Marie and Mary

After the death of James V, his French widow Marie de Guise is left to defend Scotland and the inheritance of their infant daughter, Mary. Henry VIII intends to unite the kingdoms by forcing a marriage between the child queen and Prince Edward, but Marie resists English pressure and sends Mary to safety in France. As regent, she must balance noble factions, foreign alliances and the widening religious division sharpened by the preaching of John Knox.

Mary, Queen of Scots, returns after her mother’s death as a young widow—cultivated, intelligent and confident that personal charm can reconcile a fractured kingdom. Instead, her marriages to Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and then James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, entangle her in scandal, murder and rebellion. Her infant son James is crowned while she is still alive, and the deposed queen turns to Elizabeth I in the belief that another anointed monarch will protect her. Tranter sets mother and daughter beside one another: Marie as the pragmatic guardian who preserves Mary’s crown, and Mary as the sovereign whose trust, passion and misjudgements carry her towards imprisonment and death.