Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles: A Novel - Softcover

George, Margaret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312155859 ISBN 13: 9780312155858

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 1997

Synopsis

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

About this title

About the Author:

Margaret George is the author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII, 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.

From Kirkus Reviews:

By the author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII (1986), another vast involvement with a legendary royal. The Scots queen (1542-1587), crowned at nine months, shipped out for a French marriage at seven, became queen of France at 16 for a year and a half, then returned to Scotland after the death of the French king- -to four years of early triumph and then tragedy, two marriages, warfare, betrayal, power struggles, dazzling escapes, and, at the last, a flight to England--and doom. George has created a lively, gallant Mary of intelligence, charm, and terrible judgment--in outline true enough, and fictionally persuasive. Unlike cousin Elizabeth I of England, Mary enjoyed a richly cosseted and loving childhood and youth; arriving back in Scotland then--a Scotland bristling with religious ferment, plots, and a history of regencies--is a shock, at first bewildering, then exhilarating. But there are the trumpet blasts of Reformed Kirk theologian John Knox against a female ruler (and a Catholic to boot) and the obvious intent of the Queen's inner circle of lords to rule for her. There's also Mary's stubborn, disastrous choice of a husband--the ``blue and gold lad,'' Lord Darnley, soon slipped into drink and debauchery and even murder. Mary's second husband after Darnley's murder (George absolves Mary of a conscious plot) is the Earl of Bothwell, here given an unusually heroic cast. Throughout, there are astonishing escapes, nick-of-time rescues by Bothwell, fleeting interludes of lovers' joys--as well as betrayal, sieges, and abuse, sadly from the people who once cheered her (``the people...with all their pitchforks, fervous and bad breath...mutable...but stronger than granite''). At the last- -another truly terrible decision--Mary flees to Elizabeth I for sanctuary, and is imprisoned for 20 years while the dismayed English queen makes up her mind. With a seamless use of original letters, diaries, and poems: a popular, readable, inordinately moving tribute to a remarkable queen. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0312155859
• ISBN 13: 9780312155858
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 870