00:06:09.120But I did really want to make her a central figure in the book, partially because she,
00:06:16.120The way I would put it is that she's kind of, this is going to sound a little bit strange, but a Renaissance every woman, a Renaissance royal every woman in some ways.
00:06:26.640I think she represents the common experience of aristocratic and royal women during the 16th century, you know, in the 15th century, just during this time of dynasty.
00:06:41.300most women would have an experience most aristocratic or royal women would have an
00:06:47.540experience closer to Elizabeth Catherine and Mary for various reasons they're pretty extraordinary
00:06:53.400but Elizabeth is sort of this you know your average queen consort if you will and I feel
00:07:00.300like we don't hear enough about that about what that was like for a number of reasons we actually
00:07:04.620have access to a lot of information about her. And so I thought this was a great opportunity to
00:07:12.600bring that forward. It was really interesting to me because I read your book just after I'd
00:07:17.120finished my research on Catherine de' Medici and on Mary, Queen of Scots. But this was really just
00:07:21.460filling in some gaps I didn't even know were there just to be who is this other person who
00:07:25.500was there. And as you said, her life was eventful, but it wasn't the chaotic soap opera that was
00:07:32.180happening to the others yeah right right no no no but at the same time she's a witness to all of
00:07:37.760that chaos right and she's a she's an important player I mean certainly her mother Catherine
00:07:43.700thinks of her as a really important player and oh you know to the extent that she can be as this
00:07:49.960teenage queen but Catherine is also shaping her to be an important player and I won't I won't spoil
00:07:56.980it. But yeah, we'll try it. We'll try and tell the story without spoiling all the reveals. But
00:08:03.680she was the eldest child, right, of Catherine and Rosamund. She is the eldest daughter. She's not
00:08:10.100the eldest child. She's the second child. So the first is Francis, and he becomes the heir. He
00:08:16.380eventually becomes Francis II. That's Mary, Queen of Scots' husband. But Elizabeth is the first
00:08:21.580daughter. And she's kind of on the heels of Francis. As you know, with Catherine, Catherine
00:08:26.340is barren for the first 10 years of her marriage. It was very stressful for her. And then something0.89
00:08:32.260changes and she starts having child after child, this sort of repeated pregnancy. And so Elizabeth
00:08:38.020was her second child, but first born daughter. And it's a little bit hard to say because there
00:08:44.920are a lot of different sources that say one child or the other is Catherine's favorite,
00:08:49.760but a lot of sources seem to suggest that at least among the girls, Elizabeth was Catherine's
00:08:55.220favorite. And she was very much, she was saying that she was, she was raised knowing that she
00:08:59.760was going to be married to somebody important. She was going to have this role. And Catherine
00:09:02.940wanted her to both excel at being a queen, but also to be sort of her person on the inside,0.61
00:09:08.600like to be on team Catherine. Totally, totally team Catherine. I love that. You know, and it's
00:09:14.560definitely this collaborative mother-daughter team. What we, you know, we don't know is whether
00:09:20.100or not that's originally what Catherine intended. So to give a little context here, Catherine is
00:09:26.080the Queen Consort of France, and she's doing just fine being Queen Consort. And then her husband,
00:09:33.000Henry, dies in this terrible jousting accident. And suddenly the kingdom is thrown into chaos.
00:09:39.680Her son, Francis II, inherits the throne. He's married to Mary, Queen of Scots. She becomes
00:09:45.680the queen consort of France. What's at stake is this new peace treaty with Spain. Spain had been
00:09:53.880the enemy for generations. There's a new peace treaty, suddenly they're allies, and no one really
00:10:01.080knows whether or not that alliance, that peace treaty is going to hold. So it's very imperative
00:10:07.200that Elizabeth do what she can to help her mother keep the peace between France and Spain. And the
00:10:13.960problem is that Elizabeth is only 14 years old. So it's at that point that Catherine really starts
00:10:20.280to cultivate Elizabeth as her, you know, team player, as you put it. And of course, all of this
00:10:25.940has to be done through correspondence because Elizabeth is in Spain and Catherine is still in
00:10:30.820France. Let's talk about Philip for a minute. So this is who Elizabeth is married to. He has been
00:10:36.320married twice before. I think most people are familiar with the fact he was married to Mary
00:10:41.580the first of england yes so it's that same philip you guys it's that same guy widowed from mary and
00:10:49.980then he is married to this really young teenage elizabeth she's like a child she's still playing
00:10:57.540with dolls they actually talk about that her ladies in waiting who write to catherine and you
00:11:02.920know philip is is kind of known to be a bad husband right certainly if you know about philip1.00
00:11:08.100marry the first of England. You know that he's not a great husband. He abandons Mary the first
00:11:14.060of England, more or less. And so Elizabeth is marrying this man who doesn't have a great track
00:11:21.260record with his wives. He's 20 years older than her. He's known to be austere. He's very pious.
00:11:28.960Elizabeth wouldn't necessarily have had a problem with that. You know, he's sort of this unknown
00:11:33.940quantity to her he used to be the enemy i mean you know just a few months before he was the enemy
00:11:40.100and i think that often we we have trouble kind of wrapping our minds around that you know how
00:11:45.500how these alliances um or these relationships could shift could turn almost on a dime
00:11:51.660um so for instance you know philip who was kind of this i would imagine sort of monstrous figure
00:11:58.620in the eyes of the French is suddenly her husband, right? I don't, you know, I often try to kind of
00:12:05.280get myself into Elizabeth's head to see how or to imagine how she must have thought of that.
