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Documentary, The Queens That Changed the World, S01E01 Elizabeth I
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00:00Across the centuries and around the world women have ruled kingdoms and built empires.
00:14She could not be hidden, she could not be suppressed.
00:18Now we'll discover the real story of six iconic queens.
00:23She tore the city down. Despite the fire, despite the whole city being massacred, we still have these walls.
00:33In this series, we'll follow in the footsteps.
00:36Here it is, the Chapel Royal, a pretty magical place.
00:41Of history's most important female monarchs.
00:45She believed that every single man who fought on the battlefield in her name was worthy of honor and respect.
00:54To find out how they overcome the prejudices of their times.
00:58She is their mother, she is their commander, she is their goddess.
01:05And the challenges facing their reigns.
01:08This was a dangerous place to be. She wouldn't have shown any fear, but I'm sure she felt it.
01:13To change their world and ours.
01:18She is sassy, she is fearless, she is badass queen.
01:239th of August, 1588.
01:46Queen Elizabeth I is about to make the most important speech of her life.
01:51This was undoubtedly the greatest danger that Elizabeth had ever faced.
01:58And so she must have been full of fear.
02:02Over 120 ships from Spain, the most powerful nation in the world, are on their way to invade Elizabeth's realm and remove her from the throne.
02:14Spain is this great superpower.
02:16It looks like England is going to be crushed under Spain's boot.
02:19To save herself and her country, Elizabeth must stop this armada.
02:27This is such a defining moment in female sovereignty.
02:32But just over 50 years earlier, the idea that Elizabeth would be a warrior queen was unimaginable.
02:41May 1536.
02:53Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, is being held prisoner at the Tower of London.
02:59To say Elizabeth suffered a difficult childhood would be something of an understatement.
03:07She only just managed to escape with her life.
03:11Anne stands accused of committing adultery with five men, including incest with her own brother.
03:18But her real crime was failing to give her husband, King Henry VIII, a male heir.
03:26Just over two and a half years earlier, Anne had given birth to their daughter, Princess Elizabeth.
03:36Elizabeth's birth was a crushing disappointment for Henry VIII.
03:41He desperately needed a male heir.
03:44But unlike her father, her mother, Anne, doted on her daughter.
03:57Anne Boleyn nurtured her young baby infant, Elizabeth, placing her on a cushion next to her rather than remotely in a nursery.
04:06Reportedly, Anne actually wanted to breastfeed her own daughter.
04:12Typically, a royal child would have been sent to a wet nurse.
04:15So that gives us some insight as to the kind of mother that Anne Boleyn was.
04:23Now, Anne is found guilty of adultery, incest and high treason.
04:28On the King's orders, Elizabeth's mother is beheaded.
04:32Elizabeth is not yet three years old.
04:44Twenty miles north of London, and far from the political intrigue of the royal court, is the Palace of Hatfield.
04:53Where, at three months old, Princess Elizabeth was brought here, and this was home.
04:57This was where she had her childhood.
04:59It was very likely that Elizabeth was here when she found out that her mother had been beheaded.
05:07She was less than three when Anne Boleyn was executed, but she knew immediately that something profound had happened.
05:14She famously asked her governor,
05:16Why are people calling me just Lady Elizabeth, not Princess Elizabeth? What's changed?
05:23According to her father, Elizabeth is now illegitimate.
05:28She's called a bastard, so she's no longer a princess, which is a huge thing.
05:33Being declared a bastard at three years old is absolutely incredible.
05:37It's a label that would haunt Elizabeth throughout her childhood.
05:44She would have been left feeling quite insecure about her own safety and security.
05:49If her father could have her mother beheaded, what might happen to her?
05:54Elizabeth was painfully aware that people didn't expect any good of her because of who her mother was.
06:09She was known as the little whore because her mother, Anne Boleyn, was the great whore.
06:16And so she set out from her early teens, really, to project this image of purity.
06:25She was always seen with a religious book in her hand.
06:28She dressed very soberly in order to project this idea that she was morally beyond reproach, unlike her mother.
06:39Elizabeth quickly develops a survival strategy, which she describes in a letter.
06:48It is my nature not to say in words as much as I think in my mind.
06:55She was humble. She was obedient. She's not.
