Lives, loves and scandals - History series that takes an intimate look behind the closed doors of one of the most celebrated royal dynasties in British constitutional history - The Tudors.
Elizabeth I - the Golden Age:
A detailed look at the life of Elizabeth I, the 'Virgin Queen'. Exploring the close relationships with her intimate attendants and the attitudes to, and treatment of, women at the time, this episode about Elizabeth focuses on her affairs, her diet and her power.
Watch Complete Series: https://dailymotion.com/playlist/x8r9n4
Elizabeth I - the Golden Age:
A detailed look at the life of Elizabeth I, the 'Virgin Queen'. Exploring the close relationships with her intimate attendants and the attitudes to, and treatment of, women at the time, this episode about Elizabeth focuses on her affairs, her diet and her power.
Watch Complete Series: https://dailymotion.com/playlist/x8r9n4
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TVTranscript
00:00Under Tudor rule, England was taken from a medieval kingdom plagued by civil war and
00:09developed into one of the most powerful nations in the Renaissance world.
00:14But from phantom pregnancies to the use of bizarre methods of contraception, it was often
00:20the most intimate and tragic moments of these monarchs' lives that dictated the fate of
00:26the country.
00:30In this episode, we look at the life of Queen Elizabeth I.
00:35She was an attractive, charismatic and vivacious young girl who took the throne at the age
00:41of just 25.
00:43But her early years were lived in fear of assassination by the supporters of Mary, Queen
00:48of Scots.
00:50Although she fashioned herself as the Virgin Queen, she had a series of passionate liaisons.
00:56Obsessed with her personal appearance, she was also overly fond of sugar, which left
01:02her teeth black and rotten.
01:06As she grew older, there were ever more desperate attempts to stay attractive and to cover her
01:12pockmarked face, caking on thick layers of white lead and vinegar to preserve the mask
01:19of youth.
01:21Welcome to the private lives of the Tudors.
01:45Princess Elizabeth was only third in line to the throne of England.
01:50So when her father, Henry VIII, died aged 55 at his palace in Whitehall, the crown passed
01:56to her brother, Edward.
01:59But not wanting to declare Henry dead, his accession had to be kept a secret.
02:06They didn't want to risk people knowing that the country was without a king, so they even
02:10had meals delivered to Henry's room to make it look like he was still alive.
02:16But three days later, on the 31st of January, 1547, they announced the death of Henry and
02:23proclaimed his son, King Edward VI of England.
02:32Aged just nine and under the charge of the Privy Council, Edward was put into a rigid
02:37routine of ceremony and official business, a stark contrast to the glittering world of
02:44his father's court.
02:48The boy that arrives is a stranger.
02:50We know little about him.
02:52We see the king really only from a distance and darkly, as it were, through a glass.
03:00He has a very strong personality.
03:02He's bright.
03:05Like all of these children, he's self-confident about himself.
03:10But there's also this very cool, detached, very willful personality, almost cold and
03:18peremptory.
03:23Evidence of this still survives in the king's personal writings.
03:29This is now my office at Hampton Court Palace, but it was originally built for Edward VI.
03:36And it may have been here that the young prince started his journal, aged about 11.
03:42Edward was the only one of the Tudors to keep a diary, but sadly, it's rather lacking in
03:47titillating gossip and scandal, as you might expect for something written by someone so
03:53young.
03:54But it's also lacking in emotion.
03:57There's an entry from the day that Edward's favourite uncle was executed, and he simply
04:03records,
04:04On this day, the Duke of Somerset had his head cut off on Tower Hill.
04:11The journal ends abruptly in 1553, when Edward falls very seriously ill.
04:22Edward is stricken with a mystery illness, possibly some kind of chest infection brought
04:27on by a recent bout of measles.
04:30He is reported to be suffering from shortness of breath and a dangerous fever.
04:38His reign is one of remarkably good health.
04:41He only has a bout of measles in 1552.
04:44That may be the start of things going wrong.
04:48It can be a much more serious disease, and we often give it credit for being.
04:51It might have been tuberculosis, it might have been sweating sickness, but he was only
04:57weakened at the end of his life.
04:59He wasn't weak from day one.
