.

• Read more | Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts?

But this sentimental reverence masked the intense uncertainty that had been generated by the persistent refusal of ‘Good Queen Bess’ to name her heir. It’s worth revisiting the history of this reticence and the concerns it had fomented among court and populace.

On 10 February 1559 Elizabeth had told the first parliament of her reign that “in the end this shall be for me sufficient: that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin”. She then declared that God would provide for the succession and would name an heir “peradventure more beneficial to the realm than such offspring as may come of me”.

This was all very well but, without the wisdom of hindsight, Elizabeth’s subjects had no idea that she would reign longer and more successfully than any of the other Tudor monarchs. Her three predecessors, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey and Mary I, had reigned for six years, nine days and five years, respectively, and there was no reason to suppose Elizabeth would escape the ill health that dogged the Tudor dynasty. Indeed, nearly four years into her reign she almost died of smallpox. This catapulted the succession to the forefront of people’s minds and, once there, it would not be forgotten. “Now all the talk is who is to be her successor,” reported the Spanish ambassador, Bishop Álvaro de la Quadra, in 1562.

Elizabeth’s determination not to name her heir was born of direct experience. Being heir presumptive during her sister Mary’s brief, bloody reign had placed her in great jeopardy, including a spell in the Tower under threat of execution. “I stood in danger of my life, my sister was so incensed against me,” she told a delegation from parliament in 1566 that had been sent to persuade her to settle the succession. Elizabeth feared that, as soon as she named her heir, the individual chosen would be the focus of plots and rebellions, just as she herself had been during Mary’s reign. “Think you that I could love my winding-sheet?” she demanded to an ambassador, likening a named heir to a shroud.

Fierce rivalry

In remaining tight-lipped about the succession, Elizabeth gave rise to fierce rivalry between the blood claimants to her throne. Principal among them were Mary, Queen of Scots and her son James VI; his cousin Arbella Stuart; Lady Katherine Grey and her descendants; Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon; and the Infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II of Spain. As Elizabeth’s reign progressed, most of the rival claimants fell by the wayside, either through natural death, disinheritance or execution. In the race for Elizabeth’s throne, it was less a case of ‘who dares wins’, more ‘survival of the fittest’.

In 1600, the English government official and keeper of records Thomas Wilson opined: “This crown is not like to fall to the ground for want of heads that claim to wear it.” Although he admitted that it was “straightly prohibited” to discuss the succession, he went on to give an account of at least 12 people with some kind of claim to the English throne who, in his words, “gape for” Elizabeth’s death. Of these, eight were home-grown candidates and four were from overseas. James VI might have emerged as the odds-on favourite, but his accession was by no means certain.

As her long reign wore on, Elizabeth showed through her subtle, steady guiding of the king of Scots that he was, if not her ideal candidate, then at least the best of a bad lot. In the years leading up to her death, she did as much as she could to secure the succession without placing herself in danger by naming an heir. For all the anxiety, intrigue and rivalry that this engendered, the wisdom of her policy was proved by the fact that, to her last breath, her personal power in England had not been challenged by any “rising sun”.

But the ultimate success of Elizabeth’s plan depended on James following the advice she had drip-fed him over the years. And that is where it fell apart. It soon became clear that the king had paid only lip service to Elizabeth’s guidance, and proceeded to flout it altogether when he took her throne. He refused to “play the king”, as she had urged, by investing in the magnificence of his court and public appearances, and instead spent most of his time in private with just a handful of favourites.

Parliamentary revolt

More ominously, James had no intention of sustaining the delicate relationship between crown and parliament that had been the cornerstone of Elizabeth’s success. Instead, he stood firmly by the Stuart belief in the divine right of kings, which in his view gave him the right to ride roughshod over the wishes of his people and his parliaments.

This soon sparked resistance from his new English subjects. After a series of bad-tempered exchanges, parliament refused to agree to James’s plan for a formal union between his two kingdoms. Undeterred, he announced that a shared currency would be issued – a 20-shilling piece known as the ‘unite’ – and commissioned a new flag, the ‘Union Jack’ (for Jacobus, or James). Thereafter, rather than working in partnership with his government, he abandoned it altogether, spending his days hunting and cavorting with his favourites. One contemporary noted that this was “the cause of indescribable ill-humour among the king’s subjects, who in their needs and troubles find themselves cut off from their natural sovereign”.

• Read more | King James VI and I: your guide to the first Stuart monarch of England

Meanwhile, growing popular resentment against the king erupted in numerous conspiracies to remove him from the throne. In June 1603, just three months after his accession, the ‘Bye’ plot came to light, involving a group of Catholics who planned to kidnap the king and secure concessions for the practice of their religion. More serious was the ‘Main’ plot to oust James and replace him with his cousin Arbella Stuart.

The most dangerous conspiracy of all came in 1605, when a group of Catholics led by Robert Catesby schemed to blow up the king and his parliament. It was only thanks to an anonymous tip-off that Westminster was searched by the royal officials, and Guy Fawkes was discovered with a huge cache of gunpowder beneath the Houses of Parliament just hours before he was due to light the fuse.

Lessons not learned

All of this might have made James pause to consider that perhaps he ought to follow his predecessor’s advice after all. Instead, he doggedly continued his preferred style of monarchy, no matter the cost. Worse still, in preparing his son and heir, Charles, for the throne, James passed on none of the lessons that Elizabeth had tried to teach him. Charles would be a king in the mould of his Stuart father, not his Tudor predecessor. He took his divine right to even greater extremes than his father, and dissolved parliament whenever it refused to carry out his will.

As Charles’s turbulent reign wore on, the spectre of uncertainty over the Stuarts’ right to the Tudor throne – uncertainly that, we now know was all too valid – was thrown into sharp relief. By 1642, he had pushed the supremacy of the royal will too far on both sides of the border. The kingdom was plunged into bitterly fought civil wars that culminated in Charles’s execution and the destruction of the monarchy. In the space of half a century, the crown that had glittered so brightly on Elizabeth’s head had been consigned to the flames. 

CONTENDERS FOR THE CROWN

There was no shortage of people with designs on Elizabeth I’s English throne. But who had the best chance of success?

The Scottish thorn

Mary, Queen of Scots had the strongest blood claim to Elizabeth’s throne. She was the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland. As a Catholic, she enjoyed considerable support among those in England who opposed their queen’s Protestant faith. But Henry VIII’s will had barred his Scottish relatives from inheriting the crown of England. Furthermore, a law passed in 1350, during the reign of Edward III, decreed that “aliens” (those not born on English soil) could not inherit any land there. Nevertheless, Mary campaigned tirelessly to be named heir, and was executed for trying to take the English throne by force. (Contender rating: 6 out of 10)

The front runner

James VI of Scotland, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, succeeded to his mother’s throne when she was ousted from it in 1567. He also inherited her claim to Elizabeth’s throne, though Mary’s execution in 1587 threw that into jeopardy, because those related to a convicted traitor were tainted by association. In his favour was the fact that by the time of Elizabeth’s death he had a proven track record of ruling a kingdom and, even better, was male. He also enjoyed the strongest support within the English government, and the tacit support of Elizabeth herself – though Henry VIII’s and Edward III’s statutes meant that James’s accession in 1603 was technically illegal. (Contender rating: 7 out of 10)

The arrogant orphan

Like James, Arbella Stuart was the great-granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret, but had the advantage of being born on English soil. Team Arbella was also bolstered by the efforts of her two indomitable grandmothers, Lady Margaret Douglas (Henry VIII’s niece) and Bess of Hardwick, who promoted the claim of “poor orphan Arbella”. Arbella, though, was her own worst enemy. Haughty and arrogant, she alienated Queen Elizabeth, and her unstable temperament made her ill-suited for the throne. During James’s reign, she secretly married another blood claimant, William Seymour, grandson of Lady Katherine Grey (see below), and spent the rest of her life a prisoner in the Tower. (Contender rating: 5 out of 10)

