Advance ticket sales have ended but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.
Profs and Pints DC presents: “Cousin vs. Cousin, Queen vs. Queen,” on the feud between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, with Amy Leonard, associate professor of history at Georgetown University and scholar of women during the early modern period.
The fraught relationship of Elizabeth I of England and Mary Stuart of Scotland dominated British politics in the mid to late 16th century and has been the focus of numerous fictional and historical accounts. Learn about these two iconic queens from Professor Amy Leonard, who has earned a considerable following among Profs and Pints fans by delivering fantastic talks on the wives of Henry VIII, on women and the French Revolution, and on women and sexuality in premodern Europe.
Dr. Leonard will discuss how Mary Stuart’s troubled life reads like a soap opera, with multiple marriages, murder, and a kidnapping all leading to her forced abdication from the Scottish throne. Hoping her cousin Elizabeth would help her regain her monarchy, she fled to England only to be put under house arrest for over a decade.
Then we’ll learn how Elizabeth, the famed Virgin Queen who ruled during England’s Golden Age, dealt with constant assassination attempts as loyal Catholics plotted to replace her, a Protestant, with Mary. Using her bevy of courtier-spies, Elizabeth tracked Mary’s movements and plots (supposedly laid out in scores of encrypted letters Mary wrote to supporters) leading finally to the trial of the century.
Mary was charged with plotting to kill the Queen and sentenced to death. Her beheading followed quickly, despite Elizabeth’s attempts to delay or stop it. But many questions remain: Was Mary really plotting to replace Elizabeth on the throne or was she entrapped by zealous Protestant operatives? Did Elizabeth want her executed or was that execution, as she claimed at the time, all a mistake perpetrated by her advisors?
What was the real relationship between these two powerful yet diametrically opposed rivals, who never actually met in person, despite what the movies show us?
Professor Leonard will tackle such questions in a night filled with royal intrigue. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: From Nicholas Hilliard portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and of Mary Stuart in captivity.