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Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz and welcome to Law and Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films. Film, in turn, tells us a lot about the law. In each episode, we'll examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective. What legal issues does the film explore? What does it get right about the law and what does it get wrong?

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Jonathan Hafetz

How is law important to understanding the film? And what does the film teach us about the law and the larger social and cultural context in which it operates? Our film today is Elizabeth the Golden Age 2007 movie directed by Shekhar Kapoor with a script by William Nicholson and Michael Hirst. The film, a sequel to Kapoor's first film Elizabeth from 1998, takes place during the latter part of Queen Elizabeth The First Reign.

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Jonathan Hafetz

The film discusses such things as the plot to assassinate Elizabeth, the arrest and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's cousin, and King Philip, the second of Spain's attempt to topple Elizabeth and install a Catholic monarch on the English throne, which culminates in England's defeat of Spain in the Spanish Armada of 1588. The film also portrays the complex emotional triangle involving Elizabeth, the English statesman, soldier and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh and Elizabeth's lady in waiting.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Elizabeth or Bess Throckmorton, whom Raleigh marries in secret and has a child with. The film also depicts Elizabeth as somewhat enamored with Raleigh. The cast includes Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth the First, Clive Owen, and Sir Walter Raleigh, Geoffrey Rush as Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, Samantha Morton as Mary, Queen of Scots, and Abbie Cornish as Beth Throckmorton and Jordi Moldea as Philip, the second of Spain.

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Jonathan Hafetz

In addition to dramatizing this critical and memorable period of English history, albeit with some notable historical changes, the film provides a window into important and timely legal issues around torture trials for matter of state and piracy in Tudor England. Our guest today to discuss this film is Alka Prada, an expert on the application of human rights and humanitarian law to counter terrorism situations and the impact of torture on fair trials.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Alka is currently human rights counsel at the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions, representing one of the defendants in the capital case of U.S. First Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so-called nine over 11 case. Al Gore's also acted as special counsel for the defense of the International Criminal Court, and has worked closely with members of the UK Parliament and the European Parliament on official investigations into torture and war crimes.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Oscar serves as adjunct Professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, and is co-chair of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Law Committee, and quite relevant today. AKA is a giant fan and student of Tudor history. Welcome AKA.

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Alka Pradhan

Thank you so much. I think that last part is the most true.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Excellent, excellent. So yeah, it's great to be able to talk to you about this movie, which is, still quite relevant in some ways. So the film takes place in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth The First Reign. And it's the sequel to, Kepler's first film, Elizabeth. And the events which take place over the course of a few years.

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Jonathan Hafetz

The film concentrates in the year 1585. So what was happening in England then?

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Alka Pradhan

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm such a Tudor history nerd, and this period is so fascinating to me. So at this point, Elizabeth the First has been on the throne for almost 30 years. She's a seasoned diplomat. She's manipulated all of the neighboring kingdoms around her who have had designs on England by promising marriage or promising defensive alliances for a very, very long time, which she needs.

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Alka Pradhan

Right? As a female monarch at a time when really there had been only a few significant female monarchs in the world up until that point. And so she saw the mistakes made by her older sister Mary, who had married Philip the second of Spain during her ill fated five years on the throne. And she was really determined not to make the same mistakes.

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Alka Pradhan

So the problem is just setting the scene. Really. The problem was that Mary, who ruled immediately before Elizabeth from 1553 to 1558, had essentially been coerced by Philip into implementing the Inquisition in England during those years, which had been sort of like whiplash after the six years of their brother Edward's reign, during which Catholics were persecuted. So the divisions in England from those two previous monarchs leaving out Lady Jane Gray in her nine days, the divisions, even 27 years or 28 years into Elizabeth's reign, are really, really deep and really festering.

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Alka Pradhan

And Elizabeth herself had tried for a long time to be more of a religious moderate. I think she famously said something like, why must we make windows into men's souls? But she's also really shrewd, and she's got a cadre of people around her whose job it is to keep their ear to the ground for popular uprisings or anything that could destabilize her, particularly from Catholics.

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Alka Pradhan

So you mentioned Sir Francis Walsingham. That's her spymaster, Lord Birley. William Cecil is her closest advisor. And so, with these people sort of handling security matters, she can present herself cleverly as she is the person trying to unite the country, which she's legitimately trying to do, but she needed to appear to be doing as well. And so in the midst of all of this, you've got Philip the Second of Spain, her old brother in law, who's always wanted to control England and has posed a threat really, since the day her sister died and Elizabeth was crowned.

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Alka Pradhan

So that's the milieu of the film.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And the Mary you're referring to is Mary Tudor. Not to be confused with the Mary Queen of Scots, who we'll talk about soon, is essential to the film. You also have the Pope Philip the Second of Spain and decades before him, the film starts. The Catholic Monarchs and the Pope look like they're conspiring against Elizabeth, and they want to put a Catholic back on the throne of England.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Right. So that's a piece in the context, too, I guess.

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Alka Pradhan

Absolutely. I mean, let's be honest, right? This all started like Henry the Eighth started this fight, right, by breaking with Rome because he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn. Like Henry the Eighth, who had been defender of the faith. He had been defender like, named by the Pope as the most rigorous defender of the Catholic faith when he was younger, then ends up breaking with with Rome because he wants to divorce Catherine of Aragon and Mary Anne Boleyn.

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Alka Pradhan

And so he really sets this whole thing in motion. And, you know, everybody saw it. I think all the Catholic Monarchs and certainly the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, see, this is really a blip. And they're looking for an opportunity to bring England back into the fold.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. And there's a series of plots even before the movie begins. And the one centering around Mary, Queen of Scots, to try to get Elizabeth out. So it's a period of tremendous concern and fears of sabotage and efforts to dive overrule. So it's a very kind of turbulent period. And so I guess, well, I guess it's kind of the easy question, but what's the value of focusing on this period?

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Jonathan Hafetz

Why focus on these few years.

