One of the most famous queens in history, Mary Stuart lived in her homeland for just twelve years: as a dauntless child who laughed at her friendsʼ seasickness as they sailed to safety in France and later, on her return as a 18-year-old widow to take control of a nation riven with factions, dissent and religious strife. Brief though her time in Scotland was, her experience profoundly influenced who she was and what happened to her.

In this book, Rosemary Goring tells the story of Mary’s Scottish years through the often dramatic and atmospheric locations and settings where the events that shaped her life took place and also examines the part Scotland, and its tumultuous court and culture, played in her downfall. Whether or not Mary Stuart emerges blameless or guilty, in this evocative retelling she can be seen for who she really was.

Locations included: 

Linlithgow Palace * Stirling Castle * Dumbarton Castle * Leith * Holyrood Palace * Crichton Castle * Darnaway Castle * Huntly Castle * Spynie Palace * Falkland Palace * Seton Palace * St Andrews and Fife * Dunbar Castle * Edinburgh Castle * Traquair House * Hermitage Castle * Jedburgh, Mary Queen of Scots House * Craigmillar Castle * Edinburgh and Kirk o’ Field * Borthwick Castle * Carberry Hill * Lochleven Castle * Langside * Dundrennan Abbey

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgements
• Family Trees
• Map
• Introduction
• 1 ‘As goodly a child as I have seen’
• 2 ‘Not as clean as they might be’
• 3 ‘What snatching and catching, what bruising and broostling’
• 4 ‘Put all to fyre and swoorde’
• 5 Treaties and Treason
• 6 Mary and le petit roi
• 7 ‘The very face of heaven’
• 8 An Île de France
• 9 ‘Ower sair’
• 10 ‘An orgy of greed’
• 11 The Cock o’ the North
• 12 The Lap of Luxury
• 13 Home for ‘a country girl’
• 14 ‘Exercing hir one day richt oppinlie at the feildis with palmall and goif’
• 15 ‘I died for love of your beauty’
• 16 ‘More like a woman than a man’
• 17 ‘God save his grace’
• 18 ‘Smaller than their own scullery at home’
• 19 ‘He must learn his duty better’
• 20 ‘Of truth we are so tired’
• 21 ‘For that you saved his life . . .’
• 22 ‘If we lose this one we will make another’
• 23 The Queen’s Mire
• 24 ‘Unless she was free of him she had no pleasure to live’
• 25 ‘Intolerable stink’
• 26 ‘How begrimed you are!’
• 27 ‘Dressed in men’s clothes, booted and spurred’
• 28 ‘Burn the whore’
• 29 ‘Great, gloomy tower’
• 30 ‘He who does not keep faith . . .’
• 31 ‘By battle let us try it!’
• 32 ‘Three nights living like the owls’
• 33 ‘No luck ever blessed him who hated Mary Stuart’
• Further Reading
• Index
• Picture Section