05:03It was his father's greatest fear.
05:06Henry had obsessed about protecting Edward from any illness during his lifetime.
05:11But after only six years, five months and seven days on the throne, Edward was dead
05:17at the tender age of 15.
05:24The crown would now pass to his half-sister, Mary.
05:30She had a rocky start to her reign.
05:33Edward had been a staunch Protestant and didn't want a Catholic to inherit his crown.
05:38A plot to usurp Mary and place the Protestant Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England very
05:44nearly succeeded.
05:47But Mary was made of stronger stuff, and the attempt was short-lived.
05:55Mary's first priority as Queen is to find a husband, and the man she chooses is Philip
06:01of Spain.
06:05The only reason she's having to think about a marriage is because she's been given the
06:10responsibility of being a Queen, she now needs to ensure the succession.
06:14It's the first duty of a monarch.
06:19There are many stories about Mary Tudor, and one of those stories is that she fell in love
06:26with the portrait of Philip II, or Philip of Spain, as he then was.
06:32Your Majesty, it is my pleasure and honour to present to you this image of his most Catholic
06:38majesty, King Philip II of Spain.
06:44She falls instantly in love with him after seeing only his portrait.
06:49She's besotted, but she's also naive, not blessed with good looks, and aged 37 is some
06:5611 years his senior.
07:00I trust this is a fair likeness.
07:03The artist, Senor Titian, has captured His Majesty most perfectly.
07:08He pleases us well.
07:12The reality was that the marriage between Mary and Philip was a political marriage,
07:18as indeed all royal marriages were.
07:21She asked Charles V, Philip's father, who had been her protector for many years, who
07:28he wanted her to marry, and it was his son Philip that he urged upon her.
07:37Mary tried to present herself as a romantic wife, and may have gone through certain expressions
07:44of romantic love, but the reality for her was that it was a political marriage.
07:50For Philip, it was even more a political marriage.
07:55He didn't want to marry Mary at all.
07:58He was persuaded, if not coerced, by his father to accept Marius's bride.
08:04Your Majesty, welcome.
08:08Upon arriving in England and meeting Mary for the first time, Philip finds her repugnant.
08:16He confides to a close attendant that Mary is no good from the point of view of fleshly
08:22sensuality.
08:27But Philip does his duty, and he marries the English queen.
08:37The marriage, when it happens in July 1554, goes quite well, really.
08:43Philip, he knows he's buying a woman who's passed her best.
08:50Philip had been married before, and he'd fathered a son.
08:52This gave Mary hope that she could conceive a son for herself.
08:56There was also a large age gap between them.
08:58Philip was then 27 and Mary 38, so time was running out for her.
09:03She was very keen to get the marriage started and to share Philip's bed.
09:09Within days of her wedding to Philip, Mary believes she is pregnant.
09:14As the weeks progress, she shows all the signs, including morning sickness and a swollen belly.
09:21When the ninth month approaches, she enters her confinement at Hampton Court.
09:27Everything has been prepared for the royal birth.
09:33Mary believed she was pregnant because she had the symptoms of pregnancy.
09:37Her stomach swelled.
09:39It's even said that she was lactating.
09:41She felt nauseous, and even her doctors were convinced that she was pregnant.
09:46The whole realm thought that Mary was pregnant.
09:56When Mary entered her confinement, her midwives and other attendants
10:00would have given her a special tonic known as cordle.
10:05This comprised ale mixed with various other ingredients,
10:08such as sugar, honey, saffron and ginger.
10:13It was believed that this cordle would strengthen the expectant mother
10:17for the labour that lay ahead.
10:20But the reality in Mary's case was that she didn't need it.
10:29At this stage, there is no way of knowing you're pregnant for sure.
10:33The sort of pregnancy test that we have today, way in the future,
10:37very difficult to know if you're definitely pregnant,
10:40very easy to mistake pregnancy for a whole host of other things.
10:48In November, she thinks that she can feel the baby quicken inside her.
10:53She takes her chamber in May.
10:56This is when you depart into your private apartments and seal yourself off,
11:01which was a normal thing for a wealthy Tudor woman to do.
