Sir James Melville eavesdrops on Queen Elizabeth I’s music practice, and incurs Her Majesty’s displeasure.
In 1564, Mary Queen of Scots had recently returned to Edinburgh after the death of her husband King Francis II of France. Meanwhile down in London, her cousin Queen Elizabeth I kept asking Mary’s visiting courtier, Sir James Melville, which of the two Queens was the taller, the prettier, and the more musical?
Henry VII’s great-granddaughter Mary never grasped that even royalty must win the people’s respect.
Perhaps it was spending her formative years in the French court that did it, but after the teenage widow came back to be Queen of Scots, she never seemed to understand that on this side of the Channel, people-power was on the rise, and royalty could no longer behave as they pleased.