00:01:17.520It varies based on the weather, but yeah, way, way, way up there.
00:01:20.480his overall just i think british people say gormless like he's just he's got he changes
00:01:27.260sides so easily he like doesn't have any principles other than just he thinks he's great0.98
00:01:32.840he would sell his mother out to get money to gamble with like he's just like a shitty0.99
00:01:40.100ass person there's no redeeming qualities maybe his handsomeness but maybe but you know there are0.99
00:01:48.000other people in this era who were handsome and are not like this. He reminds me of the John
00:01:53.220Mulaney joke where you have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair. That's definitely he's just
00:01:58.140he's just like a bowl of porridge that showed up to betray his mother. It's like the worst.
00:02:05.820He's like and when you contrast him with someone who's like a good person,
00:02:10.180like a solid person, a person with loyalties like Davy Rizzio, tortoise of my heart.
00:02:15.360I know just makes it so much more obvious how terrible he was and all he ever wanted was like0.99
00:02:21.720hey but can we have sex now oh my god like the selfishness and the the absolute dickheadedness0.96
00:02:29.200of it all so last episode we're recording these sequentially so I feel like you all know what0.96
00:02:36.240happened last episode it literally just happened but it's like no for people it's been a week
00:02:39.840but I mean a lot happened last episode but big thing that happened last episode was that Darnley
00:02:45.100teamed up with hollywood icon jimmy stewart some other dudes to 200 other people a douglas
00:02:52.460um and they to murder davy rizzio tortoise of my heart and they did in the most clumsy
00:03:00.840ill-prepared badly planned way like they did murder him but they didn't get any of the other
00:03:08.740goals they wanted which were like to usurp control mcdarnley the king mcdarnley their puppet king
00:03:13.600and take over the country in fact also it was 200 to 12 so if they hadn't murdered him it would
00:03:19.180have been really really really sad yeah so what mary was able to escape by manipulating her
00:03:26.880eclair filling of a husband to switch sides to her team and then she got the help of like people who
00:03:35.820have had her back till now i don't mean to say that ominously it's just like people who've like
00:03:40.500had her back like rizzio is now dead but so the people who are still loyal to her are like we've
00:03:44.380got bothwell and we've got cock oh the north junior are both on her side there was a clutch
00:03:49.300assist from the countess though she was smuggling letters and in p chamber pots like outstanding1.00
00:03:56.720it was the classic scheme happening in the ladies room it was delightful that's why women don't go0.75
00:04:03.140to the bathroom alone is because sometimes we're trying to scheme our way out of it so that last0.73
00:04:07.820week's episode ended in triumph basically because as we've talked about like one of the things that
00:04:11.980mary very cannily did is she won the love of the people of scotland so even though like all these0.88
00:04:18.440protestant assholes and like aka her privy council all hate her all of parliament but the people the0.67
00:04:26.020everyday people love her and support her and they got her back into power and last episode ended0.96
00:04:30.960with her triumphantly re-entering edinburgh for i feel like the third time in this podcast series
00:04:36.820She just keeps re-entering Edinburgh in triumph and her haters are just like, again, like the other thing that I guess I'll just mention is that Darnley had been on the side of the Rizzio murderers, but then he switched over to support Mary.
00:04:53.020And you know who's mad about that are the Rizzio murderers.
00:04:58.500a group of people who we know are prone to making a convoluted but successful murder plot so now
00:05:07.480that they all hate Darnley you know we'll see where that all goes oh and one thing that I
00:05:12.720brought up last time and I didn't I wanted to just clarify so one of the books that I was looking at
00:05:17.760was called David Rizzio and Mary Queen of Scots Murder at Holyrood by David Tweedy and I mentioned
00:05:23.260that David Tweedy's ancestors are notable and they are well actually first he is Sir David Tweedy
00:05:28.200And secondly, his ancestors were among the Rizzio murderers. Their names are on those pieces of paper. So I appreciate that he, knowing that those are his ancestors, wrote this very sympathetic and very complete biography of Davy Rizzio. I find that very touching, actually.
