Mary, Queen of Scots / by Antonia Fraser

The twists and turns of the Scottish Queen's tragic life will leave you amazed. The book is overwhelming, packed with details about things like the Queen's ladies in waiting and the inventory of her beautiful wardrobe. The plot is something you couldn't make up, and can't believe could really have happened. The political turmoil that was standard in those times is amazing, you wonder how the infant Queen ever survived all the plots and conflicting power grabs. Mary is taken from her mother as an infant and raised in France. Mary loves riding about the French countryside with her royal relatives and receives a scholarly education. Then Mary's sickly first husband, who suffered from horrible physical maladies, died shy of his seventeenth birthday. Mary soon takes the throne in Scotland and is initially very popular until the question arises of Mary's possible involvement in the death of her dissolute second husband, Lord Darnley, who was strangled in his nightshirt outside a castle he had just fled owing to its having been blown up! The smoke had hardly cleared from this dubious scenario when the Queen, who later claimed to be acting on the advice of the Scottish Lords or to have been forced against her will by her suitor, or a little of both, got married to husband number three. As the gentleman in question, the Earl of Bothwell, was widely seen as suspect number one in the death of husband number two, the public was outraged, and the sneaky Scottish Lords said they were outraged too. Mary loved to give alms to the poor and had always been warmly received by her countrymen, but now found herself being booed loudly, and all but pelted with epithets and rotten cabbages in the streets of Edinburgh. She soon was forced to flee Scotland with little more than the clothes on her back and a small retinue, into the unwelcoming custody of her cousin Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Mary had always talked of meeting but Elizabeth was privately afraid of being swayed too much by Mary's legendary personal charm into making too many concessions of the sort that would tend to give her less advantage and Mary more in the complex political duet between Enlgand and Scotland. This sudden and too-close-for-comfort appearance of an all-too-legitimate rival to the throne of England, essentially forced Elizabeth's hand, she had little choice but to lock Mary up, a situation that continued for around 19 years. Free-spirited Mary, who must have gone out of her mind with boredom in captivity, attempts to free herself by hatching far-fetched plots, communicating with dimwitted supporters using easily confiscated letters,and keeping codebooks in her rooms. Finally Elizabeth, who has put up with this for years, becomes truly frightened for her own life and is forced to have her cousin executed. Mary meets the end with grace, dignity, spiritual fortitude and not a little stage management calculated to give her an edge on her cousin in the history books. But there

Every time I finish one of Lady Antonia Fraser's historical works, it is with a deep feeling of satisfaction, and also with newly-increased admiration for her intelligence and analytical skills. Queen Mary comes completely alive in this book, and we walk with her along the smooth way of her happy early life and the treacherous paths of her adulthood, while learning a lot about her historical background and her genuine, deep sensitivity. This was a great woman, and Fraser does a great job in this engaging, comprehensive portrait.

I read Lady Antonia Fraser's book "Mary Queen of Scots" some time ago. It is a fascinating biography of one of England's most tragic figures. This account leaves one question; did Elizabeth I, really want to execute her because she posed a dangerous threat to the throne, or was she simply afraid not to? Most all accounts have Elizabeth struggling with what to do with Mary, Queen of Scots. We will never really find out for sure, but it was a sad life she struggled with even though her son, James, ascended the throne after Elizabeth Tudor left no issue. A very good read and the reader will learn much.

Lady Fraser's book has the advantage of personalizing many of the power realities of Mary Stuart's life. She does not just list dates and names but illustrates the way power was used in the religious/titled/political milieu of Mary Stuart's day. The fact that Mary was so headstrong and insisted on her "rights" as sovereign to do what she liked, permitting her heart to over-rule her political common sense appears to have been her undoing. Elizabeth I appears to have comprehended the fact that to marry would undermine her power as Queen, since women under Church law of the time were subservient to their husbands. Of course Elizabeth had a better grounding in political education since she grew up in the political turmoil of Henry VIII's last days, whereas Mary's early years were apparently frittered away at the French court. It was the men in Mary's lives who were her undoing, precisely because of the nobles' fear of the potential husband's power over his wife and it's effect on the political realm. Her headstrong stubbornness however is a cautionary tale, which in my view is relevant to today's politics in the world of politics and business. The old rules still apply to woman in varying degrees worldwide. The ability to understand the "expectations" of the performance of a "role", regardless of the sex of the person holding the role, is imperative. Elizabeth I, and subsequently Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi and other successful women leaders had this understanding of their "role", albeit in a modern era with less religious interference. Mary gay and beautiful as she was did not understand that the nature of her power lay in her "job description" as Queen, with the attendant expectations by her subjects of the role of a sovereign. It is a lively book, eminently suitable for the non-historian, which I have owned for years. I recommend the book to anyone concerned about women in business, science the arts or education of young girls.