Murder -- Scotland -- History -- 16th century. |
Queens -- Scotland -- Biography. |
Scotland -- History -- Mary Stuart, 1542-1567 |
Darnley, Henry Stuart, Lord, 1545-1567 -- Death and burial. |
Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 -- Marriage. |
Albany, Henry Stuart, Duke of, 1545-1567 |
Ardmannoch, Henry Stuart, Lord, 1545-1567 |
Ross, Henry Stuart, Earl of, 1545-1567 |
Stewart, Henrie, 1545-1567 |
Stuart, Henry, Lord Darnley, 1545-1567 |
Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots, 1542-1587 |
Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Stuart, Marie, 1542-1587 |
Maria Stuart, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Stuart, Maria, 1542-1587 |
Stuart, Mary, 1542-1587 |
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Maria Stuarda, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Stuarda, Maria, 1542-1587 |
Marii͡a Sti͡uart, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Sti͡uart, Marii͡a, 1542-1587 |
Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Stewart, Mary, 1542-1587 |
Mary, Queen of Scotland, 1542-1587 |
Màiri, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Stiùbhart, Màiri, 1542-1587 |
Màiri Stiùbhart, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 |
Criminal homicide |
Killing (Murder) |
Royalty |
Rulers |
Sovereigns |
Available:
Library | Shelf Number | Shelf Location | Status |
---|---|---|---|
Searching... Attleboro Public Library | 941.105 WEI | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Fairhaven-Millicent | B MARY (SCOTS) WEI 2003 | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library | 941.105 WEIR | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library | 941.105 WEI 2003 | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Swansea Public Library | 941. W | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The acclaimed author ofThe Princes in the Towernow brilliantly investigates another of Britain's notorious unsolved mysteries: the murder of Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. Tall, handsome, accomplished, and charming, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, had it all, including a strong claim to the English throne, a fact that threatened the already insecure Elizabeth I. She therefore opposed any plan for Darnley to marry her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, who herself claimed to be Queen of England. But in 1565 Mary met and fell in love with Darnley--and defied Elizabeth by marrying him. It was not long before she discovered that her new husband was weak and vicious, and interested only in securing sovereign power for himself. On February 10, 1567, an explosion at his lodgings left Darnley dead. There were many who might have had a motive for murdering him, not least Mary herself. The intrigue thickened after it was discovered that apparently he had been suffocated before the blast. Emerging from the tragedy were more mysteries than any historian has ever satisfactorily solved. Mary and Darnley's marriage had been an adulterous disaster. After Darnley's death, Mary showed favor to the powerful Earl of Bothwell, causing her enemies to accuse her of being his partner in both infidelity and murder. Mary insisted that the murder conspiracy had been aimed at her, and that she had escaped only by changing her plans at the last minute. It has even been suggested that Darnley himself had planned the explosion in order to kill her. The murder of Darnley ultimately led to Mary's ruin. After her deposition, there conveniently came to light a box of documents--the notorious Casket Letters--that her enemies claimed were proof of her guilt. But Mary was never allowed to see them, and they disappeared in 1584. The question of their authenticity has haunted historians ever since. After exhaustive reexamination and reevaluation of the source material, Alison Weir has come up with a solution to this enduring mystery that can be substantiated by contemporary evidence, and in the process has shattered many of the misconceptions about Mary, Queen of Scots. Employing once more the bright writing and stunning characterizations that have made her a favorite writer of popular history, Weir has written one of her most engaging excursions into Britain's bloodstained, power-obsessed past.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), has for centuries fascinated historians and the general public, her life the stuff of Hollywood myth, involving murder, rape, adultery, abdication, imprisonment and execution. In bestselling historian Weir's (Henry VIII, etc.) able hands, we see the young Catholic queen ruling over Protestant Scotland and a group of unruly nobles. Mary's second husband, Lord Darnley, participated in the 1566 murder of Mary's favorite adviser, David Rizzio, after which Mary and Lord Darnley became estranged. Darnley himself was murdered the next year, and some historians have claimed that Mary plotted his death so she could marry her lover, Bothwell. But Weir argues convincingly that the evidence against Mary is fraudulent, part of a coverup initiated by rebellious lords. Weir tells how and why Darnley was killed, and, shockingly, reveals that Bothwell, whom Mary did marry, was one of the murderers. Mary's lords took up arms against her, and she was forced to abdicate, fleeing to England, where she expected her cousin Queen Elizabeth to help her regain her throne. Instead, Mary was held captive for 16 years and finally beheaded for plotting Elizabeth's assassination. Mary could not hope for a better advocate than Weir, who exhaustively evaluates the evidence against her and finds it lacking. Mary's ultimate sin, according to Weir, was not murder but consistently "poor judgment," especially in choosing men. This is entertaining popular history that will satisfy fans of Weir's previous bestsellers. 