00:05:45.820so the references for this episode daughters of the north jean gordon a mary queen of scots by
00:05:51.380jennifer morick henderson embroidering her truth mary queen of scots in the language of power by
00:05:55.460claire hunter mary queen of scots and okay like skip ahead 30 seconds if you don't want some
00:06:00.620spoilers and the murder of lord darnley by allison weir mary queen of scots downfall the life and
00:06:06.440murder of henry lord darnley by robert stadell and mary queen of scots the true life of mary
00:06:11.260steward by john guy yeah so the two shining stars supporting mary through all of this
00:06:16.260extreme she's still pregnant she hasn't had her baby yet like she's been pregnant for the last
00:06:22.880probably 90 minutes and i have been recording and i'm just like this baby oh my goodness yeah
00:06:28.200yeah so but the two now the rizzio like again r.i.p rizzio is dead the two people who have her
00:06:35.520back and the two people who like actively helped her escape all of this were bothwell and caco
00:06:39.360the North Jr. So we mentioned this before, but here's the timeline of this all. Like
00:06:43.640two weeks before the Davey Rizzio murder extravaganza, Bothwell had married Cocker the
00:06:49.080North Jr.'s sister, Jean Gordon. And we know Mary loves wedding. So our girl was there honoring her
00:06:54.020two best supporters as they kind of came together, joined their families. So the Davey Rizzio murder
00:06:58.800happened, but the alliance between like Bothwell's family, like the Hepburns and Cocker the North
00:07:03.460Jr., like the Gordons, was still going strong. Her two best guys and they're getting along with
00:07:07.960each other and they're supporting her they're eating scrambled eggs things are good five in
00:07:13.740the morning yeah so really in an interesting way where it's like at first you know there was that
00:07:20.680with the chase boat raids and stuff like things were sort of like extreme and hikey for a while
00:07:24.980but now i think mary even is just kind of like okay this is how things just are in scotland
00:07:28.940like revolutions happen then you have some eggs and you all meet up for at parliament the next
00:07:35.020day and things like things were like weirdly okay. It doesn't seem like they would be after
00:07:40.940what we just talked about, the whole stabbing her best friend 56 times after throwing his body down
00:07:47.580the stairs. But like, I guess we're just going to get back to business because someone's got a real
00:07:51.640Scotland. Exactly. So Mary learned that Darnley's father Lennox had been complicit slash involved
00:07:57.580in the Davy Rizzio murder in order to get Darnley the crown matrimonial. So she banished him from
00:08:03.000court, but she couldn't banish Darnley because he was her baby daddy. Like he had to be around
00:08:09.040for the birth of the child, for the christening of the child, just so there's no doubt in anyone's
00:08:13.240mind that like he is the father of this child, right? So regardless, he had to be there. So
00:08:17.600the conspirators had mostly escaped. Once they knew that they had lost, they fled. Like while
00:08:22.400she was like en route to Edinburgh in triumph, like they were actively fleeing. So only two
00:08:27.920minor figures were caught tried convicted and hanged for the crime oh sorry caught tried convicted
00:08:33.680hanged drawn and quartered their severed parts put on display around town so they went for the
00:08:39.980whole production yeah so so that of the like 500 people two two people took the fall for that
00:08:46.520mary made darnley make an apology which you know he hated so he his apology was like i didn't know
00:08:54.980anything about anything all i thought was i was going to help hollywood icon jimmy stewart and
00:08:59.860his friends get their land back didn't know anything about any murder and this made the0.96
00:09:04.380assholes like the murderers so mad that they sent mary a copy of the document that he signed being0.97
00:09:09.860like i darnley agreed to help kill davy rizzio so anyway the paperwork of it all just really0.99
00:09:16.780it's hard to to hide what you're up to when everything is in paper and we know a lot of
00:09:24.000the details that we do know about what happened with the murder and what happened after because
00:09:27.800Mary herself wrote them in a letter to her ambassador in Paris. So six days after the
00:09:33.000murder, she wrote this letter, but she sent it to him wanting him to share it with other Catholics
00:09:37.540across like in Spain and at the Vatican and in France. It was published in the Netherlands is
00:09:42.340a note I have. Was that like where the printing press existed? The only one in Europe? I don't
00:09:46.340know i i feel like the netherlands were like a center of both like trades you could get a lot
00:09:54.160of places easily but also like kind of a catholic center hold that maybe she wasn't as politically
00:10:00.500connected to but i i think gutenberg was german i don't you know i don't know germany we'll have
00:10:05.560to ask but i don't know germany all i know about the netherlands is that is where my artist friend
00:10:09.520jan you peter who does some of my merch lives so it's a cool place anyway so this guy this friend
00:10:15.080he translated her letter into Latin, published it in the Netherlands. And so basically,
00:10:19.920in short order, anyone in Europe who could read Latin heard her version of what had happened that
00:10:24.940night. And we love someone who will control the narrative. You know what? Good for her.
00:10:28.200Yeah, exactly. Like there's no way that this was going to... No one ever thought she was complicit
00:10:33.940in that at all. Meanwhile, Darnley is just kind of like living in his dream world.
00:10:40.360He was also writing letters. He wrote letters to Catherine de' Medici in France.
00:10:45.080Can you imagine Catherine de' Medici sitting at her breakfast table, sipping her Italian coffee, opening up a letter written by Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley?0.85
00:10:55.480And she's just like, this absolute muppet has written me.0.82
00:12:17.860He was not brought into this equation for his plans and his scheming skills.
00:12:23.240He was brought in as a terrible bad decision that happened.
00:12:28.000No one ever thought he was going to be the man with the plan.
00:12:31.500No, but no one ever thought that he was going to be actively this.
00:12:35.740Who would have ever thought that any human being could be this awful?