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Alka Pradhan

So I can't necessarily speak for shake her. To shake her for full disclosure is my cousin was married to my cousin for a long time, and he's a wonderful filmmaker, and I was thrilled that he he made these films on one of my favorite subjects, although I have nitpicks with some of the films. But, you know, I think for Shaker, he really saw the period as, you know, incorporating so much drama and intrigue around Elizabeth, around her romances, which some of which were collapsed into the one that you referenced with Walter Raleigh, how they were parlayed into political capital, the web of family ties.

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Alka Pradhan

But, you know, for me, the interest of this period is, you know, all of that. Plus, it's during this period of relative peace in England relative that you start to see the emergence of a lot of the pillars of what the West now considers to be contribute towards a just society. Right? Or at least talked about. So the Renaissance, will you always talk about the Renaissance as being relevant to art?

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Alka Pradhan

But it's a time for ideas, right? That underlay the proliferation of the arts. And you see that in bits of this film where you've got the idea of a monarch being subject to the law. That's brought up by William Cecil when, when they're considering what to do with Mary, Queen of Scots. And that was written by Edward Cooke for the first time.

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Alka Pradhan

Right. The elimination of the use of star chambers. You see the use of the star Chamber during this period of time by Elizabeth. And really, you see why it should have been eliminated and eventually was. And then you see these sort of prominent prosecutions, not just of Mary, Queen of Scots, but of wealthy and powerful nobles. And I think that dynamic is always good fodder for drama.

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Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, there's really so much there to dig into at the political level, the personal level. And, well, this film certainly underscores that the personal is political in a lot of ways around the court of Elizabeth the first, a central piece of the plot is this current attempt to assassinate Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth is Protestant and install a Catholic monarch on the throne.

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Jonathan Hafetz

In the plot that the film centers on, so called the Babington Plot, which involved Babington, who was a Catholic nobleman who was conspiring with other Catholic priests or other coconspirators to try to assassinate Elizabeth. So what happened with this plot in the movie and in real life?

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Alka Pradhan

So there's a lot going on. So Philip still wants England, right? So essentially he's a religious extremist, and he believes that it is his duty to bring England back to Catholicism. So he's sending in spies. He's trying to gain footholds among the nobility in England who might help to destabilize Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth's second cousin, she's essentially Elizabeth's sort of niece.

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Alka Pradhan

She has fled Scotland after being deposed following this whole mess with her second husband, Lord Darnley, who murders her secretary and then ends up being murdered himself. There's a mutiny of her Scottish nobles. She's deposed. She arrives in England in 1567, seeking essentially sanctuary safety from her cousin from Elizabeth. It puts Elizabeth in the worst possible position because Mary is a lightning rod for Catholics who believe she should be on the throne of England.

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Alka Pradhan

Right? The blood of the Tudors runs in her veins, and and this is not trivial. And Mary is known to be a great beauty. Right. And Elizabeth is incredibly insecure. She's vain about her own looks. This is it's not a minor point, because as like co female monarchs, you know, you can imagine the rivalries in Europe at this time.

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Alka Pradhan

And you know, at the same time Elizabeth seems to genuinely care, at least to a certain extent, about the fact that she and Mary are family, and even more that she believes that they both have their thrones by divine right. And so she's just watched Mary being forced to abdicate by Scottish nobles, which is one of her worst nightmares.

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Alka Pradhan

And now, if she, you know, she calls herself and Mary sister Queens. And so if she now takes action against Mary, she destabilizes her own divine right and this is the analogy I use most often when I describe President Obama's refusal to pursue real accountability for, like the Bush era torture program. Right. Because then down the line following his own presidency, who knows when accountability is going to come for like the drone program or accesses Gitmo during his time.

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Alka Pradhan

Right. All executive actions by divine right. So like I always have this example in my head.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And she does delay I think like four months. Elizabeth after Mary, Queen of Scots has been convicted of treason. Now back to that second case so important after is convicted in Parliament is confirmed the conviction. She has designed the sentence deliberate for like four months before she signs death warrant.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, we can talk about it more but like. But yeah, she goes back before she drives Parliament crazy. She drives her counselors crazy going back and forth and back forth. I think legitimately agonizing over this decision.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Just turning to the plot itself. Mary, Queen of Scots gets involved. So she's like, Mary, Queen of Scots is in England, you know, she's been there at this point for close to 19 years, imprisoned in various places by Elizabeth because Elizabeth's concerned about and her advisor concerned about the threat, Mary and the people backing Mary opposed to her.

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Jonathan Hafetz

So she's in power as or sometimes in that guest rooms house arrest, but she's basically under lock and key. But then there's this plot that emerges to try to assassinate Elizabeth. The Mary gets tied up in it.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah, exactly. So basically, as soon as Mary crosses the border into England, the alarm is raised among Elizabeth's advisors, and they start monitoring her correspondence. They keep her under lock and key, and the way they actually finally get her is by intercepting her letters. And there is some and we can come back to this, but there is some dispute over the veracity of all of those letters.

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Alka Pradhan

I think it's clear that some of them are legitimate. It's not clear that all of them were. There's a lot of dispute about it. But Walsingham essentially has a mole in the French embassy who is slipping him. The correspondence between Mary and a group of conspirators associated with the Babington Plot.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And so they uncover the plot and arrest Mary. Now, if you talked about Walsingham, who's a key character in the movie, played by Geoffrey Rush, he's sort of like a composite of a few of Elizabeth's top officials, but he's one of them, and he uncovers the plot through The Intercept of letters and other other ways that he gathers information.

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Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, the film looks at some of the interrogations.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah, exactly. So he starts with this monitoring. Of course, fondant. And the reason, actually, that Mary is moved around so much during those 19 years in England is because there's this real fear and suspicion that each time she gets somewhere, her captors either fall in love with her or become sympathetic to her. And so they have to keep kind of moving her around to satisfy themselves that she's actually secure.

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Alka Pradhan

So monitoring her correspondence is one of these ways in which they kind of keep an eye on her. And Walsingham, I think, has evidence from from very early on through these letters that she is at least corresponding with people who are known to be Catholic, who are known to be kind of troublemakers. But Babington is a nobleman, right.

