This Week in YouTube June 22
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Hey friends, welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. This is the weekly highlight reel of videos that I have put out on YouTube. So in case you don't know, you can go over to YouTube and watch all my videos. The channel is History and Coffee, and you can just search for my name as well, Heather Tesco, History and Coffee, and you will get it. And you can subscribe there. Thank you to the many people who already subscribe. And then what I've started doing is

weekly highlight reels of some of the videos that have gone out on YouTube that would be of interest to the podcast listeners as well. So thanks for listening. And you can also, like I said, go over and join me on YouTube history and coffee and search for Heather. And there I am. So let's get right into it. Should Lady Jane Grey have actually been called Jane the first? This is one of the many, many topics that Tudor enthusiasts still debate today.

centuries later. I put a poll up last week to ask people what they thought, and the results are pretty mixed. It's clearly something that we still have thoughts and opinions about. So thank you to everybody who filled that out. There are so many moments like that in Tudor history, these kind of sliding glass doors of what-ifs and decisions that were made.

that we can still argue about, that reasonable people can still disagree about. And it's really fun to get into those debates to look at those big controversies. Like, was Elizabeth I right to have killed Mary, Queen of Scots? Did Henry VIII's will actually matter? Should Thomas Seymour actually have been executed? Should Catherine of Aragon have stepped aside? These are like big questions that actually kind of changed the arc of Tudor history. And there are still people on both sides

who disagree, who argue for one side or the other. So today we are going to talk about four of the biggest controversies of Tudor England. I'll tell you my opinion on them at the end. I'm not going to get into it while I'm reporting it, but I will tell you my opinion at the end. So

So the first one we're going to start with is should Catherine of Aragon have stepped aside? Catherine of Aragon was no stranger to sacrifice. She had been a Spanish Infanta raised to believe that her destiny was to be queen. She was the daughter of a warrior queen, the daughter of Queen Isabella. And she held onto that belief. She was forceful about that belief. But what if she had let go?

What if instead of digging in her heels during Henry's great matter, she had actually just stepped aside. And there actually was a precedent for this. A few decades before Joan of France, the Duchess of Berry, who had been the wife of Louis XII, her marriage was annulled and she retired to a convent in Bourges. Now Joan had married Louis XII through an arranged marriage, but then he annulled it so that he could marry Anne of Brittany.

Joan went on to found the order of the Annunciation was later canonized, was a saint. So that's an example of what Catherine of Aragon's path might have been had she stepped aside. Catherine had already given Henry a daughter. It was clear she wasn't going to have any more living children, and she could understand that probably Henry needed a male heir. She knew what England had gone through with the Wars of the Roses. So if she had gracefully exited the stage, perhaps claiming a religious calling,

Henry might have remarried without launching the full-scale rebellion against Rome. So I think it's one of these big ironies that Catherine was fighting so hard to keep England Catholic, to keep herself as queen, to keep England with the Pope, that she actually kind of forced Henry into this rebellion. If she had...

Let go. It's very possible that England would have stayed Catholic. There wouldn't have been a Thomas Cromwell. There wouldn't have been a Cranmer. There wouldn't have been a disillusion. No break from the Pope. It's an irony that is kind of too big to ignore. In fighting to remain queen, Catherine also may have set into motion the destruction of everything that she was trying to protect.

But stepping aside was never really going to be an option for her. She wasn't just a wife. She was a princess of Spain, the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand. Stepping aside would have meant branding Mary a bastard. And that was never going to happen. So what do you think? Was Catherine right to have fought for her rights, to have fought for Mary's rights? Or should she have maybe just stepped aside? Let me know.

All right, the second one, should Elizabeth have actually executed Mary, Queen of Scots? This is one of the biggest controversies of Elizabeth I's reign. This one's really tricky because we know how it ends. Elizabeth reluctantly finally signs Mary's death warrant in 1587 and Mary, Queen of Scots loses her head and gains martyrdom. But it took Elizabeth 19 years to get to that point.

And for almost every one of those years, people were telling her that execution was the smart move. The argument for execution was really straightforward. Mary had a legitimate claim to Elizabeth's throne. We have to first look back at what the Catholics believed about the marriage of Anne Boleyn to Henry.

