My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots - Softcover
A long-overdue and dramatic reinterpretation of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots by one of the leading historians at work today.
The life of Mary Queen of Scots has divided opinion for four hundred years. Was she an innocent victim; a whore and murderess; a heroine and martyr? Most unjustly, her tremendous gifts have been overshadowed by her cousin and rival, Elizabeth I. In this riveting biography, noted Tudor historian John Guy restores the balance, delving into primary sources long neglected by scholars to reveal the complex woman concealed behind a powerful myth.
Professor Guy traces the development of a great but doomed queen from her girlhood in France, to her masterful manipulation of the Scottish lords early in her reign, to her eventual fall at the hands of factionalism and lust for power. Drawing on years of intensive research, Guy provides a shocking reassessment of the authorship of the Casket Letters that implicated Mary in the murder of her second husband and seduction by Bothwell, leading inexorably to her imprisonment and execution.
Mixing groundbreaking academic research with an engaging prose style, ‘My Heart is My Own’ is part historical drama, part love story and part forensic examination: a long-overdue examination of a tragic and gripping life.
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Review:
About the Author:
Praise for ‘My Heart is My Own’:
‘One of the main delights was to discover that John has turned into a superb storyteller. I knew him (from his hugely successful textbook on Tudor England) to be a crisp analyst. Now he has developed all the techniques of exciting popular history – lush description of key episodes and places, vivid realisation, of characters, uncompromising but sustainable moral judgements, tart colloquialisms and ironic asides...It might become the definitive biography: at least it is the one which will henceforth define the debates over its subject for the next decade or two.’ Professor Ronald Hutton, Bristol
‘Guy’s new biography rescues Mary Queen of Scots both from the calumnies of her detractors and from her hagiographers’ romantic myths. The result is the finest biography of its subject to date: persuasive, enthralling, and always acutely observed.’ Dr John Adamson, Peterhouse, Cambridge
John Guy is a leading historian of the Tudor period. He has been a Professor of Modern History at St. Andrews University since 1992 and his book Tudor England is a core text for students of the period. He has recently written and presented programmes on Thomas More and Mary, Queen of Scots for the BBC.
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- PublisherFourth Estate
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0007179308
- ISBN 13 9780007179305
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages432
- Rating
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