00:12:39.580Anyway, meanwhile, back in England, like Sir Richard Attenborough from Jurassic Park, William Cecil, is he knew all about everything because his spies were everywhere.
00:12:49.520And because everyone was writing him letters in triplicate with like signed and notarized things.
00:12:56.140So he tried to trick Mary into doing a treason herself by sending a spy called Rokesby up to Scotland.
00:13:02.480And Rokesby was like, oh, hey, what if we invade England?
00:13:05.260You know, being a Catholic is great, right?
00:13:07.380and mary saw right through it and also she was like at this point eight months pregnant and she's
00:13:13.680not about to put her relationship with elizabeth slash england in any danger because remember her
00:13:17.660goal at this point is still to be named elizabeth's heir she's not gonna like invade england anyway so
00:13:24.220she saw rokesby did this and then mary wrote a great letter back to cecil being like oh hey so
00:13:28.480this guy told me this weird stuff and it's very like heavy-handed and like subtextual it's like0.99
00:13:32.300i know what you're up to you piece of shit like if you don't stop like fucking around with me i'm0.98
00:13:38.480gonna tell elizabeth you did this she won't like it like it's it's a strongly worded letter i admire1.00
00:13:42.740it it's strongly worded yeah but polite this might have worked on my dumb ass husband but you gotta0.97
00:13:49.100get up earlier in the morning to fool me mary but also so she was also getting ready to go0.97
00:13:54.780into to have her baby and in this period of time a couple things firstly like as it is now0.86
00:14:02.040but childbirth is a dangerous thing right so also she's just like as far as they knew it's just like0.65
00:14:08.440sometimes women die in childbirth we don't know why or who or what what makes that happen or not
00:14:13.460so she's like i might die but she's also like also when you have a baby you go into confinement for0.64
00:14:20.160months afterwards which is more maternity leave than you get in the united states but um but in
00:14:27.140her case that meant that she would be away from everything for months and she's like someone could0.99
00:14:30.880do a coup. Like I need to like get everything in line because I'm going to either die
00:14:35.380or just be tucked away in a room for a month. And like, I need to still be queen
00:14:40.100after that if I'm alive. So she went to go to Edinburgh Castle, which was because she's usually
00:14:45.880at Holyrood. Although I feel like the memory, like personally, I would not want to live at
00:14:50.640Holyrood anymore, having seen my best friend stabbed 56 times in front of me.
00:14:56.060the blood would still be there five centuries later it seems like the haunted ghost blood
00:15:00.860so she went to edinburgh castle which was like more secure anyway so she wrote a detailed will
00:15:06.240beforehand including she uh said that she wanted to give the tortoise the jeweled tortoise that
00:15:11.800davy had given her she bequeathed that to joseph rizzio that's right davy's 19 year old brother
00:15:19.500she'd invited him to town and what did she do made him her new private secretary
00:15:24.140can you imagine the 200 people who had just gone through the most convoluted stabbing of all time
00:15:34.240being like and now there's another one yeah yeah i i love that detail i did not know that detail
00:15:40.900until i was doing this research and i'm like also i love that she bequeathed the tortoise to him
00:15:45.720and so she wrote so she like wrote this list of like what jewel to give to who and there's all
00:15:49.520these like secret like not cipher not coat like she wrote in code as well and we'll talk about
00:15:53.600that later but she just kind of has these messages along the side she's like you know what i mean or
00:15:58.360like do with it what we talked about so she told him you know i want to bequeath this jeweled
00:16:03.740tortoise to you joseph rizzio do with it as we discussed so like oh so sneaky is it a key to a
00:16:11.680secret treasure map or was she just like you know whatever sell this and start up a trust fund for
00:16:17.500the Rizzio family. I don't know. Anyway, but I appreciate that.
00:38:36.700then he doesn't have any claim to anything.
00:38:38.940And in this era and time, it was like no big deal,
00:38:41.720seemingly for uh women especially protestant women to get a divorce like you remember
00:38:47.320riven who is dying of cancer clanking around his armor like his wife had divorced him like while
00:38:53.600he was dying like you could just casually get divorced in scotland at this time no big deal
00:38:57.620but mary like that's not an option for her because she's the queen and her son can be
00:39:01.940illegitimate etc and also she's catholic and the pope is famously not not into divorcing yeah
00:39:07.560Exactly. But Scottish Mikey Valy was like, OK, if we can arrange for her to get a divorce, Mary will be so grateful that we helped her get a divorce that she'll agree to pardon the murderers.
00:39:17.580But Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart and Cock of the North Jr.
00:39:20.840Cock of the North Jr. and Bothwell are involved in these talks, by the way.
00:39:24.620So it's not just the Rizzio murderers. It's like everybody.