The marrying type

Henry VIII had decreed that, in the event that his three children died without issue, the crown would pass to the descendants of his younger sister Mary. This gave Katherine Grey (Mary’s granddaughter) and her descendants the strongest legal basis for their claim, strengthened by the fact that Edward VI had made the Greys his primary heirs. Katherine sought to boost her chances further by secretly marrying Edward Seymour, the nephew of Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour. But this backfired: Elizabeth condemned Katherine to life behind bars, and had her two sons declared illegitimate. However, they and their descendants continued to be seen as strong contenders for Elizabeth’s throne for years afterwards. (Contender rating: 6 out of 10)

The "nearest in blood"

Lady Margaret Stanley was the daughter of Eleanor Brandon, younger daughter of Henry VIII’s sister Mary. Margaret alleged that her cousins were debarred from the succession because of Lady Jane Grey’s treason, leaving her next in line by Henry VIII’s will and “as the nearest in blood… legitimately of English birth”. Also in her favour was the fact that she had two living sons, Ferdinando and William. She was, though, Catholic. (Contender rating: 4 out of 10)

The uninterested Yorkist

Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon was of the old Yorkist line. His great-great-grandmother was Lady Margaret Pole, niece of King Edward IV. His grandfather had for a time been a close personal friend of Henry VIII. In stark contrast to all the other contenders, though, Hastings showed no interest in the crown, and spent his life in loyal service to Elizabeth. Still, she didn’t trust him, and it was only after years in the political wilderness that she finally appointed him to office. (Contender rating: 5 out of 10)

The Spanish princess

When his own attempts to seize Elizabeth’s throne by force failed, Philip II of Spain promoted those of his daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. She was said to be “of the ancient blood royal of England” through her mother, Elisabeth of Valois. As such, she was a legitimate descendant of John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III, whereas the Tudors were descended from his illegitimate line. But the people of England were notoriously xenophobic, viewing even James of Scotland as an “alien”, and unlikely to ever accept a Spanish queen. (Contender rating: 3 out of 10)

]]>Reshaping narratives, repatriation and Richard III : 25 lessons we've learnt from history in the last 25 yearshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/a-quarter-century-of-bbc-history-magazine-25-lessons-weve-learnt-from-history-in-the-last-25-years/2025-06-18T08:00:37.000Z1. Women played major roles in the Viking Age

Just 25 years ago, there seemed to be little new to say about the Vikings – and that was particularly the case for Viking women. The centuries-old consensus was that Viking wives and daughters stayed at home, passively watching as the Viking Age unfolded around them.

New technologies have forced a rethink, though, completely revolutionising what we know about Viking women. The first significant discovery came from a systematic survey of a nationwide database of metal-detected female dress jewellery. This demonstrated for the first time that Scandinavian women migrated to England in substantial numbers. Next, isotope analysis of teeth from the graves of Viking women showed that they had formed a key part of the migration process elsewhere, too, moving across the Viking world alongside their families.

The most dramatic and most debated discovery, however, came through analysis of ancient DNA. In Birka, Sweden, an individual buried in a high-status warrior grave turned out to be biologically female. This led to a worldwide discussion of the roles of Viking women: we now agree that, though many certainly did stay at home, some played active roles in trade, craft and manufacturing processes, and even held military positions.

Cat Jarman is an archaeologist, author and TV presenter. Her books include The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons (William Collins, 2023)

2. Britain has been culturally diverse for far longer than most believed

The murder of George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020 signalled a turning point in the way the histories of people of African descent were taught and perceived across Europe. From that moment, the British press and institutions felt that they had to engage better with narratives about minority ethnic communities.

A renewed interest in personal histories and trajectories of people of African descent in Britain showcased stories about their links to major events – from the celebrated story of the British-Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole during the Crimean War to the experiences of black British football player Walter Tull and other soldiers of Caribbean and African descent who fought for Britain during the world wars.

We also saw a number of new black history courses launched in UK universities, and school classes featuring black, Asian and minority ethnic histories. Uncovering these multiple trajectories further highlights how culturally diverse Britain has been over many centuries, and why sharing stories about a common past can bring communities together.

Olivette Otele is a distinguished research professor at SOAS University of London. Her books include African Europeans: An Untold History (Hurst, 2020)

3. The Tudors got Richard III wrong

We learned many things from the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton beneath a Leicester car park 13 years ago. We learned about the king’s physique, his diet and the injuries he sustained while fighting for crown and country at Bosworth against a foreign-backed invader.

But, for me, two lessons in particular stand out from the discovery. The first is that history can make no progress unless it’s ready to test and deconstruct generally held traditions and assumptions – even those held by historians and archaeologists. Those of us working on the Looking for Richard Project trusted only our own painstaking, personal research in primary sources.

Second, we learned that Shakespeare’s hunchback and withered arm never existed. Analysis of Richard’s skeleton – which had lain underfoot and peacefully undisturbed for 500 years – revealed that his limbs were sound, and that his spine showed a scoliosis that was invisible to onlookers. Richard’s makeshift burial in the wake of his defeat at Bosworth, in a grave cut too short, was hugely revealing. It speaks across the centuries of a victor’s disrespect for a fallen king.

Philippa Langley is a historian, author and producer. Her latest book is The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case (The History Press, 2023)

• Read more | The final mystery of Richard III: how 21st-century science cracked a 500-year-old cold case

4. Magna Carta was only part of a truly revolutionary settlement

King John’s Magna Carta is perhaps the best-known document in world history, generally regarded as the first attempt to place kingship itself under the rule of law. Not surprisingly, it has been much studied. Yet a torrent of new evidence has been brought to light over the past 20 years, transforming understanding of both the document and its wider context.

We now know of many more ‘original’ Magna Cartas (from its subsequent reissues) than were previously dreamed of. And incidental discoveries in archives from Paris to New England have reshaped our appreciation of what actually happened in 1215.

A fortuitous discovery in Lambeth Palace Library, for example, reveals that the charter was part of a truly revolutionary settlement, with the barons briefly permitted dual control of local government in tandem with the king. We know, too, that John himself made no attempt to publish the charter. On the contrary, it was the bishops who ensured its distribution, preservation and even, in some cases, its physical copying.

The archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, is unmasked not so much as an honest broker between king and barons but as an ideologically committed adherent of the anti-royal party. By such means can new evidence help us rewrite the past – even for the oldest and best-known stories.

Nicholas Vincent is professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia. His books include John (Allen Lane, 2020)

5. We ignore the past at our peril

Most compellingly, the past 25 years have reminded us that history matters. Every life-sapping conflict since the millennium – Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Ukraine, Gaza – has its roots deep in the past.

Of course, the past does not determine the future, but the future is shaped by the past. Merely railing against adversaries or shouting ‘victory’ from the rooftops may make for good headlines but, in the absence of some understanding of ‘how we got from there to here’, such indulgence is vacuous grandstanding.

The past has never been ‘another country’. This is especially true of Europe, where the tectonic plates did not stop shifting with the end of the Second World War in 1945 or the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The events of the past 25 years have demonstrated only too cruelly that our continent is inherently, and sometimes alarmingly, unstable.

All leaders claim to act in what they believe to be the national interest. The. less they make ill-judged declaratory statements of intent and the more they demonstrate a realistic vision of the future, based on a clear awareness of the past, the better it will be for all of us. History is a great mentor.

