00:01:50.820i'm picturing okay so lana because you haven't been here for the mary specific episodes could
00:01:58.480you explain your personal knowledge of slash connection to the story of mary queen of scots
00:02:04.680so everybody knows um well i'm not related to mary queen of scots no matter what my relatives
00:02:09.600will tell you um i am in fact i am i am in fact related to kenneth macklepean the very first king
00:02:17.180of Scotland, which was a misunderstanding. That was one of your first corrections is that
00:02:22.680there was a King of Scotland before Robert the Bruce. There was absolutely King of Scotland
00:02:27.400before Robert the Bruce. I am descended of him. I share his bloodline. But I was talking about that
00:02:32.720line of descent. Just wanted to clarify that. Also, because my relatives were all convinced
00:02:39.180that I was related to Mary Queen of Scots, I became obsessed with her in seventh grade and
00:02:44.160read the Antonia Frazier version of the biography and have been following like all of the updates
00:02:49.160and discoveries and historical changes since then. So she's one of my people. And I've been
00:02:54.740spoilering Anne before. She was, Anne's like, but Mary's so boring. It's like, oh, no, no, no, no,
00:03:00.260no, no. So it's been, I've been watching like that friend that makes you read their favorite book,
00:03:04.780this whole thing going, yep, yep. Nope. She's getting a good part now.
00:03:08.980the whole time. It's been very fun. I will say, I never thought Mary Queer Scots was boring. I
00:03:16.000just thought I didn't know as much about her time in England as I do now. And I was like,
00:03:20.600Lana, is this, I don't know how to talk about it. It's like, oh, six hours later. Like, yeah,
00:03:24.680there's, there's stuff to talk about in that part. Let's get into the plots though. It's time.
00:03:30.640It'll be like half an episode at most. It'll, it'll be so boring. And then how will I do it?
00:03:34.740how do i do no no no you wait no lana i picture do you know that um meme template of the the
00:03:41.540little creepy guy at the window and he's like hey yes that's how i picture you listening to me doing
00:03:48.300these episodes because you're like yes and understands now yes now she's getting it yes
00:03:53.260yeah so i believe i specifically said wait till you get to the douglas's at one point you're like
00:03:59.380who okay we're in for a ride and now ann and i every time we see each other are just like a
00:04:05.760douglas a douglas yeah yeah and that is widespread i've heard from people in the tits out brigade
00:04:10.680one of them um has the last name douglas so that's exciting to me one of them works with somebody
00:04:15.360called douglas and they in their head can't stop thinking that and i'm just like yes that's me at
00:04:19.880the window yes and allison can you share what you um the the phrase that is stuck in your head now
00:04:27.380please? When you take your pills every day? Oh, every morning when I take my pills,
00:04:32.500there's Anne's voice in the back of my head that just goes, Herman, my pills. So thank you for
00:04:36.440that. Yeah, I'm I'm in everyone's brain now and my own my own all the time. I was looking up just
00:04:42.240for this. I was anyway, I was looking at the Douglas family Wikipedia page and it says like
00:04:47.140motto, a Douglas, a Douglas. And I'm like, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I know that. Okay, so I do
00:04:54.280want to just let everybody know as well so today we're going to be talking about the legacy of
00:04:58.880Mary Queen of Scots and we're going to also be doing her scandalicious score because again Lana
00:05:04.560just smiles and nods and laughs because I actually found my original notes like handwritten notes
00:05:09.940that were like episode four her time in England plus scoring like I thought that was going to be
00:05:14.900a cool 45 minute episode but in fact Allison and I spent two and a half hours ending with
00:05:22.340her execution didn't get into anything else and yeah but yeah i want the listeners to know that
00:05:27.320we're doing this episode and then this is not the end of the season because it's there's something
00:05:32.200about mary queen of scott so this has been her story which has been 10 parts but then we're also
00:05:37.760going to be doing some more episodes by we i mean me about some other people from the story who we
00:05:43.140want to talk about more so there's going to be a best of hardwick episode there's going to be a
00:05:47.100for Mary's episode. And we're going to be talking about Elizabeth of Valois. So the season continues.
00:05:53.120So keep checking your app. I'm entirely here for the Elizabeth episode.
00:06:00.480Yeah. Yeah. And there's also, I've got some hot piping, hot news. This is wild to me. So I was,
00:06:08.080I don't know, it was maybe a year ago. I was like, yeah, I'm going to do Mary Queen of Scots.
00:06:11.260That'll be my next season. And then first the ciphered letters were uncovered. I was like,
00:06:15.740oh, this is very timely, making my podcast more up to date than any current biography of her.
00:06:21.600And then more information just came out about this, these Elizabeth, the first papers, which
00:06:26.860I'll talk to you about when we get to why we're talking about that. So picking up where we left
00:06:33.900off last time and Allison and Lana, as you know, and just so the listeners know, this is what I
00:06:38.200want from them. Please interrupt me constantly. I'm not sure if the three of us have ever been
00:06:43.340on the main podcast together but if you are not a patreon and are not familiar with the vibe of a
00:06:48.260vulgar priest theater episode this is what it is so consider that your ad for the patreon yeah
00:06:54.380absolutely so we stop mary queen of scots died she was executed and then elizabeth died several
00:07:04.280years later she died in 1603 and she named mary's son james james the first okay james became james
00:07:13.180I of England. This is why he's James I slash sixth, which is the thing that annoys me to have
00:07:20.300to say and to write. But it's true because he was the sixth King James of Scotland, but he's the
00:07:26.260first King James of England. And after him, you don't have to do that. Like his son becomes James
00:07:31.580II because he's the King of England slash Scotland. So that's why he has two different things.
00:07:38.780And so what was just recently discovered.
00:07:41.420So the British Library used a new technique to uncover passages of Camden's annals, the first official account of Elizabeth's reign.
00:07:48.780This news just came out two days ago from the time we're recording this.
00:07:54.680So what this is, is so William Camden wrote a record of Elizabeth's reign, but he wrote it during the reign of James.
00:08:02.880but what they just figured out is like he wrote it and then james was like could you please
00:08:08.420annotate it to make me sound better and to make this all sound less messy thank you0.97
00:08:14.880darnley's son to the end i tell you what oh he's a messy queer and we love to hate him0.98
00:08:22.780we do we darnley darnley we don't love to hate darnley i think we just straight up hate0.96
00:08:28.380james has like that one percent of mary oh yeah so what happened is darley jr aka james the first
00:08:35.780and six so he was like could you please rewrite this thing and what's just happened is so the
00:08:39.940state-of-the-art imaging technology they basically as far as i understand x-rayed and they were able
00:08:45.840to see what was crossed off and what was written on these things before this is news to me and that
00:08:51.020was a real gasp because i'm excited what you are saying to me is that you were uncovering the mess
00:08:57.160through x-rays and i'm very excited no like this news just came out i think like a couple people
00:09:03.780from the tits of brigade sent me this like link and i was like oh i think i think emily was the
00:09:09.260first person to send it so shout out to emily but i was just like wait what i'm just like damn it
00:09:13.720like luckily this came out just before we recorded but i was like i hope that there's not any more
00:09:17.780significant paperwork discovered between us recording this and this episode coming up because
00:09:22.440I want to be, have the latest information. So anyway, what's important to us in this discussion
00:09:28.220right now is that for 400 years, people have believed what this said in the Camden's annals
00:09:33.800that Elizabeth upon her deathbed was like, James is my heir. But what this reveals is in fact that
00:09:41.400upon her deathbed, analysis of the manuscript draft shows that the deathbed scene was a fabricated
00:09:46.680addition that camden did not intend originally to put into his history he presumably included
00:09:52.840it to appease james so that his succession looked more predetermined than it had actually been
00:09:57.540elizabeth was too ill to speak in her final hours and no other historical evidence points
00:10:02.720to this deathbed scene being true so that is the most huge thing ever like and the most james thing
00:10:10.960i've ever heard this is incredible but what if you said that she said that i was going to be king
00:10:17.360because that sounds more right that sounds historically correct yes it's it's great
00:10:24.040there's like all like there's this one article from the guardian is what i read about it and
00:10:27.800that was most pertinent to this conversation but i know that some of the phrasing about when
00:10:31.280elizabeth was excommunicated by the pope was also kind of like softened to make it sound less
00:10:36.520but anyway so that's my exciting news you know a week ago maybe i would have said yeah so then
00:10:43.340on her deathbed elizabeth said james was my heir no no on the deathbed james was like i'm just
00:10:48.040gonna be the heir and let's go fight me and look at us now i'm air fight me
00:10:55.260so ultimately in whatever underhanded or legitimate way it happened james mary's son
00:11:03.500became the king of england also and then this setup so all all british monarchs since james
00:11:10.880and through to today's monarch charles the third have been descended from mary queen of scots
00:11:18.300and darnley so this is where the lineage like it's it's moved back and forth which we're not
00:11:24.000going to get into today because we have enough to talk about we cannot make this three hours as
00:11:28.360soon as we tell lana to talk about the hanovers we're gonna be the rest of the day we're not
00:11:32.740going to we're not getting into no we're not getting into germany no but basically this is
00:11:38.100the lineage but actually lana can you talk about this so this is part of what is weird and
00:11:43.640interesting about the legacy of mary queen of scots is that elizabeth famously died unmarried
00:11:49.060with no children mary died with a son who became the head of the who became the next monarch and
00:11:56.160that's where the lineage comes from so it's kind of like the two of them are like co-ancestors it's
00:12:01.480like Elizabeth is this like idealized queen, but Mary is the actual ancestor. So can you explain
00:12:08.560just that mess? How the Victorians made you think that this was the most boring story anybody's
00:12:15.160ever heard in your entire life? Basically, oh gosh. So James manages to have four kids. They're
00:12:22.600all the four like four kings in a row that the son from him uh directly and like father to father1.00
00:12:31.080father to son father to son they're all the messiest messiest bitches you've ever met1.00
00:12:37.120and um they like to the point where that's where we get pilgrims from and like all of the whole1.00
00:12:48.160Oliver Cromwell mess so there's like ruining everything uh Charles II gets deposed basically
00:12:57.000oh gosh I can never remember Charles I Charles I got deposed Charles Charles James so James II
00:13:08.220dies did he yeah you should have prepared me for this because now I can't remember he died
00:13:15.160Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You don't, you don't need to get into the details of it. Like, like James, James II died, and then it was his daughters, and then it was his daughters. It was Mary, and then Anne came from James II. Yeah, it was the daughters, and then they run out of kids, and then they have to go back to the other line and, and find some Germans to bring in.
