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Product Description
Mary Queen of Scots (first published in hardcover in 1969) is a biography of the ill fated monarch by Antonia Fraser.
As she stated in her original introduction, Fraser aimed to test the truth or falsehood of the many legends on Mary and to set her in the context of the age in which she lived. The portrayal is largely sympathetic. Fraser stresses what she sees as Mary's key virtues but believes that Scotland at the time required an extraordinarily strong ruler to pull the nobles into line.
The book dismantles several myths and popular legends that have sprung up about Mary during and after her lifetime. Fraser recounts the circumstances on the plot to murder Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart ( Lord Darnley) , in detail. At the Conference of York, Regent James Stewart produced the casket letters, presented as love letters from Mary to her third husband, James Hepburn the 4th Earl of Bothwell, with whom she had allegedly plotted to kill Darnley. After rigorous research, Fraser concludes that they were forgeries, most likely an amalgamation of real letters that Mary wrote and of love letters written to Bothwell by one of his mistresses.
The book had Fraser awarded the 1969 James Tait Prize. It has remained the standard biography, and has never been out of print since.
This is a BCA HB edition published 1994 , illustrated, no marks or damage noted, some dustspotting to the edges of the page block.
