My Heart is My Own - John Guy

A long-overdue and dramatic reinterpretation of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots by one of the leading historians at work today

The life of Mary Queen of Scots has divided opinion for 400 years. Was she an innocent victim; a whore and murderess; a heroine and martyr? Most unjustly, her tremendous gifts have been overshadowed by her cousin and rival, Elizabeth I. In this riveting biography, noted Tudor historian John Guy restores the balance, delving into primary sources long neglected by scholars to reveal the complex woman concealed behind a powerful myth.

Professor Guy traces the development of a great but doomed queen from her girlhood in France, to her masterful manipulation of the Scottish lords early in her reign, to her eventual fall at the hands of factionalism and lust for power. Drawing on years of intensive research, Guy provides a shocking reassessment of the authorship of the Casket Letters that implicated Mary in the murder of her second husband and seduction by Bothwell, leading inexorably to her imprisonment and execution.

Mixing groundbreaking academic research with an engaging prose style, Mary Queen of Scots is part historical drama, part love story and part forensic examination: a long-overdue examination of a tragic and gripping life.