07:01She pretended to be what they wanted her to be.
07:07It's a tactic she would use again and again, even as queen.
07:14She is as slippery to us as historians as she was to the people that surrounded her.
07:21And that may have just saved her life.
07:23November, 1558.
07:36Elizabeth is sitting under an oak tree at Hatfield Palace, when she discovers her half-sister, Mary I, has died.
07:44It's news that will change the 25-year-old princess's life and the world forever.
07:54Elizabeth is last in the line of her siblings in her father's succession.
07:59It's going to go Edward, then Mary, then her.
08:03Now, Elizabeth is queen.
08:11She was supposedly either eating an apple or reading a book when she was told she was queen of England.
08:18It was said that she said it was the Lord's doing and it was marvellous in our eyes.
08:25It's a huge moment. It's a defining moment.
08:28It's that transition moment that she thought may never have happened.
08:31The new queen is keen to assert her authority.
08:38Just three days after ascending to the throne, she calls the first meeting of her closest advisers.
08:45The Privy Council, in this room at Hatfield Palace.
08:49You can really gain a sense of the intimacy.
08:54It's just amazing that we get to walk into a space with such history.
09:00And it's such a small room, but it's such a powerful moment in Elizabeth's life.
09:06In this first council, she charges her councillors to commit to her, to commit to her reign.
09:12She had to command the room and she had to assert her authority.
09:19Elizabeth knows she has inherited a kingdom in trouble.
09:23When Elizabeth comes to the throne, she inherits the economy that her father destroyed.
09:29Her brother has instituted a prayer book that was unpopular, that led to an uprising.
09:36His government also allowed the enclosure of common land that people had once been able to graze their sheep or cows upon.
09:44This has now been enclosed. This leads to another rebellion.
09:48Mary's reign had been brief and pretty disastrous.
09:53She had been determined to put her stamp on the country in terms of her Catholic religion.
09:59Elizabeth's going to have to reconstruct a nation in chaos, financially, religiously, diplomatically, internationally.
10:14Absolute nightmare that she's going to have to fix somehow.
10:18She was inheriting a big job. She is now the queen and commanding every room that she ever will walk into.
10:30I imagine it was very overwhelming for her. I imagine there were moments where she probably felt fear.
10:35Few people expect that she'll succeed.
10:39In Tudor England, women were very much second-class citizens.
10:44They were considered inferior in every single respect, physically, intellectually, spiritually.
10:51The rule of a woman is a thing against nature, is against God's natural order.
10:58For a woman to come to the throne requires accidents of fate to happen, requires princes to die, requires a situation where blood trumps gender.
11:09But Elizabeth will prove the world wrong.
11:15Elizabeth I is the definition of a badass queen.
11:19She is not going to be dominated by anyone.
11:3815th of January, 1559.
11:42Today, two months after she ascended to the throne, Elizabeth I is being crowned.
11:47At her coronation, the 25-year-old queen is going to resolve an issue that's been plaguing England for decades, once and for all.
11:58There was a long-established tradition that the monarch would set out for their coronation from the Tower of London, and Elizabeth did just that.
12:08The coronation procession sets off from the Tower of London heading towards Westminster Abbey.
12:18Elizabeth must have experienced a whole set of conflicting emotions at being back.
12:22Her own mother had been put to death at the Tower.
12:26It was one of the worst places on earth for Elizabeth, but she was returning in triumph as Queen of England.
12:34She was carried in a litter of yellow and gold, and everybody had come out to see this very glamorous young queen who had more than a whiff of scandal about her past.
12:51Now she is Queen, Elizabeth would no longer be shamed.
12:58Anne Boleyn's name had hardly been mentioned since her execution more than 20 years before, but now Elizabeth celebrated her.
13:05There was a life-size model of Anne Boleyn on the processional route. She celebrated her. She was proud to be the daughter of Anne Boleyn.
13:20Elizabeth arrives at Westminster Abbey, where 20 kings of England have been crowned over the past 500 years.
13:29Entering this church, Elizabeth knows that England's religious divisions must be tackled if she's going to keep her throne.
13:38Elizabeth knows that when she comes to the throne, at least half her subjects think she has no right to be there.
