Vulgar History - Mary, Queen of Scots： Part Four： The Jewelled Tortoise

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00:00:30.000 so hello and welcome to vulgar history feminist women's history comedy podcast we're doing this

00:00:36.460 super-sized series within a series about mary queen of scots this is part four of there's

00:00:43.220 something about mary queen of scots and i have a special guest and my special guest when i tell

00:00:50.080 you who it is you're going to be like i might know what direction this story is headed but

00:00:54.180 do you welcome allison epstein thank you for having me i'm sorry my presence here is a spoiler

00:00:59.420 in and of itself silly things you're gonna be afoot but always happy to serve i just want to

00:01:05.280 say also my other special guest here is hepburn the cat who is actively walking right past my 0.80

00:01:10.040 microphone there she goes i think she's just here being like her name is hepburn but she

00:01:13.780 wants to disavow anyone in the story whose surname is also hepburn that's nothing to do with her

00:01:19.700 she's never been to scotland in her life honestly every time i read this story it's like hepburn

00:01:24.520 in this. And I'm just like, no, no, exactly. Okay. So Alison, you're here on this episode

00:01:31.680 and I'm working on an assumption that some people might have just joined this podcast

00:01:36.360 just for this series. So maybe they've never heard from you before. So can you explain

00:01:41.220 who you are and what your connection is to the story of Mary Queen of Scots?

00:01:45.840 Yes, absolutely. I am Anne's friend who shows up sometimes. Hello to the Tits Out Brigade

00:01:50.940 If you have not heard from me before, I am a historical fiction author of two books.

00:01:55.920 And my first book was sort of adjacently about Mary, Queen of Scots.

00:02:00.820 We'll be getting into the part that I wrote about in my book later.

00:02:04.060 So I'm partly here as a Mary, Queen of Scots scheme enthusiast.

00:02:08.980 I am also the author of what I refer to as the companion newsletter to Vulgar History, the podcast.

00:02:15.780 It's called Dirtbags Through the Ages.

00:02:17.560 You can find it on Substack in which I write about men who are usually men, who are a time.

00:02:24.300 A time is had by the people that I write about in my newsletter.

00:02:27.420 So that's kind of the vibe that I bring on Vulgar History is, oh, a thing is really going to happen here and we're going to get it.

00:02:34.620 Yeah. Yeah.

00:02:35.200 I also have an Allison around when there's a story with a lot of shocking twists and turns because you're really good at reacting to shocking twists and turns.

00:02:43.480 I have an expressive voice.

00:02:44.960 Also, I realized I'm the worst at plugging my own work because I did not say the name of my book, which is a tip for the hangman.

00:02:50.360 Sorry, it's available where you buy books.

00:02:52.380 My editor is screaming at me, right?

00:02:54.100 We're going to talk about it at the end as well.

00:02:55.960 Like we'll have lots of time for you to plug all of your various projects.

00:02:58.820 But yeah, the overlap here as well is that Alison has done two of her newsletter episodes about somebody who we're going to be talking about today.

00:03:06.340 But I explained to Alison before that I'm really trying to and I'll tell you again, listeners,

00:03:10.460 I'm trying to tell this story the way that Mary herself would have experienced it, where

00:03:14.360 she meets somebody, she doesn't know what they're going to be like later on.

00:03:19.520 She doesn't know what is going to happen.

00:03:21.660 So I don't want to reveal that anybody is this way or that way until Mary herself, when

00:03:26.980 it becomes obvious to her.

00:03:28.740 And one of the reasons I'm doing that is because firstly, some people, a lot of people listening

00:03:33.060 don't know the story.

00:03:34.760 And I don't want to assume that you do.

00:03:36.580 but also because I've read and I'll say all my sources in a minute but I think all of them and

00:03:42.280 this is not a critique of them because I've been reading like non-fiction books about Mary Queen of

00:03:46.880 Scots and I don't know how many people pick those up who don't already know the story but there's a

00:03:50.800 lot of parts in all of these books where they're just like little did she know that this person

00:03:55.400 would blah blah blah like there's a lot of like the stories are not told the stories are really

00:03:58.780 told because what happened to her later is well known to a lot of people but not to everybody so

00:04:02.780 I'm really trying to and also when you talk about her story as though you know it's going to happen 0.95

00:04:08.480 later it's a way to make her sound like a dumbass to be like well she just did this blah blah blah 0.84

00:04:14.700 it's like yeah of course she did this like with the information she had that's what she did but 0.97

00:04:18.520 but if you're like well didn't she know that it's like no she didn't know like because she did not

00:04:24.600 live in 2023 and have all access to all of the books of her own life no she didn't no yeah I'm

00:04:30.300 coming in um in this recording session actually you know if we would record this last night i

00:04:34.660 would be coming in hot because i had been reading some sources that were just being like well this 1.00

00:04:38.700 is why she was a dumb dumb and it's like if only she had done this all this stuff wouldn't have 0.96

00:04:43.480 happened and it's like okay we're gonna like this is part of what i'm doing like a whatever eight 1.00

00:04:47.540 part series but like we're going step by step through everything that happened and so i want

00:04:51.580 to recap uh what we've talked about in previous episodes first and just to be like the fact that

00:04:56.080 she's like getting out of bed every day is remarkable at this point, let alone what's

00:05:00.960 going to happen later. So to recap all of this, especially because for everybody, but also Alison

00:05:07.500 has, I sent her my notes. So, you know, I've talked about before because we're recording

00:05:11.120 this before the episodes came out. So you, there's a lot of characters and we need to explain them

00:05:15.020 all. So Mary Queen of Scots, she was born in Scotland and then her father died six days later.

00:05:20.780 And then she became queen of baby, Queen of Scots. They, I liked that she had her coronation. They

00:05:25.040 like we're like here's your crown but they can't like put it on her head because she's like she's 0.85

00:05:28.620 babies i wanted her to be a tiny crown for baby because for scotland that would have gotten a lot

00:05:34.020 of use right you would have used baby crowns fairly often there was like six baby monarchs 0.89

00:05:39.500 in a row her being the sixth one yes so she became queen of scots and then her mother is 0.99

00:05:44.040 marie de guise six foot tall amazing did what she could but just like the asshole lords are 0.98

00:05:51.100 pervasive and everywhere trying to make there be a scottish protestant reformation eventually 0.97

00:05:56.700 just to strengthen her position so mary is sent to france where it's decided that she's going to

00:06:02.300 marry the heir to the throne in france her mother-in-law there is catherine de medici just

00:06:07.920 growing into her own like power anyway so mary goes to france and then she goes to france and

00:06:13.560 you know what i don't i was thinking i was thinking through her life last night and it's

00:06:16.780 like the first five years of her life we're just kind of like on the run fleeing in the middle of

00:06:20.800 the night having to go somewhere so it's like guess what she's getting like some trauma like

00:06:24.480 even if she doesn't understand what's happening between ages zero and five if you have to like

00:06:28.200 flee constantly because people are trying to kill you and kidnap you all the time like you're gonna

00:06:34.140 you're gonna like absorb some of that right even if subconsciously so she goes to France and she 0.51

00:06:39.580 spends the next 13 years of her life there and it's basically great she grows up with the French

00:06:44.860 royal children so she grows up with the man or the boy who's going to become her husband as well as

00:06:49.620 siblings so she's really close to francis who's the heir to the throne and then there's also

00:06:53.980 princess elizabeth she's also really close to them and then when she's around 15 years old

00:06:59.080 first the king of france dies of as i describe it a splinter to the eye i did want to say you

00:07:05.340 described that in a very light-hearted and not agonizing way compared to what i think happened

00:07:10.820 which was a jousting lance through the brain but you know yes trigger warning for eye stuff there

00:07:17.120 yeah uh he suddenly died nobody expected this like what they thought was gonna happen was

00:07:23.600 mary would marry the heir to the throne the king would die 20 years later or whatever but anyway 0.99

00:07:28.320 he died suddenly because he was a dumbass who was just like i'm gonna do a jousting even though 0.98

00:07:33.340 jousting at that point was like kind of old-fashioned and weird and not a thing you did 0.98

00:07:37.440 he's like let's do like a renfer like for fun and then um he died so then suddenly mary and

00:07:43.420 her husband were the king and queen of France, aged, I think, 14 and 15. And so then she becomes

00:07:49.140 queen. She has these dirtbag uncles, the diggies bros who are just like, this is great for us. 0.96

00:07:54.680 We're going to like get so much power because our niece is the queen and they do. Like they really, 0.91

00:07:59.940 by now they sort of infiltrated every level of French government and society. And so they have

00:08:04.640 a lot of power, especially because she's the queen. And they were probably assuming like,

00:08:09.080 And she will be the queen for the next 20 years.

00:08:12.100 No, her husband dies of basically a brain tumor slash ear infection.

00:08:17.200 So he was always really sick in the first place.

00:08:19.680 And then he dies.

00:08:20.240 So now she's like 16 years old, 15, 16, the widowed dowager queen of France. 0.88

00:08:25.420 And Catherine de' Medici is like, oh, my God, this is my chance to get these de Guise bros out of here.

00:08:30.900 So because they've been like trying to get too much power, Catherine de' Medici is like, OK, no, the new king is her even younger son, Charles.

00:08:37.960 She's the regent.

00:08:39.080 And Mary is like, okay, like, you know, I'm kind of a queen without a country. That's the name of

00:08:44.140 her Royal Diaries book, Mary Queen of Scots, A Queen Without a Country. Anyway, shout out to 0.99

00:08:48.820 Royal Diaries fans. And anyway, she and her uncles are like, okay, well, let's marry her to the next 0.99

00:08:53.840 king. Like, let's Catherine of Aragon this up. But Catherine de Medici is just like, no, like,

00:08:59.800 this is my chance to get the Degeese bros out of here. And if their niece is no longer the queen, 1.00

00:09:05.140 then they won't have any power so then she doesn't let her marry the son so Mary's just kind of like

00:09:09.360 in France just being like what do I do I don't know no one really tells her what to do which

00:09:15.620 it's not like oh she needs someone to tell her to do but it's like she needs helpers she needs

00:09:18.660 advisors she's this like teenager who thought for the next 40 years of her life she would just be in

00:09:22.820 France and suddenly it's not happening so then she decides her half older half brother James Stewart

00:09:29.980 who we are calling Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart comes in and is like here's the deal like why

00:09:36.260 don't you come back to Scotland and like I your half-brother can help you out and she it's not

00:09:39.980 like she's not like okay great and she like trusts him immediately but it's like she has to trust

00:09:44.040 somebody she has to go somewhere and family is really important to her and she's like you know

00:09:48.420 what like I don't know what else to do so I will go to Scotland so she goes to Scotland which is

00:09:52.760 like just just in the midst of the Scottish Reformation in the in a sort of tentative way

00:09:58.920 where it like could revert at any time to being catholic again it's really the reformation hinges 0.98

00:10:04.320 on the actions of john knox the noted asshole what are your feelings oh my god i just every 0.97

00:10:12.340 time i come across them in a book i just like i just infiltrate i just like shake my head i'm 0.92

00:10:15.900 just like him no he's one side trip about john knox that i'm sure you've already discussed in

00:10:20.800 episodes one through three of the series but i'm so conflicted about john knox because a he is

00:10:25.460 objectively the worst I cannot stand him but be in the Margot Robbie uh Saoirse Ronan Mary Queen

00:10:32.300 of Scottsville and he was played by David Tennant love of my life and so I'm I'm always a little

00:10:36.100 bit like oh but it's David Tennant though what do I do but no there he has no redeeming qualities

00:10:41.780 except one time David Tennant played him yeah no exactly he David Tennant in like 50 pounds of fake

00:10:48.820 hair is the biggest prosthetic beard I've ever seen the fact that it wasn't in the credits as

00:10:53.480 john knox's beard missed opportunity i know and also they really should have credited that beard

00:10:58.520 performer because that was half of the performance for him maybe it was motion capture maybe he just

00:11:04.040 had like little green dots on his face and they just like inserted the beard in after i don't

00:11:07.960 know yeah so john knox the worst he's just like he really through force of character really made

00:11:15.680 the scottish reformation happen because he was just apparently so persuasive at his like speech

00:11:21.560 giving that everyone is just like, yeah, you know what? Let's all be Protestant. Great.

00:11:24.940 So Mary Queen of Scots comes over and she's Catholic. And they're like, it was not so long 1.00

00:11:32.340 ago in England, Mary I came in to be a Catholic queen and she sort of notoriously executed a lot

00:11:39.860 of Protestants. So people are like, a queen who's named Mary, who's Catholic, like how's this going

00:11:44.280 to go? And she's like, no, it's cool. I'm cool with Protestants. I'm cool with Catholics. Like,

00:11:49.060 let's just like all be chill and like not have a civil war against each other, which continues to

00:11:53.520 be her approach throughout most of the story. So she's like, I'm Catholic. Like, I can't change

00:11:57.900 that. That's who I am. So like, I'm going to still celebrate Catholic mass myself, but like

00:12:01.940 the country can be Protestant. Let's all just get along. And her half brother is kind of encouraging

00:12:07.260 this. He's kind of like, yeah, like that's the approach. Like, let's go with this. The asshole

00:12:11.180 lords of whom several of them have names that we'll get into are upset about this. John Knox 0.99

00:12:16.600 is upset about this john knox is coming in real hot just being like this 18 year old widow he's 1.00

00:12:21.820 like well she looks like some kind of whore because she's catholic and obviously a whore 0.99

00:12:26.800 it's real incel energy coming from john knox it's real like it's not about her it's just about 0.99

00:12:32.320 there's nothing she could have done to make him not hate her because her very existence threatened

00:12:36.940 the reformation she was a catholic she was a woman and she was tall that was three strikes

00:12:41.680 Yeah, no, exactly. So she confronted him almost right away. Like when she got to Scotland, she's like, I need to like nip this in the bud. But he just kind of came in. Speaking of coming in hot, this impromptu suddenly started mansplaining a sermon to her to the point that she just started crying because he was so intense and scary. And she realized that like she really couldn't stop this guy.

