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00:00The Tower of London, a world-famous historic monument.
00:05There will be stories about murders!
00:08Over its thousand years of history, everyone who's anyone has passed through its gates.
00:14King Richard III!
00:16Catherine Howard!
00:17King Henry VIII!
00:17Declared!
00:18My darling Anne, I will love you for the rest of your life!
00:24Cheeky!
00:26And this year, it's non-stop.
00:28Oh! Oh!
00:30With grand commemorations...
00:32Jumping, Jiminy's!
00:34...at the ancient fortress, including a royal visit.
00:38I truly think that Her Majesty will be moved.
00:40We've got a ringside seat to see it all unfold.
00:43Oh, my gosh.
00:44While its dedicated staff...
00:46High five!
00:47Yeah!
00:48...work to keep everything on track.
00:50You know this is the key for the toilet, don't you?
00:52No, I'm not feeding you anymore, no.
00:54In this episode, some new arrivals are causing quite a stir.
01:01Hello, mate.
01:02I've got the two new ravens at the Tower of London, and they're sharing my kitchen.
01:06Oh!
01:06The ancient fortress prepares for one of its most complex events in years.
01:13It's a good test for us to see how we're going to get all these pieces into site safely and securely over our medieval drawbridges.
01:22And there's a brand-new discovery that changes everything we know about Queen Elizabeth I.
01:30This complete rewriting of history, from one page to the next, that is spine-tingling.
01:37Welcome to the secret world of the Tower of London.
01:47It's 7am, two hours before the historic Royal Palace will open to today's visitors.
01:54But curious tourists won't be the only business of the day.
01:57This morning, the Tower begins the installation of an ambitious project to commemorate the end of the Second World War.
02:05It involves a staggering 30,000 ceramic poppies, creating an incredible spectacle.
02:12Down the walls of the White Tower, through the inner fortress, and out to the wharf.
02:19It will be one of the largest installations ever attempted within the palace walls.
02:24And this morning, the first structure is being delivered.
02:28The things are already going off track for project manager Ali Richardson.
02:32This has been quite a challenge this morning.
02:35The lorry is a little bit late.
02:37We don't have very long to get all the bits unloaded before we can open to the public.
02:42We have to be gone and out of sight before 8.45.
02:46There's quite a lot for the crew to do this morning in quite a short period of time.
02:49With such a tight window, the pressure is on.
02:55They're on a massive great big truck that's got to reverse onto the wharf, which is quite a challenge.
02:59Four heavy steel structures, six metres long and weighing over 350 kilos each, need to be manoeuvred safely through the nearly 800-year-old archways of the outer ward, inner ward, and along the cobbled routes of this world heritage site.
03:17It's a good test for us to see how we're going to get all these pieces into site safely and securely over our medieval drawbridges.
03:25Oh my gosh.
03:28Whilst Ali and the team race against the clock on the wharf, it's a slower pace inside, as the beefeaters begin their day.
03:38Raven master Barney Chandler is on breakfast duty.
03:42Morning, fellas. All good.
03:45He's been in charge of the fortress's flock for over a year now.
03:50Ready for scran?
03:51Come on in. Bit of breakfast.
03:53The birds are an important part of the tower's folklore.
03:57There's probably no secret, there's a legend here at the tower that says,
04:01if the ravens ever leave the palace, a great disaster will befall the kingdom.
04:04The legend dictates that we have a minimum of six ravens at the tower, which is what we've got at the minute.
04:10But like every strong monarchy, it doesn't hurt to have a few spares.
04:15And Barney's just received some good news from raven breeders in Wales.
04:19Been told reliably that we have got two chicks that are ready for us from Wales.
04:27So, yeah, our population here is going from six to eight.
04:31And I'm chuffed to this. Can't wait to get me.
04:33Whether the other ravens will be quite as enthusiastic about the new chicks is anyone's guess.
04:39They don't all get on with each other now, the ones we have here.
04:42And they all have their own different areas.
04:44They all have different personalities.
04:46It's like normal life.
04:48Not everybody gets on with everybody.
04:52At just a few weeks old, the babies will be too young to go straight into the enclosure.
04:58So, Barney's having to take on a whole new set of raven care responsibilities.
05:03In the wild, they're going to be in the nest until they're six weeks old, give or take.
05:06So, they're going to be living with me in the kitchen of my house for at least two weeks until they're ready to leave the nest.
05:14I'm really excited.
05:15These are the first two that have come in during my tenure as a raven master.
05:19So, I'm going to be there from the start and I'm going to witness them growing up.
05:23Well, let's get you out.
05:25Until then, his top priority is keeping the other ravens happy and onside.
05:29Come on there, big girl.
05:31There you go.