13:45Ever since her father broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 to marry her mother, England has been divided.
13:57While the country remained Protestant under her brother Edward VI, her sister, Mary I, was a devout Catholic.
14:05Mary attempts to reinforce ardent Roman Catholic worship on the country.
14:11Those who fail to adhere to this will be punished in the most extraordinary way. Publicly. We're going to burn you alive.
14:24It's during the coronation ceremony itself. Elizabeth chooses to reveal exactly how she will rule.
14:32With the accession of Elizabeth, a Protestant queen, I think there was an expectation that she was going to take revenge against all of the persecution that her sister, Mary, had imposed against Protestants.
14:49Elizabeth passes a book to the bishop leading the ceremony and fixes him with a steely look.
14:58Elizabeth's approach to religion was dramatically different to what had gone before.
15:04She wants the gospel to be read twice, once in Latin and once in English.
15:13This has never been done at any coronation before.
15:17Elizabeth was undoubtedly Protestant in her heart. She'd been raised that way.
15:23But above all else, she was a pragmatist. She wanted unity in her kingdom. She wanted an end to these deep-seated divisions between Catholics and Protestants.
15:37So her aim, as the new Queen of England, was to unite the warring factions in her country.
15:43The language you could pray in was a major point of contention between Catholics and Protestants.
15:51Using both Latin and English in her coronation ceremony, Elizabeth is signalling that there is space for both kinds of worship in her kingdom.
16:01It's reported that she says she doesn't seek to make windows into men's souls.
16:06And what this, I think, means is that as long as you conform outwardly to the things that matter, as long as you attend the Church of England, because that's important, messages from the Crown come there, this is how we build communities, this is how we make you loyal.
16:24As long as you attend those, frequently enough, you can believe what you want in private.
16:29Four months after her coronation, Elizabeth's radical attitude to religion is made law, changing the world forever by helping to establish a religion still practised today.
16:44I think the religious settlement is probably one of Elizabeth's greatest achievements.
16:50She is absolutely asserting her authority over a male-dominated court and a male-dominated church.
17:01Huge moment in the history of the monarchy. Without it, we wouldn't have the Church of England as it is today.
17:081563.
17:19Elizabeth has been on the throne for five years.
17:24She's single and has a genius plan to use her relationship status to enhance her power on the world stage.
17:31The way for women in this period to secure their power, their place in society, whether they are a farmer's wife or indeed in the royal court, is through marriage.
17:45And Elizabeth, at this stage in her life, is really no different. There is a huge and mounting pressure for her to marry.
17:51This is the first full-length portrait commissioned by the palace. It will be sent to the most eligible bachelors in Europe.
18:01In the Tudor period, flowers, both in paintings and in real life, are a way of encoding messages and saying things to people.
18:10And in this image, there are an abundance of flowers behind her. We're being told by this that she is fertile, she's young, she's beautiful, she's in bloom.
18:21The pearls that are draped across her body, they're a symbol of purity.
18:26And in this context, when she's a young woman looking to marry, this is about purity on the marriage market.
18:31In Elizabeth's hand is a carnation, and this is a really clear symbol of matrimony.
18:37It's a flower that she is holding close to her body, she's ready to give herself as a bride.
18:45But in reality, when it comes to agreeing to a match, Elizabeth seems hesitant.
18:52After your dad's had your mother beheaded, I think it's reasonable to think that she would have a view of marriage as being dangerous.
19:04After her mother's death, her father's next wife is one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour.
19:11Jane passes away not long after Edward's birth from complications from childbirth.
19:17Henry, her father, will go in to marry three more times. Anne of Cleves, that's a disaster.
19:25Catherine Howard ends in an execution.
19:28It's said that after her stepmother, Catherine Howard is dragged to her execution, pleading for her life.
19:36An eight-year-old Elizabeth declares that she will never marry.
19:39Elizabeth's early life experiences perhaps left her feeling uncomfortable with the idea of marriage on an emotional level.
19:51One of the things we know is that when you haven't had really consistent, warm, nurturing relationships with early attachment figures in your life,
20:01you are more likely to remain single and you are more likely to want to be self-reliant and to not want to commit to an intimate relationship.