11:11But the due date comes and goes,
11:13and many weeks later, there is still no sign of a baby.
11:17Mary's stomach decreases in size
11:20and it becomes obvious that it was a phantom pregnancy.
11:27It has to be said that Mary was not the only woman in the 16th century
11:31who did have symptoms of pregnancy when they were not in fact pregnant.
11:36Phantom pregnancy is actually a known medical condition.
11:39It's basically where a woman is so desperate to get pregnant
11:43that her body is actually deceived into thinking that she is pregnant.
11:49Very sad because, of course, Mary is made fun of by lots of people afterwards.
11:53The pregnancy is discovered to be false.
11:56It must have been a terrible tragedy for her.
12:00Not only did she have to suffer the public ridicule,
12:04but she was also seemingly abandoned by her husband.
12:09One of the things that happened as a result of her failing to bear a child
12:13was that Philip then left England, and for over a year she was without him,
12:18begging him to return, knowing that she couldn't fall pregnant without him.
12:22So on a personal level and a dynastic level,
12:26it was a terrible blow for Mary as queen and as a woman.
12:32But it wasn't the last time Mary would be mistaken in thinking she was pregnant,
12:37because two years later she began to show signs of pregnancy again,
12:41although many had their doubts.
12:46The queen believes herself to be pregnant.
12:49She can only believe that for two reasons.
12:52One, that Philip is back in England,
12:54and secondly, that they must have had intercourse again.
12:57She wrote to Philip, telling him that she was expecting a child.
13:00His response was that he was delighted,
13:03but in reality he was quite sceptical, as was Mary's court.
13:09This time hardly anybody believes her.
13:12I think it was just the closest of her ladies around
13:15who played along because they didn't want to upset her.
13:19The gentlewomen of the Privy Chamber don't seem to treat her as if she's pregnant.
13:23And by the middle of the year, it's quite clear
13:26that whatever the queen believed was happening, it hasn't happened.
13:31Again, no arrangements were made for her lying in.
13:34By the time that her due date arrived, there was a silence in court.
13:39She didn't go into confinement, and again the matter was dropped.
13:43They were right to doubt her.
13:45Mary wasn't pregnant, but she may have been gravely ill.
13:52By May 1558, Mary had become weak and dangerously sick.
14:01It seems possible that what she mistook for pregnancies
14:05were in fact something far more serious.
14:09There are a number of possibilities.
14:11The sweat was raging through England,
14:13but it seems likely, given these two phantom pregnancies,
14:16that she was suffering from some condition, possibly some form of cancer,
14:20that created these symptoms in her too.
14:25Some doctors have argued that what Mary was experiencing
14:30was a form of stomach bleeding.
14:33That was coming from some form of tumour,
14:35whether it was an ovarian tumour or whether it was a stomach tumour.
14:39There might have been other illnesses too
14:42that created those kinds of symptoms.
14:47Mary died later that year at St James's Palace in London, aged 42.
14:56Her husband, Philip, who was a doctor,
15:00wrote of his regret at the passing of his wife.
15:05The idea that Philip doesn't have any feelings for Mary,
15:09I think, is probably false.
15:11It may not be a love match, but he sees it as an important match,
15:16a family matter, if I can put it that way,
15:19that touches him deeply and personally,
15:21and he obviously respects her enormously.
15:24And that tells us something about Mary, I think,
15:27because to be respected by somebody like that,
15:31a man brought up to be King of Spain,
15:34I think that implies that Mary herself must have had
15:37more than we often see from the distance that we're allowed to get.
15:46It had taken the death of both her younger brother
15:49and her older sister, Mary,
15:51but it was finally time for Elizabeth to take her turn on the throne.
15:58Aged 25, Elizabeth was greeted with open arms by her subjects.
16:03As she paraded through the city on the eve of her coronation,
16:07she was met by enthusiastic and adoring crowds.
16:13This was the start of England's Golden Age.
16:17This was the start of England's Golden Age.
16:25She was attractive, charismatic and vivacious,
16:29and by the time she became Queen,
16:31Elizabeth had already won the love of her people.