05:34Back on the wharf, things are finally moving.
05:37We are a bit up against it because we open in 45 minutes.
05:43So, that's a bit of a challenge.
05:47Just go that way, big son.
05:49Each piece of metal structure has to be carefully manoeuvred to a smaller truck.
05:54Watch it.
05:55Can you move back, please?
05:56To be driven up to the white tower.
05:58It's a painstaking process and with less than an hour until opening, the team are now running very behind.
06:06I'm quite anxious watching them swinging the big structures off the back of the truck.
06:11Thanks.
06:11Come down.
06:16You doing good?
06:17I'm a hanging boy.
06:18That's great.
06:18I can't do it, don't mind.
06:20At last, the first piece moves through Edward I's arch, built in the 1280s.
06:27But there are still three more to go.
06:34And on the other side of the tower's gates, long queues are starting to form, waiting for the opening ceremony, a centuries-old protocol to open the tower gates.
06:44This is a military ceremony that runs like clockwork every single day.
06:47This involves an armed escort, an ancient set of keys, and very precise punctuality.
06:55The soldiers are waiting.
06:57The soldiers are waiting.
06:58The crowds are waiting.
06:59I've got to be there on time.
07:01Only one piece is in, but time's up for the crew on the wharf.
07:05Stop all traffic crossing the drawbridges.
07:07The opening ceremony is about to start.
07:12Ali and the team will have to think fast.
07:14We're taking the instructors off the back of the truck and putting them down here on the wharf so that the truck can leave.
07:23We're going to end up with three moving up into the tower a little bit later than we would have liked.
07:29It's a race against the clock.
07:31We didn't quite manage it this morning.
07:44Come on in, folks.
07:45Welcome to the tower.
07:49Coming up, the tower's poppy-filled commemoration hits an unexpected setback.
07:54Got to work out how to make sure the ravens don't destroy it.
07:57And Tracey discovers the most incredible evidence about the end of Elizabeth I's reign.
08:02You can see history literally being rewritten on the orders of those in power.
08:15Come on in, guys.
08:16In you come.
08:16In you come.
08:17Come in close.
08:18The Beefeater-led tours of the royal fortress take visitors through some of the darker periods.
08:23There will be stories about murders.
08:27And unusual chapters.
08:29This was also a royal menagerie and zoo.
08:32In the tower's thousand-year history.
08:35And as a royal palace, you can expect plenty of kings and queens.
08:39King Richard III.
08:41Henry VIII.
08:42Queen Elizabeth I.
08:43The red-haired Tudor queen has long been a figure of fascination for historic royal palace's chief historian, Tracey Borman.
08:52Elizabeth I is undoubtedly my favourite monarch of all time.
08:57And I've spent most of my career studying her.
08:59She's famous today for being one of the longest reigning sovereigns in history, and also one of the most beloved.
09:06And she did it all alone, refusing to marry and becoming the self-styled virgin queen.
09:13But within just 50 years of Elizabeth's death, the crown was violently overthrown, and England was plunged into civil war.
09:22And I think it all started with Elizabeth.
09:25Tracey has a lead on what could be a remarkable new piece of evidence, rewriting Elizabeth's role in the downfall of the English monarchy.
09:33And she's beginning her investigation by re-examining the crisis around who would succeed Elizabeth.
09:41As well as declining to marry, Elizabeth refused to name her heir.
09:45She believed they would threaten her reign, or maybe even try and seize her throne.
09:50But that left the future of the English crown hanging dangerously in the balance,
09:55and meant that anyone with a drop of royal blood could try and claim Elizabeth's throne.
10:00When it comes to the English succession, blood really does count.
10:05For hundreds of years, it's been a hereditary succession.
10:08In other words, it's the person most closely related to the monarch who tends to be king or queen next.
10:16The Tudor family tree had no shortage of contenders.
10:20Like Catherine Grey, she was the granddaughter of Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary.
10:25And Arbella Stewart, a descendant of Henry VIII's older sister, Margaret, and an up-and-coming darling of the court.
10:33But the biggest threat came from Elizabeth's own cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, who had a son, James.
10:40This is a portrait here of Mary, also of her son, James.
10:47So, the Scottish claimants, if you will, they are descended, as well, from Henry VIII's elder sister, Margaret.
10:55But Mary is a Catholic, and that's a problem for many of Elizabeth's subjects.
11:01With each contender a potential threat to her crown, Elizabeth kept a careful eye on their every move.
11:09A single misstep, and she was only too ready to move against them.
11:14Catherine ended up at the tower and died just a few years later.
11:18Arbella was kicked out of court and put under house arrest.
11:22And then there was Mary, Queen of Scots.
