Mary Queen of Scots

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

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Biased and uncritical use of the sources - Rated
I always really enjoy reading Weir's books but I've never been impressed by her as a historian, principally because of her very biased and uncritical use of sources. I've found it best to treat her as a historical novelist putting forward an almost fictionalised version of the story she is telling. In this book, she has attempted something a little different from the other books of hers I have read: to untangle a mystery, rather than elucidate a personality as she does in her books on Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of France. And, sadly, this just serves to foreground and highlight her weaknesses.

While this purports to focus on the murder of Darnley, it's almost impossible to untangle that event from so much else in Mary's life, and so the book also treats their marriage, her possible affair with Bothwell, the murder of Rizzio etc etc. My main criticism is that in her discussion of the sources at the start Weir states she is basing her interpretation on Nau's `official' account, as if this is somehow unbiased and objective reporting. But she also admits that Nau's account probably came to him from Mary when he was acting as her secretary - not so unbiased after all then. How this is more objective than what she calls the `hostile' sources isn't tackled at all.

My second, broader criticism is that Weir appears to believe in her unproblematic ability to uncover, for once and for all, the `truth' of Darnley's murder. In her thought world there appears to be no room for possibilities, probabilities, no nuances and no alternatives - despite the fact people have been arguing over this question ever since it happened over 400 years ago.

And yet despite all this, Weir's Mary is not significantly different from the other Marys who have come down to us through history. As usual, she is irrational, emotional, hysterical - and it never occurs to Weir that this is the standard description and understanding of women in this period (Elizabeth, too, is frequently described in the same terms) based on Galenic physiology which makes women subject to the humours of the womb. Similarly she picks up on a mention of Darnley being `effeminate' and takes a C20th interpretation, postulating that he might have had homosexual tendencies. Later, the same term is used about him again but in relation to his having returned to sharing Mary's bed where it clearly means that he is under a woman's rule, but she doesn't use this to shade her previous interpretation in any way.

Overall this is quite a clumsy book and it doesn't have the same readability of some of her others. For a good popular read on Mary I would still recommend Antonia Fraser's Mary Queen Of Scots which may be old now, but is still far superior both historically and literarily to this.

A very insightful read - Rated
I enjoyed this book, Weir writes in such a manner that you get to know the characters, not just the well known facts, but the day to day aspects of theie lives. Both Mary and Elizabeth are portrayed as vicitms of their time, and the events which pan out, even though we know the outcome, still left me feeling "just do something to stop this".

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS AND THE MURDER OF LORD DARNLEY - Rated
This is an excellent book, full of information and very rich in detail. It is a very thick volume and I have not finished reading it yet but it gives a good picture of how impossible Mary's position was, as she was up against many scheming Protestant Lords, among them her illegitimate half-brother, the Duke of Moray.

I find the book quite heavy going at times but it is nonetheless fascinating and hard to put down.

Alison Weir is one of my favourite authors.

Well researched, but drier than her other works - Rated
This was rather dry and considerably too long. It is my least favourite Alison Weir book. But, on the positive side, it is very well researched and extremely, indeed exhaustively, detailed. I find it mostly convincing in its central thesis that Mary did not procure Darnley's death, but I think she showed her customary lack of judgement in trusting others not to kill him and displayed in general reckless naivety and plain unfitness to rule. Indeed, she is a classic example of the weakness of the hereditary principle of monarchy. So my sympathy for Mary is rather more narrowly focused than Weir's description of her as one of the most wronged women in history.

Alison Weir has done what I thought couldn't be done - Rated
taken one of the most enduring mysteries in history, with a love story, a romantic heroine and a murder than turns people into partisans for and against even today, - and made it deadly dull. I have the impression after slogging through this book that Alison Weir does a lot of research and doesn't like to waste ANY of it, so in it all goes. Like her book about Katherine Swynford, it could have done with more rigorous editing, and frankly by the end I was so bored and confused I wanted to commit murder myself.