00:13:37.500But eventually the way it all works out is that the only people that are actually genuinely descended from Charles II that are in the royal family at this point are William and Harry and Camilla.0.92
00:13:53.020And the Victorians like get to this point where they're rewriting history, much like the French were rewriting the Valois history and the Bourbons and all that.0.97
00:14:02.920So like they have the Bourbons, but they want to vilify the Valois.0.89
00:14:06.260Well, the English like can't vilify Mary, Queen of Scots, because she is the direct ancestor of all of the all of the current line of kings.
00:14:18.560But Elizabeth is the hero. So they make Elizabeth the hero and they water down Mary.
00:14:24.040So she's like, well, she was really a victim of all of these terrible people and she never really did anything.
00:14:30.300And then she just died. And Elizabeth had to, like, these bad guys forced her hand. And it was just a tragedy. Mary Queen of Scots is just a tragedy. It's like, no, she, we'll talk about that part, though. But like, they basically rewrote it.
00:14:45.920no and this is where a lot of those um the artwork comes from and i've shared a lot of
00:14:50.320them on the instagram over these past couple months in the 19th century in the victorian
00:14:54.540era mary queen of scotts was a popular subject of paintings and it's always her kind of swooning
00:14:59.980it's like her swooning as rizzio is being murdered it's her swooning as she's escaping
00:15:04.000lock leaving it's like her just being this like oh poor me the cruel hand of fate is doing all
00:15:10.060these things to me is the vibe and i think i'm gonna guess part of it is because victoria is
00:15:15.620the queen. And the last long lasting queen regnant in England was Elizabeth. So she wants to connect
00:15:22.180herself to Elizabeth and be like, like her, I'm going to be a good queen. But Elizabeth did this0.58
00:15:26.080thing where she killed Victoria's actual ancestor. So it's, there's this weird, anyway, what you just
00:15:33.220said, Lana, is exactly what I've heard from a couple of people. Sorry, I just want to finish
00:15:36.360this thought. You're right. Before I forget it. I've heard from a couple of people who are from
00:15:41.260Britain I think people from England who have said like they took their what is it the GCSEs like the
00:15:47.340the test the exams you take over there and they're like what and their impression is like adult
00:15:51.420people who like studied her in school was that Mary Queen of Scots was just kind of this flighty
00:15:55.960person who got put in jail and then got sort of tricked into doing a treason so it's like that
00:16:02.740narrative is still very pervasive like at least in the school system in at least England so yeah
00:16:10.760that that's what a lot of people have been telling me they're like oh i didn't know i thought she was
00:16:14.840just this kind of like passionate you know person who just like fell for the wrong guy and i'm like
00:16:20.960that's that's what i've just spent 16 hours debunking so i'm glad i'm glad there's a little
00:16:25.520army of people now who know the truth well and victoria herself really wanted to be this uh dainty
00:16:31.640lady who didn't do much she wanted she wanted this ideal of feminism which is not true about1.00
00:16:38.140her as a human being but uh she connected herself back to mary and made mary this ideal version of1.00
00:16:44.040feminist femininity that she was then this this tragic queen sort of and and that's who who0.98
00:16:52.980victoria identified with she wasn't going to be this hard hard ass elizabeth she was going to be1.00
00:16:59.020more like mary and so victoria fucked victoria had a sex addiction uh-huh that's what i have1.00
00:17:09.800to contribute to this conversation is queen victoria was horny as shit and so elizabeth1.00
00:17:13.720the first was not a great role model for big whereas mary had three husbands and she fell0.99
00:17:21.180in love a lot and and so she could identify what she took the parts of mary that she wanted and0.97
00:17:27.560She took the parts of Elizabeth she wanted0.89
00:17:28.940and then made everybody fall in line with that.
00:22:36.060like this is my proof yeah so on mary's tomb it's one of those tombs that's like it kind of looks
00:22:44.160like a big marble coffin with her lying on top of it so there's a likeness of her which looks a lot
00:22:51.420like the later portraits of her it was probably based off of her death mask which was a thing
00:22:55.960like when people were beheaded they would like make a little i don't know plaster or whatever
00:23:00.500they would make a copy of what the person's face looked like so it looks a lot like her she's0.91
00:23:04.320wearing a fabulous outfit which you know what good because that's part of what she's known for
00:23:10.140she's wearing a a rough um her hair is styled i don't know if mary seton was around to consult
00:23:18.120to be like this is the marble wig i would like her to be wearing thank you she's wearing a long
00:23:22.920cloak fastened by a brooch um the lion of scotland is at her feet so it's very much just like here
00:23:28.680lies a queen is the vibe of it all. Like James is just being like, she was a queen, not a traitor,
00:23:35.900which makes me cool. Don't worry about it. So there is a Latin inscription on it. And this
00:23:42.620is where I was just like had to do a little bit of digging around because so much of this writing
00:23:46.580is just like written by the Earl of Northampton. And I'm like, who the fuck is that? Like use0.99
00:23:51.380people's names, please. So the Latin inscription was written by Henry Howard, the first Earl of
00:23:56.900Northampton so he is the brother of T-Dog who we remember Lana I don't know if you've heard that
00:24:03.460episode yet but that's the guy who wanted to marry Mary and then he was executed he was in charge of
00:24:08.880her trial Thomas Howard I assume it was his name that's why I call him T-Dog anyway Henry Howard
00:24:15.100is also the great uncle of tits out Francis Howard so just whenever I see about a Howard I'm like
00:24:22.660what's the relation to Francis so at the time that this tomb was being made Francis was the
00:24:29.480murder plot had not happened but the murder plot happened just two years after this tomb went up so
00:24:33.860she's like already I think married to that guy anyway so the inscription which is in Latin it
00:24:39.320speaks about Mary's heroism it skips over the events leading to her death and in part in
00:24:45.760translation it says great in marriage greater still in lineage oh yeah great in marriage to
00:24:51.980darnley i'm sorry that's so funny great in marriage she had the worst three marriages of
00:24:57.680any human being i've ever met great in marriage greater still in lineage okay james who had that
00:25:06.640inscription greatest of all in her progeny
00:25:10.220narcissist gonna narcissist yeah yeah here lies buried the daughter bride and mother of kings0.99
00:25:22.480god i'm so fucking mad this is like real fredigant wife wife and mother energy in this yeah this is1.00
00:25:29.660even more aggressive like calm his tits because like what the fuck and then it says god grant0.99
00:25:36.320that her sons and all who are descended from her may hereafter behold the cloudless days of0.99
00:25:41.800eternity why did he write sons he knows he's the only son he's gonna have sons and those sons are
00:25:50.900going to be important and not fuck everything up it will be great yeah here's the thing it's like0.99
00:25:57.420mary and darnley like first of all darnley piece of shit but also mary and darnley cousins so it's0.97
00:26:03.080like they're like of course there's a bunch of fucked up people coming after that like it's just0.99
00:26:08.440the mixture of just like darley's personality with the like inbreeding aspects it's like1.00
00:26:12.460yeah of course they're all assholes you imagine victoria liked about her francis had lived how0.95
00:26:18.520cute their kid would have been this is what i think about her and francis yeah they would have1.00
00:26:23.680had a great kid they would have raised him well and would have been a schemey little bitch and0.98
00:26:27.500like that's what the world all of french history would be entirely different all of english history0.99
00:26:33.780would be completely different america might not exist who's to say we're gonna talk about all of
00:26:40.000this when we get into the legacy and significance the the sliding doors of it all anyway and then
00:26:47.540this is what i find i don't know it's generally described as being like isn't this nice and i'm0.75
00:26:52.240like oh this is real fucked up so you i don't you know let me know what you think when i explain to0.82
00:26:57.900So Elizabeth is buried with her sister, Mary.0.95
00:27:01.060So in 1867, so basically nobody knew where James's tomb was,
00:27:08.220or like where they knew where his tomb was.
00:27:09.720They just didn't know where his body was buried.
00:27:11.440And in 1867, for some reason, some people cared.
