Imagine sitting down to a ceremonial banquet in the mid-1500s and wondering if the wrong sip of wine might be the last thing you ever taste.

Not because the cook botched the recipe, but because somebody nearby wanted you removed from the political chess board entirely.

In the Tudor courts, poison was the fear that never truly settled.

A sudden illness after supper could spark embassy gossip before the sun rose, and one unexpected

death could reshape alliances overnight. So my friend, get comfy, grab a beverage, and settle in

because today we are looking at several cases where Tudor contemporaries whispered poison, beginning with a diplomatic mission to France, where multiple Scottish commissioners fell ill and never made it home.

Hey, friend, welcome back to the YouTube channel for the Renaissance English History

podcast. I am your host, Heather, and I have been podcasting on Tudor England since 2009

with my show, which makes it the original Tudor History podcast. I am, as always, delighted that you are joining me on what is a very blustery and freezing day here in Pennsylvania. I've got my gloves on because I'm always cold. And we are going to talk today about Tudor poisonings. Let's start in Paris in 1558. A group of Scottish diplomats had arrived to finalize the marriage contract between Mary Queen of Scots and the Dauphin Francis.

Among them was James Fleming, the fourth Lord Fleming, Scotland's Lord Chamberlain.

Their instructions were clear. They could approve the marriage, but they did not have the authority to grant the crown matrimonial,

which would allow Francis to rule Scotland in his own right and keep the crown if Mary died childless.

The commissioners refused that clause and negotiations stalled.

So the atmosphere grew tense. The French badly wanted that authority,

even pursuing separate secret

documents that Mary herself signed handing Scotland to France if she died without heirs. The Scots

didn't know about that agreement, and it added a whole other layer of unease to the visit,

because Mary's like doing her own secret negotiation like undermining her

negotiators it's not good anyway during the mission several commissioners became gravely ill

fleming died in France while others died on the journey home or shortly after returning

the deaths weren't simultaneous but they did occur within the same diplomatic trip and were close

enough in sequence that contemporaries viewed them as a single suspicious episode. This clustering

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