My review of Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, by Alison Weir

Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley

by Alison Weir

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Alison Weir surpassed herself penning this tome, the first in my opinion to rival Antonia Fraser's 1969 Mary Queen of Scots. Via Mary Stuart runs the continuous line of succession, from Plantagenets & Tudors, down to England's current royals.

Mary has always polarised debate, first when alive and then, through the centuries, from the grave. Regardless which account we accept, she cannot be seen as entirely blameless for her unfortunate life. It's also beyond question that too much blinkered blame has gone her way, backwards in time.

Her murdered second husband Henry, Lord Darnley, was a hideous character who arguably deserved his comeuppance. If Mary was privy to his murder plot, we can hardly blame her. It's an equally short-sighted assumption that anyone put in Mary's position would not have conspired towards her liberty when so unjustly imprisoned for so long by Queen Elizabeth I. She was viciously provoked, set up and entrapped into her 'treason' against Elizabeth.

Mary Stuart, great-niece of England's King Henry VIII, was 6 days old when her father, King James V of Scotland, died and she acceded to his throne. Uniting France and Scotland against conflict with Henry VIII's England, France's King Henry II negotiated little Mary's marriage to his three-year-old son, the Dauphin Francis. Five-year-old Mary was shipped to France and spent thirteen years at the French royal court.

Despite that regal upbringing largely moulding her character, Mary's detractors criticise her limited grasp of her native Scottish subjects who were then, largely, backwater bog and highland dwellers. Yet this eventually anointed queen of France had not seen Scotland since being spirited away as an infant.

Widowed at eighteen, Mary was no longer wanted in the French court by her mother-in-law, France's new regent, Catherine de Medici. Though she could have retired there in splendour, remarrying any prince in Christendom, Mary instead returned to her homeland to start anew.

In vain she reached out to her surly Scottish subjects who, after ceremonial formalities, snubbed her as a high-flying foreigner. They eyed her with suspicion from the minute she disembarked in her mourning garb, a grown woman and stranger. They considered this newly arrived Catholic head of state, in their Protestant land, anomalous. This sentiment was fuelled by Protestant reformist preacher John Knox, who vehemently campaigned against Mary.

Worse still, she was female.

Across the border, her less beautiful but wilier cousin, Elizabeth, remained contentiously unwed. Resentful of Mary's youth and fecundity, the childless Elizabeth also felt threatened by Mary's strong claim to England's shaky throne.

After two more short and unpopular marriages, Mary was overthrown and imprisoned in Scotland. Eventually escaping, she shaved her head for disguise, donned peasant's clothing and fled, by fishing boat, to England. Hoping for Elizabeth's support, Mary was instead imprisoned and held captive for eighteen-and-a-half years.

After despairingly plotting towards her liberty (making herself complicit in linked plots for Elizabeth's assassination), Mary was entrapped and executed. This unprecedented regicide officially triggered the Spanish Armada. Catholic Philip of Spain had been waiting for an excuse to take England and curb the spread of Protestantism in Europe. As was her final wish, Mary became a Catholic martyr.

Mary's apologists argue she was a kind, intelligent woman, a romantic icon of her day. She was indeed the subject of sonnet and pros, by Ronsard no less. Her beauty and personal charm are legendary.

Neither her cruellest detractors nor most ardent apologists are fully right or wrong. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. This is where Alison Weir's insightful, brilliantly researched and presented account places it.

The reader is left with a balanced understanding of events while empathising with, and recognising the obvious mistakes of, a desperate woman. I loved this book and reread it to reabsorb the literary quality and exquisite detail.