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Overview
Margaret George's exhaustively researched novel skillfully weaves both historical fact and plausible fiction in bringing the story of Mary Queen of Scots to life.
She was a child crowned a queen....
A sinner hailed as a saint....
A lover denounced as a whore...
A woman murdered for her dreams...
Margaret George's Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles brings to life the fascinating story of Mary, who became the Queen of Scots when she was only six days old. Raised in the glittering French court, returning to Scotland to rule as a Catholic monarch over a newly Protestant country, and executed like a criminal in Queen Elizabeth's England, Queen Mary lived a life like no other, and Margaret George weaves the facts into a stunning work of historical fiction.
"With a seamless use of original letters, diaries, and poems: a popular, readable, inordinately moving tribute to a remarkable queen." -- Kirkus Reviews
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429938419 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2010 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 880 |
| Sales rank: | 192,998 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Margaret George is the author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, The Memoirs of Cleopatra, and Elizabeth I, among other novels. Margaret first got the idea to write historical fiction when, after reading numerous books that viewed Henry VIII through the eyes of his enemies and victims, she found herself wondering if there might be another side to the story. She became determined to let Henry speak for himself, and it took fifteen years, about three hundred books of background reading, three visits to England to see every extant building associated with Henry, and five handwritten drafts for her to answer the question: What was Henry really like? Margaret was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and has traveled extensively. She and her husband live in Madison, Wisconsin.
Read an Excerpt
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles
A Novel
By Margaret George
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 1992 Margaret GeorgeAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-3841-9
CHAPTER 1
In the smoky blue mist it was impossible to see anything except more mist. The sun, shrouded and muffled, wore a fuzzy circle of light around itself and was the one thing the men could sight on as they attempted to fight. If they could not see the enemy, how could they defend themselves?
The mist blew and swirled, passing low over the green bogs and mushy ground, hugging the soaked terrain, teasing the men as they tried to extricate themselves from the treacherous mire. It was cold and clammy, as unsympathetic as the hand of death, with which it kept close company.
Above the bog there were a few lone trees, their branches already stripped bare in the autumn gales, standing naked and forlorn above the battlefield. Men struggled toward their grey and wrinkled trunks, hoping to climb to safety. Thousands of feet had trampled the ground around the trees into an oozing field. The fog blanketed it all.
* * *
When the fog cleared the next day, sweeping out to sea and carrying the last vestige of confusion with it, the whole of Solway Moss revealed itself to be a sorry site for a battle. The mud, reeds, and slippery grass surrounding the meandering River Esk showed the Moss to be aptly named. There, in the southwest corner where England and Scotland met, the two ancient enemies had grappled like stags, floundering in the muck. But the English stag had triumphed over its adversary, and the swamp was dotted with leather shields, dropped there by the trapped Scots. There they would rot, as the sun would never dry them there.
One of the English soldiers, herding away his captives, turned to look back at the site, greenly tranquil in the slanting autumn light. "God have mercy on Scotland," he said quietly. "No one else will."
* * *
Outside it began to snow — gently at first, like little sighs, and then harder and harder, as if someone had ripped open a huge pillow. The sky was perfectly white, and soon the ground was, too; the wind blew the snow almost horizontal, and it coated the sides of trees and buildings, so that the whole world turned pale in less than an hour. At Falkland Palace, the big round towers reared up like giant snowmen guarding the entrance.
Inside, the King looked, unseeing, out the window.
"Your Majesty?" asked an anxious servant. "Pray, what is your wish?"
"Heat. Heat. Too cold here," he mumbled, shaking his head from side to side, closing his eyes.
The servant put more logs on the fire, and fanned it to tease the flames up around the fresh new logs. It was indeed cold, the coldest weather so early in the season that anyone could remember. Ships were already frozen in harbours, and the barren fields were as hard as metal.
Just then some of the King's field soldiers appeared, peering cautiously into the room. He seemed to see them even through his closed eyes.
"The battle?" he said. "Have you news of the battle?"
They came in, tattered, and knelt before him. Finally the highest-ranking one said, "Aye. We were attacked and soundly beaten. Many were drowned in the Esk in the retreat. Many more have been taken as prisoners — twelve thousand prisoners in the custody of the English commander."
"Ransom?" The King's voice was a whisper.
"No word of that. They say ... they may all be sent to England as captives."
Suddenly the King lurched from his seat and stood up, rigid. He clasped and unclasped his fists, and a low sound of utter pain escaped him. He looked around wildly at the soldiers. "We are defeated?" he asked again. When they nodded, he cried, "All is lost!"