00:12:11.200It must have been terrifying. Well, and in one of the letters, she says, before she meets him,
00:12:16.880it's so sweet. She's so sweet, like, especially because you have so much of her own words,
00:12:22.500translated, of course, but she's saying like, I want to do a good job and I want to be a good
00:12:26.580queen. And she's like, I hope he'll be like a husband and also like a father for me. She says
00:12:31.240that, right? She says that. And, you know, I sat with that letter for a long time. And like you
00:12:38.220said, it's moving, right? You see her as this child, you know, who's just trying to wrap her
00:12:44.320mind around what this marriage is going to be. And of course, she's saying that on the heels of
00:12:49.100her own father's brutal death, you know, and she loved her father. Henry II was a very good dad,
00:12:55.540I will say. And so his children seem to really love him. So this has been this horrible,
00:13:01.680traumatic experience. And now all she can hope for, you know, what she has to sort of imagine
00:13:08.020is that Philip is going to replace her beloved dad, because that's the only way she can relate,
00:13:14.140I think, to an older man. Well, and then also in terms of her ladies-in-waiting. So when she was
00:13:18.820in France, she was, and I talked about this in the Mary Queen of Scots episode, but she was raised
00:13:24.700like siblings. Like she was like a sister to Mary, Queen of Scots. The children were in the nursery
00:13:28.120together. And I think even when she and Mary are writing to each other, they're calling each other
00:13:31.740sister and things like that. Yes. So it's not just Elizabeth wanting to replace her beloved father
00:13:37.240who just died, but also her friend group, her entire life. So she comes over to Spain. Yeah.
00:13:43.420Yes, totally. Catherine is worried about a lot of things. That poor woman, actually,0.92
00:13:48.940When I think about, you know, sending off Elizabeth to Spain with, you know, the political world in France, you know, just sort of crumbling around you.
00:13:57.760But she is very worried about Elizabeth personally, and she's also worried about Elizabeth politically.
00:14:03.860So she sends a lot of very trusted French ladies-in-waiting with Elizabeth.
00:14:10.200And she also sends some very high ranking noble women, the Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who's this very wealthy heiress and a cousin to Elizabeth.
00:14:23.260And she's about Elizabeth's same age. And I think the idea was that, you know, she was going to have this little friend, this friend in court with her who was of a certain noble ranking that would match Elizabeth and therefore be acceptable to the Spanish.
00:14:37.640because the Spanish are really sticklers about things like rank and appropriateness.
00:14:44.320Oh, speaking of, there's several moments in this, in your book where you describe Elizabeth,0.99
00:14:50.200there's these just, she was frozen with indecision. Who is the higher rank of this? Who gets out of
00:14:56.080the carriage first or whatever? And she's just like, I don't know. I'm 14. I'm in Spain. But0.96
00:15:01.400it's so important to the Spanish people. Yes. Yes. And she knows that she knows. I mean,
00:15:08.360it's like, it's like your first day on the job, right? Where you already have a sense
00:15:12.660of the office vibe and you know, you have to make the right choice. I think that's what Elizabeth
00:15:19.280was going through. And, you know, she has a lot of advice from these ladies of in waiting that I've
00:15:24.980um, just spoken about. But in the end, he is the queen already, even though she's 14. And so it's
00:15:32.160up to her to make the right decision. And sometimes she makes the wrong decision, like any,
00:15:37.320like any child would. And, you know, that actually ends up having some serious political implications.
00:15:47.420I kept thinking this would be a really interesting film or a TV show or something, or even I was0.97
00:15:53.800seeing it very cinematically, just this young girl who is just so in over her head, but she's
00:15:59.420so determined to do everything correctly and to do everything right. And her mother is writing her
00:16:03.660these letters being like, here's what you do, like trying to support as best as she can. Like
00:16:07.440it was a really, like you said, it's a really sort of moving situation. I couldn't help, but just my
00:16:11.580heart goes out to her. Yes. And to Catherine, right? I mean, I often think about that, what
00:16:16.880that must've been like without the immediacy of communication that we have today, you know,
00:16:22.940hoping your letter gets to your daughter in time before she makes, you know, the wrong decision,
00:16:29.420hoping the people that you've placed around her are going to steer her well, hoping that she
00:16:34.920doesn't get sick or offend her new husband, you know, who really has the power to do something
00:16:39.980terrible, both in Spain and, you know, towards France. So I feel for both of them. I feel for
00:16:47.480the young girl, but I also feel for the mother. You're right. Just thinking about that now to
00:16:53.360the immediacy of it, because some of these things are quite time sensitive. Her questions she has
00:16:57.680are Catherine's advice, but it's, you have to wait for the courier to get there. Can you talk
00:17:02.180about the way, and this is a bit later in their story, but the way that they wrote these very
00:17:07.280frustrating letters to you, where they were just like, could you do that thing I talked about with
00:17:12.920that person. We both know what that like. Oh, my God. Totally. Yeah. So the thing about these
00:17:21.680letters is that they couldn't necessarily say exactly what they meant, because letters aren't
00:17:29.720secure. Letters get lost. They get lost all the time. People could steal them. Spies could open
00:17:36.240them and read them. There are all sorts of ways in which sending a letter is not the most secure
00:17:43.260form of communication. And because Elizabeth was so young, Catherine didn't use code with her.