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Alka Pradhan

So you can't just go after nobility or a former queen without a certain amount of evidence. And so he plays a long game and monitors this correspondence for a very, very long time, until finally he ends up capturing, I think the first person he captures is John Ballard, who was a Catholic priest who was one of the correspondents, along with Anthony Babington and Ballard was, I believe, the first person arrested and sort of disappeared and then tortured.

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Alka Pradhan

And that was the beginning of a number of tortured interrogations of Babington plotters that then led to the arrest of Mary.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And the film kind of comes right down to the moment, like they have Babington holding the pistol at Elizabeth, and I think it's not loaded or he doesn't fire, although I think the plot was stopped much earlier on. Right. I don't think it got to that.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah, I'd never got to that point, but it was a plot that involved not just the deposition of the Department for the depositions, the deposed meant of Elizabeth, but her death as well. Right. Which is why it was so serious. But yeah, it was disrupted much earlier. You know, Babington never had an opportunity to hold up a gun.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And the letters were important in gathering the evidence and also, I think, for Walsingham to be able to convince Elizabeth to move ahead and finally arrest Mary because she was hesitant to do that. It was sort of like proof for whatever form of trial they had, which was very limited, but also to make Elizabeth go ahead and arrest Mary.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, they needed words in her own writing, right? They needed her own words to work against her. And, you know, interestingly, one of her and I'm sure we'll talk about the trial, but one of her defenses is like, look, I never called for the death of my cousin. I wouldn't do something like that, which is technically true.

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Alka Pradhan

None of the letters, whether real or not, say, yes, please kill my cousin. But what they do say things like, you know, now get the six men to work or let the plot go forward. Essentially variations of that, which means that she was at least aware. If they're true, she was at least aware of the plot and would have known that it involved the death of her cousin.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I think the language of the letter is. Then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work, taking order upon the accomplishment of their design, much as what you said more clearly than in the 16th century English syntax. Yeah, they're not like, let's go kill Elizabeth. But definitely a plot against her. And the natural outcome would likely be that Elizabeth would be killed.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Well, before we go to the trial, I guess maybe a little bit more on torture, which you mentioned. And you've worked so much on at Guantanamo and elsewhere. How important was that to gathering information and how was it treated at the time? It's shown a little bit in the film.

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Alka Pradhan

So torture is huge during this era. We'll talk about how cruel Henry the Eighth was. And comparatively, this era of like light and love ushered in by Elizabeth. But you know what? Shaker's films on this both films really get right. Is this Truman, this feeling, and you alluded to it earlier of instability. And I think rightful paranoia like that was felt at the top by Elizabeth and her Privy Council.

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Alka Pradhan

And this manifests under Elizabeth's reign as the highest number of torture warrants issued by any single monarch in English history, and how this plays out. First, with regard to the Babington Plot, is so that priest John Ballard, who spends years corresponding with Mary, the letters are intercepted, and then he, Ballard, is arrested in torture and under torture. He names several other members of the plot, including Babington, and the sort of the news closes in on that poor John Ballard, I think, according to the contemporaneous reports, had his arms hanging out of their sockets by the time he was brought for execution because of the use of the rack, torture was outlawed by the Magna Carta,

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Alka Pradhan

right, like it had been outlawed for a really long time at this point, except by royal warrant, you know, because divine right and all of that, they have the right to issue these warrants allowing for exceptions to the prohibition on torture. And so I always think it's really funny, you know, sitting here in 2023 when we talk about like, oh, there's like eternal debate of does torture work?

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Alka Pradhan

And should we torture people and or should there be exceptions? You know, back in the 1200s, they outlawed torture for all of the reasons we now know today. It doesn't work. It is morally wrong. All of those. But there was this one exception in the 1500s. And so Henry the Eighth had implemented a decent amount of torture, particularly in connection with getting rid of the wives and the subsequent sort of religious turmoil from creating his own church.

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Alka Pradhan

Edward and Mary, his son and then older daughter, had relatively few torture warrants issued, although Mary's reign really was kind of systematic terror against Protestants. But Elizabeth's man, Elizabeth's torture warrants surpassed all of them. I think there are currently about, and I know this because I've gone and looked at them. There are currently about 80 English torture warrants still existing today.

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Alka Pradhan

I'm not sure how many there were at one point, but all of those 80s, more than 50 of them are Elizabethan, which speaks to how disproportionate this was. And the warrant system is really interesting, actually. Like the warrant could only be issued if there was already a I think the phrase is a vehement suspicion of guilt makes you wonder why they would necessarily need it.

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Alka Pradhan

But that was when the warrant be issued. And then a report had to be made directly to the monarch. Once they asked for the warrant, a report had to be made of the statements made before torture. The statements made during torture, and then the statements made after torture. And then they would, you know, figure out what they wanted to use from that is super interesting.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting the way it was sort of allowed but regulated all within the Crown. Unlike some of the more modern proposals for torture warrants, there was no judicial involvement, was just all done within the Queen and her counsel.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah, we were still at sort of the apex of the divine right. Right. I mean, I guess Louis the 14th comes a little bit later, but like, but that's we're still kind of at this high watermark for that. And then it all goes downhill for the monarchies of Europe after that.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And I wonder if the uptick in the torture warrants in the Elizabethan age was in part due to the incredible instability and the various threats to the Crown. And while there was a recognition of the problematic nature of torture, practically and morally, the official seemed compelled to use it. Certainly, there were fewer ways than we have today to gather information.

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Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, the modern forms of surveillance were not around, although there were some forms of like human intelligence they sent to get people cooperating or going effectively undercover to that happen as well.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah. You had a little spy network was established by Wilson, and it was really the most sophisticated spy network in Europe, and it was all born out of this fact that England felt like it was the most vulnerable country in Europe, in part because it was surrounded by Catholic states, I mean even France and Spain. These two myths, you had Germany, right?

