Queen of Scots : The True Life of Mary Stuart

Rating:
Summary: TUMULTUOUS LIFE EXCITINGLY READ
Review: Couldn't be a more perfect voice to narrate the tumultuous life of Mary Stuart than the author John Guy. An unparalleled historian and consultant to BBC, Mr. Guy reads with depth and understanding as he traces the years of the doomed queen from her youth spent in France to her execution.

There has not been a biography of Mary Stuart written in over a quarter of a century, and this is based on newly discovered documents that shed light on this enigmatic woman who has been presented as one who ruled emotionally rather than cerebrally. It is, of course, a first rate bio that reads as excitingly as any contemporary drama.

Listeners who enjoy not only history but an up close look at court machinations, plotting, and subterfuge will be enthralled by Mr. Guy's epic study. Offering previously ignored evidence, the author posits that she was wrongfully incarcerated and finally beheaded, framed by her enemies. Hers was indeed a life that stands larger than the most imaginative fiction.

- Gail Cooke


Rating:
Summary: A fresh look at Mary Queen of Scots life and loves and plots
Review: In this lively biography John Guy has produced a new, thoughtful, and very well researched, portrait of the much maligned Mary, Queen of Scots. He has dug up records that have not been used by historians in over 100 years and for the first time fully reviewed all the original documents relating to the death of her husband Darnley and come up with some very interesting results.

Mary comes across as an intelligent, well educated, politically astute woman when she finally took her place on the throne of Scotland. It's often easy to overlook the fact that for close to 5 years she successfully ruled Scotland and its plotting Lords in her own name before the dramatic events which shaped her eventual fate took place. John Guy successfully puts these years of successful rule in their place and presents a version of the death of her husband Darnley that makes a great deal of sense given the evidence of this event that is still preserved in English archives.

Mary's later captive years are dealt with in less detail, but the plots that eventually bought about her death are presented in with insight and detail. This biography has a lot of new information on Mary, and if you are interested in this complex and tragic historical figure then this book is a must, and it will make you re-think some of the assumptions in earlier biographies.


Rating:
Summary: Immersive, entertaining, thorough, heartbreaking.
Review: John Guy has given us a remarkable biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. No other Elizabethan (or earlier) biography I've read has been able to provide such a thorough picture of the biography's subject and the time and place in which that subject lived.

In this book we get a clear picture of the conflicted character that is Queen Mary: a girl misused throughout life by family, subjects, and peers. Mary, however, is not above creating problems of her own through her capricious, willful, and at times devious behaviour. Still, she was not a weak person, and indeed had such a will as to find some success in the turbulent world she inhabited: a Scotland that was divided by clannish, scheming nobles, and loomed over by a firmly Protestant England to the south.

Other notable highlights of the book include an incredibly detailed account of the death of Lord Darnley, and the up and down relationship Mary had with her cousin Elizabeth, the queen of England.

All in all, this book is a thorough, entertaining and moving account of one of the most interesting characters from English history, and well deserving of a rare 5-star rating from me.

Rating:
Summary: Well-Research Whale of a Book
Review: John Guy seems to have spent much fruitful time digging up everything he could for Queen of Scots, the True Life of Mary Stuart. Along the way he seems to have fallen completely and hopelessly under her spell. That is not to say he does not, on occasion, find fault with her (her marriage to Bothwell could never be presented as a smart idea) but he puts up the best defence against Mary's detractors (Cecil and Elizabeth) since the reign of the Renaissance papacy. This is only occasionally a problem in this otherwise interesting and mammoth book. Mary has been oft maligned in favour of Elizabeth and it seems, for some reason, one is always expected to choose between these two British queens ruling at the same time and the author makes his choice abundantly clear. The author covers the complicated factionalism of Scotland with adroitness. The murder of Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, is handled with more thoroughness in other books (such as Alison Weir's) but this author places the assisnation in its context quite comfortably. A good book on a fascinating woman.

Rating:
Summary: Well-Research Whale of a Book
Review: John Guy seems to have spent much fruitful time digging up everything he could for Queen of Scots, the True Life of Mary Stuart. Along the way he seems to have fallen completely and hopelessly under her spell. That is not to say he does not, on occasion, find fault with her (her marriage to Bothwell could never be presented as a smart idea) but he puts up the best defence against Mary's detractors (Cecil and Elizabeth) since the reign of the Renaissance papacy. This is only occasionally a problem in this otherwise interesting and mammoth book. Mary has been oft maligned in favour of Elizabeth and it seems, for some reason, one is always expected to choose between these two British queens ruling at the same time and the author makes his choice abundantly clear. The author covers the complicated factionalism of Scotland with adroitness. The murder of Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, is handled with more thoroughness in other books (such as Alison Weir's) but this author places the assisnation in its context quite comfortably. A good book on a fascinating woman.