00:17:51.680She didn't use cipher. Also because if that did fall under the eyes of some Spaniard or some spy,
00:17:58.620it would be clear that Catherine was communicating something secretive and that wouldn't look so good,
00:18:02.980right? Because Elizabeth is supposed to be the loyal queen consort of Philip II. So they found0.95
00:18:09.200these ways to kind of hint at things, right? Sort of dropping names or sometimes, you know,
00:18:17.640using a certain roundabout forms of circumlocution to get at what they mean. And I have the feeling
00:18:26.640that there were things in those letters that I missed, right? That they were probably,
00:18:31.680you know, hinting at or saying that I just never really picked up on because I didn't understand
00:18:37.400the kind of code of illusion that was going on in the letters.
00:18:42.220And that was so interesting coming off of, as you're well aware, like just this past year,
00:18:46.720the cipher of Mary, Queen of Scots that was cracked, right? And so I read up on that. And it's,
00:18:52.820you know, this symbol means this, and this means this. And that's once you figure that out, like
00:18:57.220crypto quote, then you can understand it. But this there's no way to understand it, because
00:19:00.920this is all just in their hearts. This is all just in their minds.
00:19:05.040Exactly. And then half the time, the messenger, the messenger is the one who communicates the
00:19:10.380oral message. There's so much that must have gone on orally that has been completely lost to us.
00:19:16.920So we're always only ever getting a part of the picture. And all we can do is try to kind of
00:19:24.320piece it back together again, like a puzzle. Well, and that just for the listeners of this,
00:19:28.760there was a part in the Mary Queen of Scots episode I did where she was giving birth and
00:19:33.320she wrote a will. And one of the things that she, her bequest was to David Rizzio's brother. And it
00:19:38.200just said like, I'm going to give you this and do with it that thing that we said that you should
00:19:42.420do. Like, it's that sort of thing where you're just like, what is that? What are you doing?
00:19:47.740And what was it? I'm dying to know. Oh yeah, no, I know. You know, I always feel like with history
00:19:56.260that almost by definition, we have it a little bit wrong always, you know, because there was
00:20:01.980probably some other, there's probably a show or maybe another book, something to create where you
00:20:07.420could see all these various different scenarios, you know, around, say, a single object or the
00:20:12.900will or a single event, just kind of reimagining how history might have gone if we had just one
00:20:18.920more detail. So speaking of things that they talk about very vaguely in their letters, but also
00:20:24.600talking about the immense amount of pressure that this extremely young person is under.
00:20:28.880Can we talk about her health? There's one of the letters where Catherine says,
00:20:33.080if anyone found out what you have, which could mean a disease, which could mean who knows, but
00:20:39.340she had various symptoms, right? Can you talk about her physical issues?
00:20:45.460Yes. So it is very hard to diagnose people from the past. Reporters of symptoms are unreliable,
00:20:53.560including doctors. The way that they would describe symptoms in the past is maybe not the way we would
00:20:59.140describe them today. So it's really tempting to diagnose them, but we can't. But we can talk about
00:21:05.320the kind of symptoms that Elizabeth had. And what's unclear is how many of these symptoms
00:21:10.320she might have had before she went to Spain, because we only have correspondence after she
00:21:15.700went to Spain. But it's very possible that she was suffering from a lot of this before she left
00:21:21.180for Spain. So among the symptoms, she has a lot of nausea. She vomits. She has terrible migraines.
00:21:31.040She has nosebleeds. She often feels kind of faint. She has what Catherine describes as
00:21:40.000fullness, but it's really not clear what that is. It's probably an allusion to too much blood.
00:21:46.120We're still operating in a world that believes in humoral theory. So it's probably a reference to her somehow having too much blood, maybe because she isn't really menstruating yet. That's the other huge thing about Elizabeth is that she struggles with her menstrual cycle, possibly very much like Mary I of England did. That's also something that's still not totally clear.
00:22:11.360So she has this spate of symptoms, which to some degree, you know, you kind of look at that and
00:22:17.080say, hmm, I wonder if she's an adolescent girl just struggling with hormonal changes, you know,
00:22:23.100that could have been the case. Or, you know, maybe she's really stressed. She is, after all,
00:22:29.940under a ton of pressure. Or maybe she's just having trouble adapting to the new food. Or maybe
00:22:36.080she's always had an illness. She does seem to have some version of these symptoms until the
00:22:42.880day she dies. So it does seem like there's something chronically wrong with her. But
00:22:49.080what it exactly is, is unclear. But it did make Catherine very, very worried.