20:17It's Elizabeth's final stepmother, Catherine Parr, who takes care of her when her father, Henry VIII, dies.
20:29Elizabeth goes and lives with Catherine after her father's death and also with Catherine's new husband, Thomas Seymour, who is not a good man.
20:39We have records of, you know, we found them together, he's half-naked, he's trying to tickle her.
20:51She is potentially a victim of grooming and what we would now see as child sexual exploitation.
20:58Perhaps she chose not to have any truck with men because of that.
21:02And yet, as Queen, Elizabeth is willing to entertain a whole host of suitors.
21:19She was not exactly what she wanted.
21:23Play in a male-dominated world.
21:26On the international marriage market, so she gave a very willing ear to a whole suite of different suitors from across Europe.
21:40Keeping them in play, giving them just enough encouragement to talk of alliance and then always backing out at the last moment.
21:49Elizabeth is using her single status as the ultimate diplomatic tool.
21:56She knows if a foreign prince is courting her, he cannot also go to war with her.
22:01They keep bringing men and she plays with men's vanity.
22:06Believes that, yes, they can woo her, they can change her mind.
22:09The fact that she could pretend that she just might was part of her absolute genius as Queen.
22:201581.
22:26Elizabeth has just rejected another suitor.
22:29The proposal by Francis, Duke of Anjou, was widely considered her last chance to get married.
22:38Now, aged 48, she's seen as past it.
22:41What Elizabeth was doing in choosing to be Queen without a husband, without going down the conventional path for women, was incomprehensible to her subjects, to the world.
22:55They just had no explanation for this. They couldn't understand it. How could a woman rule her own life, let alone her country, without a man to tell her what to do?
23:10But Elizabeth will use men to keep her grip on power and leave her mark on the world.
23:25February 1577.
23:28At her palace in Greenwich, Queen Elizabeth the first has just met with a privateer called Francis Drake.
23:33She has given Drake the equivalent of around £60,000 to carry out a secret mission.
23:44One that will not only break international law, but leave a stain on her country's reputation for centuries to come.
23:54In the 1550s, when Elizabeth the first became Queen of England, England was financially in a very difficult situation.
24:03Therefore, the monarch and her privy council looked for opportunistic moments where money could be obtained.
24:14Ten months after their meeting, Drake set sail aboard the Pelican, his iconic ship that would later be known as the Golden Hind.
24:23Officially, he is attempting to be the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.
24:28But his real mission from the Queen is to raid Spanish ships laden with riches from the New World.
24:38Francis Drake headed up a band of pirates.
24:41They very much ran around as, like, renegades on the seas, attacking Spanish settlements and Spanish ships,
24:48taking gold, resources, things that would be financially beneficial for England.
24:55From one ship alone, Drake stole treasure worth the equivalent of around £480 million in today's money.
25:05But his voyage of discovery didn't just fill the Queen's coffers.
25:09North of Mexico, Drake claims England's first territory in the New World.
25:14New Albion.
25:19Elizabeth was instrumental in beginning the colonisation of America precisely because she sanctioned it.
25:29Elizabeth saw colonisation as a crucial step in funding the country, but also establishing England on the world stage.
25:37At this point, the Spanish and Portuguese empires had really dominated the New World.
25:43So this was important for England to position itself as an empire rather than just a single country.
25:49Elizabeth is so instrumental in colonising the New World that in 1585, when Sir Walter Raleigh tries to set up the first permanent English settlement in North America,
25:59he calls it Virginia, in honour of his Queen.
26:04And these new colonies would change England forever.
26:08People like Walter Raleigh and Drake, they've bought in goods that were new and unusual to this country.
26:16Some of these goods and services have become part and parcel of English culture.
26:21Tobacco, cigarettes, the potato that we might regard as being an entirely English thing.
26:30Of course it's not. It comes about as a result of Englishmen being involved in these sorts of activity.
26:38But Elizabeth is also involved in the beginnings of a much darker trade.
26:42During Elizabeth's reign, this was the first time that the English had participated in the enslavement of African people.
26:55John Hawkins, another of Elizabeth's state-sanctioned pirates, made three expeditions to West Africa during the 1560s.
27:05All enthusiastically supported by the Queen, and all to enslave Africans.