00:27:14.440And so they were exhuming the bodies from this area to try and find James.
00:27:17.880And they thought maybe he was, maybe his body was put with that of his mother.
00:27:21.420And so they opened up her grave, and then they found that she was buried along with a bunch of her descendants who were children who died. So she is buried with James's eldest son, Henry, who died as a teenager. She's buried alongside Anne Hyde, who is the first wife of her great grandson, James II.
00:27:43.380James is her granddaughter, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia,
00:27:46.580and her son, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, are buried there,
00:27:49.200as well as numerous children of James II, who died in infancy,
00:27:52.200as well as all of the dead children of Queen Anne I.
01:14:37.300And we host I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries.
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01:15:06.700true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcasts.
01:15:14.480And we're back. I vote for shaved head. That's so badass. Again, soft spot for the shaved head.
01:15:21.180She went for it. She knew it was her finest feature and she got rid of it in a heartbeat.
01:15:26.600like she had her one beauty her one beauty and she had like it wasn't even it wasn't even a thing
01:15:34.360she had to think about it was I'm going to live and I'm going to make them all regret this and
01:15:40.320the only way that's going to happen is to get rid of this hair so let's do it well she didn't try to
01:15:45.540Gwyneth Paltrow it in Shakespeare in Love by just wrapping her hair into a very large hat she was0.72
01:15:50.580like no no no no i couldn't know a very small hat there's us to a very small impractical hat
01:15:56.500yeah no it's true she was just like i'm six feet tall like that's distinctive i have this like red
01:16:03.220crimped hair distinctive like i need to blend in somehow yeah but at six feet with no hair she
01:16:09.080looks like a she looked like people wouldn't think twice that she was a boy that's just she knew it
01:16:13.980it was amazing okay and then the next thing we're gonna do is there's so many well okay there's four
01:16:22.500main uh three uh if there's another one that comes up you can tell me there are several
01:16:30.480shitty villains in this story so many there are so many they're incalculable villains in this story
01:16:38.280we have to prioritize here we're going to pick three yeah so what i have is a meta scheme so
01:16:46.460the villainosity scale so we can rank them as villains so the four categories and i'll go
01:16:52.900through them again like i'll you don't have to remember them the four the four categories are
01:16:57.040thinks he's smarter than he is and that's a score of zero to ten two-faced again zero to ten
01:17:03.820um a man with a plan so it's kind of like the scheminess reading it's just like someone who
01:17:08.940like schemes and has a plan and they're and they does the plans and then the fourth category is
01:17:14.280just bad vibes just like bad vibes in a bad way i put in my notes like colin firth and shakespeare
01:17:21.060in love just like just like a person who you're like oh yes with time travel too
01:17:29.460so okay so the first person we're gonna talk about is bothwell and so the first category is
01:17:37.700thinks he's smarter than he is zero to ten bothwell nine and a half i was gonna say he's
01:17:44.440not the first person who comes to mind with that description but it's not not true
01:17:48.060he got lucky he just he got lucky just because he got because he got so unlucky afterward and
01:17:57.080spent the rest of his life in denmark in a dungeon i just feel like he didn't think that
01:18:01.860no and he was like escaping like stealing a ship that turned out to have been stolen by somebody
01:18:06.100else and then he was accused of being a pirate like right but did he think he was smarter than
01:18:11.260he was he was because i get the impression he had a pretty healthy self-image both well yeah
01:18:17.300he with with mary she was in a health crisis he wasn't he wasn't like some master manipulator
01:18:26.460he was like she was just incapable of handling him at that moment in her life
01:24:02.300he might have meant it he might have thought it was the same thing
01:24:06.480he could have been he could have been absolutely convinced it was the same thing
01:24:10.920yeah and that's why he wanted to sleep with her so much he thought that that would
01:24:14.240somehow mean something okay so um man with a plan did darnley have well he had plans
01:24:21.620he had thoughts in his head i don't know if i give him credit for calling them yeah
01:24:28.440he had goals plans have steps that are executable yeah yeah they're not like scribbled drawings
01:24:37.060on on with crayon on whatever piece of paper you have nearby although that can work for evidence
01:24:43.420this time yeah you think we should give him a one just out of pity okay it's like he had a plan he
01:24:51.700had no steps to the plan no yeah there was it was a sketchy plan at best i think his plan was just
01:24:57.540kind of like to sit back and wait for life to turn out well for him without him having to do anything
01:25:02.280if i'm if i'm pretty enough and i'm good enough at things then i get good stuff okay but he wasn't
01:25:09.520good enough no no but i could be he well he thought he was um okay and then bad bad vibes
01:25:16.860i mean he's red flags i'm gonna say nine yeah and the reason is because there was one moment
01:25:24.320in the story we were like look at this hot young dummy and i have no problem with a hot young dummy
01:25:30.080i don't think his vibes are as bad as bothwell's vibes i think he's just you know like bless his
01:25:36.560heart in a way so that's why i'm taking i would knock one off lana would i would knock one off
01:25:42.000as well he's absolutely like he's red flags but he's not bad vibes in the way bothwell is bad
01:25:47.400yeah yeah he's that boyfriend you have in college that you know you shouldn't date but you do
01:25:53.980anyway and then it goes terribly wrong and you're like yep yep that's that's exactly what happened
01:26:00.160there i did that yeah but it's like but he was hot and tall so yeah and that's that's how you
01:26:07.740get caught in it okay that's that's how they get you okay the next the next candidate is mary's
01:26:15.460brother james stewart hollywood icon jimmy stewart i know where he's gonna score high but the first
01:26:21.620category is thinks he's smarter than he is i mean he did get assassinated like six months into his
01:26:27.400regency right yeah but he was he obviously was not i think but he was pretty effective yeah his
01:26:35.120vibe is that thinks he's smarter than he is like he actually was good like he was successful in a
01:26:40.620lot of things so he maybe was as smart as he thought he was i think he was killed because
01:26:45.040he was successful like i think he actually was smart like julius caesar was also killed by his
01:26:50.440friends because he was anti-landlord and they were landlords like that's not smarter like that's not
01:26:56.100a smart thing that's just a overestimated thing yeah so i'd i'd say like a two like i think he
01:27:04.100actually was i think there were some times where he screwed up but for the most part he actually
01:27:08.760was pretty effective yeah and he ended up being assassinated because by that family who is
01:27:14.800somebody on in the discord says whenever they think about the hamilton family they call them
01:27:19.720the babysitter's club because their family's whole deal is like when there's a baby king of
01:27:24.840scotland we're the regents and they were so mad about it that james became the regent that they
01:27:29.160assassinated him they're like no our job we are the babysitter's club like that's why he was
01:27:34.340assassinated which is not to do with him being smart or not it's just with them being unhinged
01:27:37.880babysitter's club wait what was darnley's total you didn't do the math for me darnley's total
01:27:43.640was 22 so so bothwell's out outpaced darnley okay so we started off high so what do we think
01:27:51.420for think he's my i think just like i don't know two or something like i don't think that's really
01:27:56.660his vibe but the next category is two-faced and that's a tenth again in the high 50s like could
01:28:07.200not could not be more like how many times did he go to civil war like that he led against mary and
01:28:14.040then he's like i'm your brother and then i'm at war against you again like oh but we're siblings
01:28:19.000like constantly and mary kept falling for it because what other choices she had man with a
01:28:25.000plan there were a lot of plans so many plans and with steps and he executed on several and most of
01:28:31.980them like he was he was very good i would go he was the best planner of the previous yeah he's
01:28:38.220definitely a man with a plan i would knock one point off because some of the plans were
01:28:42.300cecil put the plans in his head they weren't necessarily his plans yeah man with cecil's
01:28:48.120plan yeah so i would say like an eight or a nine what do you think yeah i'll go with i'd go with
01:28:54.220eight and a half eight point five i'm also at nine let's say nine okay nine yeah let's go nine
01:28:59.920And then bad vibes. I think he doesn't have as much bad vibes because Mary kept trusting him.