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Alka Pradhan

That was turning Protestant, had a lot of Protestants, but France, Spain, Italy. The Pope's coming for you. It's totally understandable that they would feel threatened. So Walsingham spy network, you know, involving human intelligence was really very, very sophisticated. But you still see this idea of confession as evidence, right? Like nothing's compared to the confession, which is a problem we still have today, that confessions are seen as the be all and end all.

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Alka Pradhan

And it doesn't matter what other evidence you have. You got a confession. You know, that's kind of a done deal.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. So it's really until that's not the focus of the evidence that you really can get some of the real ending of the use of torture, but that's seen as the most and still is in some countries. The most valuable piece of evidence, a confession. And that's just going to incentivize torture because it's very good at producing confessions.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Problem is that often false.

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Alka Pradhan

That's the problem. There's just no reliability. Right? I mean, the last known torture warrant is from 1642 in England. And I think there's there's a real understanding by this point, probably from some of the documentation before, during and after torture that the statements taken during torture. Right. Some of them might be true. It's not to say that no true statements come out during torture, but they just can't be relied upon because so much untrue stuff comes out during torture as well.

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Alka Pradhan

So it's not to say that nobody was tortured after that date, but official sanction for it appears to have ended by then, which is very shortly after Elizabeth dies and we start moving into, like the English Civil War era.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, just one more point. I'm watching for this fascinating character again. I think he's a composite of Sasol and perhaps others. But, you know, he's referred to his position as secretary of state because also they frequently referred to him in the film and throughout the literature as the spymaster, which I found, you know, very interesting, that network of counter intelligence and surveillance that was operating within England in the Tudor period.

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Alka Pradhan

Yeah, he's such a fascinating character. And I think there's actually an entire book, I think, on him called spymaster or something similar to that. We see him as like a main character in a lot of books and films about Elizabeth, just because the apparatus that he managed to put in place at the behest of Cecil and these other prominent privy councilors.

00;23;35;27 - 00;24;00;24

Alka Pradhan

But it was really his brainchild, right? Really rivaled some of the stuff that Thomas Cromwell did for Henry the Eighth, a generation before that, but built on it and used a system of incentives and threads to get people to inform on each other. I think it probably backfired in ways because it probably contributed to this sense of instability that the people felt as divisions that we talked about before between Protestants and Catholics.

00;24;00;24 - 00;24;07;19

Alka Pradhan

Like, if you could never feel like you could speak your mind because your neighbor was going to rat on you to Walsingham, then you know, how safe do you really feel?

00;24;07;21 - 00;24;25;12

Jonathan Hafetz

So another central event in the film takes place offscreen, just to turn to the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, which takes place in 1586. So they show her being arrested. They show Mary being arrested in the movie and then they show the execution scene. So what was Mary tried for and how was the trial conducted?

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Alka Pradhan

So she's tried for treason, which is really interesting because she's obviously a formerly queen of another country. She's being tried for treason in England against her cousin, the Queen there. And the trial wasn't really a trial, you know. Sorry to shake her, but I felt so cheated by the fact that this trial wasn't even shown as like an aside in the film.

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Alka Pradhan

It is such a dramatic high point rather than a trial. It's more of a commission. But essentially Elizabeth said, do it however you want to do it. But, you know, I think she said added for posterity, you know, do it fairly. And so what ended up happening is there's a commission established. Stop me if this sounds familiar, but there's a.

00;25;09;19 - 00;25;36;20

Alka Pradhan

Log. Everything comes back to give up like 36 commissioners, right. All male noblemen, English male noblemen who are set essentially to examine the evidence and on behalf of the Queen, there is a subset of commissioners that are supposed to like sort of act for Mary, but Mary is not allowed to have a lawyer. Nobody acting on her behalf nor her are allowed to examine the evidence, including those letters, including those confessions.

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Alka Pradhan

There's actually a fascinating, I think, contemporaneous drawing of the commission, which shows kind of the scribes in the middle and the noblemen on all sides with an empty throne on at one end that is supposed to represent the monarch. That's for Elizabeth, who scrupulously stayed away from this whole thing. And then Mary being brought in and facing this group of men.

00;25;58;04 - 00;26;21;06

Alka Pradhan

And it is it is such a dramatic high point between a deposed queen, a divine figure at that time, a formerly powerful woman, and a group of men seeking to hold her accountable, but also just trying to stitch her up right, for their own political ends. So these are people who could have ended up being her subjects in another version of reality.

00;26;21;06 - 00;26;28;28

Alka Pradhan

And so the various dynamics are just incredible. I think we should write like a play or something, just about this trial. At some point when neither of us is busy.

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Jonathan Hafetz

It does seem like a missed opportunity to show at least some of what's happening. I mean, it sounded like procedurally just beyond flawed, like they didn't even show her the letters so that she could respond to. I mean, there's a key element like council, just fundamental safeguards, weren't there?

00;26;45;12 - 00;27;03;00

Alka Pradhan

Yeah. I mean, she argues, look, you don't have jurisdiction over me. I'm not an English subject. First of all, if I were an English subject, I'd be in a real court, which, again, stop me if this sounds familiar. Yeah, I'm a queen. Ergo, you have no right to try me at all. She's not allowed to call any witnesses.

00;27;03;00 - 00;27;28;29

Alka Pradhan

She's not allowed to examine any of the documents being used against her. She says she's innocent. And then, you know, they bring forward these confessions from from Bangtan and Mary secretaries. These are all obtained via torture and then a couple of her letters talking about the support for the plot, which we've just talked about. And so they have this hearing where she's acting on her own behalf, like she is sitting there doing battle by herself against this row of gentlemen.

00;27;29;00 - 00;27;55;24

Alka Pradhan

And there's a heated debate. The hearing finishes, and then suddenly Elizabeth says, hey, you need to re adjourn this to London. We're not sure why, but essentially, after Mary is heard, they leave her father in the castle up in the north and they all head back to the Star Chamber in London to finish the trial without her, and the trial is finished, and no one tells her that it's done or what happened.

00;27;55;26 - 00;28;00;19

Alka Pradhan

I mean, you can imagine how this all plays in my head. Well, we're sitting in, like the military commission courtroom. I get all right.

