Mary Queen of Scots

1969, 1985 Methuen edition
Antonia Fraser
Mary Queen of Scots
Original price £3.50, purchase price $3.25
Very worn paperback
B

As her mother did for Victoria, Fraser presents a sympathetic account of a remarkable British queen.  Mary's life was much shorter, and more dramatic, than her 19th-century descendant.  Over half of the book (not counting bibliography, index, etc.) is set during the very eventful 1560s, which Mary started as the 17-year-old Queen of France and ended as the prisoner of her cousin Elizabeth I of England.  In between were two more marriages, the birth of her only son, and her thwarted attempts to rule Scotland, despite being queen of that land since the age of six days.

Fraser doesn't resolve all the mysteries of Mary's life or of her character.  I understand that she stayed with Bothwell even after he raped her in order to pressure her into marriage*, but I can't see why, unless she was too ill and distraught to think clearly.  Fraser contends that Mary thought Bothwell would be the strong husband that Francis and Darnley failed to be, and she thought that the nobles wanted her to marry Bothwell.  It still doesn't make complete sense.  Similarly, Fraser repeatedly says that Mary was tender-hearted, yet claims that Mary wasn't bothered by the idea of Elizabeth's possible assassination.  Not that it's up to Fraser to resolve these inconsistencies, but she could've gone into them more.

Fraser does do well with the mystery of the Casket Letters.  Generally, she considers what's most plausible, and while she does weed out some of the myths about Mary, she does allow the more "romantic" truths through, like Mary's pet Skye terrier hidden under her gown when she was executed, which later pined away with grief.  Fraser includes many human details, like Mary's love of white clothing, while never losing track of the various international situations.

There are a couple nice family trees illustrating Mary's, and Darnley's, places in the Scottish and English lines of successions.  Fraser does a better job than many biographers of keeping the balance between presenting too many supporting characters (as in the Victoria biography) and overexplaining the obvious people (as with Michael McGear in Davies's book on the Beatles).

Overall, a good solid piece of nonfiction.  Fraser will describe very different queens when we get to 1992's The Wives of Henry VIII.



*By the twisted laws of the time, this was actually a surprisingly common scenario, to abduct an heiress, rape her, and then marry her, with the rape in some cases counting as a form of marriage, although that it happened to the queen of the country is startling.  Even now, in some cultures, a woman is pressured to marry her rapist, to save her reputation, as if she's done something wrong.