00:39:29.660All of the people in the entire kingdom are like, OK, guys.1.00
00:39:33.140you know it's like catholic protestant doesn't matter it's like we all hate this fucking guy0.60
00:39:38.020so much let's figure this out team okay so anyway they're like she's not she's like what you just0.95
00:39:45.440said allison like mary is never going to agree to a divorce for catholic reason but scottish
00:39:49.140machiavelli was like but maybe she will so eventually um he convinced them so he because
00:39:55.800he is the scottish machiavelli he's persuasive good at convincing so eventually he got bothwell
00:40:01.880Hollywood, I can Jimmy Stewart, Cocker the North Jr., and Argyle, the guy who had sat outside the
00:40:06.440birth room to work on this new plan to encourage her to divorce Darnley. So eventually, Scottish
00:40:11.600Machiavelli went to her. I guess he was like, I'm the most persuasive. I'll be one who can persuade
00:40:15.460her. And he's like, what have you divorced? Darnley. And she's like, no, because that puts
00:40:19.620my son's legitimacy into question, etc. In her usual way, she was like, what if everyone just
00:40:26.000acts cool and we stop having murders and civil wars wasn't that be a novel idea for five minutes
00:40:36.540well and this is especially because the elizabeth thing was in the works like she didn't want to1.00
00:40:40.160make any big moves she didn't want any scandal to happen that would risk this treaty with elizabeth0.99
00:40:45.240not working out for her to like get what she wanted which is to be named elizabeth's heir1.00
00:40:49.560and like divorcing darnley would probably make elizabeth change her mind right so scottish
00:46:51.060Even the people, even the haters weren't like, where is Darnley?
00:46:54.300Does that mean the baby is illegitimate?0.99
00:46:55.740everyone's like thank god he's not here he's not here great so she just got her other guys her like
00:47:04.380trusted advisors to step up to like be you know be the man to greet the ambassadors and whatever
00:47:08.740so like bothwell took that role hollywood egg and jimmy stewart is there cockenoff jr like they
00:47:13.220were all she gave them each outfits i forget who got what color but it's like she gave one a blue
00:47:16.880outfit and one a green outfit i want a red outfit i love it she's she's got so much style she does
00:47:23.600Like fashion, she really makes a statement. The ambassador, because Elizabeth couldn't be there.0.99
00:47:28.260So her representative was a guy named Bedford, who William Cecil had chosen. And his job was to
00:47:35.680sweet talk Mary into pardoning the David Rizzio co-conspirators. That was because, well, Cecil
00:47:43.100wanted them back in Scotland just kind of to cause chaos, to destabilize her reign,
00:47:47.720because that was what he wanted, long-term plan. Like Cecil wasn't like, let's assassinate Mary.
00:47:53.260He wasn't like, let's, he was just like, let's like just put a whole bunch of assholes there, wait for chaos to happen, and then inevitably that will destabilize her reign.0.99
00:48:03.220And that's why he's so good at scheming, because he's always thinking ahead.0.99
00:48:07.060Yeah, because you can get caught in an assassination.0.55
00:48:09.300It's hard to get caught in subtly destabilizing her reign enough so that she doesn't have the power to serve anybody.
01:25:19.740Like, anyway, this was later used as evidence to be like,
01:25:22.980she must have been behind Darnley's murder,
01:25:26.280even though it ruined her deal with Elizabeth and everything.
01:25:29.340anyway later that day she switched over to she took baby bj um over to edinburgh castle because
01:25:36.680there's better security there and then she returned to her secluded room and in her absence
01:25:43.020like she's just checked out is the sense i have of things like and yeah this is two days after
01:25:49.940this weird thing happened yeah you're in shock what are you gonna exactly so she's just like not
01:25:55.000fit to do anything, frankly. So in her absence, Bothwell kind of took control of the government
01:26:00.820and acted sort of in charge because somebody had to. And she trusted him. She didn't know he was
01:26:05.940the murderer. So this is where the investigators slash cover-up team brought in witnesses. This
01:26:10.360is where the women were brought in. And they were like, oh, these silly women didn't see anything.1.00
01:26:15.700None of us. They didn't see us going there or our servants or grab any of us by our cloaks.0.99
01:26:20.480Nothing like that. But Mary, even at this point, she's just like, why are the investigators not
01:26:24.980finding who the murderer is like why is this so complicated it's like what's going on and they're
01:26:29.800like well it's it's complicated you know so she offered a reward and a free pardon to anyone who
01:26:35.880could identify their murderers this is all happening day by day so he the murder was like
01:26:40.280overnight on the 9th by the 15th darling was buried in the royal vault of james the fifth in
01:26:45.420the chapel royal of hollywood next to his father next to her father sorry the previous king of
01:26:50.260Scots. And then because clothes were expensive in this time and Darnley had nice clothes,
01:26:57.040like his clothes are left behind. It's like, well, who are you going to give them to? Like
01:26:59.680they're not going to have like Darnley Memorial Closet Museum. And so Mary decided to give the
01:27:06.160clothes to Bothwell because she trusted him and a tailor recut them to fit him because Bothwell,
01:27:12.320not a long lad. So anyway, so note, it was an extraordinary shock to everybody. Like notably,
01:27:19.620the crown to all the other kings and queens in all of Europe to learn about this thing.
