Mickey Mayhew - The Little Book of Mary Queen of Scots

This is a bright and breezy account of the complex life of Mary Stuart Queen of Scots and modern readers, especially those who come fresh to the story, will like the speed and authority of this version. It is a little book as the title claims, but Mickey Mayhew understands the background and complexity to the life of one of Britains best-known royals, and wears his knowledge lightly.

Philippa Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The Other Queen

Contents

The author would like to lavish particular praise on the following:

Cate Ludlow and Ruth Boyes at The History Press, for giving me this opportunity

Steve Forster, for his help and hard work

Margaret Lumsdaine, Syd Whitehead and all at the Marie Stuart Society

Jerry Ozaniec

Sam Critchlow

Friends of Sheffield Manor Lodge

Friends of Sheffield Castle, especially Big Ron Clayton

The numerous guides and staff of Historic Scotland, English Heritage, and Historic Royal Palaces

Harbourmaster Bob (you know who you are!)

Lesley Smith at Tutbury Castle

Castle Farm Guest House, Fotheringay

Peter and Barbara Wall

Neil Bond (for passing Mary my way)

Frogg Moody and Sue Parry

Nicola and Dennis Baskerville

Workington Library

And, of course, the parents

All images are taken from the authors collection unless otherwise indicated. Those credited as BLFC belong to the British Library Flickr Collection.

There are few more luminous characters in the history of the British Isles than Mary Queen of Scots. Her extraordinary tale in equal measure of adventure and tragedy has fascinated generations since her lifetime. For many, she is saintly and misunderstood, virtually abandoned to nearly nineteen years of wrongful imprisonment by her jealous and calculating royal cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England. For others, she is a foolish and weak woman who fell in love too easily (and more than once) with ambitious men who would bring her, and her title, into disgrace and therefore deserved to be imprisoned.

These polarised views, evident for centuries, prove why Marie Stuart still holds, in her life story, an irresistible charm, and give writers the chance to reveal new evidence about her life. What is undeniable is her beauty, courage and the fact that she had more than one line of legitimate royal blood in her veins, making her not only stunning to behold but also a real challenge to the English throne. Her life was extraordinary, her imprisonment and horrific death tragic, but she casts a bright light on the political and social workings of Europe in the sixteenth century.

Mickey Mayhew is a talented and sensitive historian who has spent many years studying Mary Queen of Scots and this book, far from little, is the fruit of those long days of research.

Lesley Smith
Curator, Tutbury Castle

2015

My intention in writing this book has been besides documenting the fabulous disaster of Marys life in a beginner-friendly format to drag her kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century; in this endeavour I hope soon to be bolstered by the advent of The CW Television Networks teen drama Reign to our screens. Sadly the word count for this book prevented me from jotting out an idea of what Marys list of Facebook friends list might have looked like; one can imagine the number of times she might have sent a friend request to her cousin Elizabeth I over the years, only to have the action politely ignored. Because lets face it, Mary really ought to be even more famous than she already is; she was a woman who could turn breaking a fingernail into an international incident, and the sort of scandal that finished off Anne Boleyn would barely have occupied her past breakfast. In modern terms she would be considered a diva of the highest order, prone to tears when she didnt get her way and given to outright fainting if she found herself face-to-face with downright disagreement. And almost above all else she was utterly outrageous; any woman who can stand accused whether she was involved or not of blowing up her camp conspirator of a husband so that she could marry the most macho man on her council deserves to be hauled up to the very top tier of fabulous femme fatales of the last 500 years or so. And where Mary is concerned thats barely the beginning; mass slaughter (the Rough Wooings), plots, decoys, assassination letters hidden in beer barrels, stalkers, daring escapes to drag out that old careworn clich, if her life was put forward as the possible plot for a blockbuster movie it would probably be thrown out for being too far-fetched.

To many people in the past, Marys tale is one of hardship, loss, and woe; to me and hopefully to you, the reader modern life and a certain sense of irony has enabled me to see the amusing side of her story; an incorrigibly plotting personality, a woman who, when caught red-handed encouraging all-out invasion, proceeded on more than one occasion to lie her way out of it with barefaced cheek, and then have a hissy fit when her privileges were revoked as a result. Marys height she puts the high in high maintenance and her sultry Scottish accent (thats what an eyewitness called it) meant she was a man-magnet in the way her cautious cousin Elizabeth I never was, and to tell the truth too much of the tale of Marys downfall is due to that special sort of feminine jealousy. Elizabeth may have been successful, and Mary a failure, but what a magnificent, dramatic failure her life was; that we could all fumble the ball so spectacularly. And the big reason both queens have such a hold still in the popular imagination is because of the great what ifs of their lives; was Elizabeth really a virgin? Was her mother Anne Boleyn really guilty of incest? And Mary has more mysteries than both of them put together. Did she really help do Darnley in? Did Bothwell really ravish her at Dunbar Castle? Did Shrewsbury really love her? Was she really up to her elbows in the Babington Plot? Well likely never know, like JFK and Jack the Ripper and a million other mysteries, and thats the reason we keep reading, and why she wont ever die, not really.

Mickey Mayhew

Cheam

2015

Mary Queen of Scots was a Stewart, daughter of James V of Scotland and descended from the great Stewart clan, but to all intents and purposes what mattered dynastically in the great drama of her life was that she was also a scion of the house of Tudor. She was directly descended from Henry VII, the founder of perhaps the most famous royal dynasty in British history. Henry VIIs daughter Margaret was Marys grandmother, who was sent to Scotland to marry James IV, Marys grandfather, in an attempt to unite the warring nations of England and Scotland. On top of that, Mary lived and died within the Tudor period, which is basically from the moment Henry VII won the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485 and ascended to the throne, right up until the day Elizabeth I died, on 24 March 1603. So although her surname may be Stewart, saying that Mary Queen of Scots isnt essentially a Tudor is a bit like saying Thomas Cromwell wasnt Tudor because he never married his master, Henry VIII. That means that the world into which Mary was born was as much a Tudor world as it was a Stewart one, and, apart from her sojourn in France, she lived basically a

Tudor life. This was especially true when she came to England, where she experienced the pinnacle of Tudor existence, an Elizabethan life. An Elizabethan life can be differentiated from a Tudor life because Elizabeth I, Henry VIIIs second daughter, is thought to have had such an impact on the world around her that her tenure on the throne of England takes its name directly from her, whereas her fathers time isnt really referred to as Henrician; not a bad achievement for an unwanted girl who was bastardised at the age of 3.