How Elizabeth I Finally Chose War | The Tudors' Darkest Hour EP 3

Tom (Rest is History): When Drake returns to England, he is a national hero. Not just because he has achieved the greatest feat of navigation in all English history, but also because he has robbed and humiliated the king of Spain. He has forced his way into what the Spaniards call the Marl Clausum, the closed sea, namely the Pacific. Um, he's ranged at will along the coastlines of uh, western America, Spain's great American empire, and he has plundered so much gold and silver and been given so many clothes that the total sum amounts to more than Elizabeth I's entire annual income. So maybe 400,000 in all. So a huge, huge amount of money.

Dominic Sandbrook: Elizabeth is sending a public message to Spain about the strength of her relationship with France... And so here I think is another reason for all these tremendous theatrics aboard the golden hind... she wants to make herself the great beloved of the English people. And so therefore, it is desperately important to her to project a sense of her rule as something glamorous and golden and self-confident to kind of portray herself as Gloriana.

Dominic Sandbrook: Amazingly a cache of her letters were found as recently as 2024 in the Ribatech national de France and they show conclusively the Mary Queen of Scots you know is not a passive bystander in this you know she's not just a cipher being used by geese for his own interests. She was actually an active conspirator in this plot... the recent evidence suggests there's no question whatsoever. Yes, it does. She knew exactly what she was doing. She'd rolled up her sleeve. She got stuck in.

Tom (Rest is History): The impact of the thrott Morton plot on Berley and Walssingham is absolutely massive because they are now absolutely set on eliminating Mary Queen of Scots no matter what it costs... This provision is that anyone who is responsible for the death of Elizabeth will be ineligible to succeed her... a further crucial provision has been added. And this states that anyone who is responsible for the death of Elizabeth will be put to death whether they were aware of the assassination plot or not... If a Catholic assassin kills Elizabeth with the aim of putting Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne, Mary will be subject to death, even if she didn't know anything about the assassination plot.