16 pages of color illus. (Apr.) Forecast: Antonia Fraser's bio of Mary, Queen of Scots, was reissued in paperback in 2001 and still sells. But major review attention, Weir's proposed resolution of a longstanding mystery and a 9-copy floor display with special riser should help this achieve satisfying sales. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Weir, a popular British historian and the author of, most recently, Henry VIII: The King and His Court (2001), visits one of the most intriguing murder mysteries in European history. Mary, Queen of Scots, failed as sovereign of her realm and even failed to save her own life--eventually sent to the executioner's block by her much more practical second cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England. Married as a child to the dauphin of France, Mary was widowed early and, while still only a teenager, returned to rule over her Scottish kingdom, which she had inherited as an infant. Mary then married her cousin Lord Darnley, who was also a cousin of Queen Elizabeth. Handsome but dissolute and insufferably arrogant, Lord Darnley alienated nearly everyone in Scotland, including, very quickly into his marriage, Queen Mary herself. In a plot that was "ill-conceived, careless and staggeringly amateurish," Lord Darnley was murdered, "but the identity of the person or persons responsible is surrounded by great mystery." To this day, establishing the identity of the perpetrator proves difficult, but Weir goes to great lengths to isolate the clues and marshal them into a convincing indictment. No stone is left unturned in her investigation, and despite its detail, her book is as dramatic as witnessing firsthand the most riveting court case. Naturally, much of Weir's focus is on the question of Queen Mary's complicity in her husband's death. The author concludes that the "bulk of evidence against Mary is flawed," and ultimately Mary, Queen of Scots, is to be regarded as "one of the most wronged women in history. "--Brad Hooper
Guardian Review
It is a brave historian who takes on either of those squabbling regnant cousins, Mary Queen of Scots or Elizabeth I. Both come trailing several excellent biographies and new sources have thinned to a trickle. Still, the appetite for popular history being what it is, the Tudors have become the New Georgians (the Georgians, of course, had been the New Victorians). Add the fact that 2003 marks the 400th anniversary of Elizabeth's death and you have, in publishing terms at least, an overwhelming case for revisiting the mid-16th century. Alison Weir and Jane Dunn are too canny simply to re-tell the lives of Mary and Elizabeth. Instead, they do that modern thing of looking at them in relation to a significant other (the inference being that no woman is an island, even if she happens to reign over one). Thus Weir pairs Mary with her second husband, and returns to that Edinburgh night in 1567 when the unloved Darnley was blown to smithereens. The question of how far Mary was involved in the plot to remove the man whose personal and political faithlessness had become an embarrassment to both her and Scotland is one that has rattled down the years. Weir revisits the scene of the crime, conducts a fingertip search of the surviving evidence, and attempts to answer the question once and for all of whether Mary was a scheming black widow (she immediately married Darnley's chief murderer) or simply the kind of artless beauty whom men felt compelled to kill for. In the end Weir plumps for the sensible, if safe, formula that Mary was innocent of evil but guilty of being a clumsy and wilful politician. Dunn, meanwhile, matches Mary against her first cousin, Queen Elizabeth of England. Since there is nothing much new in the way of facts (and, anyway, Dunn is honest enough to say in her introduction that she is no historian), the book concentrates on mapping the reverse symmetry at work in the lives of the two tall, red-headed girls who found themselves doing a man's job in a world where women scarcely mattered. Mary was born into certainty (at only six days old she was queen of Scots and had a good claim on the English throne) and betrothed to greatness (her fiance was the future king of France). Elizabeth, by contrast, had been both bastardised and disinherited by the time she reached her teens and, with a brother and an elder sister living, was an unlikely contender for anything other than a dull life in