00:13:04.140 and yeah it just so i'm going to mention this a bunch of times probably but there's a real

00:13:10.940 when people talk about mary queen of scots they often talk about queen her in comparison to queen

00:13:15.100 elizabeth right because they were both around at the same time and they're both women rulers

00:13:20.100 in countries that had not previously had successful women rulers and even at the time this is sort of

00:13:27.460 being built like the pr around them was kind of like mary's like hot-headed and passionate and

00:13:32.800 leads from the heart but Elizabeth is like cool and like intellectual and like you know and this

00:13:38.460 is all this is what people still often think of them as and compare them to each other and that

00:13:43.560 all comes from John Knox because John Knox was like Mary is fiery and passionate like he said

00:13:48.620 all these things before she done anything except for like show up and be an 18 year old Catholic

00:13:53.380 widow he was like she's fiery and passionate and sexual and it's like no she just wears cute

00:13:58.960 outfits and is catholic meanwhile elizabeth and i said this in the previous episode was the one

00:14:03.680 who's actively having an affair with a married man who threw his wife down a flight of stairs 0.92

00:14:07.760 another man we loved it a lot who's who's the passionate whore is my question i mean the 0.99

00:14:16.060 answer to who the passionate whore is it's robert dudley but yes yes absolutely and later someone 0.99

00:14:21.900 else that will reveal to be a dirtbag but um just the fact that john knox was like no elizabeth 0.99

00:14:27.160 she's smart. Like she, John Knox is like, women shouldn't be rulers in general because women 0.99

00:14:31.920 suck and are dumb dumbs. But Elizabeth is the exception to that. She's actually okay. Cause 1.00

00:14:38.720 she's basically a man. And his whole thing was like, she's Protestant. And so she's okay. And

00:14:44.480 Mary was Catholic. And so she wasn't okay. And so he's the one who was like, Mary's passionate, 0.92

00:14:48.100 at least from the heart. Elizabeth is cool and an exception and rules like a man. That was him

00:14:52.080 who started that. And people still contrast them in that way. And some of the books I've been

00:14:56.840 reading and i just want to be like that is not that is not how i see things so part of that i

00:15:03.480 think is also just like the catholic protestant stereotypes that like we're going on at this i

00:15:08.340 mean the protestants are you're only wearing black unadorned clothing and you keep all of your

00:15:13.400 emotions super close and you repress everything and the catholics are those fiery french italian

00:15:18.440 people you know like there's it's such a complicated web of associations renaissance

00:15:24.820 religious racism is a very odd time yeah no absolutely for sure and we're gonna get into

00:15:29.280 that because last time we were talking about yeah onto the scene came david rizzio who came

00:15:34.880 as part of a diplomatic envoy group but then he was kind of like you know like i feel like my

00:15:40.200 chances might be better to like improve my lot if i stay in scotland you heard rumors that there

00:15:44.680 was an opening and mary's new like supersized chapel choir they needed a fourth base turns

00:15:49.600 Turns out, David Rizzio, gorgeous bass voice, and he gets the gig.

00:15:54.180 And then Mary is like, wait, who's that guy with the gorgeous bass voice?

00:15:57.420 And she starts hanging out with him, playing cards, which is one of her hobbies.

00:16:00.840 I'm going horseback riding and stuff.

00:16:02.360 And she realizes that he grew up in like the diplomatic core and he's actually really smart

00:16:06.460 and useful.

00:16:06.960 So she takes him on, like she gives him increasing amounts of jobs, basically.

00:16:12.020 He gets a bed when he first arrived.

00:16:13.940 He had to sleep on a cabinet or something, a chest of drawers.

00:16:18.160 There's a real bed shortage.

00:16:19.300 i have to say this comes up every now and then in various books but like mary came to scotland

00:16:23.540 with like a hundred beds and that's like a hundred i don't know more beds than scotland

00:16:28.140 had at that point apparently you think that's why john knox was so suspicious about her romantic

00:16:33.360 intentions because she was trying to shoehorn the only one bed trope the scottish court

00:16:37.580 she just brought over these beds and i wanted to share the beds and we're going to talk about that

00:16:42.600 in a minute who did rizzio share a bed with but um anyway so there's a bed shortage but then he

00:16:47.340 got a bedroom and he started doing great but people are suspicious of him because he was

00:16:51.920 italian and catholic right and they're all like that must mean he's up to no good and it's like

00:16:55.600 no like maybe but who's up to no good is like every protestant person at royal court who are

00:17:01.280 all constantly betraying and like cutting each other's arms off and whatever like this is like

00:17:06.960 a brutal situation oh yeah so i didn't mention so she came to scotland she wanted a little trip

00:17:12.000 up north to visit, as I've recently learned, my people, the Highlanders. She was a big fan of

00:17:18.840 them. She bought some plaid fabric. She like started incorporating bagpipes into her like

00:17:22.980 music parties. She's just like leading it. She's really enjoying it as many tourists do. But then 1.00

00:17:27.480 while she's up there, her brother, who I have at this point of the podcast revealed was a piece of 1.00

00:17:32.860 shit, really wanted power and land. And so he turned Mary against this guy, George Gordon, 0.99

00:17:37.900 a.k.a. Cock-O-The-North. Allison, thoughts on the name? Cock-O-The-North.

00:17:42.060 I was delighted to see this in your notes. I really regret that we don't currently give

00:17:46.420 people nicknames like that. You may refer to me as Cock-O-The-North if you'd like to.

00:17:50.540 Yeah. Cock-O-Chicago is how we will call you. 0.87

00:17:54.240 C.O.C., we love it.

00:17:55.760 Yeah. So Cock-O-The-North, who was a really, really powerful Catholic landowner, and he had 0.68

00:18:01.140 like 20,000 men at the drop of a hat who would follow him. And he was like, Mary, like, if you 0.86

00:18:04.780 want. I can like bring these 20,000 men. We can make Scotland Catholic again, like say the word.

00:18:10.160 But Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart wanted his land and didn't want the country to be Catholic. So

00:18:14.260 he manipulated Mary into basically starting a civil war against Cock of the North who ended up 0.74

00:18:18.840 losing this battle. His son, one of his sons was executed. His other son was put in jail and Cock

00:18:23.440 of the North was going to go to jail, but then he had a heart attack and died on his horse.

00:18:27.840 Seven months later, his embalmed body was stood up in a coffin and taken to parliament and put

00:18:32.580 on trial guess what he couldn't defend himself being a corpse and he was found guilty of treason

00:18:37.820 you know this is that tends to happen when you put the corpse on trial for treason is they're

00:18:42.280 usually found guilty of treason yeah he really couldn't mount a very good defense at all being

00:18:46.340 dead anyway so the result of that was that hollywood icon jimmy stewart now became the earl

00:18:51.280 of moray which in scotland is pronounced murray um and in a lot of books they refer to him as just

00:18:58.040 that more a is his name but i call him hollywood icon jimmy stewart and that happened rizzo came

00:19:05.760 on the scene but people were really racist against him people anyway everyone's scheming

00:19:11.880 schemes are fun mary realizes she has to get married like and she's been in scott now for

00:19:17.160 i think three to four years like she has not gotten married yet it's not like she came there

00:19:21.180 and she's all like i'm such a passionate sexual person i can't control myself no she was like

00:19:25.680 it was really important who her husband was going to be lots of people lots of ideas i like this

00:19:30.840 part where she like elizabeth was like if you marry who i tell you then i'll make you heir to

00:19:37.260 the throne and that was the whole thing mary wanted this whole like her whole life story

00:19:40.860 really is she wanted to be named heir to the throne to elizabeth because that would give her 1.00

00:19:44.400 more power over the asshole lords basically if she was considered heir to the throne of england 0.86

00:19:49.740 and she was elizabeth's preferred candidate to be heir to the throne because the the other options 1.00

00:19:53.880 were like the gray sisters who were just busy having super secret marriages getting pregnant

00:19:58.840 while in jail with their husbands like elizabeth was just like not them i guess the other option

00:20:04.160 is what like ferdinando but he was catholic also he was busy with his acrobats so there was no time

00:20:09.640 ferdinando aka lord strange is busy with lord strange's tumblers which is a real thing that

00:20:14.980 he had a group of acrobats yes anyway so but elizabeth is like i can't just name her heir

00:20:20.700 of the throne, just like that. So she's like, I need to like manipulate him. Elizabeth, by the

00:20:24.320 way, is working with William Cecil, who like comes out in this story, in my understanding now. So in

00:20:29.500 the Cate Blanchett movie, he's played by Sir Richard Attenborough from Jurassic Park. And so

00:20:35.020 I'm picturing just this kind of like little Santa Claus like guy with a twinkle in his eye, but who

00:20:39.240 is actually like the smartest person in this whole story. Like, I will give him that.

00:20:45.200 He's scheming. He's scheming, but no one's business. Yeah.

00:20:48.260 he's like 20 steps ahead and but he knows like and those 20 steps all happen because he knows

00:20:55.020 exactly how everyone else is going to react how everyone's going to act like elizabeth did very

00:20:58.380 well for herself as queen and that was largely because she had him on her side and he knew what

00:21:04.940 to do mary did not have him and that's part of where she is struggling anyway elizabeth is like

00:21:09.500 you should marry who i choose i choose my own boyfriend robert dudley aka bobby duds which is

00:21:16.600 the thing i feel like history does not talk enough about is the time that queen elizabeth

00:21:20.960 tried to get her boyfriend and marry queen of scots to form like a throuple yeah which literally

00:21:26.700 is it like she was like the letters are like here's what's gonna happen like you marry my 1.00

00:21:30.320 boyfriend come down here we'll all live together elizabeth will bankroll their whole life she's 0.99

00:21:34.460 like you and i will live like sisters and i'm like sister wives like are you are you proposing 0.93

00:21:39.300 sister wives i've read that fanfic in multiple fandoms like i know how this works yeah so

00:21:46.520 So Mary Co. Scots is like, I'll think about it.

00:21:50.620 But then eventually Bobby Duds himself is like, wait, no one asked me and I don't want this.

00:21:55.260 And so he shoots that down.

00:21:58.500 Anyway, meanwhile, in like a various series of various weird reasons, there's this guy called Lennox who used to be in love with Marie de Guise, but then she turned him down. 0.96

00:22:08.980 So then he was like, screw you.

00:22:10.520 And then he fled to England and teamed up with Henry VIII against her, which meant that he had to forfeit all of his lands and properties in Scotland. 0.92

00:22:17.260 To clarify, not right now he went off with Henry VIII, right?

00:22:20.180 Oh, no, sorry.

00:22:21.580 Yeah, this was like 18 years ago.

00:22:24.760 Yeah, so Lennox, historically, this is what he did.

00:22:27.200 So he's been in England for the last 18 years.

00:22:30.240 Because he helped out Henry VIII, Henry VIII let him marry his niece, who was Lady Margaret Douglas, who I did an episode about in The Ladies Trapped in Towers season.

00:22:38.320 And then they have a son and their son is called Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley.

00:22:43.340 And they raise him.

00:22:45.120 I say this in the episode as well, but I'll say it here again, because I know you have

00:22:48.360 feelings about Charles Dickens.

00:22:49.760 I have not read Great Expectations, but I've seen the movie.

00:22:53.920 And as I understand it, Miss Havisham raises Estella from birth to be a weapon to like

00:22:58.720 avenge the wrongs of men against her or something like that. 1.00

00:23:01.880 Yeah.

00:23:02.520 Yeah.

00:23:02.700 Like I was left at the altar.

00:23:03.840 Therefore, I will raise this small child who I found to hate men so much on my behalf.

00:23:10.660 Yeah.

00:23:11.480 Yeah.

00:23:12.000 Yeah.

00:23:12.300 So basically, it's like that with Lennox and Lady Margaret Douglas and Darnley, except

00:23:16.040 they raise him from an early age to become the next king.

00:23:19.040 Like they raise him.

00:23:20.100 They're like, here's what we're going to do.

00:23:21.400 Usurp power and you're going to be the king.

00:23:23.060 And he's raised from an early age to be like that.

00:23:25.680 Now, does that explain everything about his personality?

00:23:28.880 No.

00:23:29.420 But that explains some of his personality.

00:23:31.460 so he was i'm gonna use the word i'm so sorry groomed i think it's appropriate in this circumstance

00:23:36.640 to be to think of himself as they literally brought up this way politically politically

00:23:42.400 groomed yes anyway so then lennox kind of tricks elizabeth to letting him up to scotland

00:23:49.160 mary is like oh this is great and then darnley shows up in scotland as well and then it's kind

00:23:54.700 of mary's like you know what so through lady margaret douglas darnley has a claim to the

00:24:00.060 throne of England because he was, his mother was Henry VIII's niece. And then his father was also

00:24:05.980 descended from one of the previous kings of England. So he's got like double claims. So him

00:24:11.160 and Mary, and Mary's got a claim to the throne of England because her grandmother was Margaret

00:24:15.280 Tudor, Henry VIII's sister. So Darlie's grandmother was also Margaret Tudor. They are in fact cousins

00:24:21.200 through different lines. Anyway, the two of them together is like a real threat to Elizabeth. And

00:24:28.040 if they have a child that child will have like i don't know five times the claim to the throne of

00:24:32.900 england as anyone else so like she's like you know what politically this just makes sense and

00:24:36.480 in a happy coincidence darnley who's like roughly her age i think he's like 20 and she's 23 he's

00:24:42.160 like elizabeth described him as a long lad which i love which means he's he's tall he is he is a

00:24:51.660 long lad so mary queen of scotts is around six feet tall darnley is like six foot to six foot

00:24:56.480 three. Like these are not the heights of very many people around them for like nutrition-based

00:25:00.880 reasons. So I think to Mary, just being a tall person who likes to wear heels, as I've discovered,

00:25:05.920 she's just like, oh my God, I never dreamed that I could marry someone who's my same height.

00:25:10.020 And he's also apparently super hot. Like he's, everyone wrote about him, his face,

00:25:14.780 like facially, he's just like really, really, really, really good looking. Some people say

00:25:19.140 that as soon as Mary saw him, she like fell in love immediately and an instant lust. I would

00:25:25.460 like to debunk that because that record comes from a thing written after the fact by Darnley's

00:25:31.360 father not an impartial man he was not there at the time anyway so Mary it's not like she was like

00:25:39.440 head over heels in love with Darnley but she was just like okay this makes sense he's kind of hot

00:25:43.180 that's a bonus so we ended last time with she married Darnley so a lot of people were upset

00:25:49.260 about that because like they knew that he was Catholic although he wasn't really religious he

00:25:54.140 was kind of like religious religion fluid he could like go whatever way he wasn't really committed to

00:26:00.000 one thing or another which really makes it a great political match for mary at this point who's like

00:26:04.040 actively not trying to have a civil war like she's not she's not pulling in a john knox level intense

00:26:08.620 man yeah no exactly exactly he's hot he's just here to have a good time he really makes my family

00:26:14.880 tree very effective also i can see his face without bending down yeah no so in terms of the

00:26:20.540 on paper this is like a great match for her and they they get a dispensation from the pope because

00:26:27.020 they're first cousins and then they get married and that's where we ended last time so i just

00:26:32.580 want to take a pause at this point to just mention all of my references because there's so many books

00:26:38.580 written about mary queen of scots and i really appreciate the ones that i've been referring to

00:26:44.500 which are mostly quite recent which i appreciate also because they bring in the latest scholarship 0.94

00:26:51.000 but also they come from a point of view that is less like look at this dumb dumb and more just

00:26:56.640 kind of like let's treat her kindly so um i'm going to list the titles some of them are some 0.71

00:27:04.020 of the titles might spoil future events so skip ahead 30 seconds if you really don't know the

00:27:09.100 story and you really don't want to be spoiled so daughters of the north jean gordon mary queen of

00:27:12.860 Scots by Jennifer Morag Henderson, David Rizzio and Mary Queen of Scots, Murder at Holyrood by

00:27:17.940 David Tweedy, Embroidering Her Truth, Mary Queen of Scots and the Language of Power by Claire Hunter,

00:27:23.020 Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley by Alison Weir, Mary Queen of Scots,

00:27:27.560 The True Life of Mary Stewart by John Guy, and also the novella Rizzio by Denise Mina.