Rating:
Summary: Behemoth Bio
Review: Mary Stuart is one of history's most fascinating figures, so why is this massive biography, with some thoughtful "new" approaches to dissecting her story, such a slow read? Major events in her life are stunningly dramatic, but the politics of Elizabethean England and the courts of Europe are painted so as to slow down the momentum of the personal tale of the tragic monarch.

Worth having for your collection and impressively researched and compiled, but not necessarily a pleasure-read for the casual Anglophile.

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Summary: The real Mary!
Review: Mary Stuart was to the manor born, if indeed anyone ever was. She was the daughter of James V of Scotland and the great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England. She was raised in the Royal Court of France and was married at sixteen to the heir to the French Throne. Mary's father had died a few days after her birth and she had actually been Queen of Scotland since that time. Her realm was governed however by a regent who was for most of that time Mary's mother, Mary of Guise. The Guise family was a rich and powerful French family and they used young Mary to their advantage whenever they could. This misuse by her mother's family was just to be the beginning of a long series of betrayals that would finally end in Mary's execution.

John Guy has undertaken a huge task with this biography. The well-ingrained image of Mary Queen of Scots is one of a manipulative siren or of a Queen who was well out of her depth or both. Guy has examined many documents that have never been considered before and has reached an entirely different conclusion. In every way she was the equal of her cousin Elizabeth I, and in many ways her better. Mary's problem was that her Kingdom had been divided up by clan loyalties for years and the squabbles among the nobles made for an unruly Kingdom. Add to this the recent arrival of the Reformation in Scotland, and the further division it caused and the situation Mary faced on her return to Scotland was an almost hopeless one. Not phased in the least, Mary jumped right in and even her detractors had to admit that she was doing well. Even the rather unpleasant John Knox had to admit that the Catholic Queen did not lack courage.

Mary's also faced the problem that Scotland was so small and weak. That fact gave her very little leverage when bargaining abroad or with her cousin to the south. Then of course there was William Cecil, Elizabeth's Secretary of State, who hated Mary with a blind passion. Many Catholics in Europe, including many in England didn't recognize Elizabeth as the legitimate Queen of England, but instead looked to her cousin, the Queen of Scots. For that reason and his raging Protestantism Cecil decided that Mary had to go. And he went to extraordinary lengths to see that she did go.

Guy argues quite clearly that most of the charges that were leveled at Mary by rebel lords of Scotland were trumped up. Supported only by forged and doctored documents. The author is very convincing in his argument that Mary had nothing to do with the death of her second husband Lord Darnley and that in fact her accusers were the guilty parties. In all, Mary seems to have been caught up in events that simply were too much for anyone to handle. She seems to have made the right decision most of the time but with her own lords out to steal her throne and with William Cecil at work in London she simply had no chance.

Her only real guilt came near the end of her life when she did indeed conspire to remove Elizabeth from the English Throne. This conspiracy was more of an act of desperation than anything else, for she had languished in English custody for years. Day catches the sense of desperation Mary must have felt and the reader will understand why she acted thus. Day in fact does an excellent job of catching the spirit of the times as well as the spirit of Mary. Reading this book, one will see how often Mary was wronged while she was trying desperately to do the right thing. The author's thesis is that Mary was not only wronged in her own time, but has been badly wronged by history. In my opinion, he makes his point and it is well taken. After reading this wonderfully well-written book I don't think I will ever think of Mary Queen of Scots in the same way. She had her flaws, but she was indeed an impressive woman.

Rating:
Summary: Huge and hugely satisfying
Review: This is a big book in more ways than one. Even though it's a tome I read it very quickly and with great satisfaction. The religiosity of Elizabethan politics were clearly as cynical as the politics of our own time, but in those days you could have your head removed for it. That thought never left my mind as I plowed through this great read. This is a serious book, but it reads like a novel.

Elizabeth is always held up as a master politician, and although Mary may or may not have been her equal politically she was her superior in charm by a long shot. You cannot help sympathizing with her, admiring her courage, even if she might have been complicitous in her own victimization. She was a very complex character, and this book does an excellent job of teasing out the various strands of her personality.

There is a lot of new information here as well. If you have read the other books on the subject, especially Antonia Fraser's, or are looking for a good place to begin, this is the book for you.