Jonathan Dimbleby is a historian, biographer and broadcaster. His latest book is Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the War (Viking, 2024)

6. Hitler tapped into hard-wired emotions to stir up hatred

For my new book, I found it tremendously helpful to talk to academic psychologists and neuroscientists about the insights we can gain, in general terms, from their disciplines. For instance, I learned how Hitler – without knowing the science behind his actions – tapped into a profound truth about the way the brain works.

In stirring up hatred against Jews and Bolsheviks, Hitler targeted the amygdala – the part of the brain that immediately processes feelings of anxiety, fear and anger. These powerful emotions are produced almost instantly, because it’s the amygdala that helps us avoid sudden danger. It’s a survival mechanism that, as the neuroscientist Professor Robert Sapolsky explained to me, is “hard-wired into us… and we’ll never get rid of it”.

Hitler capitalised on this neurobiological tendency, and in the process did his best to subdue the parts of the brain that offer a more logical analysis. Indeed, he seemed to confirm that he was well aware of the immense power of this approach when he remarked, during a private speech to the Hamburger Nationalklub in 1926, that “the only stable emotion is hate”.

Laurence Rees is a historian, author and documentary film-maker. His new book is The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History (Viking, 2025)

7. Hunter-gatherers and farmers joined in wild rituals 12,000 years ago

Around the turn of this millennium, in a remote south-eastern corner of Turkey, an astonishing discovery was being made – one that stretched the story of humanity back more than 12,000 years.

Still today, only about 5 per cent of the archaeological site known as Karahantepe has been excavated – but even that tiny fraction is changing our understanding of the beginning of society as we know it. Emerging from the earth is a giant chamber with 11 huge stone phallus columns, overlooked by the face of a man with a splendid handlebar moustache and the body of a snake. The head of a big cat is visible in the centre, and carvings on 250 obelisks in the area could be mistaken for gargoyles on any medieval cathedral.We expect the female equivalent of the chamber to be unearthed soon.

Karahantepe, it turns out, is just one site in a constellation of a hundred or so – the Taş Tepeler – which together are rewriting the story of human collaboration. The orthodoxy used to be that hunter-gatherers invented farming, then settled down, then manifested religion to establish common mores to live by. But the discoveries seem to show that hunter-gatherers and the very first farmers gathered together in huge, collective spaces for wild ritual parties to share know-how and ideas.

This is one of the joys of history: it is constantly protean. Every year, new finds reveal earlier and earlier evidence of human achievement and sophistication.

Bettany Hughes is a historian, author and broadcaster. Her latest book is The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (W&N, 2024)

8. Returning stolen artefacts to Africa is no longer a naive dream

Some 25 years ago, when I was starting my career in museums, a sense of optimism and renewal imbued the sector – yet the restitution of stolen African objects did not seem a realistic possibility. Today, the culture has changed profoundly. My old employer, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC, has returned its contested Benin plaques; the Dutch, Germans and French have either begun programmes of return or discussed the possibility. In Britain, the Horniman has returned ownership of its Benin plaques, and the V&A and the British Museum (both restricted by law from giving collections permanently) have entered into long-term loan agreements with the Asante royal family in Ghana.

Conversations that were inconceivable a generation ago – about ethics, about custodianship, about narrative, about ghosts – have begun to happen. We have to find ways to tell complex stories of empire, enslavement and colonialism more effectively and inclusively. It’s important that museums can craft their curatorial narratives with moral confidence, and the resolution of such thorny, long-term issues is vital.

There is still much to do. Our museums must go further in building partnerships and programmes with museums across the African continent. We need to learn from African expertise – and in turn we must share our resources and expertise to improve the telling of these rich and amazing histories everywhere.

Gus Casely-Hayford is a curator, historian and broadcaster. His books include The Lost Kingdoms of Africa (Bantam, 2012)

9. Anne Boleyn was a proto-feminist heroine

Anne Boleyn is unique among English queens, and her story is remarkable, but much of the modern fascination with that tale lies in perceptions of her fuelled by films and novels. She is now revered as a feminist heroine – a concept I would once have dismissed as anachronistic. When I said as much to the historian Sarah Gristwood, she replied: “Well, actually…” and very generously allowed me a preview of her research for her marvellous book Game of Queens (Oneworld, 2016), which inspired me to find out more.

Feminism was unknown in Tudor England. But in early 16th-century Europe, where Anne spent her formative years, there was an intellectual debate that questioned traditional attitudes to women, and looked forward to an era – the ‘reign of virtue’ – in which they would enjoy more power and equality.

In this age of female rulers, Anne had two shining examples to study: Margaret of Austria and Marguerite of Valois, both of whom she served or knew. We have to study her in this European context in order to understand the cultural influences to which she was exposed, giving her the confidence to pursue her brilliant career.

Alison Weir is an author and historian. Her latest book is The Cardinal: The Secret Life of Thomas Wolsey (Headline, 2025)

10. Mary Seacole was a true heroine of the Crimean War

One of the most significant changes over the past 25 years is the extent to which researching and writing black history has opened up. This is partly down to the dedication of historians determined to extend knowledge of the black experience by digging deeply and stubbornly into little-consulted sources.

In my own case, 20 years of concerted searching across digitised newspapers and in genealogical archives gave the lie to the till-then widely perpetuated view that Mary Seacole had been wildly overrated and undeserving of the ‘Greatest Black Briton’ sobriquet awarded her in 2004.

For decades, detractors dismissed her as a colourful but largely irrelevant presence who had done little more than ‘sell tea and buns’ to the soldiers in Crimea. But my searches, enabled by digitisation of sources, brought me to a more complete view of a woman who deserves to be viewed as a heroine. She journeyed 1,600 miles to Crimea under her own steam and at her own expense to set up shop in the middle of a war zone – a lone black woman facing prejudice and risking her own safety to help the wounded, sick and dying.

Delving into previously unseen sources over an extended period enabled me to challenge the conventional sanctification of ‘the black Florence Nightingale’ and present
a fully rounded personality.

Helen Rappaport is an author and historian. Her latest book is The Rebel Romanov (Simon & Schuster, 2025)

11. Public history can play a major role in understanding the past

One great change over the last 25 years has been the huge growth in public history – not just as an academic discipline, though of course it rests on the work of professional historians, archivists and museum workers.

Public history is the product of us all. It is about public interaction with the past, its interpretation and popularisation – changing our understanding not only of the past but also of our own times. It’s about the link between historians and the general public. Films, podcasts, radio, heritage societies, living archaeologists, local history and re-enactment groups – even readers of this magazine – are all part of it.

Good popularisation is the necessary link between professionals and the population at large, without which history becomes a closed debate between historians. And in a democracy, that link is vital: it’s part of a healthy information ecosystem, our reality check in the face of the tide of fake history on social media. Perhaps not surprisingly, in Trump’s America the US National Council on Public History is becoming more important in keeping minds open. When I hear people argue that you can’t rewrite history – though that is our actual collective job as makers of history! – it makes me think that perhaps we should have one here, too.

Michael Wood is professor of public history at the University of Manchester. Read his column from the May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine here

12. Charles I wasn’t so very chaste

Traditional accounts of Charles I, the so-called ‘martyr king’, have always presented him as a grave, austere and chaste figure – the very opposite of his indecorous, bawdy father, James VI & I, and his dissipated, promiscuous son, Charles II. Charles’s marriage to his wife, Henrietta Maria, was undoubtedly a happy one and, until the royal couple were torn apart during the Civil War, he does indeed appear to have remained true to her alone.