00:27:33.880 So the novella Rizzio by Denise Mina, I read it a while ago, like when I just sort of,

00:27:40.460 not in the season, this is like an enthusiast about Mary Queen of Scots's life. And when I

00:27:45.060 reread it now, in the sense of research, there's some stuff in that novel novella where I was like,

00:27:49.980 it's really, really well researched. And some stuff on that, I was just like, well, obviously

00:27:53.060 she made up that part. And then in one of the biographies, I'm like, oh no, like that was true.

00:27:56.880 And that, so like, there's a couple of passages in this episode in my notes that I'm going to,

00:28:01.560 cause Denise Mina honestly explained some stuff the best way that I was able to understand it.

00:28:05.980 So I'm going to the layout of some rooms, for instance, like she really explains it well.

00:28:11.380 Anyway, so at this point, Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart has fled to England because after Mary

00:28:18.480 married Darnley, Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart raised an army against her.

00:28:22.960 And he was like, we're all we're all in this, right?

00:28:25.300 Everyone hates this, right?

00:28:26.800 But in fact, no, he went to Edinburgh expecting the people of Edinburgh would take his side.

00:28:32.300 they did not because Mary Claire Scots was like and I do want to emphasize at this point so popular

00:28:37.200 among like the common people like she really it's in a Princess Diana-esque way she really connected

00:28:43.720 with the everyday people like she took all these progresses every summer she'd travel around the

00:28:48.200 country like she liked to meet people and she was so charming and lovely and gift giving was her

00:28:54.120 language her love language like she everyone really liked her except for the people who for

00:29:00.800 religious reasons had to hate her you know so basically everyone's just happy they're happy

00:29:05.100 that they're glamorous beautiful young queen this young widow has a new husband like there's this

00:29:09.440 new sexy marriage happening like everyone's happy about it and also it's it's not entirely just that 0.99

00:29:15.160 she's charming and and beautiful right she's also really good at this politically like she's raised 1.00

00:29:21.880 by catherine de medici and the de guises she's not just like spawning around having a lovely time

00:29:26.540 she's like, okay, I need these people need to like me because I'm in a dangerous position here.

00:29:32.500 Let me make sure that the people are on my side here. And I don't think she always gets enough

00:29:36.740 credit for like, she doesn't just stumble into popularity. She's working for that. 0.99

00:29:41.800 Oh, great point. Great point, Allison. And yes, for sure. Absolutely. And that's,

00:29:45.320 that's the other thing too. Our other frequent podcast co-host, Lana Wood Johnson, she said

00:29:51.200 repeatedly, like there's this narrative around Mary Queen of Scots that she's like this victim

00:29:54.960 that all these things just happened to her

00:29:56.300 and she was helplessly watching it all happen.

00:29:57.860 It's like, no, like what you just said,

00:29:59.020 she was raised by Catherine de' Medici and the De'Giesis.

00:30:01.940 Like she is so canny and so clever and so smart.

00:30:07.560 And yeah, and that's why I really want in these episodes

00:30:10.600 to really look at like who she was

00:30:11.960 and what she was doing

00:30:12.940 versus this kind of general understanding of her

00:30:16.320 is just kind of like a person that stuff happened around.

00:30:19.420 And she was like naive and being like, what? 0.96

00:30:21.680 She's making every single thing happen that happens. 0.76

00:30:24.960 no exactly exactly and yeah and that's where it's like when she chooses to ally with a person it's 0.94

00:30:31.640 not because she's just like a silly woman who's like oh you're handsome it's like she like really

00:30:36.640 weighs out the pros and cons and also like knowing how many enemies she has she needs to figure out 0.97

00:30:41.780 like who's going to be on my side in this like she knows she has to ally with somebody and she

00:30:47.100 really makes those choices actively but yeah you're right the whole thing where like the

00:30:50.460 the everyday people love her is very much something that she cultivates and that she

00:30:54.620 knows and that's part of why she's able to defeat her brother in what was called the chase about

00:30:58.400 raids because she had an army and he had an army and they kept chasing they never actually met

00:31:02.520 each other in battle because they're all just chasing each other a real benny hill scenario

00:31:05.840 i love it yeah is the soundtrack of it but on bagpipes anyway so the chase about raids happened

00:31:13.300 but and one of the reasons why she defeated him is because he went to edinburgh thinking the people

00:31:18.580 there would be on his side but in fact they're all on her side because she like you just said

00:31:22.240 like she knew that was going to be helpful and that's the situation in which that came in clutch

00:31:25.880 the people of edinburgh were like no thanks bro like we're not on your side like we like her

00:31:30.080 actually also the people of edinburgh really love a six foot tall lady who takes charge of things

00:31:34.300 like good for them yeah yeah who wears amazing outfits that i'm about to talk about 0.99

00:31:38.620 so and in fact her new era had begun so ever since her first husband francis died she was 0.90

00:31:44.660 wearing black and white only both for like mourning reasons but also probably because

00:31:50.440 that kind of helped her be it's like her business outfit like when she's doing like official queen 0.95

00:31:54.380 work she's like i wear black all the time and that like hopefully will make these protestants

00:31:58.380 take me more seriously but also it made her and oh and i didn't mention she has four best friends

00:32:03.240 all called mary the four marys and they would walk around wearing their like black and white

00:32:08.100 french outfits and just look so stunning and everyone's just like what is this fashion moment

00:32:13.560 happening like iconic anyway but then she got married and so before she married Darnley she 0.99

00:32:19.300 like we know so that one book I mentioned the um embroidering her truth Mary Queen of Scots in the

00:32:24.920 language of power by Claire Hunter so it's a book and a lot of what Claire Hunter was looking at

00:32:28.920 were these records of like who bought what and when and she and it's an angle that no one's

00:32:33.860 really done with Mary Queen of Scots before where it's like if you look at when she bought what

00:32:37.760 fabrics you can really see what she was planning and what she was thinking and before she married

00:32:42.420 Darnley she ordered so many bright colored pattern fabrics so like you know she's planning a new era

00:32:47.460 it's very Taylor Swift of her frankly is it also like I love that she's trying to coordinate her

00:32:53.420 outfits to him because Darnley was notoriously like really good at like getting himself dressed

00:32:59.720 in the morning like they both look fantastic exactly exactly so she's like we're gonna have

00:33:04.720 like our outfits are gonna like they're gonna go play off each other there's gonna be colors

00:33:09.020 so her wardrobe was later inventoried so we learned that she had all different so she had 0.63

00:33:14.760 her own outfits for just like daily life but she also liked a mask party she liked a disguise she 0.84

00:33:20.500 liked a costume i'm going to talk about that in much detail in a second but allison so when her 1.00

00:33:24.660 wardrobe was later inventoried her like tickle trunk of like costumes so we learned that she 1.00

00:33:29.460 had feathers of different colors fringed masking costumes headdresses of silver and red and yellow 1.00

00:33:35.600 quote Egyptian hats so the royal court like refocused now on like parties tournaments having 0.61

00:33:42.200 a great time it's just kind of like we have a young sexy married couple like she's out of

00:33:47.580 mourning like let's have colors and this is all overseen by party planner slash unofficial

00:33:53.300 secretary of state Davey Rizzio who is just like bringing his like Italian slash French know-how

00:33:59.920 to like just have these amazing parties nothing like Edinburgh has ever seen before Mary also

00:34:04.440 loved wearing disguises yeah i mean frankly disguises so days before her marriage to darnley

00:34:10.980 for instance she and her four marys caused something of a scandal when they put on their

00:34:16.540 like so they had a hobby where they like to dress like peasant women and make and make marmalade so

00:34:23.940 they they like to just like play act being normal people it's a very like proto marie antoinette

00:34:27.900 vibe anyway so before the her marriage to darnley they put on their like peasant woman

00:34:32.760 disguises and they went around town gathering money for a banquet like begging basically not

00:34:39.020 saying who they were pretending they were just like women and one of them was getting married

00:34:42.860 and this tradition i don't know if this happened before or if mary causes tradition but this still

00:34:46.860 happens in scotland where brides to be accompanied by their gal pals and a kind of um hen party sort

00:34:52.220 of thing they take to the streets at night banging saucepans demanding money from passing men so she 0.84

00:34:57.520 just yeah so she just wanted to take part in this this thing but people were like she's six feet

00:35:02.860 tall we know what the queen looks like because she like comes to meet us a lot actually i want

00:35:08.940 to say something else so if you look at any portrait of her so her hair is always pulled

00:35:12.980 back in portraits but you can see the first like couple inches of her hair and it's like

00:35:16.500 very curly i was looking up the hair charts i forget what it is i i i think she's like a 3c

00:35:23.960 hair curl type pattern like it's really really like carrie russell on felicity is like her hair

00:35:30.080 texture it seems like but one of her marys was responsible for doing her hair and it's described

00:35:35.420 relentlessly as crimping whatever is done to her hair so was her hair actually curly or did they

00:35:42.340 have some sort of like renaissance era crimping iron i hope they had renaissance era crimping

00:35:47.660 irons i mean we're getting close to the 1590s like the 1990s could be the same yeah

00:35:53.240 yeah i know anyway so she had like very distinctive looking carrie russell and felicity hair anyway

00:35:59.860 she also i previously discussed this so when she went on horseback riding and she learned this from 0.96

00:36:03.920 catherine de medici she would wear trousers inside of her skirt so that she could ride the horse 1.00

00:36:08.340 astride another very 1990s look really pants under a skirt yeah for sure and part of the reason she 1.00

00:36:14.980 did that too is because she was so tall like she had to like you could see her skirt would ride up 1.00

00:36:20.500 when she was on the horse anyway, so the pants would cover her legs. But also, she also enjoyed 1.00

00:36:25.340 putting on men's clothes for funsies. So before her Darnley marriage, she would just walk, and I

00:36:31.920 think potentially after, I can't imagine why she had stopped, like she and Darnley, she put on her

00:36:36.120 men's clothes, he was wearing the men's clothes he was already wearing, and they just kind of like

00:36:38.960 walked around the streets of Sterling, being like, hello, fellow men. Yeah, so she would dress as a 0.78

00:36:45.240 man with Darnley on more than one occasion to walk around town. So she also liked, she liked

00:36:50.000 cross-dressing like that's what i'm gonna say like she liked all different kinds of clothes and some

00:36:54.520 of the clothes she liked were ones that generally were worn by men you can check off pants on the

00:36:59.200 bingo card you can have a pants on the bingo card but also i not like i haven't read anything that's

00:37:05.280 talking about like mary queen of scots and like gender identity but i'm gonna say it like she is

00:37:10.840 like she's not adhering to a gender binary that's she's just not like she just sometimes she wears 0.57

00:37:17.260 pants sometimes she wears a dress and it's in a culture where like only men wear pants and she

00:37:21.420 routinely was known for enjoying wearing pants sometimes so i think that's interesting and good

00:37:29.060 for her yeah so she also appeared in trousers at a farewell mask given in honor of the french

00:37:34.380 ambassador in 1566 she and the marys all did and this caused like quite a stir so the fact that

00:37:40.580 she you know she was known for wearing pants is just i think really like we talk about on this

00:37:46.780 podcast like the pants moments but often that's like people who have to put on pants to disguise

00:37:51.240 to run away like that sort of thing but she was just like hey it's a pants day like i'm just wearing

00:37:55.380 my pants today so i don't know if that's like a gender thing or if that's just like a fashion

00:37:59.260 thing but she just was just like that's what's going on which i love in the sense of like john

00:38:04.220 knox and not necessarily just for gender reasons did this horrified john knox but he saw any

00:38:09.180 wearing of disguises as unnatural and immoral a rejection of the human form bestowed by god

00:38:14.980 And she just really liked wearing disguises all the time.

00:38:18.260 It's sort of like, I don't know, like the high fashion way that she lived her life.

00:38:22.600 Like it's maybe like in modern terms, like a Lady Gaga-esque thing where she's just like,

00:38:27.460 today I'm going to wear this.

00:38:28.920 And then tomorrow I'm going to look like a milkmaid.

00:38:31.160 And then the next day, you know, like she's just kind of expressing herself through what

00:38:35.500 she wore.

00:38:36.260 She's having fun with it.

00:38:37.120 And she's not letting anybody tell her what she can and can't do.

00:38:40.060 Exactly.

00:38:40.580 Exactly.

00:38:40.900 So at Scottish court as well, I just want to point out men would also cross dress for fun sometimes at parties, including Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart on at least one occasion.

00:38:50.260 So and she also put on all these mask performances like the Davey Rizzio would help her write and she would perform roles in those things and she would wear costumes for those like she just liked the costume moment. 0.53

00:39:02.540 So I wanted to bring up homosexuality for a moment because we're talking about cross dressing anyway. 0.50

00:39:09.700 so at this point like uh men were sleeping with each other and that was just kind of like a thing 0.67

00:39:15.300 that was happening and if it was rich noble guys it's just kind of like you hand wave it away

00:39:19.640 basically like legally speaking sodomy quote-unquote was a sin but also it's just kind

00:39:26.520 of like don't worry about it if it's two rich dudes yeah it's a very weird way they thought

00:39:32.100 about homosexuality in the renaissance which is that they didn't think of it as like there was

00:39:37.460 no such thing as sexual orientation in the renaissance they didn't you weren't like straight 0.52

00:39:41.440 or gay there were they legislated the acts and not the identity so it was like sodomy itself

00:39:49.000 is a thing that a person can do and that is illegal so don't get caught but the rich can 0.72

00:39:54.000 get away with anything basically but it was it wasn't like this person is queer as a as an

00:40:01.420 entity, that wasn't an idea that they really had. Exactly. So there is this ongoing sort of

00:40:08.740 theory that Davy Rizzio was maybe sleeping with Darnley. And that's because there was,

00:40:18.160 I have it somewhere in my notes, but basically Davy Rizzio was very unpopular among the haters,

00:40:23.740 people who are racist against Italians, people who hated Catholics, people who didn't like how

00:40:27.380 much power this outsider was getting and one guy wrote like he's so grappling he's so he's like

00:40:33.460 overly ambitious and whatever and so this guy wrote sort of a paragraph being like davy rizzio 0.96

00:40:37.860 like he's sucking up to darnley it's so gross and he mentions in this paragraph and they share 0.94

00:40:41.840 the same bed but like this paragraph written by a hater of rizzio the point of it is not 0.99

00:40:49.960 they're fucking the point of that paragraph is like he's like he's scheming he's like overly 0.94

00:40:56.260 ambitious like that's the insult right because we we have that saying still in like modern day like 0.99

00:41:01.500 oh they're in bed with somebody else you're in bed with corporate interests like we still

00:41:04.980 say that it doesn't necessarily mean the literal thing and also we've already established that

00:41:10.540 there were not enough beds in this palace so there were not there were not davy ritz here

00:41:15.680 had only recently moved up from sleeping on like a sideways chest of drawers so that's what i want

00:41:20.180 to point out that like that one thing that's the only thing that hints that at the relationship

00:41:25.620 between Davey Rizzio and Darnley is like, they were quote, quote, they were in bed together,

00:41:30.000 but that has been extrapolated to mean like maybe they're having, maybe they were lovers,

00:41:35.700 which is like, maybe they were, but I'm, I don't know. I don't know. I do not know,

00:41:39.260 but I wanted to just like nod towards that was a rumor that people had. Not helping with these

00:41:44.900 rumors. There's also a rumor that Davey Rizzio was the lover of Mary. And a lot of this is just

00:41:49.720 kind of like davy rizzio is an italian and everyone's like he's a horn dog catholic he has 0.97

00:41:55.900 to be fucking somebody and these are the two people we see him with but okay so even by early 0.94

00:42:00.800 on in her pregnancy so mary got pregnant probably during the chase about raids when she and darnley 0.98

00:42:05.340 were out and they're like bespoke armor that they had had made anyway she was pregnant and she was

00:42:10.500 staying up late at night with davy rizzio playing cards and music and having a nice time with her

00:42:14.340 new friend who was loyal to her and liked her. But why was she avoiding her husband who she was

00:42:21.260 newly married to? Allison, I'm here to reveal that Darnley was a piece of shit. And now we're 1.00

00:42:27.920 just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. Ready to take your investing knowledge

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00:43:29.540 Dentine, chew bold.