16:35But alongside the celebrations that accompanied her accession,
16:39there was an underlying unease among her new subjects
16:42who were once again being ruled by a woman.
16:51Women were the possessions of their men, their husbands or their fathers.
16:55They didn't own property.
16:57Everything they had, including themselves bodily,
17:00was the possession of their husband.
17:03People even debated in certain circles whether women had souls.
17:08It was that kind of level.
17:12Elizabeth made it perfectly clear that she was no ordinary woman.
17:17She was a queen ordained by God,
17:19and whether they liked it or not, she was going to rule them.
17:25We think of women during the 16th century as being second-class citizens.
17:30We have to remember that status always trumped gender.
17:35Women who came from a noble or a gentry background
17:39would be able to exercise authority and power
17:42over men who were of a lower social status.
17:47It was a fairly unnatural concept for most Englishmen and Englishwomen
17:51to be ruled by a woman who had the ultimate say politically,
17:55dynastically, over how the country was run.
18:00Part of people's fear of having a woman on the throne was practical,
18:05in that they didn't think that women could keep order.
18:08That's why Elizabeth's achievement was all the greater,
18:11because she did so much manage to keep herself on top.
18:19Elizabeth understood PR and knew how to market herself to the public.
18:25One of the ways she did this
18:27was through the beautiful and elaborate clothes she wore at court.
18:32Elizabeth was an iconic figure in terms of fashion.
18:35She set the style.
18:37She looked like men wanted to be in her favour.
18:42She was exceedingly clever at making the best of what she had.
18:46She was never a wealthy monarch.
18:49All her clothes were recycled time and time again.
18:53You think of all that beautiful embroidery that she wore.
18:56It could be taken off one dress and put onto another one.
19:00She was style on a budget.
19:07To better understand how Elizabeth would have dressed,
19:10I've come to meet collections curator Aleri Lynn
19:13in the costume department of Hampton Court Palace.
19:17I want to get some first-hand experience
19:20in what it would have been like to wear one of her exquisite dresses.
19:25But to do that, I need to get out of my 21st-century clothes
19:29and into some historic underwear.
19:32So I'm all set in my Tudor undies.
19:35And do your worst now.
19:37This very unassuming layer is very, very important.
19:41So you're in your linen smock.
19:43It absorbs the sweat of the body, keeping the outer garments clean.
19:46Most people would have changed their linens weekly,
19:49but as a member of the royal family,
19:51you're changing it many more times than that,
19:53possibly several times a day.
19:55It's quite a cumbersome procedure, isn't it?
19:57But I have to say, it feels nice.
19:59I suspect the other layers aren't going to feel quite as comfortable,
20:02but shall we get started? Absolutely.
20:04So the next layer is your bodies.
20:08The Elizabethan bodice was a type of corset
20:11worn by the women of the age.
20:14What the Tudors didn't do was to get into their bodies straightaway
20:18and just lace it up, and that was that.
20:20They would do it in increments because the whalebone that's in these bodies
20:24would have warmed with your body heat.
20:26So it actually changes shape to your body?
20:28Yes, and becomes a bit more comfortable and a bit more pliable.
20:31You say whalebone, they're not real whalebone, surely?
20:34They don't go out hunting whales just in the name of fashion.
20:37In the 16th century, the great voyagers of discovery
20:40are crossing the Atlantic and finding these huge whale fisheries
20:43and they're bringing back all this whalebone.
20:47Whalebone, during the Elizabethan period, was a highly prized commodity,
20:51so much so that it was considered a royal food.
20:55It was considered a royal fish, meaning that to this day
20:59any whale found in English waters belongs to the monarch.
21:05Elizabeth is dressing not only for fashion
21:08but to project her might and the power of her expanding empire,
21:13and so she wants to show all of these wonders,
21:15and what better way than to use whalebone
21:18in as many different ways as possible?
21:21Next to go on is the bum roll,
21:23a kind of padded cushion often filled with feathers
21:26and tied around the waist so it hung at the back.
21:29This would act as a support for the hoop skirt, known as a farthingale,
21:34which would have been stiffened with either bone or cane
21:37to add the rigid shape we often associate with Elizabethan women.