00:22:55.820And that's another really touching thing. You know, people think, including myself,
00:22:59.680Catherine de' Medici is this like formidable, fierce woman, but these letters are just like,
00:23:03.480oh my God, like giving her advice because Catherine, she was really interested in not
00:23:08.280chemistry, but like making creams and tonics and things. And so she would like prepare mixtures
00:23:13.420to send along, right? Yes. And she, I mean, I kind of wish I had her mixtures because the way
00:23:19.180the French ladies talk about them, this stuff was, was really good. So, you know, Elizabeth has
00:23:24.420smallpox. She has some scarring on her face. Catherine is terrified that these scars are0.97
00:23:29.200going to be permanent. And the French ladies in waiting are saying, please send us more of1.00
00:23:33.300bomb because we don't trust any of the cosmetics here. So it must have been pretty good. Maybe she
00:23:39.420brought it over from Italy. Who knows? But she was. And she's very hovering in some ways over
00:23:46.960Elizabeth in both good ways and bad ways. I do think you see in these letters a little bit of
00:23:54.700the kind of controlling helicopter mom that Catherine is known to be. I like to think she0.91
00:24:00.800had her reasons. But it's also a, these letters show a woman who really loves her daughter.
00:24:08.440And I feel like that is not something that we normally associate with Catherine de' Medici,
00:24:13.860but it's what I saw, you know, in, in her letters. This, this mother who was grieving the departure
00:24:20.940of her daughter was really worried about how she was going to do, who really needed her
00:24:26.660emotionally in some ways and who loved her. I mean, just quite simply, she just,
00:24:32.100she loved her daughter. Well, and just on top of all of the stresses that we've already discussed
00:24:36.600about, you know, the weight of the peace between two nations resting on her behavior. And she has
00:24:42.600this much older husband and she's in a different country. She didn't speak Spanish initially,
00:24:46.220but also you just mentioned that she wasn't menstruating. Like the whole thing is like,0.94
00:24:50.960let's have this young, fertile, allegedly young woman so she can start having some children so1.00
00:24:57.540they can have some heirs. And she, for six years, she doesn't have any children.1.00
00:25:02.580Right. It's almost like she inherited her mother's problem, right? So Catherine is0.91
00:25:08.700barren for 10 years and Elizabeth struggles with her fertility too. And that must've been0.93
00:25:15.240horrifying for Catherine, right? Because that must've been something she felt in her bones,
00:25:20.580the the stress of that infertility and now her daughter is suffering from her from it too and
00:25:26.980and the stakes are still higher so yeah she doesn't have her period i don't think she had a
00:25:33.720period when she went to Spain i mean there's a possibility that she's gotten it once but she is
00:25:38.420by no means menstruating regularly and Catherine writes these panicked letters to the chief lady
00:25:46.060and waiting, Madame de Clermont, tell me when her period's coming. Tell me, tell me the moment
00:25:51.040her period comes. You know, it just, you just know that when she got that news, she would,
00:25:56.080Catherine would breathe a sigh of relief. So it's very irregular. And that is just,
00:26:03.180that leaves Elizabeth in such a vulnerable, insecure position, because if Philip thinks
00:26:09.640that anything is wrong with her, he can just renege on that peace treaty. He can repudiate
00:26:15.380Elizabeth. And he can start to wage war again on France. And in some ways, he has reason to,0.88
00:26:22.300not only because there's this longstanding animosity between France and Spain,
00:26:27.720and longstanding wars over territories in Europe, but also because we are in the middle of the
00:26:34.120Protestant Reformation. And the Huguenots, the Protestants are really gaining ground in France.
00:26:40.040And that makes Philip very, very nervous. So Catherine needs Elizabeth to be secure in her place at court. She needs Elizabeth to have Philip's ear. And the only way that Catherine can be really sure that happens is if Elizabeth gives birth to the heir or to the next heir. Yeah. The second in line, because there is another one. Don Carlos is already there.0.82
00:27:05.780I was just going to say, speaking of people with health issues that we're not going to diagnose, let's talk about, here's what I found really sweet, actually. So Don Carlos is a person I've talked about a few times in the Mary Queen of Scots season, because he was sort of on and off. Mary would be like, maybe that's the match that she should have, like make this connection with Spain. But Don Carlos is just lots of lots of health issues, lots of mental health issues. But he and Elizabeth have this really sweet friendship. They're similar age, I think.
00:27:35.060Yes, they're almost exactly the same age.
00:27:38.320She meets him when she first gets to Guadalajara, and he's very respectful to her.
00:27:44.280And to all evidence, Don Carlos was nothing but respectful to Elizabeth, even though there is some testimony that he didn't feel that way about women in general.
00:27:55.140But it is very hard to know the truth about Don Carlos.
00:31:35.740And the Duke of Alba finds out that Elizabeth really likes art.
00:31:39.960So then the Duke of Alba gets the idea that maybe what Philip could do is bring this young woman artist that everyone is raving about in Italy over to serve Elizabeth as one of her ladies-in-waiting in the court of Spain.
00:31:55.180So Philip thinks it's a good idea, and he arranges for it to happen.
00:31:59.460So just as Elizabeth is coming to Spain, Sofonisba is making her own journey from Italy to Spain, where she will serve as one of Elizabeth's chief ladies-in-waiting, maybe even her favorite lady-in-waiting.
00:35:28.720Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.
00:35:33.720Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.
00:35:41.640But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.
00:35:45.960This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.
00:35:49.140Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.
00:35:55.320This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.
00:36:02.880This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.
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00:38:03.700And at the same time, you know, maybe it's because she did have these people around that Elizabeth ultimately is a successful queen of Spain, at least by some measures, if not others.