00:43:32.240 The war is over and both sides lost.

00:43:36.660 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

00:43:41.660 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

00:43:49.580 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

00:43:53.860 This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.

00:43:57.360 Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

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00:44:10.780 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

00:44:15.600 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

00:44:26.280 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

00:44:34.220 And we're back.

00:44:36.160 The worst.

00:44:37.240 though where i have been sitting in my hands for now 45 minutes to not to yell about how

00:44:43.940 darnley is the worst human being ever born i'm gonna i'm gonna read a quote from this book

00:44:50.020 mary queen of scott's downfall the life and murder of henry lord darnley i forgot to say

00:44:54.780 that's one of my sources but that's another spoiler title so this is okay despite his

00:45:00.880 careful education he lacked common sense unable to hold his tongue he revealed everything he was

00:45:05.660 told to his friends and servants, who themselves are not always discreet. He was arrogant, idle, 0.95

00:45:09.960 and when thwarted, could be petulant and uncouth with a violent temper. He was tactless and failed 0.99

00:45:14.880 to keep his word. He was also selfish, vain, and extravagant, spending substantial sums on food 0.96

00:45:19.460 and clothing. He was often drunk and was openly homosexual. Knox wrote that he passed his time 0.99

00:45:24.980 hunting and hawking and other such pleasures as were agreeable to his appetites, having in his

00:45:29.320 company gentlemen willing to satisfy his will and affections. In his history of James VI,

00:45:35.440 Melville recorded that Darnley was much addicted to base and unmanly pleasures.

00:45:40.420 In February 1566, when Mary was pregnant, someone wrote to Cecil of a matter that had

00:45:45.260 taken place too disgraceful to be named in a letter.

00:45:49.000 Such practices were very much the vogue among pleasure-loving males associated with the

00:45:52.740 French court.

00:45:54.160 One of many adverse comments described him as, quote, mentally and morally weak, and 0.99

00:45:58.360 his imbecility was conjoined with reckless courage and fatal obstinacy. 0.94

00:46:02.920 It is not difficult to understand why he alienated most of those with whom he came in contact. 0.99

00:46:08.720 Sir James Melville summarized him as being haughty, proud, and so very weak in mind as to be a prey to all those that came about him.

00:46:15.480 He went on, quote,

00:46:16.840 He was inconstant, credulous, and facile, unable to abide by any resolutions capable to be imposed upon by designing men, and could conceal no secret, let it be either to his own welfare or detriment.

00:46:27.660 So we're not editorializing here to say that he was the worst.

00:46:31.900 literally nobody liked this man there's a lot to unpack and all of the things that you just read

00:46:37.720 about him and i will just get up on my tiny darnley soapbox to say that all of his detractors 0.98

00:46:42.600 like to throw in and also he was gay as like an equally upsetting thing to he was dumb and he 0.98

00:46:50.060 spent a lot of money and he like was a bad person like because that's the time period we're in that's 0.99

00:46:55.580 another like automatic negative against him i do not hate darnley because he was gay i hate him and 0.70

00:47:03.460 he was gay those are two things i would love history to be able to separate those two things 0.78

00:47:08.340 better than it currently does but he truly had no redeeming qualities as a person just 1.00

00:47:15.520 in a deeply modern way he sucked he's just like the definition of a fuck boy 0.99

00:47:22.320 in a it's so pedestrian the way that he's awful that it makes me hate him more he wasn't doing 0.99

00:47:28.380 clever schemes or trying to go behind her back and work with like Elizabeth or with a Dutch or

00:47:34.820 someone trying to get an army to get power he was just did you see the latest Knives Out movie and 0.98

00:47:40.560 yeah Benoit Blanc gets to the end of the movie and he's just like it's so dumb it's just dumb 0.99

00:47:47.400 that's how I feel about Darnley you're doing all of these things and they're so stupid yeah and I 0.97

00:47:54.140 think he thought he was very clever and smart yes he absolutely well he had been raised since the 0.99

00:48:01.560 moment he was born to like you're the smartest handsomest tallest long boy we've ever seen and

00:48:07.040 you're destined to be the king of everything and he did not have the the moral fiber to like you'd 0.99

00:48:15.080 have to really careful raising yourself not to become an asshole and he just didn't have the 0.98

00:48:20.560 the strength of character to push back again no it was no nothing going well and so like when 0.99

00:48:28.220 mary was deciding to marry him i think there was like some people are like oh you shouldn't marry

00:48:33.300 him and some people like oh maybe you should i figure i think one of her diggy's uncles was 0.98

00:48:37.000 like i've heard this guy is kind of an asshole but the thing to her was like yeah but on paper 0.97

00:48:41.580 like he like marrying him was so good for her politically because of who he was and what he 1.00

00:48:48.980 represented and who could have known what an absolute nightmare of a person he was like

00:48:55.420 it's like it's very much um joffrey and game of thrones vibe as well where it's just kind of like 0.91

00:49:02.460 oh this is just an irredeemably shitty person like this is just and there's nothing there that's not

00:49:09.300 incredible political connection on paper this is the ideal match i would look at this written down 0.98

00:49:15.260 and be like yeah mary no right choice for sure this guy your kid gonna take over europe for sure

00:49:21.140 and then you sit down with him and listen to him talk for five minutes you're like oh i've made a

00:49:25.200 terrible mistake yeah so this is where some of the mary haters egged on by people at the time who

00:49:32.880 hated her and wrote records of things they're like oh she was so in lust with him she didn't 0.94

00:49:36.560 realize that he was an asshole and whatever where it's like to not to his credit but I think he would 1.00

00:49:41.680 hold off showing how much of an asshole he was until like he had sealed the deal like I don't 1.00

00:49:45.220 think that was apparent immediately and people like oh she was so carried away by lust and whatever 0.99

00:49:50.100 for him and it's like politically she was like this is the guy I'm going to marry but also there

00:49:54.860 was the thing early on where he fell ill and she kind of nursed him back to health and I talked

00:49:59.200 about this in the last episode where I think she came out of that situation like she was hands-on

00:50:03.420 nursing him when he was ill and she came out of that like really determined to marry him and i

00:50:09.160 think there's some unresolved trauma from how she watched her first husband die like in bed and then

00:50:14.720 she was like this guy she was able to nurse back to health so i think there's some sort of like 1.00

00:50:18.840 unsolved what is it like mother wound yeah anyway so she made this guy and he's a piece of shit 0.99

00:50:24.520 she's like whatever two months pregnant and she's like oh okay like we're gonna live separate lives 1.00

00:50:29.080 and I will never sleep with him again. This is a nightmare person. So he was drinking a lot. 0.79

00:50:35.340 He went to brothels all the time. He acted abusive and aggressive to her in front of other people,

00:50:41.160 the queen. So Maitland, Mary's secretary of state, oh, Maitland. Oh, Scottish Machiavelli.

00:50:50.020 The Scottish Machiavelli, Maitland, wrote, it is heartbreak for her to think he should be her 0.97

00:50:54.840 husband like even the like assholes around her were just like we feel kind of bad for her like 0.91

00:50:59.140 this is bad if you look at portraits of mary and darnley in this period of marriage like right 0.86

00:51:06.500 before the birth of their child you can just see it's the most clear depiction of two people who

00:51:13.000 hate each other that you've ever seen in your life she like barely will put her hand on his

00:51:17.880 hands of these portraits she's you can tell she's just sitting there like can i leave yet

00:51:21.260 can i leave she's inching away it's just like she's like leaning away from him in portraiture

00:51:27.320 yeah yeah the portrait painter would be like can you guys just like scoot closer and she's just

00:51:32.620 like no nope can't no the english ambassador wrote i know for certain that the queen repents

00:51:39.960 her marriage that she hates darnley and all his kin he would disappear for weeks on end

00:51:45.080 drinking and carousing which was a problem because he was her husband and they were the

00:51:50.820 king and queen and when official documents had to be signed like he had to put his seal on them

00:51:55.800 and so just like everything came to a standstill because he wasn't there to put he couldn't

00:51:59.040 counter seal the documents none of her orders had any authority without his seal added so he's off

00:52:03.880 in a drinking binge or a hunting expedition like government had to stop so mary clever girl had a

00:52:09.980 copy of his seal made and gave it to davy rizzio so they could do the paperwork without him which

00:52:15.020 the people who hated the italians loved yeah because it's just like now he's acting as the

00:52:19.760 king right anyway so yeah mary just to remind you of something so she's pregnant um it was 0.56

00:52:26.540 16th century edinburgh she had some sort of like lifelong chronic illness like she

00:52:32.100 porphyria or whatever everyone around her was like scheming against her constantly and darnley was 0.98

00:52:38.140 like but why don't you have sex with me anymore also darnley is like in at least second stage 0.99

00:52:43.940 syphilis at this point so like she probably shouldn't have sex with him he is not not an 0.97

00:52:48.940 ideal partner no exactly so but he was like really this is like his main thing from like from now to 0.99

00:52:56.200 the end of of this episode he just really was mad that she wasn't fucking him anymore anyway yeah so 0.93

00:53:04.180 he was just really mad about that and it's like pregnancy chronic illness she hates you like is 0.97

00:53:10.020 this the part where he's also trying to get like if she dies then yeah i can't but he's going for

00:53:16.680 power as well as yeah i forget where i have this but um so yeah so there's a thing so he is

00:53:20.880 technically the king of scotland like coins are come out that are like henry and mary because

00:53:25.400 his name is henry stewart lord darnley he's the king of scotland but he's it's like a it's like

00:53:31.140 a camilla scenario he's the consort right so if mary dies he wouldn't take over which is how it

00:53:38.760 was for mary in france right when francis died she couldn't be queen because it was yeah it's 0.75

00:53:44.280 the reverse of that yeah exactly so he wanted what was called the crown matrimonial which would

00:53:49.000 just be a piece of paper that said like he is equal to me and if i die he can become king after 1.00

00:53:54.580 me mary sensibly would not give him that because probably he would murder her yeah

00:54:01.800 so but this is the thing he wanted the crown matrimonial he wanted to be king because

00:54:07.580 it's like he's you know he's been raised to be like the most perfect specialist boy

00:54:11.000 and to be so he like is the king of scotland but he's like but i'm not fully king yet so he wanted 0.99

00:54:17.120 he wanted to fuck her and he wanted the crown matrimonial and she wouldn't give him either and 0.98

00:54:21.740 he was really mad about it but instead of looking to himself and thinking well how can i improve 0.99

00:54:27.020 myself to like get her to trust me enough to do these things instead he was just like time to go 0.95

00:54:32.620 to france and fuck some people i guess so yeah davy rizzio so they had the seal like mary and 0.90

00:54:40.020 Davy dream team honestly like she finally had somebody who was like smart politically who like 0.97

00:54:44.860 was loyal to her like she didn't have to doubt Davy Rizzio whatsoever I don't think I talked about

00:54:50.420 this in the last one but I just want to mention that again in terms of like anti-italian xenophobia

00:54:54.640 slash racism people Davy Rizzio again like it's interesting to me how much um what people who

00:55:01.920 hated Mary and Rizzio wrote has been taken as fact for like centuries but he was written about

00:55:09.560 as this kind of like goblin-esque grotesque individual which is it's the same way as being 0.66

00:55:16.380 like Darlene was a shady person and gay where it's like Davey Rizzio was Catholic and had too 0.95

00:55:21.340 much power and was ugly it's like you're just trying to add things to it where it's like what 0.95

00:55:26.600 we know of him so like some objective sources who said they wrote that he was of a pleasing

00:55:32.560 appearance such courteous manners he made himself beloved by everyone people said he was like

00:55:38.020 dwarfish and deformed quote unquote but also we know that he was very athletic he went horseback

00:55:44.200 riding with mary all the time he's playing tennis all the time like activities that certainly a

00:55:49.400 dwarf person could do but i think in 16th century edinburgh would be unlikely that there would be

00:55:58.260 the accessibility for someone you know yeah like 16th century historians you can always tell when

00:56:05.280 someone is has a propaganda agenda because they get real unnecessarily personal like it's it's

00:56:10.260 the whole richard the third situation again right where you're like he was an evil king and also he

00:56:15.320 was hideous and also the worst president he ate children you're just like okay these historians

00:56:21.060 are really trying to legitimize somebody by demonizing somebody else and you have to think

00:56:28.080 about who's writing what and why otherwise you're going to end up with like a menagerie of cartoon

00:56:32.900 villains instead of an actual historical i want to just build on that as well because there's

00:56:38.760 i've been watching some tiktoks recently i think i think the phrase is used as like facial

00:56:44.080 differences or something like that it's like people who have just like facial differences

00:56:47.300 like just like genetically because of the way that they look and they're um just trying to

00:56:52.380 petition like hollywood and stuff to be like can you stop making villains it's like this person is

00:56:57.040 scarred or this you know or this person like they're an amputee or whatever it's like the

00:57:01.280 villain like the shorthand for a villain in so many things and when i started seeing like these

00:57:06.220 advocates talking i was like oh fuck that's true it's just like let's make this person they have 0.53

00:57:11.020 burns on them or you know or it's just like and that makes them it's like they're bad but then 0.98

00:57:14.860 you have to like add like some sort of facial or whatever difference to make people and then if you

00:57:20.720 look at whatever like disney movies or anything like it's getting into like so it's exactly what

00:57:25.600 you're saying it's just like how can we make people think that they're bad it's like well

00:57:28.800 let's give them these stereotypical things. But that's coming from times like this, right? Where

00:57:32.360 it's just like, yeah, like, anyway, it's just ableism is not new. It's been around for hundreds

00:57:37.400 and hundreds of years. And it's in all of our commonly accepted historical shorthand. It's in