He turned his back on them and stumbled across the room to the door; when he reached the door frame he sagged against it, as if a spear had pinioned him. Then, clutching his side, he reeled away into his private quarters where they could not follow. His valet followed, running after him.
The King sought his bed; he dived into it and lay moaning and clutching his side. "All is lost!" he kept muttering.
One of the chamber servants sent for the physician; another went out to speak to the field soldiers.
"Is it truly as bad as you reported?" asked the chamber servant.
"Aye — worse," said one of the soldiers. "We are not only beaten, as at Flodden, but disgraced as well. Our King was not with us; our King had left us to mope and droop by himself far from the battlefield — like a maiden filled with vapours!"
"Sssh!" The servant looked around to see if anyone might hear. When he was assured that was impossible, he said, "The King is ill. He was ill before the news; the sorrow of the loss of his heirs, the little princes, has devastated him."
"It is the duty of a king to shoulder such losses."
"The loss of both his heirs within a few days of each other has convinced him that luck has turned against him. Once a man is convinced of that, it is hard for him to lead with authority."
"Like a fainting priest, or a boy with the falling sickness!" cried one of the soldiers. "We need a warrior, not a woman, leading us!"
"Aye, aye. He'll recover. He'll come to himself. After the shock wears off." The servant shrugged. "The King most like by now has another heir. His Queen was expecting to be brought to childbed at any moment."
The soldier shook his head. "'Tis a pity he has so many bastards, and none of them of any use to him as a successor."
* * *
The King refused to rise from his bed, but lay there limply, as if in a trance. Some of his nobles came to him, and stood round his bed. The Earl of Arran, the burly head of the House of Hamilton and hereditary heir to the throne after any of the King's own children, looked on solicitously. Cardinal Beaton, the secretary of state, hovered as if he wished to hear a last confession. The Stewart cousins, all powerful clans in their own right, stood discreetly about the chamber. All wore heavy wool under their ceremonially bright garments; the weather remained bitter cold. In other chambers the King's mistresses, past and present, lingered, concerned about their children. Would the King see fit to remember them?
The King looked at them, shimmering and reappearing, sometimes seeming to dissolve, under his gaze. These faces ... but none of them dear to him, no, not one.
Scotland had been beaten, he would remember, with stabs of pain.
"The Queen," someone was whispering. "Remember your Queen. Her hour is near. Think of your prince."
But the princes were dead, the sweet little boys, dead within a few hours of each other, one of them at Stirling, one at St. Andrews. Places of death. No hope. All gone. No hope. No point to another; it was doomed, too.
Then, a new face near his. Someone was staring intently into his eyes, trying to read them. A new person, someone brisk and detached.
"Sire, your Queen has been safely delivered."
The King struggled to get the words out. Strange, how difficult it was to speak. Where earlier he had been reticent, now it was his body holding back, even when his mind wished to communicate. The throat would not work. "Is it a man-child or woman?" he finally managed to command his tongue and lips to say.
"A fair daughter, Sire."
Daughter! The last battle lost, then.
"Is it even so? The devil take it! Adieu, farewell! The Stewarts came with a lass, and they shall pass with a lass," he murmured.
Those were the last words he spoke, although, as the physician saw that he was sinking, he exhorted him, "Give her your blessing! Give your daughter your blessing, for God's own sweet sake! Do not pass away without that charity and safeguard to your heir!"
But the King just gave a little laugh and smile, kissed his hand and offered it to all his lords round about him; soon thereafter he turned his head away from his attendants, toward the wall, and died.
"What meant he by his words?" one of the attendant lords whispered.
"The crown of Scotland," replied another. "It came to the Stewarts through Marjorie Bruce, and he fears it will pass away through — what is the Princess's name?"
"Princess Mary."
"No," said his companion, as he watched the physicians slowly turning the dead King, and folding his hands preparatory to having the priest anoint him. "Queen Mary. Mary Queen of Scots."
* * *
His widow, the Queen Dowager, struggled to regain her strength after childbirth as quickly as possible. Not for her the lingering recovery of days abed, receiving visitors and gifts and, as her reward for their well-wishes, presenting the infant for their inspection, all swathed in white lace and taffeta and wrapped in yards of softest velvet in the gilded royal crib.
No, Marie de Guise, the relict — quaint phrase, that, she thought — of His Majesty James V of Scotland must right herself and be poised to defend her infant, like any wolf-mother in a harsh winter. And it was a very harsh winter, not only in terms of the flying snow and icy roads, but for Scotland itself.