00:38:17.240She really does become a beloved figure at the Spanish court.
00:38:22.000That may have something to do with her personality.
00:38:24.100I think she melded well with the expectations of the Spanish.
00:39:56.660And it's hard to know if these are like
00:39:58.320normal pregnancy symptoms or if there's something more ominous going on. But for sure, Catherine is
00:40:05.020very worried. All women had to worry that they were going to die in childbirth. So Catherine is
00:40:12.420not only worried that Elizabeth, her daughter, will die, but she's also worried about, you know,
00:40:17.620the political alliance if her daughter should die, as well as Elizabeth Dowry. She doesn't know what's0.96
00:40:23.000going to happen to it. So there are all sorts of reasons for Catherine to be worried when Elizabeth
00:40:28.120gets pregnant. But mostly what she really wants is for Elizabeth to deliver a healthy baby to0.99
00:40:34.800prove that she's fertile, which she does. The one disappointment is that it's never a boy,
00:40:40.280right? It's these two girls, both of whom eventually Philip grows very, very close to.
00:40:46.800But where Elizabeth doesn't succeed as a queen is she never actually gives birth to a boy.
00:40:52.060I was just looking just as I was reading your book, I was taking some notes of phrases that
00:40:55.960caught my attention. And I think this was from one of her pregnancies. Anyway, it was described
00:41:00.840that she had, quote, infinite vomiting, which is no. Okay. Yeah, that's probably like, yeah,
00:41:09.800a very traumatic symptom. Right. Although again, right there, we see that today with women. It's
00:41:16.680just that now we have medicine for it. Yeah, exactly. Right. So when you think about that,
00:41:21.960you know, these royal women, they are kind of baby making machines and they just have to suffer1.00
00:41:27.200through all the symptoms. Hope they come out alive on the other end so they can do it all over again.1.00
00:41:34.480Yeah, that's the thing. It's I'm sure it was so stressful for everybody that she didn't conceive
00:41:39.460a child for six years. But when she started having the children, I mean, then there's new
00:41:45.020things to be worried about, basically. Is she going to survive childbirth and is it going to
00:41:49.400be a son? She dies shortly after. Shortly after. And, you know, from the way the description is,
00:41:59.020it sounds like the pregnancy was exacerbating some symptoms she was already having. So this
00:42:05.340goes back to the likely chronic illness that she suffered from. The pregnancy clearly exacerbated0.98
00:42:11.980that and so she ends up more or less having a stillbirth the baby's got five months you know
00:42:17.420in the womb and then and then she dies soon thereafter um and it's very sad it's very very
00:42:23.740sad and that baby was also a girl and then the the funeral like you were saying that she became
00:42:29.940this beloved queen of spain and that's how she was treated at her upon her death like you could
00:42:35.100see how much everybody really cared for her and loved her as their queen yes genuine mourning
00:42:40.220I think Philip really mourned her. One of the remarkable things about Elizabeth, especially because Philip was this neglectful husband for his first two wives, is that he seems to have grown genuinely close to Elizabeth.
00:42:58.520I think it's because, at least partly because she ended up taking his side.
00:43:03.720Philip did not agree with Catherine's policies of religious tolerance in France.
00:43:10.520And Elizabeth, she supported her mother, but she kind of agreed with her husband about it.0.87
00:43:15.680You know, that they should find, the French should find a way to quash, to destroy French Protestantism.0.80
00:43:22.980And so I think that on some way, on some level, she made it clear to Philip that she chose him and Spain. And he really liked that. So yes, the whole court mourns her death. And Philip too, really does mourn her death.0.90
00:43:43.460And it's so tempting for me to think like, well, what could have happened if she had lived longer? And I think she was someone who could have accomplished a lot. She was an interesting person. Politically, like as she became an older person, more mature, understood the situation of what was going on better. I think she could have. Well, and then also everything changes, who Philip marries next. But it's just such a sad thing that she dies so young. She's in her 20s, right? When she dies, like 20.
00:44:39.560really teaching her how to be political as a queen consort.1.00
00:44:45.320Nada was showing your cards, right, to your husband,
00:44:49.280maybe making him think one thing, but doing something else,
00:44:53.640which is why, you know, I said earlier,
00:44:55.900she shows this sort of public face to Philip that she chose him,
00:45:00.220but who knows exactly what she was eventually planning.
00:45:03.480And I think had she lived longer, she, you know,
00:45:06.880really, uh, would have been quite an influencer behind the throne in many ways, but she never
00:45:14.060gets that chance. Yeah. Your book again is about the three of them together. And so you weave it1.00
00:45:20.000together. And I love the way that you did that because I wasn't sure going into it, knowing that
00:45:23.260her life was so much shorter than the others, but you sort of, all three of them are there
00:45:27.640throughout the whole story to sort of weave in and out of each other's lives. And you talk a bit
00:45:32.080about how Mary, Queen of Scots, at some points, appeals to her for help because Mary is appealing
00:45:38.140to everybody. But Elizabeth, I mean, her loyalty is to Spain and to her mother, and she can't help
00:45:44.280out her childhood friend. Right, right. And that's an interesting thing to think about.
00:45:50.520You know, when Mary and Elizabeth were growing up together in France, they were children,
00:45:56.020right? And, you know, Mary certainly thought of her childhood in France as sort of idyllic time.