11:29As the main Catholic contender, Elizabeth needed to keep her cousin where she could see her.
11:35When Mary lost control of the Scottish throne and fled to England, Elizabeth held her under house arrest for nearly 20 years.
11:43Until Mary got caught red-handed conspiring to kill the Queen.
11:47Tracey has come to the Beecham Tower, where the walls still show the marks of the traitorous prisoners it once held.
11:56Well, the piece of graffiti I'm particularly interested in today is this one, attributed to John Ballard.
12:03He was a Catholic priest during Elizabeth's reign, and he was involved in one of the most notorious plots against her life.
12:10In 1586, Elizabeth's spies intercepted coded letters, which detailed a plan to kill her and replace her with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.
12:2414 plotters, including Ballard, were rounded up, interrogated, then hanged, drawn and quartered as traitors.
12:31But John and his fellow conspirators weren't the only ones involved in this plot.
12:38Their letters reveal something altogether more explosive.
12:42I have here one of the intercepted letters, and it's really rather an impulsant one, and a shocking one,
12:55because it's written by none other than Mary, Queen of Scots herself.
13:01And in it, she orders one of the conspirators to set the six gentlemen to work.
13:08It's quite a short phrase, but a very important one, because what Mary's saying here is that the six gentlemen who've been given the task of assassinating Elizabeth should go and get to work.
13:22Those words will seal Mary's doom.
13:27For plotting the death of Elizabeth, Mary lost her head.
13:31The former Queen of Scots was off the board.
13:38Now in her fifties, Elizabeth had successfully neutralized nearly all of the strongest claimants to her throne.
13:46But clearing the field would create a dangerous power vacuum.
13:51Tracy discovers an ambitious contender who makes a dramatic power grab that Elizabeth could never have seen coming.
13:58Tell me about Anne Boleyn.
14:04Where were the executions?
14:06Just here.
14:07Just here.
14:08As the royal palace fills up with visitors, there's a rather large bit of tower business that still needs to be finished.
14:16After running seriously behind schedule, three six-metre-long metal structures have been driven carefully up through the now open fortress.
14:28And they will form part of the tower's special poppy-filled commemoration...
14:34Here.
14:34..of the end of the Second World War.
14:36The dramatic installation will be one of the largest ever attempted within tower walls.
14:44And today is the only chance to figure out how to get the structures that will support the poppies inside the tower and safely anchored into place.
14:54We can start to see the scale of the installation and how it will look against the side of the building, and that's really exciting.
15:01The structure being tested today is called the splash.
15:05Project manager Ali is keeping a close watch as things start to take shape.
15:14So what we've got here is the four quadrants of the structure, which are being bolted together and made all nice and safe and secure.
15:21And then all of the metal spokes will eventually have a poppy on the end of it.
15:26We need the structure to be very secure and solid so that it can withstand standing out here safely for six months, come rain or shine, on windy days.
15:37The splash will form one of the main elements of the installation and will be covered in 2,000 handmade ceramic poppies.
15:46So these are the prototype poppies that we're using for the test today.
15:50So they're the same size and shape as the ones that we'll be using in the main display, but as you can see, they're not the right colour.
15:57The real ones will be beautiful bright red.
16:00Putting the installation right up against the ancient white tower, built by William the Conqueror in the 1070s, requires an incredible level of care.
16:11So Tower Governor Andrew Jackson has just come to see how the team are getting on.
16:16Hey, Ali, how's it going?
16:18Did it work smoothly this morning, getting them in?
16:20It was a little bit nervy, to be honest.
16:22Things took a little bit longer than we thought, but that's part of the reason why we're doing this test, is to iron out those things.
16:28Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted, as we used to say.
16:31Absolutely.
16:32We're just lining them all up, and then once we've done that, we'll have a go at attaching some of our prototype poppies
16:37to see what they look like up against the side of the building, what the scale will be, and that sort of thing.
16:43Because this is where we're going to have the cascade coming down from the top of the white tower.
16:47And then this is the drop that falls and hits the ground, and then there'll be a stream of poppies that comes across the lawn,
16:53just down here by Cold Harbour Gate.
16:56I think it's going to look really spectacular.
16:58Well, it's looking really promising, and poppies are going on now.
17:00As the team continues the test build,
17:04Chief Historian Tracy Bortman is on the trail of Queen Elizabeth I,
17:10whose refusal to name a successor had sparked a royal crisis that threatened to destabilise the crown itself.
17:17Now three decades into her reign, the paranoid Queen had dispatched many would-be contenders.
17:23But one man with a strong royal pedigree had his eyes set on Elizabeth's throne,
17:29James Stuart, the King of Scotland.
17:33Tracy has come to meet historian Gareth Russell to find out more.