01:27:23.740Like, not just like a king, because Darnley was the king of Scotland. Not just a king had been
01:27:27.360killed, but he'd been killed in this new technologically advanced way. Like, no one had
01:27:33.200ever heard of gunpowder being used like this before. This was weird and unusual.
01:27:38.340One more thing for every monarch in Europe to be afraid of is now somebody might blow up my house.
01:27:42.020No, exactly. So, um, Mary not doing well. We know that her health is already not great. And this is0.99
01:27:50.560obviously very startling to her. So her health already not great. She's, she's still like just
01:27:55.540fairly recently postpartum. She almost recently died from the gastric ulcer and her doctors were
01:28:01.520like, maybe being shut up all day in a dark room is not like in the castle where her best friend
01:28:06.800was murdered in front of her is not great for her. So like, let's move her elsewhere. So she
01:28:11.740went to a place called Seton like a mansion or something there she brought along with her some
01:28:17.540of her advisors Scottish Machiavelli was one of them she left BJ in the care of Bothwell and
01:28:24.140Cocker the North Jr and she just went to this other house to just like be sick there right like
01:28:29.580to continue her mourning like we know that she got black cloth like she covered the windows there but
01:28:33.380she was able to just be away from this and just like walk the grounds and anyway Mary later Mary's
01:28:41.560enemies made up stories about how she went there and she was just like partying all the time
01:28:45.600but frankly like she just fresh air was good for her a change of scenery was good for her0.58
01:28:51.040like for her like horse riding was useful like she did do things but she wasn't like
01:28:56.220partying but also right because when you're depressed and in shock what you don't want
01:29:01.420to be doing is sitting alone silently in darkened room in the house where everything went wrong like
01:29:05.700get outside take a walk like get a drink of water you'll be exactly and like grief works differently
01:29:10.160for different people, but people really wanted to judge her. They really wanted to think that
01:29:14.080she was responsible for this. So they were really thinking like, she is happy about this. She helped
01:29:19.320organize this. Also this, this trip that she took is the single one entry we have about her playing
01:29:25.660golf, which was really interesting to me because I thought going into this, it's like, I knew that
01:29:30.480she like brought golf over from France and stuff. And I think she played various sports, but the
01:29:34.820only time that it was mentioned specifically, she played golf was a guy who later criticized her
01:29:38.700saying like she went to this house and she's playing like sports that women shouldn't play
01:29:43.600like golf and that's the only time that the word golf is mentioned by anyone about her ever
01:29:49.200anyway so everyone knew that she was not doing well really people who knew her like even elizabeth
01:29:55.380someone was like oh she's at this house and she's just like goofing off and elizabeth is like no
01:30:00.040she's not like i've never met her and i know that's not true like i know that she's like
01:30:03.980convalescing from various illnesses and grieving like even elizabeth knew that so then we get into
01:30:09.900some real pamphlet shenanigans okay a poster so february 16th again his murder was the 9th by the
01:30:16.96016th a poster was found on the toll booth i'm not sure what that is in enborough and the this poster
01:30:24.280claimed the assassins were bothwell balfour and two other guys i mean two other is the only part
01:30:31.420there that's not quite accurate like and 200 others yeah well no and the two i didn't list
01:30:36.980the two other guys names because they were just kind of like they don't really come up they're
01:30:40.200not really anyway just two other guys and so by this point also lennox darnley's dad had been told
01:30:46.780about the murder but it wasn't until now like several days later that darnley's mother was
01:30:52.040told about it if you might recall she's been in jail in england ever since lennox went to scotland
01:30:57.940in the first place two years ago because she's being held hostage because Elizabeth thought if
01:31:01.840Margaret Douglas was in jail, then Lennox and Darnley wouldn't secretly arrange a marriage to
01:31:06.020marry, which they did. So Margaret Douglas has been in jail this whole time. And at first there
01:31:09.920was a misunderstanding. People thought that Lennox had also been killed. So Margaret Douglas freaked
01:31:13.780out thinking her son and her husband were both dead, but then she found out it was just her son,
01:31:18.880but she's still really upset. And so much so that Elizabeth actually freed her from jail.
01:31:22.940And immediately, Margaret Douglas began stirring up shit, blaming Mary for the murder, saying that this was Mary's revenge for Darnley's role in the murder of Davy Rizzio.0.98
01:31:32.080She was also mad Mary had not had Darnley buried with a pageantry of a state funeral as befit the king.0.99
01:31:41.280Meanwhile, her husband Lennox and his kinfolk are starting to really lean into the like Bothwell of it all.
01:31:49.100So Elizabeth wrote a letter to Mary telling her, like, you need to find these murderers.
01:31:54.160Like, people are saying you're involved.
01:31:56.140So, like, you need to, like, find the murderers and punish them to, like, free your own reputation.
01:32:00.440Catherine de' Medici wrote a similar letter saying, like, you know, to her credit, Catherine was like, it's good Dernley is dead because he was awful.
