Mary, Queen of Scots
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is the story of the incredible rise and fall of Mary, Queen of Scots. She was queen of Scotland, she was queen of France, and she could have been queen of England. She led armies, lived as a fugitive, became embroiled in love affairs and spent nearly two decades in jail.
Dan is joined by the great Kate Williams, a presenter, historian and professor at Reading University, to take us through the twists and turns of Mary's tumultuous life.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, |
| 0:00.6 | folks, Dan Snow here. |
| 0:01.6 | I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit. |
| 0:06.1 | I'd love for you to be there. |
| 0:07.5 | Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London, |
| 0:10.4 | in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years. |
| 0:14.1 | You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes. |
| 0:17.6 | Look forward to seeing you there. |
| 0:31.3 | Hi everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's history hit. She was queen of Scotland. She was queen of France. She arguably had a better claim to be queen of England than her cousin Elizabeth. |
| 0:37.3 | I'm talking, of course, about Mary |
| 0:39.1 | Stewart, Mary Queen of Scots. A woman raised to the highest pinnacle by fate and also thrust down |
| 0:48.2 | to the deepest depths. Those closest to her, brothers, lovers, husbands, cousins, abandoned her, fought against her, assaulted her and would eventually kill her. |
| 1:03.6 | She sat on the throne of France, she led armies, she escaped as a desperate fugitive, and she spent 19 years in English prison. |
| 1:15.1 | Who was Mary? Why did so many people seek to have power over her? And in the end, why was she |
| 1:21.9 | such an existential threat to Tudor England, that they precipitated a war against Spain, the greatest superpower on |
| 1:29.2 | earth, by executing her. All your answers here with Kate Williams, one of my favorite contributors. |
| 1:34.9 | They're very brilliant historian, author and broadcaster, professor of public engagement at the |
| 1:38.9 | University of Reading, an absolute legend, biographer of Mary Queen of Scott. She wrote a book |
| 1:43.0 | in 2019 called Rival |
| 1:44.5 | Queens. She is going to take us on a whistle-stop tour of the life and times of Mary, |
| 1:52.4 | Queen of Scots. Enjoy. |
| 1:55.0 | T-minus 10. The Thomas bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. |
... |
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