Elizabeth (1998)
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes, Richard Attenborough, Christopher Eccleston, Vincent Cassel, Fanny Ardant, Kathy Burke, Eric Cantona, John Gielgud, Edward Hardwicke
Country: British film
A very good film filled with plots and twists of plots that keeps one enthralled. One difficulty, however, is keeping all the characters clear in one's mind, so read the Historical Background.
Henry VII:
Arthur
Margaret -- marries Jame IV, King of Scots; her granddaughter is Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587)
Henry VIII (1491-1547) -- 6 wives
Marry -- marries Duke of Suffolk; her granddaughter is Lady Jane Grey
Henry VIII:
Mary (1516-1558) -- daughter with Catherine of Aragon
Elizabeth (1533-1603) -- daughter with 2nd wife, Anne Boleyn
Edward VI (1537-1553)
Elizabeth's family following her father's death:
Catherine Parr (1512?-1548) -- her stepmother
Thomas Seymour -- her stepfather; may have molested Elizabeth
Elizabeth's Advisers:
Thomas Parry -- chief accounting officer
Historical Background
Elizabeth
A History of Britain video by Simon Schama
The story of two women that saw the union of England and Scotland and the birth
of Britain.
Mary Queen of Scots who haunted Elizabeth for most of her life. She was a
complete disaster as a ruler, but she reproduced.
Elizabeth was vain, spiteful, arrogant, frequently unjust, and maddeningly
indecisive. But she was brave, clever and sometimes wise. She was a genius
politician.
When she was two years old, her mother Anne Boleyn, was executed.
Never free from suspicion, Elizabeth watched herself being watched.
1548, May -- Elizabeth sent off to stay with Sir Anthony
Denny and his wife at Cheshunt. As a teenager she was living with Catherine
Parr, Henry VIII's widow. Her new husband Thomas Seymour visited her in the
night.
1548, Sept -- Catherine Parr, her stepmother, dies. When Catherine died, word was that Seymour wanted to marry Elizabeth. Some said Elizabeth was pregnant with his child.
1549, Jan -- Thomas Seymour arrested under orders of rival and brother,
Somerset. Elizabeth had to convince Lord Protector Somerset that she was
innocent. She said they were just rumors. "These are shameful sagas. . ." She
was just 14 years old.
Five years later, when her Catholic half sister Mary came to the throne, she was
in deeper trouble. Elizabeth talks herself out of being charged with the treason
of involvement with a Protestant plot to bring that religion back to power.
Five years later Mary dies childless.
Nov 17, 1558 - seated beneath an oak tree she said "This is the Lord's doing and
it is marvelous in our eyes." It was a miracle that she had made it this far.
She becomes Queen of England. She had a certain precocious self-possession that
made quite an impression. The councilors thought she was full of manly
authority. She did all the things women weren't supposed to do: looked men in
the eye and spoke out of turn. This was thanks to her tutor Roger Askim, public
orator at Cambridge University. He taught her the art of public speech, that
which became her strongest public weapon. She brought to the throne statecraft
as stagecraft. She had the gift of the actress and adored being adored.
Her most important adviser and surrogate father Sir William Cecile knew they
needed an heir. The majority of the country was still Catholic, actively or
passively. Cecile constantly needed to remind her that she needed a husband. And
the doctor ordered marital copulation for the good of the realm.
Cecile's rival was Robert Dudley. Everyone assumed this was the man that
Elizabeth loved. He was flashy, gallant, very handsome, and an extrovert. His
father had been executed for treason.
But were they lovers? Dudley had an ailing wife. It would have been fool hardy
for her to sleep with Dudley. Dudley's wife Amy was found at the bottom of the
staircase dead with a broken neck. Rumors were that she had been pushed.
Elizabeth sent Dudley away until he had been cleared of suspicion. They were
free to marry but a cloud of suspicion still hung over the relationship. For the
next several years her emotions swung back and forth for Dudley.
1573 -- Elizabeth gives up on marrying Robert t Dudley. She planned to give him
up in marriage to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.
Elizabeth is eaten up with curiosity with Mary Queen of Scots. Mary with her
heart shaped face was apparently the more attractive. To Elizabeth she was a
menace. Mary was the daughter of King James V and Mary of Guise. Mary was a
Stuart, Elizabeth was a Tudor.
At age 18 --Mary arrives in Scotland. Mutual suspicion between the two.
Elizabeth denied her safe conduct through her new realm. Mary had a certain
theatrical self-pity.
Mary had not intention of marrying Robert Dudley. He was spoiled goods. Lord
Henry Donlevy was the handsome poster boy of Scottish nobility He had Tudor
blood also. But he was a drinker, even a drunk. So Mary comes to rely on
her private secretary, Italian David Rizzio. Many thought she was trying to turn
Scotland back to Catholicism.
1566 -- a group proposes a violent coup to Donlevy.
March 7 -- the plotters burst into her chamber and stab Rizzio to death in front
of her. He was stabbed 50 to 60 times.
June 19 -- at Edinburgh castle she gives birth to James VI of Scotland.
Elizabeth cries when she hears the news.
Mary was filled with contempt for Darnley. She resolved to get rid of him as a
husband. Earl of Bufwell thought she meant killing Darnley. Bufwell was one of
the great landowners of Scotland. Mary turned to him as protector.
March 9 1567 -- Plotters plant a bomb in the house where Darnley was asleep. He
heard some noise and had himself lowered on a chair to the ground below. He ran
straight into the plotters who promptly throttled him to death.
Donley's murder was a turning point in her life. Death followed her from then
on. She was sick vomiting black mucus. His power over Mary started to go to
Bufwell's head and he announced that she needed a husband offering himself for
the job. He abducts her and takes her to castle Dunbar where he, violently it
was said, planted his seed in Mary. Mary married him a few weeks later at
Hollyroo. She lost it at this point -- lost the whole damn shooting match.