21:44Now I've got the farthingale and the bum roll,
21:47I'm beginning to get a feeling of what it must have been like
21:50to be such a lady, and just the way I'm holding myself,
21:53I have to put my hands in front.
21:55You can't stand with them by your side because it's uncomfortable
21:58and probably looks a bit stupid.
22:00You can suddenly understand why the Tudors are in the postures that they are.
22:05Tudor portraiture always shows the ladies with their hands sort of crossed
22:09or holding something.
22:12The next layer is the petticoat,
22:14followed by the elaborately decorated outer garment.
22:18This is the most opulent and expensive layer,
22:21often made from hugely valuable fabrics,
22:24such as silk and cotton imported from the Middle East
22:28or fine velvets from Italy.
22:31And possibly the most recognisable item of Elizabethan clothing,
22:35the ruff, made from the finest linen from Holland.
22:43OK, so I've got my dress, I've got my ruff.
22:47Where's the bling? I need some jewellery.
22:49Elizabeth loved her diamonds and pearls and rubies.
22:52Can we have a little bit of that, perhaps?
22:56Elizabeth was particularly keen on her pearls
22:59and is seen wearing them in many of her portraits.
23:02This was because they were considered to be pure
23:05and were used in Tudor symbolism to represent virginity.
23:11She had a huge collection of jewels,
23:13many of them she'd inherited off her father from his many wives.
23:17One ring that we know is missing from your fingers now
23:20is a locket ring that she was found wearing when she died.
23:26It was a jewelled ring like any other, but it opened
23:29and inside was a silhouette of herself,
23:32but also a lady in much earlier Tudor dress,
23:36looking very, very much like the portraits that we know of Anne Boleyn.
23:41So before we're quite finished, there is the pièce de résistance,
23:45the crowning glory, of course, the wig.
23:50Thanks to my able dressers here, I have all of my outfit complete,
23:54my wig, my jewels, my beautiful gown and what lies underneath.
23:59I'm ready to sally forth into court, am I not?
24:03She knew how to make an entrance,
24:05she knew how to capture her image in terms of portraits,
24:08and that was really the prevailing ideal of beauty of the time.
24:14One big advantage that Elizabeth had was the fact
24:18that she had inherited her mother Anne Boleyn's sense of style.
24:23She did start off reasonably good-looking,
24:25she had all that twist of being able to just look particularly good,
24:29and also had incredible charisma.
24:31So Elizabeth was able to stand out amongst her ladies.
24:36Clothing was important to Elizabeth.
24:38It wasn't just an aesthetic question, it was about status.
24:42The more bling, the better.
24:44So if she could incorporate jewels, pearls,
24:47different rich fabrics into her costume, the more status she projected.
24:51It was a very important status symbol, a very important sign of beauty.
24:56It was a very important status symbol,
24:58a very important sign of her power as queen.
25:04In public, Elizabeth carried herself with an air of self-assurance.
25:09She was confident and acted upon matters of state with decisive action,
25:14defying the expectations of many of her critics.
25:19But for the more cynical members of her court,
25:22there was only one reason for her display of strong leadership.
25:28There were many rumours about Elizabeth's sexuality, about her gender,
25:34because she exhibited various masculine qualities,
25:37such as strength and the ability to make a decision, authority,
25:41and the belief was that a woman couldn't actually display these,
25:45so the logical outcome was that surely Elizabeth must be a man in disguise.
25:50Elizabeth was well aware of these attitudes
25:53and played the game very cleverly.
25:56She pretended to regret her sex,
25:59famously lamenting that she was a weak and feeble woman.
26:03But her reign would prove that this was just play-acting.
26:07Far from being constrained by her sex, she used it as a weapon.
26:13Elizabeth used her sexuality at court for certain
26:17because it was a function of her gender.
26:20As a woman, she interacted with the male courtiers
26:23in a different way than a king would have done.
26:26She played up to them like lovers,
26:29and she had favourites and gave them nicknames.
26:32This represented a very different style of queenship.
26:35She was inventing something new.
26:39She was establishing a court where she was the queen bee.
26:43She expected men to write poetry to her and pay her fulsome compliments,
26:49treat her almost like a mistress.