00:46:00.880And in many ways it was because it was simple, right? But as they get older and as they fan out to different kingdoms and things happen that fracture certain alliances or friendships, you know, it's that cliched expression that blood is thicker than water.
00:46:20.740But for sure, Elizabeth was going to choose her blood loyalty, her loyalty to her mother over any kind of residual friendship she felt for Mary.
00:46:32.000And, you know, it's hard to say that it was black and white.
00:46:35.400I can't say that Elizabeth didn't feel regret that she has to make that choice of, you know, choosing Catherine's side over Mary.
00:46:45.040For all I know, it was a difficult decision for Elizabeth to make.
00:46:50.740that's sort of something that archive doesn't always let you into, right? You can't always
00:46:56.340get into the complexity of their minds. But, you know, when Push came to Shev,
00:47:02.080she owed her loyalty first to Catherine, or maybe Philip, and then, you know,
00:47:08.900Mary only way down on the list. Exactly. Yeah. Which is just an important thing to remember.
00:47:15.220Well, that that loyalty was so important to her, like her devotion to her mother was so clear
00:47:19.500throughout her letters, like throughout her, their communication, which is, you know, a fairly
00:47:23.700short period of time, but she was always so loyal to her mother. So loving to her mother, you see
00:47:28.980in the words that how she talks to her, that she admires her and she wants to please her and do
00:47:35.040what she wants. Like a young girl for her mother. I mean, to me too, that expression of love was,0.70
00:47:42.060was very much evidence of her youth. Again, you know, had she lived longer, maybe she would have
00:47:48.140been able to cut the cord a little bit more. But even though, you know, she's in Spain, she never
00:47:53.200fully cuts it. She's still very tied to France. And, you know, Elizabeth was known as the Queen
00:47:59.560of Peace. That was sort of the moniker that she was given upon her marriage to Spain because
00:48:05.760her marriage seals this peace treaty between France and Spain. But in some ways, that's just
00:48:13.900how she lived out her life, always a little bit between the two kingdoms, doing what she could
00:48:20.140to kind of be the intercessor between those two kingdoms. Had she lived longer, you know,
00:48:27.900who knows what would have happened. So in some ways, she remains the queen of peace in part
00:48:33.540because she dies young. That's interesting how she was literally the queen of peace because of
00:48:38.640her marriage was this peace treaty, but as her personality wise, she wanted to mediate between1.00
00:48:44.900other people and kind of make everybody get along. That just seems like in a small way and in a big0.97
00:48:49.780way, that was very much what she was about. Yes. Yes. I agree. So whenever I profile somebody on
00:48:56.380my podcast, we go through these four categories and I'm so curious to see what you think about.
00:49:01.280So the four categories, each measures a different thing. And some people score highly in one and not
00:49:05.400another one. It's very rare. Someone scores highly in all four. Mary and Catherine both did.
00:49:11.840Elizabeth lived a very different life and was much shorter. So the first category is,
00:49:17.380so scandalousness, like how scandalous was she seen at the time? I think to her credit,
00:49:25.560she lived very well and kept herself out of scandal. And that was important and good for her.
00:49:31.680definitely keeps herself out of scandals. She lives this blemish-free life at the court of Spain,
00:49:40.160but that doesn't mean that she's not engaged in intrigue behind the scenes. I will say that.
00:49:47.780That's true. That's true. All those letters that are like,
00:49:49.740oh, I did that thing you told me to do with that person.
00:51:22.180but if you can kind of find a way to do it without really doing it maybe she would have0.98
00:51:28.460actually chosen chosen that so in terms of scheminess I don't know maybe a three yeah
00:51:35.080the next one is interesting it's the significance so this is where we're looking at both like did
00:51:41.600her descendants go on to do anything important what do you think her significance was to
00:51:46.320I don't know world history is such a big thing to say but I think the fact that she
00:51:50.440married Philip and it was a successful marriage in the sense of she retained the peace for that
00:51:56.180period of time they had some children like the significance there is he could have married
00:52:00.440Mary Queen of Scots he could have married Elizabeth the first so but he married her
00:52:05.240well yeah and I actually think so one of the schemes that we haven't really talked about
00:52:10.380was definitely there uh was Elizabeth and Catherine blocking that marriage between Mary
00:52:18.080Queen of Scots and Don Carlos. And if that had gone forward, that would have changed a whole lot
00:52:25.220in European history, really a whole lot. And I think it almost went forward. So, um, you know,
00:52:35.320if, if, if, if we can see it that way, again, there's this sort of behind the scenes work that
00:52:41.900a lot of women do, not just Elizabeth or Catherine or Mary, but a lot of aristocratic women. And we
00:52:48.540don't really see it and we don't hear about it in the histories, but it's there. So I kind of
00:52:54.740want to rate Elizabeth fairly high on that level, if only to kind of give credit to all the women
00:53:01.800who were changing history without us even hearing about it.