00;28;00;22 - 00;28;18;15

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, because there's often reference to the Star Chamber like quality. But this is a really good illustration. We leave you in the castle where she's ultimately executed. Right. And we'll come back and we'll finish the proceedings without you. Yeah. It's kind of just amazing. The procedural flaws are just obvious and would be, clear as day now. No lawyer?

00;28;18;15 - 00;28;21;17

Jonathan Hafetz

No. Clearly, to see the evidence, one would think.

00;28;21;19 - 00;28;22;04

Alka Pradhan

Yeah.

00;28;22;06 - 00;28;40;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I know, but the legal ones are interesting. Two writers, Queen of France first right. And then Scotland and not a subject. So she has sort of like legal immunity defenses or that you can't be convicted of treason. If she did no duty of loyalty, you know. So it's a really fascinating set of circumstances. It does sound like that is ripe for a full treatment.

00;28;40;14 - 00;28;47;19

Alka Pradhan

Absolutely. I think, you know, like witness for the prosecution or, you know, 12 angry men or, you know, somebody should do just this film.

00;28;47;22 - 00;29;14;08

Jonathan Hafetz

And, you know, I'm very fond in the jury to but, so and so this is a significant event legally the cements presumably Elizabeth's power eliminates one threat. I mean, there's still another set we can get to coming from Spain, and it's just a very important event. Mary is sentenced to death. And you see in the film, Elizabeth upset about it, although it seems she's more personally upset than she is concerned about.

00;29;14;08 - 00;29;24;26

Jonathan Hafetz

Do I want to sign this death warrant? Because that might unite the other monarchs against me and maybe it'll be my head on the chopping block next time? Do you think it's more the personal or the political? What's your take?

00;29;24;29 - 00;29;47;16

Alka Pradhan

You know what? I think everything we read from Elizabeth at that time, like her correspondence and all the contemporaneous accounts, like I think it is a really inseparable mix of all of those things. You know, I think Elizabeth is terrified. She's always been unstable. This is just like, literally the worst decision she has ever had to make. On a personal level and a political level, there is that fear of retaliation from the other monarchs.

00;29;47;16 - 00;30;09;27

Alka Pradhan

She's been holding Spain at bay for a long time. France Catherine de Medici has always been really hostile. Spain's at the back door with the Armada. They're already mad about the pirates and plunder and taking bits of America and all of that. And so it takes her months, like four months, during which the verdict is issued by the commission and of course, she's found guilty of treason.

00;30;09;27 - 00;30;31;13

Alka Pradhan

And then Parliament ratifies that immediately. So you've got essentially her entire government against her saying, sign the war and sign the warrant. Sign the war sign every single day. And she holds out for like four months, going back and forth and back and forth. But she's smart, right? Elizabeth is nothing if not like throughout her whole life. And whether you love or hate or whatever, she's a survivor.

00;30;31;13 - 00;30;52;18

Alka Pradhan

And so I think once it became clear that she couldn't avoid executing Mary, I think she held out in part because once they executed the rest of the Babington plotters, she thought maybe that might satisfy everybody. And it didn't. It was very clear that it didn't like they wanted married it. So once it became clear she couldn't avoid that, I think she tried to engineer it.

00;30;52;18 - 00;31;19;15

Alka Pradhan

So at the very least, she could have plausible deniability about giving the order. So she signs the warrant. She tells the Lord Chancellor not to execute the warrant without her say so. But then at that point, everyone is afraid she's going to change your mind again. And once she signs it, they can legally go forward. So she signs it, she puts her seal on it, and before she can change her mind, they like run it up on a horse to fathering a castle and carry out this really gruesome execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.

00;31;19;15 - 00;31;31;27

Alka Pradhan

Though it's still not clear whether she legitimately wanted them to wait or whether she just wanted the cover, which I think is really well done on her part. That would. 478 years later, we still are quite clear.

00;31;32;03 - 00;31;52;02

Jonathan Hafetz

What was she always planning to do? Yeah, that's really interesting. And then they have the body right in. Is that really embalmed in a coffin? It gets exhumed in 1612. Mary Queen has got son who's then King James the First, who moves it to opposite Elizabeth's in Westminster Abbey. So I guess they're kind of together in a way.

00;31;52;02 - 00;31;53;05

Jonathan Hafetz

And posterity.

00;31;53;07 - 00;32;16;21

Alka Pradhan

Yeah. It's you know what the whole thing about Westminster Abbey, for everybody who's been will understand how weird the placement of the Queens is, in part by design. But like Mary, the first Bloody Mary Catholic, Mary who preceded Elizabeth, her half sister, is buried together in the same tomb with Elizabeth, right, the child of Catherine of Aragon and the child of Anne Boleyn are buried together.

00;32;16;23 - 00;32;31;22

Alka Pradhan

And then opposite them is Mary, Queen of Scots, defeated by Elizabeth the First. It's just such a weird manipulation of these three queens, who were really interesting figures in their own time, probably deserve their own tombs.

00;32;31;24 - 00;33;00;26

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, they kind of deal with the past in a certain way and now move forward. In this English nationalism. Yeah, it's so interesting. So another central event is the destruction of the Spanish Armada, which takes place, in fact, in 1588, a year after Mary's execution. And this is an important historical event. You know, I think they still maybe teach it in school or, you know, sort of a central event in European history associated with ascent of England on the world stage and the blue beginning of Spanish decline.

00;33;00;29 - 00;33;04;01

The Golden Age Dialogue

You was.

00;33;04;03 - 00;33;05;24

Alka Pradhan

I can offer you.

00;33;05;26 - 00;33;11;24

Jonathan Hafetz

No words of comfort, but this armada of sails against us.

00;33;11;26 - 00;33;18;00

Alka Pradhan

Carries in as follows. The Inquisition.

00;33;18;02 - 00;33;18;28

The Golden Age Dialogue

And there will be no.

00;33;18;28 - 00;33;23;06

Jonathan Hafetz

More levity in England of conscience.

00;33;23;09 - 00;33;29;27

The Golden Age Dialogue

Or sort. Oh, oh.