26:52I think she enjoyed every minute of it.
26:57Elizabeth could be flirtatious, she could be teasing,
27:01but for the most part, she used something else, I think,
27:06as a political weapon, and that was courtly love.
27:10She was an object of devotion.
27:13She would have knights who would do her service
27:16and would be utterly devoted to her,
27:19but they did not have any expectation of a sexual relationship with her.
27:23And Elizabeth played on that a great deal, as did her courtiers.
27:29Like all monarchs, Elizabeth was expected to marry and produce an heir.
27:34But she made it clear from the outset of her reign
27:37that she had no intention of taking a husband.
27:42It has been assumed that this was pure statecraft.
27:45She did not wish to be ruled by a man.
27:48But the real reason behind Elizabeth's refusal to marry
27:52lay in her private fears sparked by her childhood traumas.
27:56She had just been shy of three years old
27:59when her mother, Anne, had been executed at the orders of her father.
28:04Five years later, her stepmother, Catherine Howard,
28:07had followed Anne to the block.
28:10Horrified, the eight-year-old Elizabeth
28:13had confided to her companion, Robert Dudley,
28:16that she herself would never marry.
28:23Her big problem was that she couldn't marry
28:26without compromising her authority,
28:28because at that time a man was always thought to have authority over his wife.
28:32And Elizabeth was certainly not going to do that.
28:35Elizabeth was faced by the question of whether she would marry,
28:39because women were not perceived to be able to govern themselves independently.
28:44When you married as a woman, you literally became your husband's chattel.
28:49Anything that you possessed before you were married became your husband's.
28:53So you could bring a fortune to that marriage
28:56and your husband could spend that entire fortune on his mistress
29:00and there was nothing that you could do about it.
29:04But there was also another reason.
29:07She was afraid of giving birth.
29:12Elizabeth had seen the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth first-hand.
29:16She had experienced the death of her stepmother, Catherine Parr,
29:20during her teens,
29:22and she knew that that was something that could derail her from the throne.
29:26It also meant if she married, she'd have to give power to her husband.
29:30She would become second place.
29:32And the idea of going through the pregnancy and the birth itself
29:37with all the physical weakness that would cause
29:40wasn't particularly compatible with her presentation
29:43of either the Virgin Queen
29:45or the ultimate power that she personally wanted to wield.
29:50Elizabeth was not inclined to marry,
29:53but neither was she prepared to completely restrain her sexual desires.
30:03Whether or not Elizabeth I was really the Virgin Queen
30:07has been one of the most hotly debated subjects in history.
30:11Although her iconic image was rooted in her virginal state,
30:15rumours about her sexual misconduct with a whole host of men
30:19were breaking out.
30:25She did have relationships at court,
30:28but just how far these went took place behind closed doors.
30:32She did have a relationship with some of her courtiers,
30:37which was more intimate,
30:39sometimes expressed even in physical touching.
30:43It was erotically charged, and this created a style at her court
30:48which was obviously very different from that of her sister or her brother,
30:53and indeed even that of Henry VIII.
30:59Among Elizabeth's many flirtatious relationships with her male courtiers,
31:04the one that inspired by far the most gossip
31:07was that with her long-standing confidante, Robert Dudley.
31:11Friends since childhood, by the time that Elizabeth became Queen,
31:15they were inseparable.
31:18MUSIC
31:24A year after her accession,
31:26she had Dudley's bedchamber moved next to her own private apartments
31:30in order to make it easier for them to meet in secret.
31:34Before long, their relationship was causing so much scandal
31:38that Elizabeth had to go to great lengths to conceal it.
31:43A very clear favourite from the start was Robert Dudley,
31:47with whom Elizabeth seemed to be very much in love in the early part of her reign.
31:52She had nicknames from him, she kept his letters,
31:55they spent a lot of time together.
31:57I think it's most likely that Elizabeth was aware, as she said often,
32:02that she was married to her kingdom first and that everything else came second.
32:08Possibly she had to subjugate the personal into the dynastic, the political.
32:13She was prepared to have emotional connections,
32:17but not necessarily physical ones.
32:19What made their relationship all the more scandalous
32:23was that Dudley was already married.