Catherine of Aragon was still alive when Elizabeth was born, which meant that the marriage of Henry and Anne, in the eyes of Catholics who did not think that the marriage had been dissolved,

That was bigamy. The marriage between Henry and Anne was an illegitimate marriage. And so that meant that Elizabeth was an illegitimate child. So if you believe that, you look to the next person who's in line for the succession, and it just happens to be a Catholic like yourself, and that's Mary Queen of Scots. So Mary Queen of Scots was also the center of every Catholic plot for two decades, especially the Babington plot, which finally sealed her fate.

And as long as Mary lived, Catholic Europe had hope. But Elizabeth hesitated again and again and again.

Killing a fellow monarch was unthinkable. Can you imagine if the roles had been reversed? If she was kept prisoner somewhere and someone killed her? It wasn't just about guilt. It was about precedent. It set the example that a fellow monarch could be executed for being a threat. And then how would that ever stop someone from potentially turning that logic on her?

Even when she finally relented, Elizabeth still performed this great pantomime of outrage when the warrant was carried out, claiming she never meant for it to happen. Was she being sincere or clever or cowardly? Either way, the execution did remove a threat,

And though it created a martyr, it solved a problem, but it didn't do it quietly. It actually then directly led to the Armada. It ramped up the war with Spain, which cost thousands of other lives. So I don't know. Should she have executed Mary Queen of Scots? What do you think? Next, should Thomas Seymour have been executed?

Thomas Seymour, equal parts ambitious and charming and really reckless. The brother of Jane Seymour, uncle to Edward VI, Thomas managed to marry the Dowager Queen, Catherine Parr, only a couple of months after Henry VIII's death, which scandalized Mary, for example, Princess Mary. And if that wasn't bold enough, he started getting a little too friendly with the teenage Princess Elizabeth while living under the same roof.

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But was that enough to get him executed? The real issue wasn't just Elizabeth. It was his attempt to break into the king's chambers at Hampton Court, supposedly to check on the boy in the middle of the night. He also tried to manipulate his way into the regency. It was messy. It was desperate. It was not in the least bit subtle. His brother, Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, used this as an excuse to get rid of him. There's also the idea that he quite possibly shot the dog, Edward's dog.

And anybody who comes to TudorCon or watches TudorCon online is part of it online or in person will remember we have this ongoing debate about whether or not Tom actually shot the dog. And Janet Wertman every year brings her little stuffed dog in. And it's kind of one of those bits of lore of TudorCon. Anyway, Edward said that Tom was committing treason and

And Tom was found guilty and Thomas lost his head. Poor Edward VI, first having to execute one uncle with Tom Seymour, and then he had to execute Edward Seymour. Then later, that would have such trauma that Edward had cakes. Anyway, of course, Thomas lost his head. But was it necessary? Some argue that he was more fool than traitor. He was dangerous, sure, but perhaps only to himself.

Others say he was just one lucky break away from taking over the kingdom.

Either way, he didn't live long enough for any of us to find out. What do you think? Should Tom Seymour have been executed? And finally, the last one we're going to look at today was Henry VIII's will meaningless. And this comes back to whether or not Jane Grey should have been called Jane I. So Henry VIII's will was meant to be the final word on everything. He even had it signed with a dry stamp so that no one could claim that he hadn't approved it.

It laid out a clear succession. Edward, then Mary, then Elizabeth. After them, the heirs of his younger sister, Mary Tudor, not the Scottish line from Margaret. But here's the thing. Parliament never ratified any of the sections beyond Elizabeth. So that means that the succession order had no legal force once Elizabeth had died.

Edward tried to override it with his device for the succession, naming Lady Jane Grey, something that Henry's will did not allow. And then when Elizabeth died in 1603, no one even glanced at the document. It was like 60 years old by that point. James VI of Scotland was crowned without any reference to it, despite being from the line of Margaret Tudor, whom Henry had explicitly left out.

So, was the whole thing performative? A way for Henry to feel like he was in control, even from beyond the grave?