00;33;29;29 - 00;33;32;21

Jonathan Hafetz

Can you talk about the event and how it's depicted in the film?

00;33;32;24 - 00;33;53;14

Alka Pradhan

Yeah. So, as I said, England's been kind of nibbling at Spain for a while. Like Spain's posing this huge threat at the back door for 50 years on England. But meanwhile you've got Walter Raleigh and his sea dogs, right? These sort of pirates turned privateers. We can talk about that whole thing that have been attacking Spanish ships for plunder.

00;33;53;14 - 00;34;14;04

Alka Pradhan

They've also gotten a foothold in America. They've established Virginia, which is named, of course, for the Virgin Queen, for it was the first. And then Phillip, in the meantime, is getting older and sicker and more extremist in his views. And so the launch of the Armada in 1588 is meant to be a final death blow by Philip to Elizabeth's reign.

00;34;14;04 - 00;34;35;23

Alka Pradhan

Reinstate Catholicism, put an end to English dominance, not really dominance, but English emergence or threat to Spain on the seas. And instead you end up having what has been sort of under historical revisionism, written as sort of a David and Goliath story. Right? You've got these little English ships that are, you know, smaller but more mobile, which is true.

00;34;35;27 - 00;35;11;02

Alka Pradhan

And these big hulking Spanish ships that can't move around easily and can't keep up with, you know, the gun, the little English gunboats, all of which is true. But really, what tanked the Spanish Armada was terrible weather for Spain, both on their way to and on their way back from fighting England. I think they may have actually tried to re attack, but for the English Navy, in a really brilliant strategic move, forced them to go all the way up around Scotland and by the time they made it back down, were so destroyed that they were, you know, they're limping home.

00;35;11;02 - 00;35;31;16

Alka Pradhan

And at this point, word has gotten out that England has the most lauded Navy in the world. I think it ushers in this age of thinking about the English Navy as this incredible force that leads to the rise of colonialism and all of that. But England, you know, at that point, the balance starts to shift between England and Spain on the sea.

00;35;31;18 - 00;35;51;06

Jonathan Hafetz

And the film depicts the battle very colorfully. And, you know, Sir Francis Drake, unfortunately, was, I think, central to the battle. And Raleigh was, I believe, fighting on land at the time. But one other point, which just to go back to something you said, is the weighted sequence in the film. It looks like it's a response, a direct response to Mary's execution.

00;35;51;06 - 00;36;11;01

Jonathan Hafetz

Philip goes in and he's going to put his daughter Isabella on the throne if he wins. But I think some historians point to some of the other forces that you talked about, and you referenced England's policy of piracy against Spanish ships, which were returning with riches from the New World. And England had ordered attacks on those ships as a precipitating cause.

00;36;11;06 - 00;36;17;22

Jonathan Hafetz

So can you talk about that sort of historical aspect of the Spanish Armada and just generally about piracy at the time?

00;36;17;24 - 00;36;41;03

Alka Pradhan

Piracy is, I don't want to say fun, right? Because it is it is a high crime. But the conception and manipulation of piracy at this time is really, really interesting because, you know, pirates are pirate pirates or, you know, these people on ships who take over, they seize ships and its cargo from their lawful owners, and they're generally considered to be rogues and criminals, and particularly when they interrupt their own country's shipping.

00;36;41;03 - 00;37;05;03

Alka Pradhan

Right. Like you, you know, you hijack an English ship and take the stuff your country is going to hate you. But it started with Henry the Eighth. But under Elizabeth in particular, English pirates are sort of conferred with hero status, like patriots status when their plunder is of enemies of the crown. And so Elizabeth starts making this weird.

00;37;05;03 - 00;37;37;25

Alka Pradhan

I highly suspect legal distinction between piracy and privateering, and you sort of see the rise of this concept of privateering, which basically gives ships to people known as pirates, that, you know, they're privately owned armed ships that are commissioned by the Crown. Right. And you get a letter of marque from the Crown saying that you can interrupt, you can capture enemy ships in a in a time of declared war and sort of similar to are like war on terror.

00;37;37;25 - 00;38;04;01

Alka Pradhan

There's this amorphous war with Spain going on at the time. And so Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh are given these letters of marque by Elizabeth to plunder the Spanish ships on the condition that they bring back the plunder. They're given a generous share of it, but then it goes towards the crown, and that's how England funds, you know, this war with the Spanish Armada in 1588.

00;38;04;01 - 00;38;23;27

Alka Pradhan

By then they've, like, accumulated a decent amount of Spanish plunder and so this is all, like, extremely legally suspect. There is really no distinction between privateering and piracy, but it gives the crown a little bit of control and allows them to put their stamp on what was, up until then, just a completely lawless act.

00;38;24;00 - 00;38;49;19

Jonathan Hafetz

Well, just to go back to Walter Raleigh for a second and there's piracy, privateering, being in here, I think as well. A central subplot of the film deals with the triangular relationship between Raleigh Elizabeth and Bess Throckmorton, Elizabeth's lady in waiting, who Raleigh marries secretly and has a child. But the film has this taking place, I think, before the Armada, you know, took place three years afterwards.

00;38;49;22 - 00;38;54;14

Jonathan Hafetz

What's your take on the depiction in the film, and also what happened between the three of them?

00;38;54;17 - 00;39;19;09

Alka Pradhan

I understand when you're making a film, you have to collapse. Some characters, but that part of it, it did bug me a little bit because there are a number of really significant men around. Elizabeth who play both like dual roles, romantic and political. Walter Raleigh is significant on a political level, but there's really very little evidence that Elizabeth was interested in him romantically.

00;39;19;09 - 00;39;38;19

Alka Pradhan

And so what sort of ended up happening is he's being conflated with the Earl of Leicester, who was like her longtime love. She'd been imprisoned in the tower with when they were children during the reign of Mary. He's been conflated a little bit with Sir Christopher Hatton, who's her Lord Chancellor, who she did have a little flirtation with.