She should have distanced herself from Bothwell, saying she was shocked at the
murder of her husband. The mother let herself be turned into a whore. Now she
had to face the rebel armies faithful to her murdered first husband. Bothwell
disappeared on the eve of battle. It was the last she would ever see of him.
She was forcibly taken back to Edinburgh a captive, filthy and disheveled.
Greeted by a mob howling abuse. She was forced to renounce the throne in favor
of her son. Her Protestant half brother the Earl of Murray took charge of the
baby boy and made himself regent of Scotland. Mary was only 25 years of age. She
seemed done for.
But she was not finished. Jailed she seduced her jailer.
May 1568 -- she makes a get away across the Loch. She had to appeal to
Elizabeth. She seeks temporary refuge in England. Her hair cropped for disguise.
But it was not to be a temporary period.
Elizabeth was now 35 years of age. She was no nearer to getting married.
Mary requested royal clothes. What she got was a package of linen. Elizabeth was
wearing Mary's favorite pearls stolen from her and sent to the English Queen.
Mary was outraged by the indignities heaped upon her.
Elizabeth was tempted to help her. But she thought it was folly to back a
Catholic heir for Scotland. Elizabeth ordered an inquiry into the murder of Lord
Darnley which really turned into a trial. She was prisoner shuttled from house
to house under the care of the Earl of Shrowsberry.
She was kept in the midlands. She was a maximum security headache number one, a
magnet for conspiracy.
Duke of Norfolk proposed to marry Mary. Outwardly it would be a conforming
marriage. When the plot was exposed, Elizabeth sent Norfolk to the Tower of
London.
Catholicism had been fed on the independence of families who ran things. Mary
Stuart was not just a successor but a replacement for Elizabeth. The Catholic
north fought the Protestant south. The rebels swept through Northumberland and
elsewhere.
12,000 troops mustered and the rebellion brutally crushed -- the last great
rebellion to disturb Tudor England. Elizabeth was 20 years into her reign. She
had rejected many suitors.
1570s -- the cult of Elizabeth. Her accession day was the greatest of national
holidays more sacred than any of the Papist ones. Men built huge prodigy houses
in her honor. Elizabethan razzle-dazzle. A bejeweled apparition like some
goddess on earth. But she was frightening as well as majestic. Elizabethan
glamour show.
In Europe a war between Catholics and Protestants was about to ignite. In Rome
the pope declared Elizabeth a heretic. England became a national security state.
Agents and double agents were abroad in the land. The chief spy master was
Francis Walsingham. He believed knowledge is power. He was ferocious but nor
paranoid. The plotters wanted the assassination of Elizabeth and the
enthronement of Mary.
Walsingham knew he could not just do Mary in. Elizabeth had to be free of
suspicion. He would have to forge a solution. He engineered a trap for Mary.
Mary was under house arrest.
Dec -- Walsingham suddenly put Mary into close confinement. Mary was furious and
wanted to find a way out. So she smuggles out messages hidden in beer casks. But
this was a trap; the letters were intercepted.
Rich merchant Anthony Babbington showed Mary a plot to kill Elizabeth. The trap
was sprung. Mary's overseer Paulette allowed her to go out riding. A group of
horsemen approached. Mary thought it was freedom coming for her. But it was
Elizabeth's men coming with a warrant for her arrest. Babbington had been
tortured and confessed.
Hundreds of incriminating documents were found in her room. Elisabeth wrote an
ecstatic letter to Paulette for his role in the trap.
Mary did not crumble into confession. She was suddenly lofty, above all the
charade. She gave as good as she got. She lied saying she did not know of the
plot. Elizabeth wrote to Mary as an ingrate and accused her of trying to kill
her. She felt betrayed by Mary.
Oct 15, 1586 -- Mary warned her prosecutors to look to their consciences. She
appealed to that worldwide audience. She was painfully infirm, dressed in black
velvet with a white headdress.
The trial resumed in London without her and she was convicted. Parliament wanted
to get rid of her and so too the people. But Elizabeth delayed. She was scared
as being seen as having her finger prints on the axe. Was she inviting trouble
by executing Mary?
Mary would be a Catholic martyr. She played the role well. She had a crimson
petticoat, the color of the martyr. She lay with utter stillness so much that it
unnerved the executioner. His first blow cut deep, the second severed the head
but for a hanging thread of flesh. For fifteen minutes her lips moved as if in
silent prayer. The executioner picked her head up by the hair but it was a wig
and her head fell and rolled about the floor. Mary's lap dog howled, would not
eat and died.
King Philip of Spain accelerated his plans. He sent an armada. This was
Elizabeth's worst nightmare -- a full-scale Catholic invasion. Spain knew the
British fleet had faster ships. The weather batted for England.
1588 -- had a right to be afraid. Elizabeth appears before the troops. A mother
dressed in a breastplate of steel. At Tilbury on August 8 and 9 she arrived in a
gilded coach. The first speech by a Queen recorded in history. "My loving people
I come among you not for my recreation. . . but being resolved to live and die
amongst you all -- to lay down for God and my kingdom and my people. I know I
have the body of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart of a king. . . I
myself will take up arms."
The speech did make a difference even it all was hype.
In the closing years of the Tudor century there were food riots. The Irish had
driven into a nine year war. Thoughts turned to her successor, James, son of
Mary Queen of Scots. So was it Mary who had triumphed from the grave?
James would be brought up a Protestant forced to renounce his own mother. But he
was still Mary's child, not Elizabeth's.
Towards the end of her life, she had her wedding band sawed off ; the flesh had
grown over the ring. She had put the ring on when she wedded Britain 45 years
earlier.
1603 -- Elizabeth dies.
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