However, in an article published in 2006, the historian Sarah Poynting revisited a series of encrypted letters written by Charles in late 1647 and 1648, while he was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight after his defeat by the parliamentarians. Previous attempts to decipher these letters had not been entirely accurate, Poynting showed, and in fact one of them revealed that Charles had been attempting to inveigle the royalist agent Jane Whorwood into his bed.

Using the frankest language, Charles went so far as to suggest to Jane that she should secretly conceal herself in the ‘stool-room’ adjoining his chamber while he was out on his daily walk so that, after his return, he could dally with her at length. It was a remarkable discovery – and one that suggested previous characterisations of the king as “blamelessly uxorious” may well have been a little wide of the mark.

Mark Stoyle is professor of history at the University of Southampton. His latest book is A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 (Yale University Press, 2022)

• Read more | "Tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy": was Charles I really that bad?

13. Mesolithic Europeans had dark skin and blue eyes

One of the major scientific advances in archaeology over the past 25 years has been the ability to extract and analyse DNA from the remains of long-dead people from the distant past. Such ancient DNA can shed light on how people were related to one another, on a family or population scale, and provide insights into the migration and movement of people over time. It can also tell us what diseases they had and – perhaps most compelling – what they looked like.

In 2018, researchers at the Natural History Museum revealed that one of the inhabitants of Mesolithic Britain, a man who lived around 10,000 years ago, had dark skin and blue eyes. This individual – known as ‘Cheddar Man’, because his remains were discovered in a cave in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset – is represented by one of the oldest complete skeletons ever identified in Britain. Earlier results from remains found from Spain, Luxembourg and Hungary confirm that most hunter-gatherers in Mesolithic Europe looked this way.

The genes for lighter skin pigmentation arrived thousands of years later, in waves of migration from the east during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. In addition, natural selection over time favoured lighter tones that allow more Vitamin D synthesis in the skin, essential in northerly climes.

Susan Greaney is a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Exeter

14. Premodern Japan was surprisingly progressive

One of the most fascinating and dynamic periods of Japanese history was the Meiji Restoration, which began with the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 and ended with the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912. Japan opened up as never before to diplomatic and trading relationships with the west and, over little more than four decades, modernised its economy and society at an astonishing rate. By 1912, it had become one of the world’s great powers.

For a long time, this explosion of activity was contrasted with the preceding 250 years of the Tokugawa shogunate. That system was regarded as feudal, backward and badly out of date, requiring rescue at the hands of modernising and westernising reformers. Much though this view of history suited western historians across the 20th century, and flattering as it was to western modernity, since 2000 historians have increasingly been exploring the myriad achievements of the shogunate.

Across two and a half centuries of peace, Japanese commerce, intellectual life and the arts enjoyed extraordinary growth and creativity, from theatre through to a tourism industry and a publishing boom. Without the commercial and technical expertise, high literacy rates and great bustling cities that developed under the shogunate, the Meiji Restoration could not have happened in the way that it did.

Christopher Harding is senior lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh and creator of the IlluminAsia newsletter and podcast (illuminasia.org). His latest book is The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East (Allen Lane, 2024)

15. Egypt’s great pyramids at Giza weren’t built by foreign slaves

Dominating the Giza Plateau for almost five millennia, the great pyramids still capture imaginations around the world. For centuries, archaeologists and historians have tried to determine how these magnificent monuments, including the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, were created – and now we know who built them.

Contrary to popular depictions, construction wasn’t completed by foreign slaves but by Egyptian employees. Excavations of a workers’ village over the past couple of decades, and the discovery of builders’ tombs in 2009, have transformed the narrative.

The village, dating from the Fourth Dynasty (starting c4,600 years ago), boasted bakeries, breweries, butchers and a hospital. In the burial sites, skeletons show signs of hard labour, as one might expect, but they’re also accompanied by jars of bread and beer, ready for the afterlife. There are female skeletons, too, confirming that women played roles in building the pyramids.

Hieroglyphs suggest a system of skilled labourers and artisans, from “overseer of the side of the pyramid” to “inspector of the craftsmen”. It’s also clear that villagers from surrounding areas came here to work in construction, usually in three-month stints. Their graffiti indicates that each cadre might associate themselves with one particular pharaoh or pyramid: the “friends of Khufu”, for example, or “drunkards of Menkaure”.

The inscriptions confirm that the pyramid builders were Egyptian. And the manner and location of the burials, in the shadow of the great pharaohs, puts the slave myth to bed.

Islam Issa is professor of literature and history at Birmingham City University. His latest book is Alexandria: The City that Changed the World (Sceptre, 2023)

16. Personal links to empire can reshape old narratives

Astonishingly, I completed my entire education without learning about the British empire. I don’t even have a recollection of hearing the world ‘empire’ mentioned at school – and I studied History A-level! I now know that my experience is not unique.

In the past 10 years or so, though, I have gained a growing understanding of not only what happened and how it shaped Britain today, but also of my own personal connection to empire and its tumultuous end. I feel lucky to be making programmes and writing books at a time when there is a greater interest in knowing about Britain’s imperial past – not that it is without complications or controversies.

And things continue changing: a new generation of historians is exploring archives and asking different questions. Teachers are choosing to explore empire in all its complexity, and conversations are being had between people in the diaspora and their family members about a time when they were subjects of empire. I am learning that, just because an area of history is overlooked or not spoken of, it doesn’t always have to be that way.

Kavita Puri is a journalist and broadcaster for BBC Radio 4. Read her Hidden Histories column from the May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine here

17. Stonehenge was built in an already sacred area

The past two and a half decades have seen a transformation in our understanding of one of the most iconic ancient monuments in Britain and, indeed, the world: Stonehenge.

Archaeological research has revealed that the 4,500-year-old prehistoric ‘temple’ stood at the heart of a sacred landscape infinitely richer than previously thought. Scores of ritual monuments have been discovered in a vast halo scattered across the countryside around the monument.

Even more extraordinarily, tests have revealed that one of Stonehenge’s most important stones was transported all the way from what’s now northern Scotland – and that a large number of the smaller stones had probably originally formed part of another stone circle in south-west Wales before being brought here. And research shows that some of the Neolithic people buried at Stonehenge did not come from the area but from western Britain, possibly from modern-day Wales – significant, given the origins of many of its smaller stones.

We now know, too, that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were active in the Stonehenge area some 5,000 years before the monument existed. This remarkable new information, together with earlier evidence that a series of Mesolithic wooden obelisks may have stood adjacent to the site of Stonehenge, suggests that the area had been sacred for millennia.

David Keys is the archaeological correspondent for The Independent

18. The tide seems to have turned against the British empire

By the year 2000, the British empire – formerly a global superpower – had been transformed into an organisation with entirely voluntary membership, the Commonwealth. At the time, academic assessment of this extraordinary transformation resulted in a number of books – including my own – which concluded that British imperialism had been overall, and in a remarkable variety of ways, both a blessing and a curse.

In the 25 years since that relatively benign consensus, however, there has been a profound anti-imperial swing resulting in a wholesale condemnation of British imperial history – shifting the dial remarkably.

It is, however, vital to understand that, even at its Victorian zenith, the empire faced trenchant criticism from within. Anti-imperial attitudes were commonplace on the left wing of the Liberal Party, the infant Labour Party and the generally hostile Irish Nationalist Party. Nonconformist churches – Methodists, Congregationalists and, above all, Quakers – voiced criticisms of imperial aims and methods. Internal opposition, from resentful Afrikaners, French Canadians and diverse displaced and conquered Indigenous peoples, also inevitably arose.