01:29:07.240I will. I also think like 90% of his problem was the patriarchy because she was a girl and he was
01:29:13.260a boy. Yeah. Like it wasn't necessarily that he was this malicious, terrible human being like
01:29:19.080Bothwell or or the pretty himbo with with all the bad ideas like Darnley. He was just like,0.99
01:29:27.320well but i'm a boy like he had very big kendall roy energy if he had been legitimate he would
01:29:35.160have been the king and at one point his like he tried to get himself named legitimate like he
01:29:39.880tried to dissolve his mother's marriage to say that when she had him with the king that like
01:29:45.240so the patriarchy in that way as well like the legitimate versus illegitimate thing like that
01:29:51.160primogeniture got in his way as well so yeah i don't i don't think i don't think he's necessarily0.99
01:29:54.900bad vibes i mean how would you describe his vibes then asshole yeah like he was an asshole don't get0.99
01:30:03.360me wrong but he wasn't he wasn't i am going to kidnap you while you're at your weakest and try0.99
01:30:09.220to make you sleep with me he was but i'm a boy do you don't understand i'm a boy that's bad vibes
01:30:16.000in like an incel way not bad vibes in like a mass murderer way yeah they're not good vibes but they're
01:30:23.660not so i don't know that's why i'm at a five i will i will go with a six six is fair i'm not
01:30:31.080saying the patriarchy is good no that kid gets him up to 27 so like the reason why it darnly0.88
01:30:38.220is lagging behind is the lack of plans he's too dumb to be a villain yeah yeah well this is what0.93
01:30:47.800i this is why i wanted to score this because i'm just like who was the most villainous villain0.60
01:30:51.220every week after the episodes i put i had instagram polls and it was interesting it's
01:30:55.600interesting to watch people's thoughts change because of initially and this is what we're0.99
01:30:59.760getting to is john knox is our next candidate but at first everyone's just like fuck you john0.91
01:31:02.900knox but then eventually people start being like oh i want to come jimmy stewart and they're like0.97
01:31:06.340we hate you darnley then like we hate you both well and then it's like william sesal like people
01:31:10.940kept like as the story went it's like who's the villain of the week and it would change0.97
01:31:14.720it is a villain of the week there was a consistent voting block that would always
01:31:19.440vote for john knox even in episodes he wasn't in because patriarchy he is he has bad vibes
01:31:26.800patriarchy like he is he is yeah yeah you're right that's different vibes okay but that's
01:31:32.940who we have next is john knox so thinks he's smarter than he is i i think he actually was
01:31:38.660pretty smart i think he was yeah i don't think he yeah that's not his vibe i think he thought
01:31:44.780he was more holy or more accurate than he was so this would be a low like a one three yeah
01:31:52.860let's go two two okay because he thought he thought he was smarter than god
01:31:57.860that's true actually yeah yeah the next one is two-faced and i'm gonna be bold and say zero0.79
01:32:05.260because john nox who he was every single fucking step of the way he showed up every day john nox0.60
01:32:13.260there was there was never any there's a lot of it too i'm gonna say almost to his credit like0.97
01:32:20.640darnley hollywood i can jimmy stewart bothwell they each had moments where mary was like oh0.99
01:32:25.320maybe i can trust this person john knox was just like fuck you you're a woman you're a catholic0.99
01:32:30.760you're french i hate you like that's how he greeted her and he never wavered like she always1.00
01:32:37.040knew where she stood with him which in a way is helpful it's refreshing really with this story0.83
01:32:43.560yeah yeah um a man with a plan his plan was the scottish reformation and he did it he did it
01:32:52.480through force of will through his own innate charisma and and unfortunately for him uh the
01:33:00.080the scottish the presbyterian church that that resulted from his reformation is one of the most0.58
01:33:05.440open and um anti-patriarchy pro-lgbtq sex that exists so like thanks for that0.95
01:33:13.480the vibe is real where's your god now john knox like0.77
01:33:17.840in the churches that he founded which is delightful yeah here there was um when there's
01:33:26.480the pride parade here where i live in saskatoon it was like the parade marshaled just before we
01:33:31.860have knox united church is like in the city and the knox united church like they they open the
01:33:37.040doors like you could use their bathroom like their front lawn they had like a viewing party i was just
01:33:40.980like oh man where's your god now john rocks incredible people were walking past like the
01:33:46.940it was beautiful it was a lovely parade and it's like this group was passing by with their signs
01:33:51.560and say abortion is health care just right past the knox united church and i was just like yes yes
01:33:57.000and people were on the lawn cheering yeah yeah it was lovely okay so man with a plan he did have a
01:34:05.520plan for the Scottish Reformation and to which in order to make that happen he needed to
01:34:10.840destabilize Mary's reign and he did so I don't know like seven eight more less yeah I agree with
01:34:19.000that I agree with an eight like it wasn't it wasn't really Mary was incidental yeah he wasn't
01:34:26.140working against mary he was working against the geese's basically like how catholic she was
01:34:31.220and she had been less catholic she would have just been like i mean he she still would have
01:34:37.960been a woman and he still would have been the worst human being but like yeah i could have1.00
01:34:42.880just pointed at her in the street and been like a whore yeah exactly oh whore um okay and then0.99
01:34:51.380bad vibes john knox bad vibes are a 10 right 10 oh yeah no he's he's patriarchy 10 even the0.97
01:34:59.080statues of john knox are all him like pointing and yelling as though he's going like that's what
01:35:05.200oh judgmental and so he actually he gets a 20 so the rankings are um from top to bottom bothwell
01:35:13.90028.5 jimmy stewart 27 so close they're also the people who were actively working against
01:35:22.320no no i was gonna say for the longest time but they weren't jimmy stewart was in like almost
01:35:26.700every episode he was in every episode bosswell just kind of showed up was terrible and then left
01:35:31.320but he was so terrible so loudly that yeah he was the worst i stand by that the thing and i i love
01:35:38.620the hearing from listeners who weren't as familiar with this story who were just like you know you
01:35:43.380see Darnley and it's like wow that was a shitty person and then Bothwell comes in and it's like
01:35:47.600how is Bothwell more shitty in a shorter period of time how could you be like well Darnley well0.94
01:35:52.400that's clearly her worst husband oh wait how about this guy she was married to for one month0.95
01:35:57.660and now you know this and now you're going to watch every single Mary Queen of Scots thing and
01:36:02.740go why the hell are they making them romantic interests with each other like why what narrative
01:36:10.100choice was made there well no and the narrative choices being made there too is what was being
01:36:15.100seeded at the time by like the people making the pamphlets like before mary even ran off with
01:36:21.220bothwell like the mermaid poster and stuff it's so mermaid the tits don't mermaid they're just
01:36:25.940being like mary like because she relied on him as a counselor they're just like oh she like0.99
01:36:30.940this narrative was being built that she was this unstable flighty like horny
01:36:35.600dum-dum like during her life it's it's his victim blaming like literally like everything that comes
01:36:44.320out afterwards is bothwell's victim blaming of oh she wanted it oh she loved me oh this is what
01:36:50.960was supposed to be and she was absolutely taken advantage of assaulted and like at at her lowest
01:36:58.540and at her weakest and the story remains that he planted and that's just it's an atrocity like0.79
01:37:05.440it's it's a patriarchal awfulness it's interesting i mean it sucks obviously i mean
01:37:13.080interesting to be sort of even-handed about it but the when george buchanan wrote that like
01:37:18.360erotic fan fiction being like oh mary let bothwell in the back door or whatever even he like it was
01:37:24.220so tricky because they were trying to be like mary is a whore but not during the period of time in0.56
01:37:29.860which james was conceived like she was having an affair with rizzio but not to the point that james
01:37:36.540was rizzio's son like she was in love with bothwell but not but james is totally legitimate0.99
01:37:41.020so it's like she was this nymphomaniac slut whore except for this like period of time when she was0.98
01:37:47.800when she conceived this child like so it's like the narrative because they have to they want to1.00
01:37:53.140blame her and say that she's so slutty but you can never call into question james's father it's1.00
01:37:57.640just like a that's how you know that it's shit like it's bullshit like yeah although i will say1.00
01:38:03.660james for his whole life people would there's rumors that rizzio is his father they call him0.99
01:38:08.300like the italian son because he had like dark hair and then his descendants had dark hair and
01:38:13.120it's like that's because it's a dominant gene and also because there are numerous people with dark
01:38:18.480hair that married like married into this family like even charles ii was called like the italian
01:38:24.360and stuff because he had like dark hair like oh rizzo's the dad like anyway no no one's ever been
01:38:30.200i've said this many times in this podcast no one's ever been more darnley's son than james0.97
01:38:33.940yeah fuck off with that i got my dark hair from my scottish line what the heck there's it's it's0.98
01:38:41.780loud especially with red hair like dark hair is always gonna win over red hair no exactly yeah0.99
01:38:48.900so i don't know the fact that james had like dark hair actually there's something i wanted to say
01:38:52.400and I'm going to put this picture on Instagram when we post this episode so there's a part I
01:38:56.320was listening just because the um the last episode just the early access to the last episode just
01:39:02.120came out and I was listening to it and I was just like I got carried away I just started listening
01:39:05.300I'm just like me and Allison are hilarious this is great listen to us go but um there's a part
01:39:11.540of the story where Mary like it was a really sad part where she um she'd been sent a portrait of
01:39:16.920James and she wrote back being like this looks different from the other portrait like who is
01:39:21.300this by is this what he looks like and i was like wait was that the portrait of sassy james hand on
01:39:26.860hip with the falcon with the falcon my favorite portrait of any royal ever and i i like to think
01:39:33.700i don't and i don't know if it was that portrait but it was around when he was that age so if
01:39:36.720they're like here's your son and he's like sassy hand on hip posing with a falcon being like
01:39:40.720like i am darnley miniature like can you on the instagram put that picture right next to the one
01:39:47.740of darnley and that like orange thing when mary's refusing to hold his hand because they're making
01:39:52.260the same facial expression that's just kind of like do you just want to smack that face yeah
01:39:57.160you sure do anyway that was just something that because i was like we had a portrait of young
01:40:01.680james i'm like the only portrait of young james i've ever seen is that one where he just looks
01:40:05.040like so sassy and just like the nightmare person that he is so in conclusion for this segment
01:40:11.700fuck both well basically yeah okay so we're getting into the official regular scoring0.97
01:40:17.600categories and so we have the lady jane seymour memorial award for outstanding supporting0.99
01:40:22.420performance and knows who my pick is who's your pick i mean rizzo it's gotta be rizzo right
01:40:29.880there's no other options like it's rizzo there's one other option there's one other option and
01:40:36.000it's mary seaton she's up there she's up there but like it's the difference like you love your0.92
01:40:44.940hairdresser but then there's your your bestie yeah she was her hairdresser in prison for like
01:40:52.00025 years yeah i mean i mary was mary was a very good friend mary seaton all of the marys were
01:41:00.200good friends yeah you know they weren't but mary seaton was i don't know and i the reason i started
01:41:07.240this category was because it was so rare there was so many stories like it became notable like
01:41:12.360i've done however many episodes 100 or something and there's like 10 people have ever gotten this
01:41:16.800award because there's so many stories where just like everyone is terrible so like when someone is
01:41:20.780nice i like to i would give it i mean rizzio oh here's the thing i would give mary seaton the
01:41:26.980regular award for outstanding supporting performance because like she was there she was
01:41:32.020making mary's outfits she was styling her wigs like she was there for her basically for as long
01:41:38.480as she was allowed to be rizzio is like a level higher which is where i feel like this is where
01:41:43.800we get into like do we rename something in his honor like i think that we should keep the jane
01:41:51.000seymour level and then for extremely outstanding performance like a lifetime achievement award
01:41:54.900sort of thing we can also award the jeweled tortoise to someone in this world i like that
01:42:00.360i like that because he is the jeweled tortoise award for outstanding outstanding like yes yeah
01:42:08.860the jeweled tortoise award for legendary friend behavior yeah and i'm over here like crap i have
01:42:15.580to add things to the website now i don't think there will be very many jeweled tortoises in
01:42:21.920Ann's future episodes. No, no. But David Rizzio gets like he's he's a higher. Queen Christina's
01:42:28.700Queen Christina's bestie was also a jeweled tortoise. He was and so is Hortense Mancini's
01:42:34.100best friend. I forget his name. Very limited number. Yeah, but these guys like the boys.
