Queen Mary's Women: Female Friends, Family, Servants and Enemies of Mary, Queen of Scots - Softcover

Marshall, Rosalind K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0859766675 ISBN 13: 9780859766678

Publisher: John Donald, 2006

Synopsis

Major figures like Elizabeth I of England are usually discussed only for their political interventions in her career. Her female relatives receive merely a brief mention, while her attendants are dismissed as minor characters of no importance, a sort of Greek chorus watching in the background as she travelled from early promise to final tragedy. In this fascinating book, Rosalind K Marshall redresses the balance, examining Mary's life from an entirely new perspective, discovering the extent to which she was influenced by the women she knew - Mary of Guise, the mother from whom she was separated at such a young age, Catherine de Medici, the mother-in-law rumoured to be her deadly enemy, and Lady Lennox, the aunt who played such a significant part in her marriage to Lord Darnley. Most people have heard of The Four Maries, those attendants who were with her from early childhood, but there is confusion about their identities and the other female servants have been ignored. Until now, no one has made a study of them. By extracting their names from the household lists and researching their identities, Dr.Marshall shows that they were strong personalities with interesting and dramatic lives of their own. In short, this survey adds a whole new dimension to our knowledge of Mary, Queen of Scots and her world.

About this title

About the Author

Dr Rosalind K. Marshall graduated in Scottish History from Edinburgh University. Her PhD thesis, based on the Duke of Hamilton's Archives, became her first book, and she has since written 16 others, along with over 150 historical articles. These include biographies of Mary, Queen of Scots and John Knox, and a history of St Giles' Cathedral. For a number of years she combined her writing career with her position as Historian at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Society of Arts and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, she is Chairman of the Scottish Record Society and the Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust, Honorary Historian of the Incorporation of Bonnetmakers and Dyers of Edinburgh and a Burgess of Edinburgh.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Donald
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0859766675
• ISBN 13: 9780859766678
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224