27:14If Elizabeth hadn't sponsored the likes of Sir Walter Raleigh and John Hawkins and the other pirates, essentially, history would be very different.
27:24This was the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade.
27:271585. Elizabeth is 52 years old. A new portrait of her is being painted.
27:50And this new image will cement her power, not only in her reign, but throughout the centuries.
27:57Elizabeth really becomes the Queen of Spin. She is a master manipulator of her image and what it can do in the world.
28:06What's so important about Elizabeth, about this portrait in particular, is that she's really pioneering artworks, portraiture, as a way to tell her story.
28:16And she's the first monarch who really harnesses that to her advantage.
28:22For years, Elizabeth has actively promoted herself as a virgin.
28:29Let's not go into that if it was true or not.
28:31But so many ambassadors reporting that Robert Dudley left the private chamber of the Queen at 4am in the morning.
28:39Honestly, did they play chess all night?
28:41Now, that carefully curated image is a liability.
28:48There is no clear air, which leaves a huge question mark over the entirety of her reign.
28:55That lack of security over what the future will hold.
28:57This carefully curated image making is more than mere vanity.
29:04It's absolutely essential to project Elizabeth's authority.
29:10And as a female ruler, she has to work so much harder than a man.
29:15This latest portrait is going to weaponise her virginity.
29:24To the side of her, pawing at her arm, we have this ermine.
29:31The ermine is in some ways perhaps a surprising addition to the portrait.
29:36It doesn't necessarily seem to fit in there.
29:39But its pure white fur is a reference perhaps to Elizabeth's virginity.
29:47And the fact that we see it here with Elizabeth, it's a living animal.
29:52It has apparently a relationship with her.
29:54It's touching her. It's accompanying her.
29:56We're seeing in this moment that she is doubling down on that idea of her virginity as her power, as the power that she wields in the world.
30:09Elizabeth is no longer a virgin queen.
30:13She is THE virgin queen.
30:15By becoming the virgin queen, she turns what could be a bad thing, i.e. that she's not marrying and she's not securing this succession, into a good thing.
30:26Because she projects this image that she stands alone, that she has no room to marry another because she's already the bride of the nation.
30:34That her whole life is dedicated to the service of England.
30:38So she turns what could be her greatest weakness into her greatest strength.
30:41Soon, all images of Elizabeth will be carefully controlled by law.
30:50And they all have a distinctive look.
30:56The role of monarchy is to promote consistency.
31:00So therefore, to keep presenting yourself in the same way, looking the same way.
31:06But Elizabeth's appearance is changing.
31:09She's aging.
31:13The fact that Elizabeth's power was so bound up with her public image made it a huge challenge for her as she began to age.
31:25Many women fear that as we age, we somehow become less than, less capable, less desirable.
31:32We lose some of our power, perhaps.
31:35And it's as if Elizabeth knew this ahead of her time.
31:39That she knew that part of holding on to her power as queen was going to necessitate her doing whatever she could to hold back the clock.
31:50Ever thicker layers of makeup were applied, wigs were used, all of these various little tricks to give the impression that Elizabeth was eternally youthful.
32:05If you look at her portraits, you would think she didn't change from the age of 25 to the age of almost 70.
32:10Now that was about more than just vanity.
32:14It was vital to betray no sign of physical weakness.
32:20She had to remain invincible.
32:22From the 1590s, all portraits of the queen show her with what's become known as the mask of youth.
32:33The classic Elizabeth is the white face, the sort of otherworldly beauty.
32:39Elizabeth does an age. That's not true. Everyone does. But Elizabeth does an age. She's still magnificent, beautiful.
32:47Right until the end of her reign, she's holding on to this idea of herself, this version of herself as a youthful virgin queen.
32:54Early August, 1588. Elizabeth has made a 25-mile journey down the river Thames to Tilbury, Essex.
33:15It's just amazing to be here. I've studied Elizabeth for so many years, I've never actually walked in her footsteps here.
33:28And imagines her arriving on the 8th of August by barge from central London from St James's Palace.
33:35And apparently shots rang out to salute her.
33:39Elizabeth is greeted not only by celebratory gunfire, but 3,000 soldiers.
33:44These troops are at Tilbury to defend queen and country against a Spanish invasion.