01:42:41.600When it's a boy, then it's a jeweled tortoise award. It's like everyone's gay best friend
01:42:48.060gets this award yes i would like one and and wait we're sure that's not james's dad
01:42:55.160i'm trying to think i'm looking at my list of like who is that who is that person who was
01:43:01.840christina's friend oh at soleno yeah that was the guy yeah yeah i'm just do we have a thing
01:43:09.420on the website lana for the outstanding supporting performance or that's just a thing one day no but
01:43:13.680we should i can send you the list i can send you the list yeah because these are people who like
01:43:18.760some of these are like these are like lady jane seymour did a great thing and that's why she got
01:43:23.100the award named after her like she ran out in the street like grabbed a random priest got her friend
01:43:28.160married and then like died like it was great best friend behavior but david rizzio was like
01:43:32.880yeah the jewel tortoise award level absolutely and then we get into the scandalous scale
01:43:40.760so the three of us have real strong feelings which is great like nothing wrong with a real
01:43:47.760strong feelings but i do want to both not get carried away but not undersell this
01:43:53.580and this is the challenge where whenever i'm scoring anybody i'm just like tens tens i'm like
01:44:00.540no i have to like think about this like the fact that i did 10 episodes about mary queen of scots
01:44:06.040does not mean that you know necessarily all of her scores are good they could be all tens but we
01:44:12.680have to what we're holding her in comparison to is not like her story but like in in the oeuvre of
01:44:20.000yeah these amazing women that existed throughout history where does she fall
01:44:23.720exactly we're only talking about people who are no exactly i mean like we're talking like this
01:44:30.340is a scale on which catherine de medici has no charlotte has zero or a one she has one she has
01:44:37.440a one you argued me up she has a one but like we're talking about catherine de medici has 35.5
01:44:42.920like on a scale of 40 the highest anyone has ever gotten is fred like fredigan has a 38
01:44:48.080but that's why i renamed the scale the fredigan memorial scandalousness scale because like she
01:44:53.280had such an effect on me but you know you can never go higher than a 10 and that's why the
01:44:58.180four categories balance each other out, right? Like to be, to get a high score. Although I think
01:45:03.860Mary is like, this is not going to be a low score. Yeah. She's, she's going to be up there in the top
01:45:07.76010 at least. So the first category is scandaliciousness. And I'm going to redo. So1.00
01:45:12.200Jennifer Morag Henderson, again, the author of the Mary Queen of Scots, Daughters of the North
01:45:16.620is the name of her book. It's so good. It's a dual biography, Mary Queen of Scots and Jean Gordon.
01:45:21.760And it's really good. And Jennifer and I have, we have an email correspondence. She sends me
01:45:27.740corrections sometimes to things I say that are inaccurate about Scotland. She also shared
01:45:32.720pictures on her Instagram of she went to visit the salt pans where Jean Gordon's salt was and
01:45:38.000she saw people doing a salt making demonstration and she got to take home salt. I was so jealous.
01:45:42.760It was the Jean Gordon salt. Anyway, so scandal. Here's what she says. And again, this is a
01:45:47.280Scottish person who has written about Mary Queen of Scots. So her point of view. So she says
01:45:52.400scandalous. She was definitely seen as scandalous. This is my question for her and for you.1.00
01:45:57.560but this is her answer is like how much was mary a scandalous person like i need to separate how
01:46:03.320much was she seen as scandalous and how much was she actually because like she showed up and john0.93
01:46:08.360knox was just like this fucking nymphomaniac where it's like she showed up she's super kind of like0.90
01:46:13.300and she's 18 like so what did she actually do and how much was it just people putting that on her0.98
01:46:17.840so she says she's definitely seen as scandalous in her time and then for a long time after
01:46:22.240even now though the reasons people thinking her scandals have changed over time at first in france
01:46:27.520she's even a little bit scandalous for things like riding a stride or being Scottish or being0.97
01:46:32.060tall. Then in Scotland, scandalous for being Catholic and young and wanting to dance. Then0.99
01:46:37.720when they go for her reputation, all sorts of scandalous. And now perhaps still a bit scandalous
01:46:42.600for being a woman in a man's world or even scandalous because people argue over her
01:46:46.440significance. So she says a nine or a 10. What are your thoughts? Like she did treason. Like
01:46:53.480that's scandalous. I would discount the entire Bothwell situation. Like people saw it as
01:46:59.460scandalous, but that was done to her. That was not her. That's going in the sexism category.0.98
01:47:05.380We're going to hold on that. Yeah. Darlene was exploded, but that was not to do with,
01:47:10.460she was, she was near that scandal. Ritzia was murdered. She was near that scandal,
01:47:15.220but that wasn't her being scandalous. Like that was just.
01:47:18.180Lots of scandal happened around her and that's hard to separate.
01:47:22.460I think her daring escapes come into the scandalousness, though. I feel like the daring escapes and the disguises and the climbing out of windows, I'd put that in scandal a little bit. It might be more of a scheme, but I feel like you get it.
01:47:38.620Like just wearing pants and walking around was, she did that on purpose and she knew it would shock people.
