Beyond the Roundels

I've just watched this for the first time and I thought, since it is one of those things that is supposed (here in the UK, anyway) to be a seminal piece of television, that people might be interested in my thoughts. Also I have screencapped it and there will therefore be pictures, including familiar faces from Doctor Who. (It was made in 1970, so there were a few.)

You need only worry about spoilers if you don't know if Elizabeth I married someone or not, or who won in England vs the Spanish Armada and what became of Mary Queen of Scots etc. Or are worried about knowing who dies in the end. (Um. They all do...?)

This got very long, so I'm doing it in two installments.

Elizabeth R
As I've said, this was a famous BBC production made in 1970, and talked about in hushed whispers ever since. It was produced as six separate plays, each focusing on a different event in Elizabeth's life and each written by a different writer. It was, I think repeated in the 1990s, when I wanted to watch it but was too shy to explain that to the rest of my family. (I was always strange.) I'm afraid, obvious and misguided though it probably was/is, ever since getting Discovery magazine when I was ten, I had a fascination with Elizabeth and her life and reign.

On starting to watch, it didn't take long before I was very much in agreement that you can scarcely give Glenda Jackson too much praise for her performance. No wonder she stopped and went into politics afterwards - what could she do to top this? However, though I enjoyed episode 1, eps 2 and 3 were good but a little more static and showing their age and I did pause to wonder if there was something of the Emperor's New Clothes about its reputation, but by the time I got to the end, I was in agreement with the 'seminal' verdict. (I can't imagine anything these days daring to end as this does; it was almost unbearable). So if you are used to watching older TV (because the pace, sets and theatre-like atmosphere are of its time) and enjoy a good historical drama, I recommend it wholeheartedly. It's been a long time since I read anything about Elizabeth, but certainly all the history tallies up on the 'what I can remember' score.

Onto pics and specifics and DW-related stuff...


Probably my favourite episode was the first (The Lion's Cub, by John Hale), although I also particularly liked Horrible Conspiracy and Pride of England (all of which are the ones with more treason, plotting and beheading. Clearly, I am a bad person). It follows the story of Elizabeth as a young woman, before she came to the throne, and knows it is a TV play, not a stage one and there are some interesting use of camera angles for the flashbacks in particular and some nice location work. It is fairly uncompromising (and will be throughout), the viewer has to pay attention to everyone to understand the details of all the conspiring and plotting.

The main strength throughout was the even-handed portrayal of everybody - and I really do mean everybody. In each episode we get to see what every person wants and why they are acting as they are. It is left to the audience to make any judgements and I appreciated that. Obviously in a drama of this sort the writers have to interpret events in some way, but the efforts made to simply present the situation without insisting on glorifying Elizabeth or vilifying anyone else was admirable. I found myself straying into sympathy with Mary, with the French, the Spanish, various traitors, Mary Queen of Scots, even Essex and Leicester and, um, at one point the torturer at the Tower.

I think a particularly good example is the end of 'Enterprise of England' where within about ten minutes we rejoice with Elizabeth and her men at the defeat of the Armada, then commiserate with Philip of Spain over his loss, and then his generosity and mercy in defeat is contrasted with a casual and careless bit of cruelty from Elizabeth in victory... that is then overturned again by seeing her a crushed old woman at the news of the death of Leicester. I found this strangely addictive.

Elizabeth R doesn't really have any heroes, but if it did, this is the only real candidate:

Ronald Hines as William Cecil/Lord Burghley, who supports Elizabeth but will never act against the law, and who becomes chief amongst her council. "My Spirit" she calls him, and their relationship is the longest lasting in this serial.

Then there were some familiar faces in Episode One:

Peter Jeffrey was so Count Grendel-like as Philip of Spain, that at his exit, I couldn't help but mutter: "Next time I will not be so lenient, I shall send the Spanish Armada!" (He was much less so when he returns as the older Philip, grown more pious and infirm).

Also (more Carry On than DW), but yay for Julian Holloway as a flirty and conspiratorial French Ambassador (who is one of the few people in this who bother with an accent. There are about two or three others, but his is best. How to manage "I'm French, so I'm going far enough with the accent so that you know that, but I'm not going to be silly about it" in one easy lesson):


Onto Episode Two: The Marriage Game, in which I noticed there was something familiar about the Spanish Ambassador:

"Your hand, Cardinal Borusa... Oh, sorry. Ambassador."

... but completely failed to spot Anthony Ainley. Even though he totally has a beard:

"Your Majesty, meet Mr and Mrs Magister Henry and Mary Sidney.

To be fair, I was at this point still trying to wrap my head around the fact of ROBERT HARDY as Dudley:

(He is here with Sussex (John Shrapnel), of whom more later). Not that he isn't very good of course. (When is Robert Hardy not good?) But it did take me the whole hour and a half to stop stumbling over the fact. Especially as he was Master of the Queen's Horse and kept riding about/talking about horses and I really shouldn't have rewatched some All Creatures before this...


Isn't this shot lovely? Having just screencapped 2 & 3, I think I need to take back what I said about them not being as interestingly filmed. Here Dudley first learns to treat Elizabeth as a Queen and not a lover. Or Robert Hardy walks backwards in tights, whichever way you want to look at it.