33:53Spain is this great superpower. It's a huge threat to England to have the biggest power in the world kind of knocking on their door with their massive navy.
34:03Ever since Elizabeth rejected Philip II's marriage proposal, Spain and England have been engaged in an unofficial war.
34:11Spain is Catholic and now England under Elizabeth is Protestant.
34:18England is seen as a religious threat. England is seen as a threat to their empire that has to be dealt with.
34:23Now, over 120 Spanish ships are in the English Channel.
34:30Spain amassed an enormous fleet with the blessings of the Pope.
34:35It had been imbued now with a religious purpose, not just a political and an economic one.
34:39This heretic Protestant nation that had forsaken God now has to be brought to heel.
34:48For the past 10 days, Elizabeth's sailors have been fighting this armada at sea.
34:54Now, there are rumours a Spanish invasion force could land today.
35:01Elizabeth has come to what could soon be the front line.
35:06This was all pretty unprecedented for a woman. Kings had led armies in battles in history, but not queens. So it was quite extraordinary.
35:19She came here to inspect the block house that was just behind me here.
35:25Now, that was absolutely key strategically because the block house defended the Thames.
35:32Now she's here. Elizabeth can see preparations for the imminent invasion aren't going well.
35:38Worst still, morale among the troops is low.
35:44The men here were tired. They were hungry. Many of them were unpaid.
35:50And I think Elizabeth knew that she had to do something.
35:53Instead of returning to a nearby manor house for the night, it's said that Elizabeth stayed here to dine with her troops.
36:01This is a woman who's used to dining in luxurious palaces, being served the best food, yet she's here in a kind of mess room with her troops.
36:14Conditions couldn't have been that pleasant, but Elizabeth didn't seem to care what it was like here.
36:21The point of her being here was to show solidarity with her men, to inspire them for what might lie ahead.
36:28It's absolutely crucial that she boosts morale to see off this greatest threat that England had faced in about 500 years.
36:40Tomorrow, Elizabeth is scheduled to inspect her troops.
36:44But she has decided she needs to do more than that.
36:47She has to go and address her troops.
36:54And so she'll have been working on this speech, probably up late in the night, thinking about what she's going to say.
37:01Because it has to absolutely hit the nail on the head and be something that's going to turn these men who are tired and hungry into troops who are ready to face the enemy.
37:12And that's all now down to Elizabeth.
37:15Queen Elizabeth the first is in Tilbury, ready to review her troops on Gun Hill ahead of a Spanish invasion.
37:35Spain was one of the most powerful nations in Western Europe.
37:42England was not. And not only was it not, it was not prepared.
37:48What happens next will become one of the most iconic moments, not only of Elizabeth's reign, but of any reign in history.
37:59It's quite something standing here and looking out towards Gun Hill.
38:06I can see the church there and that would have been there in Elizabeth's day.
38:10She could have just travelled over there by carriage, like she did around London most of the time.
38:15But instead, she rides out from here on horseback.
38:19She wants to portray herself as this great military leader and she's dressed like that, apparently with a plumed helmet and a steel breastplate.
38:33She has to make an impact.
38:40Everything rested on what she was now going to say to her troops.
38:46Never had her words counted for more than they did now.
38:49My loving people, not my obedient servants, not my royal subjects, my loving people.
39:00She's not saying, you must obey me.
39:03She's inviting them to love her.
39:08It's almost as if she's being maternal towards her troops and saying, let's do this together.
39:15I am come amongst you, as you see, being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all.
39:26It's completely over the top.
39:29If there was even a moment where a sword came remotely close to English soil that had a Spaniard behind it, she would be away, locked up in the White Tower of London, hoping that this all went away.
39:40But the speech she gives is a masterclass in what she sees queenship is, how she views her own character and what she thinks her strengths are.
39:53She might not be as strong as the men who are on the field.
40:07In the end, it's her courage, heart, stomach, right, that matter most.
40:12And on that, there's no one who is her equal.
40:18Because she's a king.
40:20I think Elizabeth sees herself as more than female.
40:23She has this idea that rulers have a body politic and a body natural.
40:27So the body politic is the office, and that can be held by anyone.
