The Challenge to the Crown
The Challenge to the Crown

Author: Robert Stedall

Publisher: Book Guild Publishing

Published: 2012-07-26

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 1846246466

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Mary Queen of Scots: Catholic martyr or manipulative femme fatale On 10 February 1567, conspirators bent on killing Henry, Lord Darnley, King-Consort of Mary Queen of Scots successfully razed his Edinburgh residence at Kirk o' Field in a huge explosion. Soon afterwards, Darnley's partially-clothed body was discovered in a nearby orchard, strangled to death by an unknown assailant. Rumours of Mary's involvement in his murder quickly surfaced. Placards across Edinburgh implied that she had provoked the Earl of Bothwell into killing her husband in a crime of passion. This became more plausible when she tried to avoid having to prosecute him for the murder, and subsequently married him, encouraged by her most senior Protestant nobles. While Mary's motives for the marriage might be explained by her need for his protection, those of the Nobility who had encourage it are confusing. Why would they want a union, which would inevitably place Bothwell, a man they hated, as head of government? Was their motif to associate her in the murder plot? Mary's involvement in Darnley's murder has remained one of the great historical mysteries. Genealogist and author Robert Stedall has spent ten years researching the inter-marriages within Scottish peerage to provide an explanation for their motives in removing Mary from the throne. In this first volume, of his two volume history of Mary and James, he explains in vivid detail the switching allegiances of the nobility, and can reveal for the first time, the gripping true story of Mary's downfall and imprisonment.

Elizabeth and Mary
Elizabeth and Mary

Author: Jane Dunn

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 0307425746

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"Superb.... A perceptive, suspenseful account." --The New York Times Book Review "Dunn demythologizes Elizabeth and Mary. In humanizing their dynamic and shifting relationship, Dunn describes it as fueled by both rivalry and their natural solidarity as women in an overwhelmingly masculine world." --Boston Herald The political and religious conflicts between Queen Elizabeth I and the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots, have for centuries captured our imagination and inspired memorable dramas played out on stage, screen, and in opera. But few books have brought to life more vividly the exquisite texture of two women’s rivalry, spurred on by the ambitions and machinations of the forceful men who surrounded them. The drama has terrific resonance even now as women continue to struggle in their bid for executive power. Against the backdrop of sixteenth-century England, Scotland, and France, Dunn paints portraits of a pair of protagonists whose formidable strengths were placed in relentless opposition. Protestant Elizabeth, the bastard daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose legitimacy had to be vouchsafed by legal means, glowed with executive ability and a visionary energy as bright as her red hair. Mary, the Catholic successor whom England’s rivals wished to see on the throne, was charming, feminine, and deeply persuasive. That two such women, queens in their own right, should have been contemporaries and neighbours sets in motion a joint biography of rare spark and page-turning power.

Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley
Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

Author: Alison Weir

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 722

ISBN-13: 0307431479

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BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Alison Weir's Mary Boleyn. Handsome, accomplished, and charming, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, staked his claim to the English throne by marrying Mary Stuart, who herself claimed to be the Queen of England. It was not long before Mary discovered that her new husband was interested only in securing sovereign power for himself. Then, on February 10, 1567, an explosion at his lodgings left Darnley dead; the intrigue thickened after it was discovered that he had apparently been suffocated before the blast. After an exhaustive reevaluation of the source material, Alison Weir has come up with a solution to this enduring mystery. Employing her gift for vivid characterization and gripping storytelling, Weir has written one of her most engaging excursions yet into Britain’s bloodstained, power-obsessed past.

My Heart Is My Own
My Heart Is My Own

Author: John Guy

Publisher: Fourth Estate

Published: 2018-12-27

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780008331870

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Soon to be a major film, this is a dramatic reinterpretation of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots by one of the leading historians of this period. She was crowned Queen of Scotland at nine months of age, and Queen of France at sixteen years; at eighteen she ascended the throne and began ruling one of the most fractious courts in Europe, riven by religious conflict and personal lust for power. She rode out at the head of an army in both victory and defeat; saw her second husband assassinated, and married his murderer. At twenty-five she entered captivity at the hands of her rival queen, from which only death would release her. The life of Mary Stuart is one of unparalleled drama and conflict. From the labyrinthine plots laid by the Scottish lords to wrest power for themselves, to the efforts made by Elizabeth's ministers to invalidate Mary's legitimate claim to the English throne, John Guy returns to the archives to explode the myths and correct the inaccuracies that surround this most fascinating monarch. The portrait that emerges is not of a political pawn or a manipulative siren, but of a shrewd and charismatic young ruler who relished power and, for a time, managed to hold together a fatally unstable country.

Trial of Mary, Queen of Scots
Trial of Mary, Queen of Scots

Author: Archibald Francis Steuart

Publisher: Canada Law Book

Published: 1923

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

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The trial of Mary Queen of Scots took place in the Star Chamber, and was the first formal trial of a crowned and accredited Sovereign in historic times. The unfortunate Queen was not tried, as many people think, for any deeds or misdeeds done during her reign in Scotland, but on account of her alleged complicity in the Babington plot which designed to free her and kill Queen Elizabeth of England. This volume gives the State Trial, the legal processes which led up to it, the tortuous policy of the English lawyers, and a rare account of the Queen's last miseries borne with such dignity and bravery.