17:37Hi, Gareth.
17:38Hi, Tracy. Nice to see you.
17:39Nice to see you.
17:40Can you tell me a little bit about who James was?
17:43What was his background?
17:44Well, James is King of Scots for as long as he can remember.
17:48He becomes king when he's 13 months old after a coup that overthrows his mother.
17:52And from quite early on in his reign, he has his eyes south of the border.
17:57Very much so.
17:58He does believe that England, Wales and Ireland are his rightful inheritance.
18:03James' great-grandmother, Margaret, was the sister of Henry VIII,
18:07giving him a royal bloodline in both kingdoms.
18:11But for many, his Scottish heritage was a problem.
18:15And it's easy today to underestimate just how much of a foreign country
18:20Scotland seemed to be English at this time.
18:23Because, of course, we're now part of Britain.
18:25Not so then in James' time.
18:27It might as well have been the other side of the world.
18:29Absolutely.
18:29I mean, there are centuries of hostility between England and Scotland.
18:33And some present James VI becoming James I in England
18:37as essentially a Scottish conquest of England.
18:39To make things worse, James also happened to be the son
18:44of a recently executed Catholic traitor, Mary Queen of Scots.
18:49There is really intense anti-Mary sentiment in London.
18:53There's always a risk that that will transfer itself over to her son.
18:56But he is also under a huge amount of pressure in Scotland
18:59after Mary's execution.
19:01There are riots in Edinburgh telling James
19:04he should be sending a noose south to Elizabeth.
19:06But James didn't listen.
19:09Keeping the peace with Elizabeth and England was to his advantage.
19:14So James was really swimming against the tide.
19:17But he was so determined to be king of England
19:20that he was even willing to overlook the fact
19:22that Elizabeth had executed his own mother.
19:25It's James the politician who wins over James the son.
19:30But did James really stand a chance of becoming king of England?
19:34Or would his background be just too big an issue to overcome?
19:39Traces at the National Archives to look at the evidence
19:42that threatened to derail the Scottish king's ambitions completely.
19:46I have here an incredible document.
19:48It's the last will and testament of King Henry VIII himself.
19:53And in terms of the race for Elizabeth's crown,
19:55this is absolute dynamite.
19:58It's quite a long, complex legal document.
20:02But the bit I want to show you
20:04concerns Henry's wishes for the succession.
20:08It's actually highly unusual for a monarch
20:10to specify those wishes so precisely in his will.
20:15But here Henry does.
20:16So first up, of course,
20:18his precious son Edward and his heirs.
20:21Then next in line,
20:23we have Henry's elder daughter Mary.
20:25And then we have Henry's last child, Elizabeth.
20:30And this is where it gets really interesting.
20:32Because if Elizabeth should fail,
20:35Henry specifies that the crown should then pass
20:38to the descendants of his younger sister, Mary,
20:42former Queen of France.
20:44And what's so fascinating about this
20:46is that Henry also had an elder sister, Margaret.
20:51And in the succession,
20:52it's the elder one who always goes first.
20:55But Henry's excluded Margaret.
20:58And it's her descendants who are the Scottish line,
21:01including Mary, Queen of Scots, and James.
21:05But Henry's deliberately cut them out
21:07of any hope of inheriting the crown.
21:10With Henry VIII's will casting doubt over his legitimacy,
21:14it looked like James' shot at the English throne
21:16was slipping out of his grasp.
21:18Coming up,
21:24two new raven chicks land at the fortress.
21:27There you go, man.
21:28Oh, that's good.
21:29Look like they're hungry.
21:30Well, her table manners are atrocious.
21:32And we reveal brand new evidence
21:34about Elizabeth I's succession.
21:36That's what historians for 400 years have thought.
21:39This changes everything.
21:40Curving round the outer perimeter of the tower
21:54are the casemates,
21:56home to the beefeaters and their families.
22:00Ravenmaster Barney Chandler has some visitors.
22:03Hello, mate.
22:04It's like looking after babies.
22:07Get up in the morning,
22:09you can hear him squawking straight away,
22:10and as soon as I walk in the door,
22:11you get two heads poke up at the side.
22:13You know, when's breakfast, Dad?
22:15They currently have their lodgings on his kitchen table.
22:19At the minute, they're living in our equivalent of a nest environment.
22:23So they're relying on what Dad brings back.
22:26OK, so at the moment, that's what I am doing.
22:29They got mice this morning.
22:31They're not yet four weeks old,
22:33but the baby chicks already have big appetites.
22:36So I'm giving them the same food as their counterparts,
22:40but in smaller pieces, so I break it up for them.
22:43And when they're ready to digest a mouse, a chick,
22:46or the equivalent on their own,
22:48that's when they'll go in the enclosures.
