The Lie that Started the Stuarts

Historic Royal Palaces Podcast

Historic Royal Palaces

History

4.7 • 701 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The lie that started the Stuart Dynasty in England, also shaped the end of the Tudor era. But how can we better understand how this fiction was created, and ultimately who it benefitted?

In this final episode of our Stolen Tudor Crown series with Chef Historian Tracy Borman, we delve into the end of Elizabeth I's reign, and the manuscripts written by William Camden that document it. What is truth and what is fiction, and how would the consequences of it all turn into a bitter civil war within decades?

For a signed copy of Tracy Borman's new book The Stolen Crown, visit our online shop.

Read about the reign of James VI & I.

Watch our YouTube video about the death of Charles I.

Transcript

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0:00.0	To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.
0:14.0	For myself, I never was so much enticed with the potent name of a king or the royal authority of a queen as delighted that God
0:24.4	hath made me his instrument to maintain his truth and glory and to defend this kingdom from
0:32.2	dishonour, damage, tyranny and oppression. And for mine own part, were it not for conscience sake to discharge
0:42.6	the duty that God hath laid upon me, in mine own disposition, I should be willing to resign
0:50.6	the place I hold to any other, and glad to be freed of the glory with the labours,
0:57.0	for it is not my desire to live or reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your good.
1:05.0	And though you have had, and may have, many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat. Yet you never had,
1:16.2	nor shall have any that will love you better.
1:41.9	Welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast and to the final episode in our series on the Stolen Tudor Crown, where we've been exploring the Elizabethan succession.
1:48.0	I'm chief historian Tracy Borman, and today we are back in the Great Hall, where James celebrated his first Christmas as monarch in 1603. And can I say, listeners, how appropriate it is
1:58.0	that I'm here today talking about the Elizabethan succession on the 17th of
2:04.1	November, the anniversary of her accession to the throne. It's almost as if we planned it that way.
2:13.8	Well, you heard there at the beginning a quote from one of Elizabeth I first most famous speeches,
2:21.5	the golden speech. She gave it to the last parliament of her reign in 1601. When she entered that
2:31.1	parliament, the atmosphere was pretty frosty.
2:35.5	There had been some wranglings over financial matters.
2:40.0	The Queen's popularity had suffered as a result,
2:44.0	and also she had created dissent from her continuing refusal
2:49.8	not to name her heir. But by the end of her speech,
2:55.0	there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Yet again, Elizabeth had proved that she was the Virgin
3:03.1	Queen, Gloria Anna of legend. Well, she did, though, in that speech, talk about the challenges of
	...

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