01:47:43.680exactly and she she did that to shock people and she she wore right rode horses and like the the0.98
01:47:52.080exercise thing like she she did things that were not expected of her either as a queen or as a1.00
01:47:57.620woman and she didn't she had no qualms about it like she didn't it didn't stop her yeah society's1.00
01:48:05.140expectations or the fact that like people are actively trying to kill her most of the time
01:48:08.660she still did these things that were against society it's true and i appreciate that she was
01:48:14.620like true to herself in that way and people saw this as scandals and yeah so exactly those are
01:48:18.660things she did yes and then the treason like actively trying to turn france against england
01:48:26.040again like you know little things like that yeah like the treason the treason via embroidery she
01:48:31.300of treason via letters she tried to marry t-dog like she had a secret spy code okay this is a
01:48:39.960provocative question but is she are we describing schemes rather than scandal oh that's true that's
01:48:47.160that is scheminess but scandal is like how the scandal i would say is the dressing up even the
01:48:55.140the making marmalade and pretending to be poor almost like that that kind of stuff is we were
01:49:02.300used to that from mary from marie antoinette but even in marie antoinette's time that was scandalous
01:49:06.720i think what's scandalous like the schemes the schemes are like doing the treason ischemy but
01:49:13.000like in other ones where i've taught and again like i have to just say like the scandalousness
01:49:18.640scale is not scientific and it's all vibes based but i mean like if somebody like francis howard
01:49:24.600it's like she like put together a group of people like that's a scheme and then murdered a person
01:49:29.740to marry her lover like that scandal like like doing the scheme is separate like the scandal is
01:49:36.540like she was she did treason she was found guilty of treason like that's scandalous she was executed
01:49:41.600for treason that's scandalous but like the the codes and the ciphers that's more scheminess so
01:49:46.180it's like the end result to me yeah how she did it is the scheminess the the results of the things
01:49:51.940that she did as the scandalous yeah i i agree with it with like the nine or the ten but allison
01:49:59.200can talk me down i feel like i'm i'm being caught up in what the scandals are and i'm like okay it
01:50:07.120was scandalous at the time but i don't think most people were against her because of her scandalous
01:50:11.880behavior they were against her because of like political position and like who they would have0.61
01:50:17.260rather have had yeah it's like but if if they take that away it's because she's a lot a lot
01:50:24.040of her is tainted by just how much is going on all at the same time i'm trying to focus in on
01:50:29.740like her take away everybody else everything was perfectly normal in scotland the queen's running0.99
01:50:36.240around wearing pants and making marmalade and getting in fights with like local local workers
01:50:43.860like that would be rather scandalous rather scandalous but like not as scandalous as
01:50:50.980murdering your lover right like it's not that kind of a scandal she's also like not to defend
01:50:58.020john knox or to side with him at all but the fact and this is something jennifer pointed out to me
01:51:01.920she's got like a real even head where i don't about john knox um but the fact that mary queen
01:51:08.620of scots was like throwing dance parties at the castle while there was like a cost of living0.99
01:51:13.260crisis and people were poor was like a bad move like john knox was like she's a whore and she's0.97
01:51:18.660dancing but he was also saying like people are dying and you're spending money on you know0.96
01:51:23.340chocolate fountains people are dying kim she had very marie antoinette vibes yeah very there's a
01:51:31.140lot of of of personality overlap between the two when you take everything away yeah yeah i feel
01:51:38.900like i'm coming in at an eight which may be overly conservative no i think an eight for scandal like1.00
01:51:44.800she's like a lot of what there's going to be able to talk about scheminess significant sexism but0.98
01:51:49.460the scandalous that she she's seen as scandalous but we don't give points just because people1.00
01:51:54.480think that we give points because she's doing things on purpose knowing that they're scandalous0.98
01:52:00.140and she did she threw the party she like ran around wearing pants like she did a treason she0.98
01:52:05.880did a whole treason yes but most of her scandalous reputation is stuff that's not true exactly and0.99
01:52:11.800that's why i don't want to be yeah exactly so but she was so i'm almost like i'm okay with an eight
01:52:19.240i could go to a seven lana what do you think i well i i'm starting with with your author friend
01:52:26.080and i'm gonna go a nine so let's do 8.5 eight eight and a half eight eight and a half sounds
01:52:33.060reasonable to me 8.5 okay so the next one is the scheminess i'll tell you what jennifer says
01:52:40.280she says very schemey especially in england especially in england with the cipher letters
01:52:45.540but since she's scheming at a time of other brilliant schemers catherine de medici william
01:52:50.540cecil and she ultimately fails where they succeed i'm going to take points off eight or nine oh
01:52:56.500bold because i feel and we've talked about this and like cecil and catherine de medici had people
01:53:02.800with them. Like they were not a solo operation. And I feel like Mary was a solo schemer in a world
01:53:09.680of network schemers. And the fact that she held her own for like 40 plus years is pretty impressive
01:53:17.520to me. Like how many daring escapes did she have based on her charisma alone? Yeah. Like these
01:53:24.280people, she walks into this castle, no friends, no support system. And she walks out with somebody
01:53:30.100helping her that's a level of scheminess that is like unheard of and i am as you all know a very
01:53:37.760big catherine of aragon fan but catherine of aragon was taught to be that she was raised in
01:53:43.940like one of the schemiest places catherine de medici not catherine of aragon like to this day
01:53:49.580catherine de medici sorry catherine de medici like huge catherine de medici fan catherine de
01:53:54.760Medici literally the child of the person that Machiavelli wrote the prince for grandchild of
01:54:00.300the person the prince was about like that's her her soul and Mary is just like she doesn't have
01:54:07.520a support system she doesn't have any of those things she walks into the room and leaves with
01:54:12.900a support system and I think that like in addition to the embroidery and writing creating her own
01:54:20.700cipher system and all of this stuff like how do you live in a barrel of wine just out of this world
01:54:27.960number no i think i agree i agree and i think because like the what she's up to in england
01:54:33.680for sure and then also just like what sticks with me is after rizzio was murdered she was
01:54:39.820whatever like eight months pregnant like her friend had just been like murdered in front of
01:54:44.440her by 200 people who she thought she could trust including her brother and her husband0.73
01:54:49.680And then she just like stays up through the night. She uses her ladies. I love the like ladies supporting ladies, but she pretends to be going into labor so that like she gets Darnley to switch sides. And then she rides off on a horse, raises an army, like not even the raising the army part, but just the fact that she was in that castle with a bunch of people who were prepared to murder her.0.99
01:55:10.720and she turned it around just on vibes like just on her own innate resiliency like I would I would
01:55:18.540I would give her a 10 for scheminess I think that's yeah I would too yeah and I think that's
01:55:24.440telling for us like that she gets an 8.5 for scandal a 10 for scheminess that's kind of the
01:55:28.860thesis of this whole season and that's kind of what Lana was waiting for me to realize
01:55:32.760which is like she was so smart she was so schemey she was so resilient and people are just like oh0.91
01:55:38.900she was this like head over heels woman who like fell for the wrong guy and like no all these
01:55:45.060terrible things happened to her no she was she was directing her own story as much as she possibly
01:55:51.960physically could every single step yes the fact that she like for six years she was queen of
01:56:00.220scotland when every minute of every day everybody there was working against her is like very
01:56:05.540impressive and it's due to her schemes yeah every gap in a movie that you see about mary queen of0.75
01:56:11.560scots is her being badass secretly in some way like they only show the high the men's highlights0.99
01:56:17.520they never show her highlights and that's like that's all intentional yeah yeah because then it
01:56:24.300challenges the whole thing about like if we see her as capable then it makes elizabeth more a
01:56:29.280more complicated morally gray person instead of just this heroine who had no choice elizabeth
01:56:34.560deserves to be a complicated morally gray person. Elizabeth deserves to be a human being that we1.00
01:56:40.040look back on and understand in a different way. She doesn't deserve to be some sort of deified0.97
01:56:46.380figure. Yeah. She was a complicated person in a complicated situation and she did the best she1.00
01:56:52.260could. No, it's, it's the slippery slope. I don't know if I can think of another example offhand,
01:56:57.800but it's just like when, when you challenge somebody's worldview to this level, then it's
01:57:03.320like, wait, so does that mean sometimes you see people, I don't know, like on social media or
01:57:07.820whatever, like some, some man who like is almost getting it. He's like, well, if, if every time
01:57:12.500you talk to a woman that doesn't want to talk to you is sexual harassment, then I guess I've been
01:57:16.560sexually harassing women all my life. And it's like, yeah, you're so close. It's like, if you
01:57:25.180realize it's something that you've been believing or thinking your whole life is terrible, then it
01:57:28.800calls into question everything. And so if people suddenly start thinking like, oh, if Elizabeth
01:57:33.740wasn't perfect, like if Elizabeth wasn't justified in everything she did, then that calls into
01:57:39.200question the whole concept of how they think of England and the monarchy and everything. And then
01:57:45.480it's like, oh, but you don't want to go down that road. But by seeing Mary in this complex way,
01:57:50.740yeah, it forces that. My comparison is explaining the founding fathers to Anne, a Canadian.
01:57:56.400it's like i already know they're terrible people in there and they're fallible humans but
01:58:02.120every time i have to explain something about that era of history to ann i i realized something
01:58:07.380deeper of no they were really just messed up human beings that were doing the best they could
01:58:13.040and that we got 200 years of a relatively stable society out of it they weren't it wasn't a good0.99
01:58:19.720society but a relatively stable society was kind of impressive for those dumb kids no it's it that0.92
01:58:26.280that's exactly the same thing if you start being like well if the founding fathers weren't like0.95
01:58:29.080literal saints who knew exactly the right things to say at all times that calls into question the
01:58:33.900entire foundation of the united states and then it's like not everyone wants to go down that
01:58:37.580journey so that's what's so interesting about the mary and elizabeth thing and the way you
01:58:41.760described atlanta i'm glad you just got it on the podcast because you've said this to me before but
01:58:45.740just the fact that everything was based on like all the the mary stuff like avoids her scheminess
01:58:52.740Because if you confront that, then you confront, well, why did she have to be so schemey?
02:11:52.260So she says, James VI was kidnapped more than once as a baby and a child, but he was always in Scotland and learned how to deal with everyone.
02:11:59.460Mind you, James would never have ended up in a situation that Mary did with Bothwell because he was a man.