22:50There you go.
22:51Oh, that's good.
22:52Look like they're hungry.
22:52There's always a sigh of relief when they're eating well.
22:56Well, our table manners are atrocious, I've got to say.
23:00You're like a bottomless pit.
23:02Keeping these future guardians of the Tower in good health
23:05is completely down to Barney for the next few weeks.
23:09Living with them, it sounds corny.
23:11It's an honour.
23:12I've got the two new ravens at the Tower of London,
23:14and they're sharing my kitchen.
23:16Of course, the fate of the nation is resting on our shoulders.
23:19If they're not fighting fit, that's down to me.
23:21You ready?
23:23More?
23:23You want more?
23:24No.
23:25The real test will come when they meet their new roommates in a few days.
23:29I'll be sorry to see them go, but I won't miss the smell.
23:36Thank you so much.
23:37You're very welcome.
23:39That's our old uniform.
23:41That's got E2R, and this has got C3R.
23:43So that's the Queen's Elizabeth.
23:45Now we've got Charles.
23:46Charles.
23:47As members of the monarch's ceremonial bodyguard,
23:51the Beefeater's iconic uniforms change with the coronation of each new king or queen.
23:58C-3R, Charles Wix of Tertius, so King Charles III in Latin.
24:02It feels very special to be wearing the king's cipher,
24:06when most of us here today also wore the queen's cipher before that.
24:09King Charles had been the heir apparent for the entire 70-year reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
24:15But the business of royal accession hasn't always run so smoothly.
24:23Chief historian Tracy is investigating the royal crisis caused by Elizabeth I's refusal to appoint an heir,
24:31one that would have huge consequences.
24:34With Catherine Gray, Arbella Stewart and Mary Queen of Scots now out of the running,
24:40King James VI of Scotland fancied himself as the strongest remaining claimant.
24:46But the small matter of Henry VIII's will, which excluded James, stood in his way.
24:53Tracy's back with historian Gareth Russell to learn about the Scottish king's next move.
24:58So, Gareth, Henry VIII's will, surely that's a bit of a spanner in the works for James,
25:04because he has very specifically barred all Stuarts from ever inheriting the English throne.
25:10Yes, so the will is a spanner in the works,
25:14but only in the hands of someone who wants to throw that spanner into the works.
25:18And Elizabeth particularly clearly thinks the stewards have more of a blood claim.
25:24Unlike the previous contenders for her throne,
25:27James had yet to fall foul of Elizabeth or make an open play for the crown.
25:31And importantly, he shared with her one unique bond.
25:36They were both ruling monarchs.
25:38So, James and Elizabeth have this extraordinarily long correspondence.
25:44For 20 years, they're exchanging letters back and forth,
25:47and they make for quite fascinating reading, don't they?
25:50It's a goldmine of information about their relationship and how it changes.
25:53This is from July 1585. James has just turned 19.
25:58And he writes to Queen Elizabeth and says,
26:02praying you should continue me in your good grace,
26:04and notwithstanding of whatsoever brutes or reports,
26:07to keep still one ear for me.
26:10So he's saying whatever gossip or negative comments you hear about me,
26:14keep one ear open to hear the truth for me.
26:17So he's feeling quite vulnerable, really.
26:19But also what I like, how he signs off here,
26:22your loving and affectionate brother and son.
26:25And then she signs off,
26:26your most assured loving sister and cousin.
26:30Constantly, they're stressing the kinship, aren't they, in this?
26:34There's this sense that Elizabeth acknowledges
26:36he's her closest blood relative.
26:39Elizabeth clearly had a soft spot for James,
26:42and may even have been trying to train him to be heir.
26:46She's giving him a lot of advice that's very useful.
26:49Some of it, like, show yourself to the people,
26:51and perform as a king is advice that James struggles with.
26:56It does feel like Elizabeth is doing her level best to coach James.
27:02He doesn't always welcome it.
27:04But she doesn't do that for any of the other claimants to her throne.
27:07James was only too aware he needed Elizabeth's open endorsement.
27:11So he began to push for it.
27:14He wants her to sign on the dotted line,
27:16saying that he is heir-designated to the throne.
27:20And he even draws up a document that he sends south with his secretary,
27:25asking Elizabeth to sign it,
27:27proclaiming to the world he is the next king of England and Ireland.
27:29But Elizabeth refuses,
27:32preferring to dangle the possibility to ensure James' loyalty,
27:36but promise him nothing.
27:38You definitely get a sense from this correspondence
27:41that Elizabeth is almost enjoying that game,
27:44because she holds all the cards.
27:47Yes.
27:48But for James, the stakes are so much higher.