Queen Elizabeth I: I thought that if all other men deserted me, you would not.
Robert Dudley: I would die for you!
Queen Elizabeth I: What is that to do with it?

Episode Three: Shadow in the Sun

My favourite aspect of this episode, and possibly the whole series: the knights of the round table! Privy Council: From l-r we have Sussex, always the man to back the wrong horse, Gulliver Chancellor Goth Bernard Horsfall Norfolk, who is only in this ep but is pleasingly sarky about everything, the Puritanical but devious (but at this point still almost the innocent on the council... just wait) Francis Walsingham, the older, wiser Burghley/Cecil and Leicester whose job is to be Teacher's pet and annoy everyone else, especially Sussex.

And my favourite scene of the episode (and possibly the series): As I mentioned, Sussex is the one who'll always get things wrong, but after Elizabeth discovers Leicester has married secretly and has sent him to the Tower in her rage, the rest of the Council pick on Sussex to go risk his own neck to tell her that chopping Robert Hardy's head off would displease people. Sadly, I didn't take any quotes, so this is my rough summary: ("But I don't like Leicester... I think the Tower is the best place for him!" / "Exactly," say the rest.) And then John Shrapnel and Glenda Jackson play out this surprisingly touching (but not romantic) scene between a queen and her loyal servant and two old friends and colleagues.


"Your Majesty. I love you. I have given you my life, and I have never begged with you until now."


And what starts with anger and begging ends with a confession from Elizabeth: "I cannot marry. Do not ask me why. I have reason, but I cannot marry!"

Elizabeth: I grieve, and dare not show my discontent. I love, and yet I am forced to seem to hate. I do, yet dare not say I ever meant. I seem stark mute, but inwardly I do prate. I am, and not. I freeze, yet am burned since from myself my other self I turned. My care is like my shadow in the sun... follows me flying, flies when I pursue it. Stand and lies by me, doth what I have done. This too familiar care doth make me rue it, not means I find to rid him from my breast. Til, by the end of things, it be suppressed. O, let me live with some more sweet content. Or die, and so forget what love ere meant.

Episode Four: Horrible Conspiracy
This one centres around the Babington Plot which here is entirely Walsingham's construct, so this is very much Stephen Murray's episode (as Walsingham), even though we see a fair bit of Mary Queen of Scots and Anthony Babington. And an executioner/torturer.


Maybe I shouldn't but I loved Stephen Murray's Walsingham quite a lot. (It didn't strike me while watching it, but screencapping him... there is a certain Delgado-ishness there, isn't there? No wonder I liked him.) And as I said above, we see why everyone behaves as they do, so he is being quite reasonable to scheme to get Mary to betray herself and force Elizabeth to have her killed. Obviously.

Elizabeth: All my life, I have been shadowed by conspiracy. The axe, the dagger, the block... they are as familiar to me as spring flowers to a countryman. Fears and doubts circle my head like black crows around a corpse. Every time a new treachery is revealed, I am strangely surprised. Foolishly, I expect good in a world where men pursue evil.

So, if you want to plot treason, here are some rules to bear in mind (especially if your name is Anthony Babington):

1. When approached by mysterious Jesuits in the middle of the night and asked to commit treason, SAY NO. It is better that way. (Oh, look who's playing Babington. Gosh. It's a small world in British TV. *cough*)
2. Make sure the people you think are on your side are in fact on your side and not working for Walsingham.


3. Do not go to Walsingham and ask him for a passport to go to France and do treacherous things. He will not be fooled. Even if you were actually clever, he would not be fooled.
4. Do not write all your plans down to the last detail in a letter. The importance of NOT DOING THIS cannot be stressed enough.

If you ignore these simple rules, you will find yourself in the Tower being tortured by Topcliffe (who has special instructions from the Queen to give you a nastier death than even the usual one they give traitors). Nobody wants that.


Brian Wilde as the torturer Topcliffe. (I have just realised why his name is familiar; he was in Last of the Summer Wine as one of the ones who wasn't Compo and Clegg. Foggy? One of them.) This was a brief performance, but brilliant as he is all sweet reason about his job and comparing death, agony and torture to the art of love-making. Sucked me in totally till my response was:

... Aargh! Aargh! *do not want to see!!!*

... and then remembered it was Elizabeth R and they don't show what they can tell and therefore all we had was a bit of blood and straw. Phew.

Because they would never, ever actually go and stage Mary Queen of Scots's execution in slow, painstaking detail...

... Oh... Eek. They did. (Although I suspect there really would have been more blood, but stop showing the severed head, peoples, please...)

Mary, Queen of Scots: The theatre of the world is wider than this little realm of England. And my death, should it presently occur, will blaze wide and dangerously.

So, I liked that one. I am bloodthirsty. Sorry.


And, wow, this is getting long. I shall break off here and return (once I have screencapped the final two eps) for the Spanish Armada with only one toy boat in sight, some unexpected action by HAVOC at the last minute, the COSTUMES and make-up (if you think I have neglected Elizabeth in my caps here, it is only because she will feature heavily then) and also my flippant response to the total absence of fanfic. (Yes, I know. Silly me.)