01:32:09.880But you need to find and prosecute the killers quickly to proclaim your own innocence in the eyes of your subjects.
01:37:16.200So at the top of this poster is a bench.0.65
01:37:19.980And on top of the bench is a topless mermaid, tits out in the air, holding a scroll in one hand and what looks like a Venus flytrap in the other.
01:37:30.660It's got MR next to it, Mary's initials.0.97
01:37:34.340And then underneath the mermaid is what I think is a goat surrounded by three circles and a shit ton of swords.
01:37:44.540And I don't know what any of this is supposed to be.
01:37:46.960but apparently everybody this was the most provocative poster anyone made and apparently
01:37:53.240everyone in edinburgh knew immediately what it all meant so i'll explain okay please because
01:37:59.180this is quite quite a look i don't know if everyone in edinburgh actually understood what
01:38:03.340it meant i think they get i think you get it's like it's saying something bad about mary right0.98
01:38:07.440like i assume she is the tits out mermaid doing something slutty and bad yeah i got that okay0.97
01:38:12.500so it depicts a bare-breasted mermaid wearing a crown she is waving what is maybe a sea anemone0.98
01:38:18.760or maybe a feathered lure used in falconry either way like a sea anemone is a symbol for female
01:38:26.940genitalia and the feather lure used in falconry anyway it's it insinuates seduction whatever
01:38:32.860she's waving around written alongside the mermaid are the initials mr which stands for like maria0.63
01:38:39.080regina like mary the queen below the mermaid is accroaching hair so like a rabbit okay not ago
01:38:46.040yeah enclosed by three circles the outer circle has 17 daggers around its rim above the hair are
01:38:51.940the initials jh for james hepburn bothwell's name so okay here's what this is from one of the books
01:38:59.300so the image preserves the public conjoining of mary and bothwell in an accusation of adultery
01:39:04.000for even those with a minimal grasp of the meaning of the symbols its message would have been clear
01:39:08.020but it's in case it's not so i'll explain further the hair is a device on bothwell's
01:39:15.980coat of arms so it's like one of the heraldic images of like the hepburn family i guess
01:39:19.500so like that indicates him he's the hair but it also symbolized fear and its portrayal was
01:39:25.220intended as a threat a mermaid was a familiar symbol denoting temptation but the mermaid in
01:39:30.500this image has a forked tail denoting prostitution the circle of daggers like the explanations are
01:39:37.520getting more and more niche like this was written by somebody who just like you know went to
01:39:42.800university read the really weird books and assumes everyone knows all the things they know
01:39:46.620level symbolism okay so the circle of daggers has a very niche explanation it's paired
01:39:52.960in okay so there's this obscure book that show that's just kind of like here's what images and
01:39:58.880what they mean in like ancient rome or something so it's like this book shows the circle of daggers
01:40:05.740and in this book the circle of daggers is next to the motto the sword shall destroy them from
01:40:11.240without and terror within so this is assuming other people have read that book and know that
01:40:15.720the circle of daggers in this other book has that quote next to it the 17 the number of 17 daggers
01:40:21.980may come from an ancient roman text explaining that's an unlucky number so okay which i'm sure
01:40:28.020everyone someone just really overthought this but also it's interesting and maybe a coincidence and
01:40:34.460maybe not. Somebody knew that in that will that Mary wrote when she thought she's going to die
01:40:38.900in childbirth, she bequeathed Bothwell a jeweled mermaid. So it might be someone who knew mermaid
01:40:45.380was like their secret shared thing. Ultimately, this poster is just being like, Mary is a slut.1.00
01:40:51.860She and Bothwell are having an affair and they killed Darnley together. So I just find it1.00
01:40:56.780interesting that this, this poster was like the worst one. This is like the one that made Mary1.00
01:41:02.480panic like this this poster of this mermaid and daggers anyway so mary acted quickly um because
01:41:10.700she's like this poster is the worst thing that's ever happened to me so she convened a gathering
01:41:14.660of the city's painters and writers to be like whose art style is this whose handwriting is this
01:41:20.960like to try and figure out who did it suspicion suspicion fell on this one guy but he fled before
01:41:26.140he could be arrested so then she had she passed an act in parliament saying anyone who's found
01:41:30.640putting up posters. Slanderous material would face prosecution and execution. But the damage
01:41:37.300had been done. So the poster campaign had really made everybody suspect Bothwell, but also her.
01:41:43.900And just as a coda, because we're wrapping up this part of the story. So the crisis at this
01:41:49.720point was so extreme that Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart couldn't avoid town anymore. So he came
01:41:56.120back to town. And just to recap, Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart, if we think back to all the major
01:42:01.980crises that have happened during Mary's reign, the cock of the North scenario, the chase about raids,
01:42:08.400the murder of Davey Rizzio, the murder of Darnley, it all happened because of him,
01:42:15.580basically. And because he wanted more power and to eliminate his enemies. So it made sense that
01:42:24.780he was that Bothwell was the fall guy because Bothwell had taken up more power in the absence
01:42:30.320of Davey Rizzio and Darnley, like Bothwell. So of course, that's the next guy Hollywood
01:42:34.920and Jimmy Stewart wanted to take down. And Mary just kept refusing to proceed against,1.00
01:42:40.580everyone was like, you need to put Bothwell on trial for this. And she's like, how can I do that?