27:51Later, we discover the shocking move the Scottish king made next.
28:00It's a drizzly afternoon at the Fortis.
28:04Lovely weather we're having.
28:05Beautiful.
28:07But work on the tower's upcoming VE Day commemoration hasn't stopped.
28:15The man behind the design of the poppy-filled installation, Tom Piper,
28:19has come to see how things are going.
28:21Do we try and get a few that are maybe a metre higher, do you think?
28:26OK.
28:26The biggest challenge has been the restrictions
28:28of working in a thousand-year-old World Heritage site.
28:32It's a mixture of the dramatic storytelling,
28:35but then also the nuts-and-bolts practicality,
28:37literally, of how do we bolt the structure together.
28:40You can't dig in more than, kind of, 10 centimetres,
28:43or you can't touch the stonework.
28:46But Tom is no novice when it comes to working at the tower.
28:50He designed the 2014 installation,
28:53which saw the tower's moat flooded with over 800,000 poppies,
28:57marking the beginning of the First World War.
29:00So coming back to the tower, for me, is fantastic,
29:03because I can do actually what I wanted to do in the first place,
29:06which was to create the installation beginning in the heart of the tower,
29:09as if the tower has been wounded.
29:11That's if a certain group of feathered friends don't put a stop to things.
29:15We've got to work out how to make sure the ravens don't destroy it,
29:18so that's another challenge.
29:23Just a few miles across London,
29:25Tracey's investigating Queen Elizabeth I's succession crisis
29:29with historian Gareth Russell.
29:34By 1601, now over four decades into her rule,
29:38it looks like the ageing Queen may well die without ever naming an heir,
29:43leaving the Scottish King James,
29:45her closest living relative, in a tight spot.
29:48James is losing patience with this game,
29:51so he decides to make an alliance with another player on the chessboard,
29:55and it's this man, Elizabeth's chief minister,
29:59the most powerful man in England, Sir Robert Cecil,
30:02and they start writing to each other in code.
30:04So behind Elizabeth's back, that is a huge risk.
30:09Cecil, along with a growing number of Elizabeth's advisers,
30:13was seriously concerned about what might happen
30:15if she refused to name a successor.
30:18Wanting to secure his own future, as well as that of the realm,
30:22he decides to bet all his chips on James.
30:26They lay out plans together of how Cecil will announce James as king
30:30the second Elizabeth is dead,
30:32how he'll get down from Scotland,
30:34who will support him,
30:36and we have a quote in their 79th letter to each other.
30:40And when it shall please God that 30, James,
30:44shall succeed to his right,
30:45that he shall succeed in bestowing as great and greater favour upon 10,
30:50to Cecil, as his predecessor doth bestow upon him.
30:54And in the meantime,
30:55ye may rest assured of the constant love and secrecy
30:58of your most loving and assured friend, 30.
31:01So, this is very clear.
31:03They've made a deal.
31:04Absolutely.
31:05You help me to the throne.
31:07You'll benefit once I'm on that throne.
31:09It's essentially a quiet English coup
31:12that will have the succession smoothed over
31:15before Elizabeth is dead, but without her knowledge.
31:18But would all their secret scheming work?
31:23In early 1603, Elizabeth fell ill,
31:27and this time she wouldn't recover.
31:29What happened next is the stuff of movies.
31:34Cecil left the dying queen's bedside
31:36to send a coded message straight to James,
31:40who prepared for his journey down to London.
31:42On the 24th of March,
31:48after 44 years on the English throne,
31:51Elizabeth I died.
31:54She was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.
31:59Wow, this is so beautiful and atmospheric.
32:04Westminster Abbey is where all the great and the good
32:07have been laid to rest.
32:09But for me, the most significant place
32:12in the whole Abbey is right here,
32:15Elizabeth I's tomb.
32:19Often, when a monarch dies,
32:22it's obvious who's going to succeed them.
32:25But that hadn't been the case with Elizabeth,
32:28and the issue had been uncertain
32:29throughout her long reign.
32:32And so it was only at the moment of her death
32:35when the question of who would be on the throne next
32:38would finally be answered.
32:43Elizabeth's biographer, William Camden,
32:46describes what happened.
32:49Clustered around her are her anxious ministers,
32:52all clinging to her every word.
32:54Will she finally name her successor after 44 years?
32:58Well, according to Camden, she does just that.
33:02She says,
33:03I will that a king shall succeed me,
33:06and who but my nearest kinsman,
33:08the king of Scots.
33:11I pray thee, trouble me no more.
33:14I will have none but him.
33:16And so the Tudor dynasty is at an end.
33:27And at the very last,
33:29Elizabeth has named as her successor
33:31the son of her most deadly rival.
