The Tudors Dynasty podcast.

Hello, and welcome back to the mini-series based on the memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth.

Welcome to Part 3.

In this episode, you'll learn about Elizabeth's succession issues,

Mary Queen of Scots, and The Trouble with Catherine Gray and the Earl of Hartford. Buckle up,

because this is a fun one. The situation of Elizabeth, amid its many difficulties, presented none so perplexing,

and in which the opinions of her most prudent counselors were so much divided on the best mode of obviating,

as those arising out of the doubt and confusion in which the right of succession was still involved.

Her avowed repugnance to marriage, which was now feared to be insurmountable,

kept the minds of men continually busy on this dangerous topic, and she was already incurring

the blame of many by the backwardsness, which she discovered in designating a successor

and causing her choice to be confirmed,

as it would readily have been by the Parliament.

But this censure must be regarded as unjust.

Even though the jealousy of power had found no entrance into the bosom of Elizabeth,

sound policy required her long

to deliberate before she formed a decision, and perhaps whatever that decision might be,

forbade her, under present circumstances, to announce it to the world.

The title of the Queen of Scots, otherwise unquestionable, was borrowed by the will of Henry

the 8th, ratified by an unrepealed act of parliament, and nothing less solemn than a

fresh act of the whole legislature would have been sufficient to render it perfectly free from

objection.

...