01:42:45.180He's the sheriff. But the more she protected him, like she felt absolutely sure, like everyone
01:42:50.860around her was constantly betraying her, but she was like, this guy has had my back. Like,
01:42:54.160I'm not going to turn on him. But the more she supported him, the more the public, which had
01:42:58.640always been this thing that supported her, turned against her. And so potentially in like a William
01:43:04.720Cecil long-term planning way, maybe that's part of what Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart had wanted
01:43:09.480all along to make the murder look so weirdly suspicious and point the finger at Bothwell to
01:43:16.760bring him and her down so i'm gonna leave us on suspense for now but next week we will continue
01:43:25.700what happens next elson do you have any any thoughts about anything the posters
01:43:31.600any anything about the murder i just my favorite part of this entire story is how
01:43:40.380completely unprofessional and bad at schemes everyone involved in it is i just like when
01:43:47.660you describe this in just a couple of words where like the king of scotland was assassinated by a
01:43:53.620group of his like advisors on the privy council and like it sounds very um game of thronesy like
01:44:01.540they had planned this out 45 steps in advance and i just love getting under the hood here and
01:44:06.760watching just oh no it's really dumb and after that we were putting up a bunch of political
01:44:13.680cartoons in the town square and everyone was like chasing each other around and maybe there was like
01:44:18.280a ghost impersonator happening it's just yeah i don't know i think it's also like the number
01:44:24.200of conspirators both in the rizzio murder and in this one it's like you know the bigger a committee
01:44:29.280is the messier your like annual report becomes so i think it's just so many people were involved
01:44:35.260in this like of course because someone is like we should blow up the house yes and we should also
01:44:39.940strangle him also like it's too many people they really yes and did their way out of a good murder
01:44:46.520here yeah there's too many cooks it's way too complicated it's and that's the thing it's like
01:44:52.120who could outsmart people this bad at scheming like personally this might be me being a mary
01:45:00.460fangirl that's very possible but i think the reason that she's like it's very easy from our
01:45:07.860perspective now to be like mary oh my god look look at what's happening how can you not see that
01:45:12.840it was him why are you still believing in these people she's a good schemer yeah she's like she
01:45:19.360thinks it's an attack on her because she's thinking three four steps ahead she can't0.99
01:45:24.200imagine that it's actually this stupid yeah right it's the it's the benoit blanc glass onion1.00
01:45:29.960yeah you're thinking way too hard she's like no it's got to be somebody else that would be stupid1.00
01:45:36.120like no no no honey that's actually what's happening everyone around you was a moron1.00
01:45:41.120yeah yeah it's it's just such a weird cavalcade of events and this is where like the first0.96
01:45:46.300even of this podcast it's like okay this episode takes place over the course of two years
01:45:50.600and this one is like over the course of like one month everything yeah like just devolves into
01:45:58.680chaos and next week similar but no spoilers for people who don't know this story yet so um allison
01:46:06.560thank you again for joining me to talk about the weird demise of a man who you hated it's a great
01:46:12.500catharsis episode for me now that now the darnley is gone i assume none of your listeners will miss
01:46:17.180him he was just like he came in like a wrecking ball in a bad way just yeah just everything was0.96
01:46:25.860really fucked up and bad and he just kind of like made it all worse and then he died and he he was0.90
01:46:32.560the problem at every moment of his life he was and he was like 21 and one of the things i read0.99
01:46:37.820as well said like like the level of syphilis like the advancedness of how the again if you have
01:46:43.020syphilis see a doctor get antibiotics very treatable nowadays but the level of syphilis
01:46:49.360that he had like the mercury bath maybe helped get rid of his pustules but like he was probably
01:46:53.720gonna die within the next year anyway so all of this could have been avoided but also that's what
01:46:59.760i was thinking about it's like if you're like this group of 500 people who are like we're gonna kill0.90
01:47:04.120darnley it's like oh he's really sick and convalescing let's poison him this is not the0.95
01:47:11.680easiest way to do it is to fill the basement of an entire house with gunpowder you were already
01:47:16.780in the house to lock all the doors you could have just walked into the room he had no guards and
01:47:21.500that's that's the thing too that's where i feel like like the committee of it all it's like this
01:47:26.140guy came in this mercenary explosive expert so i feel like they're all like great we're gonna kill0.99
01:47:29.660darnley and then someone's like hey i just met this guy at the pub he says you can do this shit0.98
01:47:34.340with gunpowder they're like yes that's great bro yeah let's use gunpowder too it's like they only0.99
01:47:39.600use that because that one guy came in who's like oh you know if you put gunpowder in a house you
01:47:43.020can blow up a house and i was like can you amazing let's do it yeah okay so allison please let
01:47:50.120everybody know about your books and how people can follow you and things like that. Sure. So I'm
01:47:56.200the author of two historical fiction novels, one out and available for purchase right now called
01:48:01.380A Tip for the Hangman. It was a historical thriller set in the Mary Queen of Scots era.