40:32The body natural can be female, but the office is genderless.
40:35And I think Elizabeth really realizes the potential of this.
40:40That she can be beyond gender, that she can be king, that she can be prince, that she can be the ruler, that she can be the sovereign.
40:47And the fact that she is a woman bears no import to her ability to lead.
40:52And think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.
41:03She is furious that anybody should dare to invade.
41:07She's really firing up her men to feel furious with her.
41:11When she described the king of Spain attempting to invade her lands, to invade her shores, she conjured up an image for Englishmen that they had to defend her honor and defend her virginity.
41:26This was a very powerful image to push the men of the nation to defend that nation in a way in which a male monarch cannot.
41:35This was a very powerful image.
41:38Days later, Elizabeth is able to declare victory over the Spanish Armada.
41:46What happened was unimaginable. Elizabeth should have lost.
41:51At first, we're going to have fake news saying that actually the English have lost because it could not have gone any other way.
41:59But soon, the world would learn the truth.
42:02It spread in Morocco.
42:06A Muslim empire.
42:09And the emperor saw Elizabeth as his equal.
42:12And in a Muslim country, they were saying that Elizabeth was a strong woman, was a strong leader.
42:19Even Elizabeth's greatest enemy on earth, the Pope, is impressed at this moment.
42:25He says, you know, she's only a woman, she's only mistress of half an island, yet she makes herself feared.
42:36Elizabeth wants to fully claim the victory.
42:38Riding on this victory, she creates what is essentially a work of powerful and almost unprecedented propaganda.
42:53The Armada portrait is really a masterclass in how to assemble an Elizabethan portrait.
42:58That's three separate versions, which tells you just how important this image is.
43:08Once she won against Spain, she no longer needs to be the Virgin Mary who was pure and almost perfect.
43:14Because now she's the equal of any kings, of any emperors.
43:21Have seen her arms.
43:23You have two tiny hands and you have the arm of a man.
43:27And she touches with one hand a globe.
43:29And here what she's saying is like, I'm now a prayer.
43:34And England intends to be a prayer.
43:38Her whole body here is bedecked in jewels.
43:42We have them all across her dress.
43:44We have them in her hairpiece, in her ruffs.
43:47But most importantly, there's one pearl that hangs down over her genitals.
43:52Now, in the portraiture of her father's court, Henry VIII's court,
43:56male genitalia were often covered with a codpiece.
43:59And a big codpiece suggested male virility, male power.
44:03It became a symbol of a powerful king.
44:06In Elizabeth's case, she's drawing attention down to this area.
44:11And the pearl, which we know is a symbol of virginity,
44:15is absolutely drawing the viewer to think about not only her physical virginity,
44:21but also the impenetrability of England in this moment of great victory.
44:29What Elizabeth is doing here is really flipping this idea of male power and male virility.
44:38Elizabeth I is widely considered to be one of the greatest sovereigns,
44:42full stop, male or female.
44:43And I think with good reason.
44:46What's amazing about Elizabeth is that she managed to be incredibly successful against all the odds.
44:53Illegitimate, female, you know, outcast.
44:58Her mother had been executed.
45:01And yet, Elizabeth emerged as one of the greatest monarchs that Britain had ever seen.
45:11Elizabeth I has become a symbol of how a woman should rule,
45:16a symbol of an English queen.
45:18And in many ways, later monarchs like Queen Anne and Queen Victoria took her as a prototype.
45:23Even Elizabeth II took her as a prototype.
45:32Elizabeth made queenship viable.
45:36She made it conceivable as a concept that a woman could rule,
45:41and rule effectively.
45:43And so fundamentally changed the perception of monarchy to include women.
45:48She'd gained not only acceptance as a female monarch, but admiration.
45:59In short, she'd made England fall in love with queens.
46:03We ferocious.
46:04And for more queens that changed the world from Anne to Victoria,
46:11and all in between, stream every episode right now.
46:14And our deep dive into Elizabeth continues tonight.
46:16Strangers, secrets and scandal in becoming Elizabeth.
46:19Stream or watch live from 9.15.
46:22Next tonight, meeting farming families from across the pond.
46:25Matt Baker's travels in the country, USA.
46:27We ferocious.
46:28We ferocious.
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