00:53:05.880Exactly. Exactly. Like how many things Philip did during that period of time,
00:53:09.460did she influence we don't know because we just know what he did right right right because women's
00:53:15.880role isn't recorded in a way that is easy to to follow so i don't know i'm gonna rate her high
00:53:22.580yeah it's a nine for sure i think if she if she hadn't married him and if she hadn't been savvy
00:53:29.480enough to to be kind and sweet and nice and get along and make spain love her like things could
00:53:35.060have gone it was a really heightened situation like spain and france and england and scotland0.96
00:53:40.260at this time like as we see mary queen of scots had so much partially bad luck but that's how she
00:53:47.460was going in her situation but like you said she elizabeth was a foreigner and marrying into this0.92
00:53:53.900country and she did so much better she fit in so much better than her mother did or the mary
00:53:59.020cream scots did and i think that's significant yeah yeah and and that is skill as you say you
00:54:04.940know skill that doesn't necessarily get recorded it does in the sense that critics will talk about
00:54:10.880uh will praise her right um so the language of praise is evidence as you're suggesting that she
00:54:17.860is succeeding um and it's not like she's just necessarily walking through her days and happens
00:54:23.080to be liked. He's doing the things that are necessary in order to be liked. Yeah. So the
00:54:29.220fourth category is, so we call it the sexism bonus. This is basically for people who have
00:54:34.640stories where they could have accomplished more if it wasn't for the patriarchy holding them back,
00:54:39.400if they had been given other opportunities. If you think of somebody in history where
00:54:43.460like Juana of Castile, she was locked away for decades for, that would be like a 10,1.00
00:54:49.720like sexism bonus like that just got in her way and stopped her elizabeth where do you think she1.00
00:54:54.900would land if she hadn't had to give birth to all these children she might not have died1.00
00:54:58.800that's right no no i i i actually take that very seriously because you know her job as the queen
00:55:07.080consort is to be the womb right for the spanish king that is her number one goal and you know
00:55:17.460it, it does, it probably did exacerbate her health problems. Maybe it killed her in the end.1.00
00:55:24.980She hadn't died. Who knows what she would have accomplished. And if she hadn't had that pressure
00:55:31.460to be bearing children, one of the reasons why my book is called Young Queens is it, it, you know,0.86
00:55:36.540I was trying to emphasize that particular pressure on the young fertile, presumably fertile female
00:55:43.140our body. Catherine accomplishes all her great things after she's had her children, after she's0.99
00:55:49.020widowed, right? When there's that pressure is taken off, when she's no longer wrapped up in all
00:55:54.860the childbearing and child rearing, that is when she can, she assumes this political role. So,
00:56:01.720you know, to some degree, the fact that dynasty, monarchy, you know, to some degree, but dynasty0.98
00:56:09.480relies on these young female bodies determines Elizabeth's fate in a way that it wouldn't have
00:56:17.300if she wasn't sort of the linchpin. Well, and that also makes me think about,0.69
00:56:22.500and I don't know how to pronounce this perhaps, but Salic law, is it Salic law?
00:56:27.720Salic law, Salic law. Yeah. In France, a woman can't take the throne. So after her brother
00:56:33.320Francis died and went to Charles, if that wasn't in place, then she could have inherited the throne.
00:56:39.480Well, she could have, you know, for all of these countries, even where, um, they do allow a woman0.80
00:56:46.660on the throne, if there's a boy, it always goes to the boy. Yeah. Right. So she never would have0.90
00:56:52.680inherited the throne, but it's true. Like, you know, if we had the kind of monarchy then that
00:56:58.640England does now, it would have, it would have gone to her. So, you know, or even just on a
00:57:04.220much simpler level, maybe Elizabeth would have been an artist. Yeah. I was thinking that too.0.89
00:57:08.480She loved art. She loved art. She wanted to do it all the time. If she didn't, you know, constantly have to be parading herself in front of Philip being, you know, the queen and trying to have his babies, she would have done something else. So, you know, there are lots of different ways to imagine what she could have accomplished.
00:57:27.520Definitely. Yeah. And I think it's a funny thing to say, like she did, as we've discussed, like she did accomplish a fair amount in her very short life. And it was so much of it was this behind the scenes stuff. But were it not for the patriarchal culture, she could have accomplished different things. She could have. Yeah.
00:57:45.600Right. Right. But the patriarchy prescribes what her role is going to be from the moment she's born.
00:57:53.080Mm-hmm. So how much on a scale of zero to 10? How much did the patriarchy get in her way?
00:58:05.160Sure. I think to be a 14-year-old, like, sent off into marriage and then pressured to have children and then you die when you're 22, like, that's some bullshit there.0.99
00:58:15.900That's the patriarchy. Right. Exactly.0.99
00:58:17.960so let me just i'll let you know so her total score then is 26 and that's actually i just want
00:58:25.540to see if that compares to anybody who we've talked about there's it's a common score people
00:58:30.360who get kind of like high in some things and lower in some other things 26 27 um i'm just seeing for
00:58:35.560instance scrolling up scrolling up catherine de medici she got 35.5 um it's the meanness
00:58:43.920and the scandal yeah mary queen of scots got 36 but i think they both lived twice as long at least
00:58:51.300so she could have scored more if she lived for longer but also maybe not maybe she would have0.97
00:58:56.500kept everything close to the chest people wouldn't know how much of this to be catherine
00:59:00.180de medici's daughter and to have everyone be like oh isn't she so nice like that takes some serious
00:59:04.640skill. Although Catherine wasn't all bad, you know, I think Catherine has gotten a bad rap.