00:57:43.460 our fairy tales. It's in everything. Yeah. And I think part of it in this era, in Mary's era comes

00:57:49.800 from because it's the Protestants, right? These are the haters. Her haters are all Protestants,

00:57:53.820 like John Knox. And it comes from a thing where you're like, some people are like God's chosen

00:57:57.300 people and you can tell who are God's chosen people because they look pretty you know so if

00:58:02.200 somebody like has some sort of like facial difference or whatever it's like that to them

00:58:05.940 was a sign that like oh God doesn't like them so it's a way it's like self-confirming or something 0.99

00:58:12.320 and that was like went all the way back to like what you were supposed to do around a pregnant 0.63

00:58:16.340 woman like if a pregnant woman has a sinful thought or looks at something that makes her think

00:58:20.980 something that she shouldn't then your baby might come out you know a facial difference or you might 0.83

00:58:26.440 have like an inhuman hairy baby if you look at two dogs having sex or something like there's a

00:58:32.240 lot of weird purity body language projection all tangled up in all of this and it's there's lots

00:58:39.160 of interesting stuff written about this I am by no means an expert in it but I do think it's

00:58:43.200 fascinating yeah and I just yeah thank you for bringing that up and I do want to just really

00:58:47.140 mention that because like stuff about David Rizzio like I'm so grateful for this one book that I

00:58:50.820 found that what like is a biography of David Rizzio that it's so much like last episode all

00:58:55.440 the stuff that I got was basically from that one biography by David Tweedy, which is interesting

00:58:59.580 because, well, I'll tell you why later, who David Tweedy's ancestors were. But yeah, like,

00:59:05.420 so people writing about David Rizzio at the time were just like, he was this like,

00:59:10.140 quote, dwarfish and deformed person. Like he was like ugly and whatever. And he was funny looking. 0.82

00:59:16.200 And then contemporarily, if you look at the Saoirse Ronan, Queen Mary movie, or if you look

00:59:21.520 at rain he's portrayed as kind of like a jonathan van ness-esque gay best friend yeah he so it's

00:59:29.780 leaning into so it's not it's like not making him like ugly looking but it's really leaning into the

00:59:35.720 like gay side of things which is whatever you know like maybe he was whatever but it's it dismisses

00:59:41.600 who he was as this political power player which is who he was i was shocked i was shocked when i

00:59:47.180 learned all that allison uh this podcast is firmly team rizzio just love no matter what other things

00:59:54.360 may or may not be true he is a legend he is loyal he is a good guy he is like one of the only truly

01:00:01.380 good people in this story and he was only ever loyal to mary and i respect do i smell uh jane

01:00:08.380 seymour best friend award oh oh i haven't thought about that but you know what you know what i i

01:00:16.600 mean i can't remember this when we get to the score anyway he also liked clothes which is

01:00:22.040 something else he had in common with mary right she was like an aesthetic person she's a fashion

01:00:25.900 girly he owned at least 18 pairs of velvet hose allison for this time that's a lot that's a lot

01:00:32.140 he used to sleep on sideways furniture on the floor and now he was elevated to the point he had

01:00:37.500 living the life he dreamed 18 pairs of velvet hose when he was on the job he would wear his

01:00:41.960 jeweled chain of office like he just like struck quite a figure apparently and i'm sure this made

01:00:47.460 everyone think he was even more catholic and even more awful with the protestant standing there and

01:00:51.820 their stiff white collars and their black like who is this man and why is he so fancy well honestly 1.00

01:00:57.000 like setting aside the fact that darnley is a piece of shit you've got like darnley 0.99

01:01:00.200 mary and rizzio who are just like the ends of marys they're just like style like showing up 0.99

01:01:05.760 just like their ensembles it's just like amazing and the puritans are all just like 0.84

01:01:09.160 we wear we stark collars yeah we think that luxury fabric is a sin okay so i need to tell 0.65

01:01:16.720 you about one more man i'm so sorry but as as i read through these biographies and the way that

01:01:24.700 i'm doing these episodes is i kind of like read this chunk of time in each of the books and sort

01:01:29.560 of like layer it together to make notes and then there's so many men i'm not mentioning

01:01:34.500 because too many who cares when somebody becomes crucially important i have to like

01:01:40.600 put them back in so this is a guy who we have to talk about his name is james douglas because james

01:01:45.640 is the default first name of every person in this story he is the earl of morton so in all the books

01:01:51.960 they just say morton but i'm going to call him jam jam which is a name that was honestly when i

01:02:00.240 was researching this i'm just like everyone's called james i can't handle it and i posted on

01:02:03.540 my Patreon, I was like, what are some nicknames for James? So Patreons, the Patreons helped me

01:02:09.580 choose the name Jam Jam. Anyway. I love it. We're going to always remember who he is, right? So

01:02:14.940 Jam Jam. So he's a Douglas, which means he is related to Darnley because Darnley's mother

01:02:20.580 is Margaret Douglas. So the Douglases are like a major family in Scotland, mostly living around

01:02:26.180 glasgow region anyway so jam jam had been on mary's side during the chase about raids against

01:02:34.400 hollywood icon jimmy stewart but now he was just like a big hater of davy rizzio because of how 0.73

01:02:39.620 much power he had right so uh jam jam also uh darnly adjacent way was a shitty person and i

01:02:47.920 don't this is not true but this is a sort of story that people made up about him even though he was 0.82

01:02:52.940 like a protestant so they said that when he was a boy he found a toad in his garden and ate it live

01:02:58.940 what okay that one really feels like the propaganda writer got tired and they were like i don't have 0.71

01:03:06.100 the energy for another twisted ugly dwarf i'm gonna just make him eat a toad i'm done yeah so

01:03:13.340 so jam jam but he is like he's very scheming so this one quote said from his youth he had been 0.97

01:03:19.820 renowned for his treachery and of whom his father had no good opinion. So whether or not he ate a

01:03:24.880 toad, he was a shitty person, very duplicitous and not someone you want as your enemy. And in fact, 0.99

01:03:31.460 so Davy Rizzio had wanted to buy this hunting lodge and he liked this hunting lodge on these

01:03:36.660 grounds. And he and Mary would like ride up there to be like, yeah, Davy, one day this will be your

01:03:39.680 house. Like they like allegedly planted some chestnuts there and the trees still grow. But

01:03:44.600 anyway, the guy who owned the hunting lodge would not sell to him. And that was because

01:03:48.860 the landowner was a cousin of jam jam and therefore a douglas and refused to sell to

01:03:53.780 you know a gross italian catholic so he just hated rizzio so just jam jam is going to pop up

01:04:00.360 regrettably numerous times in this story i'm going to think of him a little bit as like 0.92

01:04:05.380 councilman jam from parks and rec because that's the kind of energy he's bringing to this situation

01:04:10.100 yes very much perfect perfect that's why jam jam is a perfect name but davy rizzio like he was

01:04:16.780 smart and savvy he knew lots of people hated him right so one pal of his a priest tried to warn

01:04:22.860 him he's like you know what like you're doing really well for yourself you have 18 pairs of 0.64

01:04:26.340 velvet hose like why don't you just like go back to savoy like people here want to murder you bro 0.61

01:04:31.280 um the priest told him your enemies are like geese if you handle one of them the rest will 0.72

01:04:36.200 fly upon you and pluck you so they will not leave a feather of down on you also you don't ever want

01:04:41.280 to fight a goose like that's an aggressive metaphor i don't know if you have geese where

01:04:46.140 you live but we have geese here and i like when the geese are in front of me on the path i walk

01:04:50.260 around them like i give geese the space they need like oh we have we have geese have you ever looked

01:04:57.160 at a close-up picture of a goose's tongue no it has teeth on it oh god they're honestly so scary

01:05:04.140 so the priest was like your enemies are like geese but davy was like no they're just like ducks

01:05:09.100 strike one of them and the rest would lie in okay rizzio's never fought a goose he's not

01:05:14.660 sufficiently concerned no it made it out of geese and savoy but honestly he was like i'm not gonna

01:05:20.680 like give the haters time of day i'm not gonna let them dictate what i do and you know what that is

01:05:25.380 a good way to think in some situations not this one but psychologically ones that some listeners

01:05:31.480 might be in today i do like that he is kind of bringing jonathan den has energy to this

01:05:35.760 confrontation where he's just like you know what honey i'm gonna be me it's fine yeah yeah exactly

01:05:39.540 like he but he'd made this great life for himself in edinburgh he loved it there he he loved the

01:05:45.520 rain he loved the fog yeah like no shade to edinburgh it's a place that i also love i my

01:05:51.780 hair and skin have never been as good as when i was in edinburgh long ago i was just like oh like

01:05:58.100 genetically on like a dna level my body what is like this is where you're supposed to be

01:06:03.640 in the in the drizzle and anyway so he wasn't gonna let the haters get in his way of him just

01:06:09.760 like letting his light shine bright but also he was so devoted to mary and he like wanted to be

01:06:14.420 there to help her right this is his thing like he's so loyal to her he wanted to protect her

01:06:18.240 and he knew if he left like well he was going to do that job basically with so many enemies against

01:06:22.100 her as per denise mina in rizio the novella which again like yeah it's fiction but it's like

01:06:29.440 also true. Rizzio knows his life is threatened. Of course it is. He's a proxy for a queen. They

01:06:34.580 resent her power, her sex, her religious devotion, her pregnancy, which has a potential to carry on

01:06:39.200 her Catholic line. They resent the compromise she represents that there may not be a Protestant

01:06:43.180 Europe now and forever. So people hated him, but it was because they hated her, right? Like he had

01:06:50.200 a lot of power, but ultimately they hated her. They hated a woman had this power, hated a Catholic 0.71

01:06:54.800 had this power. And he was right by her side as Mary kept being like, let's be cool. Protestants 0.78

01:07:00.540 and Catholics can both live in this country. Everyone chill out, which is like continues to

01:07:05.840 be her main thesis statement, which honestly, it also is on rain. I like to show when something on

01:07:12.060 rain is accurate. But that was part of like in the last episode, there was a weird thing where

01:07:16.020 Davey Rizzio made Darnley go to a John Knox sermon. And I think that was part of him being

01:07:21.140 like, look, like we can be like Catholics and Protestants can be friends all together. Like

01:07:25.820 we don't have to be at war. Like we can go to each other's religious services. Don't worry about it.

01:07:30.760 So there's a coin minting moment. I just wanted to mention because I haven't had a coin minting

01:07:37.840 moment on this podcast in a while. So there was a coin minted called the Ryle, R-Y-A-L,

01:07:44.360 which is valued at, well, it was valued at 30 shillings. If you want to buy one now, it's like

01:07:48.380 seven hundred dollars because they're quite rare so on one side of it is marion darnley as king

01:07:53.140 and queen it's like henry and mariah or henricus at mariah or something and it's like a portrait

01:08:02.140 of the two of them and on the back is a picture of a palm tree with a tortoise climbing on it

01:08:07.340 iconic which yeah so as per the books i read the significance of this imagery is unclear

01:08:14.000 i was gonna say there are no palm trees in scotland as far as i'm aware no very much no so

01:08:22.640 you know people are extrapolating like various things like davy rizzio it might be something

01:08:27.140 to do with like historically when some people were being marginalized and then they defeated

01:08:32.420 their enemies like something like that anyway in some sort of like place with palm trees maybe

01:08:36.800 savoy i don't know if savoy has palm trees but anyway what's crucial here is that there's a

01:08:40.660 tortoise climbing on it. Mary was planning to name Davey Rizzio the head of the mint

01:08:45.060 that was going to be, which was also a new commission for him that would get him paid

01:08:48.320 less money. And he gave her a gift of a jeweled tortoise. So tortoises were clearly like some

01:08:55.960 sort of like significant thing between the two of them. Like they had some significance that we

01:09:00.200 don't know. And I love that we don't know. It's not like a secret code or cipher. It's just like,

01:09:04.840 I don't know, you know, like on friends, it's like, he's your lobster. It's like tortoise.

01:09:08.820 I don't know maybe it meant strength or loyalty or perseverance but I just love that like she put

01:09:14.760 the tortoise on her coin and then she gave him a jeweled tortoise like it just kind of shows their

01:09:19.540 connection to each other it's spectacular like I have one friend where whenever we're traveling and

01:09:23.920 we see a little thing with an owl on it we'll get it for each other but like I saw an owl I thought

01:09:27.440 of you that's what it feels like it's like a tortoise it's our thing I saw a tortoise made

01:09:30.980 me think of you Davey it's really cute no it's really cute it's the same thing yeah I have a

01:09:35.120 thing with one of my friends where you know where it's just like when when you're in this you know

01:09:39.520 metaphorically like the stormy seas like there's the boats and everything it's just like just be

01:09:43.480 the mermaid on the rock just like watching it all happen so we're like mermaid just be the mermaid

01:09:47.600 and so like yeah so when i see them with a mermaid i'm like made me think of you megan

01:09:50.560 anyway so tortoise is a thing in return for the tortoise jewel oh wait no he gave her the tortoise

01:09:56.820 jewel and then in return she gave him six pieces of cloth in gold patterned with scales like a

01:10:01.840 tortoise. So she could make a little tortoise jacket. Exactly. It's like a real thing between

01:10:07.520 them. Later on, we're going to talk about when she had, cause she hasn't had her baby. She still

01:10:10.380 just got pregnant, but when she's going to have her baby, she wrote out a will because, you know,

01:10:14.140 women died a lot in childbirth and she made special, she mentioned the tortoise jewel

01:10:18.560 specifically and who she wanted to have it. In the absence of a functional husband slash king,

01:10:24.060 Mary relied more heavily on her handpicked group of trusted advisors. So we've got Davy Rizzio.

01:10:31.080 We've also got Bothwell, who you'll recall, who she had brought back to be her military

01:10:35.100 expert, I think during the chase about raids, as well as Cocker the North Jr., who is now

01:10:40.280 on her Privy Council.

01:10:41.900 So both men were the heads of strong family factions as well, which is crucial.

01:10:45.680 Like Cocker the North Jr. is, you know, the whole North, like everything his father had

01:10:51.080 controlled, like he could get those, the 20,000 Catholics, like now he could call on them.

01:10:55.980 And then Bothwell had his family, the Hepburns, no relation to my cat.

01:11:00.720 where they had control in the border region, like near the Scottish-English border.

01:11:06.240 So to cement kind of like these two guys and like those two families being loyal to her, 0.95

01:11:11.640 she married Queen of Matchmaking. 1.00

01:11:14.260 She loves to matchmake others.

01:11:16.240 She matchmates Boswell married Cock of the North Jr.'s sister, Jean Gordon.