32:31Things came to a head when his wife, Amy Dudley,
32:34was found dead at the bottom of a short flight of stairs.
32:41Elizabeth and her alleged lover were both implicated in the death.
32:47She couldn't marry him,
32:49particularly after his wife, Amy, died in mysterious circumstances.
32:53She simply couldn't allow her name to be linked
32:56to what was possibly a murder plot.
33:00The rumours at court spread like wildfire.
33:03There were accusations that Dudley had his wife killed
33:06so he was free to marry Elizabeth.
33:11Although these claims were unsubstantiated,
33:14they were enough to force the Queen to distance herself from Dudley.
33:21There were even those who said she secretly bore him a love child.
33:30Whether the relationship actually became physical,
33:33we can't say for certain.
33:35There was no recorded pregnancy as a result,
33:38but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
33:40She was a very cautious lady,
33:43so that I don't think she would have engaged in any sex
33:46that would have risked pregnancy.
33:48But that doesn't mean to say that it wasn't sexual in the sense of erotic.
33:55Elizabeth probably was bearing in mind, though,
33:58the danger to herself if she did conceive a child.
34:01She didn't want to run that risk.
34:05Sex outside of marriage in Elizabethan England was widespread
34:09and there were even books published on the subject of lovemaking.
34:13But having children out of wedlock was a different matter altogether,
34:17so they had to find ways to prevent this.
34:20Birth control in the Tudor period was rudimentary, to say the least.
34:25Some methods, admittedly, would still be employed today,
34:29such as coitus interruptus or the rhythm method,
34:33whereby a woman would abstain from sex during her most fertile period.
34:38But most of the Tudor methods of birth control were outlandish.
34:44Some women wore amulets around the neck,
34:48Some women wore amulets around the neck or thigh,
34:51often containing herbs that they believed to have contraceptive properties,
34:55such as honeysuckle or oil of mint.
34:58But, bizarrely, they would also sometimes contain oddities,
35:02such as dried cat's liver, donkey dung or even weasel's testicles.
35:10But the most common methods involved inserting some kind of barrier,
35:15whether that was, bizarrely, a slice of lemon
35:18or perhaps a piece of wax moulded to shape.
35:23But the most popular was a sponge.
35:27Now, this would be cut up and soaked in vinegar.
35:31The reason was that vinegar was believed to be doubly effective
35:35because not only did it help the sponge to provide some sort of barrier,
35:41but the vinegar itself was thought to naturally repel a man's sperm.
35:47Well, if Elizabeth had relied on any of these methods
35:51in order to prevent herself from falling pregnant,
35:54she would have been taking an enormous risk.
36:01I'm not sure that there was any contraception
36:04that really worked in Tudor England at all.
36:10There was a form of post-coitus contraception.
36:14In other words, a form of early abortion that was practised.
36:19Through herbal remedies being used to induce an abortion,
36:24these were the ways in which historians now think
36:28that contraception was practised.
36:33Whether they worked or not,
36:35most women would have learned about these birth control methods
36:39from their female friends.
36:41Although Elizabeth did not have friends in the true sense of the word,
36:45she did become very close to a number of her most intimate attendants.
36:50They included Elizabeth Fiennes de Clinton,
36:54who facilitated her royal mistress's meetings with her male courtiers,
36:59and her old governess, Cat Astley,
37:02who knew many of her most intimate secrets.
37:05At least one of Elizabeth's ladies would even sleep in the same room as her.
37:10This meant they were able to run errands for the Queen at a moment's notice.
37:15She did have a lot of ladies who served her faithfully
37:18all the way through her life.
37:20Having said that, she was very bad-tempered,
37:24and when her life got stressy,
37:26the ladies could find themselves treated really quite badly.
37:30They were pinched and, in fact, she even broke the finger of one of her ladies.
37:35So she could be a very difficult woman to work for.
37:41As age began to overtake Elizabeth
37:44and she had to face the fact that she was no longer
37:47the most desirable woman at court,
37:49she underwent an increasingly elaborate routine of dressing and make-up,
37:55including the use of a series of outlandish wigs
37:59as well as white lead on her face,
38:02which, ironically, did more to corrode her skin than ageing ever could.