It turns out that once the king dies, paper doesn't matter as much as power and Henry's carefully written future actually never came to pass. So what do you think about any of these? I will tell you my opinion. I am an Episcopalian, so I'm actually quite happy that Catherine fought as hard as she did and the Reformation came to pass in England and came to pass the way it did because I still go to a church that uses the Book of Common Prayer, which is a Cranmer, you know, came from Cranmer. So

I'm a fan of that. But I think that from Catherine's perspective, if you were fighting to keep Catholicism and to keep England loyal to the Pope, she actually really failed at that. And it kind of reminds me of the whole kind of Zen Buddhist idea that what you resist persists and the idea of like detachment and shaming.

She was so attached to her rights and she was so attached to England being loyal to the Pope and all of that, that she actually kind of lost sight of what was happening, which was that Henry was getting further and further away from the Pope. And, you know, the whole thing just backfired so spectacularly on her. I think things could have been so different from her also not having seen her daughter for years. You know, if she had just stepped aside, said, you know what, my bad, like, you're right. It was consummated. I admit was married to Arthur. We probably shouldn't do this.

and understood Henry's position that he really needed a male heir. And also he was like falling for Anne Boleyn and he's the king and he can kind of like do that. And also there was precedent with Cologne in France that had just happened a couple of decades before. So had she stepped aside, she probably would have been given a very generous, um,

Look at what happened with the Annapleaves. She got an amazing settlement. Catherine would have been sent to the convent of her choice and she was very religious anyway. So she probably would have been good for her. She would have been able to continue seeing her daughter. And she probably could have had a really wonderful marriage negotiated for Mary. And it's...

And instead, Mary never got married until she was too old to have children. It's like one of the great tragedies about Mary Tudor is that all she wanted was a child for so long. And there were so many times where she was betrothed and then it didn't work out. And my heart really goes out to Mary with that because she really wanted to be a mom. And the way she took care of Elizabeth, even though she had every reason to hate Elizabeth, yet they were very close. And she looked at Elizabeth the way a mother would look at her child and

I really feel for Mary that she never had that. So I think like Katherine wound up actually hurting Mary more and

hurting her cause more because then Mary had this whole vendetta to get England back to being Catholic. And look at poor Mary's remembered as Bloody Mary, which, you know, the whole thing, I think, just backfired so spectacularly on Catherine. So I think that from her perspective, it was a failure and she probably should have stepped aside and things would have worked out a lot better for her. But I also understand she was the Spanish Infanta. She was the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand. She was not going to give up. And so I get it.

But it's again, it's kind of like, I think about that, that saying, what you resist persists and she resisted a lot and it persisted and she, it didn't really work out for her. But then again, I am an Episcopalian, so I'm a fan of the book of common prayer. So it all worked out for me. And really I am the center of the universe. So of course my opinion is what matters most. Everybody is the center of their own little universe, right? And I'm the center of my universe and you are the center of your universe.

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My opinions about the other ones are not as strong. I will say that. So should Elizabeth have executed Mary, Queen of Scots? I think it sets a really bad precedent. I think it was also she wishy-washy. I don't I'm not a fan of the way she handled that. But again, I see her perspective. Mary, Queen of Scots was not particularly smart with the way she was getting herself involved in some of these plots. Mary, Queen of Scots was really not particularly politically savvy. Scotland was a mess. And I don't know that there could have been any other way for her.

But it also seems like some of this she brought about herself by being involved in these plots and by supporting them. But again, if I was in her shoes, I don't think I would have done anything different. You know, that's the thing. When you walk in somebody else's shoes, like, of course you would have done what they did because that's what they did. So, yeah.

It all makes sense when you look at it like that. But I'm not a fan of the way Elizabeth handled it, but I'm also not a fan of the way Mary's Queen of Scots handled it. So not a fan of either. I don't think either party comes out looking particularly good in that scenario. Tom Seymour, again, I don't know what else you do. I don't know what else you do when you're the king. If somebody's being a threat to your throne, if somebody's treasonous, but was he treasonous? Yeah, I don't...