01:11:22.800 So the last time we saw Jean Gordon, she was with her mother fleeing their house after

01:11:27.720 mary and her brother had destroyed their entire family you know taken all their tapestries from

01:11:33.800 their house confiscated their lands and murdered her father and then she went jean gordon and her

01:11:39.220 mother then became like mary's ladies-in-waiting and it's all kind of like this is weird yeah 0.95

01:11:43.200 that's a real sorry would you like a husband as an apology situation yeah so she match made jean

01:11:50.040 gordon to bothwell um now did bothwell actively have a secret wife from norway who is currently

01:11:55.880 living in scotland with their illegitimate son with bothwell's mother yes but we'll get to that

01:12:01.520 later that's neither here nor there don't worry they were just hand fasted it's not a real marriage

01:12:07.500 anyway mary loved love she loved giving gifts and she like whenever someone she liked one of her 0.53

01:12:12.860 favorites got married she would always supply the wedding dress and like pay for the banquet

01:12:15.500 so she supplied a wedding dress for jean made of some sort of silver cloth but jean and bothwell's

01:12:21.720 honeymoon was short-lived because just one week later, Bothwell returned to Edinburgh because

01:12:26.400 Mary was in danger, because Hollywood Acton Jimmy Stewart's remaining sympathizers were really mad

01:12:32.960 at this point. Why were they mad? So because Parliament was going to meet pretty soon. And

01:12:38.580 one of the things that they were going to talk about at Parliament was removing all the lands

01:12:41.820 and titles from Hollywood Acton Jimmy Stewart and all of the rebels who had turned against Mary

01:12:45.820 like five minutes ago. All of the chase about raid guys were going to just lose all their lands and

01:12:50.140 titles i'm like they didn't already but they're like oh no we have to wait for parliament to do

01:12:54.500 that like make parliament meet dummies it seemed like you tried to like actively murder the queen

01:13:00.000 maybe you should not getting money from her but what do i know yeah so hollywood icon jimmy stewart

01:13:05.140 was concerned about this because it's like that's my income so at this point although he hated davy

01:13:11.360 rizzio as well like everyone knew at this point you had to go through him to get to marry because

01:13:14.860 he's like the private secretary everyone was working under a bribery-based system he sent

01:13:18.880 Davey Rizzio, a huge diamond ring as a bribe.

01:13:22.020 Should have sent Turtle.

01:13:23.020 Messed up.

01:13:23.700 Yeah.

01:13:24.140 Yeah.

01:13:24.560 You know what?

01:13:25.020 That's the secret password. 0.70

01:13:27.260 And that's another thing people are like, Davey Rizzio, he was like so corrupt.

01:13:30.560 He was accepting bribes.

01:13:31.680 It's like everyone was.

01:13:33.980 It was a bribery-based system.

01:13:36.900 Cecil was taking bribes in England.

01:13:39.800 This isn't weird or unusual.

01:13:42.160 It's only a problem when he does it.

01:13:44.320 Yeah, exactly.

01:13:44.800 Oh, yeah.

01:13:45.720 So this is where we're talking about.

01:13:47.100 um yeah davy rizzio had wanted to buy that house but then jam jam stopped him from buying him

01:13:51.840 because of anti-italian racism oh mary was also thinking of granting rizzio a scottish citizenship

01:13:58.020 to give him lands and a title and just really moving him up in the world so he was so mary

01:14:02.680 was thinking of like giving him even more power just as she was thinking of like officially like

01:14:07.660 removing the lands and stuff from all her enemies who tried to kill her anyway darnley meanwhile is 1.00

01:14:12.340 just like but what about having sex with me and the crown matrimonial remember me being the 1.00

01:14:16.960 worst over here like surely you don't have enough stressors in your life me also you can just 0.96

01:14:22.480 picture mary looking at him across the room being like not now darnly literally any other time i am

01:14:28.740 busy and he's just like but i'm still hot and tall please yeah that just wasn't working for him

01:14:35.060 anymore he's so confused you know like people who are hot and tall and maybe that's gotten them

01:14:39.240 everything they wanted in their life and suddenly it doesn't and they're like but but what else do

01:14:42.880 i have so just everything i'm just setting a scene of like everything is just on edge

01:14:46.900 like everyone everyone is and at this point so hollywood icon jimmy stewart and his followers

01:14:53.860 are like wait okay like we don't want to lose our lives that's the most important thing

01:14:58.180 and they're like hmm like we all fucking hate darnley obviously but he's like really easy 0.91

01:15:03.380 to manipulate like can we somehow get him to help us and darnley was like manipulating darnley 0.98

01:15:11.140 is like he's got the brains of like three beans and a plastic bag so that's not going to be a

01:15:17.740 tricky proposition for them no exactly exactly so darnley is like if you can get me the con

01:15:23.600 matrimonial i will do literally anything you asked me to i very famously want two things

01:15:29.040 um yeah so then they and this is like and this is the time and the place but i find it truly

01:15:36.600 bananas. So they signed a literal piece of paper, a document that said like, you know, I, Hollywood

01:15:43.920 Ike and Jimmy Stewart will get Darnley a crown matrimonial in the next parliament. And in

01:15:48.880 exchange, Darnley will switch over to my side, recall all the exiles back home, pardon them and

01:15:55.640 forbid their land from being confiscated. So this was all documented that like Darnley was gonna

01:16:01.240 like supersede Mary's authority, right? And just like do all like if they got the crown matrimonial, 0.83

01:16:06.480 that he would be able to do things as the king himself not just as husband of mary it is nice

01:16:10.700 when you're committing treason and then you keep a nice well-documented paper trail of all of your

01:16:14.580 treason and you sign it with your big old name it's very convenient for me what's wild about all

01:16:20.460 of this and just in terms of like like william cecil in england being just like the best of 0.97

01:16:25.380 this shit it's like so much this stuff is like we know this because william cecil had a copy of this 0.75

01:16:28.980 document like anytime anyone wrote anything on paper william cecil had a copy of it he his spies 0.99

01:16:34.740 were like i can't even emphasize how he knew everything but also everyone was writing it down

01:16:41.940 on paper he's like thank you i'm very good at my job but you make me have to work less hard which

01:16:47.740 is great yeah let me just put this in my filing cabinet treasonous contracts great

01:16:54.140 for treason yes so but if durnley's gonna work with them and they were all protestants right

01:17:01.560 So Darnley was ostensibly Catholic.

01:17:03.860 So they had to have some sort of reason to be like, well, Darnley was Catholic.

01:17:07.300 We need to have some sort of scapegoat to explain like why did, because remember he

01:17:10.160 was like religiously non-committed.

01:17:12.200 But when he married Mary, he was like, yes, Catholic. 0.84

01:17:14.100 Great. 1.00

01:17:15.020 So they have to be like, no one will believe he's working with us because he used to be

01:17:18.180 Catholic.

01:17:18.500 We have to explain why he became Catholic. 0.65

01:17:20.120 And they were like, well, what about if we say Davy Rizzio like seduced him using witchcraft

01:17:26.120 to make him be Catholic?

01:17:27.600 so they decided that rizzio is going to be the scapegoat in this whole thing 1.00

01:17:32.260 and darnley was like that motherfucker like that guy who i think has been sleeping with mary where 0.99

01:17:37.120 actually she's just been he's mad because rizzio had been spending time with mary playing cards 0.99

01:17:42.460 and music and like having a nice time when she could have been sleeping with darnley because

01:17:47.300 rizzio can hold a conversation and like knows more than 10 words and like yeah they they're just

01:17:53.460 like buying clothes and looking at turtles together darling please calm down no exactly but he already

01:17:59.060 so they were able to like fuel that now and be like oh you know how they play cards together i

01:18:02.780 think they're also having sex and maybe she's pregnant with rizzio's baby not yours spoiler

01:18:06.640 she was not she was not but that did later on people would lobby that as an insult against

01:18:14.280 mary's son who is king james who by the way that we're not getting into king james in the season

01:18:19.300 but a son who takes after his father in a lot of obvious ways.

01:18:23.680 There's never been a less surprising line from father to son

01:18:29.100 than Darnley to King James.

01:18:31.520 Yeah, I would suggest Darnley's grandfather was Archibald Douglas,

01:18:35.760 who was the dirtbag who got together with Margaret Tudor.

01:18:38.840 And then she had to like point the cannons of the castle at him 0.86

01:18:41.400 because he was trying to like kidnap their son.

01:18:42.960 So like from grandfather to grandson to son, 0.99

01:18:46.800 there's a real line of just kind of like like the like asshole gene is just strong strong in that 0.96

01:18:53.780 lineage but what's funny too is that so you know my um problematic fave charles ii hot king charles 0.98

01:18:59.740 yes yeah um who did have what one might call a mediterranean complexion he had you know black

01:19:06.080 hair sort of olive skin so some people are like oh that's the proof that like davy rizzio

01:19:10.200 secretly the father of this whole dynasty it's like really or was it the fact that his mother

01:19:14.960 was like from portugal anyway so uh yeah so darling is just like great like we're turning

01:19:20.640 on rizzio great and so they decided they were going to murder davy rizzio and a murder squad

01:19:27.980 was assembled and they signed paperwork because of course they did we the undersigned are going

01:19:34.440 to murder rizzio and so the people involved in this scottish machiavelli is on board jam jam

01:19:39.920 hollywood icon jimmy stewart the entire douglas family along with a guy called lord riffin now

01:19:47.100 in previous episodes i pronounced this as lord ruthven which is how it is spelled but i've been

01:19:51.760 informed by scottish people that you don't say the t it's lord riffin which feels very weird for

01:19:58.820 me to say but he's another major major player so lord riven is allegedly a necromancer slash warlock

01:20:06.220 so incredible yeah and i think lord ruthven is a good way to pronounce the name of a warlock

01:20:12.340 slash necromancer but it's a common scottish last name even to this day and it's pronounced

01:20:15.920 riven anyway he's also on the douglas side so basically the douglases are just like mustering

01:20:21.320 behind jam jam they wrote a letter to elizabeth and cecil being like fyi here's what we're planning

01:20:27.200 to murder rizzio put this in your file cabinet right next to the other one you're like attached

01:20:32.640 please find a contract we all signed here's a date we're gonna do it on like thanks so much

01:20:36.720 um and Cecil was like yeah Cecil was like okay so he did nothing to stop them um even um Bobby

01:20:44.600 Dead's Robert Dudley knew about this like these people not good at keeping a secret so basically

01:20:50.840 everyone knew it was gonna happen except for Mary and her inner circle and here's what happened so

01:20:56.520 Saturday March 9th we're getting into a true crime podcast vibe but unlike some of the books I read

01:21:03.620 like just the order in which they give the information I'm going to tell you what happened

01:21:06.480 as it happened I won't just be like this happened and then rewind to explain how it happened I'm

01:21:10.020 going to just like in order like I just told you who the murderers were so Saturday March 9th 1566

01:21:15.980 Darnley had spent the afternoon playing tennis with Rizzio which they often did but to throw

01:21:20.560 of suspicion, basically. Everybody was at Holyrood Palace. Mary was now like five to six months

01:21:26.800 pregnant era. So around six to 7pm, Mary was hanging out in her chambers, a room that was

01:21:33.120 not her bedroom, but near her bedroom. It was a small space. It's like 12 feet by 10 feet with

01:21:38.220 incredibly more people than you would think she could fit in that space. But let's discuss the

01:21:42.980 rooms for a minute. And this is where I, people describe the rooms, but the best description I

01:21:47.700 got was from Denise Minna in her novella, Rizzio. And so Mary's suite of apartments directly above

01:21:53.300 Darnley's in the tower is a mirror of his. Both have a large formal audience chamber served by

01:21:58.220 the same grand staircase, and both have a connecting passage from that room to their

01:22:01.940 respective bedchambers. So a private staircase joins their bedchambers so they can visit each

01:22:06.920 other without anyone else knowing. So they have secret sex stairs between his bedroom to her

01:22:11.280 bedroom. Which I'm sure Mary does not enjoy having anymore. So can we take those stairs?

01:22:14.660 nope no can we seal this with a door like a piece of stone work can we like cast of amontillado him

01:22:21.660 in the stairwell maybe yeah so each of these bedrooms has two small rooms leading off into

01:22:27.720 turrets that make up the corners of the tower mary likes her little turret rooms they're cozy

01:22:31.900 and informal and warm and this is where she's hosting her 12 guests this evening the guests

01:22:36.340 with highest status are gathered at the table various servants and retainers stand or sit

01:22:40.040 against the wall waiting for a turn at the food. And it's Lent era, which is when Catholics don't 1.00

01:22:45.380 eat meat, but Mary was allowed to because she was pregnant. And I like that as a rule, like how, 0.87

01:22:50.500 you know, like in Ramadan, like you, you don't have to fast if you're pregnant or whatever on

01:22:54.320 your period or things. Anyway, so the guests include her half-sister, whose name is Jean.

01:22:59.460 Everyone is called Jean, the Countess of Argyle. Jean's uncle, Robert Beaton, the Laird of Kreich,

01:23:05.180 the master of the Queen's household. That's why he's there. Her half-brother, not Hollywood

01:23:09.260 I can Jimmy Stewart, but Robert Stewart, don't know anything else he does her entire life,

01:23:13.620 but he's there at this dinner. A guy named Sir Arthur Erskine of Black Grange, who was her

01:23:17.800 master of the horse. Mary is a horse girl. So like master of the horse, I think would be a person 0.99

01:23:22.720 she's very close to. Her French apothecary is there, name unknown. A page named Anthony Standon

01:23:28.500 the Younger and the widow of Cock of the North, the Countess is also there. Countess Cock of the

01:23:34.900 north yeah countess of the north davy rizzio also there wearing a splendid gown of fur damask over a

01:23:43.680 satin doublet and russet velvet hose he had not removed his cap as was customary when a man was

01:23:48.680 in the presence of the queen but we assume mary knew the hat was part of his look and let him

01:23:53.480 keep it off it's rizzio it looks great it puts the look together and she's like i respect that

01:24:00.020 yeah you need the hat anyway so they're just eating dinner it's like dark because it's um

01:24:05.700 march it's 7 p.m it's yeah in scotland pre-electricity so there's just candles lighting

01:24:11.740 it up anyway downstairs basically half of the nobles of scotland like between 100 to 500 men

01:24:17.360 led by lord riven who side note was actively dying of cancer he looked gruesome like everyone

01:24:24.860 said he was so pale like he was like he looked like he was dying of cancer and he was but he 1.00

01:24:29.780 was such a piece of shit his wife had recently left him even though he was dying because she was 1.00

01:24:33.880 like even if you die tomorrow that's one day too long being married to you so lord riven and jam 1.00

01:24:38.400 jam rushed into the castle stole the keys from the guards secured the gates overcoming the guards on

01:24:42.880 duty um denise mina says they are skittering around in the dark 200 of them crowding the

01:24:47.860 entrances and overwhelming the guards they've already confiscated all the keys and secured

01:24:51.740 the gates the men are to go upstairs by the private stairs cross mary's bed chamber and

01:24:56.540 enter the audience room, unlock the main door to the stairs and let the soldiers into her parlor.

