5. Mary’s reign has been described as “a series of plots and pardons.” Do you see any rationale behind all of her plots, raids, and skullduggery?
6. Mary had a difficult time in Scotland from the moment she landed in a dense fog, and in some senses she never came out of that fog. What could she have done differently—when she first arrived, when deciding to marry, when dealing with the aftermath of Darnley’s murder? At what point was it too late to salvage her reign? Is there any scenario that would have altered the end result?
7. How do you view Mary’s involvement with Bothwell? Do you find it foolhardy, or do you admire her for it?
8. Was Mary literally a femme fatale? “Those who love her seem to die untimely or unnatural deaths,” Bothwell muses. Queen Elizabeth warned Norfolk to “take care of his pillow.” What would you think if you were prospective bridegroom #4?
9. Elizabeth gained her crown at age twenty-five, while Mary lost hers at the same age. They also had vastly different childhoods: Elizabeth had to protect herself from the vicissitudes of plots at court, whereas Mary was in France, far removed from the turmoil in Scotland. In what ways did their upbringings—Mary’s sheltered, Elizabeth’s exposed—shape them as adults and as rulers?
10. It has been said of the Stuarts, “they did not know how to rule, but they knew how to die.” Mary was the first Stuart to fail as a ruler but succeed in a glorious, memorable death scene. Did her death redeem her life? Was she a martyr to Catholicism, as she claimed, or largely playing a theatrical part?
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St. Martin’s Griffin
Poem, “Nature and art…” by Joachim du Bellay, here, translated from the French, as it appears in The Queen of Scots by Stefan Zweig, translated from the German by Cedar and Eden Paul. London: Cassell, 1935.
Poem, “The tongue of Hercules…” by Joachim du Bellay, here, translated from the French and quoted in The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots: A Political History, by Martin Hume. London: Eveleigh Nash & Grayson Limited.
Poem attributed to Mary Queen of Scots, here, translated from the French and quoted in Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, by Agnes Strickland, Vol. III. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1861.
Elegie à Marie Stuart by Pierre de Ronsard, here, translated from the French by Helen Smailes in The Queen’s Image, by Helen Smailes and Duncan Thomson, for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, copyright © 1987 by The Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland.
“Four stages of prayer” here, by Father Albert Haase, Madison, Wisconsin, 1989.
Poem here and prayer here, both attributed to Mary Queen of Scots; translations from the French and Latin respectively copyright © 1974 and 1976 by Caroline Bingham, as quoted in Royal Stuart Papers X: The Poems of Mary Queen of Scots, by Caroline Bingham, the Royal Stuart Society, 1976.
“Meditation on the Two Thieves” here, by Scott George, Oslo, Norway, 1963.
Scottish ballads, from the collection of Francis James Child.
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTLAND AND THE ISLES. Copyright © 1992 by Margaret George. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
eISBN 9781429938419
First eBook edition: March 2014
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Page 128