Mary Queen of Scots [antikvár]

^ Foreword to the New Edition Mary Queen of Scots was my first love: the character, that is. She vi^as my heroine from M^hen I was eight years old, as a result of a book which I borrowed recurringly from the Oxford Public Library. I particularly fancied the idea of her child attendants, the Four Maries, and I rather think that I included myself as the Fifth Marie in my first version of her story, or even the little Mary herself, since there were no limits to my historical fantasy. Later the idea of the child Queen seemed less interesting than that of femme fatale, as I poured over Margaret Irwin's sexy version of the Bothwell abduction scene in The Gay Galliard. Still later, I became interested in the way one woman's story could be traced like a kingfisher, flashing through the political history of France and Scotland: until the bright bird was caught and made captive in England. In quite a different way Mary Queen of Scots, the biography, first published twenty-five years ago, was also my first love. I certainly felt all the insecurity, as well as the passion, traditionally associated with that state when I was working on it. The circumstances were these. I was quite unknown as a historian. I was working and writing without any knowledge that there were or would ever be any readers. I imagined the academic world to be populated by a host of angry thistles: although in fact the few academics I did meet — notably Sir James Fergusson of Kilkerran, Keeper of the Records of Scodand - were courteous and helpful. (It is true that Sir James did try to persuade me to write instead about Mary's counsellor, Maidand of Lethington, on the grounds that he was a far more interesting character; shaking his head sadly when I explained that as a child I had not exactly identified myself with him ) Furthermore, I was the mother of six young children, the youngest