I don't really have an opinion on that one, but I know a lot of people do. So I'm curious what your opinion would be. And was Henry VIII's will meaningless? I mean, like everybody's will is meaningless ultimately because you're gone and you can't enforce it. And you just have to trust that the people around you are going to enforce it. And hopefully they do. But also it was like generations before. I don't think that now the succession would still go back and look at Henry VIII's will to figure out. And Henry VIII certainly didn't look back at the wills of

I don't know, William Rufus and figure out what William Rufus wanted or what Edward III wanted or anything like that. So, you know, you pass away and things change and that's what happens and that's life. So I think Henry VIII's will probably was meaningless and I don't know that it actually really matters that much. You guys, I get like really super, I don't know, zen about some of this stuff. I don't really get worked up about a lot of this stuff.

I get worked up about how people treat Lady Margaret Beaufort. I do get worked up about that one. But that's pretty much the only thing I get worked up about in Tudor history. I know you go on to like Facebook groups and people are arguing about this and arguing about that. And oh, well, if you thought this and if you thought that and blah. It's like, I don't know. Life is short, man. Go smell the flowers. Like these people have been dead for 400 years. Are we really getting ourselves that worked up about it?

And what I think about all of this is that we are so interested in it because it's so reflective of our own times that we're in. I see so many parallels and so many similarities to the times that we live in. Things like, for example, the idea of the printing press making information available that wasn't necessarily authorized, that didn't come through the proper channels, having that happen for the first time.

and what that opened up for people. And we see something very similar in the past 30 years with the internet and with social media. And also like, what can you trust, right? If somebody has a printing press in their basement and they're putting out pamphlets, can you trust that? And if somebody posts something on Twitter, can you trust that? I refuse to call it X. I like just, I can't do it. I got my first Twitter account in 2008.

And you still had, I had like one of those flip phones and you had to like text it to 40404. And that was like how you texted your update. And I'm, I refused to call it Twitter after that or to call it X. Anyway. So if somebody posts something on X, does that make it true? If somebody printed something from a printing press in their basement, does that make it true? Like, how do you know what is truth? And I feel like that's something that people in the 16th century were engaging with quite a bit. And we are engaging with quite a bit ourselves. And it's really important to us. Also the classifications.

class differences. In the 16th century, you saw this rise of the merchant class. You saw this rise of the middle class.

classes were realigning themselves, political affiliations were realigning themselves. And I see so much of that today as well with, you know, the rise of this whole different techno class that we never saw before and, you know, political realignments happening. It's fascinating. It's so interesting and it just so parallels what people then were experiencing. Questions about the role of government, you know, the poor laws that passed under Elizabeth and the

and the dissolution of the monasteries, and you're dissolving the monasteries which had been providing hospitals and schools and stuff for the poor, but you're not replacing it with anything. You didn't replace it with anything until the poor laws like 40 years later. And what is the role? What role do we have to each other? What obligations? What is the social contract that we have with each other? Do we have a social contract?

And that's something that I think people today are grappling with in ways that they in new ways, in ways that they hadn't necessarily grappled with before. And people were thinking about then as well, this change in like moving from serfdom to

And ending serfdom and moving where the Lord was responsible for the serfs and the serfs were tied to the land to this new place of mobility of a little bit more freedom. But also with that freedom, what responsibilities do you have? What responsibility does the king have? What responsibility does the government have?

If people are now free for themselves, does that mean that there's any more social contract? I don't know. And this is the stuff that I really nerd out on. So if you want to nerd out on that stuff with me too, leave me a comment and let me know and we can nerd out on that together.

Either way, I would love to know your thoughts on some of these controversies and other controversies that you would like to voice your opinion on. I'd be very interested. And if there's something new, we could stick a poll up as well and see what people think. And, you know, I think it's really important to like be able to practice having these arguments and realize they're reasonable. People can disagree because also I think I've said this before many, many times. I think it's good practice for us to like learn empathy and realize that if we can have these arguments, if we can walk in other people's shoes from the space of 500 years,

Maybe we can pull some of that back to today. If we got really good at it from 500 years ago, maybe we can pull some of that back today and start to understand where people who think differently from us are coming from today. So that is my spiel on that. Thanks so much for listening to this week's YouTube highlights. Remember, you can go over and subscribe. History and Coffee, Heather Tesco, you will find me there.

And we'll be back again next week with more highlights from what went out on YouTube throughout the week. Thanks so much. Have a great week.

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