00;39;38;21 - 00;39;57;17

Alka Pradhan

He's been conflated with Robert Essex, who is kind of this volatile man about court who falls in love with Elizabeth. She falls in love with him. He's much younger, and then he ends up turning on her and leading a rebellion against her. So you know all of that. Obviously you can't. You could make a film about each one of those, but it's really exaggerated.

00;39;57;17 - 00;40;07;19

Alka Pradhan

And I think her her interest in Walter Raleigh, I mean, I don't blame, you know, when you've got Clive Owen playing the part, right? You really want him? It's.

00;40;07;22 - 00;40;10;10

Jonathan Hafetz

Role playing like role. Exactly. So.

00;40;10;12 - 00;40;15;10

Alka Pradhan

Right. Oh, he's a good looking guy. Everybody wants to see more of him I get it. I do.

00;40;15;13 - 00;40;42;00

Jonathan Hafetz

Fascinating character in his own right. But the film. Yeah it takes some significant liberties. What's accurate though right. Was generally at least Raleigh did have the relationship. The child and Mary's Throckmorton, Bess Throckmorton and they both are imprisoned as a result of that. You know, it's interesting because they didn't get permission. And for Throckmorton, the absolute duty of loyalty that she could not marry without getting the monarchs permission.

00;40;42;03 - 00;40;58;21

Alka Pradhan

Yeah. And I mean, because she was a lady in waiting, right? That was the rule. But Elizabeth imposed that rule on the men in her life as well, who she did have a romantic interest in. I mean, famously, you know, Robert Dudley, right? The Earl of Leicester, the one who'd been imprisoned with her. She was in love with him for most of her life until his death.

00;40;58;21 - 00;41;24;14

Alka Pradhan

And he was married once his wife mysteriously died, was most likely murdered by him because he thought he thought he saw an opportunity to marry Elizabeth. But his second marriage was to one of Elizabeth's cousins, and it was done in secret. And when she found out about it, she banished both of them for, I think, at least a year, maybe two, and then accepted him back, but kept her cousin banned from court for the rest of her life.

00;41;24;21 - 00;41;32;04

Alka Pradhan

Everybody at the time commented on how excessive it was. I mean, this was literally her blood cousin, this woman who was banned from court for the rest of her life.

00;41;32;06 - 00;41;43;16

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, so what do you attribute that the treatment of best Doc Morton being imprisoned to, if there wasn't really this strong feeling, romantic feeling that Elizabeth had towards Raleigh that made her jealous?

00;41;43;19 - 00;42;14;22

Alka Pradhan

Well, the issue is that Bess Throckmorton was related to Elizabeth, right? Most of the ladies in waiting were usually came from the royal family and they did that not just because they were high ranking, but because the Queen could keep them close. And she had to give permission for them to get married, because she had to make sure that the marriages were not just, like, politically advantageous for her, and also at a certain rank for her kinswoman, but also would not result in a child and that would threaten her reign.

00;42;14;26 - 00;42;41;00

Alka Pradhan

Right? Because you're trying to juggle like Plantagenet heirs and Tudor heirs and, you know, it's all over the place at this point. So that was really bess's real crime, if you will. Right? To the extent that there was a crime, Elizabeth was genuinely saw differ as well. But that was the real transgression, is that she was a kinswoman of the Queen, who did not ask permission before she got married and got pregnant.

00;42;41;03 - 00;43;02;19

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. And so she and Raleigh both are imprisoned. Throckmorton is released after her baby dies of the plague, and Raleigh take it back to the piracy. Example is he is released because one of the expeditions was expeditions and returned from England with a ship with a lot of Spanish gold. The crew is going to music.

00;43;02;19 - 00;43;25;18

Alka Pradhan

Oh yeah. Exactly. It does illustrate really well, like one of Elizabeth's tactics, which was to keep petty threats or people who displeased her just separate from everyone else. Right. She did that with Lester and his wife, her cousin. She did that with Raleigh and Bess Throckmorton like that is released, but Raleigh is basically sent away. Right? He sent out, you know, back on his ships away from Bess Throckmorton.

00;43;25;18 - 00;43;34;23

Alka Pradhan

So she basically takes I want, I want to say takes great pleasure, but that is is a mode of protecting herself like she keeps anyone who has wronged her. She keeps them separate from each other.

00;43;34;26 - 00;43;37;20

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. It just feels like it's a constant management of intrigue.

00;43;37;22 - 00;44;02;06

Alka Pradhan

Yeah. Yeah, completely. I mean, which, you know, it makes some sense given the way she grew up. Right? As you know, her mother is beheaded when she's like two and a half years old. She has a somewhat close relationship with her half sister, Mary for a time. And then they're pitted against each other. And then all of this terrible stuff happens with her father dying, and she's thrown in at first, close to her little brother tries to advise him.

00;44;02;06 - 00;44;20;22

Alka Pradhan

He turns into a religious bigot. Then Mary is on the throne and she institutes the, the Inquisition and puts Elizabeth in jail. And then Elizabeth is released and is like, what do I do with this country? So the paranoia and this tendency to kind of divide, I think it makes a lot of sense, given her psychology.

00;44;20;24 - 00;44;24;08

Jonathan Hafetz

And Raleigh himself is ultimately executed by the next monarch. Right?

00;44;24;10 - 00;44;44;21

Alka Pradhan

Yeah. Raleigh just eventually just goes too far, like Raleigh is known for being just is really cocky character, right? He brings home all this plunder. He's hailed as a hero. But you know, James the first is not as enamored of Raleigh as Elizabeth was. James the first, of course, and his son Charles were much more sympathetic towards Catholics.

00;44;44;24 - 00;44;56;04

Alka Pradhan

So that played a little bit of a role in the dynamic as well. But yeah, Raleigh eventually just he's thrown in jail and he conspires one too many times and is eventually executed.

00;44;56;06 - 00;45;07;19

Jonathan Hafetz

Well, just to go back to torture for a second, which is, such an important part of your work and a significant part of the film. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the techniques that were used, in at the time?