01:25:01.160 So basically they go into Darnley's room. Then they go up the secret, a couple of them just go

01:25:05.660 up the secret sex stairs, sneak across and then open the main door so that they can come in the

01:25:10.800 main door. Basically. So meanwhile, the other people are just like taking, capturing the castle,

01:25:16.660 right? They're just like overcoming the servants and whatever in the rest of the castle. And these

01:25:21.100 men are mostly Douglas's, which is notable because they shouted their traditional war cry,

01:25:25.040 a douglas a douglas which is we could have done better i i'm not like a fan of that as like

01:25:32.620 a foster a foster like we could have worked out that one for about five more minutes yeah

01:25:39.540 yeah exactly but that's kind of like how you know they were there anyway so they scattered

01:25:44.080 servants knocked over candles capturing the castle so nobody inside could escape or so they thought

01:25:48.920 asterix we'll get back to that point so basically darley came up the secret sex stairs and then he

01:25:54.740 which there's like a tapestry so he like flings the tapestry aside to be like it's me which i 0.94

01:25:59.000 okay that's the most darnly way to enter a room though is flinging aside while coming up the sex

01:26:04.720 stairs it's it's real grandma it is i anastasia energy as any given room no very very and then

01:26:12.260 he comes in and his job is to distract them while the other people are sneaking around to open the

01:26:16.920 other door right which he's great at because he has three brain cells and he's very tall so it's

01:26:22.340 easy to look at so he just kind of comes in and mary's like what are you doing here there's not

01:26:25.940 like a plate made for you and he's like that's okay i already had supper don't worry about it

01:26:29.160 anyway meanwhile lord riven goes up the sex stairs and then sneaks behind the tapestry to open the

01:26:34.020 door and let the others in i do want to say also which is impressive no one heard anything because

01:26:37.560 lord riven for no reason at all and everyone then even thought it was weird was wearing a full suit

01:26:42.000 armor yeah yeah so it's like you have to be quiet it's like okay well I wore this entire suit of

01:26:53.540 armor and I'm actively dying so let's see how this goes anyway apparently it went okay you know he

01:27:00.640 made a noise and Mary's like what's that noise and Darnley's like noise it's a cat outside I don't

01:27:05.180 know wearing a full suit of armor don't worry about it maybe one of the suits of armor in the

01:27:08.660 hallway just toppled over anyway so lord riven bursts in looking like a whole mess and he's

01:27:14.660 like where's davy rizzio and mary quickly figures out what's going on and she's like okay i get you

01:27:19.560 don't like davy rizzio like shall we re-meet in parliament and impeach him sort of thing

01:27:25.940 then she turns to darnley to be like did you know that this was happening and he's like me what so

01:27:33.200 mary commanded riven to leave the room or else be arrested for treason he ignored her which was

01:27:37.920 shocking to all the men in the room so the men in the room again mary's brother robert

01:27:42.700 the master of the horse the french apothecary all the men tried to grab him but then he drew

01:27:49.200 out a pistol and that stopped him he drew out a pistol from his armor unclear so then riven also

01:27:54.140 pulled out a dagger so i guess pistol in one hand dagger on the other hand this seems like overkill

01:27:58.660 whatever he's doing it's too much yeah no he's oh riven that's what is too much he is too much

01:28:06.100 this whole situation but yeah putting piecing this together for this episode like i was going

01:28:09.980 between book to book and each one had like there's certainly commonalities in how they describe what

01:28:14.000 happened but what i really settled on was like a few days after this happened mary wrote a letter

01:28:18.560 and i'm just relying mostly on how she described it so he pulls a dagger advances on davy rizio

01:28:24.620 davy rizio reaches for his own dagger but he fumbles drops it and then he just like goes

01:28:29.380 into sort of like there's sort of like a stick sticky out part of the tower like where the

01:28:33.240 windows are. And he's kind of like hiding there. He gets behind Mary. Mary's like, no one gets to

01:28:37.700 my best friend. I'm the tortoise now. You know, I'm protecting him like a tortoise shell. So he's

01:28:43.280 just like behind her, like clinging, like on the ground, I think, because he's trying to pick up

01:28:46.600 his dagger, just like clinging to her skirts. Then six more murderers come into the room.

01:28:51.400 A violent struggle ensues in which the table, remember they were having like a dinner for 12

01:28:56.080 in this corner. Table was overturned. Everything on it came crashing to the ground, including all

01:29:00.480 the candles. Jean, Mary's half-sister, managed to save one lighted candle, which together with

01:29:06.120 a firelight illuminated the scene. But also Jean stopped the candle from like lighting the nearby

01:29:11.520 tapestry on fire and killing them all. So good job, Jean. So this is where last night where I 0.88

01:29:18.040 live, there was, uh, no, two nights ago, there was a thunderstorm and the power went off and I was

01:29:22.800 like, oh, it's so dark. And I'm like, dark, like that night in the turret. And I turned on the

01:29:28.380 flash that on my phone and i was like this is like the candle held by g anyway so i think the

01:29:34.020 darkness adds to just like the confusion the scariness right so riven manhandled mary out

01:29:38.960 of the way and like told darnley like keep a hold on her and so darnley did one of the murderers i

01:29:45.080 don't understand this brutally rammed a chair towards her stomach i don't know if that was

01:29:49.400 intentional or not or it was just kind of like furniture is everywhere well she's pregnant at 0.98

01:29:53.260 this point right yeah yeah yeah but then another pointed a pistol at her stomach and maybe would

01:29:59.220 have fired it but the gun refused to give fire so it's kind of like they're like you like we will 0.79

01:30:04.960 kill you and your unborn child if you don't stop protecting Davy Rizzio then one of the Douglas's

01:30:10.680 grabbed Darnley's like this is just chaotic right like and it's dark and what's happening anyway so 0.99

01:30:15.900 one of them thrust Darnley's dagger towards Davy Rizzio over Mary's shoulder and she said that she

01:30:20.400 could feel the steel on her throat like it was so close davy was likely wounded by this blow and

01:30:25.120 the dagger was left sticking out of him then anthony standen who was one of the pages he's

01:30:30.820 like the servant so he grabbed like some guy was pointing a dagger at mary anthony stand and pointed

01:30:35.960 it away later he would tell mary's son james as an adult that he had saved his life and that of

01:30:42.220 his mother did he anthony stand and i don't know but like okay so davy rizzio is still crouching

01:30:48.920 behind mary's skirt i'm clinging on with his fingers and then somebody starts brutally bending

01:30:54.200 his fingers back potentially breaking them to like make him stop clinging and then he was dragged

01:30:58.940 kicking and screaming so first they dragged him down the sex stairs into darnley's room

01:31:02.980 where the other conspirators were waiting but then they're like change your mind so they dragged him 0.81

01:31:06.940 back up the sex stairs through mary's bedroom and out into the front entryway where he was stabbed 0.98

01:31:12.700 56 times entirely too many literal overkill these are the worst murderers in the whole world they 0.77

01:31:21.220 brought 200 people to stab one man 56 times he couldn't the guy who had dropped his knife to the

01:31:30.000 ground two seconds into the battle like it's just gross so i think like the stabbing of 56 times

01:31:37.000 was sort of like they all wanted so maybe 56 people were in the room at the time or something

01:31:41.200 like they went like he was clearly dead by the time stab number 56 happened but it was like they

01:31:46.180 all wanted to be like this is our pact we signed a piece of paper we're all going to stab it like

01:31:49.840 no spoilers like a Julius Caesar thing slash the end of uh Agatha Christie book I will leave

01:31:56.520 unnamed because it's a surprise ending anyway so while they were doing that Darnley was not in the

01:32:01.460 stabbing area he was back with Mary but someone else had taken his dagger and then after they

01:32:05.980 stabbed Rizio they left Darnley's dagger in the body as proof Darnley had been complicit in the

01:32:11.000 murder, even though he hadn't actually stabbed. And that's where Darnley was like, wait a minute,

01:32:14.300 am I? Am I a scapegoat? This is where he might have started thinking that. Anyway,

01:32:20.740 Devi Rizzio, RIP, his final words were, madama, yo son morto, which means madame, I am dead.

01:32:27.940 And note, the place where Rizzio was stabbed can be viewed by anyone who visits Holyrood

01:32:33.040 now. And the red stain on the floor is said to have lasted nearly five centuries,

01:32:37.860 defying any attempt to clean it off although one of the books i think it's claire hunter's book

01:32:42.240 says she's like i feel like the stain is like bigger and a bit redder than last time i was here

01:32:46.260 but i don't say anything i don't want to spoil the illusion no matter how much we clean it the

01:32:53.280 blood stays like like but there's a little plaque being like this is where allegedly davy ritz here

01:32:57.660 was killed so like r.i.p if you're anyone if you're in edinburgh if you go to hollyrood you know just

01:33:04.680 moment of silence at the place where David, because he was a real one. Like, can we just say,

01:33:10.060 I love him. He was great. If they let you leave little things with the plaque,

01:33:16.120 bring a little tiny turtle. Little turtle. That's what I would be. Oh, it's a beautiful

01:33:21.580 idea, Allison. Yeah, you know what? He was loyal to Mary to the end. So his body was just there.

01:33:30.020 His body was thrown down the stairs and then thrown across a wooden chest in the Porter's

01:33:34.520 lodge by the door. The porter got to take his fancy clothes, his whatever russet velvet hose

01:33:39.760 and his hat. The porter allegedly says something about like, you know, ironic when Davy first came

01:33:44.300 to this palace, he had to sleep on a chest in the hallway. And now he's laying on a chest again.

01:33:49.020 That's a very like Shakespeare's porter sort of wise thing to say. And then the next day,

01:33:53.480 the body was buried in a pauper's grave in the Canongate Cemetery near the door to Hollywood

01:33:57.980 Abbey. And now we're into the aftermath of the murder. I'm just curious how long, oh,

01:34:03.120 this is gonna be a long ass episode we could we could probably do a whole hour long episode just

01:34:09.060 us describing the scuffle in the tower yeah true this all happened mary is just like in her little

01:34:15.740 turret room i guess her sister holding one candle darnley is there riven is there and riven decided

01:34:21.600 the time was right for you know what impromptu marriage counseling jesus christ man he's he's 0.99

01:34:26.900 like why don't you fuck darnley like that's why he's upset that's why this happened he just clanks 0.99

01:34:32.660 over there in his giant suit of armor be like hey i have a thought yeah no literally this is what he 1.00

01:34:37.960 does like this has just happened and he's like you know what you should let him fuck you and then 0.99

01:34:42.380 mary said it is not the woman's part to seek the husband and therefore it is in that the fault was 0.99

01:34:47.700 his own so i guess she's like he needs to come down the sex stairs i'm not going up the sex 1.00

01:34:51.600 stairs but yeah anyway riven was just like you know you just gotta fuck your husband more often 0.99

01:34:56.760 that'll solve all the problems and mary was like oh really should i ask your wife about that who 1.00

01:35:00.700 just left you in fact quote she said why may not i leave him as well your wife did her husband

01:35:06.280 oh sick burn mary exactly so then he called for some wine because he was thirsty and he started

01:35:13.780 just like mansplaining in a sort of like little sermon you know why what they did made sense

01:35:19.320 because rizzio was making a country catholic and it's just like how brutus had to stab julius caesar

01:35:23.760 for tyranny reasons which like can i just point out like neither mary nor davy rizzio was doing

01:35:31.420 anything whatsoever tyrannical they were like let's bring this to parliament and have everyone

01:35:35.560 vote on it every time they want to do anything like there's not a tyrannical let's make the

01:35:41.900 catholic happening mary said quote if i die in childbirth as a result i will leave the revenge

01:35:46.920 to my friends to be taken of you lord riven and your posterity i have the king of spain and the

01:35:51.600 emperor, my great friends, and likewise the king of France, my good brother with my uncles of

01:35:55.600 Lorraine, besides the Pope's holiness and many other princes in Italy. So basically, she's just

01:36:00.460 like, I'm going to destroy you. If I die, the Pope's going to come whoop your ass, is what she 1.00

01:36:06.000 said. Yeah. Anyway, so the asshole murder squad, not done yet. They also wanted to murder Bothwell 1.00

01:36:11.980 and Cocker the North Jr. because those were Mary's other advisors. Where were these guys this whole

01:36:16.600 time? One might ask. At this point, they were also at Holyrood, but chilling in their own room,

01:36:20.560 waiting to be served their own meal not knowing that all the servants were being held hostage

01:36:23.920 but then they heard a douglas a douglas they're like the war cry of the douglas so they were like

01:36:31.720 oh my god something's happening so then everyone took up weapons to help out including the cooks

01:36:35.020 so they like rallied as many servants as they could find the cooks who took the sharp spits

01:36:39.160 the meat was roasting on his weapons i feel like people just like taking a stapler or like whatever

01:36:43.320 they're always like we'll help so they ran to mary's room but inside the conspirators were like

01:36:47.840 everything's fine. Don't worry about it. And then Riven came out of the room in his clanking in his

01:36:53.960 armor and with a glass of wine, like let's share some wine. So Bothwell and Cocker the North Jr.

01:37:00.480 were like, thanks, no thanks. And so they fled. They in fact fled all the way out of the building 0.84

01:37:05.880 through a small window that overlooked a small garden, which is allegedly where the over the

01:37:11.480 hill lions lived there was a royal menagerie including lions who were clearly not very active

01:37:18.300 or hungry because they were able to just like scoot out that way then as per denise mina lights

01:37:23.580 are appearing first one then another then five or twenty and they're coming straight for the palace

01:37:27.300 gates the men of the city of edinburgh remember they love her 400 citizens walk in formation

01:37:33.000 carrying torches that form a river of fire these are the ordinary men of the town who have sworn

01:37:37.960 to keep the peace called from their beds by the keepers of the watch they're all of a single mind

01:37:43.020 armed with lances and torches fueled by fierce loyalty to the queen so the people of edinburgh

01:37:48.340 like again her secret weapon they come by and they're like like something is happening what is

01:37:53.060 happening they stop below her windows and they're like we demand to see her bring mary to the window

01:37:56.780 darnley went to the window and he's like don't worry it's fine i'm the king now i'm the captain

01:38:04.540 now no this is not what we the people of edinburgh wanted to happen no meanwhile mary was in the room

01:38:10.200 guarded by men who were like if you make one sound we will murder you so the keepers of the watch

01:38:14.960 were like okay anyway mary obviously didn't sleep at all that night but she was kept company by

01:38:20.260 the countess the widow of cock of the north and her other ladies and this is crucial in the morning

01:38:26.260 darnley returned and they like argued yeah can you imagine what that must have been like 1.00

01:38:31.140 why won't you fuck me because you just stopped my best friend and threw his body down the stairs 1.00

01:38:38.020 bro what do you think yeah but so at some time overnight one of the ladies had seen the stabbed 1.00

01:38:44.080 body of davy rizzio and told mary like yeah no he's for sure dead and she cried and then she

01:38:48.780 said no more tears i will think upon a revenge yes my girl and she did so anyway meanwhile the 0.97

01:38:54.900 asshole murderers were just like all hanging out together in the castle being like amazing now we're 0.99

01:38:59.220 like the kings or whatever. But again, Denise Mina puts this perfectly. These men know they 0.99

01:39:04.240 are great. They feel confident. They have just changed the course of history with the forcefulness

01:39:07.900 and righteous vengeance. They haven't. Their plans will be usurped by a dumpy widow woman

01:39:13.140 carrying a piss pot. So Mary needed to exchange communication with the outside world, specifically 1.00

01:39:19.100 Bothwell and Cocker the North Jr. And the way that she knew how to do that in a callback to anyone 1.00

01:39:23.840 who's heard allison in my episode about the bush rangers is to weaponize her female body so when 1.00

01:39:30.800 darlie returned to check up on her she pretended she was miscarrying we love a fake pregnancy 1.00

01:39:36.780 diversion it's so good yeah and so she just she's like oh no i'm miscarrying and it's because you 0.99

01:39:43.220 won't let me see my midwife so darlie's like oh no so then she was allowed to see her french

01:39:49.140 physician and her midwife who were both loyal to her and they were both like oh yeah she's totally 1.00

01:39:53.300 miscarrying you know what'll stop this miscarriage if all of her ladies in waiting are allowed to

01:39:56.940 see her again and Darnley was like okay sure that's how pregnancy works great um but Riven

01:40:02.260 and Jam Jam to their credit were suspicious because they're I think they said at this point

01:40:07.000 it's like she was raised by the de Guises and Catherine de Medici like don't trust her bro

01:40:11.540 and Darnley's like how am I supposed to know how the female body works I've never once thought 0.96

01:40:16.360 about that in my whole life I assume this is normal yeah so they were like is she gonna switch 1.00

01:40:21.180 clothes with one of the ladies and flee a good option um her guards were doubled nobody was 1.00

01:40:26.000 allowed to leave the room while wearing a face covering or a muffler in case like she tried to 1.00

01:40:30.160 leave in disguise like here's the thing she was good but like they knew she was good darnly didn't 0.73

01:40:36.500 anyway so one of the ladies so she's allowed to see is the countess widow of cock of the north

01:40:41.120 so remember cock of the north is family the gordons they hate hollywood icon jimmy stewart

01:40:47.220 because they blame him for having destroyed their family.