To cope with such internal opposition, and to prolong its existence, the imperial system undertook much self-correction – a process that led to mass devolution, the end of empire and the birth of today’s Commonwealth. In short, we are now keenly aware that there is no neat and fireproof analysis of the nature, governance and purpose of the British empire. It was such a huge, complex and long-lived organisation that almost every criticism, as well as almost every justification, has some validity somewhere and at some time.

Denis Judd is professor emeritus of imperial and Commonwealth history at London Metropolitan University, and author of Empire (IB Tauris revised paperback edition, 2012)

19. The world is in danger of reverting to its darkest days

After the collapse of Soviet-style communism in Russia and eastern Europe in 1989–91, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a book called The End of History and the Last Man. In it, he predicted optimistically that the demise of the Soviet system meant that western liberalism would roll out across the world, and that the future belonged to progressive democracy, with no rivals to challenge it.

In fact, since the first issue of BBC History Magazine was published in 2000, history has evolved along a drastically different path to the one that Fukuyama predicted. So far, the 21st century has belonged to resurgent strongmen. In country after country, authoritarian regimes led by dictatorial rulers have come to power – and stayed there, with scant regard for democracy. Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Erdogan’s Turkey, Kim’s North Korea and Sisi’s Egypt are leading examples of a worldwide trend that shows no sign of ending.

So what we have learned from history in this century is a rather troubling lesson. After the terrors of the 20th century, the world is not moving into broad, sunlit uplands but is in danger of reverting to the darkest days of the past.

Nigel Jones is a historian, journalist and former reviews editor of BBC History Magazine. His latest book is Kitty’s Salon: Sex, Spying and Surveillance in the Third Reich (John Blake, 2023)

20. Technology enables deep-sea shipwreck discoveries – but we should beware hubris

In recent years, sophisticated modern technologies have allowed humans to dive deeper, explore the seabed autonomously, and locate shipwrecks. Lost in 1915 in the Weddell Sea, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s polar vessel Endurance made headlines when its wreck was rediscovered in 2022. Recovering or even visiting the wreck, which lies at a depth of 3,000 metres, are major challenges. But submersible robots were able to photograph the Endurance from every angle, enabling scientists to create a digital model of the whole vessel as well as many artefacts preserved just as they were when the crew abandoned ship.

The wreck of the Gloucester, lost in 1682 after hitting a sandbank while transporting James, Duke of York and his court, was discovered in 2007. Future excavation of the site could provide an unprecedented opportunity to explore a Restoration royal court frozen in time. Just as the Mary Rose Museum has captured the public imagination, making Henry VIII’s warship part of British national conversations, telling the Gloucester’s stories could transform public understanding of a historical period that laid the constitutional foundations of modern Britain.

In 2025, mid-point in the United Nations ‘Ocean Decade’, a key task is to meaningfully integrate Britain’s remarkable maritime cultural heritage into ocean governance to help create a sustainable blue economy.

Nonetheless, humanity should remain humble in the face of the ocean’s uncontrollable forces. The implosion in 2023 of the submersible Titan on its expedition to the wreck of the Titanic – resulting in the death of all on board – is a cautionary tale. Some 3 million shipwrecks around the world prove that the sea – so elemental, so powerful – shouldn’t be disrespected.

Claire Jowitt is professor of Renaissance studies at the University of East Anglia

21. We now know how many enslaved African people were trafficked across the Atlantic

The transatlantic slave trade was one of the largest forced movements of people in world history – yet for decades it was difficult to quantify. Then, in the early 1990s, an international team came together to solve this problem. The result was the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, which showed that 12.5 million people were transported. Of those, 10.7 million survived the journey and arrived in the Americas.

Many people, particularly in the US and the UK, assumed that most enslaved people were trafficked to the United States. In fact, the database showed that fewer than 400,000 Africans were forcibly taken directly to mainland North America; about 4.8 million arrived in South America and 4.7 million in the Caribbean.

First published as a CD-ROM in 1999, the database was greatly expanded in the early 2000s to include the Portuguese trade in the South Atlantic. Re-released as an open-access website in 2008, including details of an additional 7,000 journeys, it has been described as one of the greatest historical achievements of the 21st century. Though the database does not give us a rich picture of the experiences of enslaved peoples, it has been critical to understanding the scale of one of the world’s worst human-rights violations.

Hannah Cusworth is a historian, curator and history education consultant

• Read more | The history of Africa: why we need to look much deeper than slavery and colonisation

22. Richard III was behind the disappearance of the princes in the Tower… probably

It’s history’s most compelling missing persons case: what happened to Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, after they were placed in the Tower in 1483 on the orders of their uncle, who soon afterwards seized the throne as Richard III?

The mystery has been the subject of intense debate ever since. Some three decades later, Thomas More had established the narrative that Richard had his nephews murdered with the help of his henchman, James Tyrell. There was no shortage of other suspects but, though every scrap of evidence has been pored over by generations of historians since, the trail was already cold.

Recently, Tim Thornton, professor of history at the University of Huddersfield, took a novel approach. Rather than researching the events leading up to the princes’ disappearance, he traced the lives of those involved in the years that followed – and found links between Thomas More and the two men he claimed had carried out the murder for Tyrell. Then, last year, Thornton came across a book of wills in the National Archives that included one made in 1516 by a wealthy London widow, Margaret Capel, half sister-in-law of Sir James Tyrell. Among her chattels listed in the will was “the chain of Edward V” – the only one of the boys’ possessions referenced in sources after their disappearance. The fact that it turned up in the family of the prime suspect makes it close to a ‘smoking gun’.

Tracy Borman is a historian, author and broadcaster. Her documentary The Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery is on My5

23. History can help veterans cope with PTSD

A remarkable discovery made this century is that history can be hugely therapeutic for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It might seem deeply counterintuitive but when veterans undertake top-level archaeological research on battlefields, rather than re-igniting their traumas it often tends to work in positive ways for them psychologically, and can be a useful step on their road to recovery.

The work done by the organisation Waterloo Uncovered, founded in 2015 by former Coldstream Guards captain (and PTSD sufferer) Mark Evans, has been instrumental in this regard. Its mental-health experts found that, after helping to discover facts that are useful to military historians – the musket-ball scatter-pattern outside the orchard at the Hougoumont farmhouse in a key sector of the Waterloo battlefield, for example – veterans often saw improvements in their mental conditions.

There are various theories about the mechanisms of this effect. Perhaps such work reminds veterans that their predecessors two centuries ago encountered much the same kind of perils they did themselves in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Evans also noted that the project provided a safe and structured environment in which veterans with shared experiences could start to open up to one another about the challenges they faced. Whatever the reason, history is helping in a tangible way today.

Andrew Roberts’ latest book, with General David Petraeus, is Conflict: The Evolution of War-fare from 1945 to Gaza (William Collins, 2024)

24. Technology has revolutionised how historians work and collaborate

One of the great things about historical research is that it keeps on moving.

When I was a young historian, looking back in time required me to handle complex written materials and work out how to supplement them with reference material culture, to archaeology or to finds such as coins and lead seals.

The past quarter-century has revolutionised the tools available to historians. Huge advances in the sciences, combined with plunging costs, mean that we now have access to data sources that don’t just provide new insights into topics such as human migration or the spread and lethality of pandemic diseases, but also enable us to do so with increasing accuracy. These are tools we must learn to rely on.

Many of these new materials are related to climate archives, enabling historians to reconstruct past periods of environmental change – or even, in some cases, to better understand the effects of single, one-off extreme events such as floods, storms or volcanic eruptions.

That, in turn, has changed how historians work, not least in the ways we can collaborate more often and more meaningfully with colleagues across research groups. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a historian – to be part of the community of people interested in the past.