38:14Elizabeth notoriously took a long time to get herself ready,
38:17to make herself presentable.
38:19It was very much a theatrical process.
38:21She would have had her ladies ready to help prepare her skin.
38:25Elizabeth would use various compounds in order to make it whiter,
38:31to make it softer, and also to hide the blemishes
38:34which she had as a result of smallpox.
38:39But Elizabeth's looks also fell victim to her ever-expanding empire.
38:44This was the age of discovery,
38:46and things that were once rare delicacies
38:49were now commonplace in the royal court.
38:53Elizabethan explorers were bringing back sugar
38:57in greater quantities than ever before,
39:00and nobody benefited more from this than the Queen herself.
39:05Elizabeth was said to eat sparingly,
39:08but she had an incredibly sweet tooth.
39:11She would add sugar to everything,
39:14not just cakes and chocolates, but to wine and even salads.
39:19To make matters worse, Elizabeth used honey to clean her teeth.
39:24Well, not surprisingly, those teeth soon started to rot and fall out,
39:29which made Elizabeth's appearance change.
39:32Her face seemed rather gaunt,
39:35so she used what were known as plumpers,
39:38pieces of cloth that she would stuff into her cheek
39:42to make herself appear as she did before.
39:45Well, these had another advantage,
39:48because the plumpers would first be soaked in some sweet-smelling oil or potion,
39:54which helped to offset the stench of Elizabeth's foul breath.
40:02Towards the latter part of her life,
40:05Elizabeth was practically bald and toothless,
40:09a secret that the young Earl of Essex accidentally discovered.
40:15The audacious Earl, who was more than 30 years her junior,
40:20played court to her like a lover,
40:23and Elizabeth was obsessed with him.
40:26But their liaison came to an abrupt end
40:29when he burst into her bedchamber early one morning.
40:32Who's there? Your Majesty, it's the Earl of Essex.
40:35How dare you come here unannounced? Get away from here!
40:39He was aghast to see her stripped of her usual thick make-up and wigs.
40:44At court, he laughed with his friends about what he had seen,
40:49saying she had a crooked carcass.
40:52But Elizabeth had the last laugh.
40:55She had him executed shortly afterwards.
40:59This is a time when no person of any standing is ever left on their own.
41:04You are always surrounded by people
41:06as a sign to how much influence you have.
41:09So private life wasn't ever really in it for them.
41:16As time went by, Elizabeth's reign continued with strangeness.
41:21She was the only woman in her family to have a husband.
41:25As time went by, Elizabeth's reign continued with strength
41:29and the love of her people.
41:31But while the years brought her reverence and respect,
41:35they also brought her loneliness.
41:38She had outlived most of her longest-serving confidants,
41:42and her flirtatious liaisons and romances had all but ceased.
41:48It was also noted by witnesses at court
41:51that this gracious and beautiful queen had started to fade.
41:58Elizabeth, at the end of her life in private,
42:01would definitely have been no oil painting.
42:06In later years, as she aged,
42:09she deliberately asked for this to be concealed
42:12and portraits were created to make her look young still and youthful.
42:16By the age of 69, Elizabeth had sat on the throne for 44 years,
42:21and having been married only to her country,
42:24she was to be the last of the Tudor dynasty.
42:30But her memory and her family's legacy would continue to live on.
42:37I think the Tudors are remembered the way they'd like to be remembered,
42:41particularly Elizabeth I and Henry VIII,
42:44because I would imagine that most of our first thoughts
42:47would be those famous portraits by people like Holbein of Henry,
42:51the Armada portrait for Elizabeth,
42:54which show them in full splendour
42:57exactly the way they wanted to be remembered.
43:00So I think you have to say they got it right.
43:05To the very last, she continued with her public duties
43:09and ruled with authority.
43:12But she began to suffer from ill health,
43:15which made her increasingly debilitated.
43:21Elizabeth's reign was coming to a close.
43:33She died in her private bedchamber at Richmond Palace in March 1603,
43:39surrounded by only her closest female attendants.
43:43It was a death that was both dignified and, fittingly, private.