01:40:50.680 Rightly.

01:40:51.320 Yeah, yeah.

01:40:52.080 And they know that it was him, not Mary.

01:40:53.840 You know, like she did, she was complicit in that,

01:40:56.020 but it was because she's taking his advice.

01:40:57.980 Anyway, so the countess had been in touch

01:41:00.380 with her son, Cocker the North Jr.,

01:41:02.180 who was off with Boothwell wanting to help.

01:41:04.040 And so she had messages to pass along from them.

01:41:06.160 So because the countess had had 12 children,

01:41:08.800 she was trusted in like a midwife adjacent situation. 0.91

01:41:12.160 She was like, I need to take Mary into the other room to pee 1.00

01:41:15.200 and we need to be alone for pregnancy reasons. 1.00

01:41:17.860 And they're like, that makes sense.

01:41:19.780 So she and Mary went and they were talking in private.

01:41:22.200 And so she passed along Intel,

01:41:23.500 the Bothwell and Cocklin North Jr.

01:41:25.220 had raised some troops.

01:41:26.280 So if Mary could just like descend through a window 1.00

01:41:28.180 by means of a rope ladder,

01:41:29.640 they would be waiting to receive her. 0.99

01:41:31.760 And the countess was like, 1.00

01:41:32.840 I could smuggle in the rope ladder, 1.00

01:41:34.160 maybe concealed in a food tray.

01:41:36.120 And Mary's like, I'm six months pregnant

01:41:37.920 and that's not the plan I'm going to do.

01:41:40.580 Thank you. 0.88

01:41:41.300 Anyway, so she was like,

01:41:42.640 the whole time they were talking,

01:41:43.320 mary was peeing into like a little chamber pot thing and then the the guys were like they were

01:41:47.640 talking for too long and then they came in and she's like peeing and she's like i'm just peeing

01:41:51.240 into this little pee pot and they were like okay she had given the countess a letter with

01:41:55.960 instructions and the countess stuck it like inside of her like undershirt layer um next to her skin

01:42:00.900 and the guards were like you know we're gonna like frisk this person leaving but they it's like an 0.97

01:42:05.460 old lady and they're like well it's an old lady carrying a piss pot we're not gonna like whatever 0.98

01:42:09.260 so anyway she left carrying the piss pot with mary's secret instruction letter on her body

01:42:14.980 so uh later that night because this is like the next day the next night hollywood icon jimmy

01:42:20.360 stewart came to town and mary was like bring him to me please and he was like oh if only i'd been 0.98

01:42:25.640 here last night i wouldn't have let them treat you so badly and she's like what the fuck bro 0.96

01:42:30.520 like like if you want to get him a good side like can you free me from this castle situation 0.99

01:42:35.640 and he's like we'll see because he just always is playing both sides Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart

01:42:40.120 he's also never there when the shit goes down he's always like conveniently out of town even 0.91

01:42:44.860 though he like plans everything anyway so Mary knew her best chance to escape was via manipulating 1.00

01:42:50.320 Darnley she knew he was stupid cowardly vain drunken dissolute narcissistic and also violent 0.99

01:42:56.480 vindictive and a skilled liar so she had to use him as a weapon so Darnley was meanwhile like 1.00

01:43:02.480 remember that they had left his dagger in rizzio's body and darnley was like wait a minute why did 0.90

01:43:07.420 they do that so he's starting to be like are these guys on my side or not so she was left alone with 0.97

01:43:15.580 darnley and she offered she's like listen like if you help me escape i will have sex with you 0.85

01:43:21.200 he was like the only thing i've ever won other than the crown yeah but basically she was like 0.99

01:43:26.700 so come back tonight and i'll have sex with you but she knew that he was going to be drunk and 0.99

01:43:30.060 passed out. And in fact, he was. So in the morning, he was like, Oh, fuck. And he like came up the 1.00

01:43:34.940 secret sex stairs. And Mary was asleep or pretending to be making him wait for an hour

01:43:38.960 until she's ready to speak to him. And then she's like, Oh, I totally would have had sex with you 0.99

01:43:43.000 last night. But like, now this morning, I feel unwell. Sorry about that. Anyway, so she used all 0.99

01:43:48.720 of her skills of manipulation that she learned growing up with the Degesis, Catherine de Medici,

01:43:53.760 but also using like, honestly, the truth. She was like, Look, as soon as these assholes have their 0.99

01:43:57.300 pardons. They're going to ditch you. And they're not going to give you the crown matrimonial, bro. 1.00

01:44:01.480 Why would they when they already have what they want, what they want? So she persuades him to

01:44:05.580 help her escape. And in fact, he agreed. So she knew where to go because the countess had been

01:44:11.740 like secretly smuggling her letters and she knew where Bothwell and Cochranoth Jr. were waiting.

01:44:15.820 So the plan was to pretend that she, for pregnancy reasons, had to leave.

01:44:21.580 Pregnancy reasons explains so much because not a single man in this castle is going to be like,

01:44:26.020 can you tell me more about your pregnancy can you please explain more to me about the female 0.93

01:44:30.860 reproductive system they're all just like must be correct go right ahead exactly it's also mysterious

01:44:36.060 to them so her midwife and a french physician came in and they were like you know what like

01:44:39.820 she's gonna she's totally having a miscarriage the only way to like have her not miscarry is

01:44:43.400 to move her to a different castle with sweeter and pleasanter air and darnley's like that sounds

01:44:48.680 true. That sounds true. So he convinced them. What they said was, Mary said she would sign the

01:44:56.520 papers. And they're like, okay, as soon as she signs the papers, we will remove her guards and 0.53

01:45:00.300 we will leave. Darnley was like, oh yeah, Mary like looked at the papers. She thought they're

01:45:04.380 great, but she was sick and couldn't sign them tonight. So she'll sign them tomorrow. So if you

01:45:07.660 could just remove the guards now, that would be great. And so that's what they did because the

01:45:13.860 Assholes were foolish and thought that Mary had given in to them. 0.99

01:45:19.080 And so shortly after midnight, Mary and Darnley, the guards were removed. 1.00

01:45:22.640 They slipped out a secret passage in the wine cellar.

01:45:24.820 And then they met six of their most trusted servants who had fetched her horses.

01:45:29.200 At the last minute, Darnley was like, but can my father come also?

01:45:33.420 I was like, categorically, no.

01:45:36.620 So then they rode hard through the night.

01:45:38.240 So this was like a five-hour horse ride, 25 miles away.

01:45:42.520 She is still six months pregnant.

01:45:43.860 at this point. So yeah, not easy. And I don't think she even got to eat dinner. Darnley was

01:45:49.000 like, ride faster, woman. And she was like, I'm pregnant, you asshole. And he was like, 1.00

01:45:53.280 well, if you lose this baby, we can have others. If we just keep having sex, aka the only thing I 0.90

01:45:58.400 want. Yeah. So Mary was like, push on and take care of yourself. And he did. So he just like 0.94

01:46:02.660 rode away. Basically abandoning them. Anyway, so partway there to this castle, they're going to

01:46:10.080 Bothwell, Coccoso North Jr. and other helpful loyal people were waiting for them. And they

01:46:14.580 arrived at 5 a.m. to Dunbar Castle. And I love this detail. So like all this had happened. I

01:46:21.700 just said, did she even have supper? She's pregnant. All this stuff had happened. She 1.00

01:46:24.240 arrived and she was like, bring me fresh eggs. And they were like, okay. And then she like cooked

01:46:29.140 scrambled eggs for everybody. Yes, queen. Literally, yes, queen. Like she loves scrambled 1.00

01:46:37.180 eggs and she knows that they need some breakfast and she made them herself and i love that it's a

01:46:41.300 real stop at denny's after a wild night out kind of move and that's great i can relate to that

01:46:46.600 exactly so she wrote a letter to elizabeth right away being like hey these guys are probably going

01:46:52.300 to flee to england and you better not help them she also rewarded bothwell for helping out by

01:46:57.260 giving him wardship of this castle which is called dunbar castle and because the everyday people

01:47:01.960 loved her, right? Even though they didn't care one way or another about Davy Rizzio specifically,

01:47:07.300 they're like, someone's going after our queen, our queen who we love. So more families like the

01:47:11.360 Hepburns, Bothwell's family, the Hamiltons, the family of Arden, the Gordons, Cocker the North's

01:47:16.600 family, and others from the borders came to defend her cause. And within five days, the asshole 1.00

01:47:21.500 rebellion had collapsed and Mary returned to Edinburgh with her supporters, a triumphant 0.97

01:47:26.740 return and that's that's the end of today's story a happy ending except for rizzo r.i.p except for

01:47:35.800 rizzo r.i.p r.i.p but like mary triumphant like exactly scrambled eggs and all so allison can you

01:47:42.900 please tell everybody again about your books sure i have uh two books if you like historical nonsense

01:47:49.660 etc um my first book available now is called a tip for the hangman it is tangentially about

01:47:55.620 marry Queen of Scots in her final scheming era, which we will get to later on this podcast.

01:48:02.100 I have another book coming out in October, which is called Let the Dead Bury the Dead.

01:48:06.180 It is a 19th century Russian alternative history, and you can pre-order that now if you like to.

01:48:11.760 You can also subscribe to my newsletter, Dirtbags Through the Ages. Just Google that,

01:48:15.540 and it will pop up. And I'll just remind everybody that I also, I forget to say this

01:48:20.360 but I also have a newsletter that I haven't updated in a while, but I'm sure I will soon.

01:48:23.580 is called three nice things.substack.com. And that's where I talk about non women's history

01:48:28.600 things. I mostly talk about murder mysteries. So honestly, like this episode is my jam to be like 1.00

01:48:34.640 murder mystery adjacent. Anyway. Um, also recently we've started having transcripts available of the

01:48:40.500 podcast, which are courtesy of Evelyn Malik from the wordery. So if you go to vulgarhistory.com,

01:48:46.960 the most recent episodes, there's a link in those to see transcripts of recent episodes.

01:48:50.520 and we have our new and improved store so vulgarhistory.com store is where i suggest you

01:48:57.700 go if you're in the u.s and if you're international i suggest you go to vulgarhistory.redbubble.com

01:49:02.480 where the shipping is better for non-us countries we have where's your god now john knox design

01:49:07.980 by jennifer ferguson we have the reformation renaissance girl squad goth queen mom friend

01:49:13.380 designed by karen moynihan uh the flying squadron emblem by jan yupiter and yeah just some real

01:49:20.760 weird merch i feel like we need to do some sort of like rip davy rizzio tortoise design but we've

01:49:25.780 got to do you're my tortoise be chilled tortoise i love it and then also if you want to support

01:49:30.980 this podcast you could also support me on patreon so if you go to patreon.com and foster writer

01:49:35.500 that's where if you give a monthly donation then that money goes towards things like me having an

01:49:41.980 editor, hiring a transcriptionist, getting artists to design merch. Anyway, so on the Patreon, if you

01:49:47.220 pledge at least $1 a month, then you get early access to all the episodes as well as ad-free

01:49:52.600 access. If you pledge at least $2 or more a month, you get that. And also you can vote on polls of

01:49:57.600 things like, what should I call this guy called James in the story? Jam Jam came from that. And

01:50:02.600 then if you pledge at least $5 or more, you get access to the bonus podcasts, including one that

01:50:07.400 Alison does with me and our other friend, Lana Wood Johnson called Vulgar Peace Theater, where

01:50:12.000 we talk about costume dramas. I also do so this asshole episodes that you can get if you're on 0.90

01:50:17.680 the Patreon. And I have said, and I will stick to this, that once I get to 500 people following me 0.60

01:50:24.440 on Patreon, I will do so this asshole John Knox, but know that that is the only circumstance in 0.93

01:50:30.940 which I will do that. But also if you want to try, this is a new thing. If you want to try and see 0.83

01:50:35.380 what patreon is like now you can try a seven day trial so if you want to just like if you have like

01:50:40.280 a week off work and you want to binge all the bonus content one good yeah so i'm excited about

01:50:46.300 the seven day trial so people can see what it's like people who haven't been able to join or if

01:50:50.320 you're not in a position where you're able to support me on patreon you can still get access

01:50:53.480 to that stuff for seven days anyway that's all patreon.com and foster writer and next week

01:50:58.640 allison is going to be back and we're going to be talking more about what happens next in this

01:51:03.560 weird saga full of people

01:51:05.880 all called James and our six-foot-tall

01:51:07.800 queen and what she does 1.00

01:51:09.800 next. There will be some explosive 1.00

01:51:11.680 reveals in the next episode. You don't want to miss it.

01:51:14.200 I see what you did. I see what you did.

01:51:16.140 Thank you so much, Allison. And so for all

01:51:17.760 the listeners, keep your pants on and your tits 0.99

01:51:19.680 out. 1.00

01:51:22.740 Vulgar History is

01:51:23.800 hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster

01:51:26.080 and edited by Christina

01:51:27.800 Lumagi.

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01:53:25.880 but you definitely need in your life so if you are looking for a healthy dose of disney magic

01:53:29.780 check out disney countdown wherever you get your podcasts

Vulgar History - June 14, 2023

Mary, Queen of Scots： Part Four： The Jewelled Tortoise

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