Peter Frankopan is professor of global history at Oxford University. His latest book is The Earth Transformed: An Untold History (Bloomsbury, 2023)

25. Powerful female leaders weren’t the sex-crazed failures of (manmade) myth

Our understanding of queenship has, thankfully, moved forward in the past 25 years – just as women’s history has also moved forward.

Female rulers such as Cleopatra and Mary, Queen of Scots have all too frequently been cited as cautionary tales about what follows when you give women power: sex and death. But in recent years, revisionist historians such as Kara Cooney, Joyce Tyldesley and Joann Fletcher have written brilliant accounts of Cleopatra, challenging the perception of her as a sex-mad failure.

Mary, Queen of Scots was surrounded by men attempting to seize her power – and, when she had a son, she was set on a course that led to her being deposed in favour of him. Lord Bothwell made her go back to his castle, where he assaulted her in an attempt to force her to marry. Past historians framed her for setting up this event. Today, though, we understand that a woman who had been seized and sexually assaulted was expected to agree to marry the man who attacked her. In Mary’s case, all of the lords were in agreement with that course of action – so what choice did Mary have?

As we are increasingly coming to understand, female rulers need to be seen in context. If they lost to the powerful men of the time or, indeed, the Roman empire, we need to grasp why that happened. Such insights can shape perceptions of the past – and a future with women in power.

Kate Williams is professor of public engagement with history at the University of Reading. Her latest book is The Royal Palaces: Secrets and Scandals (Frances Lincoln, 2024)

This article was first published in the June 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine

]]>Why Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots never methttps://www.historyextra.com/period/elizabethan/did-elizabeth-i-mary-queen-scots-really-meet-film-why/2024-08-07T11:03:00.000ZMary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I have been shown to meet many times on screen – from Friedrich Schiller's early 19th-century play Mary Stuart, to Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie's dramatic head-to-head in 2018 film, Mary Queen of Scots. But the real history is much more complex. We dive into the real history of their relationship, beginning with the reasons why Mary abdicated the throne and fled from Scotland to seek the help of the English queen…

On the night of 9/10 February 1567, the house in Edinburgh where Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, was staying, was blown apart by a huge explosion. The bodies of Darnley and a servant were found in an adjoining garden. They were not victims of the blast. They had been asphyxiated, apparently while trying to escape.

"It is impossible to determine," wrote Linda Porter for BBC History Magazine, "how much Mary knew about the assassination of Darnley… But her hesitancy in pursuing Darnley's murderers left her vulnerable." Three months later, the queen married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, one of the chief suspects in the murder.

Both Darnley's murder and Mary's marriage set in motion a chain of opportunity for those who opposed the queen: many Scottish lords turned against her and Mary was forced to abdicate from the throne in July 1567. Her son James was to become king, with Mary's half-brother, James Stewart the Earl of Moray, as regent.

Mary was imprisoned, but in 1568 she escaped Lochleven Castle and fled Scotland. She absconded to England, seeking the help of her cousin, Elizabeth I.

How were Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I related?

Mary, Queen of Scots was the only child of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. James V was the son of King James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor – who was the sister of King Henry VIII of England.

Elizabeth I was a daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, making Elizabeth and Mary first cousins once removed.

As neighbouring queens, Elizabeth I and Mary had already corresponded for many years. In early 1562, arrangements had been made for the two queens to meet in Nottingham that autumn, but the meeting was cancelled after the Massacre of Wassy, in which Protestant worshipers were killed on the orders of Mary's French family.

Elizabeth had also previously offered counsel to her cousin. After Darnley's death, explains historian Anna Whitelock, Elizabeth had urged Mary to distance herself from the scandal in order to protect her reputation, writing: "I treat you as my daughter, and assure you that if I had one, I could wish for her nothing better than I desire for you."

Yet when Mary arrived in England in 1568 seeking help from her cousin, Elizabeth was in a perilous position.

View Riddle on the source website

Why did Mary, Queen of Scots seek Elizabeth I's help?

Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Kate Williams said: "Mary's decision to flee into England was a terrible and fateful decision. She had hope that Elizabeth would have sympathy with a fellow queen and put her back on her throne. But for Elizabeth, that's a complete nightmare.

"Elizabeth's ministers did not want Mary back on the Scottish throne. They didn't think much of female rule (unless it was Elizabeth) and they also didn't like Mary because she was Catholic.

• On the podcast | Kate Williams tells the dramatic story of Mary, Queen of Scots' tragic life

"The ministers around Elizabeth, [William] Cecil in particular, had been paying James Stewart and the various pro-English Protestant lords to undermine Mary, and had funded some of the coup and attack attempts against her. They wanted to have an English-friendly, Protestant government in place. So Cecil has got everything he wants in James Stewart as the regent for the baby king.

"Elizabeth is then in an impossible position. In her heart, she does want to put Mary back on the throne, but the queen's ministers don't want it to happen. Elizabeth is a cautious woman and she understands it's going to be a complicated, expensive war to do that. So she orders an inquiry into Mary's conduct around the death of Lord Darnley and begins this endless inquiry based on evidence that Mary isn't allowed to see; evidence that is forged by James Stewart."

Mary was imprisoned while the inquiry progressed. Its aim, explains Williams, was not to pronounce Mary guilty of anything - as then they'd have to punish her, provoking the wrath of Catholic Europe - but not pronounce her innocent either, because then they would have to reinstall Mary to her throne.

"They really want no verdict," says Williams. "Mary is in suspended animation, under house arrest for nearly 20 years."

How did Mary petition Queen Elizabeth for a meeting, and what was her aim?

Mary was desperate to escape house arrest. "Mary begged for a meeting, begged Elizabeth to talk to her," says Williams. "Let's face it, she was not guilty of Darnley's murder; and even if she had been, the evidence Elizabeth was shown against her was ridiculous. It was loaded with idiotic forged letters; there was nothing in them that could possibly stand up in a real court. Therefore, Mary was not allowed to see them, because it was pointless evidence that wouldn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny.

"Mary was convinced Elizabeth was just being misled by her advisors, that the queen would be able to save her and look after her. Mary even begged her to be able to go and live in France, but Elizabeth wouldn't have that, either. Elizabeth was very hard on her: yes, perhaps she couldn't put Mary back on her throne because that would be too much of a military operation, but why not let her go and live in France? Maybe Mary would plot against her, but maybe she wouldn't.

"It's quite clear that Mary didn't plot against Elizabeth – she was just begging for friendship – right until the last minute, when Mary's spirit was broken. It became clear that Elizabeth was never going to give Mary freedom; they were going to keep her there until she died."

Why did Elizabeth I sign Mary's death warrant?

Elizabeth didn't necessarily realise, when she signed the warrant, how fast it was going to be enacted, says Williams. "She signed it and then it was whizzed off as fast as you can imagine, without Elizabeth being told. They wanted to kill Mary as fast as they could."

Mary's sentence was swift; that same night, she was told that she would be executed the next morning. "She barely has time to put her things in order," Williams explains. "At 2am she's still writing letters. But she doesn't beg Elizabeth at the last minute, she writes instead to the king of France, telling him she is to be killed. She knows that the decision has been made and her cousin has decided to execute her."

Mary was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587 at the age of 44.

• Read more | Mary, Queen of Scots: what happened to her ladies-in-waiting?

Why do so many dramatisations choose to show a meeting between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots?

