Hey, friend, I'm really excited to share this conversation with Dr. Tracy Borman about her brand

new book, The Stolen Crown, which really kind of completely upends that neat little story

that we've all heard about Elizabeth I, calmly naming James I of Scotland as her heir on

her deathbed. As Tracy explains in this conversation

that tidy scene was actually crafted after the fact, once James was safely on the throne and

really needed some good PR. A newly examined manuscript of William Camden's history of Elizabeth's reign shows that he originally

wrote that Elizabeth died without naming anyone at all, and only later rewrote the deathbed

scene under pressure from James himself. Once you know that, the succession in 1603 stops looking

like a smooth handover and starts looking like what it really was,

which was a fierce race for the crown that actually several people could realistically have won.

So in our conversation, Tracy walks us through all of the rival claimants who were circling around Elizabeth's throne throughout her reign.

Of course, some of them are famous, Mary Queen of Scots, the Grey Sisters, Henry Hastings, Margaret Stanley, and her son

Ferdinando, I love that name, are Bella Stewart and even the Infanta Isabella of Spain.

And we kind of talked about all of these different claimants and

Elizabeth's absolute refusal to name and air and how that caused decades of anxiety and how

figures like Peter Wentworth and Shakespeare and Robert Cecil pushed and plotted and argued

over what should happen after the

queen died. So really excited to bring you this conversation with Tracy Borman. Definitely check out

her book, The Stolen Crown. I'll put a link in the comments below. She is absolutely

fabulous, one of my most favorite historians and people. Just a real joy and delight to chat with her and really

excited to share this conversation with you. So we will just get directly into it. So you have

this new book out, The Stolen Crown, about how James I wasn't the obvious given choice. Yeah,

...