00;45;07;22 - 00;45;26;03

Alka Pradhan

Yeah. So you hear a lot during this time about the use of the rack, which was done to that was what was done to John Ballad, where you're, you know, your hands and legs are kind of pulled out of their sockets. But aside from that, you've got a lot of techniques that, you know, our modern day torturers, people like John, you and James Mitchell would recognize immediately.

00;45;26;03 - 00;45;46;22

Alka Pradhan

So you've got the use of manacles, which was like standing sleep deprivation. So your wrists are shackled above your head, so high that you can't stand properly on your feet. You're kind of unbalanced and you can't put your weight down. So my client Amar was shackled like that with his arms above his head when he was, site cobalt in CIA detention.

00;45;46;24 - 00;46;10;16

Alka Pradhan

There's something called in, we think what was in the Tower of London? Something called the Little E's, which is a cell that's so small that you can't stand or sit or really move. Right. It's just incredibly horrific to think about. And that honestly, is similar to the confinement box that I was when I was put in early in his detention during CIA custody.

00;46;10;16 - 00;46;34;17

Alka Pradhan

So I just think it's so interesting how we keep coming back to this question of torture and, you know, sort of agonizing over whether does it work? Does it work? Of course it doesn't work. But we also seem to have very limited imagination in how we torture fellow human beings. I mean, knowing that these things don't work and watching them over time, seeing them in movies, right, and thinking to ourselves, this is so inhumane.

00;46;34;17 - 00;46;44;19

Alka Pradhan

This is so brutal. I can't believe they did that back then. And here we are today, still debating over essentially the same techniques. It's slightly demoralizing.

00;46;44;21 - 00;47;08;02

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah it is. And the film, while it shows it, it's sort of I don't think it attempts to make the audience particularly uncomfortable. And have you agree it's just sort of like kind of part of the story and it's just sort of unquestioned use. And it was used at the time. So it's being historically accurate in that larger sense, but it's just sort of incidental to the film and all the different things, the like the unfair trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.

00;47;08;02 - 00;47;18;19

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, they're all sort of put to the larger narrative of Elizabeth's concentrating her power, eliminating her enemies and England rising as this preeminent power.

00;47;18;21 - 00;47;41;10

Alka Pradhan

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. That's really what bothered me is that, you know, obviously, given, like, what we do at Guantanamo, like, it's very difficult for me to watch depictions of torture. You probably understand why, but I'm not opposed to depicting it in a certain way, because I think that sometimes showing the brutality of it can shock people enough, right, that you get that outrage.

00;47;41;13 - 00;48;07;10

Alka Pradhan

But I will say, I don't think I've ever really seen it properly done, except maybe one film that came sort of close was The Report. But films like, you know, look, this film, Zero Dark 30, right? That show, it kind of disconnected from humanity in a way that makes it look useful. Almost right is something that I find, like just hugely problematic, because then you start having that debate again in your head about expediency, about, you know, efficacy.

00;48;07;10 - 00;48;14;14

Alka Pradhan

And the reality is just so much more complex than that. And leads you to the opposite conclusion, right? When faced with the facts.

00;48;14;16 - 00;48;28;27

Jonathan Hafetz

I agree, and especially something like Zero Dark 30, where that's sort of a didactic point of the movie. I mean, it's it's a tenet in a sense, take a position almost on the issue. I think this is, just telling it as part of the story, but not critical about it as it does.

00;48;29;02 - 00;48;43;21

Alka Pradhan

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we're at a point now, I think, where that's not acceptable, like glorification of torture is not acceptable, but also showing it for entertainment purposes without taking a clear position against it. Is also not acceptable. I think we're just past that point.

00;48;43;24 - 00;48;55;15

Jonathan Hafetz

So anything else you want to say about the film or your impressions of this film? You're a, a deep expert, not just in human rights issues. It's on torture and detention, but in Tudor history.

00;48;55;17 - 00;49;23;10

Alka Pradhan

You know, I love this film. Not just because it makes you think a little bit, but films like this can, if you let them, if you do a little more digging and understand that, you know, a film is not necessarily history, but can lead us towards history, I think it has the ability to hold up a mirror a little bit to us, like look at the circumstances around the takedown of Mary and you look at the Guantanamo military commission now, you can't confront the evidence.

00;49;23;10 - 00;49;49;16

Alka Pradhan

You can't really challenge the validity of the evidence. You're using torture derived evidence. It's specifically constituted for a small group of Muslim men, specifically constituted for this one woman French, Scottish, English. It's not clear that there's jurisdiction. Right. Like you look at that. And if you allow yourself to be curious to investigate these sort of historical bases, it raises questions about how far we really come.

00;49;49;16 - 00;50;01;08

Alka Pradhan

But it also presents some of the ways in which we can improve. So, I don't know, I think you can look at films like this optimistically and find lessons in them, in addition to just being entertained by the drama.

00;50;01;10 - 00;50;29;03

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. I mean, in addition to the relationships and everything else. And, the period costumes are great. I think the way the kind of political nature of the trial and trials for security of state is fascinating. And a lot of this happens is we're talking about in the kind of period not that long before the start of the great beginnings of English history with, you know, with the Glorious Revolution and the English Constitution and all these other things, and what was going on, the outlawing of the Star Chamber and the like.

00;50;29;03 - 00;50;38;27

Jonathan Hafetz

But just the political nature of the trial, which, as we said, was unfortunately off screen. But I think that you really could have a great trial just around the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.

00;50;38;29 - 00;50;41;03

Alka Pradhan

Yeah, for sure. We'll have to write it at some point.

00;50;41;06 - 00;50;54;29

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. If it's right, if it's not out there, we'll have to create it. Well, okay. I just want to thank you again for coming on and sharing your experience and enthusiasm for this fascinating subject. So much. Appreciate it.

00;50;55;06 - 00;51;01;24

Alka Pradhan

No. Listen, thank you so much. I'm so thrilled to be in your pantheon of awesome people who have talked about films.

00;51;01;26 - 00;51;02;29

Jonathan Hafetz

Thanks again.

00;51;03;01 - 00;51;04;16

Alka Pradhan

Of course. Thank you.