The 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots was criticised by some for depicting a meeting between the two queens – including Dr Estelle Paranque, who told the BBC in July 2018 that the film could mislead viewers about their relationship. Kate Williams explained why the decision might have been made:

"I think most films and TV shows do show the two queens meeting. And it is inescapable that in a book or in life, it is the drama of letters that is the most exciting one. I know from my own books that have been optioned for film, long debates in letters tend to be dramatised as a meeting. Because simply, watching letters being written back and forth in a movie is generally not the way in which things work. Even in modern film and TV shows, people don't really text or email each other very much, even in a modern setting in which most of us text or email all day long.

"The drama of the relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary is strong in their letters," Williams says. "They are constantly meeting within their letters, but they never meet in person."

And why did Mary push until the very end for such a meeting? Williams says: "Mary wanted a meeting for two reasons; she wanted Elizabeth to talk to her and be charmed by her, but she also wanted to be publicly confirmed as Elizabeth's heir for the whole of Europe. It seems that this movie has it as a private meeting, not a public one, so even in the film Mary didn't get everything that she wanted.

"Many movies change history, but I do think that in an awful lot of them we see a relationship in letters dramatised through a meeting – I think that's just the way in which movies work."

Professor Kate Williams is a historian and the author bestselling history books including Rival Queens: The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots (2018)

]]>The Succession, with Professor Tracy Bormanhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-succession-with-professor-tracy-borman/2024-04-02T17:54:49.000ZView Green Video on the source website

Discover more learning from week four of the HistoryExtra Elizabethans course

Elizabeth I: the monarch behind the mask – reading time 11 mins King James VI and I: your guide to the first Stuart monarch of England – reading time 9 mins Bess of Hardwick: schemer, social climber, scourge of Elizabeth I – reading time 13 mins James VI and I: life of the week – listening time 44 mins

]]>What happened at the French court when Henry II died?https://www.historyextra.com/membership/henry-ii-death-consequences/2023-07-06T14:01:09.000Z"Mary Queen of Scots, along with her husband Francis, are now the king and queen of France. They're just teenagers, and they're entirely unprepared. Francis is quite young. He hasn't even gone through puberty yet. He's just really a boy, and he's been quite sickly. And so, to some degree, it's truly putting children on the throne of France.

"And in fact, no one in France is really prepared for this because Henry was quite a healthy king, and he was still quite young. So, everyone has sort of imagined that his reign would go on for quite some time, and that Francis and Mary would have time to grow up before they really had to fill his shoes.

"But they don't have time to grow up. So, Mary is suddenly thrust in this position where she has to be the queen consort. And, for her, even though personally she doesn't necessarily exert a tremendous amount of power on the reign, her uncles, the Guises, adopt the roles as chief advisers. And so they bring Mary along in their wake.

"So, Mary and her extended family, the Guises are put in a sort of unprecedented position of power. Certainly, much more powerful than they had enjoyed before, even though they were very important advisors before.

"But on a personal level, for Mary, again, it must have been extremely frightening for her, as it was for Francis, to suddenly be put in this position entirely unanticipated."

Leah Redmond Chang was speaking to Lauren Good on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to her thoughts on the lives of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary, Queen of Scots. 

]]>Three young queens: the unexpected bonds between Renaissance royalshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-unexpected-bonds-between-renaissance-royals-podcast-leah-redmond-chang/2023-05-19T05:19:26.000ZBefore being scattered across different kingdoms, Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary, Queen of Scots spent many years of their formative years at the French court. Speaking to Lauren Good, Leah Redmond Chang explores the bonds between these extraordinary women and considers how French king Henry II’s death changed the course of their futures in unexpected ways.

Leah Redmond Chang is the author of Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power (Bloomsbury, 2023)

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]]>Mary, Queen of Scots: The Scottish yearshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/mary-queen-scots-podcast-rosemary-goring/2022-11-21T11:59:40.000ZMary, Queen of Scots became queen when she was only six days old, but her reign had collapsed by the time she was 24. Speaking to Rhiannon Davies, Rosemary Goring explores the queen’s tumultuous Scottish years, examining her reign through her connections to various locations in Scotland, from grand palaces to dank battlefields.

Rosemary Goring is the author of Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary, Queen of Scots (Birlinn, 2022)

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]]>Who betrayed Mary, Queen Of Scots?https://www.historyextra.com/period/elizabethan/who-betrayed-mary-queen-of-scots/2022-02-08T06:07:00.000Z 

The Guise family

Mary’s mother had her infant daughter packed off to France

Mary, Queen of Scots had the misfortune to ascend the Scottish throne at the very moment when the kings of England and France were eyeing her nation greedily – seeing in it the opportunity to extend their own power. And so, from the moment she was born (on 8 December 1542), Mary was exploited by two powerful kings – and also her own family.

Mary was proclaimed queen at the tender age of six days, on the death of her father, King James V. No sooner had James gone to his grave than Henry VIII of England was declaring his intention to marry Mary to his son, Edward, as a means of gaining control of Scotland. This prospect was unpalatable to Mary’s mother, Mary of Guise – who was acting as queen regent – and so she had her five-year-old daughter packed off to France to be brought up as the future wife of the dauphin, Francis, son of the French king, Henry II. The Guise family hoped to attain more influence at the French court through Mary.

Everything about Mary’s union with Francis was about Scotland being subsumed into France – much like the baby sucking on the mother’s breast, as one poet put it. Worse still, Henry II encouraged Mary to proclaim that she and her husband were king and queen of England – this announcement would have fateful consequences, as it infuriated Elizabeth I.

Henry II’s plan for Scotland to be absorbed into France broke apart when Francis died, aged 16, in 1560. Mary was now a widow, unwanted at the French court. And so she returned to Scotland. Unlike Elizabeth I, who grew up on the outskirts of her country’s court and developed a firm group of loyal men around her, Mary returned to be queen of a country she had not seen since she was five. It was a case of out of the French frying pan, into the fire.

• Mary, Queen of Scots: the real history behind the film

Henry, Lord Darnley

Mary’s second husband led a coup against her

When, in 1564, Elizabeth I offered Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to Mary as a husband, she was horrified by the idea. Dudley was a traitor’s son, believed to be Elizabeth’s lover, and gossip across Europe suggested that he had an involvement in the suspicious death of his own wife. To top it off, Elizabeth wanted all three of them to live at her court together, something Mary could never agree to.

Instead, Mary decided to marry her relation, Henry, Lord Darnley. He was handsome, young and possessed of royal blood, but weak and corrupt. Things started to unravel very soon after the marriage in 1565. He wanted power – to be king, not just consort – but Mary resisted. He fell out with all of the lords, especially the powerful James Stewart, Earl of Moray, and he plotted against his wife.

Then one night in March 1566, Darnley and a group of conspirators broke into Mary’s supper chamber. They seized her secretary, David Rizzio, and stabbed him repeatedly before throwing him down the stairs. But Rizzio was not their ultimate target. This was a coup against Mary – and, in a bid to force the queen to submit to becoming a figurehead, the conspirators took her prisoner.

Mary managed to win Darnley back over to help her escape – but she could not trust him after all he had done, and the lords hated him. They told her they would deal with him and she told them she would not countenance such a thing. But, on the morning of 10 February 1567, Darnley’s house was blown up, and he and his servant were found dead nearby. Darnley had betrayed Mary by plotting against her, and betrayed himself with his violent and angry behaviour – but when the lords wanted him out of the way, he became the victim.

The Earl of Bothwell

Husband number three ambushed and raped her

Mary saw the Scottish nobleman James Hepburn, 1st Duke of Orkney and 4th Earl of Bothwell, as a friend. He had befriended her while she was in France, visiting in his capacity as Lord High Admiral, and helped to organise her return back to Scotland when she was 18. Most significant was the fact that he was one of those who helped her escape after her secretary, David Rizzio, was killed and she was imprisoned by a group of conspirators.