02:15:15.160it's the fact that he was probably assaulting her on a regular basis during this time and and that
02:15:23.440that that is not a thing that has happened to most of the women in our stories and the stories
02:15:30.820that ann tells like catherine de medici was like actively having doing the weirdest things in order
02:15:36.220to get pregnant and was going to the girlfriend to be like how do you make this happen she was
02:15:41.680not assaulted regularly. She was not kidnapped. She was not tortured at her weakest because she
02:15:49.240didn't have that. The patriarchy went out of their way to harm Mary as a human being. And that's
02:15:57.100just because even being a man, yes, that wouldn't have happened. But being a royal woman, that does
02:16:03.740not happen. And Mary very specifically had those kinds of things happen to her.1.00
02:16:08.920the patriarchy slash sexism whatever you want to call it like really did harm her in these really1.00
02:16:14.580real ways elizabeth never married and she was able to make the sexism work like she played
02:16:21.600along with it like she found she was like elizabeth said stuff where it's like i might look
02:16:25.440like a gross woman but on the inside i'm actually a cool man like she was able to be respected0.77
02:16:30.680because she she played along with it she found ways to make the patriarchy and the sexism work0.98
02:16:35.320for her and mary i'm sure tried but like ultimately it's just like but what are you
02:16:41.320gonna do when a man decides to kidnap and assault you when you're having when you're having a health
02:16:45.380crisis yeah and like probably postpartum depression and a lot of things that are very
02:16:50.340very hard for a woman to deal with and that they turn that into yeah like if it happens today it
02:16:57.660would be some of the scariest things that could have like that like it's revenge porn and all of
02:17:03.420that stuff like all wrapped into one situation yeah like the patriarchy hurts us all and that
02:17:10.780that one situation though is kind of like an example of some of the worst things that can
02:17:15.100that that the patriarchy does to women yeah and that's very much what this category is for it's
02:17:20.440just like how much more could she have achieved if that wasn't the society in which she lived if0.97
02:17:24.400it wasn't patriarchal in this vile way one other thing i'll say though just like to mary's extreme
02:17:31.420and eternal credit is like despite that at no point in her life was she like and I will now
02:17:37.840renounce my femininity and my sexuality and will try to like mold myself after some kind of male1.00
02:17:44.680leader like she I think Jennifer said in her note she had a very female kind of power and her1.00
02:17:50.680charisma and her ability to like talk people around and bring them on their side like the
02:17:54.840people of Edinburgh were obsessed with her not because she was a man but because she was a woman
02:17:59.560And she did use that in a way that I think is, like, really incredible, given what she was up against. She still kind of leaned in knowing that that was her power. Her power was, how can I use outfits and charm and, you know, the drama of me to make people want to be with me and support my cause? Like, she did that shit.
02:18:26.420And she was she was strong. She was she was one of those people that figures out a way to survive no matter what. And if those things hadn't happened to her, she wouldn't have had to leave for England. Like she probably would have stayed and fought those asshole lords to her dying breath.1.00
02:18:46.060but because she was a woman that was possible and she got the worst out like but yeah no she0.99
02:18:52.720like when she got to england the story stops and it doesn't stop at all like she just kept going
02:18:59.740and kept trying and never ever gave up and that's the only reason that my heart doesn't want to give
02:19:05.860her a 10 for sexism not because what happened to her is not the most sexist thing that can happen0.99
02:19:13.840because it is. But if the category is how much did it stop her? I want to like, we talked about0.97
02:19:21.040this through the whole season, like it didn't. And the prevailing narrative is like, oh, poor
02:19:26.060Mary, who all these terrible things happened to because she was a woman and because people took
02:19:30.840advantage of her. Yes, she was a woman. Yes, they did took advantage of her. She said, fuck you and
02:19:35.760kept going. And I want like my heart wants this score to recognize that not that like it would be1.00
02:19:44.620a sign of her weakness if she hadn't kept going. Like, I don't want this to be a victim blamey
02:19:51.320category, but I wanted like it feels like it should know that like how much does sexism hold
02:19:56.880her back only as much as it did. And she fought every single step of the way to make sure that1.00
02:20:02.140it didn't yeah no that's fair yeah i i don't think it's a zero i but i don't i agree it's
02:20:08.680not a 10 because yeah it's definitely not a zero yeah it did hold her back but it didn't stop her
02:20:16.380and that's not like yeah it's hard i agree it's definitely above a five but it's not a 10 no if
02:20:22.580you're thinking about somebody like when i think about who to give sexism points to it's somebody
02:20:26.360like sofia dorothea who her husband locked away in a house for 25 years because it seemed like
02:20:33.440she was maybe gonna leave him it's like how much more could she have achieved like we don't even
02:20:37.560know because she was just trapped away for so long or like that to me is a 10 where it's just
02:20:43.640like she had no chance or even if you think about a lower class woman who just had no other option
02:20:49.680you know mary toft is a 10 for sex yes mary toft mary toft is perfect that's a perfect example
02:20:56.340because it's just like she had she was so poor she had no other can i read you just something0.94
02:21:00.700i think it's sort of related to this so there's a listener to the show whose name is miguel he is
02:21:05.980our official south american liaison he is uh part of the patreon and he leaves these very thoughtful
02:21:12.100comments after each episode and just this part one part i thought was really interesting because part
02:21:16.460i love that he reclaims this so he says my lasting thought is that crying is good because it releases
02:21:22.380tension and lets your emotions out so Mary allowing herself to cry is probably what kept her alive for
02:21:27.100so long she didn't bottle up all her feelings and negative thoughts she let herself feel them and
02:21:31.600then she got herself back together and continued to plot away and I like the way he said that
02:21:35.700because there's so many stories where it's like Mary cried like John Knox talked to her she cried
02:21:39.260it's like she was trapped and and it's often people see it as a negative thing but I like
02:21:43.520the way that he described this where it's like she feels it and people like oh look at her she's so
02:21:47.420week she's crying it's like no but that that helps that helps her get back on yeah she didn't stop
02:21:52.960to cry then she's like okay what am I going to do about that yeah yeah exactly I just like the way
02:21:57.640that he phrased that so shout out to Miguel so what do we think for the sex I agree with everything
02:22:02.460and it's so complicated because being a woman did affect her life in countless shitty ways
02:22:10.780and also she found a way to use her feminine power and I agree else and that's and that's I
02:22:15.900like the way that you describe that too it's like she wasn't like okay i'm gonna be like elizabeth
02:22:19.860i'm gonna just like have helmet hair and like act like a man all the time she's like no this is what
02:22:24.420i can do this is what i'm good at it's like manipulating people being charming like dancing
02:22:30.780you know embroidery like this is what i can do even when i die i'm gonna have an outfit change0.99
02:22:37.140at my execution because fuck you yeah you're right and it's a very feminine power i don't i don't1.00
02:22:43.080think I don't think she deserves to be like what if she was a man it's like okay so the patriarchy1.00
02:22:49.300was working against her how much more could she have achieved yeah and she achieved a lot but how0.66
02:22:53.960much even more could she have achieved if there wasn't let's say it wasn't a patriarchy like how
02:22:58.720much more could she is herself achieved well and that's a huge question it's like you hear that
02:23:03.140about people like I forget who it is it was anyway you hear about that people in the civil rights
02:23:08.360and stuff where it's just like this person wants to be a baseball player. But then like what society
02:23:13.720was like, they ended up, I think it was like Fred Hampton ended up being like this civil rights
02:23:17.660leader. And it's like, well, if he hadn't had to do that, if society hadn't been so shitty that he
02:23:21.680had to step up, he would have just been like this happy baseball player. So like if Mary hadn't had
02:23:26.660to spend 90% of her time fending off the assholes, what could she have done? Like if Mary hadn't had1.00
02:23:33.860to escape england would scotland be in charge of england now yeah it's it's and it's all connected
02:23:39.900and it's all i don't know so what like are we at a nine what was what was the original suggestion
02:23:46.580the one person who who felt enough had who was able to give a number the actual scottish person
02:23:53.800she says eight allison how do you feel about i feel good about the eight i'm cool with an eight
02:23:58.780Okay. So, again, I just want to advocate for my girl.
02:24:03.280Yeah. I mean, she deserves a 50 out of 40 in all of our hearts. We are all fully in agreement on that.
02:24:09.320So this gets her. I'm going to double check my math. Just hang on.
02:24:13.340This is a very important number, and I want to make sure I get it right.
02:24:16.880So we have 8.5 for scandaliciousness, 10 for scheminess, 9.5 for significance, and an 8 for sexism is, I think, 37.5.
02:24:26.860But I think I feel good about that because I knew this is why I wanted, oh, wait, no, I think it's 36. Wait, 8.5 plus 10 plus 9.5 plus 8 is 36. Yeah.
02:24:44.840yeah 36 36 so that is in here's what i'm gonna say like this scale is ridiculous but you know
02:24:53.540it's my scale and i stick to it so fredigan has a 38 and i mean that's deserved obviously
02:25:02.160mary's a 36 so that's the same as njinga has a 36 um i would say like a similarly
02:25:08.300powerful person with a similarly complex story of just like because she was a woman what because
02:25:14.820you know and her i'm sultan yeah has a 36 i like that catherine de medici 35.5 mary has 0.5 more
02:25:23.680than catherine de medici there's a lot of 35.5s there's there's a whole like it's interesting
02:25:29.640yeah well it's interesting how because and they're all from different reasons you know it's like some
02:25:35.100people are high in some places and other places but no this is why i want to have you on the show
02:25:39.120because i would just be like mary queen scott's tens tens across the board but i really wanted
02:25:42.440to get into it and talk about it and be like objective and have a conversation and really
02:25:46.660feel confident about the number. Allison tempers me well. We have conflicting instincts and I think
02:25:53.660we balance out to a good average. I think 36 feels really good for her. Yeah, I like this for her.