She could almost fancy that, in the ruddy flames of the fires she kept continually burning, the teeth of the nobles looked more like animal fangs than human dog-teeth. One by one they made their way to Linlithgow Palace, the golden palace lying on a long, thin loch just west of Edinburgh, to offer their respects to the infant — their new Queen. They came clad in heavy furs, their feet booted and wrapped round with animal skins, and it was hard to tell their ice-streaked beards from the furs surrounding their faces. They would kneel and murmur something about their loyalty, but their eyes were preternaturally bright.
There were all the clans who came to make sure that they would not be barred from power by any other clan. For this was the greatest of all opportunities, the equivalent of a stag-kill that attracted all the carrion-eaters of the forest. An infant was their monarch, a helpless infant, with no one but a foreign mother to protect her: a Frenchwoman who was ignorant of their ways here and far from home.
The Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, was there; had not this baby been born, he would now be king. He smiled benevolently at the infant. "I wish her a long life," he said.
The Earl of Lennox, Matthew Stuart, who claimed to be the true heir rather than Arran, came shortly and stood looking longingly down at the baby. "May she have all the gifts of grace and beauty," he said.
Patrick Hepburn, the "Fair Earl" of Bothwell, stepped forward and kissed the Queen Mother's hand lingeringly. "May she have power to make all who gaze upon her love her," he said, raising his eyes to Marie's.
The red-faced, stout northern Earl of Huntly strutted past the cradle and bowed. "May she always rest among friends and never fall into the hands of her enemies," he said.
"My lord!" Marie de Guise objected. "Why mention enemies? Why even think of them now? You tie your well-wishes to something sinister. I pray you, amend your words."
"I can amend them, but never erase them. Once spoken, they have flown into another realm. Very well: let her enemies be confounded and come to confusion."
"I like not the word."
"I cannot promise that there will be no enemies," he said stubbornly. "Nor would it be a good wish. 'Tis enemies that make a man and shape him. Only a no-thing has no enemies."
* * *
After the lords had departed, Marie de Guise sat by the cradle and rocked it gently. The baby was sleeping. The firelight painted the side of her face rosy, and the infant curled and uncurled her fat, dimpled little fingers.
My first daughter, thought Marie, and she does look different. Is it my imagination? No, I think she's truly feminine. The Scots would say a lass is always different from a lad, even from the beginning. This daughter has skin like almond-milk. And her hair — she gently pushed back the baby's cap — of what colour will it be, to go with that skin? It is too early to tell; the fuzz is the same colour as that of all babes.
Mary. I have named her after myself, and also after the Virgin; after all, she was born on the Virgin's day, the Immaculate Conception, and perhaps the Virgin will protect her, guard over her as a special charge.
Mary Queen of Scots. My daughter is a queen already; six days old, and then she became a queen.
At that thought, a brief flutter of guilt rose in her.
The King my lord and husband died, and that is how my daughter came to be Queen before her time. I should feel tearing grief. I should be mourning the King, lamenting my fate, instead of gazing in wonder at my daughter, a baby queen.
The child will be fair, she thought, studying her features. Her complexion and features all promise it. Already I can see that she has her father's eyes, those Stewart eyes that are slanted and heavy-lidded. It was his eyes that promised so much, that were so reassuring and yet so private, hiding their own depths.
"My dear Queen." Behind her she heard a familiar voice: Cardinal Beaton's. He had not left with the others; but then, he felt at home here, and never more so than now, with the King gone forever. "Gazing upon your handiwork? Be careful, lest you fall in love with your own creation."
She straightened and turned to him. "It is difficult not to be in awe of her. She is lovely; and she is a queen. My family in France will be beside themselves. The Guises finally have a monarch to their credit!"
"Her last name is not Guise, but Stewart," the bulky churchman reminded her. "It is not her French blood that puts her on this throne, but her Scottish." He allowed himself to bend down and stroke the baby's cheek. "Well, what are you to do?"
"Hold the throne for her as best I can," answered Marie.
"Then you will have to remain in Scotland." He straightened up, and made his way over to a plate of sweetmeats and nuts in a silver bowl. He picked one up and popped it into his mouth.
"I know that!" She was indignant.
"No plans to run back to France?" He was laughing, teasing her. "Made from Seville oranges," he commented about the sweetmeat he was still sucking. "Lately I tasted a coated rind from India. Much sweeter."