But as Mary’s marriage to Lord Darnley began to fail, Bothwell’s efforts to gain power over her increased – and he played a key role in Darnley’s murder.

Less than three months after the death of Darnley in February 1567, Bothwell ambushed Mary while she was travelling and told her she must come with him, as there was rioting in Edinburgh. She trusted him, and agreed to go with him.

Bothwell took Mary back to his castle, Dunbar, and raped her. He planned to force her to marry him – most young women at the time, particularly heiresses, were expected to wed their assaulters. Believing she was pregnant, that’s what Mary did.

When, finally, the Earl of Moray, Mary’s half-brother, engaged the royal couple on the battlefield in June 1567, Bothwell fled and Mary was taken captive. Her cruel, reckless third husband was captured at sea by the king of Denmark and held prisoner until his death in April 1578.

The Earl of Moray

Mary’s half-brother turned out to be her greatest enemy

On the face of it, Mary’s half-brother was her greatest supporter. He had accompanied her to France when she was five, had been a long-term advisor and, when Mary was first widowed, had counselled her to return to Scotland to take the throne.

But Moray’s motives were dubious. He wanted power for himself and – hampered by a weak claim to the throne, due to his illegitimate status as the son of James V and his mistress, Lady Margaret Erskine – saw Mary as the fastest way of gaining it. She would rule as a figurehead for him. But Mary was having none of it, and so began Moray’s repeated attempts to unseat her.

Mary’s marriage to Lord Darnley infuriated Moray because he feared this new rival would seize his lands and reduce his power. And so Moray and his allies plotted Darnley’s murder. When the deed was finally done, he cunningly deflected the blame on to Mary, encouraging her to leave the investigation to the council of lords that had been appointed to advise her. But the council did little to find the murderers.

Mary survived this attack on her throne, but her luck wouldn’t last. So unpopular was her marriage to Bothwell that it gave Moray the opportunity to gather around him an array of Scottish lords and make a final military attack to win power. He succeeded, took Mary captive and locked her in isolated Lochleven Castle. There, Moray visited the queen, who was weakened by sickness and a miscarriage, and coolly told her that she must abdicate. In 1568, she escaped (with the aid of the brother of the castle’s owner) and fled to England.

Moray now busied himself dividing up Mary’s treasures – both the queen of France, Catherine de' Medici, and Elizabeth I sought to buy his sister’s famous black pearls. He had gained the power and the riches he had craved – while acting as regent for Mary’s son, James – until he was shot in Linlithgow in 1570. Power in Scotland was a dangerous game.

William Cecil

The English minister plotted Mary’s downfall for decades

Elizabeth’s chief minister, William Cecil (1520–98), always hated Mary and wanted her off the throne. Mary was simply too Catholic for his tastes, and anyway he had no time for any other female ruler than Elizabeth. Mary was Elizabeth’s heir, unless the English queen had a child – and so she was, to Cecil, a constant threat. Most of the lords in Scotland were in Cecil’s pocket, notably Moray, paid to undermine Mary and hopefully remove her. Whether Cecil knew about their coup attempts or not, his funds assisted them.

Elizabeth’s sympathy for Mary angered Cecil and he repeatedly discouraged the English queen from helping her cousin. When Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle and forced to abdicate, Elizabeth was furious and wanted to intervene, but Cecil dissuaded her. And when Mary fled into England, hoping that Elizabeth would assist her, Cecil pushed hard for Mary to be submitted to an inquiry for involvement in the death of Darnley. The aim was not to find her guilty or innocent, but to create a non-verdict (which would ensure that she continued to languish in prison).

So Mary was kept locked up, under a watch that grew so tight that, in the words of her keeper, not even a flea could escape her rooms. But what Cecil – and other ministers such as Francis Walsingham – really wanted was an excuse to get rid of his royal captive. And so a double agent was hired, who volunteered to take her letters to France. Every one was opened and decoded. When, finally, after nearly 20 years of imprisonment, Mary agreed to conspire in a plot against her cousin, Cecil had the evidence he needed to execute her.

Elizabeth I

When it came to the crunch, England’s queen put her own interests first

How much did Elizabeth know about William Cecil’s plots against Mary? Did she know that he was paying the men around Mary to undermine and unseat her? Personally, I believe not – although Elizabeth did receive Mary’s great rival, Lord Moray, when he came to England to avoid the heat of suspicion after the death of Darnley.

Elizabeth undoubtedly had sympathy for her cousin (Mary’s grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Elizabeth’s aunt). She was also concerned that if one woman was deprived of her throne, then it would reflect badly on all queens.

However, when Mary arrived in England in 1568 after being deposed from the throne, Elizabeth had a problem on her hands. Restoring her cousin to the Scottish throne would involve a costly and perhaps unsuccessful military campaign. Meanwhile, Cecil was keen to support the Protestant government of Moray. He was also adamantly opposed to leaving Mary free, as he feared Catholic plotters might group around her.

Mary begged Elizabeth to allow her to live quietly in France, and the king of France supported her wish – but Elizabeth refused. Instead, she had Mary locked up, on the grounds that she knew about the plot to murder Lord Darnley (an accusation that was supported by no real evidence).

If locking up Mary was a painful decision for Elizabeth, then the dilemma with which she was presented two decades later – when it emerged that Mary had given her support to a plot to unseat the English queen – was more tortuous still. Mary was put on trial and found guilty of treason. Parliament and the queen’s ministers were adamant that she should die. But Elizabeth was reluctant. Finally she gave in and signed the execution warrant. Cecil enacted it immediately and Elizabeth was shocked and devastated – she perhaps had hoped to change her mind.

Elizabeth had feared the fury of Catholic Europe. She also dreaded that executing a queen would undermine the whole concept of monarchy. And, as it turned out, Elizabeth was right to be worried. The campaign to send Mary to the block had emboldened parliament. The trial and subsequent execution of a queen of Scotland in 1587 paved the way for the trial and execution of a king of England, Charles I, 60 years later.

And finally… Mary herself

How much blame should the Queen of Scots shoulder for her own demise?

Mary, Queen of Scots is often seen as the author of her own downfall. But, from the start, the odds were stacked against her. She was manipulated, she was subjected to repeated mutinies, she was assaulted and she was imprisoned.

As I argue in my book on Elizabeth and Mary, she could have been an excellent queen. When she moved to Scotland as queen at the age of 18, she encouraged religious toleration, engaged advisors from all the major clans and listened to their counsel, even when they were working against her. Elizabeth’s style of queenship, similarly predicated on expressing respect for her advisers and instituting religious toleration, was rightly praised.

When Elizabeth’s ministers undermined her, they did so by lying to her and going behind her back. By contrast, Mary’s advisors staged coups and tried to abduct their monarch – even the ones she thought she could trust, such as her treacherous half-brother, the Earl of Moray.

Mary believed that the best way to protect herself was through marriage. Undoubtedly, her choice of husband was unwise in that her union with Lord Darnley only exacerbated her problems, but in reality she had no option that would have satisfied the Scottish lords.

• Mary, Queen of Scots: what happened to her ladies-in-waiting?

Mary’s biggest mistake was to flee to England after she lost her throne. She was convinced that Elizabeth I would help her return to power. That support never materialised and, famously, the two never even met. Locked up in England with no prospect of release or escape, Mary became one of the most isolated figures in royal history. And that isolation undoubtedly played a part in her writing the letter that would lead to her execution: throwing her weight behind the ‘Babington Plot’ to assassinate Elizabeth I.

Monarchs are always surrounded by treachery, but Mary had not a single person she could trust.

This article was first published in the January 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine

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