02:25:58.900And I like where like who she's in the company of. Like it's just people who are complex and
02:26:04.700interesting. And I don't want it to be like just because we did 10 episodes about her doesn't mean
02:26:09.120that she's necessarily more interesting than other people it's just there's more stuff we
02:26:13.400know about her and she was did she's well documented she's well documented and she did
02:26:18.560a hundred things every day of her life for 44 years like there's other people where it's like
02:26:24.280so for the next 10 years we don't know what she did but for Mary Queen of Scots it's like this
02:26:28.320day she did this this day she did this like it's yeah there's plenty on Friday she ate eggs
02:26:34.500on saturday she embroidered a rhinoceros
02:26:37.380i do want to say to anyone who's still listening to this incredibly long episode
02:26:44.120i so in the previous episodes like last week to everybody we played the interview with claire
02:26:49.480hunter the week before as we were talking about the embroideries and yeah so i have the merch
02:26:54.660the merch design the cat the where jan yupiter i it destroys me i love it so much i ordered the cat
02:27:02.600design on a pillow case and it arrived and I put it on a pillow. And every time I see it,
02:27:09.500it makes me, I've never been so happy with anything I've ever possessed in my life
02:27:13.220as this cat pillow. Hepper and the actual cat does not care about it. I think it just,
02:27:21.520you know, it smells different. It doesn't smell like home yet. So we have to let it
02:27:24.320sit here for a while. But anyway, I just wanted to mention, I don't know. I don't know. But if
02:27:28.640there's other Mary Kuna Scott's merch ideas, please let me know. I'm sure there's many things
02:27:33.940we've said that would be catchy. I want both of you to be able to say where people can find you
02:27:41.600and follow you and see where you're up to. Do you want to go first, Lana?
02:27:44.880You can find information about me and my books on lanawoodjohnson.com. And if you want to follow
02:27:51.200me on social media, I'm now actually active on threads as Melibris, M-U-L-I-E-B-R-I-S.
02:27:58.640threads baby yeah it's the i don't know it's it's been funny because i pre-record various episodes
02:28:06.220and i'm just like as each episode comes out i'm just like do i need to edit out where they say
02:28:11.040i'm on twitter because i'm like does twitter still exist i don't know but now threads exists
02:28:15.000i'm also very active on the vulgar history salon uh discord channel should you so choose to join
02:28:23.260us oh yes i'll talk about that first ellison because you've you've all the news to say
02:28:27.360various books and stuff to talk about, but I'll just talk about the Vulgar History Salon first.
02:28:31.920So yeah, so Lena's also helps with the Vulgar History website and various technical aspects
02:28:36.920of things. And so she helped out when we decided it would be good to, as an extra perk for the
02:28:42.560people who are in the Patreon, who are at the $5 and up per month level to have a way for people
02:28:48.660to talk to each other. Cause it sort of already happens a bit in the comments on the Patreon
02:28:52.580posts but it seems i i want i love getting messages from the tits out brigade and i feel
02:28:57.280like a lot of you would like to get in touch with other ones of you and so this is the way that we
02:29:01.880so it's basically a big group chat so if and when you join the patreon which you can do at patreon.com
02:29:07.700and foster writer if you're at the five dollars or more per month level you get the free not free
02:29:13.340you get the five dollars per month access to the bonus episodes of vulgar peace theater that i do
02:29:18.900with Alice in Atlanta. And also now this, the Vulgar History Salon, which is a place where we
02:29:24.620can talk about the episodes, but also talk about what TV shows we're watching and what historical
02:29:29.300fiction books we like and share pictures of our pets and things like that. So it's a nice place
02:29:33.820to come and hang out. So I just want to let people know that that's there. And Lana is kind of the
02:29:37.340overseer of that, but I'm there too. And what historical figure you're descended from?
02:29:42.920can I just say there is so in the process of doing this series I've heard from a listener
02:29:50.120who is descended from Janet Stewart who was the sexy governess who went over with Mary de France
02:29:54.920and had the affair with the king like she had children not from that affair and one anyway so
02:30:00.040someone who is descended from her someone who's descended from Mary Livingston from the four
02:30:04.260Marys someone who is descended from William Cecil someone who's descended from Bess of Hardwick and
02:30:09.560Allison, tell us about your co-worker you just found out. It's my professor in grad school who's
02:30:15.400a direct descendant from Sir Francis Walsingham, which fully blew my mind.
02:30:20.400I love that it's like all the people in this story, the next generation are now listening
02:30:24.360to this podcast. Lana is not descended from Mary, Queen of Scots. But for the time being,
02:30:30.000that will be the role you have, like for now. You'll be the pretender as the heir to that.
02:30:35.140yeah yes i'm happily descended from from kenneth maclapine and i like to imagine that i don't know
02:30:44.500how to say it i don't know it it varies um the mac last names but i like to think i'm descended
02:30:50.360from some cool highland people that saw mary once that's that's what i what what i choose to believe
02:30:55.980um so allison tell everybody about all of your book news and how they can follow you and what
02:31:02.660you're up to yes um all news about me and all things is on my website alisonepstein.com um you
02:31:10.220can buy book number one a tip for the hangman anywhere you buy books mostly in north america
02:31:15.460i'm sorry um second book is called let the dead bury the dead it's coming out in october and i
02:31:20.500have a pre-order campaign going also on the website check that out and then three days ago
02:31:25.620as of recording this podcast i got to announce that i am publishing a third book in 2025 called
02:31:32.620Our Rotten Hearts and it's a retelling of Oliver Twist from Fagan's point of view and it's a book
02:31:37.660of my heart and I can't stop talking about it so there's no action you can take on that yet because
02:31:42.820I still haven't finished writing it but if you want to be excited with me and you can be excited
02:31:47.100with Allison on Instagram and also on threads right I'm trying honestly by the time this episode
02:31:53.920comes out just search Rapscallison on any social media platform I may or may not be there but if I
02:31:59.340am that's what handle i'm using yeah and you can keep up with uh this podcast at or on instagram
02:32:06.280and threads by the time this episode comes up maybe threads won't even exist anymore maybe it
02:32:10.700just existed for like two beautiful weeks who knows anyway on instagram and threads at vulgar
02:32:15.980history pod and then also i'm on tiktok at vulgar history and i have a patreon patreon.com slash
02:32:23.980ann foster writer i mentioned before so i mentioned the stuff that you get if you join other five
02:32:28.440dollars per month or more level but if you join at the one dollar per month or more level you get
02:32:32.740early ad free access to all episodes of vulgar history and also my unending appreciation and
02:32:37.560you can leave comments on the patreon at those levels too so we can chat and see what's up and
02:32:43.000then also somebody sent me a message the other day being like i don't know if you take requests
02:32:47.760or suggestions and i was like oh no i do maybe i haven't said that on the podcast for a while so
02:32:51.320if you have a person who you think would be good to talk about on the show you can reach out to
02:32:54.580me on social media or also at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com. And then also there's the website
02:32:59.960overseen by Lana Wood Johnson, vulgarhistory.com. Thank God. Like Lana, honestly, thank God for
02:33:06.580you for setting this all out for me. It works beautifully. All the episodes are there. And then
02:33:11.820also we've been having transcripts recently. So they're done by Aveline Malek from The Wordery
02:33:16.100on recent episodes. If you click open the episode, you'll see the transcript so you can
02:33:20.280read along. I've been having, it's fun. Aveline is still getting used to it. She's just like,
02:33:26.440so in this episode, you said, she's like, how would you want to spell this nickname?
02:33:30.700And there was one point where she was just like, I'm not sure what you're saying. And what I was
02:33:33.780saying was Herman, my pills, which is, I'm like, okay, Aveline needs to know I'm going to say that
02:33:38.280a lot and how to spell that. Anyway, so that's all happening. I also have merch. If you go to
02:33:43.180vulgarhistory.com slash store, you can see the merch store. There's like sales happen every
02:33:48.240pretty often on there. I used to have a discount code, but now it's just like hang out for like
02:33:53.500a couple of days. There's constantly sales going on there. And I think that's everything. I think
02:33:59.560that's everything I have to say. Thank you all for listening. Oh, I will just say like this show
02:34:03.080is not over. This episode is over, but the series, this podcast is, there's going to be episodes
02:34:08.240next week and we're going to have some more Mary Queen of Scots content coming all, all month long,
02:34:13.600like going into September, basically. So there's always going to be something fun for you in your
02:34:18.580pod catcher app when you log in. Do you guys have any any final thoughts about Mary Queen of Scots
02:34:24.760and this whole marathon that we've all experienced telling the story over the length of frankly,
02:34:31.940a pretty long audio book at this point? It's been a joy all the way through. Thank you for letting
02:34:37.800me talk to you about my girl mary for like fully i think 14 hours at this point is well worth it
02:34:44.600thank you for kindly understanding my favorite so now we can like nerd about this randomly forever
02:34:49.400yeah i know lana i was just like are your final thoughts just lana at the window being like hey
02:34:53.840yes i was right i told you so especially the druglesses obviously now you have to listen
02:35:02.020to me all the time yeah yeah and it's true but also i love all the people who have listened to
02:35:08.140this and now we've we're changing people's understanding of mary queen of scots and who
02:35:12.760she was like people send me messages they're like wow i didn't know that she was actually
02:35:16.380cool and interesting i'm like a lot of people don't know that so i'm glad that now people do
02:35:21.880anyway thank you both so much this is i'm never gonna not be the person who's like this will just
02:35:27.180be an hour and it ends up being two hours and 45 minutes but thank you both for spending this time
02:35:31.500with me i should have known with us it's never gonna be short no especially like the three of
02:35:38.360us all together fool me once but like you fooled me about 17 times and i still fall for it every
02:35:44.600time this is why i came up with the games i was like i need to make sure this episode isn't too0.94
02:35:48.500short lord thank you both for joining me everybody pants on tits out i'll talk to you next week