"No. If this child had not come, if I were a childless widow, then of course I certainly would not linger here! But now I have a task, and one I cannot shirk." She shivered. "If I do not die of cold here, or take consumption."
It was snowing outside again. She walked across the chamber to the arched stone fireplace, where a huge fire was blazing, by her orders. The baby's chamber must be kept warm, in spite of the wildly bitter weather raging all over Scotland. The Cardinal, who lived luxuriously himself, doubtless approved.
"Oh, David," she said, her smile suddenly fading. "What will become of Scotland? The battle —"
"If the English have their way, it will become part of England. They will seek to grab it one way or another, most likely through marriage. As the victors of Solway Moss, with their thousand high-ranking prisoners in hand, they will dictate the terms. They will probably force Mary to marry their Prince Edward."
"Never! I will not permit that!" cried Marie.
"She must needs marry someone," the Cardinal reminded her. "That is what the King meant when he said, 'It will pass with a lass.' When she marries, the crown goes to her husband. And there is no eligible French prince. The marriage of King François's heirs, Henri de Valois and Catherine de Médicis, is barren. If little Mary tries to marry a Scot, one of her own subjects, the rest will rise up in jealousy. So who else but the English?"
"Not an English prince!" Marie kept repeating. "Not an English prince! They are all heretics down there!"
"And what do you plan to do about the King's bastards?" the Cardinal whispered.
"I shall bring them all together and rear them here, in the palace."
"You are mad! Better bring them all together and dispose of them, rather."
"Like a sultan?" Marie could not help laughing. "Nay, that is not a Christian response. I will offer them charity, and a home."
"And rear them with your own daughter, the lawful Queen? That is not Christian, but negligent. You may see your daughter reap the evil harvest of that misguided kindness. Beware that you do not nurture serpents to sting her later, when you are gone." The Cardinal's fat, unlined face registered true alarm. "How many are there?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George. Copyright © 1992 Margaret George. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Acknowledgments,
Dedication,
Maps,
Epigraph,
In My End Is My Beginning England, 1587,
Book One: Queen of Scotland, Queen of France 1524–1560,
Book Two: Queen of Scotland 1561–1568,
Book Three: Queen of Exile 1568–1587,
A Reading Group Guide,
Author's Afterword,
Copyright Acknowledgments,
Copyright,
Reading Group Guide
1. "Is there no Scots in me at all?" Mary asks her uncle when she is still in France. To what extent do you feel that Mary——who never knew her father and was brought up in France——was truly Scottish? How much does "blood" count?
2. What do you think of Mary's choice to go back to Scotland to take her place as queen there? How did both Scotland's needs and her own figure into that choice?
3. All of Mary's major decisions were impulsive——to go to Scotland, to marry Darnley and Bothwell, to flee to Elizabeth. She was a cool and quick thinker in physical crises, such as the Riccio murder and her own escapes——but not in politics, where she was unable to read character. Is it possible for someone like Mary to be an effective ruler?
4. Who was Mary's strongest adversary——Knox or Elizabeth? Short of converting, there was nothing that Mary could have done to placate Knox, but were there ways that she could have won Elizabeth?
5. Mary's reign has been described as "a series of plots and pardons." Do you see any rationale behind all of her plots, raids, and skullduggery?
6. Mary had a difficult time in Scotland from the moment she landed in a dense fog, and in some senses she never came out of that fog. What could she have done differently — when she first arrived, when deciding to marry, when dealing with the aftermath of Darnley's murder? At what point was it too late to salvage her reign? Is there any scenario that would have altered the end result?
7. How do you view Mary's involvement with Bothwell? Do you find it foolhardy, or do you admire her for it?
8. Was Mary literally a femme fatale? "Those who love her seem to die untimely or unnatural deaths," Bothwell muses. Queen Elizabeth warned Norfolk to "take care of his pillow." What would you think if you were prospective bridegroom #4?
9. Elizabeth gained her crown at age twenty-five, while Mary lost hers at the same age. They also had vastly different childhoods: Elizabeth had to protect herself from the vicissitudes of plots at court, whereas Mary was in France, far removed from the turmoil in Scotland. In what ways did their upbringings — Mary's sheltered, Elizabeth's exposed — shape them as adults and as rulers?
10. It has been said of the Stuarts, "they did not know how to rule, but they knew how to die." Mary was the first Stuart to fail as a ruler but succeed in a glorious, memorable death scene. Did her death redeem her life? Was she a martyr to Catholicism, as she claimed, or largely playing a theatrical part?
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