an English manor house. Dunn works these contrasts hard, in the process creating a kind of psychological drama in which each woman becomes a fateful reverse image of the other. Thus, in Dunn's hands, Mary becomes a European monarch, her Catholicism binding her not only to Rome but to most of the reigning families of the continent. Elizabeth, by contrast, is a stubborn islander, who never gets further than Tilbury during her long life. Mary is a passionate ideologue, a creature of wild and sudden action, while Elizabeth is a cool pragmatist, so busy considering her options that she is in danger of falling into stasis. If this reads like a cartoon, then in Dunn's defence it should be said that there is plenty of evidence that during their lifetimes each woman recognised herself as the other's nemesis. Mary courted Elizabeth in language suited to both sister and lover, made her godmother to her only child, and seems to have been genuinely amazed when the order was eventually given in 1587 for the axe to fall. Elizabeth, meanwhile, played a cooler game, constantly deferring any meeting with her cousin while bombarding diplomats with questions as to who was the taller, prettier or lighter on her feet. And yet, and yet. It is hard not to feel that reducing Elizabeth and Mary to their relationship has the effect of diminishing their political significance, so that their reigns become a perpetual counterpoint to the grand narrative of Tudor history, the one in which Henry VIII's crown eventually lands on the head of Mary's son James I, and the kingdoms of England and Scotland are finally united. Kathryn Hughes is writing a biography of Mrs Beeton. To order Mary Queen of Scots or Elizabeth and Mary for pounds 17 each plus p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979. Caption: article-hughes.1 If this reads like a cartoon, then in [Jane Dunn]'s defence it should be said that there is plenty of evidence that during their lifetimes each woman recognised herself as the other's nemesis. [Mary] courted [Elizabeth] in language suited to both sister and lover, made her godmother to her only child, and seems to have been genuinely amazed when the order was eventually given in 1587 for the axe to fall. Elizabeth, meanwhile, played a cooler game, constantly deferring any meeting with her cousin while bombarding diplomats with questions as to who was the taller, prettier or lighter on her feet. And yet, and yet. It is hard not to feel that reducing Elizabeth and Mary to their relationship has the effect of diminishing their political significance, so that their reigns become a perpetual counterpoint to the grand narrative of Tudor history, the one in which Henry VIII's crown eventually lands on the head of Mary's son James I, and the kingdoms of England and Scotland are finally united. - Kathryn Hughes.
Kirkus Review
Entertaining royal historian Weir (Henry VIII: The King and His Court, 2002, etc.) falters with a dull attempt to discover who ordered the death of Mary Stuart's husband in 1567. At the time, it was widely assumed that Mary was complicit in the killing, which rid her of a detested, politically maladroit spouse and cleared the way for marriage to her lover, the Earl of Bothwell. Not so, declares Weir, naming as the prime instigators Mary's Secretary of State, William Maitland, and her half-brother the Earl of Moray, bastard son of Scotland's James V. Aided by much of Scotland's Protestant nobility, they lured Bothwell into the murder plot, she asserts, planning to make him the scapegoat, to discredit Mary and force her to abdicate so they could become the powers behind the throne of her infant son James. This is plausible, but Weir's primary goal is to clear Mary of any involvement. Examining the documentary evidence in stupefying detail, she dismisses the notorious Casket Letters, which seemed to prove Mary's guilt, as combinations of forgery and alterations to existing letters; this argument is considerably more convincing than her denial that Mary and Bothwell were lovers before Darnley's death. Weir's own narrative shows Mary well aware that some threat to her husband was afoot and doing little to forestall it. We observe throughout that the Queen of Scots was a lousy politician with remarkably poor judgment, in striking contrast to England's Queen Elizabeth, who played the messy Scottish scandal to her advantage. (Mary wound up imprisoned in England and was executed in 1587 for conspiring against Elizabeth.) Weir assesses the possibility that Elizabeth's secretary of state had a hand in Darnley's murder, or at least knew who the perpetrators were, at a level of detail that would have made the whole study more readable had it been applied to the Scottish portions as well. She entirely fails to make the case that Mary was "one of the most wronged women in history." Strictly for those who like their murder mysteries ancient and peopled by aristocrats. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Recounting the murder of Lord Darnley, second husband to Mary, Queen of Scots, Weir gives us a new view of the queen. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.