33:35He's also the man who Henry VIII,
33:37her father, specifically barred
33:39from ever inheriting the English throne.
33:41That man is now King James I of England.
33:46Coming up, we discover what happened to James
33:59in the months after Elizabeth's death.
34:02He found himself surrounded by enemies on all sides.
34:06As newly discovered evidence
34:08turns the story of the succession on its head.
34:11This is a complete rewriting of history
34:13from one page to the other.
34:16A very, very beautiful black and white house.
34:26It's called the King's House.
34:29The house has also been used as a prison.
34:31Tracy Borman is paying a visit
34:33to the private council chamber
34:35within the King's House.
34:37It holds clues that will reveal
34:38the disastrous unravelling of James' reign.
34:42One that will lead Tracy to a remarkable discovery.
34:45This is one of my favourite spaces in the whole tower
34:48because it's such a history where it happened moment.
34:52Just two years into his reign,
34:54King James I's hold on his long coveted English throne
34:58took a powerful hit.
35:00And it involves one of the most well-known characters
35:03in British history.
35:05It's in this very room
35:07where Guy Fawkes was interrogated and imprisoned
35:11after the failed gunpowder plot of 1605.
35:15A group of 13 plotters
35:22protesting about the growing persecution
35:24of Catholics under James
35:25had tried to blow up Parliament
35:27with the King inside.
35:30At the very centre of this room
35:32is this man
35:34who was King James I himself.
35:36And he had this bust installed
35:38after the plot was discovered
35:40to really remind all those interrogated here
35:43that the King was watching.
35:45But the foiled, gunpowder plot
35:47was just the tip of the iceberg.
35:50James' popularity was nosediving.
35:53At this point,
35:54James is pretty much
35:55clinging onto the throne
35:56by his fingertips.
35:58He's only been king
35:59for a couple of years
36:00but already he's hated
36:01by almost the entire nation.
36:04The Catholics don't like him
36:05because he persecutes them.
36:07The Puritans or Protestants don't
36:09because he's not radical enough
36:11in their religion.
36:13And as well,
36:14James lacks the popular touch
36:16that Elizabeth had.
36:17She was always showing herself off
36:19to her people.
36:20But James hides himself away.
36:23For the next ten years,
36:25things for the king
36:26would only get worse.
36:28James inherited Elizabeth's throne
36:30with huge ambitions,
36:32not least to unite the kingdoms
36:34of England and Scotland.
36:36But that proved deeply unpopular
36:39on both sides of the border,
36:41as did James' lavish spending,
36:43particularly on his Scottish favourites.
36:46He's been coveting Elizabeth's throne
36:48for his whole life
36:50and he can feel it slipping
36:51from his grasp.
36:52But just how far will he go
36:54to save it?
36:58Now, some 400 years later,
37:00the discovery of a damning
37:02new piece of evidence
37:03is revealing the shocking truth
37:05of James' desperation.
37:08It's rewriting this chapter
37:10of British history completely.
37:12Tracey has come to the British Library
37:14to meet curator Julian Harrison.
37:17Hi, Julian.
37:18Hello, Tracey.
37:19Nice to see you.
37:21And see the evidence firsthand.
37:24So, this is one of the original manuscripts
37:27of William Camden's
37:29Annals of the Reign of Elizabeth I.
37:31So, William Camden,
37:32well known to Tudor historians
37:34because he was Elizabeth's
37:35earliest biographer.
37:37I've used Camden extensively,
37:39but never seen the actual workings out,
37:42the original manuscripts.
37:43So, this is very, very thrilling.
37:45Camden started writing
37:46his official history
37:47in the last years
37:49of Elizabeth's reign.
37:50But he quickly gave up,
37:52overwhelmed by the size of the task.
37:54He wouldn't revisit the project
37:55until a decade later.
37:57It wasn't until
37:58a few years into James' reign
38:01that Camden was persuaded
38:03by none other than
38:04the king himself
38:05to pick up his pen
38:08and rewrite it.
38:09And he had to ensure
38:10that whatever he wrote
38:11would appease the king.
38:13This incredibly rare
38:14original draft
38:15of Camden's manuscript
38:16is littered with clues
38:18that make it clear
38:18just how treacherous
38:20a task this was.
38:22When you actually look
38:22at the handwritten version
38:24for the first time,
38:25you instantly see
38:27all the corrections,
38:29the crossings out,
38:31bits of added text
38:32in the margins.
38:33So he's basically changing
38:35the account of Elizabeth's reign
38:37once James is on the throne
38:39with a new version
38:40under pressure from the king.
38:42Yes.
38:43And indeed,
38:44Camden sometimes
38:46rewrote passages
38:47and pasted them over entirely
38:50to such an extent
38:51that we can't lift them.