00:59:12.920Yeah, no. Catherine is a very complex person. I'm just thinking how Catherine was seen at the time.
00:59:19.520Yes. Yeah. For her daughter to overcome all of that. It's pretty impressive. But it's,
00:59:25.400and that's also something else. So your book, Young Queen, so it's talking about Catherine,
00:59:29.540it's talking about Mary, it's talking about Elizabeth. I think all of them, you bring a
00:59:32.360really fresh perspective to it. Um, stories like, especially Catherine and Mary stories that I
00:59:38.320am quite familiar with in this moment in time, but like you were looking at them from different
00:59:42.120angles. Like you were saying, Catherine, what she's like as a mother and all these sorts of
00:59:45.980things that often get forgotten, I guess. I was very disturbed. I have been for years by this
00:59:54.020flattened portrait that Catherine gets. I think there's something about our culture. We like
00:59:59.800evil women. It's easy to build stories on them. And this portrait of Catherine as the evil queen1.00
01:00:08.380has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. And I just, I couldn't, I couldn't,
01:00:13.920I didn't quite buy it. Right. And when she dies, the kingdom of France is really divided.
01:00:21.200There are people who hated her, but there's also this outpouring of grief, you know,
01:00:25.200this sort of despair. What is France going to do without Catherine de' Medici? And I think studying
01:00:33.220or looking at the young Catherine, the very young Catherine, the child Catherine gave me a lot more
01:00:39.960sympathy for her. So I wanted to work against this narrative of the evil queen and just
01:00:48.860create a more, a rounder picture if I could. So there are moments that Catherine gets very
01:00:56.720controlling and moments where I definitely wouldn't want her to be my mother. But at the
01:01:03.180same time, there are these touching moments and emotions that she displays that certainly I can
01:01:10.500identify with. And I just think that that's their more feminist portrait, I guess, to kind of show
01:01:18.620this woman in as much of her entirety as we can, or at least, you know, to show the complexity of
01:01:26.320the woman. And the same thing is true for Mary. You know, just reading her letters closely and
01:01:34.020really thinking about, well, how old was she when she came back to Scotland? And what had her
01:01:41.020childhood been like and how was she raised by her geese family you know I just started to
01:01:48.480understand a little bit more her psychology and and that I just couldn't help but sympathize with
01:01:57.000her a lot more and so and that's what I wanted to show I kind of wanted to show a very human Mary
01:02:04.060who kind of gets caught in these positions because of the patriarchy that she just she just can't
01:02:10.560get out of and you know there's no one reason why she gets herself into the trouble she does0.70
01:02:16.840there are a number of different forces but in the end I at least sympathize with that poor girl
01:02:23.280you know and so and that's what I wanted to communicate yeah no and that's I mean I just did
01:02:28.10010 10 episodes about Mary Queen of Scots so I have very strong feelings about her as well and
01:02:33.300wanting to see her and all the sides of her and I think the people who wrote the history which is
01:02:38.900often Queen Elizabeth's fans. Really, they have a reason to want to show Catherine de Medici as a
01:02:45.760monster and they want to show Mary. And then Elizabeth of Valois is just kind of like, oh,
01:02:49.840she was just kind of there. She married Philip and then she died. Like, so I think giving them,
01:02:54.620I really don't like to be so like, whatever, binary about it. But for so long, books about men,
01:03:00.760they give them so much nuance, a biography of Napoleon or Winston Churchill or something.
01:03:05.300and women's history has been like, look at this tragic heroine or like, look at this
01:03:09.420evil person where it's like, let's just look at them as people.1.00
01:03:13.320Yes. Right. Flawed people, actual people. Yeah. Right. And you know, when you put it that way,
01:03:19.760I completely agree with you that a lot of the history is a form of propaganda written.
01:03:24.540It's very pro-English, you know, certainly the English language stuff that has come down to us.
01:03:29.500But in some ways, Elizabeth I is really the outlier, right? When you think about these
01:03:33.820generations and generations of aristocratic women or royal women who have to kind of be the pawns
01:03:41.000in this dynastic machine, their experience is closer to the Elizabeth's and Catherine's and
01:03:47.140Mary's and Elizabeth of England, Elizabeth I, is really kind of the outlier. So if we want to get
01:03:53.820a better sense of what it was like, you know, to be a woman, certainly a royal woman, but in the
01:03:59.56016th century, we should be looking at these other figures. So your book is coming out in North
01:04:05.540America later this month in August, and you have a website. Can you tell people what sorts of
01:04:11.220events and things that they can keep an eye out for? I'm doing a number of interviews like this
01:04:18.560one, and I do really enjoy them. So very glad to be doing them. I am giving a talk at Politics and
01:04:26.660Prose, which is a bookstore in Washington, D.C. on launch day on August 15th. And so if you're in
01:04:33.440the D.C. area, definitely come by or it will be live streamed on YouTube. And then we shall see
01:04:41.160what other events come my way. Perfect. And people can, if they just go to your website,
01:04:46.000all of your links are there so they can see what you're up to. Yes, they're all under
01:04:50.780leahredmanchang.com. Perfect. Thank you so much for talking with me today. I'm always so excited
01:04:56.440to read a book that was so interesting
01:04:58.440and then to see that you're so passionate about it.
01:05:00.640It's really great to connect with you.