Mary Queen Of Scots: And The Murder Of Lord Darnley - Softcover

Weir, Alison

4.06

5,807 ratings by Goodreads

9780224060233: Mary Queen Of Scots: And The Murder Of Lord Darnley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224060236 ISBN 13: 9780224060233

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2003

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On the night of 10 February 1567 an explosion devastated the Edinburgh residence of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. The noise was heard as far away as Holyrood Palace, where Queen Mary was attending a wedding masque. Those arriving at the scene of devastation found, in the garden, the naked corpses of Darnley and his valet. Neither had died in the explosion, but both bodies bore marks of strangulation. It was clear that they had been murdered and the house destroyed in an attempt to obliterate the evidence. Darnley was not a popular king-consort, but he was regarded by many as having a valid claim to the English throne. For this reason Elizabeth I had opposed his family's longstanding wish to marry him to Mary Stuart, who herself claimed to be the rightful queen of England. Alison Weir's investigation of Darnley's murder is set against one of the most dramatic periods in British history. Her conclusions will shed a brilliant new light on the actions and motives of the conspirators and, in particular, the extent of Mary's own involvement.

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Review:

The prolific Scottish historian Alison Weir, in her new book Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, grapples painstakingly with a mystery that has dogged history for centuries.

At midnight on February 9 1567, a violent explosion ripped apart Kirk o’Field, the Edinburgh residence of Lord Darnley, the 20-year-old King and second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. His unmarked body was found lying under a tree, together with that of his valet. The cause of his death and its perpetrators have remained obscured since that night, though Mary was a prime suspect in her husband's murder. Her apparent apathy regarding the murder investigation was regarded with deep suspicion but more incriminating were the infamous "Casket" letters, said to have been written by her to her lover Lord Bothwell, the supposed architect of Darnley’s assassination. Yet if Mary had good reasons for wanting her (Catholic) husband dead, then so had much of Scottish nobility.

Using contemporary evidence Weir argues exhaustively that the letters could have been the work of forgers employed by Protestant lords "laying snares for the queen". Sympathetic to Elizabeth I, intent on justifying Mary's subsequent imprisonment and forcing her abdication, the prospect of a young foreign Catholic queen, unversed in diplomacy, refusing a Protestant alliance through marriage was anathema to the Scottish lords. Weir's book claims that Mary’s fate was sealed as much by the country of which she was monarch as by Elizabethan England.

Alison Weir’s carefully researched addition to the wealth of material on the myth and reality of Mary Queen of Scots is too long, at 600 pages, but nevertheless makes for a thoughtful, scholarly and compelling read. --Catherine Taylor

Review:

"I’m impressed by an intellect that can assimilate such a wealth of material and turn it into a cohesive narrative." (Terry Deary Waitrose Weekend)

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