38:53They're completely stuck to the page.
38:55And say for 400 plus years,
38:58this text has actually been,
38:59in many places,
39:00completely invisible.
39:01Now, thanks to the work
39:03of PhD student
39:05Helena Rutkowska,
39:06those hidden passages
39:07have started to be revealed
39:09for the first time
39:10since they were written
39:11in the early 1600s.
39:13With a new technique,
39:14which is called
39:14transmitted light,
39:16the British Library's
39:17photographers
39:17were able to recover
39:19the writing
39:20from behind the page.
39:22And this is what it looks like
39:23with the transmitted light.
39:25Why, yes.
39:26What you can see
39:27is different layers of a page,
39:29things extending
39:30into the margins,
39:30rewritings,
39:32more crossings out.
39:33I mean,
39:34it's a massive jigsaw puzzle.
39:36These changes
39:37exposed the true extent
39:39of James' paranoid censorship
39:40as he vetted Camden's
39:42every word
39:43and made him rewrite history,
39:45as James did
39:46with his mother,
39:47Mary Queen of Scots,
39:48role in the plot
39:49to murder Elizabeth I.
39:51In his version,
39:52she's an innocent victim
39:54of the plotter's.
39:55But James' meddling
39:56would go even further.
39:58What we have here
39:59is one of the most shocking changes
40:02in the whole of Camden's history.
40:04This is his original account
40:06of Elizabeth on her deathbed.
40:08And I know that account
40:10because in the published version,
40:12he describes how,
40:13almost with her last breath,
40:15Elizabeth says to her counsellors
40:17who are clustered around her bedside,
40:19it will be the King of Scots
40:21who succeeds me.
40:22But it says nothing of the sort.
40:25In the original version,
40:27she doesn't actually explicitly
40:29name anybody to succeed her.
40:32Really?
40:32She doesn't nominate him by name
40:34until you see
40:36the first revised version
40:38on the opposite side of the page.
40:40She says,
40:41I would like a king to succeed me
40:43and none other than
40:46the King of the Scots.
40:48Wow.
40:49That is spine-tingling to see.
40:52And it's the most blatant of all,
40:53isn't it?
40:54This complete rewriting of history.
40:56He's putting words in Elizabeth's mouth
40:57from beyond the grave.
40:59She's telling the people of England,
41:01yes, I want it to be James,
41:03even though she never did.
41:04Precisely.
41:06That is the most extraordinary thing
41:08I have seen ever
41:09in my career as a historian.
41:12Elizabeth's deathbed nomination
41:13of James as her heir
41:15has been accepted history
41:17for over 400 years.
41:19But this incredible new evidence,
41:20hidden in the folds and margins
41:22of Camden's manuscript,
41:24is exposing that as a lie.
41:27It is likely that Elizabeth
41:28never named James as her successor.
41:31And the great Tudor dynasty
41:33may have ended
41:34in a stolen crown.
41:37Finding something like this
41:39in these old manuscripts
41:40is so rare
41:41and so exhilarating.
41:43You can see history
41:44literally being rewritten
41:46on the orders of those in power.
41:49Well, James was in a very fragile position,
41:52teetering on his throne.
41:54And the fact that Elizabeth
41:55probably refused to name him heir
41:59during her lifetime
42:00created this power vacuum.
42:03And he was able to manipulate
42:05his way to the top.
42:06But no amount of rewriting history
42:09would be enough.
42:11James' reign went out
42:12with a whimper.
42:14And that of his son Charles
42:15would be a disaster.
42:18He went to war
42:19against his own people
42:20and ultimately lost his head.
42:23Within just 40-odd years
42:25of Elizabeth's death,
42:26the entire British monarchy
42:28had come crashing down.
42:30Next time,
42:36the team must get
42:38nearly 30,000 fragile ceramic blooms
42:40into the fortress.
42:42Obviously, the poppies
42:43are very delicate
42:44and if we drop the boxes,
42:45they will break
42:46and that will be
42:47not a good thing.
42:51The ravenous ravens
42:52eat the beefeaters
42:53out of house and home.
42:55Something else?
42:56Chips?
42:57Ice cream?
42:58And emotions
43:00are running high
43:01at the tower.
43:02My father was in the war
43:04and fortunately,
43:06he came back.
43:07This is a reminder
43:08of the ones
43:09that never came back.
43:28what he did
43:30to be making.
43:31This is a possible
43:32problem.
43:41The observer
43:42was in the�
43:44of the fact
43:45he used to
43:46to pay
43:47those
43:48who
43:48are
43:49now
43:50and
43:51from the
43:51By the lar
43:52and the
43:52life
43:55is
43:56and
43:56are
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