01:48:06.100There is- Second one is- Oh no, I just want to say,
01:48:08.720like your book is set in the Mary Queen of Scots era. And when we get to the part in the story
01:48:12.340where your book is, like we'll talk, we'll mention that. But like there's so much spy shit going on0.98
01:48:16.900in this story right like William Cecil's got his spies Mary's got his spies just spies everywhere0.97
01:48:21.240the spy who only draws graphic novels like spies and your book is like Mary Queen Scott's era0.72
01:48:26.060comma spy shit like yes I extremely regret not making my book a graphic novel in the style of0.96
01:48:34.040that one make your book just be one big picture yes all happening at the same time with a giant0.99
01:48:40.520out of proportion Darnley in the corner yes yeah yes and then you have another book that's coming
01:48:46.420up that people can pre-order yes you can pre-order my second book uh it's called let the dead bury
01:48:51.560the dead it is out in october um you can also find me on the internet if you search my name i'm
01:48:58.320around and you have is there not elsonepstein.com or something there is that would be your your
01:49:03.100once i update that website to be accurate to the present moment that will have oh wait but also
01:49:08.700talk about your um newsletter because you did a two-part darnly special in your newsletter i did
01:49:14.020Yes. My sub stack is called Dirtbags Through the Ages. It is what it says on the tin. It's terrible, terrible people in history. My most popular issue of the sub stack is my two part Darnley special. So if you're looking for a place to start, you can listen to. Anne and I have now talked about Darnley for, I think, upwards of four hours. You can get my more concise thoughts on Darnley in about 2000.
01:49:38.640But also you've got all the all the good pictures. You don't have the mermaid picture, but you do have other good pictures there.
01:49:43.100well now i wish i might have to go back and well the mermaid picture but that's like because your
01:49:46.980thing ends when darley dies the a mermaid picture is more appropriate were you to write about
01:49:50.820bothwell for instance not saying he's a dirtbag but i mean stay tuned for next week we shall see
01:49:56.400we shall see what what he ends up doing i think it's so yeah again just like the just like that0.94
01:50:01.940episode of colombo it was so silly watching this guy trying to cover up his own crime while colombo
01:50:06.940was investigating it and colombo knew from minute one that this guy was the killer and he was just0.66
01:50:10.460setting him up. But in this, there's not the Columbo figure. It's just Bothwell being like,
01:50:14.460well, I'm just going to investigate this crime. I did. Guess it was Thunder. Oh, you don't believe
01:50:19.940that? He's just, he's bad. Everyone's bad at schemes. And that's... If there is a Columbo
01:50:25.840in the story, though, it's Cecil. Yes. Yes. Peter Falk is William Cecil. Definitely. I don't know.
01:50:33.700Maybe the guy who drew the picture is the Columbo. I think that guy deserves his own show. I don't
01:50:37.840know i don't know maybe for next time i'll try and find what the guy's name was because that
01:50:40.780picture is outstanding again the pictures so yeah if you want to follow this podcast and see the
01:50:45.320pictures of things we've been describing if you go to instagram i'm at vulgar history pod i put up
01:50:49.620a little post with pictures every week and then also i'm at tiktok at vulgar history and if you
01:50:56.400go to vulgarhistory.com you can get transcriptions of the most recent episodes if you go to the
01:51:01.760episode there's will be a little thing to click on to get the transcriptions and those transcriptions
01:51:05.380are by Aveline Malik from The Wordery. And I have a store, vulgarhistory.com slash store
01:51:12.120is where you go to get merch if you're in the US. It just works better for that. And then if
01:51:18.580you're not in the US, if you're international, vulgarhistory.redbubble.com. I also have merch
01:51:24.180there. And honestly, I'm thinking like, what's our new merch going to be for American Scots?
01:51:28.480Like from last time we have the like, You're My Tortoise, R.I.P. Davey Rizzio Memorial. From this,
01:51:34.400i don't know do we want to have the tits out mermaid i don't know i'm not sure i kind of want0.94
01:51:39.240like a starbucks cup that's got the tits out mermaid on it but we might get sued for copyright0.98
01:51:43.880the tits out mermaid like the first thing i thought of when i saw it was the starbucks mermaid0.98
01:51:47.420like she's got that sort of vibe i don't know but you know what tits out brigade all the best ideas0.98
01:51:51.680for merch comes from you so let me know what you think what else oh yeah patreon i have a patreon
01:51:56.200so if you go to patreon.com and foster writer that's where you can get early ad-free access